And that is keeping in mind that the lifespan of PV is calculated at 30 years, an arbitrary number picked to equalize it with the life of a coal or nuclear power plant, however are panel warranties are 20-30 years alone. There is no reason to believe that the average lifespan of a PV panel won't be 40-60 years or more.
I am convinced that what people hear on vinyl described as: "dynamic", "warm", "alive" is the inherent distortion of the media, such as the inherent reverb added by the bouncing of the needle running over the tracks. Yes reverb adds a dynamic sound, but it is imaginary distortion, not clarity. If you want reverb, add reverb, but don't pretend your music source is better.
Vinyl is physically a limited format, and not any amount of romanticism is going to change that.
No, it's merely a set of socialist transfer payments to 3rd world countries. The US is already investing trillions in foreign aid. Why the fuck should we be required to pay more? ESPECIALLY when even the nations signatory to things like Kyoto are ignoring the guidelines set up? More toothless, but feel-good, legislation? No thanks!
Because it makes better business sense as well as better environmental sense. Pollution is waste, waste is dollars up the smoke stack. There are of course many external costs as well (environmental cleanup, health issues, etc), but considering just corporate profitability and sustainability, reducing energy consumption just make business sense.
Sure you ask, the if that was true the free market would dictate it outcome, so why oh why don't we do it? Because american business has regressive incentives to produce profit ONLY in the short term. Lowering your energy use and reducing pollution requires investment in the future.
This has happened before, in the 70's energy crisis, Japan invested heavily in energy conservation, while the US did little. THe result, by 80s Japans industry was ~20-30% more energy efficient and creamed us economically at the time.
I see this even today when I work with auto companies. At a auto conference the americans will stand up with their presentations and say "its not possible", the japanese will stand up and say, we already did it, and it will go on sale next month. The results in the Hybrid market are a very good example. The japanese will invest millions is development, the US automakers will spend millions lobbying congress not to make them do it. Guess which is the winning strategy?
I don't think that versioning is the important issue here. There are plenty of versioning products. But like they say "it's the interface stupid!"
I've used plenty of versioning systems for code, but they aren't functional nor friendly enough to use as a general purpose solution. So my code is nicely versioned, but what about the rest of my life?
Like the demonstrator said 4% of people actually do scheduled backups. Why? "It's the interface stupid!"
Cells will fail and will need replacing from time to time, and will be expensive to do.
Most manufacturers Guarantee their panels for 20-30 years, so that is minimum life. Of course on average they will last longer. Longer than most power plants, and yes, virtually maintenance free.
home energy usage is pretty much the exact inverse of when the most solar radiation is available
In fact, the average electricity demand on the grid typically follows the sun cycles, especially in summer when electricity use peaks. The peak grid loads are typically ~40% higher at midday than the nighttime minimum. Even in the winter, when the day peaking is less pronounced (and shifted towards morning/evening), solar could address as much as 35-40% the national electricity demand even without storage. See http://currentenergy.lbl.gov/pjm/index.php for an example of demand curves.
Of course storage on the grid is important, and needs work, but we could address a HUGE amount of US electrical need without it.
However, for serious microgeneration, at the current time the only halfway practical and affordable renewable energy source is wind, which is vastly cheaper
Wind is very cheap, not halfway practical cheap, but cheap as coal cheap. Hydro is very cheap as in cheaper than coal cheap, and photovoltaics are the cheapest thing going when you don't have a 100 year old subsidized grid infrastructure. Because of that, photovoltaics is the only option in many places in the developing world, because the cost of the lines is 10 times more expensive than the coal plant that make the power. But more importantly, PV is getting exponentially cheaper to manufacture by the decade, and new low cost technologies are just starting to leak out of the lab into a marketplace near you. (However, note that demand has outstripped supply by 30% with 40%/year growth in the market for several years, even if the manufacturing is getting cheaper, it is not currently seen in the market because of high demand).
Bottom line, renewables are the cheapest things going, even without addressing the huge subsidy imbalance going to traditional fuel sources (oil, coal, nuclear, etc)
The energy to make a typical wind turbine is generated by the turbine over a period of six months - it's more like 6 years for solar.
Unless photo voltaic solar becomes vastly cheaper, it's simply a non-contender except for novelty value, even if you live in the desert.
A desert is not needed as solar insolation is relatively uniform throughout the US (and world). The best location in Arizona is only twice as good as the worst place in the Washington rainforest, with the majority of the US within 80% insolation of the best location in Arizona!
Even with today's "high" PV prices, PV is unique in that it is deployable on any rooftop, parking lot, or yard at the point of use. With net-metering or battery storage that means PV competes with retail energy not w
I constantly add type:PDF to my web searches, because I've found the ONLY things really whorthy of reading on the internet are in PDF format - all the HTML is fluff, opinion and marketing.
Besides, until the abismal HTML format is replaced with something a capable as PDF, we'll be reading PDFs.
I've often heard that bigger is better in power generation, so your comment about the move to smaller, more distributed energy was interesting. I know that the price per watt for solar is reasonable in remote locations where it would be necessary to install power lines, but until solar prices go down or grid electricity goes way up it won't be competitive in urban areas.
Yeah, solar is certainly more expensive than coal (wind though is very on par with coal). But my comments were mostly in relation to nuclear. Solar costs are similar to nuclear, if not lower if you count other external costs like nuclear storage. Though interestingly, I've seen new construction were the electric hook-up/meter costs were significant enough to make going solar worth doing (in an efficient house at least, with owner-builder labor).
As I remember, it came from a DOE report. But a quick google search pulled up this:
"As competition returns to the electricity business, the average size of a new power plant fell from 200 megawatts in the mid-eighties to 100 megawatts in 1992 to 21 megawatts in 1998, about the same size as a plant in 1915."
The reason is several fold:
1. Large plants tie up lots of capital for years before producing any revenue. This was one of the main killers of the nuclear industry. Some of the last plants cost hundreds of millions of dollars, took several years to build, and any economic change in the mean time could essentially bankrupt the project before it generated its first watt. The IROI is very bad. Look at solar and wind technologies for example. They come off an mass produced assembly line in small modules. Power plants can be assembled ad-hoc to any size with each module having a 1 day construction turn-around to producing energy and thus income. You don't have to build the whole gigawatt plant before generating any power, you are generating power with every small addition to the plant. Very good IROI. (for geeks: notice similarity to mainframe versus rack of PCs economics)
2. Power production is economically cheap compared to distribution. The closer the generator is to the consumer, the cheaper the electricity. This is huge driver behind why power plant sizes have become smaller. Its not economically cost-effective to have huge nuclear plants in an isolated locations with big power transmission lines to the end-users. This is why photovoltaics are making such inroads in rural electrification. Where you don't have 100 years of government subsidized grid infrastructure, solar is by far cheaper than any option because building the grid is 10 times the cost of building the power plants. I'm guessing it will never go over with people to have nuclear power plants in their basement, but most everyone would think it fine to put photovoltaics on their roof. And yet the cost of both systems are the about same - with one difference, the cost of photovoltaics are coming down!
And here is something really to like: Photovoltaics ARE nuclear power! Only the power plant is at safe distance, guaranteed to always work (for the next few billion years anyway), no maintanance, and wirelessly distributes its energy fairly equally over the earths surface (for example the best location in Arizona is only twice as good as the worst overcast location in Washington. And 80% the US has 70-85% of the solar insolation as the best location in Arizona - pretty equitable!). The wireless transmission energy density is perfectly balenced to be dense enough to be practical, but safe (Solar on an average american roof at 15% efficiency produces 5-6 times the average home electricity consumption - any that doesn't even address newer more efficient technologies or energy efficiency!)
Even if nuclear waste, materials proliferation, operational risk, terrorism targeting could be all addressed (which of course they can't), fundamentally nuclear is MORE expensive that currently available renewable alternatives - despite that fact that the nuclear industry has received 1000 times the public investment over the last 50 years!
Not to mention that nuclear is only feasible as centralized power stations, and just like computing, power production over the last 30 years has proven decentralized power to be more economical and reliable.
Nuclear geeks are like any other geek, they:
1. Like to geek out
2. Have a narrow perspective focused on the TECHNOLOGY.
Nuclear is cool science! Its the ultimate power source, like E=MC^2 dude! Look we invented the ultimate, infallible, total risk-free reactor and supply chain this time... really!
The problem is geeks notoriously bad at the rest of the big picture. Economics, distribution, supply chain security, risk assessment, environmental impact, geopolitical issues, terrorism, etc. etc. etc.
Not that the public is very informed on science of any kind, but the nuclear geeks aren't particularly who I want running things either. After hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidizing this whole science project of an industry for 50 years, without a truly economically competitive thing to show for itself, should the public still believe in there advisement? Especially when there are so many renewable options that are cheaper and have less externalities?
Nope i can confirm the early 90s Honda CRX with the high efficiency engine option got 50+ MPG. My 1995 Geo metro gets 50 MPG, no problem, and that only cost me $4000 and has run great for 120,000 miles without repair.
The problem with hybrids is they aren't designed to be the most efficient. They are generally designed for performance with some efficiency improvement. But an economy car design like the metro or CRX could easily acheive 100+ MPG.
Take the VW Lupo (available only in europe). Its just a TDI, no hybrid and it gets 78 MPG. Add Hybrid to that, and you'd have a *real* efficient car.
Nuclear power is more expensive than renewables because the regulatory regime it operates under *makes it* more expensive.
This just a myth.
The nuclear power industry has benefited from more governmental help and subsidies than all the other energy technologies put together. 95% of the DOE research budget has gone to nuclear, and once you throw in all the subsidies, government sponsored waste manage programs, insurance coverage, loan guarantees, cleanup, etc, etc... the US government by some estimates has dumped $1 trillion into nuclear over the last 50 years. And the amazing part? It is still not economically viable!
Meanwhile, renewables with comparatively smaller government help have been beating the pants off nuclear in the free market. With all of its problems, why oh why should we continue to prop it up? Because its a neat science project? Not a good enough reason.
The regulations involving nuclear waste do indeed require special treatment for material with that kind of activity level, if it comes from certain sources. But if it comes from other sources, the regulations don't apply, as if the *source* of a radioisotope somehow changed its significance or activity level.
Ahh, but they are not the same radioisotopes are they? U238 != highly radioactive U234, U235, plutonium, cesium, ruthenium, iodine, krypton and strontium. While both radioactive they are not the same things. Its like saying 10 volts is as dangerous as 100,000 volts.
But if you think distributing thousands of tons of U-235 and decay products through the earth's atmosphere doesn't kill a few people here or there, I think you're crazy.
If you pulverize 1000s of tons of bricks and sprinkle brick dust around do you think that people will die of radiation? No, of course not. By burning coal you haven't made any more radioactive material that wasn't already there. Fission actually produces radioactive material that previously didn't exist!
With houses made of bricks (21 ppm radioisotopes) and wood (11 ppm), you honestly think an extra ppb, (maybe ppt by the time get to your house) is going change the background radiation? The health effects of nuclear material != linear with exposure, at some point near background levels its drops to zero.
I think the radiological hazards are insignificant compared to the other pollution output.
Right. In fact there is NO radiation hazard, but this is used as a distraction from the many problems with the nuclear power industry.
So burn it energetically, pulverize it down to atomic diameters, inject it into the stratosphere where it won't settle out. Then it would be "diffuse radioactive material" and you wouldn't worry about it.
Coal started out disfuse, burned disfuse, and settles defuse. Not the same thing. Moreover, highly radioactive nuclear waste isn't the same thing as the slow decay uranium 238 in the natural environment. Furthermore I'm skeptical that there is any scientific or economic merit to "inject it into the stratosphere and it won't settle out"
You have a remarkable ability to restate that which is not under dispute, while ignoring salient points that have been raised.
This is a direct response to your assertion: "But claiming that having it diffused it better than having it concentrated in a readily-handleable form is asinine"
The radioactive elements in coal are already difuse by nature throughout all things on the planet - which is why they are in coal. Your statement is the same thing as saying: if I take a solid brick (21 ppm radionuclides, 10 time more than coal), and crush it up into powder, I suddenly have nuclear waste!
The radionuclides in coal are natural low-radiation elements seen in all plants and aminals(where do you think coal come from), and not the highly radioactive isotopes from a reactor.
The quantity in the emissions is at least 1000 times less than the background radiation from soil, rocks, wood, etc.
If you've got ANY competent scientific basis for the radiation in coal is an environmental or health risk, I'd love to see it (ie not lame marketing from the nuclear industry).
Nobody thinks coal is clean or desirable, but radioactive waste in not one of its problems.
If you just burned nuclear waste you would be burning 100% nuclear material. This would not be a good thing. You would have a 100% nuclear plume of highly radioactive materials settling over the downwind land.
Uranium 238 and other natural radionuclides decay very slowly and aren't very radioactive. It is not I-131!
Buring coal with 15 ppb uranium 238 emissions, is NOT the same thing as burning 100% highly radioactive nuclear waste!
OMG he's burning a wood campfire, think of the radioactive waste going into the air, 3 times more than coal!
Give me a break, put your brain back in and quit reading nuclear industry marketing materials.
Yeah, it called a nuclear industry marketing brochure.
Really think about this for 1 millisec, and you will see its peudo-science. Trace nuclear material is NOT the same thing as bulk. My concrete in my house has a few PPM of nuclear material. Not the same thing an concentrated waste.
The last nuclear plants to come on line in the US generated power at 10-15 cents/kWh - and that is not including all of the external costs the industry leaves up to the government to cover
PV, wind, and other renewable are growing 6 times faster in the market compared to nuclear. Twice as much wind capacity is being added every year than nuclear has added in the last 10.
With all of nuclear problems: cost, waste, terrorism, insurance subsidies, security, proliferation, centralization, long construction (read IRR profits)- why bother?
There are cheaper, better, decentrialized, safer solutions. Even photovoltaics generates power as economically, and its cost has been coming down exponentially, even without the trillion dollars in subsidies enjoyed by the nuclear industry over the last 50 years!
This is a bad nuclear industry commerical. It is a puedu-scientific red-herring.
The measurement of the nuclear exposure is proportional to the concentrated quantity of nuclear material. 10 PPM of diffuse radioactive material is not the same thing as having a gram, kilo, or ton sitting in front of you.
10 PPM diluted thousands of times in the air, distrubuted over wide areas, is less background radiation than what is naturally in the soils of many parts of the world. THIS IS NOT THE SAME THING AS CONCENTRATED RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS FROM NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS.
The main issue with nuclear is, who cares? Its more expensive than renewables that don't have the problems of nuclear waste, terrorism, proliferation, distribution from large centralized plants, and low Internal returns of investment due to the long contruction times.
Combined cycle
And your argument is? Do you realize that baseload is underutilized at night? The utilites can't turn off the steam turbines, because it takes too long to get them back up to syncronization. H2 production can be produced and stored, not a issue. Also, a lot of the newer, high efficiency plants are used for peak-loads, making them available for hydrogen product off-peak. Frankly I undershot the efficiency. The best plants going up are 58% efficiency (see last graph). PS. existing coal plants arn't that bad, typically 33-35% efficient. Though in the end the goal is to produce H2 with renewables anyways.
Transmission losses
A reasonable argument, though H2 can be produced on location and piplined. But going with your argument, your efficiency number is off. Average losses are only 7.2%.
Wind power price
I went off memory here, and I was off only slightly. Long-term wind contracts can be had for 3.5 cents/kWh. So hydrogen can be produced for $1.50 a gallon gas equiv - with retail wind power. If a wind company wanted to product H2 directly, it would be even lower.
IC engine Efficiency
If you look in the fuel cell article, it clearly says that IC engine efficiency is 12% in a typical driving cycle. The problem isn't that IC engines can't be more efficient at the peak point, but that cars are driven in the real world all over the RPM spectrum, bringing the efficiency down substantally. Here is another link that claims a marginally higher 16% (depends on the car/driving cycle you use).
Crude oil to gasoline
As in the privious link, the Energy return of investment for US oil is 11, the EROI for gas is 4.4. Divide the two and you get 40% efficiency.
End result
Adding the trasmission losses to the mix, and taking the optpmistic view on average IC engine efficiency you still get 3 Times better with H2.
So comparing systems normalized on crude oil, and assuming the same transmission and friction losses in the vehicle:
* Crude->gas->ic engine->motion is about 4.8% efficient
* Crude->electricity->electrolysis->fuel cell-motion is 21% efficient. 4.3 times better
To give an idea of how bad current vehicles are a 1995 Ford Taurus throughout the driving cycle only requires on average 6.3 kW (150 MPG) in motive energy, but only achieves ~28 MPG. And that is before addressing issues like reduced weight.
But more importantly hydrogen can be generated by solar, wind, or biological processes. Look at the economics. Wind can be purchased in bulk for ~3 cent/kWh. At 36.6 kWh/gallon gasoline equivalent and 85% electrolyzer efficiency: Hydrogen costs $1.10 per gallon of gas equivalent today using renewables . Right now that is sounding rather good. Not that hydrogen is the end all, but it is a good alternative to oil.
Lower pollution = Higher efficiency Higher efficiency = less fuel inputs less fuel inputs = less money wasted Less money wasted = more profit
Of course these efficiency improvements have an initial capital cost. In a short-sighted economy where short term profit is rewarded by investors, these capital improvements look expensive, even if these save *lots* of money down the road.
This is one of the primary reasons Japan kicked our economic butt in the 1980s. Because they responded to the 1970 oil crisis with improved efficiency - we didn't. By the 1980s they were producing 40% more output using the same energy. And it took us years to catch up. So no, signing Kyoto is *not* a disadvantage!
Ironically, GW Bush, in not signing the Kyoto Protocols and the ensuing U.S. laws, taxes, and incentives on energy use - has driven oil demand, thus driving up the cost of oil up to the point that we are saving as much energy because of high fuel costs than if we just signed Kyoto.
Unfortunately, because we didn't sign Kyoto, our money is now going to Saudi Arabia instead of, if we signed Kyoto, to our own federal government in fuel taxes - which could have been funneled towards domestic energy projects such as renewable energy.
Perhaps you are too young or were out of touch at the time, but Al Gore perhaps IS the most important figure in the internet.
Back in the late eighties Gore was going around talking about the importance of the "information superhighway". He was a politician-geek, and saw the potential. At the time ARPANet was nothing more than a network backbone between research universities and defense contractors.
He sponsored bills, gave speeches, and promoted the concept. This was when Java was just a drink, years before the web was invented, and before anyone save a few DARPA geeks even knew what email was.
If you are too young, it maybe impossible to imagine that time. Yet, in the late 80s, the internet wasn't even a twinkle in the CS eye, and if you remember it even took Microsoft off guard. But Gore had the vision, and he was proselytizing the dream. He was a key internet rainmaker, getting the money to make the internet happen.
Geeks, don't like to hear this, but the technology makers are perhaps not as important as the money people. Without the money, technology doesn't get to market and languishes.
Originally, yes. But now most apps depend on control clicking on things instead of right clicking.
That's just the point, Apple's UI guidelines spec that no feature should depend on it being found in the right-click contextual menu. Right clicking is only for efficiency, like command keys. Windows apps often violate this rule, and functionality can only be found after hunting around for a guessed, hidden, contextual menu - that's poor design.
This is a topic that the technogencia Slashdot users will never get. I'd guess 75% of computer users NEVER have used the right mouse button... ever! Heck, how often do even I use it when not using a CAD system? Sure its convenient, but I use the scroll wheel 50x more.
I'm impressed with the design. Of course, it's similar to a design I thought of! The trick is how to design a mouse that accommodates beginners and experts? This is a pretty nice solution.
Smoking
marijuana can affect blood flow in the brain so much that it takes over a month
to return to normal. And for heavy smokers, the effects could last much longer,
a new study suggests.
Marijuana
directly effects the endocrine system causing:
reduced
sperm counts, sperm deformations, shrunken testes size, degenerates the seminiferous
tubules, halves testosterone levels, decreases libido, causes the accumulation
of breast tissue in men, causes anovulation, causes an acute reduction in prolactin,
reduces adrenocortical reserve causing reduced ability to respond to stress, inhibits
growth hormone, and depresses thyroid activity.
Marijuana
inhibits implantation and increases miscarriage rates. Marijuana use during or
after birth may impair reproductive behavior of children when they reach
adulthood.
Marijuana
suppresses the production of luteinizing hormone in rats by stimulating the
production of stress hormones. "It turns out that marijuana is a stressor,
which might explain a lot of its effects on the brain and on people"
Slashdot Mirror
This is one of those grand myths that the public just can't shake. Photovoltaic's have a very good energy return on investment (EROI).
The energy payback peroid for various PV cell types are:
Crystal Silicon: 3.3 years
Multicrystal Si: 0.8 years
CIS: 0.4 years
To put that is perspective of EROI:
Photovoltaics (Si): 60:1 - 10:1 (based on above)
Wind: 60:1
Coal(US average): 9:1
Nuclear (light water): 4:1
Oil (mid-east): 10:1 - 30:1
Oil (US): 3:1 or less
And that is keeping in mind that the lifespan of PV is calculated at 30 years, an arbitrary number picked to equalize it with the life of a coal or nuclear power plant, however are panel warranties are 20-30 years alone. There is no reason to believe that the average lifespan of a PV panel won't be 40-60 years or more.
Vinyl is physically a limited format, and not any amount of romanticism is going to change that.
I've used plenty of versioning systems for code, but they aren't functional nor friendly enough to use as a general purpose solution. So my code is nicely versioned, but what about the rest of my life?
Like the demonstrator said 4% of people actually do scheduled backups. Why? "It's the interface stupid!"
Most manufacturers Guarantee their panels for 20-30 years, so that is minimum life. Of course on average they will last longer. Longer than most power plants, and yes, virtually maintenance free.
In fact, the average electricity demand on the grid typically follows the sun cycles, especially in summer when electricity use peaks. The peak grid loads are typically ~40% higher at midday than the nighttime minimum. Even in the winter, when the day peaking is less pronounced (and shifted towards morning/evening), solar could address as much as 35-40% the national electricity demand even without storage. See http://currentenergy.lbl.gov/pjm/index.php for an example of demand curves.
Of course storage on the grid is important, and needs work, but we could address a HUGE amount of US electrical need without it.
Wind is very cheap, not halfway practical cheap, but cheap as coal cheap. Hydro is very cheap as in cheaper than coal cheap, and photovoltaics are the cheapest thing going when you don't have a 100 year old subsidized grid infrastructure. Because of that, photovoltaics is the only option in many places in the developing world, because the cost of the lines is 10 times more expensive than the coal plant that make the power. But more importantly, PV is getting exponentially cheaper to manufacture by the decade, and new low cost technologies are just starting to leak out of the lab into a marketplace near you. (However, note that demand has outstripped supply by 30% with 40%/year growth in the market for several years, even if the manufacturing is getting cheaper, it is not currently seen in the market because of high demand).
Bottom line, renewables are the cheapest things going, even without addressing the huge subsidy imbalance going to traditional fuel sources (oil, coal, nuclear, etc)
Photovoltaics cells have an energy pay-back period ranging from 3 months for newer technologies (e.g. CIS, CdTe) to 3 years for traditional crystalline silicon. Even mainstream multi-crystal silicon has a payback period of 0.8 years. And these numbers don't even address the newer, and lower embodied energy low cost multi-junction concentrators or low temp printable cells.
So when you look at a 30 year life span, that gives PV an Energy return on investment of 10:1 for Crystal Si, 37:1 for multi-Crystal Si, and 100:1 with CIS. Compare that to typical fuels: Coal (9:1), nuclear (4:1), US oil (3:1), Mid-east oil (10:1-30:1).
A desert is not needed as solar insolation is relatively uniform throughout the US (and world). The best location in Arizona is only twice as good as the worst place in the Washington rainforest, with the majority of the US within 80% insolation of the best location in Arizona!
Even with today's "high" PV prices, PV is unique in that it is deployable on any rooftop, parking lot, or yard at the point of use. With net-metering or battery storage that means PV competes with retail energy not w
Besides, until the abismal HTML format is replaced with something a capable as PDF, we'll be reading PDFs.
"As competition returns to the electricity business, the average size of a new power plant fell from 200 megawatts in the mid-eighties to 100 megawatts in 1992 to 21 megawatts in 1998, about the same size as a plant in 1915."
The reason is several fold:
1. Large plants tie up lots of capital for years before producing any revenue. This was one of the main killers of the nuclear industry. Some of the last plants cost hundreds of millions of dollars, took several years to build, and any economic change in the mean time could essentially bankrupt the project before it generated its first watt. The IROI is very bad. Look at solar and wind technologies for example. They come off an mass produced assembly line in small modules. Power plants can be assembled ad-hoc to any size with each module having a 1 day construction turn-around to producing energy and thus income. You don't have to build the whole gigawatt plant before generating any power, you are generating power with every small addition to the plant. Very good IROI. (for geeks: notice similarity to mainframe versus rack of PCs economics)
2. Power production is economically cheap compared to distribution. The closer the generator is to the consumer, the cheaper the electricity. This is huge driver behind why power plant sizes have become smaller. Its not economically cost-effective to have huge nuclear plants in an isolated locations with big power transmission lines to the end-users. This is why photovoltaics are making such inroads in rural electrification. Where you don't have 100 years of government subsidized grid infrastructure, solar is by far cheaper than any option because building the grid is 10 times the cost of building the power plants. I'm guessing it will never go over with people to have nuclear power plants in their basement, but most everyone would think it fine to put photovoltaics on their roof. And yet the cost of both systems are the about same - with one difference, the cost of photovoltaics are coming down!
And here is something really to like:
Photovoltaics ARE nuclear power! Only the power plant is at safe distance, guaranteed to always work (for the next few billion years anyway), no maintanance, and wirelessly distributes its energy fairly equally over the earths surface (for example the best location in Arizona is only twice as good as the worst overcast location in Washington. And 80% the US has 70-85% of the solar insolation as the best location in Arizona - pretty equitable!). The wireless transmission energy density is perfectly balenced to be dense enough to be practical, but safe (Solar on an average american roof at 15% efficiency produces 5-6 times the average home electricity consumption - any that doesn't even address newer more efficient technologies or energy efficiency!)
Nuclear is irrelevant.
Even if nuclear waste, materials proliferation, operational risk, terrorism targeting could be all addressed (which of course they can't), fundamentally nuclear is MORE expensive that currently available renewable alternatives - despite that fact that the nuclear industry has received 1000 times the public investment over the last 50 years!
Not to mention that nuclear is only feasible as centralized power stations, and just like computing, power production over the last 30 years has proven decentralized power to be more economical and reliable.
Nuclear geeks are like any other geek, they: 1. Like to geek out 2. Have a narrow perspective focused on the TECHNOLOGY. Nuclear is cool science! Its the ultimate power source, like E=MC^2 dude! Look we invented the ultimate, infallible, total risk-free reactor and supply chain this time... really! The problem is geeks notoriously bad at the rest of the big picture. Economics, distribution, supply chain security, risk assessment, environmental impact, geopolitical issues, terrorism, etc. etc. etc. Not that the public is very informed on science of any kind, but the nuclear geeks aren't particularly who I want running things either. After hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidizing this whole science project of an industry for 50 years, without a truly economically competitive thing to show for itself, should the public still believe in there advisement? Especially when there are so many renewable options that are cheaper and have less externalities?
Though there are diesels that do shut-off at idle.
For example the VW Lupo. 78 MPG!
Nope i can confirm the early 90s Honda CRX with the high efficiency engine option got 50+ MPG. My 1995 Geo metro gets 50 MPG, no problem, and that only cost me $4000 and has run great for 120,000 miles without repair. The problem with hybrids is they aren't designed to be the most efficient. They are generally designed for performance with some efficiency improvement. But an economy car design like the metro or CRX could easily acheive 100+ MPG. Take the VW Lupo (available only in europe). Its just a TDI, no hybrid and it gets 78 MPG. Add Hybrid to that, and you'd have a *real* efficient car.
The nuclear power industry has benefited from more governmental help and subsidies than all the other energy technologies put together. 95% of the DOE research budget has gone to nuclear, and once you throw in all the subsidies, government sponsored waste manage programs, insurance coverage, loan guarantees, cleanup, etc, etc... the US government by some estimates has dumped $1 trillion into nuclear over the last 50 years. And the amazing part? It is still not economically viable!
Meanwhile, renewables with comparatively smaller government help have been beating the pants off nuclear in the free market. With all of its problems, why oh why should we continue to prop it up? Because its a neat science project? Not a good enough reason.
With houses made of bricks (21 ppm radioisotopes) and wood (11 ppm), you honestly think an extra ppb, (maybe ppt by the time get to your house) is going change the background radiation? The health effects of nuclear material != linear with exposure, at some point near background levels its drops to zero.
Right. In fact there is NO radiation hazard, but this is used as a distraction from the many problems with the nuclear power industry.- The radioactive elements in coal are already difuse by nature throughout all things on the planet - which is why they are in coal. Your statement is the same thing as saying: if I take a solid brick (21 ppm radionuclides, 10 time more than coal), and crush it up into powder, I suddenly have nuclear waste!
- The radionuclides in coal are natural low-radiation elements seen in all plants and aminals(where do you think coal come from), and not the highly radioactive isotopes from a reactor.
- The quantity in the emissions is at least 1000 times less than the background radiation from soil, rocks, wood, etc.
If you've got ANY competent scientific basis for the radiation in coal is an environmental or health risk, I'd love to see it (ie not lame marketing from the nuclear industry).Nobody thinks coal is clean or desirable, but radioactive waste in not one of its problems.
If you just burned nuclear waste you would be burning 100% nuclear material. This would not be a good thing. You would have a 100% nuclear plume of highly radioactive materials settling over the downwind land.
Think about this for one second.
Buring coal with 15 ppb uranium 238 emissions, is NOT the same thing as burning 100% highly radioactive nuclear waste!
OMG he's burning a wood campfire, think of the radioactive waste going into the air, 3 times more than coal!
Give me a break, put your brain back in and quit reading nuclear industry marketing materials.
Yeah, it called a nuclear industry marketing brochure. Really think about this for 1 millisec, and you will see its peudo-science. Trace nuclear material is NOT the same thing as bulk. My concrete in my house has a few PPM of nuclear material. Not the same thing an concentrated waste.
The last nuclear plants to come on line in the US generated power at 10-15 cents/kWh - and that is not including all of the external costs the industry leaves up to the government to cover
PV, wind, and other renewable are growing 6 times faster in the market compared to nuclear. Twice as much wind capacity is being added every year than nuclear has added in the last 10.
With all of nuclear problems: cost, waste, terrorism, insurance subsidies, security, proliferation, centralization, long construction (read IRR profits)- why bother?
There are cheaper, better, decentrialized, safer solutions. Even photovoltaics generates power as economically, and its cost has been coming down exponentially, even without the trillion dollars in subsidies enjoyed by the nuclear industry over the last 50 years!
This is a bad nuclear industry commerical. It is a puedu-scientific red-herring.
The measurement of the nuclear exposure is proportional to the concentrated quantity of nuclear material. 10 PPM of diffuse radioactive material is not the same thing as having a gram, kilo, or ton sitting in front of you.
10 PPM diluted thousands of times in the air, distrubuted over wide areas, is less background radiation than what is naturally in the soils of many parts of the world. THIS IS NOT THE SAME THING AS CONCENTRATED RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS FROM NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS.
The main issue with nuclear is, who cares? Its more expensive than renewables that don't have the problems of nuclear waste, terrorism, proliferation, distribution from large centralized plants, and low Internal returns of investment due to the long contruction times.
And your argument is? Do you realize that baseload is underutilized at night? The utilites can't turn off the steam turbines, because it takes too long to get them back up to syncronization. H2 production can be produced and stored, not a issue. Also, a lot of the newer, high efficiency plants are used for peak-loads, making them available for hydrogen product off-peak. Frankly I undershot the efficiency. The best plants going up are 58% efficiency (see last graph). PS. existing coal plants arn't that bad, typically 33-35% efficient. Though in the end the goal is to produce H2 with renewables anyways.
Transmission losses
A reasonable argument, though H2 can be produced on location and piplined. But going with your argument, your efficiency number is off. Average losses are only 7.2%.
Wind power price
I went off memory here, and I was off only slightly. Long-term wind contracts can be had for 3.5 cents/kWh. So hydrogen can be produced for $1.50 a gallon gas equiv - with retail wind power. If a wind company wanted to product H2 directly, it would be even lower.
IC engine Efficiency If you look in the fuel cell article, it clearly says that IC engine efficiency is 12% in a typical driving cycle. The problem isn't that IC engines can't be more efficient at the peak point, but that cars are driven in the real world all over the RPM spectrum, bringing the efficiency down substantally. Here is another link that claims a marginally higher 16% (depends on the car/driving cycle you use).
Crude oil to gasoline
As in the privious link, the Energy return of investment for US oil is 11, the EROI for gas is 4.4. Divide the two and you get 40% efficiency.
End result
Adding the trasmission losses to the mix, and taking the optpmistic view on average IC engine efficiency you still get 3 Times better with H2.
Here are some real numbers:
* 55% efficiency of fuel->electric in combined cycle plant (powered by crude or gas)
* 85% efficiency of electrolysis
* 50% efficiency of a PEM fuel cell
* ~90% efficiency of an electric controller/motor
* 12% efficiency of an IC engine in an average drive cycle
* 40% efficiency of crude oil->gasoline
So comparing systems normalized on crude oil, and assuming the same transmission and friction losses in the vehicle:
* Crude->gas->ic engine->motion is about 4.8% efficient
* Crude->electricity->electrolysis->fuel cell-motion is 21% efficient. 4.3 times better
To give an idea of how bad current vehicles are a 1995 Ford Taurus throughout the driving cycle only requires on average 6.3 kW (150 MPG) in motive energy, but only achieves ~28 MPG. And that is before addressing issues like reduced weight.
But more importantly hydrogen can be generated by solar, wind, or biological processes. Look at the economics. Wind can be purchased in bulk for ~3 cent/kWh. At 36.6 kWh/gallon gasoline equivalent and 85% electrolyzer efficiency: Hydrogen costs $1.10 per gallon of gas equivalent today using renewables . Right now that is sounding rather good. Not that hydrogen is the end all, but it is a good alternative to oil.
You got it all wrong.
Lower pollution = Higher efficiency
Higher efficiency = less fuel inputs
less fuel inputs = less money wasted
Less money wasted = more profit
Of course these efficiency improvements have an initial capital cost. In a short-sighted economy where short term profit is rewarded by investors, these capital improvements look expensive, even if these save *lots* of money down the road.
This is one of the primary reasons Japan kicked our economic butt in the 1980s. Because they responded to the 1970 oil crisis with improved efficiency - we didn't. By the 1980s they were producing 40% more output using the same energy. And it took us years to catch up. So no, signing Kyoto is *not* a disadvantage!
Ironically, GW Bush, in not signing the Kyoto Protocols and the ensuing U.S. laws, taxes, and incentives on energy use - has driven oil demand, thus driving up the cost of oil up to the point that we are saving as much energy because of high fuel costs than if we just signed Kyoto.
Unfortunately, because we didn't sign Kyoto, our money is now going to Saudi Arabia instead of, if we signed Kyoto, to our own federal government in fuel taxes - which could have been funneled towards domestic energy projects such as renewable energy.
Dumb move.
Perhaps you are too young or were out of touch at the time, but Al Gore perhaps IS the most important figure in the internet.
Back in the late eighties Gore was going around talking about the importance of the "information superhighway". He was a politician-geek, and saw the potential. At the time ARPANet was nothing more than a network backbone between research universities and defense contractors.
He sponsored bills, gave speeches, and promoted the concept. This was when Java was just a drink, years before the web was invented, and before anyone save a few DARPA geeks even knew what email was.
If you are too young, it maybe impossible to imagine that time. Yet, in the late 80s, the internet wasn't even a twinkle in the CS eye, and if you remember it even took Microsoft off guard. But Gore had the vision, and he was proselytizing the dream. He was a key internet rainmaker, getting the money to make the internet happen.
Geeks, don't like to hear this, but the technology makers are perhaps not as important as the money people. Without the money, technology doesn't get to market and languishes.
This is a topic that the technogencia Slashdot users will never get. I'd guess 75% of computer users NEVER have used the right mouse button... ever! Heck, how often do even I use it when not using a CAD system? Sure its convenient, but I use the scroll wheel 50x more.
I'm impressed with the design. Of course, it's similar to a design I thought of! The trick is how to design a mouse that accommodates beginners and experts? This is a pretty nice solution.
Uh, wrong. There is good and mounting evidence.
Mental Illness
Cannabis link to mental illness strenghtened
The link between regular cannabis use and later depression and schizophrenia has been significantly strengthened by three new studies.
Marijuana Use Increases Risk of psychiatric illness Cannabis link to depression
This study suggests that girls who use cannabis as teenagers are more likely to develop anxiety or depressive disorders.
Psychotic symptoms more likely with cannabis
Marijuana in adolescence and early adulthood increases the likelihood of psychotic symptoms in later life.
Study suggests marijuana abuse increses risk of depression
Subjects diagnosed with cannabis abuse at the start of the study were four times more likely to experience depressive symptoms.
Marijuana makes blood rush to the head
Smoking marijuana can affect blood flow in the brain so much that it takes over a month to return to normal. And for heavy smokers, the effects could last much longer, a new study suggests.
Child Development
Marijuana use in pregnancy damages kids learning
Children born to mothers who use marijuana during pregnancy may suffer a host of lasting mental defects.
Dope-smoking dads double risk of cot death (SIDS)
Dope-smoking dads double the risk of cot death, a survey in California has revealed.
Maternal marijuana use during lactation and infant development at ...
THC concentrates in the mother's milk and is absorbed and metabolized by the nursing infant.
Reproductive effects
The Effects of Marijuana on the Endocrine System
Marijuana directly effects the endocrine system causing:
reduced sperm counts, sperm deformations, shrunken testes size, degenerates the seminiferous tubules, halves testosterone levels, decreases libido, causes the accumulation of breast tissue in men, causes anovulation, causes an acute reduction in prolactin, reduces adrenocortical reserve causing reduced ability to respond to stress, inhibits growth hormone, and depresses thyroid activity.
Cannabis, cannabinoids and reproduction
Marijuana inhibits implantation and increases miscarriage rates. Marijuana use during or after birth may impair reproductive behavior of children when they reach adulthood.
Study finds marijuana use in rats stops reporduction Research Survey: Common Ancestors
Marijuana suppresses the production of luteinizing hormone in rats by stimulating the production of stress hormones. "It turns out that marijuana is a stressor, which might explain a lot of its effects on the brain and on people"
Marijuana firmly linked to infertility
Scientific American Tue, 12 Dec 2000
General Heal