Oil discoveries have been surpassed by consumption in the mid-eighties. I remember a presentation with a simple chart at the Annual Meeting of AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) 2005, Cincinnati about this. Since the usual lag between discovery and commencement of production is about 15 years (this is what I remember from my course in energy economy), the production peak was expected already about 2000. A few factors (wars, Russian oil becoming available to the west, etc) delayed this, but it's not like people never saw this coming.
New oil fields are being found all the time, but this is not compensating enough for the depletion of previous oil fields.
In case you wondered what is going to happen, remember that US production already peaked a long time ago (in 1971 if my memory serves me). In 1973 the Saudis noticed that they held the big levers now (Americans could not flood the marked anymore), and took the chance to become the market leaders.
What this means to us is exponential growth in gasoline prices. Smart countries stopped producing power with oil long ago (think oil crisis), moving to coal or nuclear for energy security (not necessarily because they were cheaper). Coal is going to be soon the most competitive fuel for power production. Nuclear will likely stay there in the corner where its poor economics has put it, since there is enough coal to burn all oxygen in the atmosphere.
Given that most transportation and building-heating sectors are based on oil in most countries and that these are big chunks of the total energy consumption, I expect some countries will find it cheaper to steal oil invading oil-rich countries, especially those countries that are very oil-intensive and where conservation is not considered an attractive option.
Furthermore, the US now have a base of operations (Iraq) in the middle of everything in the Middle East, already up and running. Invading the whole Middle East could become a real option in the next decades (it was actually already contemplated in 1973, but then we had the Soviet Union).
Interesting book to read: The end of oil, Paul Roberts, ISBN 0618239774.
Let me welcome you to Trondheim, Norway. In the second half of this January we had abnormally high temperatures, as high as +5C, in a period when -20 is not uncommon. It is actually a few years since the last time I was exposed to -20. It is not uncommon either that brief buffs of heat from the Gulf stream blow some + degrees around here even in January, but I never saw it lasting two weeks in a row-normally it's more like a day or two. This time all the snow in the city melted.
The most promin[e]nt BSD licensed products (Free, Open and Net ) all happily share between themselves, thus effectiv[e]ly standing on each other's shoulders.
How much did Microsoft share of the TCP/IP stack?
What they don't do is waste time on stupid license discussions, or being worried about what someone else might do with their code.
That's why Linux makes headlines, is the main FOSS OS, and has all eyes on it, whereas BSD is a niche.
The GPL world, otoh, spends it's efforts on discussions like this one... and I can't find a single instance of people standing on each other's shoulders.
I am using KDE (GPL) running on Linux (GPL) working with G++ (GPL) and the GSL (GPL) for today's work. Today, I also used Octave (GPL) and Kile (GPL). I managed my references with Jabref (GPL), and I am browsing with Firefox ({L}GPL).
October 20, 2005: changes "[[erotica]] section" with "[[blog]] based on [[Slashcode]]", shortens section on Wikipedia voting procedures and states he dislikes the term benevolent dictator.
October 28, 2005: removes "[[pornography]] section with a" (followed by "[[blog]] based on [[Slashcode]]"), adds Sanger to list of Wikipedia founders, cuts section on Wikipedia voting that had been reverted.
October 29, 2005: reinstates Sanger; changes location of Wikimedia foundation from Tampa to St. Petersburg (FL, not RU).
November 9, 2005: again, reinstates Sanger into credits for Wikipedia.
November 9, 2005: rephrases "continues to call" into "now calls".
December 2, 2005: precises he is co-founder of Wikipedia, that "Jeremy Rosenfeld initially came up with the idea to make the encylopedia wiki-based" whereas "Sanger coined the name 'wikipedia'".
Some are multiple edits. If you read the list, beware the impersonator and vandal Jimmy D Wales (his version).
Seems to me mostly minor edits, surely not a vanity page. In the Talk page, Jimbo explains some (like his dislike of expressions like "pornography", or the fact he does not retain control over other editors).
Repeated? It happened once, and the US did do absolutely nothing until declared war upon by Hitler! Get your facts straight, US participation is WW1 was minor.
The governments of the world could not care less about the environment. It's known as "the tragedy of the commons". Even if people were afraid (as they are) of nuclear power, their governments would not care and build nuclear power anyway.
The reason why no one builds more plants is that nuclear power in anti-economical. It simply costs too much. Its production costs once online for fuel and such are low, but the investments and fixed costs (security and safety procedures, for instance) are gigantic. Invenstments only are about 50% of all the life-cycle costs of a plant.
Studies in peer-reviewed literature show that these costs are not going to come back, unless major improvements in on-line time, life time, and increases in energy prices occur at the same time. (Paine, J. R., "Will nuclear power pay for itself?", The social science journal, Vol 33 N 4 (1996) 459-473)
The higher cost of nuclear is therefore not appealing to most nations, and that the people do not like them is only a good excuse to look like one's doing "the will of the people". People do not like coal plants either, but these are not going away. Of the countries with some nuclear program, China is starved for energy and will buy it no matter the price; Finland depends on Russian coal, and they do not want to depend on Russia (they could have waited a few years and built gas turbines with Norwegian gas, however: the recent findings are fairly large). Iran wants nuclear so they can build the bomb, no matter how much they deny it: it's easy to understand given they are surrounded by nuclear powers (US in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pakistan, former Soviet Union), and that the US are unwilling to attack an enemy with WMDs (as North Korea).
I think they factor in the heat dispersion that would occur in the hot-water tank. Heating water with resistance elements also presents the possibility of the elements melting, because of so much power being sent through so little resistance. On the other hand, you cannot make water come into contact with too much heat-exchange area of the resistor, because you would lose pressure.
Also, most households have clear limits when it comes to maximum power drain: I once calculated that my shower at normal water flow, at about 38 degrees (Celsius, you Neanderthals!), consumed about 27 kilowatts. Consider my 50 square meter flat, in Norway, uses only 1 kilowatt for heating (I've got good insulation though), and you get the picture of how an insane lot of power you need. In Italy there is a mandated limit of 3 kilowatts, beyond which the life-saving circuit clicks and cuts all power. However, this is not going to be any better with microwaves.
Has anyone already mentioned that water exposed to microwaves can go supercritical (above 100 degrees), and start boiling with a big boom? That's why you don't make things boil in the microwave, and why eggs explode. They will need a safe control system, else tubes may get worn out quickly.
Di-hydrogen monoxide is the main cause of death in drowning. Di-hydrogen monoxide, in large quantities, can harbour aggressive biological agents ("sharks") that can be lethal to your health.
More seriously, I was told some college students had a challenge on who could drink most water. Similar competition with beer normally result in someone dropping drunk, but with water no such effect appeared, of course. So, someone discovered the hard way that there is a lethal dose of water, about 20 liters, beyond which synapses lose their conductivity due to dilution, and you die of heart failure. Can't really be sure on most details and this could be a urban legend, but in general there is always a quantity of anything that will kill you.
The accord reached late Tuesday also called for [...] the issue of making domain names -- currently done in the Latin languages -- into other languages, such as Chinese, Urdu and Arabic.
I suppose they mean Latin alphabet, yet Urdu and Arabic are both written in the Arabic alphabet (possibly with a few Persian-style letters more?). Anyway, I look forward to my first spam with a Chinese address. I can already see the scams: PCs without Chinese fonts that trick users into clicking on a blank link...
Because you cannot blend hydrogen and diesel, you would have a gas phase since hydrogen is not (very) soluble in diesel. Therefore you cannot make a single product, and have to blend them at combustion time. However, I wonder why they don't use simple hydrogen tanks: electrolysis equipment is not necessarily cheap or light.
An all-pervasive nanny state which results in huge unemployment and no hope for advancement
So how is it that it is not happening in Northern Europe, with way stronger "nanny states"?
Flip:
A French elite mentality that Africans are sub-human, [...]
Flop:
[...] and endless dicking around with muliticultiralism which has allowed the formation of an African state within France, have given the results seen for the last two weeks.
So, you are accusing the French of doing exactly what you do in the next line—regarding Africans (someone else has already pointed out they are more correctly Arabs) as untermenschen.
I was at AIChE 2005 (Chemical Engineering stuff if you don't bother to click the link), and followed the fuel-cell topical. These cells did make a few appearances (also last year in Austin already).
The cell is being researched by professor Richard Masel and his group. It has a relatively low power density, but that's enough for mobile electronics (no, it will not be usable on cars). The reason Masel's group is the only one working on these is that previous results discredited formic acid as a fuel, but Masel's group found out that they were using the wrong catalyst: platinum was being used (as in any other fuel cell), but for formic acid the correct one was actually palladium. Apparently, formic acid has much less problems in membrane permeation than methanol (that is, it does not burn without you using it), and has already passed tests of over 2500 consecutive hours of power production without failure.
Masel actually complained a bit that this very press release had been delayed one week, last week he could have had the press release at the same time of the conference, and could have mentioned the name of Motorola explicitly.
Another curious fact is that probably everybody of you reading has eaten some formic acid (it's in various foods), even if the high concentration at which it is used in fuel cells makes it unsuitable for a snack (it is actually going to be "burn" the skin).
The main bullshit of the article boils down to this sentence:
Beside the obvious advantages of the system, such as the inexpensive and abundant fuel, [...]
The fuel, i.e. aluminium or magnesium, is neither inexpensive nor abundant, in fact Al and Mg are completely nonexistant in nature in their unbound form. Since pure Al and Mg are so reactive, they don't last long in nature, and must be produced by electrolysis in liquid-metal, power-intensive plants. There's a reason why bike frames in aluminium are more expensive than ones in steel.
Since the article says also that the car "... needs a metal coil three-times heavier than an equivalent petrol tank.", one wonders why in the world we should not then use simple pressurised hydrogen-gas tanks then.
Excuse me, at what point did I say I supported circumcision? When I said "the idea was hygiene" I meant "in the desert with little water". If you hardly have water to drink, and cannot wash your body for months, circumcision may be an hygienical advantage, since it reduces the risk of infection (which in ancient times meant "slow and painful death"). However I could possibly despise Americans, I could not believe they do not take a bath now and then.
Slashdot Mirror
You mean Harry Whittington wanted to run for the republican primary in 2008?
Oil discoveries have been surpassed by consumption in the mid-eighties. I remember a presentation with a simple chart at the Annual Meeting of AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) 2005, Cincinnati about this. Since the usual lag between discovery and commencement of production is about 15 years (this is what I remember from my course in energy economy), the production peak was expected already about 2000. A few factors (wars, Russian oil becoming available to the west, etc) delayed this, but it's not like people never saw this coming.
New oil fields are being found all the time, but this is not compensating enough for the depletion of previous oil fields.
In case you wondered what is going to happen, remember that US production already peaked a long time ago (in 1971 if my memory serves me). In 1973 the Saudis noticed that they held the big levers now (Americans could not flood the marked anymore), and took the chance to become the market leaders.
What this means to us is exponential growth in gasoline prices. Smart countries stopped producing power with oil long ago (think oil crisis), moving to coal or nuclear for energy security (not necessarily because they were cheaper). Coal is going to be soon the most competitive fuel for power production. Nuclear will likely stay there in the corner where its poor economics has put it, since there is enough coal to burn all oxygen in the atmosphere.
Given that most transportation and building-heating sectors are based on oil in most countries and that these are big chunks of the total energy consumption, I expect some countries will find it cheaper to steal oil invading oil-rich countries, especially those countries that are very oil-intensive and where conservation is not considered an attractive option.
Furthermore, the US now have a base of operations (Iraq) in the middle of everything in the Middle East, already up and running. Invading the whole Middle East could become a real option in the next decades (it was actually already contemplated in 1973, but then we had the Soviet Union).
Interesting book to read: The end of oil, Paul Roberts, ISBN 0618239774.
...is that you claim people drink Budweiser in the land of the Reinheitsgebot.
Let me welcome you to Trondheim, Norway. In the second half of this January we had abnormally high temperatures, as high as +5C, in a period when -20 is not uncommon. It is actually a few years since the last time I was exposed to -20. It is not uncommon either that brief buffs of heat from the Gulf stream blow some + degrees around here even in January, but I never saw it lasting two weeks in a row-normally it's more like a day or two. This time all the snow in the city melted.
How much did Microsoft share of the TCP/IP stack?
That's why Linux makes headlines, is the main FOSS OS, and has all eyes on it, whereas BSD is a niche.
I am using KDE (GPL) running on Linux (GPL) working with G++ (GPL) and the GSL (GPL) for today's work. Today, I also used Octave (GPL) and Kile (GPL). I managed my references with Jabref (GPL), and I am browsing with Firefox ({L}GPL).
...So you are affirming they do exist? Or aren't you disproving that the inexistence of these situations has not been denied in no situation at all?
...A trial involving a Hollywood major and file sharing?
Oh wait...
Is it going to be able to run with root privileges or just as a user?
Is it so difficult to toggle them off already?
Do you realise you inspired this?
They also got the "the cock" error with'em...
Some are multiple edits. If you read the list, beware the impersonator and vandal Jimmy D Wales (his version).
Seems to me mostly minor edits, surely not a vanity page. In the Talk page, Jimbo explains some (like his dislike of expressions like "pornography", or the fact he does not retain control over other editors).
Submit it again, it will be accepted as a dupe. *ducks*
Repeated? It happened once, and the US did do absolutely nothing until declared war upon by Hitler! Get your facts straight, US participation is WW1 was minor.
The governments of the world could not care less about the environment. It's known as "the tragedy of the commons". Even if people were afraid (as they are) of nuclear power, their governments would not care and build nuclear power anyway.
The reason why no one builds more plants is that nuclear power in anti-economical. It simply costs too much. Its production costs once online for fuel and such are low, but the investments and fixed costs (security and safety procedures, for instance) are gigantic. Invenstments only are about 50% of all the life-cycle costs of a plant.
Studies in peer-reviewed literature show that these costs are not going to come back, unless major improvements in on-line time, life time, and increases in energy prices occur at the same time. (Paine, J. R., "Will nuclear power pay for itself?", The social science journal, Vol 33 N 4 (1996) 459-473)
The higher cost of nuclear is therefore not appealing to most nations, and that the people do not like them is only a good excuse to look like one's doing "the will of the people". People do not like coal plants either, but these are not going away. Of the countries with some nuclear program, China is starved for energy and will buy it no matter the price; Finland depends on Russian coal, and they do not want to depend on Russia (they could have waited a few years and built gas turbines with Norwegian gas, however: the recent findings are fairly large). Iran wants nuclear so they can build the bomb, no matter how much they deny it: it's easy to understand given they are surrounded by nuclear powers (US in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pakistan, former Soviet Union), and that the US are unwilling to attack an enemy with WMDs (as North Korea).
I think they factor in the heat dispersion that would occur in the hot-water tank. Heating water with resistance elements also presents the possibility of the elements melting, because of so much power being sent through so little resistance. On the other hand, you cannot make water come into contact with too much heat-exchange area of the resistor, because you would lose pressure.
Also, most households have clear limits when it comes to maximum power drain: I once calculated that my shower at normal water flow, at about 38 degrees (Celsius, you Neanderthals!), consumed about 27 kilowatts. Consider my 50 square meter flat, in Norway, uses only 1 kilowatt for heating (I've got good insulation though), and you get the picture of how an insane lot of power you need. In Italy there is a mandated limit of 3 kilowatts, beyond which the life-saving circuit clicks and cuts all power. However, this is not going to be any better with microwaves.
Has anyone already mentioned that water exposed to microwaves can go supercritical (above 100 degrees), and start boiling with a big boom? That's why you don't make things boil in the microwave, and why eggs explode. They will need a safe control system, else tubes may get worn out quickly.
Di-hydrogen monoxide is the main cause of death in drowning. Di-hydrogen monoxide, in large quantities, can harbour aggressive biological agents ("sharks") that can be lethal to your health.
More seriously, I was told some college students had a challenge on who could drink most water. Similar competition with beer normally result in someone dropping drunk, but with water no such effect appeared, of course. So, someone discovered the hard way that there is a lethal dose of water, about 20 liters, beyond which synapses lose their conductivity due to dilution, and you die of heart failure. Can't really be sure on most details and this could be a urban legend, but in general there is always a quantity of anything that will kill you.
Ok, so please make 398 Norwegian crowns payable to my account by the end of every the month for the next five years. Thanks.
I suppose they mean Latin alphabet, yet Urdu and Arabic are both written in the Arabic alphabet (possibly with a few Persian-style letters more?). Anyway, I look forward to my first spam with a Chinese address. I can already see the scams: PCs without Chinese fonts that trick users into clicking on a blank link...
Because you cannot blend hydrogen and diesel, you would have a gas phase since hydrogen is not (very) soluble in diesel. Therefore you cannot make a single product, and have to blend them at combustion time. However, I wonder why they don't use simple hydrogen tanks: electrolysis equipment is not necessarily cheap or light.
Maybe because Linux is a kernel, not a desktop.
So how is it that it is not happening in Northern Europe, with way stronger "nanny states"?
Flip: Flop:So, you are accusing the French of doing exactly what you do in the next line—regarding Africans (someone else has already pointed out they are more correctly Arabs) as untermenschen.
I was at AIChE 2005 (Chemical Engineering stuff if you don't bother to click the link), and followed the fuel-cell topical. These cells did make a few appearances (also last year in Austin already).
The cell is being researched by professor Richard Masel and his group. It has a relatively low power density, but that's enough for mobile electronics (no, it will not be usable on cars). The reason Masel's group is the only one working on these is that previous results discredited formic acid as a fuel, but Masel's group found out that they were using the wrong catalyst: platinum was being used (as in any other fuel cell), but for formic acid the correct one was actually palladium. Apparently, formic acid has much less problems in membrane permeation than methanol (that is, it does not burn without you using it), and has already passed tests of over 2500 consecutive hours of power production without failure.
Masel actually complained a bit that this very press release had been delayed one week, last week he could have had the press release at the same time of the conference, and could have mentioned the name of Motorola explicitly.
Another curious fact is that probably everybody of you reading has eaten some formic acid (it's in various foods), even if the high concentration at which it is used in fuel cells makes it unsuitable for a snack (it is actually going to be "burn" the skin).
For those interested, here are some abstracts: Present Status of Formic Acid Fuel Cells, High Performing Air Breathing Passive Direct Formic Acid Fuel Cell (Dfafc), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (Mri) Microscopy of Operating Direct Formic Acid Fuel Cell (Dfafc), Formic Acid Electro-Oxidation by Pd: Particle Size Effects. Proceedings are however not free for the taking, and one has to buy the CD (135 $). No guarantee they contain anything more than the abstracts for the given papers, however.
The main bullshit of the article boils down to this sentence:
The fuel, i.e. aluminium or magnesium, is neither inexpensive nor abundant, in fact Al and Mg are completely nonexistant in nature in their unbound form. Since pure Al and Mg are so reactive, they don't last long in nature, and must be produced by electrolysis in liquid-metal, power-intensive plants. There's a reason why bike frames in aluminium are more expensive than ones in steel.
Since the article says also that the car "... needs a metal coil three-times heavier than an equivalent petrol tank.", one wonders why in the world we should not then use simple pressurised hydrogen-gas tanks then.
... does it run on Linux?
(points the right pinky finger to the lip and laughs hysterically)
Excuse me, at what point did I say I supported circumcision? When I said "the idea was hygiene" I meant "in the desert with little water". If you hardly have water to drink, and cannot wash your body for months, circumcision may be an hygienical advantage, since it reduces the risk of infection (which in ancient times meant "slow and painful death"). However I could possibly despise Americans, I could not believe they do not take a bath now and then.