Doing it that way (concentrating areas of solar generation) can have other side effects as well.
Like giant fucking hot spots above large areas of earth. Existing molten salt solar facilities already roast birds and destroy the desert ecosystem. Sure, CO2 is bad. What is a 3.6 MILLION square mile hot spot going to do?
Sure, it's warm above the Sahara right now. But we're talking 40-50 degrees Centigrade. A liquid fluoride solar thermal plant can generate temps in excess of 800 degrees Centigrade.
The big issue is that solar isn't a very energy dense solution in terms of land use. Most solar concentration type facilities weigh in at about 100 MW per collector. And each collector is about a square mile.
For comparison, the Braidwood Nuclear Generation Facility (2 reactors, 2,242 MW total output). With its cooling pond, it sits on a site 7x the size of a solar concentration site and outputs roughly 22x the power.
Because it isn't that. Nuclear can't be ramped up and down quickly, so it's not useful for filling in.
And things like Solar, Wind, and Wave wave aren't usable as baseline "brown" power. Because their generation sources are not stable and dependable. BUT, they can be used, alongside existing hydro and geothermal to offset demand spikes.
In other words, you don't use nuclear power to "fill in". You use nuclear as your baseline. You use everything else to fill in.
When you're in a piece of heavy machinery, like a car, even if you're NOT driving it, you DON'T want to be impaired in case of an emergency.
So, drinking in a self-driving car is pretty much out. And for many of the reasons this dipshit talked about. MALFUNCTIONS.
Before you bring up bus and rail transport. Keep in mind, there are people actually driving those. And, in the case of long distance trains, crews full of people. All better trained at running the transportation than you are.
The thing is, the government has an almost unassailable lock on the use of force. Not that ANYONE can't use force. But the government can do it bigger, badder and better than pretty much anyone else.
With that, they can pretty much dictate what your "rights" are and are not.
It's only because the politicians can't guarantee loyalty (and their own security) from their armed forces if given such orders that prevents them from simply dictating that you have no rights and telling the public to go pound sand.
So we get the byzantine crap with our government slowly, but inexorably eroding our rights through legislation and all the "rights" are for rent (not sale, as sale implies a permanent situation) to the highest bidder of the moment.
Sorry, but on instances of government, I take an "us vs them" stance.
Us, being the general populace of the US. The people the government is supposed to be accountable to. Them, being the government, elected and appointed officials and all the aides, toadies, hangers-on, etc that constitute our vastly overgrown federal, state and local apparatus.
But if you want to turn this into Republicrats vs Demoblicans, that's on you.
The whole Snowden debacle showed us that wrongdoing CAN be caught by forcing these people to use accountable services.
Rather than taking things off to private, unaccountable services.
Sure, the release of the Snowden info embarrassed a lot of people. But they were people doing things they shouldn't have been in the first place. Thinking that NOBODY would EVER get to look at government data who wasn't already in on the swindle.
The CARBON FOOTPRINT of the MANUFACTURE of a PV panel is NOT offset by the amount of clean power said panel puts back in over its lifetime, save in the very sunniest of areas.
It was primarily designed to funnel money into Apple and Pearson's coffers or facilitate tax writeoffs from said companies that would be at least as lucrative.
Sure. If we want to wait tens, hundreds, thousands or millions of centuries before something comes close enough. And then we have to hope that it's something useful and habitable.
And, in the mean time, we could conveniently die out.
All you jackasses saying "Well, birth is a death sentence." can fuck off.
All pithy sayings aside, a one way Mars mission at this point is little more than a multi-victim snuff film.
These people aren't going to die of old age or related causes.
They're going to die of asphyxia, starvation, decompression, etc, as they're going to be shot out there with little to no actual means of support.
It's not like they can just get out there and live off the land.
So, great, we get video of people dying horribly in an alien environment with no hope of rescue, as the nearest people are at least 35 million miles and a MINIMUM of 40 days (with a maximum of 289 days and a median of 162 days) away.
Anybody who actually volunteered for this was an idiot.
Anyone who actually goes through with this is a suicidal idiot.
Anyone who actually facilitates these suicidal idiots is a sonofabitch and a murderer.
There is no reason for Marvel to break into the motion picture entertainment business
Sure there is.
MONEY.
Just looking at US box office, of the top 50 highest grossing movies, there are 11 comic book films. 8 of which are Marvel property films. All but three are actually PRODUCED by Marvel. Representing over THREE BILLION DOLLARS in revenue. And that's just the US box office. Worldwide receipts are even BIGGER.
Marvel was not ALWAYS a subsidiary of Walt Disney Company. And the push towards Marvel Studios and the MCU began before the 2009 purchase. It just accelerated once mouse money was involved. And, considering the returns, I don't blame Disney for shoveling cash at them at all.
I agree about the renegotiations being about creating bigger returns on investment however.
Marvel is NOT going to stick a fork into this cash cow. Sorry.
And even if they WERE petty enough to do something DUMB like that, it wouldn't affect those licenses.
What you're seeing is a result of Marvel trying to break into the motion picture entertainment business, and the differing strategies of several successive management teams.
Years ago, "they were just a comics shop" trying to shop their properties around, since they didn't have the means to produce films themselves. So they went to the pros.
And yeah, in light of where they ended up? They made some not-so-great deals.
But those deals brought in money. LOTS of money.
And, not happy with the results of the licenses they let out, a decision was finally made to go with in-house development of properties, using the money, industry contacts, and knowledge they'd slowly built up over the years when they were just licensing stuff out.
Also, the special effects production industry had reached a mass production point that they could, realistically, bring this stuff to the screen without essentially having to rely on an established studio.
Large-scale hydro is essentially DONE in the US. Why? Environmental impact.
And worse, in some regions, multi-state water rights issues and environmental change are all set to cause massive problems for hydro. (Google up Colorado River Water Rights Issues)
Basically, unless storage technologies take a MASSIVE leap forward, nuclear will still make sense in 20 years. Or 100 years. Or 1000 years.
The reason is, without those storage technologies in place and functioning properly, the scale and complexity required of renewables-based energy go up a several orders of magnitude, past the point where actual implementation is feasible or economical.
Slashdot Mirror
Doing it that way (concentrating areas of solar generation) can have other side effects as well.
Like giant fucking hot spots above large areas of earth.
Existing molten salt solar facilities already roast birds and destroy the desert ecosystem.
Sure, CO2 is bad. What is a 3.6 MILLION square mile hot spot going to do?
Sure, it's warm above the Sahara right now. But we're talking 40-50 degrees Centigrade.
A liquid fluoride solar thermal plant can generate temps in excess of 800 degrees Centigrade.
The big issue is that solar isn't a very energy dense solution in terms of land use.
Most solar concentration type facilities weigh in at about 100 MW per collector. And each collector is about a square mile.
For comparison, the Braidwood Nuclear Generation Facility (2 reactors, 2,242 MW total output). With its cooling pond, it sits on a site 7x the size of a solar concentration site and outputs roughly 22x the power.
I think the solution to all this is to move to a system where everybody has a big battery or capacitor bank in their house
https://youtu.be/7-xPHopebiE
Watch that, THEN tell me about how everyone should have a nice big, TOXIC battery in their house.
Because it isn't that. Nuclear can't be ramped up and down quickly, so it's not useful for filling in.
And things like Solar, Wind, and Wave wave aren't usable as baseline "brown" power. Because their generation sources are not stable and dependable. BUT, they can be used, alongside existing hydro and geothermal to offset demand spikes.
In other words, you don't use nuclear power to "fill in". You use nuclear as your baseline. You use everything else to fill in.
Thank you Launchpad McQuack.
Well. Since I'm a teetotaler myself, I technically NEVER ride drunk.
And I stopped listening right there.
Only fucking MORONS want this sort of thing.
When you're in a piece of heavy machinery, like a car, even if you're NOT driving it, you DON'T want to be impaired in case of an emergency.
So, drinking in a self-driving car is pretty much out. And for many of the reasons this dipshit talked about. MALFUNCTIONS.
Before you bring up bus and rail transport. Keep in mind, there are people actually driving those. And, in the case of long distance trains, crews full of people. All better trained at running the transportation than you are.
The thing is, the government has an almost unassailable lock on the use of force. Not that ANYONE can't use force. But the government can do it bigger, badder and better than pretty much anyone else.
With that, they can pretty much dictate what your "rights" are and are not.
It's only because the politicians can't guarantee loyalty (and their own security) from their armed forces if given such orders that prevents them from simply dictating that you have no rights and telling the public to go pound sand.
So we get the byzantine crap with our government slowly, but inexorably eroding our rights through legislation and all the "rights" are for rent (not sale, as sale implies a permanent situation) to the highest bidder of the moment.
After all, it might behoove her to "overlook" certain emails that portray her or the Administration in an unflattering light....
Ya think?
Sorry, but on instances of government, I take an "us vs them" stance.
Us, being the general populace of the US. The people the government is supposed to be accountable to.
Them, being the government, elected and appointed officials and all the aides, toadies, hangers-on, etc that constitute our vastly overgrown federal, state and local apparatus.
But if you want to turn this into Republicrats vs Demoblicans, that's on you.
The whole Snowden debacle showed us that wrongdoing CAN be caught by forcing these people to use accountable services.
Rather than taking things off to private, unaccountable services.
Sure, the release of the Snowden info embarrassed a lot of people. But they were people doing things they shouldn't have been in the first place. Thinking that NOBODY would EVER get to look at government data who wasn't already in on the swindle.
Sorry but "the shitstorm will be her punishment" isn't acceptable.
The rules are there for data retention and accountability purposes.
Didn't we learn ANYTHING from the whole Lois Lerner debacle?
And you understand the difference between power output and carbon footprint right?
Try actually READING what was said.
Nobody said anything about ENERGY PAYBACK.
The CARBON FOOTPRINT of the MANUFACTURE of a PV panel is NOT offset by the amount of clean power said panel puts back in over its lifetime, save in the very sunniest of areas.
Utility companies are strictly regulated by the government. They are not entitled to unlimited profit.
And nowhere does it say they should be forced to operate at a loss either.
The FlashBlock extension for Firefox has an option for "Block HTML5 video as well." Silverlight, too.
I actually didn't know that.
Thanks for the info!
It was primarily designed to funnel money into Apple and Pearson's coffers or facilitate tax writeoffs from said companies that would be at least as lucrative.
Conveniently dying out is the best thing humans can do for the sake of the rest of life on this planet.
VHEMT!
You first!
Sure. If we want to wait tens, hundreds, thousands or millions of centuries before something comes close enough. And then we have to hope that it's something useful and habitable.
And, in the mean time, we could conveniently die out.
How about "no".
That's essentially what it is.
All you jackasses saying "Well, birth is a death sentence." can fuck off.
All pithy sayings aside, a one way Mars mission at this point is little more than a multi-victim snuff film.
These people aren't going to die of old age or related causes.
They're going to die of asphyxia, starvation, decompression, etc, as they're going to be shot out there with little to no actual means of support.
It's not like they can just get out there and live off the land.
So, great, we get video of people dying horribly in an alien environment with no hope of rescue, as the nearest people are at least 35 million miles and a MINIMUM of 40 days (with a maximum of 289 days and a median of 162 days) away.
Anybody who actually volunteered for this was an idiot.
Anyone who actually goes through with this is a suicidal idiot.
Anyone who actually facilitates these suicidal idiots is a sonofabitch and a murderer.
Also, Japan is roughly the size of Montana. And fairly densely populated. Are 70-80 mile commutes to work really that common?
There is no reason for Marvel to break into the motion picture entertainment business
Sure there is.
MONEY.
Just looking at US box office, of the top 50 highest grossing movies, there are 11 comic book films. 8 of which are Marvel property films. All but three are actually PRODUCED by Marvel.
Representing over THREE BILLION DOLLARS in revenue. And that's just the US box office. Worldwide receipts are even BIGGER.
Marvel was not ALWAYS a subsidiary of Walt Disney Company. And the push towards Marvel Studios and the MCU began before the 2009 purchase.
It just accelerated once mouse money was involved. And, considering the returns, I don't blame Disney for shoveling cash at them at all.
I agree about the renegotiations being about creating bigger returns on investment however.
Yeah. NO.
Marvel is NOT going to stick a fork into this cash cow. Sorry.
And even if they WERE petty enough to do something DUMB like that, it wouldn't affect those licenses.
What you're seeing is a result of Marvel trying to break into the motion picture entertainment business, and the differing strategies of several successive management teams.
Years ago, "they were just a comics shop" trying to shop their properties around, since they didn't have the means to produce films themselves. So they went to the pros.
And yeah, in light of where they ended up? They made some not-so-great deals.
But those deals brought in money. LOTS of money.
And, not happy with the results of the licenses they let out, a decision was finally made to go with in-house development of properties, using the money, industry contacts, and knowledge they'd slowly built up over the years when they were just licensing stuff out.
Also, the special effects production industry had reached a mass production point that they could, realistically, bring this stuff to the screen without essentially having to rely on an established studio.
Wow. You should probably talk to a professional about these feelings you're having.
It is about 50% underdeveloped in the US
Bullshit.
Large-scale hydro is essentially DONE in the US. Why? Environmental impact.
And worse, in some regions, multi-state water rights issues and environmental change are all set to cause massive problems for hydro.
(Google up Colorado River Water Rights Issues)
Basically, unless storage technologies take a MASSIVE leap forward, nuclear will still make sense in 20 years. Or 100 years. Or 1000 years.
The reason is, without those storage technologies in place and functioning properly, the scale and complexity required of renewables-based energy go up a several orders of magnitude, past the point where actual implementation is feasible or economical.