> If solar cells can make the leap from 12% efficiency to 40%
Umm, you need to read the statement again. The statement is that the _wiring_ is 40% efficient. The silver wires used on the panels on my roof is about 90%.
*yawn*
> run air conditioning during day light hours
False dichotomy. Every watt you generate on your roof is 55% of a watt that doesn't come from coal. That is a worth doing.
Going "off grid" for a mall is pointless. The grid is excellent for delivering power 24/7. Forget about replacing the grid, think about replacing coal.
I always imagined my last moments on Earth would be leading a tank platoon in a doomed effort to re-take the Apple Campus (formerly known as San Francisco).
> magnetic resonance which is an entirely different physical process
Hmmm. You're going to have to explain to me, a physicist, exactly what you think the difference between magnetic induction and magnetic resonance is, aside from the name. I'm all ears.
> like equipping every satellite with a high-tech kite tail for deployment once the satellite is defunct... which increases the mass and size of the satellite, which increases the spalling damage if it does get hit by debris. I'm not convinced this is a good idea.
> If the government continues on this path we might have a chance to have one of the greatest > internet systems at low cost that is found on earth.
Pfft, spoken like someone that doesn't know about systems anywhere else in the world. Look up Japanese pricing some time. Even the US gives you reasonable bandwidth caps, not the 50/60 GB you get from Bell and Rogers.
Calculate the creation rate of T from a fusion economy. Now consider that a good portion will escape from the reactors no matter what you try to stop it (it travels right through most materials). Now calculate the equilibrium level of T in the atmosphere as a result.
"The AAAS estimated that each fusion reactor could release up to 2x10^12 Bequerels of tritium a day during operation through routine leaks, assuming the best containment systems, much more in a year than the Three Mile Island accident released altogether. An accident would release even more. This is one reason why long-term hopes are for the deuterium-deuterium fusion process, dispensing with tritium."
Let's cut to the chase: no one expects fusion to actually evolve into a usable power source within generations. The US electrical energy industry group (can't recall the name) wrote a longish position paper on the topic and stated in no uncertain terms that they are absolutely not going to use it in the foreseeable future.
Pebble bed reactor economics are worse than conventional designs and have worse safety records. There is little ongoing work on these designs outside of China and SA.
> Nuclear power offers the advantage of massive energy production on a small area of land, giving it a high W/skm rate
Really? That's funny, every nuclear plant I know is enormous. Darlington is just down the road from me, I can almost see it but for the large berm around it. It's a 3.5 GWp plant situated on a plot of land 480 hectares. Do the math, and you get about 730 watts per square meter.
Solar power is 1000 watts per square meter. Best-case panels in fixed mountings will get you about 15% of that, or about 150 watts per square meter.
> Or you could go for the easy solution, and use a mirror in space to make the sun always shine on your solar pannels
How is that easy? We have absolutely no idea how to actually accomplish this, and anyone that says otherwise is lying. We have a 100% failure rate so far.
> There's just no way that we can have personal computers, cars, > or even normal phones (pray you get to keep your cell phone, > and forget about smartphones) using only renewable resources.
Canada can generate 100% of the power needed to supply all of our electricity AND run all of our personal cars (assuming they are plugin hybrids) using hydro _alone_. Heck, we're over 1/2 way there already (53% to be exact).
That leaves long-distance transport, primarily on diesel and jet fuel, and home heating, primarily on natural gas, as the primary carbon emissions. The carbon load of these is tiny, and the former is likely replaceable with biofuel over the longish term.
So spare me the "if we can't do it, the world can't" BS.
> according to Jared Diamond
Har! You mean the guy that makes up stories to sell books?
> sending signals to the accelerator and braking system
The braking system is entirely mechanical.
> I could not see over 30 people all doing the same thing to play a game with toyota
It's spelled "class action lawsuit".
> especially putting their own lives in danger
People jump out of airplanes for fun, and they have to pay for that. You don't think they'd do the same if they could get paid for it?
Go to any driving school or licensing center during lunch. Ask if anyone there was personally in a car when the driver mistook the gas and brake. I'll bet you get a 75% hit rate.
> And the officer in the cop car side-to-side of the runaway car (in some instances) also failed > to notice that the stupid driver was mashing the accelerator instead of the brake.
Umm, unless the cop had x-ray vision, how could you expect him to know one way or the other?
The story in question is a hoax. Duh. I mean, it's _obviously_ a hoax.
He said the gas peddle stuck, that he was standing on the brakes, and that he finally stopped it by using the parking brake. Ok, let's consider this...
1) brakes are always stronger than the engine. There is no car in the world that will not stop when braked, even if the accelerator is held full down. It's a basic safety requirement. The Prius has an _additional_ system that cuts power when the brakes are held down.
2) the emergency brake operates through a limited strength wire that pulls only the rear brakes (typically) and has far less braking power than the brake peddle.
3) every car on the planet will mechanically cut all power to the drive wheels by shifting into neutral.
So, in order for his story to be true, the gas peddle had to fail in a very peculiar way, the brake peddle had to fail in a very peculiar way, and the parking brake had to gain an order of magnitude in strength, all at the same time.
Then, all of those problems had to mysteriously disappear when various engineers tested the vehicle over the next two days.
One of the stories this will turn up is the recall of Audi 5000's in the 1980s. 60 Minutes covered the story and claimed to demonstrate the effect. They actually faked it with a compressed air bottle.
This topic has come up dozens of times, on dozens of models, in dozens of countries. To date, 100% of the time it's driver error.
> Surely there must be SOME relationship between the cars this has happened with
Why would you possibly suggest that?
This happens all the time. There's a news story, and then suddenly everyone's complaining about the same thing. It doesn't make a difference if it's actually _true_.
Its called "mass hysteria", although the term should be changed to be less loaded. But the effect is real, has been measured for hundreds of years, and effects practically all human endeavor equally.
Slashdot Mirror
> If solar cells can make the leap from 12% efficiency to 40%
Umm, you need to read the statement again. The statement is that the _wiring_ is 40% efficient. The silver wires used on the panels on my roof is about 90%.
*yawn*
> run air conditioning during day light hours
False dichotomy. Every watt you generate on your roof is 55% of a watt that doesn't come from coal. That is a worth doing.
Going "off grid" for a mall is pointless. The grid is excellent for delivering power 24/7. Forget about replacing the grid, think about replacing coal.
Maury
Maury
> Jobs develops his iDiabolicalDeathmachine
I always imagined my last moments on Earth would be leading a tank platoon in a doomed effort to re-take the Apple Campus (formerly known as San Francisco).
> Worry about your HVAC, laundry machines, refrigerator, home server, incandescent lights, etc.
I did. So I replaced them all, and then added a 12-panel solar array.
My electronics trickle is indeed something that worries me, it's one whole panel.
> magnetic resonance which is an entirely different physical process
Hmmm. You're going to have to explain to me, a physicist, exactly what you think the difference between magnetic induction and magnetic resonance is, aside from the name. I'm all ears.
> expensive materials such as titanium dioxide
Ummm, you mean common white paint?
Maury
> like equipping every satellite with a high-tech kite tail for deployment once the satellite is defunct ... which increases the mass and size of the satellite, which increases the spalling damage if it does get hit by debris. I'm not convinced this is a good idea.
Maury
> If the government continues on this path we might have a chance to have one of the greatest
> internet systems at low cost that is found on earth.
Pfft, spoken like someone that doesn't know about systems anywhere else in the world. Look up Japanese pricing some time. Even the US gives you reasonable bandwidth caps, not the 50/60 GB you get from Bell and Rogers.
Maury
> Things usually get cheaper when produced in greater quantities
Has car insurance gone up or down in price over the last 50 years?
Up? Even though there are more cars on the road? Oh, wait...
Maury
> It's dead easy to kill fusion
I realize you were posting a joke, but...
Calculate the creation rate of T from a fusion economy. Now consider that a good portion will escape from the reactors no matter what you try to stop it (it travels right through most materials). Now calculate the equilibrium level of T in the atmosphere as a result.
"The AAAS estimated that each fusion reactor could release up to 2x10^12 Bequerels of tritium a day during operation through routine leaks, assuming the best containment systems, much more in a year than the Three Mile Island accident released altogether. An accident would release even more. This is one reason why long-term hopes are for the deuterium-deuterium fusion process, dispensing with tritium."
Let's cut to the chase: no one expects fusion to actually evolve into a usable power source within generations. The US electrical energy industry group (can't recall the name) wrote a longish position paper on the topic and stated in no uncertain terms that they are absolutely not going to use it in the foreseeable future.
Maury
I don't want to live on that planet.
> Unless you have a superconducting grid you lose massive amounts of power in transmission over long distances
3% per 1000 miles. Even if you haul from one side of the US to the other, it's considerably less than "most".
> If your cable goes underwater
They're building an underwater line from the UK to Iceland as we speak.
Read some more.
Maury
> The last US attempt was canceled by Clinton and his cronies [wikipedia.org].
And you understand why, right?
Because if the US did it, then everyone else would too. And they make gathering fuel for a bomb really easy, in several different ways.
Thorium plants make that somewhat harder to do, but you can't blame that one on Carter, so everyone just "forgets" it.
Maury
Pebble bed reactor economics are worse than conventional designs and have worse safety records. There is little ongoing work on these designs outside of China and SA.
Maury
> Breeder reactors [wikipedia.org] (which will become much more viable
It is unlikely that breeder reactors will every be economically successful. They have a 100% economic failure rate so far.
Maury
> Nuclear power offers the advantage of massive energy production on a small area of land, giving it a high W/skm rate
Really? That's funny, every nuclear plant I know is enormous. Darlington is just down the road from me, I can almost see it but for the large berm around it. It's a 3.5 GWp plant situated on a plot of land 480 hectares. Do the math, and you get about 730 watts per square meter.
Solar power is 1000 watts per square meter. Best-case panels in fixed mountings will get you about 15% of that, or about 150 watts per square meter.
It's not even a full order of magnitude.
Maury
> Or you could go for the easy solution, and use a mirror in space to make the sun always shine on your solar pannels
How is that easy? We have absolutely no idea how to actually accomplish this, and anyone that says otherwise is lying. We have a 100% failure rate so far.
Maury
> Try powering something off panels 1000 feet away
Convert to AC on the back of the panel. I do.
> When I did solar at my home
Before the widespread use of microinverters, one would assume.
Maury
A problem which a combination of existing power plants, new hydro and wind, and some storage using molten sulphur batteries can easily solve.
Canada could go 100% hydro powered if there was any political will to do so.
Maury
> The surface resistance of the silver-coated samples also shows a sharp change near 313 K.
Pure copper does the exact same thing.
I call bogus.
Maury
> We now have a laser that can zap the junk out of space.
That laser can do nothing of the sort.
The space broom is as much scifi today as it was when originally proposed.
Maury
> I don't think any amount of stuff on LEO would prevent launching of military satellites to higher orbits,
Define "any". It's a problem. Really.
Maury
> There's just no way that we can have personal computers, cars,
> or even normal phones (pray you get to keep your cell phone,
> and forget about smartphones) using only renewable resources.
Canada can generate 100% of the power needed to supply all of our electricity AND run all of our personal cars (assuming they are plugin hybrids) using hydro _alone_. Heck, we're over 1/2 way there already (53% to be exact).
That leaves long-distance transport, primarily on diesel and jet fuel, and home heating, primarily on natural gas, as the primary carbon emissions. The carbon load of these is tiny, and the former is likely replaceable with biofuel over the longish term.
So spare me the "if we can't do it, the world can't" BS.
> according to Jared Diamond
Har! You mean the guy that makes up stories to sell books?
http://www.stinkyjournalism.org/latest-journalism-news-updates-149.php
Yeah, great reference.
Maury
> sending signals to the accelerator and braking system
The braking system is entirely mechanical.
> I could not see over 30 people all doing the same thing to play a game with toyota
It's spelled "class action lawsuit".
> especially putting their own lives in danger
People jump out of airplanes for fun, and they have to pay for that. You don't think they'd do the same if they could get paid for it?
Go to any driving school or licensing center during lunch. Ask if anyone there was personally in a car when the driver mistook the gas and brake. I'll bet you get a 75% hit rate.
Maury
> And the officer in the cop car side-to-side of the runaway car (in some instances) also failed
> to notice that the stupid driver was mashing the accelerator instead of the brake.
Umm, unless the cop had x-ray vision, how could you expect him to know one way or the other?
The story in question is a hoax. Duh. I mean, it's _obviously_ a hoax.
He said the gas peddle stuck, that he was standing on the brakes, and that he finally stopped it by using the parking brake. Ok, let's consider this...
1) brakes are always stronger than the engine. There is no car in the world that will not stop when braked, even if the accelerator is held full down. It's a basic safety requirement. The Prius has an _additional_ system that cuts power when the brakes are held down.
2) the emergency brake operates through a limited strength wire that pulls only the rear brakes (typically) and has far less braking power than the brake peddle.
3) every car on the planet will mechanically cut all power to the drive wheels by shifting into neutral.
So, in order for his story to be true, the gas peddle had to fail in a very peculiar way, the brake peddle had to fail in a very peculiar way, and the parking brake had to gain an order of magnitude in strength, all at the same time.
Then, all of those problems had to mysteriously disappear when various engineers tested the vehicle over the next two days.
Or he was pressing the gas peddle.
Occam's razor.
Maury
> I don't recall hearing/reading about them.
Oh please... google up "sudden acceleration".
One of the stories this will turn up is the recall of Audi 5000's in the 1980s. 60 Minutes covered the story and claimed to demonstrate the effect. They actually faked it with a compressed air bottle.
This topic has come up dozens of times, on dozens of models, in dozens of countries. To date, 100% of the time it's driver error.
Maury
> Surely there must be SOME relationship between the cars this has happened with
Why would you possibly suggest that?
This happens all the time. There's a news story, and then suddenly everyone's complaining about the same thing. It doesn't make a difference if it's actually _true_.
Its called "mass hysteria", although the term should be changed to be less loaded. But the effect is real, has been measured for hundreds of years, and effects practically all human endeavor equally.
Maury