> Tri Alpha Energy, which is backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen
The design leads of TriAlpha described their design in a late 1997 paper in Science. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/278/5342/1419
Issues over the next year contained responses from other researchers. They invariably point out that the design simply will not work. In one specific instance, the original paper describes the "Q" of the reactor running on p-B to be about 2.3. One of the responses goes into this calculation in depth and calculates it to be 0.02. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/281/5375/307
This system will not work. As demonstrated at about the same time, it is HIGHLY unlikely any non-thermal-equilibrium system ever can due to massive energy losses through radiation. We've known this for almost 70 years, but the evidence by this point in time is absolutely overwhelming.
> During WW2, 50,000 anti-aircraft rounds were fired for every downed enemy aircraft
Completely incorrect.
At the beginning of the war, the number was about 40,000. Using nothing but basic statistics, changes to the battery layout and firing instructions reduced this to about 5,000. The introduction of the first range-only radars like GL Mk, I reduced this to 4,000. Adding range-and-laying radars like GL Mk. III and SR584 reduced this to 2,500. The proximity fused halved this, at least.
At the end of the war the V-1, a small target flying at high speeds very close to the ground where radar was hard to use and tracking angles were very fast required about 4,000 rounds. Against bombers at higher altitudes, the effect of late-war AAA was so devastating that such operations against UK targets were basically suicidal.
> First off, the surface would have to be nearly perfectly reflective
Completely incorrect. You can find ample information on the topic from now-public documents of the former SDI program.
Lasers do not have infinite energy. In order to apply the effect you want (whatever that is), you need to leave it on the target for a characteristic "dwell time". That is normally on the order of 1 to 10 seconds. Mirroring the surface of the target can increase this about 1 to 3 times. Adding an aerosol fog can do that again. The idea is not to completely defeat the laser, but make it take so long to work that the target beside it remains untouched simply because you run out of time.
The other thing to note is that the tracking systems pointing the laser are far from perfect and the beam tends to "wander" over the target. Generally, only some part of the target receives continual energy. In that case, the mirrored portions will reflect enough energy to eliminate any effect, as they will cool off when the beam moves off that spot again. While the main target area doesn't have this advantage, it might mean the hole you punch is too small to be useful.
And finally, there is the movement of the target itself. This is gross movement, like spinning the rocket booster of an ICBM or turning your boat back and forth across the path to the target. This only works if the dwell time is fairly long, otherwise, the laser will do its damage while you're still maneuvering. Adding mirroring can stretch that time enough to make such gross movements practical.
Combining these techniques, mirroring, aerosols and spinning, it was pretty obvious any sort of space-based chemical laser would not work against ICBMs. Against boats is another matter, but given the extremely low power of this device, and the obviously faked tests I've seen, I suspect it is essentially useless for anything other than drones, which can't really combine these effects usefully. It remains to be seen how effective it will be in that role.
> the potential impact on the environment of fabricating a square mile of say lithium-ion batteries? how much lithium would that require? What amount of the earth's crust would we have to mine in order to get it?
The Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia is about 10,582 square kilometers. It is a rich source of Li lying on the surface.
The battery in question is 2.6 square kilometers.
Does that answer your question?
> without the transmission loss...
Total end-to-end losses in the US are about 7%. We don't need to fix this, it's not a problem in the first place.
> Flow battery technology on the other hand is designed to be cheaply and easily scalable
DESIGNED to. Unfortunately, they've never actually managed to deliver that. I've worked with a couple of vendors, the Li guys are eating their breakfast.
> Most of the "subsidies" people come up with are nothing but rules about how > taxes are figured
Like most power-sector subsidies. Federal subsidies for renewables are paid out using Production *Tax Credits* and work pretty much exactly the same way as the oil and gas industry. This should not be surprising, given they're the same industry.
> Plus, NONE of these amount to a hill of beans compared to the REAL > subsidies, tax credits and government incentives (like loan guarantees) > for Solar, Wind and other renewables
The total amount of money that the O&G industry receives, whether that be directly, due to avoided taxes, research, or any other means, is about $466 billion up to 2009. In comparison, the same number for renewables is about $6 billion. The later is over a shorter period, from 1994, but by any measure is much, much smaller than what the O&G industry gets.
> t the electricity to generate X BTUs has historically cost more than the fossil fuel to generate X BTU
Geo-return heat pumps are, by far, the most energetically efficient and low-opex heating systems. And they cool your home with the same efficiency.
I had a friend install one in his home in the country. He went from $400 a month in the winter for propane to $450 a year for all heating and cooling. In spite of the huge capex, it paid off in a couple of years.
> It should make for some interesting elections there.
I did. This issue was front and center during the last election, when the incumbent started seeing headwinds and began talking about immigration. The instant he did that his poll numbers plummeted and he lost the election.
The incoming guy, who's primary attribute is good looks and a name, immediately brought in 25,000 syrians. To do so, everyday Canadians like myself had to pony up cash to sponsor them, about $20,000 on $25000 on average. This presented a huge problem, because they couldn't import people as rapidly as the sponsorships were coming in.
We just look at this differently. That's why we have separate countries. Vive la difference!
In eastern Canada, maybe. Talk to them out west and it's universally "good riddance". There it was seen as a massive and horribly expensive labor welfare program.
Ummm, no. The unemployment rate is currently the lowest it has ever been.
Note that we count the numbers differently, so our 6.9% seems a lot higher but is in fact basically only slightly higher than the US.
The US does have much higher labor mobility, which helps even out shocks. So things like the meltdown in Saskatchewan and Alberta which have a significant effect on the current numbers would likely be lower in the US.
Major taxes in Canada are *slightly* lower than the US overall. The tax brackets are actually lower, but kick in at lower numbers. Offsetting this is that there are many fewer write-offs, most notably home mortgages.
We also pay for health care through our taxes, so that's on top. However, as has been pointed out endlessly on both sides of the border, we pay less on average. We do not get a drug plan, however, although many companies offer that as a perk and government versions are slowly coming in here. I understand the average out-of-pocket for health insurance in the US is around $5000 circa 2010 (not including deductibles and copays), but I really don't know what the comparable rate is up here.
Then there's the GST/HST/etc, which adds another 5 to 13% to almost everything. I won't even try to explain that one - a donut has GST, a dozen donuts doesn't because then it becomes "food" instead of a "snack food" (I shit you not). That's difficult to compare because its the equivalent of several state-level taxes in the US, including sales taxes, business taxes and so forth. Whether this is higher or lower really depends on where you live.
In the end, if you make less than $82,000 a year USD, you'll pay less tax in Canada. Over that you're better off in the US. If you own a home, the advantage line moves depending on how highly leveraged you are.
> you don't need winter tires, a parka, and snow boots for 4+ months of the year,
You don't need that in Toronto any more either. Not for the last decade.
> with a zillion bugs
There are no bugs in Toronto. I'm serious, it's one of the first things I noticed when I moved in. That and how my asthma basically disappeared, which I guess is due to pollen.
> Is it good for Canadians? I guess it's good for the Canadians who own > tech/engineering companies but
Just stop and think about it for even a second....
Do you think the economy would be better off if we stopped teaching engineering?
Because that would increase demand for the few that were left and drive up their wages.
Or do you think that training more engineers might lead to more engineering firms? Which leads to more employment, which leads to more open positions, which leads to more offers, which leads to higher wages?
Because when I look around the planet, it looks a lot more like the second of those two options is true. It certainly seems to be the case in Silicon Valley, and all the other mini-valleys too.
Honestly, your line of reasoning is so brain dead I have to conclude you're not an engineer - god do I hope that's the case.
> And yet our choices are either macOS which should be a lot better than it is right now
Yeah. 10.4 was good, and 10.5 kicked the crap out of everything on the market. But as I write this on my T431, I'm the first to agree that the delta is basically gone in Win10.
Actually, the only things that don't make me say Win10 has parity for most things is the terrible browser situation, and the email client. I know I can replace them both, but that's precisely the point, you have to.
The dev side is no different. When I got 10.5, Cocoa was way in front of.Net. Not so much now. And the IDE itself, no contest, VS passed Xcode years back (compile times alone, wow!)
> People say that Macs suck because of the whole culture and that > has grown up around Apple the company.
I'd posit it's much safer to say that the people saying "macs suck" are a whole culture that has grown up around hating Apple the company.
I know lots of people that have one Apple product and have no emotional investment in the company. On the other hand, I don't know a single hater that isn't just hating because they're invested in being a hater.
And many of the features of the CPU, including the multimedia extensions, are not supported or only supported by specific software systems (one, IIRC). So in spite of some great performance numbers on paper, they generally perform far worse than the RPi at common multimedia tasks like recoding video.
Slashdot Mirror
> Tri Alpha Energy, which is backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen
The design leads of TriAlpha described their design in a late 1997 paper in Science.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/278/5342/1419
Issues over the next year contained responses from other researchers. They invariably point out that the design simply will not work. In one specific instance, the original paper describes the "Q" of the reactor running on p-B to be about 2.3. One of the responses goes into this calculation in depth and calculates it to be 0.02.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/281/5375/307
This system will not work. As demonstrated at about the same time, it is HIGHLY unlikely any non-thermal-equilibrium system ever can due to massive energy losses through radiation. We've known this for almost 70 years, but the evidence by this point in time is absolutely overwhelming.
> During WW2, 50,000 anti-aircraft rounds were fired for every downed enemy aircraft
Completely incorrect.
At the beginning of the war, the number was about 40,000. Using nothing but basic statistics, changes to the battery layout and firing instructions reduced this to about 5,000. The introduction of the first range-only radars like GL Mk, I reduced this to 4,000. Adding range-and-laying radars like GL Mk. III and SR584 reduced this to 2,500. The proximity fused halved this, at least.
At the end of the war the V-1, a small target flying at high speeds very close to the ground where radar was hard to use and tracking angles were very fast required about 4,000 rounds. Against bombers at higher altitudes, the effect of late-war AAA was so devastating that such operations against UK targets were basically suicidal.
> First off, the surface would have to be nearly perfectly reflective
Completely incorrect. You can find ample information on the topic from now-public documents of the former SDI program.
Lasers do not have infinite energy. In order to apply the effect you want (whatever that is), you need to leave it on the target for a characteristic "dwell time". That is normally on the order of 1 to 10 seconds. Mirroring the surface of the target can increase this about 1 to 3 times. Adding an aerosol fog can do that again. The idea is not to completely defeat the laser, but make it take so long to work that the target beside it remains untouched simply because you run out of time.
The other thing to note is that the tracking systems pointing the laser are far from perfect and the beam tends to "wander" over the target. Generally, only some part of the target receives continual energy. In that case, the mirrored portions will reflect enough energy to eliminate any effect, as they will cool off when the beam moves off that spot again. While the main target area doesn't have this advantage, it might mean the hole you punch is too small to be useful.
And finally, there is the movement of the target itself. This is gross movement, like spinning the rocket booster of an ICBM or turning your boat back and forth across the path to the target. This only works if the dwell time is fairly long, otherwise, the laser will do its damage while you're still maneuvering. Adding mirroring can stretch that time enough to make such gross movements practical.
Combining these techniques, mirroring, aerosols and spinning, it was pretty obvious any sort of space-based chemical laser would not work against ICBMs. Against boats is another matter, but given the extremely low power of this device, and the obviously faked tests I've seen, I suspect it is essentially useless for anything other than drones, which can't really combine these effects usefully. It remains to be seen how effective it will be in that role.
> the potential impact on the environment of fabricating a square mile of say lithium-ion batteries? how much lithium would that require? What amount of the earth's crust would we have to mine in order to get it?
The Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia is about 10,582 square kilometers. It is a rich source of Li lying on the surface.
The battery in question is 2.6 square kilometers.
Does that answer your question?
> without the transmission loss...
Total end-to-end losses in the US are about 7%. We don't need to fix this, it's not a problem in the first place.
> ~$1.5T for the solar panels, assuming sunny days all year round.
Sounds about right. Add another 1.5 for everything upstream - mounting, electronics, wiring, labor, etc.
> So, doable? Yeah, could be done. Cheap and easy?
The same system would cost eight times that if we went nuclear.
There's a reason PV, wind and gas are the fastest growing power sources. The reason is that they're cheaper than anything else. By a lot.
> Flow battery technology on the other hand is designed to be cheaply and easily scalable
DESIGNED to. Unfortunately, they've never actually managed to deliver that. I've worked with a couple of vendors, the Li guys are eating their breakfast.
> ugh, that is NO way to cook (electric)
Try an induction cooktop some time.
I have gas, and I'd still consider buying one.
> less than ideal service life for the panels
The very first "low cost" solar panels are still in widespread service today.
The very first grid-connected array, from 1982, is still in use today.
Average lifetime, including all of the factors you mention and all others, appears to be somewhere between 45 and 100 years.
But what do you expect? It's a window. It doesn't even open.
It is worth putting this into perspective:
The US has about 16 million hectares of pavement.
100 by 100 miles is about 2.6 million hectares.
> Most of the "subsidies" people come up with are nothing but rules about how
> taxes are figured
Like most power-sector subsidies. Federal subsidies for renewables are paid out using Production *Tax Credits* and work pretty much exactly the same way as the oil and gas industry. This should not be surprising, given they're the same industry.
> Plus, NONE of these amount to a hill of beans compared to the REAL
> subsidies, tax credits and government incentives (like loan guarantees)
> for Solar, Wind and other renewables
The total amount of money that the O&G industry receives, whether that be directly, due to avoided taxes, research, or any other means, is about $466 billion up to 2009. In comparison, the same number for renewables is about $6 billion. The later is over a shorter period, from 1994, but by any measure is much, much smaller than what the O&G industry gets.
Gotta hand it to them, this is lemonade from lemons no?
> t the electricity to generate X BTUs has historically cost more than the fossil fuel to generate X BTU
Geo-return heat pumps are, by far, the most energetically efficient and low-opex heating systems. And they cool your home with the same efficiency.
I had a friend install one in his home in the country. He went from $400 a month in the winter for propane to $450 a year for all heating and cooling. In spite of the huge capex, it paid off in a couple of years.
> It should make for some interesting elections there.
I did. This issue was front and center during the last election, when the incumbent started seeing headwinds and began talking about immigration. The instant he did that his poll numbers plummeted and he lost the election.
The incoming guy, who's primary attribute is good looks and a name, immediately brought in 25,000 syrians. To do so, everyday Canadians like myself had to pony up cash to sponsor them, about $20,000 on $25000 on average. This presented a huge problem, because they couldn't import people as rapidly as the sponsorships were coming in.
We just look at this differently. That's why we have separate countries. Vive la difference!
> Talk to some old timer Canucks
In eastern Canada, maybe. Talk to them out west and it's universally "good riddance". There it was seen as a massive and horribly expensive labor welfare program.
> The job climate in Canada isn't that great
Ummm, no. The unemployment rate is currently the lowest it has ever been.
Note that we count the numbers differently, so our 6.9% seems a lot higher but is in fact basically only slightly higher than the US.
The US does have much higher labor mobility, which helps even out shocks. So things like the meltdown in Saskatchewan and Alberta which have a significant effect on the current numbers would likely be lower in the US.
> I suggest a simple solution. 10% foreign worker tax on employers.
Interesting. Be more specific though, do it on the visa type.
> Or is that before tax?
Major taxes in Canada are *slightly* lower than the US overall. The tax brackets are actually lower, but kick in at lower numbers. Offsetting this is that there are many fewer write-offs, most notably home mortgages.
We also pay for health care through our taxes, so that's on top. However, as has been pointed out endlessly on both sides of the border, we pay less on average. We do not get a drug plan, however, although many companies offer that as a perk and government versions are slowly coming in here. I understand the average out-of-pocket for health insurance in the US is around $5000 circa 2010 (not including deductibles and copays), but I really don't know what the comparable rate is up here.
Then there's the GST/HST/etc, which adds another 5 to 13% to almost everything. I won't even try to explain that one - a donut has GST, a dozen donuts doesn't because then it becomes "food" instead of a "snack food" (I shit you not). That's difficult to compare because its the equivalent of several state-level taxes in the US, including sales taxes, business taxes and so forth. Whether this is higher or lower really depends on where you live.
In the end, if you make less than $82,000 a year USD, you'll pay less tax in Canada. Over that you're better off in the US. If you own a home, the advantage line moves depending on how highly leveraged you are.
> American Bacon
It's not american, its irish. Streaky Rashers. At least get THAT right!
> you don't need winter tires, a parka, and snow boots for 4+ months of the year,
You don't need that in Toronto any more either. Not for the last decade.
> with a zillion bugs
There are no bugs in Toronto. I'm serious, it's one of the first things I noticed when I moved in. That and how my asthma basically disappeared, which I guess is due to pollen.
> Is it good for Canadians? I guess it's good for the Canadians who own
> tech/engineering companies but
Just stop and think about it for even a second....
Do you think the economy would be better off if we stopped teaching engineering?
Because that would increase demand for the few that were left and drive up their wages.
Or do you think that training more engineers might lead to more engineering firms? Which leads to more employment, which leads to more open positions, which leads to more offers, which leads to higher wages?
Because when I look around the planet, it looks a lot more like the second of those two options is true. It certainly seems to be the case in Silicon Valley, and all the other mini-valleys too.
Honestly, your line of reasoning is so brain dead I have to conclude you're not an engineer - god do I hope that's the case.
> I wasn't going to buy one of those pieces of crap, anyway
You took time out of your day to tell us what you don't do so you could complain about it.
Wow.
> Polestar "electrified performance brand."
Uhhh, should we tell them that's not a great brand name in north america?
> And yet our choices are either macOS which should be a lot better than it is right now
Yeah. 10.4 was good, and 10.5 kicked the crap out of everything on the market. But as I write this on my T431, I'm the first to agree that the delta is basically gone in Win10.
Actually, the only things that don't make me say Win10 has parity for most things is the terrible browser situation, and the email client. I know I can replace them both, but that's precisely the point, you have to.
The dev side is no different. When I got 10.5, Cocoa was way in front of .Net. Not so much now. And the IDE itself, no contest, VS passed Xcode years back (compile times alone, wow!)
> People say that Macs suck because of the whole culture and that
> has grown up around Apple the company.
I'd posit it's much safer to say that the people saying "macs suck" are a whole culture that has grown up around hating Apple the company.
I know lots of people that have one Apple product and have no emotional investment in the company. On the other hand, I don't know a single hater that isn't just hating because they're invested in being a hater.
And many of the features of the CPU, including the multimedia extensions, are not supported or only supported by specific software systems (one, IIRC). So in spite of some great performance numbers on paper, they generally perform far worse than the RPi at common multimedia tasks like recoding video.