Any computer with a WiFi card can become a "router" and have the ability to exceed FCC power requirements. Furthermore, the violations of FCC policy possible with standard router hardware are pretty limited and innocuous, no matter what you do with the firmware; I can't imagine that they have ever even detected this in the wild.
Anybody who seriously wants to boost power will just stick a hardware amplifier on their router. A 2W amplifier will cost you about $25, and an 8W amplifier about $60.
An off shore wind plant has a capacity factor between 80% to 130%.
That makes no mathematical sense; the capacity factor is the ratio of average power generated to peak power capability, it's always less than 100%.
No I would not... because I would buy and resell power from other sources to my customers.... I contract out 70% of that expected power production (about half of the expected 130% in total). The variation above that 70% I sell on the spot market, undercutting your fossile fuel plant all the time. In the rare case where my production drops below the "expected 70%" I buy the missing power.
Yes, and the prices in the spot market respond to supply and demand. The more people generate wind power, the more you will pay for the "missing power" and the less you will get paid for your surplus power, reflecting exactly the cost to other producers to have power reserves available as a backup for you.
Now you will come and tell me that my wind park will have no wind at some time. Yes, and? My other park has wind. And my third and fourth and all up to my 11th...
You are right that the market can even out statistical variations between different sites. However, ultimately what matters for power generation is what the minimum of power generated at any one time from all plants within a market is, and for wind and solar, that is near zero for a market like Germany. (If we had lossless transmission, unlimited capacity, and a global electricity market, things could average out better, but alas, we don't.)
Physically impossible. Gas turbines are the most expensive power generation plants. Owners avoid as hell to even use them.
Gas turbines have the highest fuel costs, but they have low capital costs and quick startup. That makes them one of the best complements to wind power and a best case scenario for comparisons, and wind power still isn't competitive.
The nice thing about off shore wind parks is: they have wind 99.99% all the time.
You're mixing up onshore and offshore wind farms. Onshore wind farms are getting to be competitive per MWh with fossil fuel plants if you ignore the investment needed for backup power. Offshore wind farms are not competitive at any time; they are one of the most expensive per MWh technologies, even according to optimistic estimates in favor of green energy, like http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/a...
How do you think the market works in Europe? Why is no wind power producer bancrupt?
Europeans made the political decision that they want "green energy", and so they regulated the energy market to keep otherwise uncompetitive producers in business. This is mainly done by regulation distributing the extra costs of wind power (including the cost of providing backup power) across customers. The end result is that Europeans pay for what I originally said, namely the cost of the wind farm itself, plus the cost of the necessary backup capacity.
If that's the political decision Europeans want to make, that's fine. But the European data does not support the idea that wind energy is competitive or that wind farms don't need backup capacity to be built and priced in. If it were competitive, two things would happen simultaneously: it would quickly take over the market without the need for further government support and energy prices in Europe would be below US energy prices. Obviously, that is not the case.
Then you think about adding the wind plant, which is extra expense but produces electricity much less expensively.
It seems that way when you look only at operating costs (fuel and maintenance). When you take into account the amortized cost of building the power plants, wind generation is still somewhat more expensive than gas.
But worse yet, if you build two power plants to get 1MW from a mix of wind and gas, when a 1MW gas power plant would have satisfied your electricity needs by itself, you also pay the opportunity cost, that is the income you would have received if you had invested the money you spend on the wind power plant on something else.
You treat both plants separately. Or do you want to add the costs of the wind plant to the gas plant, too?
The gas turbine is capable of working at peak capacity at any time; that's what people need. The wind turbine generates peak capacity only when the wind actually is strong enough. That means that if you want to add 1MW of 24/7 generating capacity, a gas turbine alone will work, but a wind turbine won't.
I for my part would only build up wind pants. If you want to compete with either wind, or gas or both: that is your business decision.
And you'd go bankrupt that way. Why? Because your gas turbine competitors are going to write contracts with customers that underbid you if people buy all their electricity from them, and charge them a steep premium if their customers only use them for backup for your wind power plant. In the end, it would be cheaper for people to go with all gas than a mix of gas and wind.
We're not talking about the fine; I have no qualms with the fine. The people flew their drones over other people's property and endangered legitimate air traffic, so they should get fined.
You own the bottom 500' or so, but that is because it is not navigable airspace.
No, that's wrong. Navigable airspace isn't 500 ft above ground, it is 500 ft above any structures. The property owner can generally make use of his airspace even it inconveniences air traffic.
If things are officially classified as navigable is a major thing in understanding these regulations. If it is navigable, I can also get a permit to dredge for gold.
Not as far as airspace is concerned. Navigable airspace is for transit only. The FAA lacks the authority to grant you permits for any other use of airspace. For example, they lack the authority to give permits for cantilevered buildings or parking balloons over someone's private property.
The United States Government has exclusive sovereignty of airspace of the United States.
That simply means that the federal government prohibits state and local governments from making conflicting regulations; it doesn't affect property rights otherwise.
Very little regarding these types of issues breaks down into the arguments that chest-thumping my-king-is-my-castle advocates use.
I'm not "thumping my chest" or arguing about what property rights in air space ought to be. I'm pointing out that FAA authority right now is limited because it is based on easements, not federal ownership to all air space. You don't understand those limits because you keep confusing easements and ownership.
They are good, but you're using them with wide angle lenses: light, bright, and easy to stabilize. If you want to take privacy-invading pictures from 300m away, you probably need at least a 500-1000mm equivalent lens.
Yes, as far as capital costs are concerned. That is, if you want 1MW of electric generation capacity, it doesn't matter whether you just build a 1MW gas turbine or a 1MW gas turbine plus a wind turbine, because the wind turbine cannot reliably deliver 1MW of capacity.
The final costs you pay for electricity is a combination of amortized capital costs and fuel costs. When you get 1MW of capacity from a combination of wind and gas, you end up paying the capital costs for both generating technologies, but save the fuel cost for the gas turbine. But that doesn't really help you because the amortized capital cost and operating costs for the wind turbine combined still much significantly more expensive than the fuel cost for the gas turbine.
Because General Aviation is a lot more than low-flying executives
93% of aircraft in GA are personal, business, instructional, or sight seeing aircraft (70% of those aircraft are personal aircraft).
So, crop dusting, news reporting, and all the other uses are 7% percent of all aircraft. And the vast majority of those uses are handled better by drones.
and it's been around and well regulated since the 1930s.
Yes, and back then technology and air space usage was entirely different. It's time to seriously overhaul the regulations.
Drones and GA can coexist. Why do you argue as if it's an either or situation?
I'm not arguing that it's an either/or situation. I'm arguing that GA simply should take much lower priority than both commercial drones and private drones and that flight limits should be changed. Furthermore, the clear principle should be that any costs that arise should accrue to GA operators, not to drone operators.
Can you explain to me what public interest is served by you flying your airplane over my property at 500 ft altitude?
Can you explain to me why some weekend pilot flying his Cessna is more important to the public's interest than efficient and cheap drone delivery of goods?
When the wind stops you use a natural gas power plant. Duh. DUH!
Well, but then you have to add the cost of the gas power plant to the cost of the wind power plant in order to calculate the actual cost of wind power.
Batteries are becoming cheaper and more reliable.
Yes, but you still need to add their cost to the cost of wind power plants as well.
The point is to reduce the amounts of fossil fuels used to generate electricity. If you still need it sometimes, who cares. You have still reduced the amount of fossil fuels used.
Do you worry about the stagnating middle class incomes? Are you unwilling to take a 30% pay cut? If so, then you care.
It's difficult to evaluate the value of health and a human life,
About $9 million according to the EPA.
or how much damage can be attributed to energy production and not other things.
That's as difficult for wind and solar. Of course, the pollution from creating wind and solar hardware usually occurs somewhere in China, and so Europeans don't really give a damn.
"Yes, protectionism is one reason the _EU_ is pushing so much for this."
It may surprise you, but the EU is actually not quite a Borg collective yet, and what you are seeing here is a struggle between two internal factions, one of which wants slightly more freedom for EU citizens, and the other of which wants more totalitarian control. As has been historically the case, the latter faction uses anti-Americanism and anti-corporatism as arguments. And the latter faction is obviously making headway, which is, of course, business as usual in Europe.
(You know what other very successful Austrian came to power on a platform of protecting Europe from the predations of evil American corporations and capitalism?)
It is not FAA's job to reassess the property rights and easement rights. Its job and charter is simple, to promote safety and to promote air travel.
That's a misleading statement of the FAA's job, and its job is anything but simple, since it necessarily involves balancing a lot of conflicting interests.
There is nothing to stop Congress from enacting a law and asking FAA to re-evaluate the existing airspace for all users competing for it.
My point is that pushing for such changes is what you denounce as "free market fanatics attacking the FAA".
You can think of thousand new and and exciting product offering if you can trample all over the spectra and broadcasting with gay abandon.
And when it comes to the FCC, it's even clearer what a piss poor job they are doing, when you look at how inefficiently the spectrum is used and which corporations get handouts from the federal government.
What we can not have is for the drone makers to violated existing regulations because they don't like it.
Nowhere did I say that the drone makers should get away with violating FAA regulations. What I'm pointing out is that you think in a false dichotomy, where people either have to accept regulation by agencies like the FAA without question, or where one is a "free market fanatic" who wants no regulation at all.
That is, I think people should comply with existing regulations, while at the same time pointing out that the regulations are poor, inefficient, and corrupt and should be changed. And contrary to what you say, making the regulations better and more in the public interest is the job of the FAA. The fact that Congress has to step in is just another indication of what a piss poor job regulatory agencies are doing.
I suspect that taking down a drone that flies through FAA-defined navigable airspace (in your backyard) will be a felony. In fact, it might be treated the same as shooting down an aircraft.
Keep your toy away from my property and away from planes. Quit trying to cast your fucking hobby as some sort of virtuous enterprise.
Don't worry: your property will only be invaded by low-flying delivery drones, not toys. Take joy in the fact that they all carry transponders and have certificates, while you watch and listen to them buzzing over your patio like a swarm of locusts.
The free market fanatics would attack it continuously and hamper it in every possible way.
No, the "free market fanatics" don't attack the FAA in "every possible way", we attack the FAA (and other regulatory agencies) in two specific ways: (1) we question the extent of powers they have been granted, usually based on lobbying by special interests, and (2) we point out that rule making in such agencies is always and inevitably dominated by special interests (pilots and corporations in the case of the FAA).
Right now, the FAA is trying to shoehorn commercial and private drone use into an existing system of privileges and easements that pilots take for granted by taking away more of the rights of private property owners and carving up the airspace below 500 ft. What should happen is that some of the privileges traditionally granted to general aviation and commercial uses of airspace should get reduced, and the airspace that has been freed up used for drone operators. But that's not something the FAA is going to do by itself the way it is set up.
As an engineer, I like this kind of thinking because it is fair and predictable--a person who breaks a rule gets the same punishment regardless of whether it causes harm, because the rule is deigned to prevent the *possibility* of harm.
That attitude works well provided that "the rule" is designed based on large amounts of statistical data, so that the cost and benefit of different rules were weighed against each other and the optimal decision was made. That's engineering.
But most government rules don't work that way. They are made by lobbyists and interest groups sitting around a table negotiating about how to carve up public property and taxes. For example, when it comes to drone flights, why should drone flights be encumbered by general aviation at all? Why are low-flying executive joy rides more valuable than energy efficient, low cost commercial drones? Those decisions are politics.
You're right: engineers are likely to confuse engineering and politics, and think that society can be run according to engineering principles. It cannot. Whenever that has been tried, disaster has ensued.
If FAA says this drone operator flew their machines with reckless disregard for safety, they did. They should pay the fine.
That's not quite how it works: the company should have the option to go to court, just like you should have the option of contesting your traffic ticket in court.
Even if the rule was "no aircraft under 300m over private property", the cost of cameras that can capture clear images...
People are primarily concerned about noise and physical risk. I have no problem with drones that are 1000 ft up. The thing people need to be concerned about is that Amazon puts a delivery route 100 ft above their patio, and that is a real concern: if the FAA rules that use of airspace valid, you have no recourse.
(Nevertheless, taking "clear images" from 300m away from a shaky drone is pretty tricky; image stabilization is not that good.)
No, your understanding of US law is not correct. The public has an easement for navigable airspace, but an easement doesn't change property ownership. For example, the property owner can build in that airspace even if it inconveniences pilots.
Yes, actually people do own the air above their property. Planes merely have a limited easement to fly through that air, but any private use takes precedence.
You won't be a problem. EU will just block access to your website.
US companies have been required to pay VAT for EU customers since 2003, and there are tons of companies that don't pay VAT for the European customers. Have any of them be blocked? Where exactly would they be blocked?
As long as you are an evil corporation not abiding by the EU laws you will get stopped.
The EU is incapable of even stopping its own evil corporations.
Doesn't matter if you are Microsoft or Amazon.
Microsoft and Amazon pay VAT because they are European corporations (subsidiaries).
Thus, in this case, you will be breaking the law in Europe
Oooh, I'm shaking in my boots! European nations aren't even capable of enforcing VAT domestically. Tax evasion is rampant across society in many European nations.
as you are completing a sale in the EU
In what sense? The service I provide is in the US, and so is the payment processing. For physical goods, it's the customer's responsibility to pay import duty at the point of import. I have nothing to do with that.
If the EU ever were stupid enough to make a big deal out of this, it would blow up in their face, as the entire EU VAT setup is anti-competitive and protectionist.
Which is perfectly fine if you don't have any intention of ever stepping foot in Europe.
I'm interested in how you will spin this particular tirade of yours when you actually read the OP and notice that this wasn't initiated by EU, but by a concerned citizen.
I know the history of the lawsuit. How do you think it affects anything I said?
Slashdot Mirror
Any computer with a WiFi card can become a "router" and have the ability to exceed FCC power requirements. Furthermore, the violations of FCC policy possible with standard router hardware are pretty limited and innocuous, no matter what you do with the firmware; I can't imagine that they have ever even detected this in the wild.
Anybody who seriously wants to boost power will just stick a hardware amplifier on their router. A 2W amplifier will cost you about $25, and an 8W amplifier about $60.
Given that European air quality is generally much worse than US air quality, it seems like Europeans are not doing it right:
http://www.theatlantic.com/hea...
That makes no mathematical sense; the capacity factor is the ratio of average power generated to peak power capability, it's always less than 100%.
Yes, and the prices in the spot market respond to supply and demand. The more people generate wind power, the more you will pay for the "missing power" and the less you will get paid for your surplus power, reflecting exactly the cost to other producers to have power reserves available as a backup for you.
You are right that the market can even out statistical variations between different sites. However, ultimately what matters for power generation is what the minimum of power generated at any one time from all plants within a market is, and for wind and solar, that is near zero for a market like Germany. (If we had lossless transmission, unlimited capacity, and a global electricity market, things could average out better, but alas, we don't.)
Gas turbines have the highest fuel costs, but they have low capital costs and quick startup. That makes them one of the best complements to wind power and a best case scenario for comparisons, and wind power still isn't competitive.
You're mixing up onshore and offshore wind farms. Onshore wind farms are getting to be competitive per MWh with fossil fuel plants if you ignore the investment needed for backup power. Offshore wind farms are not competitive at any time; they are one of the most expensive per MWh technologies, even according to optimistic estimates in favor of green energy, like http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/a...
Europeans made the political decision that they want "green energy", and so they regulated the energy market to keep otherwise uncompetitive producers in business. This is mainly done by regulation distributing the extra costs of wind power (including the cost of providing backup power) across customers. The end result is that Europeans pay for what I originally said, namely the cost of the wind farm itself, plus the cost of the necessary backup capacity.
If that's the political decision Europeans want to make, that's fine. But the European data does not support the idea that wind energy is competitive or that wind farms don't need backup capacity to be built and priced in. If it were competitive, two things would happen simultaneously: it would quickly take over the market without the need for further government support and energy prices in Europe would be below US energy prices. Obviously, that is not the case.
It seems that way when you look only at operating costs (fuel and maintenance). When you take into account the amortized cost of building the power plants, wind generation is still somewhat more expensive than gas.
But worse yet, if you build two power plants to get 1MW from a mix of wind and gas, when a 1MW gas power plant would have satisfied your electricity needs by itself, you also pay the opportunity cost, that is the income you would have received if you had invested the money you spend on the wind power plant on something else.
The gas turbine is capable of working at peak capacity at any time; that's what people need. The wind turbine generates peak capacity only when the wind actually is strong enough. That means that if you want to add 1MW of 24/7 generating capacity, a gas turbine alone will work, but a wind turbine won't.
And you'd go bankrupt that way. Why? Because your gas turbine competitors are going to write contracts with customers that underbid you if people buy all their electricity from them, and charge them a steep premium if their customers only use them for backup for your wind power plant. In the end, it would be cheaper for people to go with all gas than a mix of gas and wind.
We're not talking about the fine; I have no qualms with the fine. The people flew their drones over other people's property and endangered legitimate air traffic, so they should get fined.
No, that's wrong. Navigable airspace isn't 500 ft above ground, it is 500 ft above any structures. The property owner can generally make use of his airspace even it inconveniences air traffic.
Not as far as airspace is concerned. Navigable airspace is for transit only. The FAA lacks the authority to grant you permits for any other use of airspace. For example, they lack the authority to give permits for cantilevered buildings or parking balloons over someone's private property.
That simply means that the federal government prohibits state and local governments from making conflicting regulations; it doesn't affect property rights otherwise.
I'm not "thumping my chest" or arguing about what property rights in air space ought to be. I'm pointing out that FAA authority right now is limited because it is based on easements, not federal ownership to all air space. You don't understand those limits because you keep confusing easements and ownership.
They are good, but you're using them with wide angle lenses: light, bright, and easy to stabilize. If you want to take privacy-invading pictures from 300m away, you probably need at least a 500-1000mm equivalent lens.
Yes, as far as capital costs are concerned. That is, if you want 1MW of electric generation capacity, it doesn't matter whether you just build a 1MW gas turbine or a 1MW gas turbine plus a wind turbine, because the wind turbine cannot reliably deliver 1MW of capacity.
The final costs you pay for electricity is a combination of amortized capital costs and fuel costs. When you get 1MW of capacity from a combination of wind and gas, you end up paying the capital costs for both generating technologies, but save the fuel cost for the gas turbine. But that doesn't really help you because the amortized capital cost and operating costs for the wind turbine combined still much significantly more expensive than the fuel cost for the gas turbine.
93% of aircraft in GA are personal, business, instructional, or sight seeing aircraft (70% of those aircraft are personal aircraft).
So, crop dusting, news reporting, and all the other uses are 7% percent of all aircraft. And the vast majority of those uses are handled better by drones.
https://www.faa.gov/data_resea...
Yes, and back then technology and air space usage was entirely different. It's time to seriously overhaul the regulations.
I'm not arguing that it's an either/or situation. I'm arguing that GA simply should take much lower priority than both commercial drones and private drones and that flight limits should be changed. Furthermore, the clear principle should be that any costs that arise should accrue to GA operators, not to drone operators.
Can you explain to me what public interest is served by you flying your airplane over my property at 500 ft altitude?
Can you explain to me why some weekend pilot flying his Cessna is more important to the public's interest than efficient and cheap drone delivery of goods?
Well, but then you have to add the cost of the gas power plant to the cost of the wind power plant in order to calculate the actual cost of wind power.
Yes, but you still need to add their cost to the cost of wind power plants as well.
Do you worry about the stagnating middle class incomes? Are you unwilling to take a 30% pay cut? If so, then you care.
About $9 million according to the EPA.
That's as difficult for wind and solar. Of course, the pollution from creating wind and solar hardware usually occurs somewhere in China, and so Europeans don't really give a damn.
It may surprise you, but the EU is actually not quite a Borg collective yet, and what you are seeing here is a struggle between two internal factions, one of which wants slightly more freedom for EU citizens, and the other of which wants more totalitarian control. As has been historically the case, the latter faction uses anti-Americanism and anti-corporatism as arguments. And the latter faction is obviously making headway, which is, of course, business as usual in Europe.
(You know what other very successful Austrian came to power on a platform of protecting Europe from the predations of evil American corporations and capitalism?)
Nor do you see the word "property". But an easement is what the act describes:
That is an easement, not ownership.
That's a misleading statement of the FAA's job, and its job is anything but simple, since it necessarily involves balancing a lot of conflicting interests.
My point is that pushing for such changes is what you denounce as "free market fanatics attacking the FAA".
And when it comes to the FCC, it's even clearer what a piss poor job they are doing, when you look at how inefficiently the spectrum is used and which corporations get handouts from the federal government.
Nowhere did I say that the drone makers should get away with violating FAA regulations. What I'm pointing out is that you think in a false dichotomy, where people either have to accept regulation by agencies like the FAA without question, or where one is a "free market fanatic" who wants no regulation at all.
That is, I think people should comply with existing regulations, while at the same time pointing out that the regulations are poor, inefficient, and corrupt and should be changed. And contrary to what you say, making the regulations better and more in the public interest is the job of the FAA. The fact that Congress has to step in is just another indication of what a piss poor job regulatory agencies are doing.
I suspect that taking down a drone that flies through FAA-defined navigable airspace (in your backyard) will be a felony. In fact, it might be treated the same as shooting down an aircraft.
Don't worry: your property will only be invaded by low-flying delivery drones, not toys. Take joy in the fact that they all carry transponders and have certificates, while you watch and listen to them buzzing over your patio like a swarm of locusts.
No, the "free market fanatics" don't attack the FAA in "every possible way", we attack the FAA (and other regulatory agencies) in two specific ways: (1) we question the extent of powers they have been granted, usually based on lobbying by special interests, and (2) we point out that rule making in such agencies is always and inevitably dominated by special interests (pilots and corporations in the case of the FAA).
Right now, the FAA is trying to shoehorn commercial and private drone use into an existing system of privileges and easements that pilots take for granted by taking away more of the rights of private property owners and carving up the airspace below 500 ft. What should happen is that some of the privileges traditionally granted to general aviation and commercial uses of airspace should get reduced, and the airspace that has been freed up used for drone operators. But that's not something the FAA is going to do by itself the way it is set up.
That attitude works well provided that "the rule" is designed based on large amounts of statistical data, so that the cost and benefit of different rules were weighed against each other and the optimal decision was made. That's engineering.
But most government rules don't work that way. They are made by lobbyists and interest groups sitting around a table negotiating about how to carve up public property and taxes. For example, when it comes to drone flights, why should drone flights be encumbered by general aviation at all? Why are low-flying executive joy rides more valuable than energy efficient, low cost commercial drones? Those decisions are politics.
You're right: engineers are likely to confuse engineering and politics, and think that society can be run according to engineering principles. It cannot. Whenever that has been tried, disaster has ensued.
That's not quite how it works: the company should have the option to go to court, just like you should have the option of contesting your traffic ticket in court.
People are primarily concerned about noise and physical risk. I have no problem with drones that are 1000 ft up. The thing people need to be concerned about is that Amazon puts a delivery route 100 ft above their patio, and that is a real concern: if the FAA rules that use of airspace valid, you have no recourse.
(Nevertheless, taking "clear images" from 300m away from a shaky drone is pretty tricky; image stabilization is not that good.)
No, your understanding of US law is not correct. The public has an easement for navigable airspace, but an easement doesn't change property ownership. For example, the property owner can build in that airspace even if it inconveniences pilots.
Yes, actually people do own the air above their property. Planes merely have a limited easement to fly through that air, but any private use takes precedence.
US companies have been required to pay VAT for EU customers since 2003, and there are tons of companies that don't pay VAT for the European customers. Have any of them be blocked? Where exactly would they be blocked?
The EU is incapable of even stopping its own evil corporations.
Microsoft and Amazon pay VAT because they are European corporations (subsidiaries).
Oooh, I'm shaking in my boots! European nations aren't even capable of enforcing VAT domestically. Tax evasion is rampant across society in many European nations.
In what sense? The service I provide is in the US, and so is the payment processing. For physical goods, it's the customer's responsibility to pay import duty at the point of import. I have nothing to do with that.
If the EU ever were stupid enough to make a big deal out of this, it would blow up in their face, as the entire EU VAT setup is anti-competitive and protectionist.
Don't tempt me.
I know the history of the lawsuit. How do you think it affects anything I said?