How about this for an alternative to carbon offsets: direct investment in renewable energy companies.
Anyone can buy shares of a company developing solar, batteries, wind, etc. The bonus is the shares pays dividends and might appreciate nicely.
If everyone invested 1% of their income in new renewable energy technology firms, which is theoretically doable but not likely to happen, the risks of global warming would be substantially reduced. People don't realize that the solution is in their hands.
Rather than a "feel good" gesture of buying a carbon offset that may or may not make much difference, buy stock in a renewable energy firm you feel will offer the greatest return on investment.
Too bad there isn't some betting pool where we can settle these disagreements about how well the Zune will do against the iPod this next year like gentleman. Oh wait, there is, the stock market. Let's see, Apple up 740% in the last few years, Microsoft up 13%? Hmm, what will this next year bring?
Really, Apple has a great platform with the Mac. If I was Apple, I would take a bit of the sizable amount of money now sitting in the bank and make small investments in Mac software firms. With the tremendous power of the modern PC, there must be a lot of applications possible now that haven't been created yet, and many which exist but could be improved in usability and performance.
And why stop there? Apple should establish a VC fund for developers who'd like to create innovative Mac software.
"S&P found that new 2005 U.S. subsidies roughly equal to the next six units' capital costs (on top of big prior subsidies) won't materially improve builders' credit ratings, because most of the risks that concerned the capital markets remain. This unprecedented bailout experiment will probably have the same effect as defibrillating a corpse."
If nuclear is so cheap and low cost, why do we need $50,000,000,000 in govt. subsidies to get it restarted?
If you put $50B into solar energy, there'd be no need for nuclear (although solar is technically fusion power with a space-based reactor).
What we really need is a level playing field. Too often the politically connected funnel taxpayer dollars to their own source, be it ethanol, oil, coal, or nuclear. Wind and solar currently receive a small but sensible per kWh subsidy. All new forms of power should be changed over to the same per hWh subsidies, with no additional subsidies. Then they would compete on the level.
With a per kWh subsidy that was the same for all new energy sources, the market would determine the most efficient way to supply the needed energy, not the number of lobbyists each industry could afford.
The gas transfered from a tanker truck to an underground tank will not instantaneously change to the soil temp, obviously, to those that claim the gas should all be the temperature of the ground. It could take quite a long time for such a large mass of liquid to reach equilibrium with its surroundings.
The group presenting the lawsuit should give some data on what kind of temperatures they've measured.
I suspect a bigger problem is gas stations that have pumps intentionally set to pump less than they charge. I've heard of pumps that run slow below the five and ten gallon mark then catch up, in case an inspector is filling a standard size tank for inspection. I have know idea what the extent of that type of fraud is, anyone know?
He may have good chances. It appears (32% approval, etc.) the electorate is tired of a president that is not articulate nor prone to careful thought and analysis.
They just might go for the opposite.
Microsoft must have forgotten to test iPod w/Vista
on
Vista - iPod Killer?
·
· Score: 1
Oops, how could that have happened! What an incredible oversight! Heads will roll! Or get bonuses.
Luckily for Apple, there are probably relatively few customers who've upgraded to Vista.
Maybe 97% of users don't go beyond the first 10 hits, and it might increase the load on google's system to do 100 links, although it might not depending on how the system works.
Also, google really likes to get the results back quickly, and a bigger page would take longer to load over slow connections.
Presently coal from places such as West Virginia is used to power New York. In West Virginia, hills are bulldozed into valleys to get at the coal, leaving a wasteland.
New Yorkers want the benefits of the power while shouldering *none* of the costs.
Cycle C: This is the spore forming life cycle of these microbes. Prolonged growth at high temperature with lack of nutrients appears to be the reason for spore formation. In this cycle, some of the grown cells can be found to show a pair formation tendency (stage 3 of cycle C) as a first step towards the formation of spores (Fig. 4d). Two or three or rarely even more cells linger around each other closely for some time and they finally get fused together and form a common thin outer mucus layer around them (stage 4 of cycle C). Later this thin mucus layer becomes very thick and hard (stage 5 of cycle C) and the compound cell becomes a spore with color change from white to yellowish and finally red (stage 6 of cycle C). The red spore cells show different shapes like spherical, ellipsoidal and slightly elongated shapes with septum like formation at the center and also some have a triangular shape. The elongated shapes are due to the fusion of two cells of equal or unequal sizes and the triangular shapes are due to the fusion of three cells. The original red rain cells that caused the red rain phenomenon in Kerala also exhibit these characteristic shapes. This spore state appears to be a resting phase of these organisms. The thick outer layer of the spores disintegrates and releases the enclosed original cells only when nutrients and growth conditions are persistently available.
This illustrates a problem with the way science is presently conducted.
Apparently, two years ago a scientist in India wrote a paper about a long series of tests he conducted on a potential non-dna based life form that can reproduce at 300C and may have arrived on a comet.
Of course it sounds unlikely, but if he's right, it is the scientific find of the century.
And, he has samples of the purported organism.
If scientists were really seeking uncover truth, they'd have repeated his work at five different labs and see if it held up.
Instead, they're all to scared of looking silly to their peers, and they barely even let the Indian researcher publish his findings!
If they don't think they have sampled dust to return, why didn't they just keep the spacecraft stationed at the asteroid and do more science instead of returning? Or perhaps another asteroid could be located that is reachable with the remaining propellant.
Slashdot Mirror
There are some great comments on this issue here. Someone should combine them into a nice easy-to-read one to two page document and post it here.
I didn't see anyone posting a link to such a document.
Right, $9M is nothing. These guys need to recruit some Chief Ponzi Officers from the Wall St. banks.
If this sort of thing catches on, how will the current textbook publishers be able to maintain their $200 per book prices?
What is spent each year on energy these days, worldwide? Something like $8,000,000,000,000?
How much will it cost to pay this guy to see if his idea works? About 0.0000002% of that?
More money should be invested in trying out ideas that might improve the economics of solar power, not less, even if it appears unlikely to pan out.
R&D is cheap.
How about this for an alternative to carbon offsets: direct investment in renewable energy companies.
Anyone can buy shares of a company developing solar, batteries, wind, etc. The bonus is the shares pays dividends and might appreciate nicely.
If everyone invested 1% of their income in new renewable energy technology firms, which is theoretically doable but not likely to happen, the risks of global warming would be substantially reduced. People don't realize that the solution is in their hands.
Rather than a "feel good" gesture of buying a carbon offset that may or may not make much difference, buy stock in a renewable energy firm you feel will offer the greatest return on investment.
Nice article.
Too bad there isn't some betting pool where we can settle these disagreements about how well the Zune will do against the iPod this next year like gentleman. Oh wait, there is, the stock market. Let's see, Apple up 740% in the last few years, Microsoft up 13%? Hmm, what will this next year bring?
Really, Apple has a great platform with the Mac. If I was Apple, I would take a bit of the sizable amount of money now sitting in the bank and make small investments in Mac software firms. With the tremendous power of the modern PC, there must be a lot of applications possible now that haven't been created yet, and many which exist but could be improved in usability and performance.
And why stop there? Apple should establish a VC fund for developers who'd like to create innovative Mac software.
Amazing.
Some would argue that nuclear is not cost competitive at all, once you factor in the cost to build the facility.
See:
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=672
"S&P found that new 2005 U.S. subsidies roughly equal to the next six units' capital costs (on top of big prior subsidies) won't materially improve builders' credit ratings, because most of the risks that concerned the capital markets remain. This unprecedented bailout experiment will probably have the same effect as defibrillating a corpse."
If nuclear is so cheap and low cost, why do we need $50,000,000,000 in govt. subsidies to get it restarted?
If you put $50B into solar energy, there'd be no need for nuclear (although solar is technically fusion power with a space-based reactor).
What we really need is a level playing field. Too often the politically connected funnel taxpayer dollars to their own source, be it ethanol, oil, coal, or nuclear. Wind and solar currently receive a small but sensible per kWh subsidy. All new forms of power should be changed over to the same per hWh subsidies, with no additional subsidies. Then they would compete on the level.
With a per kWh subsidy that was the same for all new energy sources, the market would determine the most efficient way to supply the needed energy, not the number of lobbyists each industry could afford.
Surprised not to see more mention of Orson Scott Card's well known book.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_Game
Yes, but the RIAA could easily be the loser, even if none of their money makes it to people they've been suing.
The gas transfered from a tanker truck to an underground tank will not instantaneously change to the soil temp, obviously, to those that claim the gas should all be the temperature of the ground. It could take quite a long time for such a large mass of liquid to reach equilibrium with its surroundings.
The group presenting the lawsuit should give some data on what kind of temperatures they've measured.
I suspect a bigger problem is gas stations that have pumps intentionally set to pump less than they charge. I've heard of pumps that run slow below the five and ten gallon mark then catch up, in case an inspector is filling a standard size tank for inspection. I have know idea what the extent of that type of fraud is, anyone know?
...open the front door.
Over the life of the Earth, it seems the water would slowly disappear into the crust as the ocean plates are subducted.
If it is in a steady state, where is the water coming back out?
He may have good chances. It appears (32% approval, etc.) the electorate is tired of a president that is not articulate nor prone to careful thought and analysis.
They just might go for the opposite.
Oops, how could that have happened! What an incredible oversight! Heads will roll! Or get bonuses.
Luckily for Apple, there are probably relatively few customers who've upgraded to Vista.
The question really is, do we want to be able to audit a voting total, or would we rather hope nothing went wrong with the electronic voting machines?
Cost benefit analysis:
Money saved with unauditable system, for each voter:
sheet of paper: $0.005
portion of printer to print vote receipt: $50 / 200 voters, $0.25
Unauditable voting systems to save $0.13 per voter?
Sounds like a bad bargain. I'd be willing to have a $0.13 tax increase to be more sure everyone's vote was properly tallied.
What's the point of all this political debate if in the end it come down to which party has more clever voting machine hackers?
Maybe 97% of users don't go beyond the first 10 hits, and it might increase the load on google's system to do 100 links, although it might not depending on how the system works.
Also, google really likes to get the results back quickly, and a bigger page would take longer to load over slow connections.
For something as important as voting, it sure seems like the US as a country could afford printers.
Anything to make it more likely that every vote is accurately tallied sounds like a worthwhile use of taxpayer dollars.
Electronic voting machines that can't be audited--why again?
Certainly the country can afford the paper and required equipment.
The only reason not to is to make it easier to rig elections.
Presently coal from places such as West Virginia is used to power New York. In West Virginia, hills are bulldozed into valleys to get at the coal, leaving a wasteland.
l /007/43.html
New Yorkers want the benefits of the power while shouldering *none* of the costs.
Lame.
Example:
http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_remova
Cycle C: This is the spore forming life cycle of these microbes. Prolonged growth at high temperature with lack of nutrients appears to be the reason for spore formation. In this cycle, some of the grown cells can be found to show a pair formation tendency (stage 3 of cycle C) as a first step towards the formation of spores (Fig. 4d). Two or three or rarely even more cells linger around each other closely for some time and they finally get fused together and form a common thin outer mucus layer around them (stage 4 of cycle C). Later this thin mucus layer becomes very thick and hard (stage 5 of cycle C) and the compound cell becomes a spore with color change from white to yellowish and finally red (stage 6 of cycle C). The red spore cells show different shapes like spherical, ellipsoidal and slightly elongated shapes with septum like formation at the center and also some have a triangular shape. The elongated shapes are due to the fusion of two cells of equal or unequal sizes and the triangular shapes are due to the fusion of three cells. The original red rain cells that caused the red rain phenomenon in Kerala also exhibit these characteristic shapes. This spore state appears to be a resting phase of these organisms. The thick outer layer of the spores disintegrates and releases the enclosed original cells only when nutrients and growth conditions are persistently available.
This illustrates a problem with the way science is presently conducted.
Apparently, two years ago a scientist in India wrote a paper about a long series of tests he conducted on a potential non-dna based life form that can reproduce at 300C and may have arrived on a comet.
Of course it sounds unlikely, but if he's right, it is the scientific find of the century.
And, he has samples of the purported organism.
If scientists were really seeking uncover truth, they'd have repeated his work at five different labs and see if it held up.
Instead, they're all to scared of looking silly to their peers, and they barely even let the Indian researcher publish his findings!
Does anyone else see this as a problem?
of interstate commerce?
If they don't think they have sampled dust to return, why didn't they just keep the spacecraft stationed at the asteroid and do more science instead of returning? Or perhaps another asteroid could be located that is reachable with the remaining propellant.