That is the sad part. We say that we want one thing, while our subsidies are helping large corps with large lobbyists, while paying very little to what would help America. Compound that with 1/2 of the money of the AE world going to Ethanol. That was a payout to farmers by neo-cons in HOPES that they would get votes. Obama needs to show some backbone and change this.
My suggestion has been, and will remain, that Obama/Congress need to change these subsidies to not favor any one company or arena, but to take care of America's security needs. Otherwise, if not for security reasons, then I want ALL subsidies to be removed. From a security POV, then we should be addressing issues;
Imports which ties us to large amount of cash outlays, in particular, to nations that are funding terrorism (iran and venezuela are but two).
Emissions which we all know DO have an impact. For example, Mercury is poisoning the planet as well as America. The slag that is removed is piling up and not taken care of. And all that ignores the CO2 issue.
Diversity of our energy matrix, so that not any one item can impact us.
As such, it should be that subsidies should be High initially and then dropped over time. It should address the above, without congress/pres. picking winners. The subsidies will drop for any arena that reaches 25% of total energy. i.e. once nuclear gets to say 25% of our total energy output, then all of these subsidies for it must stop.
A subsidy for energy that is convertible to electricity and is emissions free and no import of fuel.
A further subsidy of subsidy one that is base-load capable i.e. 24x7 available.
A subsidy for energy storage, convertible to electricity. This is distinct from the second subsidy, in that this is storage only and is not be used in conjunction with it.
IFF we do the above, will we see changes in America. In particular, we will see Geo-thermal and Solar Thermal additions to Coal/Gas plants be added quickly. The 2'nd item would drop emissions and fossil fuel use up to 30% for West America, and overall up to 15% for America. All within 5-10 years. Geo-thermal would also become prevalent quickly. Keep in mind that the faster that it is put in, the higher the subsidy.
Finally, the energy storage makes it possible not just AE be better, but it also allows for large power companies to count on larger nuke systems. In addition, it would create a new breed of companies and investments; companies that store energy at night and sell it back during high loads. In addition, it would help move cars to ultra-caps and push ultra-cap R&D. Why is that? Because batteries are limited in number of charges (100's to UNDER 10K total charges). Ultra-caps are 100Ks to 10's of millions of charges. As such, you convert a car into a money maker for home owners.
The SMART thing is for this to accept SURPLUS electricity and convert it to heat. IOW, have the salts serve as a reserve of extra electricity, so that it can be converted back when needed. Why do this? Because it will serve as a nice buffer of energy. In addition, it allows more of the solar power to go to day-time energy, rather than being stored for nighttime. Keep in mind that there is plenty of energy at night by current plants.
America R&D nearly all of the nuclear power plant types, and nearly all of the current AE being sought out. In fact, this molten salt approach was pushed by Boeing in the 90's, but W's admin shot it down. Check out my Journal. And yet, we said that Coal plants made all of them irrelevant.
The problem that America (and the west) has, is that far too many ppl wants us to depend on EXACTLY ONE THING. Well, that is the attitude that gets us in trouble. Instead, our leaders need to push a MATRIX of energy. If we have Fossil fuel accounting for about.33% of our energy today, then we would have little issue with killing it to clean up our air. BUT, when fossil fuel provides about 85-90% of your energy (in China, fossil fuel provides well over 95-99% of their energy), well, it is hard to walk away from it.
America needs to get rid of politicians that think like you. Instead, we need pols that put the needs of the nations ahead of their party, their religion, or their commercial buddies.
Actually, I was here in the early days. I did not create a login because I hated that groups were spamming. Basically, once I saw that/. was for real, then and only then did I create a login. And yes, it was a long time. I think I can even find several of my early AC postings from about early '98.
When/. first started, this article would have had 100-300 responses. The same is true of any OS type article. Yet, now it is non-intellectual articles such as facebook, pot, and job's statements, that garner the big discussions. It looks like the techs have left the building.
Well, the reasoning is that destroyers and cruisers are allowed to be more exposed to the enemies. That is that they are on the outer peripery in a pack. Personally, I am amazed that we killed all of them. It makes good sense to have some around to lower our reliance on oil, but....
You should have read the main article, or have some knowledge BEFORE speaking. In the article, they will tell you about B&W. They are the ones making the reactors for our subs. Now, they are going to make them for shore. How economical are they? Well, according to the NAVY, it is many times cheaper to have the nuke than a diesel. The reason is that a diesel requires taking fuel to the sub. In addition, more space is taken up by the fuel than by the reactor. Finally, with diesel, you can not go on extend voyages, which is exactly what a boomer needs during crisis times. For example, right now, we have parked at least 1 boomer off of North Korea's coastline. ANd I am sure that we have another in the China sea. Basically, we watch NK and China constantly. But it would be difficult to do this with a diesel, since it would have to come up for air. With a nuke, it goes out and stays out, under the water.
Doc, you are way off-line here. The reason why America is in trouble is because it became dependent on Fossil Fuel, mostly imported. Now, I am a HUGE fan of geo-thermal, BUT, the last thing that I want is to be fully dependent on it, or any singular form of energy. Instead, we need a matrix of energy. Ideally, each energy stream will provide no more than 1/3 of our total energy.
Right now, Nukes provide about 18% of our electricity. As such, it provides less than 10% of total energy. Ideally, we would bring it up to at least 20% of our total energy. At the same time, we should bring geo-thermal up to 20% as quickly as possible. Sadly, it will not happen. However, it is the smartest thing that we can do.
Finally, doc, I would also argue that we should build more energy storage as well as solar thermal addition to current fossil fuel plants. The storage would enable nighttime collection of electricity esp. from geo-thermal, wind, nukes, etc and then add to the matrix during the daytime.
Seriously, the majority of America's power does not come from large plants, but from small plants (50-200 mgwatt) that were built about 70-40 years ago. Many of the coal plants are Ancient and either need to be shut down or re-built. Interestingly, many of these are on a lot of land. Where life gets better is that the water required to run a coal plant is more than many nuke plants. Also, all the power lines have come into these areas. It is possible to put in nuke plants that are 50% or even 100% bigger in the same space, using either the same, or slightly more water, and be a plug-in.
Of course, nimby will still be an issue, but most ppl will prefer a nuke over a coal.
Yes, they do. 100% CLEAN and specially made. Have ANY imperfections on them and the 32 MW beam will blow them to pieces in short order. Now, how many mirrors are on a boat or a plane have 100% cleanliness (not a spec of dust on them) and have ZERO imperfections in them?
The problem with water is that it requires LARGE area to hold the water. In addition, it requires HEIGHT. As such, it is limited to relatively little area of the US (in fact of the world). Instead, if we were to develop thermal storage units and push these, then they could be sold and installed all over the USA (and world). Make the thermal units run at around.5 MW to 5 MW in size. That would allow a new form of a business unit: electrical storage. The interesting part of the thermal storage is that it can be supplemented with solar thermal to add heat to it. Another place for this next to any business that dumps loads of heat. That way, you can pre-heat the oil/salt.
As I have said in several other posts, population and/or economic output are VERY bad metrics on this. Instead, it should be tied ONLY to the size of the land. Every country gets the same amount of emissions on a per km^2. That way every nation can decide how to dole out the emissions. If they want more economic output, then lower your per capita emissions. Or plant more trees to absorb the emissions. By going with this approach, it is by far the fairest and easiest means of dealing with CO2.
Doing emissions by nation or by population is worthless. As I pointed out above, we really need to be on emissions predicated on land mass (which is relatively invariant and easy to monitor). Doing per capitia will lead to nations lying about capita, as well as other issues. Also by giving every nation the right to emit the same amount of CO2 on a LAND MASS, then allows them to figure that if they are undergoing a population boom, that they have to be more efficient. Right now, China's emissions is climbing on a per capita means and is expected to continue growing MUCH faster even if China slows down to 5% growth.
Actually, it is only in CO2 emissions (and 2 others, but I have forgotten which they were). In the other emissions such as Mercury, lead, etc, CHina is one of the tops in per capita pollution in so many arenas. Just had a friend of mine get back from CHina where they were doing air R&D. They knew that it was going to be bad, but it was far worse then they expected. She was telling me that anywhere east and/or south were total disasters.
Now, as to the garbage about doing CO2 emissions based on a per capitia, that has to be about the WORST metrics that I have ever seen. The reason is that emissions come from not just ppl, but economics and the environment. In addition, nations are going to lie about how many ppl they have there. They will scream that they are loaded with illegals, and have ppl long dead being counted just to get the permitted amount. In addition, it rewards nations who decide to breed like rabbits, while ignoring those that have not.
A saner approach is to do emissions based on emissions PER KM^2. By doing it this way, then we can state that each nation has X amounts of emission. Now, if you have one person living in the middle of a desert and they emit at the level of 10, that is not a big deal. OTH, if you have 100 ppl living in the space of 10, then you must learn to control your pollutions. Just because you have high population density does not mean that you have the right to take from others.
I have done some calculations based on km^2, and it turns out that America is actually not too bad. We are in the middle. It becomes EU, and other nations that are suddenly large co2 emitters. In addition, back in 2004, CHina was in the middle, but is quickly climbing to the top. Interestingly, nearly all of the underdeveloped countries are at the bottom. 3 developed nations were less than America (Russia, Canada, and Australia). I really need to get these into wiki since ppl need to start thinking sanely.
Slashdot Mirror
My suggestion has been, and will remain, that Obama/Congress need to change these subsidies to not favor any one company or arena, but to take care of America's security needs. Otherwise, if not for security reasons, then I want ALL subsidies to be removed. From a security POV, then we should be addressing issues;
As such, it should be that subsidies should be High initially and then dropped over time. It should address the above, without congress/pres. picking winners. The subsidies will drop for any arena that reaches 25% of total energy. i.e. once nuclear gets to say 25% of our total energy output, then all of these subsidies for it must stop.
IFF we do the above, will we see changes in America. In particular, we will see Geo-thermal and Solar Thermal additions to Coal/Gas plants be added quickly. The 2'nd item would drop emissions and fossil fuel use up to 30% for West America, and overall up to 15% for America. All within 5-10 years. Geo-thermal would also become prevalent quickly. Keep in mind that the faster that it is put in, the higher the subsidy.
Finally, the energy storage makes it possible not just AE be better, but it also allows for large power companies to count on larger nuke systems. In addition, it would create a new breed of companies and investments; companies that store energy at night and sell it back during high loads. In addition, it would help move cars to ultra-caps and push ultra-cap R&D. Why is that? Because batteries are limited in number of charges (100's to UNDER 10K total charges). Ultra-caps are 100Ks to 10's of millions of charges. As such, you convert a car into a money maker for home owners.
you have the same issue that competitors to e-bay have; Name,
They no long want to sell you a computer with ubuntu. So, buy it elsewhere.
The SMART thing is for this to accept SURPLUS electricity and convert it to heat. IOW, have the salts serve as a reserve of extra electricity, so that it can be converted back when needed. Why do this? Because it will serve as a nice buffer of energy. In addition, it allows more of the solar power to go to day-time energy, rather than being stored for nighttime. Keep in mind that there is plenty of energy at night by current plants.
America R&D nearly all of the nuclear power plant types, and nearly all of the current AE being sought out. In fact, this molten salt approach was pushed by Boeing in the 90's, but W's admin shot it down. Check out my Journal. And yet, we said that Coal plants made all of them irrelevant.
.33% of our energy today, then we would have little issue with killing it to clean up our air. BUT, when fossil fuel provides about 85-90% of your energy (in China, fossil fuel provides well over 95-99% of their energy), well, it is hard to walk away from it.
The problem that America (and the west) has, is that far too many ppl wants us to depend on EXACTLY ONE THING. Well, that is the attitude that gets us in trouble. Instead, our leaders need to push a MATRIX of energy. If we have Fossil fuel accounting for about
America needs to get rid of politicians that think like you. Instead, we need pols that put the needs of the nations ahead of their party, their religion, or their commercial buddies.
Here in Colorado we pay .07/Kwh at its peak. At nightime, it is .03. The lowest state has something like .03/kw (or was it .027) daytime rate.
btw, IIRC, that sign-up was before 9-11. In fact, I think that it was pre-2000.
In China they do. However, Japan also limits their tech flowing into China except what is required to produce something.
Actually, I was here in the early days. I did not create a login because I hated that groups were spamming. Basically, once I saw that /. was for real, then and only then did I create a login. And yes, it was a long time. I think I can even find several of my early AC postings from about early '98.
Hmmm. WHich one is the top seat on that? You are on your back the entire time except in space. Once there, which way is top?
When /. first started, this article would have had 100-300 responses. The same is true of any OS type article. Yet, now it is non-intellectual articles such as facebook, pot, and job's statements, that garner the big discussions. It looks like the techs have left the building.
Well, the reasoning is that destroyers and cruisers are allowed to be more exposed to the enemies. That is that they are on the outer peripery in a pack. Personally, I am amazed that we killed all of them. It makes good sense to have some around to lower our reliance on oil, but ....
You should have read the main article, or have some knowledge BEFORE speaking. In the article, they will tell you about B&W. They are the ones making the reactors for our subs. Now, they are going to make them for shore. How economical are they? Well, according to the NAVY, it is many times cheaper to have the nuke than a diesel. The reason is that a diesel requires taking fuel to the sub. In addition, more space is taken up by the fuel than by the reactor. Finally, with diesel, you can not go on extend voyages, which is exactly what a boomer needs during crisis times. For example, right now, we have parked at least 1 boomer off of North Korea's coastline. ANd I am sure that we have another in the China sea. Basically, we watch NK and China constantly. But it would be difficult to do this with a diesel, since it would have to come up for air. With a nuke, it goes out and stays out, under the water.
Doc, you are way off-line here. The reason why America is in trouble is because it became dependent on Fossil Fuel, mostly imported. Now, I am a HUGE fan of geo-thermal, BUT, the last thing that I want is to be fully dependent on it, or any singular form of energy. Instead, we need a matrix of energy. Ideally, each energy stream will provide no more than 1/3 of our total energy.
Right now, Nukes provide about 18% of our electricity. As such, it provides less than 10% of total energy. Ideally, we would bring it up to at least 20% of our total energy. At the same time, we should bring geo-thermal up to 20% as quickly as possible. Sadly, it will not happen. However, it is the smartest thing that we can do.
Finally, doc, I would also argue that we should build more energy storage as well as solar thermal addition to current fossil fuel plants. The storage would enable nighttime collection of electricity esp. from geo-thermal, wind, nukes, etc and then add to the matrix during the daytime.
I am guessing that raytheon has figured a way around that. Perhaps an enclosure that rotates with multiple lens; think view master.
Seriously, the majority of America's power does not come from large plants, but from small plants (50-200 mgwatt) that were built about 70-40 years ago. Many of the coal plants are Ancient and either need to be shut down or re-built. Interestingly, many of these are on a lot of land. Where life gets better is that the water required to run a coal plant is more than many nuke plants. Also, all the power lines have come into these areas. It is possible to put in nuke plants that are 50% or even 100% bigger in the same space, using either the same, or slightly more water, and be a plug-in.
Of course, nimby will still be an issue, but most ppl will prefer a nuke over a coal.
Yes, they do. 100% CLEAN and specially made. Have ANY imperfections on them and the 32 MW beam will blow them to pieces in short order. Now, how many mirrors are on a boat or a plane have 100% cleanliness (not a spec of dust on them) and have ZERO imperfections in them?
LOL. NOBODY stores air in tanks for this. It is stored in the ground. Typically in deep salt caverns. And the size are monster.
The problem with water is that it requires LARGE area to hold the water. In addition, it requires HEIGHT. As such, it is limited to relatively little area of the US (in fact of the world). Instead, if we were to develop thermal storage units and push these, then they could be sold and installed all over the USA (and world). Make the thermal units run at around .5 MW to 5 MW in size. That would allow a new form of a business unit: electrical storage. The interesting part of the thermal storage is that it can be supplemented with solar thermal to add heat to it. Another place for this next to any business that dumps loads of heat. That way, you can pre-heat the oil/salt.
Likewise, pushing ultra-caps makes good sense.
Yeah, and it is not like Oregon has mountains or water.
Even on mercury they are by far the worlds largest polluter. A recent comprehensive study of anthropogenic mercury emissions in China (Streets et al., 2005) yielded a figure of 536 t of mercury for the year 1999 with coal combustion (all types) accounting for 38% of the total.
Oth, Mercury emissions continued to fall in the decade of the 1990s. In 1993, U.S. yearly emissions totaled about 242 tons. By the end of the decade, emissions had declined to less than 160 tons per year. And we have continued our downward emissions due to putting in more and more controls. China has treaties in which they are required to have the controls installed (with japan and koreas), but have never even turned them on some plants(not required in the treaties). WHen a friend of mine went to China to study air pollution she was telling me that all of the plants (over 100) that they checked, NONE had controls turned on. Several that they saw closely she said were looked brand new, as in nothing had ever been routed through them (both plants had bypasses that were being used).
As I have said in several other posts, population and/or economic output are VERY bad metrics on this. Instead, it should be tied ONLY to the size of the land. Every country gets the same amount of emissions on a per km^2. That way every nation can decide how to dole out the emissions. If they want more economic output, then lower your per capita emissions. Or plant more trees to absorb the emissions. By going with this approach, it is by far the fairest and easiest means of dealing with CO2.
Exactly the issue. Unless you have a first strike weapon that takes out sats and launches. THen they are VERY useful.
The fact that China will continue their space based weapons, and more importantly, they will continue to purposely pollute space with their tests.
Doing emissions by nation or by population is worthless. As I pointed out above, we really need to be on emissions predicated on land mass (which is relatively invariant and easy to monitor). Doing per capitia will lead to nations lying about capita, as well as other issues. Also by giving every nation the right to emit the same amount of CO2 on a LAND MASS, then allows them to figure that if they are undergoing a population boom, that they have to be more efficient. Right now, China's emissions is climbing on a per capita means and is expected to continue growing MUCH faster even if China slows down to 5% growth.
Actually, it is only in CO2 emissions (and 2 others, but I have forgotten which they were). In the other emissions such as Mercury, lead, etc, CHina is one of the tops in per capita pollution in so many arenas. Just had a friend of mine get back from CHina where they were doing air R&D. They knew that it was going to be bad, but it was far worse then they expected. She was telling me that anywhere east and/or south were total disasters.
Now, as to the garbage about doing CO2 emissions based on a per capitia, that has to be about the WORST metrics that I have ever seen. The reason is that emissions come from not just ppl, but economics and the environment. In addition, nations are going to lie about how many ppl they have there. They will scream that they are loaded with illegals, and have ppl long dead being counted just to get the permitted amount. In addition, it rewards nations who decide to breed like rabbits, while ignoring those that have not.
A saner approach is to do emissions based on emissions PER KM^2. By doing it this way, then we can state that each nation has X amounts of emission. Now, if you have one person living in the middle of a desert and they emit at the level of 10, that is not a big deal. OTH, if you have 100 ppl living in the space of 10, then you must learn to control your pollutions. Just because you have high population density does not mean that you have the right to take from others.
I have done some calculations based on km^2, and it turns out that America is actually not too bad. We are in the middle. It becomes EU, and other nations that are suddenly large co2 emitters. In addition, back in 2004, CHina was in the middle, but is quickly climbing to the top. Interestingly, nearly all of the underdeveloped countries are at the bottom. 3 developed nations were less than America (Russia, Canada, and Australia). I really need to get these into wiki since ppl need to start thinking sanely.