"Saving the Earth," sounds better than "Saving ourselves," even though the later is plainly more honest on any environmental issue you care to name.
I disagree. A lot of environmental issues are harmful to people. For example, extreme standards of water and air cleanliness result in large costs for businesses (and those they employ) and public sanitation infrastructure, but little gain in human quality of life. There's a number of recycled items that don't make sense. They cost more to recycle (especially when you consider the time taken to sort the materials) than they yield, even counting landfill space.
NIMBYism prevents a lot of useful industries from being near people, And the blame-finding that follows major accidents is ridiculous. For example, why haven't they started most of the Japanese nuclear plants yet? There's no safety or technological reason to have shut them all down. I'd go as far as to say that most of the reactors shouldn't have been shut down in the first place. But that is the price of public hysteria.
Then there's AGW and the willingness of a lot of people to impoverish the poor of the world just so that we can avoid some negative effects that might (or might not) arise, if the temperature climbs as expected.
So no, I don't believe at all that "saving the Earth" means "saving ourselves".
After the revolutionary period (including the Russo-Polish War), until WWII, the Soviet Union was not at all adventurous militarily.
First, you're speaking of a rather short 12 year period between the first conquest of territory in (1920-1924) and the second bout starting in 1936. That period was dominated by a long and bitter power struggle after Lenin's death. Even after Stalin's rise to power, he still spent several years clearing the government (and society in general) of those who might oppose him (or perhaps just because he could). This also was the period of the Homodor, the deliberate starvation of millions of rebellious Ukrainians.
But in 1936, Stalin was secure in power and the USSR absorbed considerable territory in the Middle East, creating 5 more soviet republics. He also dabbled in the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) on the Republican side. Then the USSR partitioned Poland with Germany in 1939, absorbed the Baltic states, and declared war on Finland as well. After the Second World War, the USSR kept most of the territory it had conquered as the "Eastern Bloc".
So before the Second World War, we have the only pause in the USSR's conquests being a horrific period when it was killing many millions of its own citizens. You can continue to make excuses for this brutal and aggressive regime, but I see nuclear weapons as being the only thing that prevented a third world war between the USSR, and western Europe and the US.
Interesting tip. Glancing through their news releases, it sounds like they're putting in a prototype plant at the Salton Sea in California.
BUT, I am going to guess that with enough injections over and over that we will soon see the Au concentration rise to the point where it is profitable to look at it.
I guess it depends on location, volume, and whether gold is the primary resource extracted. There are mines specializing in extracting absurdly small amounts of gold per unit mass of material, but these require rather high volumes to be worth the bother.
But gold extraction can piggy back on other mining. Since Simbol is extracting zinc, there might be some gold (or near relatives, copper and silver) in the hydrothermal fluid that they're processing.
It's worth noting that geothermal plants already do this. And as a result, they tend to have a nasty scaling problem in their plumbing. I think it would be interesting to try this, say pump the working fluid through a bed of crushed limestone after the heat has been extracted. Then after a while, cart the results off to a mine and extract whatever metals have been left behind.
Is it possible that the Higgs would have been found by some kind of private enterprise?
Of course. There's nothing magical about the money from "Asia, the US, and European governments" that makes it spend better than private sources. And there are a number of private sources already wealthy enough to donate that kind of money.
Plus, you need to consider that the cost would probably drop significantly as one goes private. So instead of many billions you might have a billion dollars or less for a private equivalent. It would have less features, but it would be focused on developing new science rather than spending public funds.
unless fluid pressures and temperatures rise considerably
Let us recall, that was why the gold was there in the first place. It was originally dissolved in solution because of high fluid pressures and temperatures. I'm pretty sure temperature actually increases after an earthquake, so in order for precipitation to occur and stay, either the pressure has to drop and stay dropped, or gold becomes trapped as you claim.
Even If there is any re-dissolution, it will probably re-precipitate out again shortly and nearby
Why? Gold is no more likely to precipitate, if it's been in solution for a long time versus a short time. And why wouldn't have done so in the absence of the earthquake?
Gold can precipitate either if the temperature of the water cools down or its chemistry changes to something more basic in PH. A fault provides opportunities for both. It's a means for water to leak down, dissolve metals, and return to the cooler near surface.
It also moves different rock types around. So your gold-bearing igneous rock may end up next to limestone. Then fluids may circulate between the two rock types and slowly transfer gold and other metals to the limestone body.
Does that assessment include environmental damage caused by gas extraction with hydraulic fracturing?
Compared to strip mining of coal? That might make the difference even more pronounced.
Calling bullshit about it being an improvement to switch to natural gas, extracted by hydraulic fracturing then turning around and selling coal to China and going on about how you are doing wonders for the environment. If the US was serious about this they'd close down the coal mines. I refer you to TFA (And keep in mind that his primary research question was: Has US Shale Gas Reduced CO2 Emissions?
China will burn coal anyway. Might as well be US coal.
There has been a substantial increase in coal exports from the US over this time period (2008-2011) and globally, coal consumption has continued to rise. As we discussed in our previous report (Broderick et al. 2011), without a meaningful cap on global carbon emissions, the exploitation of shale gas reserves is likely to increase total emissions. For this not to be the case, consumption of displaced fuels must be reduced globally and remain suppressed indefinitely; in effect displaced coal must stay in the ground.
In effect, the author is saying that shale gas reduced carbon dioxide emissions, but someone is still burning US coal. And how can the author claim that shale coal probably will increase total emissions, when it didn't? You really have to wonder when propaganda manages to find its way into the abstract for a research article.
There doesn't seem to be much point to the observation since the gold can dissolve again, perhaps even within a few minutes of the end of the earthquake (it is hot down there, especially after a big earthquake).
Solyndra? No. They will not. But on others, they already have.
The loans vary in duration, but some are as long term as thirty years. From page ii of the link:
The requirements and limitations that the statutes and regulations impose on the
Programs shaped the development of the Portfolio in several ways. As summarized below, the
legal constraints caused DOE to create a portfolio that consisted of:
[...]
Credits of long tenor, approaching thirty years in some cases;
I doubt anyone has paid back their section 1705 loans in full, but I'm willing to be disappointed.
You mean the $7500 for electric or NG cars is NOT a push towards such?
What is the purpose of this subsidy? Why aren't fuel efficient cars getting it as well?
Or that more than 33% of the state govs. have said that all future vehicles will be NG so as to not import oil?
What is the problem with importing oil? Why do these state governments think that spending more for natural gas powered vehicles will help significantly?
My view is that this is status signalling. Much as a human male buys a pricey sports car to lure females, the politician announces these sorts of policies and spends public funds in order to lure the environmentalist vote.
There will need to be a real global treaty on GHG emissions under which the US will emit less per capita, China somewhat more per capita, and carbon content of trade will need to be factored in.
Well, let's see first if that "need" will exist in a few centuries or not. I'll just quote this bit from the abstract of the article that spurred this slashdot article:
There has been a substantial increase in coal exports from the US over this time period (2008-2011) and globally, coal consumption has continued to rise. As we discussed in our previous report (Broderick et al. 2011), without a meaningful cap on global carbon emissions, the exploitation of shale gas reserves is likely to increase total emissions. For this not to be the case, consumption of displaced fuels must be reduced globally and remain suppressed indefinitely; in effect displaced coal must stay in the ground. The availability of shale gas does not guarantee this. Likewise, new renewable generating capacity may cause displacement without guaranteeing that coal is not burned, but it does not directly release carbon dioxide emissions through generation.
Note that natural gas displaced coal consumption in the US (and hence, generate a modest drop in global emissions though overwhelmed by demand for coal in the developing world), but the writer chooses to cast that as "The availability of shale gas doesn't guarantee this." I wager there aren't much in the way of "guarantees" in climatology. The abstract also asserts without proof that a 2C increase in global mean temperature is "dangerous".
Why would YOU judge him to be immoral based on HIS standards, unless your standards are the same as his.
Because it would be a fallacy of equivocation otherwise. The second poster would be introducing a new set of standards and claiming that it is at least as important to the first poster as the first set of standards. And it wouldn't be, unless the first poster happened to agree.
That table in the picture in the Herald Sun article looks a like a baccarat, or possibly a blackjack table.
Don't trust the pictures. They'll grab whatever they have in stock. If the guy was taking money from other players, it was probably something competitive like poker, which is a pretty big fad right now.
The casino stated that it considered their chances good of recovering the money. Recovering?
It's a black mark and some degree of liability on Crown Limited, the owner of the casino. Their security systems were used to cheat on a game. It doesn't matter that much if it was their game or not. They can lose a lot more than $33 million from the combination of the reputation damage and if they are deemed partly responsible in court.
There's no such "push" unless you count continued, incompetent attempts by various governments in the US.
You mean the $7500 for electric or NG cars is NOT a push towards such? Or that more than 33% of the state govs. have said that all future vehicles will be NG so as to not import oil? You mean that those are not pushes?
Recall the phrase "continued, incompetent attempts". Sure, they are pushes. But it'd be better if those politicians had stayed out of the game.
As I said, Keystone is NOT about getting oit to America, in spite of the BS that we are fed. However, I back it for a different reason. Basically, if the west is exporting oil, while we move off of oil for transportation, then it drops OPEC's ability to control the west. However, Transcanada's, the American oil companies, and the republican claim that this is about sending oil to America is total BS.
I imagine they'll sell to the US as well since that remains the largest market out there.
What is a fact is that certain things would not get much research money from the private sector - namely, things that probably won't lead to a profit: think supercolliders, space exploration, etc.
Many such things have been funded by the private sector, particularly, telescopes.
Well, each one required a 55 gallon barrel of lubricant, a week.
Reading through this and the rest of the thread, I just don't buy your claim at all. Googling around, I'm getting oil change intervals of as long as seven years for the latest generation of wind generators (with lubrication reserviors of around a barrel in size) and lubrication. Obviously, that's not what your windmills are. I doubt going through lubrication at that high a rate, just doesn't make sense even with subsidies.
And if a significant portion of that actually is leaking (which seems to be what you're claiming, then that would be a serious environmental issue (for California). But I don't see the alleged "dark grease streaks" even on pictures closer up than your linked image. Sure, there's probably some sort of grease streak there, but it doesn't show up on pictures, means it probably isn't leaking that much.
We can make moderately good predictions as to what the long term environmental impacts of global warming will be under various CO2 production scenarios.
But which environmental impacts will actually happen? And how much will those impacts actually cost?
We can also make reasonable predictions as to the economic economic impact of loss of farmland, increasingly violent weather, etc. will be.
We can, but it's worth noting here that we aren't. Instead, the most alarmist predictions are being brought forth for political reasons.
It's worth noting for example, the timing of research announcements around the recent climate change conference in Doha. A large number of alarmist predictions were made prior to the meeting while the milder predictions and corrections of such research were announced afterward. It's a classic propaganda technique. And I imagine the next time someone needs a few tens of billions a year (which might be next year's conference), this phenomena will pop up once again.
Once again we see that one can determine with decent success value of a scientific effort in the near future, not just centuries down the road. This is quite relevant to the funding of science. If the scientists themselves are trying to figure out what activities will be more fruitful, then that's a strong indication that society ought to be doing this as well.
For example, during the early years of the cold war it was thought that nukes would be a fast and cheap way to deal with a Russian invasion of Europe.
And they were correct. It's worth noting that the USSR after the Second World War was far less aggressive militarily than the one previous to the war. They didn't invade another country directly until Hungary in 1956 while they had invaded a quite a number prior to the war (and were a huge contributor to starting the Second World War).
500 million is a drop in the bucket of things you should be worried about, and, again, was a very minor loss in a pool of successful choices.
"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." There are a lot of such drops in the bucket, but I bet many hundreds or perhaps thousands of these were justified on the same basis. They are just drops in the bucket, but there are enough of them to matter to the big picture.
And seriously, what in the world do you mean by "success"?
This is just like the 32 million dollar muffins that the DOJ was buying each year and the news made a big deal about.
Again, maybe you need to get some perspective. Part of correcting government is not to focus on just the big items (eg, the big three, defense, Social Security, and Medicare), but also all the little expenses that squander vast sums in themselves. No half a billion dollar Solyndras or 32 million dollar muffins.
80BN in yearly oil subsidies for an archaic and dangerous system that is already highly profitable?
By all means, end those subsidies, but do so in a fair manner so that all businesses lose those subsidies.
Tornadoes in Teacups. You will forever be upset until you gain a grasp of the words SIGNIFICANCE, MAGNITUDE, etc.
US median income for a household is a bit over $50,000 per year. Solyndra's loan was the income of ten thousand such households. It's a big (I'd say even "significant") teacup.
Ah, so Mr "earth is a space colony too" has chimed in and would like to pretend the economy is the same as it was before 2008.
Seriously? What meaningful change has happened since? I see mostly the same people, the same resources, and the same infrastructure as before. The global real estate crisis is just the latest in a long line of recessions that the economy routinely suffers from.
I think government support of education and research is important.
Do you have a reason why you think that? I'm serious here. I keep hearing about how we should as a society shovel a bunch of money into education, R&D, etc, but nothing on whether we're getting value for that money.
The US is funneling tens of billions in education and science. But there's evidence that we're getting less for our money than if we didn't. For example, massive student loan subsidies just seem to create an overpriced college system combined with a generation indentured to the worst loan conditions in the US. I call that a net loss since I don't believe those costs are worth a few more college graduates.
Similarly, the US pays more per student, adjusted for cost of living (PPP) than all but a few countries and gets worse educational outcomes.
R&D is notoriously inefficient such as burning around $150 billion on the International Space Station, the meaningless and overpriced search for yet more alternatives (or slight variations on what is already known) to fossil fuels, or creating a culture of dishonesty in academia in order to get that federal funding.
Now at one time, public schools were a pretty good deal in the US. And the US government, via the land grants given to universities in the 19th Century, did help pave the way for today's prosperity and knowledge. But I think we're past the best days of US education and R&D. Throwing money at researchers and students just results in academia evolving into a rent seeker, another parasite specialized in acquiring public funding not knowledge.
What do I think would make things better in the US? First, eliminate student loan subsidies outright. They are harmful to us. Also drop the onerous bankruptcy conditions of student loans. That will result in a lot of bankruptcies, but it's better than the current state.
Second, decrease the US's reliance on dysfunctional and ideologically ridden public schools. I favor school vouchers for this reason.
Third, reduce or eliminate all federally funded R&D which doesn't further a federal duty such as national defense or insurer of last resort.
Fourth, encourage private investment in R&D. Perhaps, a small tax rebate subsidy for R&D (on top of the usual treatment of it as a business expense).
Slashdot Mirror
"Saving the Earth," sounds better than "Saving ourselves," even though the later is plainly more honest on any environmental issue you care to name.
I disagree. A lot of environmental issues are harmful to people. For example, extreme standards of water and air cleanliness result in large costs for businesses (and those they employ) and public sanitation infrastructure, but little gain in human quality of life. There's a number of recycled items that don't make sense. They cost more to recycle (especially when you consider the time taken to sort the materials) than they yield, even counting landfill space.
NIMBYism prevents a lot of useful industries from being near people, And the blame-finding that follows major accidents is ridiculous. For example, why haven't they started most of the Japanese nuclear plants yet? There's no safety or technological reason to have shut them all down. I'd go as far as to say that most of the reactors shouldn't have been shut down in the first place. But that is the price of public hysteria.
Then there's AGW and the willingness of a lot of people to impoverish the poor of the world just so that we can avoid some negative effects that might (or might not) arise, if the temperature climbs as expected.
So no, I don't believe at all that "saving the Earth" means "saving ourselves".
After the revolutionary period (including the Russo-Polish War), until WWII, the Soviet Union was not at all adventurous militarily.
First, you're speaking of a rather short 12 year period between the first conquest of territory in (1920-1924) and the second bout starting in 1936. That period was dominated by a long and bitter power struggle after Lenin's death. Even after Stalin's rise to power, he still spent several years clearing the government (and society in general) of those who might oppose him (or perhaps just because he could). This also was the period of the Homodor, the deliberate starvation of millions of rebellious Ukrainians.
But in 1936, Stalin was secure in power and the USSR absorbed considerable territory in the Middle East, creating 5 more soviet republics. He also dabbled in the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) on the Republican side. Then the USSR partitioned Poland with Germany in 1939, absorbed the Baltic states, and declared war on Finland as well. After the Second World War, the USSR kept most of the territory it had conquered as the "Eastern Bloc".
So before the Second World War, we have the only pause in the USSR's conquests being a horrific period when it was killing many millions of its own citizens. You can continue to make excuses for this brutal and aggressive regime, but I see nuclear weapons as being the only thing that prevented a third world war between the USSR, and western Europe and the US.
BUT, I am going to guess that with enough injections over and over that we will soon see the Au concentration rise to the point where it is profitable to look at it.
I guess it depends on location, volume, and whether gold is the primary resource extracted. There are mines specializing in extracting absurdly small amounts of gold per unit mass of material, but these require rather high volumes to be worth the bother.
But gold extraction can piggy back on other mining. Since Simbol is extracting zinc, there might be some gold (or near relatives, copper and silver) in the hydrothermal fluid that they're processing.
It's worth noting that geothermal plants already do this. And as a result, they tend to have a nasty scaling problem in their plumbing. I think it would be interesting to try this, say pump the working fluid through a bed of crushed limestone after the heat has been extracted. Then after a while, cart the results off to a mine and extract whatever metals have been left behind.
Is it possible that the Higgs would have been found by some kind of private enterprise?
Of course. There's nothing magical about the money from "Asia, the US, and European governments" that makes it spend better than private sources. And there are a number of private sources already wealthy enough to donate that kind of money.
Plus, you need to consider that the cost would probably drop significantly as one goes private. So instead of many billions you might have a billion dollars or less for a private equivalent. It would have less features, but it would be focused on developing new science rather than spending public funds.
unless fluid pressures and temperatures rise considerably
Let us recall, that was why the gold was there in the first place. It was originally dissolved in solution because of high fluid pressures and temperatures. I'm pretty sure temperature actually increases after an earthquake, so in order for precipitation to occur and stay, either the pressure has to drop and stay dropped, or gold becomes trapped as you claim.
Even If there is any re-dissolution, it will probably re-precipitate out again shortly and nearby
Why? Gold is no more likely to precipitate, if it's been in solution for a long time versus a short time. And why wouldn't have done so in the absence of the earthquake?
Gold can precipitate either if the temperature of the water cools down or its chemistry changes to something more basic in PH. A fault provides opportunities for both. It's a means for water to leak down, dissolve metals, and return to the cooler near surface.
It also moves different rock types around. So your gold-bearing igneous rock may end up next to limestone. Then fluids may circulate between the two rock types and slowly transfer gold and other metals to the limestone body.
Does that assessment include environmental damage caused by gas extraction with hydraulic fracturing?
Compared to strip mining of coal? That might make the difference even more pronounced.
Calling bullshit about it being an improvement to switch to natural gas, extracted by hydraulic fracturing then turning around and selling coal to China and going on about how you are doing wonders for the environment. If the US was serious about this they'd close down the coal mines. I refer you to TFA (And keep in mind that his primary research question was: Has US Shale Gas Reduced CO2 Emissions?
China will burn coal anyway. Might as well be US coal.
There has been a substantial increase in coal exports from the US over this time period (2008-2011) and globally, coal consumption has continued to rise. As we discussed in our previous report (Broderick et al. 2011), without a meaningful cap on global carbon emissions, the exploitation of shale gas reserves is likely to increase total emissions. For this not to be the case, consumption of displaced fuels must be reduced globally and remain suppressed indefinitely; in effect displaced coal must stay in the ground.
In effect, the author is saying that shale gas reduced carbon dioxide emissions, but someone is still burning US coal. And how can the author claim that shale coal probably will increase total emissions, when it didn't? You really have to wonder when propaganda manages to find its way into the abstract for a research article.
There doesn't seem to be much point to the observation since the gold can dissolve again, perhaps even within a few minutes of the end of the earthquake (it is hot down there, especially after a big earthquake).
Solyndra? No. They will not. But on others, they already have.
The loans vary in duration, but some are as long term as thirty years. From page ii of the link:
The requirements and limitations that the statutes and regulations impose on the Programs shaped the development of the Portfolio in several ways. As summarized below, the legal constraints caused DOE to create a portfolio that consisted of:
[...]
Credits of long tenor, approaching thirty years in some cases;
I doubt anyone has paid back their section 1705 loans in full, but I'm willing to be disappointed.
You mean the $7500 for electric or NG cars is NOT a push towards such?
What is the purpose of this subsidy? Why aren't fuel efficient cars getting it as well?
Or that more than 33% of the state govs. have said that all future vehicles will be NG so as to not import oil?
What is the problem with importing oil? Why do these state governments think that spending more for natural gas powered vehicles will help significantly?
My view is that this is status signalling. Much as a human male buys a pricey sports car to lure females, the politician announces these sorts of policies and spends public funds in order to lure the environmentalist vote.
There will need to be a real global treaty on GHG emissions under which the US will emit less per capita, China somewhat more per capita, and carbon content of trade will need to be factored in.
Well, let's see first if that "need" will exist in a few centuries or not. I'll just quote this bit from the abstract of the article that spurred this slashdot article:
There has been a substantial increase in coal exports from the US over this time period (2008-2011) and globally, coal consumption has continued to rise. As we discussed in our previous report (Broderick et al. 2011), without a meaningful cap on global carbon emissions, the exploitation of shale gas reserves is likely to increase total emissions. For this not to be the case, consumption of displaced fuels must be reduced globally and remain suppressed indefinitely; in effect displaced coal must stay in the ground. The availability of shale gas does not guarantee this. Likewise, new renewable generating capacity may cause displacement without guaranteeing that coal is not burned, but it does not directly release carbon dioxide emissions through generation.
Note that natural gas displaced coal consumption in the US (and hence, generate a modest drop in global emissions though overwhelmed by demand for coal in the developing world), but the writer chooses to cast that as "The availability of shale gas doesn't guarantee this." I wager there aren't much in the way of "guarantees" in climatology. The abstract also asserts without proof that a 2C increase in global mean temperature is "dangerous".
Scientists shouldn't be propagandists.
Why would YOU judge him to be immoral based on HIS standards, unless your standards are the same as his.
Because it would be a fallacy of equivocation otherwise. The second poster would be introducing a new set of standards and claiming that it is at least as important to the first poster as the first set of standards. And it wouldn't be, unless the first poster happened to agree.
That table in the picture in the Herald Sun article looks a like a baccarat, or possibly a blackjack table.
Don't trust the pictures. They'll grab whatever they have in stock. If the guy was taking money from other players, it was probably something competitive like poker, which is a pretty big fad right now.
The casino stated that it considered their chances good of recovering the money. Recovering?
It's a black mark and some degree of liability on Crown Limited, the owner of the casino. Their security systems were used to cheat on a game. It doesn't matter that much if it was their game or not. They can lose a lot more than $33 million from the combination of the reputation damage and if they are deemed partly responsible in court.
There's no such "push" unless you count continued, incompetent attempts by various governments in the US.
You mean the $7500 for electric or NG cars is NOT a push towards such? Or that more than 33% of the state govs. have said that all future vehicles will be NG so as to not import oil? You mean that those are not pushes?
Recall the phrase "continued, incompetent attempts". Sure, they are pushes. But it'd be better if those politicians had stayed out of the game.
As I said, Keystone is NOT about getting oit to America, in spite of the BS that we are fed. However, I back it for a different reason. Basically, if the west is exporting oil, while we move off of oil for transportation, then it drops OPEC's ability to control the west. However, Transcanada's, the American oil companies, and the republican claim that this is about sending oil to America is total BS.
I imagine they'll sell to the US as well since that remains the largest market out there.
What is a fact is that certain things would not get much research money from the private sector - namely, things that probably won't lead to a profit: think supercolliders, space exploration, etc.
Many such things have been funded by the private sector, particularly, telescopes.
Why do you think I'm not? My criticism of Solyndra furthers my criticism of how the DoD works. They're part of a whole.
As a veteran, using a home loan guranatee, I know first hand that if I default, I will owe the government.
If you're defaulting on the loan, then the US government just inherited a bad loan and there's a good chance you'll never fully pay it back.
The loan guarantee means they back it, not that it is free. Look it up. They collect.
They're not going to collect much on the Solyndra loans.
Well, each one required a 55 gallon barrel of lubricant, a week.
Reading through this and the rest of the thread, I just don't buy your claim at all. Googling around, I'm getting oil change intervals of as long as seven years for the latest generation of wind generators (with lubrication reserviors of around a barrel in size) and lubrication. Obviously, that's not what your windmills are. I doubt going through lubrication at that high a rate, just doesn't make sense even with subsidies.
And if a significant portion of that actually is leaking (which seems to be what you're claiming, then that would be a serious environmental issue (for California). But I don't see the alleged "dark grease streaks" even on pictures closer up than your linked image. Sure, there's probably some sort of grease streak there, but it doesn't show up on pictures, means it probably isn't leaking that much.
We can make moderately good predictions as to what the long term environmental impacts of global warming will be under various CO2 production scenarios.
But which environmental impacts will actually happen? And how much will those impacts actually cost?
We can also make reasonable predictions as to the economic economic impact of loss of farmland, increasingly violent weather, etc. will be.
We can, but it's worth noting here that we aren't. Instead, the most alarmist predictions are being brought forth for political reasons.
It's worth noting for example, the timing of research announcements around the recent climate change conference in Doha. A large number of alarmist predictions were made prior to the meeting while the milder predictions and corrections of such research were announced afterward. It's a classic propaganda technique. And I imagine the next time someone needs a few tens of billions a year (which might be next year's conference), this phenomena will pop up once again.
Once again we see that one can determine with decent success value of a scientific effort in the near future, not just centuries down the road. This is quite relevant to the funding of science. If the scientists themselves are trying to figure out what activities will be more fruitful, then that's a strong indication that society ought to be doing this as well.
For example, during the early years of the cold war it was thought that nukes would be a fast and cheap way to deal with a Russian invasion of Europe.
And they were correct. It's worth noting that the USSR after the Second World War was far less aggressive militarily than the one previous to the war. They didn't invade another country directly until Hungary in 1956 while they had invaded a quite a number prior to the war (and were a huge contributor to starting the Second World War).
500 million is a drop in the bucket of things you should be worried about, and, again, was a very minor loss in a pool of successful choices.
"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." There are a lot of such drops in the bucket, but I bet many hundreds or perhaps thousands of these were justified on the same basis. They are just drops in the bucket, but there are enough of them to matter to the big picture.
And seriously, what in the world do you mean by "success"?
This is just like the 32 million dollar muffins that the DOJ was buying each year and the news made a big deal about.
Again, maybe you need to get some perspective. Part of correcting government is not to focus on just the big items (eg, the big three, defense, Social Security, and Medicare), but also all the little expenses that squander vast sums in themselves. No half a billion dollar Solyndras or 32 million dollar muffins.
80BN in yearly oil subsidies for an archaic and dangerous system that is already highly profitable?
By all means, end those subsidies, but do so in a fair manner so that all businesses lose those subsidies.
Tornadoes in Teacups. You will forever be upset until you gain a grasp of the words SIGNIFICANCE, MAGNITUDE, etc.
US median income for a household is a bit over $50,000 per year. Solyndra's loan was the income of ten thousand such households. It's a big (I'd say even "significant") teacup.
Ah, so Mr "earth is a space colony too" has chimed in and would like to pretend the economy is the same as it was before 2008.
Seriously? What meaningful change has happened since? I see mostly the same people, the same resources, and the same infrastructure as before. The global real estate crisis is just the latest in a long line of recessions that the economy routinely suffers from.
I think government support of education and research is important.
Do you have a reason why you think that? I'm serious here. I keep hearing about how we should as a society shovel a bunch of money into education, R&D, etc, but nothing on whether we're getting value for that money.
The US is funneling tens of billions in education and science. But there's evidence that we're getting less for our money than if we didn't. For example, massive student loan subsidies just seem to create an overpriced college system combined with a generation indentured to the worst loan conditions in the US. I call that a net loss since I don't believe those costs are worth a few more college graduates.
Similarly, the US pays more per student, adjusted for cost of living (PPP) than all but a few countries and gets worse educational outcomes.
R&D is notoriously inefficient such as burning around $150 billion on the International Space Station, the meaningless and overpriced search for yet more alternatives (or slight variations on what is already known) to fossil fuels, or creating a culture of dishonesty in academia in order to get that federal funding.
Now at one time, public schools were a pretty good deal in the US. And the US government, via the land grants given to universities in the 19th Century, did help pave the way for today's prosperity and knowledge. But I think we're past the best days of US education and R&D. Throwing money at researchers and students just results in academia evolving into a rent seeker, another parasite specialized in acquiring public funding not knowledge.
What do I think would make things better in the US? First, eliminate student loan subsidies outright. They are harmful to us. Also drop the onerous bankruptcy conditions of student loans. That will result in a lot of bankruptcies, but it's better than the current state.
Second, decrease the US's reliance on dysfunctional and ideologically ridden public schools. I favor school vouchers for this reason.
Third, reduce or eliminate all federally funded R&D which doesn't further a federal duty such as national defense or insurer of last resort.
Fourth, encourage private investment in R&D. Perhaps, a small tax rebate subsidy for R&D (on top of the usual treatment of it as a business expense).