Even if there was not way to store solar energy to use on demand, having solar provide baseload power would account for as much as 80% of electricity usage.
And more importantly, if solar was baseload, it would be displacing coal power, which is the most common source of baseload power.
Many of the proposed concentrating solar plants will have thermal storage using molten salts, enabling them to supply power 24 hours a day.
The plant recently completed in Nevada has six hours of storage and a natural gas backup, as well. In other words, we can do baseload power with solar.
Who gets the contract to build a road? How much should be paid? Where should roads be built? How do we pay for them?
Who gets to use the roads? How much do we charge people to use them? Who is responsible for faults in the roads? How are costs allocated?
Your questions aren't dumb, they just have no relation to whether this should or shouldn't be a public enterprise.
And there are benefits from a public network you are ignoring. If we have public fiber infrastructure, we can also set the rules for net neutrality for providers as a condition of using the network. We can ensure that the wholesale price is the same for all comers, instead of having to try and fight with the baby bells to open their networks.
Perhaps a compromise is to have airlines give announcements like in movie theaters - "please turn off your cell phones for the enjoyment of the other passengers." Or as another post suggested, let airlines ban cellphones as policy.
After all, a 2005 survey found that 63% of Americans do NOT want cell phones use to be allowed on planes.
Then again, with that kind of majority, maybe we should just pass a law...
Take a look at some of the new concentrating solar plants, such as the recently completed Nevada Solar One. They come with several hours of thermal storage, allowing electricity production when the sun doesn't shine. Some proposed plants have 12 hours of storage or more.
Solar hasn't provided baseload power in the past, but it may soon.
Folks, don't tell him the phone isn't bricked, it just encourages him. Instead of going to a forum and asking "hey, what happened to my iPhone with this devkit installed?" he comes to Slashdot and hyperventilates about a bricked phone.
And whaddya know, several people already gave him a solution (rollback firmware through iTunes - hey, great idea!)
I propose we no longer act as Apple Technical Support for the Un-Bricked.
To be the devil's advocate, they want this because not all drivers are like you - content to accelerate slower and go slower.
What it comes down to is finding a compromise between fuel efficiency and something people will buy. I'd venture that most Americans are sadly not willing to accept your parameters for a vehicle.
"Freeway Meters" on an onramp actually make this problem worse on a freeway that is still flowing at a reasonable speed because they reduce the distance that a car has to accelerate insuring that they enter the roadway at a reduced speed causing traffic to slow down for them.
In defense of meters, they do eliminate the issue of several cars merging simultaneously, at least as bad an offender in reducing on-road traffic flow.
I just need to know. It seems Ron Paul has a powerful following among younger, technologically-savvy professionals. And these folks generally have a strong respect for science (I know, an unfounded assertion). But Ron Paul doesn't believe in evolution.
For those of you supporting Paul, vociferously on Slashdot and other websites, how does that work? Doesn't that undermine some of his credibility?
Here's the quote from TFA about the use of other demographic variables:
The consensus from the above links is that when you control for town size and a few other factors, vote-counting method (Diebold or hand) still correlates with the outcome (Clinton or Obama) to a non-trivial degree. The remaining question is whether there's some still unknown demographic variable that accounts for the correlation between a district's vote counting method and who came out ahead there, or whether monkey business was involved. I personally am leaning toward demographics as the final explanation, for various reasons that, in the end, are so vague as to not be worth going into here.
The "few other factors" are really crucial to proper statistical analysis. Ideally, you'd be controlling for a variable that reflects the actual preference of each town for a particular candidate, so you'd know more about the underlying choices. Town size seems completely irrelevant to vote preference, but perhaps 2004 primary vote totals would work, for example.
At any rate, since there's already a recount underway, it's probably best to just wait and see what they find.
First, I have a bachelor's in math and a public policy masters (we took stats classes). So I know enough to know that the kind of analysis I've been seeing is leaving gaps.
Example:
What if the precincts with higher proportions of Obama supporters happen to be those with hand counted ballots? This is well within the realm of possibility, and from a statistical standpoint, just as likely a hypothesis as wrongdoing.
So, what's the answer? Regression. Regression not only gives you the correlation (which everyone knows is high), but also explains the significance of that correlation - how much it matters.
The result? I ran regressions of Clinton/Obama total vote percentage against hand/machine counted from the first 150 or so precincts (alphabetically) from the list of results and there were two important figures:
p-value of less than.05 (the relationship between method of vote counting and the final vote breakdown was significant).
Adj R-Squared less than 0.10 (the method in vote counting explained less than 10% of the variation in vote totals).
In plain English: 90% of the variation in results across precincts CANNOT be explained by the counting method.
Furthermore, the even with significance, the model may merely pick up variables related to the ones being used. Perhaps precincts with machine counting are wealthier, and wealthier precints trended Clinton. In that way, machine-counted precincts would skew Clinton but with no sinister activity.
My look wasn't by any means fully rigorous or conclusive, and I can't claim to be expert enough to be certain. And there are probably a few Slashdotters with greater stats skills to puncture my amateur analysis. But I think this is overblown. Let's focus on the real enemy, vote machines with no paper trail.
"When you tap your brake, the traffic may come to a full stand-still several miles behind you. It really matters how hard you brake - a slight braking from a driver who has identified a problem early will allow the traffic flow to remain smooth. Heavier braking, usually caused by a driver reacting late to a problem, can affect traffic flow for many miles."
A lot of studies have shown that reaction times are slower when the driver is distracted by phones, music, makeup, etc. I'd be interested to know if traffic problems have become worse due to the increased dispersion of cell phones.
There's only a handful of times each year that all the power plants a utility owns are operating at full capacity. In the U.S., that's a hot summmer day in the late afternoon. Businesses are still open and residents are coming home to crank up the A/C.
V2G would be operated on the same philosophy as Xcel Energy's Savers Switch plan that allows the utility to turn off your A/C for 10 minutes on the hottest summer day in exchange for a lower bill. The drain on your battery will be minimal, infrequent, and generally unnoticeable.
In the aggregate, however, the power company may be able to avoid building a new power plant, so the cost savings are substantial. That's why they're willing to pay you to turn off (or plug in) in this infrequent situation. And why this idea is a brilliant way to help the grid and have zero point-source pollution when you drive.
The same NREL study also found that operating costs ran around $160/barrel of algae oil. That's the price prior to refining into biodiesel. In other words, we have a long way to go...
To those who lament the younger generations' lack of knowledge of Dewey Decimal or the inability to do math without a calculator: This is progress.
I don't need to know that 200 is Religion and 300 is Social Sciences. Dewey is for the librarians, not the users. Doing math by calculator is similar. It's kind of like complaining that no one washes dishes by hand anymore because of dishwashers. Or rides horses to work because of cars. Calculators are faster and reduce error. They save time. Move on.
That being said, if you're using the library to do research, you have a lot to learn. Such as the difference in content between a newspaper/magazine, and journal, and a book (and the level of credibility/ peer review); and the difference between print media and the web (how do you cite a blog, a web story with hourly updates...). You still need to learn how to develop a BS radar for using the web for research. Google is great, but someone has to help you learn what information you can trust. And then you still learn the hard way.
Ultimately, librarians simply need to understand that youth are coming to the library as amateur information finders. They already know Google, but not what's relevant. And they have no idea about non-digitized data, how to search it, and often what types of resources are available. For that, there's always the altar of the reference desk.
I don't know what's better:
a) that a thread about the Sopranos can devolve into a discussion of Sauron's strategy in the use of ringwraiths in the LOTR or
b) that the ultimate post in the tangent received a +3 insightful
I love Slashdot.
Even if the efficiency is low, it still might pay off to potentially eliminate the need for a fan, no? Your point is well taken, however. This isn't going to save us from our fossil fuel overlords, merely help reduce power use (or increase generation) on the margins.
In the United States, where most electric power comes from coal, a CFL will result in about 1/4 the mercury emissions of an incandescent bulb. This document from the Energystar program notes that the mercury emissions reduction is greater than the amount of Hg in the CFL bulb itself: http://tinyurl.com/2elryb (pdf)
So while it may be an issue to consider proper disposal of a broken (or whole) bulb, reducing overall mercury emissions in the environment probably outweighs the disadvantage of having some mercury in each bulb.
...what about the fact that most people still use cameraphones that make you pay to copy the pictures to your computer.
If I have to pay to access the actual photo, who the f*** cares how much better the "white balance" is? (and I did read the comments - the quality isn't actually better)
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, you lost me at "I have a girlfriend, too"
Even if there was not way to store solar energy to use on demand, having solar provide baseload power would account for as much as 80% of electricity usage. And more importantly, if solar was baseload, it would be displacing coal power, which is the most common source of baseload power.
Many of the proposed concentrating solar plants will have thermal storage using molten salts, enabling them to supply power 24 hours a day. The plant recently completed in Nevada has six hours of storage and a natural gas backup, as well. In other words, we can do baseload power with solar.
Who gets the contract to build a road? How much should be paid? Where should roads be built? How do we pay for them?
Who gets to use the roads? How much do we charge people to use them? Who is responsible for faults in the roads? How are costs allocated?
Your questions aren't dumb, they just have no relation to whether this should or shouldn't be a public enterprise.
And there are benefits from a public network you are ignoring. If we have public fiber infrastructure, we can also set the rules for net neutrality for providers as a condition of using the network. We can ensure that the wholesale price is the same for all comers, instead of having to try and fight with the baby bells to open their networks.
An excellent point.
Perhaps a compromise is to have airlines give announcements like in movie theaters - "please turn off your cell phones for the enjoyment of the other passengers." Or as another post suggested, let airlines ban cellphones as policy.
After all, a 2005 survey found that 63% of Americans do NOT want cell phones use to be allowed on planes.
Then again, with that kind of majority, maybe we should just pass a law...
Take a look at some of the new concentrating solar plants, such as the recently completed Nevada Solar One. They come with several hours of thermal storage, allowing electricity production when the sun doesn't shine. Some proposed plants have 12 hours of storage or more.
Solar hasn't provided baseload power in the past, but it may soon.
Folks, don't tell him the phone isn't bricked, it just encourages him. Instead of going to a forum and asking "hey, what happened to my iPhone with this devkit installed?" he comes to Slashdot and hyperventilates about a bricked phone. And whaddya know, several people already gave him a solution (rollback firmware through iTunes - hey, great idea!) I propose we no longer act as Apple Technical Support for the Un-Bricked.
Don't worry, quality marketing will start substituting for detector. Watch out for the Schick Detector Quattro or the Gillette Mach 7 (detectors).
To be the devil's advocate, they want this because not all drivers are like you - content to accelerate slower and go slower.
What it comes down to is finding a compromise between fuel efficiency and something people will buy. I'd venture that most Americans are sadly not willing to accept your parameters for a vehicle.
"Freeway Meters" on an onramp actually make this problem worse on a freeway that is still flowing at a reasonable speed because they reduce the distance that a car has to accelerate insuring that they enter the roadway at a reduced speed causing traffic to slow down for them.
In defense of meters, they do eliminate the issue of several cars merging simultaneously, at least as bad an offender in reducing on-road traffic flow.
I just need to know. It seems Ron Paul has a powerful following among younger, technologically-savvy professionals. And these folks generally have a strong respect for science (I know, an unfounded assertion). But Ron Paul doesn't believe in evolution.
For those of you supporting Paul, vociferously on Slashdot and other websites, how does that work? Doesn't that undermine some of his credibility?
"The [console name] is the best one, because I played it when I was 12."
The consensus from the above links is that when you control for town size and a few other factors, vote-counting method (Diebold or hand) still correlates with the outcome (Clinton or Obama) to a non-trivial degree. The remaining question is whether there's some still unknown demographic variable that accounts for the correlation between a district's vote counting method and who came out ahead there, or whether monkey business was involved. I personally am leaning toward demographics as the final explanation, for various reasons that, in the end, are so vague as to not be worth going into here.
The "few other factors" are really crucial to proper statistical analysis. Ideally, you'd be controlling for a variable that reflects the actual preference of each town for a particular candidate, so you'd know more about the underlying choices. Town size seems completely irrelevant to vote preference, but perhaps 2004 primary vote totals would work, for example.
At any rate, since there's already a recount underway, it's probably best to just wait and see what they find.
Example: What if the precincts with higher proportions of Obama supporters happen to be those with hand counted ballots? This is well within the realm of possibility, and from a statistical standpoint, just as likely a hypothesis as wrongdoing.
So, what's the answer? Regression. Regression not only gives you the correlation (which everyone knows is high), but also explains the significance of that correlation - how much it matters.
The result? I ran regressions of Clinton/Obama total vote percentage against hand/machine counted from the first 150 or so precincts (alphabetically) from the list of results and there were two important figures:
p-value of less than .05 (the relationship between method of vote counting and the final vote breakdown was significant).
Adj R-Squared less than 0.10 (the method in vote counting explained less than 10% of the variation in vote totals).
In plain English: 90% of the variation in results across precincts CANNOT be explained by the counting method.
Furthermore, the even with significance, the model may merely pick up variables related to the ones being used. Perhaps precincts with machine counting are wealthier, and wealthier precints trended Clinton. In that way, machine-counted precincts would skew Clinton but with no sinister activity.
My look wasn't by any means fully rigorous or conclusive, and I can't claim to be expert enough to be certain. And there are probably a few Slashdotters with greater stats skills to puncture my amateur analysis. But I think this is overblown. Let's focus on the real enemy, vote machines with no paper trail.
"When you tap your brake, the traffic may come to a full stand-still several miles behind you. It really matters how hard you brake - a slight braking from a driver who has identified a problem early will allow the traffic flow to remain smooth. Heavier braking, usually caused by a driver reacting late to a problem, can affect traffic flow for many miles."
A lot of studies have shown that reaction times are slower when the driver is distracted by phones, music, makeup, etc. I'd be interested to know if traffic problems have become worse due to the increased dispersion of cell phones.
dada21 (163177)
suntory (660419)
There's only a handful of times each year that all the power plants a utility owns are operating at full capacity. In the U.S., that's a hot summmer day in the late afternoon. Businesses are still open and residents are coming home to crank up the A/C.
V2G would be operated on the same philosophy as Xcel Energy's Savers Switch plan that allows the utility to turn off your A/C for 10 minutes on the hottest summer day in exchange for a lower bill. The drain on your battery will be minimal, infrequent, and generally unnoticeable.
In the aggregate, however, the power company may be able to avoid building a new power plant, so the cost savings are substantial. That's why they're willing to pay you to turn off (or plug in) in this infrequent situation. And why this idea is a brilliant way to help the grid and have zero point-source pollution when you drive.
The same NREL study also found that operating costs ran around $160/barrel of algae oil. That's the price prior to refining into biodiesel. In other words, we have a long way to go...
To those who lament the younger generations' lack of knowledge of Dewey Decimal or the inability to do math without a calculator: This is progress.
I don't need to know that 200 is Religion and 300 is Social Sciences. Dewey is for the librarians, not the users. Doing math by calculator is similar. It's kind of like complaining that no one washes dishes by hand anymore because of dishwashers. Or rides horses to work because of cars. Calculators are faster and reduce error. They save time. Move on.
That being said, if you're using the library to do research, you have a lot to learn. Such as the difference in content between a newspaper/magazine, and journal, and a book (and the level of credibility/ peer review); and the difference between print media and the web (how do you cite a blog, a web story with hourly updates...). You still need to learn how to develop a BS radar for using the web for research. Google is great, but someone has to help you learn what information you can trust. And then you still learn the hard way.
Ultimately, librarians simply need to understand that youth are coming to the library as amateur information finders. They already know Google, but not what's relevant. And they have no idea about non-digitized data, how to search it, and often what types of resources are available. For that, there's always the altar of the reference desk.
I don't know what's better: a) that a thread about the Sopranos can devolve into a discussion of Sauron's strategy in the use of ringwraiths in the LOTR or b) that the ultimate post in the tangent received a +3 insightful I love Slashdot.
Even if the efficiency is low, it still might pay off to potentially eliminate the need for a fan, no? Your point is well taken, however. This isn't going to save us from our fossil fuel overlords, merely help reduce power use (or increase generation) on the margins.
In the United States, where most electric power comes from coal, a CFL will result in about 1/4 the mercury emissions of an incandescent bulb. This document from the Energystar program notes that the mercury emissions reduction is greater than the amount of Hg in the CFL bulb itself: http://tinyurl.com/2elryb (pdf)
a bel/compact%20fluorescent
So while it may be an issue to consider proper disposal of a broken (or whole) bulb, reducing overall mercury emissions in the environment probably outweighs the disadvantage of having some mercury in each bulb.
In shameless self-promotion, I also discuss some of the issues around CFLs on my blog:
http://moldybluecheesecurds.blogspot.com/search/l
...what about the fact that most people still use cameraphones that make you pay to copy the pictures to your computer.
If I have to pay to access the actual photo, who the f*** cares how much better the "white balance" is? (and I did read the comments - the quality isn't actually better)
Viacom to Google: *snarl*
Google to Viacom: *smack*
Viacom: *whimper*
People also enjoy sunshine, sexual activity, and singing in the rain. Some of these are also enjoyed in a massively multiplayer environment.