Yeah, I think the real advantage here will be low power and high reliability, not in disposable phones. I mean, I can see how you would want to be able to destroy your phone every once in a while - but where is the market crying out for a disposable phone? Who's life does it improve? I think people will continue to keep their phones for about a year.
Incidently, by integrating everything on a chip they should have greatly reduced the amount of dangerous stuff - even the battery for this will probably be smaller.
1. The page you linked include debt payments as military, which is why I said what I did.
2. OK, no argument (it didn't really amount to much, I just thought it was misleading)
3. Absolutely not. There is no trust fund - all the money goes to current recipients. Not including this is a major difference between our points of view.
True, with one caviat - this approach to fusion requires the substance (acetone really, not water) to stay liquid. So you have to use the heat energy to boil some other working fluid. The only real hard part is that the acetone (at least at this point) needs to be cool. That can probably be fixed via high pressure, but the low temperature aspects may limit usefulness.
On the other hand, there are always alternatives. It can probably be used very soon in low temperature environments.
1) Remove national debt payments from military. They say you could remove debt by not paying the military (28% of budget), I say we could remove the debt by not paying welfare (33% of these numbers).
2) Move veterans pay into welfare, or at least out of military.
3) ADD IN SOCIAL SECURITY! I can't believe that they do not include that! (So what, is it optional? Can I opt out?) Don't tell me that is not welfare, the money is not being collected for future use, it is a tax where money is given to those in need, as in welfare!
When you do this, military funding is a lot less of a percentage, and welfare goes to around 60%.
Always check the numbers, and see what is really being reported.
Sorry, you misunderstood me - I said it was one of the best. I would definately include the UK in that grouping, with many others. I would not include, for example, Pakistan.
I was pointing out that the current system works, not that it is necessarily better. On that discussion, though - I believe that the US pays for 90% of medical advancement. So the world's medical profession would suffer a net loss if the US went to a different system.
What you are saying makes sense for you, because you put more credibility into the reports than others, and you put less credibility into those currently in power than others. It is a different point of view, just as valid as yours. Your experience leads you to view leaders with distrust, and scientists with trust. Mine leads me to the opposite conclusion.
Because we're in the current mess due to reliance on mining and drilling...
Um, mining and drilling cause global warming?
...that's a lot of high-level waste that will need to go somewhere...
What's wrong with, say, a uranium mine shaft? I mean, the place is already radioactive, any ground water is already poisoned, etc. It is true that eventually we will need a different power source - but by then it will probably be something that we have never even heard of today! (Unless fusion stops being 10-20 years away, and starts providing power.) Deal with what you have now, not with what you think you may have later.
Really, there is a lot of dangerous stuff in the ground now - why not put the dangerous waste back right next to the dangerous stuff that was there previously?
Actually, the government is supporting that in many places. I would just point out that I live in Chicago, so I couldn't do that anyway. Highrises have the wrong top surface area to power usage. Also, that doesn't work for all of us that see snow during the winter. Not to mention problems with storms, short winter days, etc.
Your solution doesn't work for everyone - though it is being strongly pushed by local governments where it makes sense. (Almost anyone in California without solar power is being foolish - the government will pay up to half the installation costs!)
That's what is funny - it really isn't. Thermonuclear weapons are a lot hotter than the center of the sun - the sun is just under more pressure. The amount of fusion is related to temperature times pressure, so you can have either one. The sun uses pressure more, our bombs use temperature more. (At least as far as I can tell. No insider info here...)
So in comparison to the only efficient fusion reactor we have (somebody sent us up the bomb), the natural reactors (stars) ARE cold fusion!
It is funny how your first paragraph seems to say the exact opposite of your second paragraph, but I understand your point, of course.
Personally, I think we are having an impact, but that the impact will be lessened in the normal course as our technology progresses. So I guess I believe the problem will be self correcting.
My real point was that an unbiased look at the global warming problem would lead you to recommend nuclear power as well as the others. In most situations, nuclear power is probably the most reliable method to reduce global warming - but it wasn't even mentioned.
By the way, the report about windmills changing climates was here.
Sorry, that is unrealistic. My father is a doctor, and how the medical care works is that no one can be turned away - no one.
That means that if a homeless person calls for an ambulance, they get taken care of. Yes, the hospital will try to collect money - but in the end the patient was treated and no funds were collected. America does not have major problems with it's health care getting provided. The real problems are with the economics.
The real problem with this is that it has all the disadvantages of a tax, but none of the advantages. The money to treat poor people comes from the hospital, which in turn must charge enough to the rich people to enable it to survive. So, everyone ends up paying for it anyway. The problem is that the money is not divided equally among hospitals, so a hospital in downtown Chicago is much better than a hospital in Kilmarnock, VA.
Of course, using tax money to support hospitals has problems too... there is a reason why the US has one of the best health care systems in the world...
For many people (I would venture to say most of the US), public transportation is not an option. I live in Chicago now, so I can see how many people would not understand that (I didn't even own a car for 3 years, and didn't really miss it), but much of the US is sparsely populated.
Sparsely populated can mean 100-200 miles to nearest store. There is no public transportation available (because there is practically no public!). I have lived in areas where driving to the nearest department store would be equivalent to driving through 2 countries in Europe! People just cannot get this if they haven't lived it. Especially people from California and Europe.
Removing cars by economics (because that is they only way it could be done) would take cars away from the poor rural areas that need them, and would keep them in the rich cities. Yes, people would really die. My father was the only Pediatrician (Children's Doctor) within 200 miles of where I once lived. Cars were absolutely necessary.
That is the problem with trying to decide things for others - you don't have enough information to make the correct decision. In fact, that is why the free market economy works so well, because the one making the decision is at the lowest level and has (presumably) the best information.
And you should believe in God, because either it is true, and you will be happy forever - or it is false, in which case you are minorly inconvienced.
That kind of logic is not rational, and it is the same logic you are using. If you follow that logic, then I can make you do almost anything - I just have to make up some really bad consequences that you have no ability to test.
Your comment is interesting, because it is the exact opposite of my point of view...
I believe that (assuming for a moment that global warming did happen, which I personally am not convinced of) the lower technology countries would be hit the hardest. If the farms dry out, there is no economic structure to help farmers move to better lands. There are no advanced techniques (like hydroponics or something) to deal with the dry land. The food production infrastructures are very difficult to change, because it is practically non-existant.
On the other hand, the advanced countries would have economic structures (venture capital for farmers) to use whatever resources remained, would have any advanced techniques that could be devised beacuse of free trade (The farmers is less developed countries aren't less smart, it is just that they do not have as effective ways of sharing new techniques they have figured out), and companies are very good at altering to fit the times.
One of the reasons I'm not too worried about global warming is that I think that we can pretty easily mask the worst effects through technology. And honestly, I think that the more advanced countries will step in to help the less advanced ones anyway.
I still think we should try to use less "fosil fuel", mind you - I just don't see an urgent need for drastic change.
I really believe you are incorrect. Iran at least is far more likely to use nuclear weapons. Run some scenarios - if the US President nuked North Korea because of the tensions, he would be out of power faster than you could blink. There are checks and balances in place to prevent the abuse of power, and so it is not in the President's self interest to do that, even if it would simplify life.
If the leader of Iran decided to nuke Isreal (God knows they deserve it), who (internally) would remove him from power? Most westerners believe (and I bet you would agree honestly) that the leadership of Iran is difficult to remove because of abuse of power.
Few, I believe, think of Arabs, etc. as primitive. Most of them do believe Arab's lives and their governments to be unstable. It has a lot to do with the history of the area, and the leadership we see there. If Arabs want to change that perception they must - as a people - mourn the loss of their enemies. If Isrealies die, Arabs should mourne. For example, in the US people are so worried about enemy combatants and civilians dying that a major part of our enemies effort is directed at portraying any casualties as civilian, and ensuring press coverage.
The reason the US is safer with that power than say, Pakistan is that the US has wider trade and social connections. The US can't use nuclear weapons because China (Or someone else, pick a country) wouldn't like it. The US has to be careful not to make everyone mad at us because all of our economies are interconnected - what happens to others happens to us as well. That leads to stability. (Note that we were not involved with major military actions until stability was threatened anyway)
Pakistan does not have major economic and social connections with the outside world. Because of that, they really do not care about other country's opinions of them, and they see less of a downside to attacking India, say. That makes them less stable.
Recently, the US has decided to try to stabilize everyone everywhere - it will be interesting to see how that turns out. The best method is probably through commerce - forced if necessary. There is a common saying, "the US has never bombed a country with a McDonalds." I think the saying has more truth than people know - because a McDonalds is symptomatic of those connections.
The way you can tell that this is a political piece, rather than a scientific one, is the lack of mention of nuclear power. They want countries to commit to generating 25% of their power through "renewable means." Why? Why not just "non global warming" means?
People talk a lot, but look at what is really happening in the world - not what people are talking about. Nuclear power is unpopular, but we still use it for 20% of the US electric power generation - we just do it quietly.
This is obviously an environmentalist editorial - nuclear power is a much better answer, and probably is better for the environment too. (Studies have shown that wind mills and solar cells cause climat shifts too!)
Please read what I said. I was talking about available energy. To quote "80% of carnot..."
By the way, your actions label you as a dork. Thats why I get paid 10X what you do, because I can discuss things with people that have less knowlege than myself without making them feel stupid. If I have less knowlege than you on Thermodynamics (hey, it is possible), then try to educate me. Don't try to show me how much smarter you are than me.
However, I believe what is really going on is that we have both studied this from different perspectives - you are probably an power systems engineering student, and I am working in a related field. I don't care about terminology, because the engine is secondary to me. You do, because the engine is primary.
Right, it is confusing to talk about both RTGs and standard reactors. I was talking about RTGs, because they would be mass competitive - a nuclear reactor would not have this problem but would weigh a lot.
And, of course, what if you have a melt down (up?) in space? You might make it radioactive!;-}
You can get within 90% of carnot efficiency with Stirling engines. Steam engines probably approach 80%, but I have no data to calculate that.
The quintessential example of the multiple cycle is a stirling engine (or thermoelectric pile) running on the exhaust of a turbine. Turbines are not efficient at getting the low temperature (under 200 C, say) energy out. No one uses a true carnot cycle, but most people do talk about heat engines as carnot engines. I suppose it is technically inacurate, but it tells you right away what the theoretical possibilities are.
By the way, there are pretty much no "pure" large heat engines - it is almost always cost effective to put at least 1 regenerative cycle in.
That is pretty much exactly what I was saying, but obviously not what I was communicating.
My only caviot is that while an RTG would probably be a good bet, current designs would not acheive the lifetime I was talking about - and simply adding more material doesn't help that much. After sitting around for decades, radioactive material must be reprocessed (as in repurified) before it can be used in the same reactor. As I said, any sane person would not bet on this technology yet - but people were discounting the research as useless. This is definately not useless!
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Yeah, I think the real advantage here will be low power and high reliability, not in disposable phones. I mean, I can see how you would want to be able to destroy your phone every once in a while - but where is the market crying out for a disposable phone? Who's life does it improve? I think people will continue to keep their phones for about a year.
Incidently, by integrating everything on a chip they should have greatly reduced the amount of dangerous stuff - even the battery for this will probably be smaller.
1. The page you linked include debt payments as military, which is why I said what I did.
2. OK, no argument (it didn't really amount to much, I just thought it was misleading)
3. Absolutely not. There is no trust fund - all the money goes to current recipients. Not including this is a major difference between our points of view.
True, with one caviat - this approach to fusion requires the substance (acetone really, not water) to stay liquid. So you have to use the heat energy to boil some other working fluid. The only real hard part is that the acetone (at least at this point) needs to be cool. That can probably be fixed via high pressure, but the low temperature aspects may limit usefulness.
On the other hand, there are always alternatives. It can probably be used very soon in low temperature environments.
In fact, isn't this a dupe?
To put your chart back into reality:
1) Remove national debt payments from military. They say you could remove debt by not paying the military (28% of budget), I say we could remove the debt by not paying welfare (33% of these numbers).
2) Move veterans pay into welfare, or at least out of military.
3) ADD IN SOCIAL SECURITY! I can't believe that they do not include that! (So what, is it optional? Can I opt out?) Don't tell me that is not welfare, the money is not being collected for future use, it is a tax where money is given to those in need, as in welfare!
When you do this, military funding is a lot less of a percentage, and welfare goes to around 60%.
Always check the numbers, and see what is really being reported.
True, but the grandparent was saying that the poor were funding things - which is what I was arguing against.
Um, welfare is over half the national budget. No government expendature exceeds welfare...
Um, have you seen where taxes come from? The poor don't pay taxes, only the rich do...
Sorry, you misunderstood me - I said it was one of the best. I would definately include the UK in that grouping, with many others. I would not include, for example, Pakistan.
I was pointing out that the current system works, not that it is necessarily better. On that discussion, though - I believe that the US pays for 90% of medical advancement. So the world's medical profession would suffer a net loss if the US went to a different system.
So, why do people smoke?
What you are saying makes sense for you, because you put more credibility into the reports than others, and you put less credibility into those currently in power than others. It is a different point of view, just as valid as yours. Your experience leads you to view leaders with distrust, and scientists with trust. Mine leads me to the opposite conclusion.
Because we're in the current mess due to reliance on mining and drilling...
...that's a lot of high-level waste that will need to go somewhere...
Um, mining and drilling cause global warming?
What's wrong with, say, a uranium mine shaft? I mean, the place is already radioactive, any ground water is already poisoned, etc. It is true that eventually we will need a different power source - but by then it will probably be something that we have never even heard of today! (Unless fusion stops being 10-20 years away, and starts providing power.) Deal with what you have now, not with what you think you may have later.
Really, there is a lot of dangerous stuff in the ground now - why not put the dangerous waste back right next to the dangerous stuff that was there previously?
Actually, the government is supporting that in many places. I would just point out that I live in Chicago, so I couldn't do that anyway. Highrises have the wrong top surface area to power usage. Also, that doesn't work for all of us that see snow during the winter. Not to mention problems with storms, short winter days, etc.
Your solution doesn't work for everyone - though it is being strongly pushed by local governments where it makes sense. (Almost anyone in California without solar power is being foolish - the government will pay up to half the installation costs!)
That's what is funny - it really isn't. Thermonuclear weapons are a lot hotter than the center of the sun - the sun is just under more pressure. The amount of fusion is related to temperature times pressure, so you can have either one. The sun uses pressure more, our bombs use temperature more. (At least as far as I can tell. No insider info here...)
So in comparison to the only efficient fusion reactor we have (somebody sent us up the bomb), the natural reactors (stars) ARE cold fusion!
It is funny how your first paragraph seems to say the exact opposite of your second paragraph, but I understand your point, of course.
Personally, I think we are having an impact, but that the impact will be lessened in the normal course as our technology progresses. So I guess I believe the problem will be self correcting.
My real point was that an unbiased look at the global warming problem would lead you to recommend nuclear power as well as the others. In most situations, nuclear power is probably the most reliable method to reduce global warming - but it wasn't even mentioned.
By the way, the report about windmills changing climates was here.
Sorry, that is unrealistic. My father is a doctor, and how the medical care works is that no one can be turned away - no one.
That means that if a homeless person calls for an ambulance, they get taken care of. Yes, the hospital will try to collect money - but in the end the patient was treated and no funds were collected. America does not have major problems with it's health care getting provided. The real problems are with the economics.
The real problem with this is that it has all the disadvantages of a tax, but none of the advantages. The money to treat poor people comes from the hospital, which in turn must charge enough to the rich people to enable it to survive. So, everyone ends up paying for it anyway. The problem is that the money is not divided equally among hospitals, so a hospital in downtown Chicago is much better than a hospital in Kilmarnock, VA.
Of course, using tax money to support hospitals has problems too... there is a reason why the US has one of the best health care systems in the world...
For many people (I would venture to say most of the US), public transportation is not an option. I live in Chicago now, so I can see how many people would not understand that (I didn't even own a car for 3 years, and didn't really miss it), but much of the US is sparsely populated.
Sparsely populated can mean 100-200 miles to nearest store. There is no public transportation available (because there is practically no public!). I have lived in areas where driving to the nearest department store would be equivalent to driving through 2 countries in Europe! People just cannot get this if they haven't lived it. Especially people from California and Europe.
Removing cars by economics (because that is they only way it could be done) would take cars away from the poor rural areas that need them, and would keep them in the rich cities. Yes, people would really die. My father was the only Pediatrician (Children's Doctor) within 200 miles of where I once lived. Cars were absolutely necessary.
That is the problem with trying to decide things for others - you don't have enough information to make the correct decision. In fact, that is why the free market economy works so well, because the one making the decision is at the lowest level and has (presumably) the best information.
And you should believe in God, because either it is true, and you will be happy forever - or it is false, in which case you are minorly inconvienced.
That kind of logic is not rational, and it is the same logic you are using. If you follow that logic, then I can make you do almost anything - I just have to make up some really bad consequences that you have no ability to test.
But then, I believe in God, so what do I know...
Your comment is interesting, because it is the exact opposite of my point of view...
I believe that (assuming for a moment that global warming did happen, which I personally am not convinced of) the lower technology countries would be hit the hardest. If the farms dry out, there is no economic structure to help farmers move to better lands. There are no advanced techniques (like hydroponics or something) to deal with the dry land. The food production infrastructures are very difficult to change, because it is practically non-existant.
On the other hand, the advanced countries would have economic structures (venture capital for farmers) to use whatever resources remained, would have any advanced techniques that could be devised beacuse of free trade (The farmers is less developed countries aren't less smart, it is just that they do not have as effective ways of sharing new techniques they have figured out), and companies are very good at altering to fit the times.
One of the reasons I'm not too worried about global warming is that I think that we can pretty easily mask the worst effects through technology. And honestly, I think that the more advanced countries will step in to help the less advanced ones anyway.
I still think we should try to use less "fosil fuel", mind you - I just don't see an urgent need for drastic change.
I really believe you are incorrect. Iran at least is far more likely to use nuclear weapons. Run some scenarios - if the US President nuked North Korea because of the tensions, he would be out of power faster than you could blink. There are checks and balances in place to prevent the abuse of power, and so it is not in the President's self interest to do that, even if it would simplify life.
If the leader of Iran decided to nuke Isreal (God knows they deserve it), who (internally) would remove him from power? Most westerners believe (and I bet you would agree honestly) that the leadership of Iran is difficult to remove because of abuse of power.
Few, I believe, think of Arabs, etc. as primitive. Most of them do believe Arab's lives and their governments to be unstable. It has a lot to do with the history of the area, and the leadership we see there. If Arabs want to change that perception they must - as a people - mourn the loss of their enemies. If Isrealies die, Arabs should mourne. For example, in the US people are so worried about enemy combatants and civilians dying that a major part of our enemies effort is directed at portraying any casualties as civilian, and ensuring press coverage.
The reason the US is safer with that power than say, Pakistan is that the US has wider trade and social connections. The US can't use nuclear weapons because China (Or someone else, pick a country) wouldn't like it. The US has to be careful not to make everyone mad at us because all of our economies are interconnected - what happens to others happens to us as well. That leads to stability. (Note that we were not involved with major military actions until stability was threatened anyway)
Pakistan does not have major economic and social connections with the outside world. Because of that, they really do not care about other country's opinions of them, and they see less of a downside to attacking India, say. That makes them less stable.
Recently, the US has decided to try to stabilize everyone everywhere - it will be interesting to see how that turns out. The best method is probably through commerce - forced if necessary. There is a common saying, "the US has never bombed a country with a McDonalds." I think the saying has more truth than people know - because a McDonalds is symptomatic of those connections.
World peace will be achieved by commerce.
The way you can tell that this is a political piece, rather than a scientific one, is the lack of mention of nuclear power. They want countries to commit to generating 25% of their power through "renewable means." Why? Why not just "non global warming" means?
People talk a lot, but look at what is really happening in the world - not what people are talking about. Nuclear power is unpopular, but we still use it for 20% of the US electric power generation - we just do it quietly.
This is obviously an environmentalist editorial - nuclear power is a much better answer, and probably is better for the environment too. (Studies have shown that wind mills and solar cells cause climat shifts too!)
Please read what I said. I was talking about available energy. To quote "80% of carnot..."
By the way, your actions label you as a dork. Thats why I get paid 10X what you do, because I can discuss things with people that have less knowlege than myself without making them feel stupid. If I have less knowlege than you on Thermodynamics (hey, it is possible), then try to educate me. Don't try to show me how much smarter you are than me.
However, I believe what is really going on is that we have both studied this from different perspectives - you are probably an power systems engineering student, and I am working in a related field. I don't care about terminology, because the engine is secondary to me. You do, because the engine is primary.
Whatever...
Right, it is confusing to talk about both RTGs and standard reactors. I was talking about RTGs, because they would be mass competitive - a nuclear reactor would not have this problem but would weigh a lot.
;-}
And, of course, what if you have a melt down (up?) in space? You might make it radioactive!
Wow, you sure are abrasive...
You can get within 90% of carnot efficiency with Stirling engines. Steam engines probably approach 80%, but I have no data to calculate that.
The quintessential example of the multiple cycle is a stirling engine (or thermoelectric pile) running on the exhaust of a turbine. Turbines are not efficient at getting the low temperature (under 200 C, say) energy out. No one uses a true carnot cycle, but most people do talk about heat engines as carnot engines. I suppose it is technically inacurate, but it tells you right away what the theoretical possibilities are.
By the way, there are pretty much no "pure" large heat engines - it is almost always cost effective to put at least 1 regenerative cycle in.
That is pretty much exactly what I was saying, but obviously not what I was communicating.
My only caviot is that while an RTG would probably be a good bet, current designs would not acheive the lifetime I was talking about - and simply adding more material doesn't help that much. After sitting around for decades, radioactive material must be reprocessed (as in repurified) before it can be used in the same reactor. As I said, any sane person would not bet on this technology yet - but people were discounting the research as useless. This is definately not useless!