As I said, it is a TRIVIAL amount in comparison to Solar and Wind. Yet, geo-thermal and nukes are the only one that are 24x7. In addition, geo-thermal is the ONLY choice that can be the cheapest. There are none others that will be cheaper than it. THat is a fact.
As a libertarian (more l, than L these days), I mostly support what you say. The ISSUE is that the gov MUST DO WHAT IS IN THE NATION'S BEST INTEREST. And economics does not take into account national security or its interests. With that said, I prefer that the gov. does minimal amounts of choosing and minimal amounts of investments to change our directions. HOWEVER, the truth is, that much of our infrastructure was actually built via gov. interference and investments. The old phone system that was developed from 30's-50's counted on a great deal of gov. investment. Likewise, our roads, which were also once the envy of the world counted on large gov. investment. Our aircraft system depended on large gov. investment. Our one time large amounts of railroads depended on gov. investments. Finally, our nukes and coal plants were all via gov. investment. Our dams and water control were also the envy of the world.
Basically, America was made great during the mid-late 1800's, and again from 1932-1970.
OTH, our crumbling infrastructure is what occurs when businesses are given monopolies and have no real requirement to invest, starting since 1980.
The problem is that if you are going to de-regulate, that is good. BUT, you have to remove the monopolies, and at times, the gov. STILL have to help push business to do what is national interests.
That Russia's system. And of course, the same one that the Chinese stole as well. What I said is that NASA is developing their own (or they might consider working with ESA).
So, not only are you an irrational idiot, but you are rude as well.
The fact is, that congress gave him the money for this. But let me guess. You are one of those types that believe that Obama was born in Kenya? Or that the democrats actually were behind 9/11?
No, you do not. YOu use the solar collectors to bring the temperatures up, and then use coal or gas to fill the rest. In addition, the majority of the coal plants are located INSIDE of cities, but were built before the city edge hit there. In addition, they were built before we had loads of pollution control. As such, these they had LOTS of land around these plants so that loads of coal could be brought in, and the soot did not fall on close homes.
Basically, the coal plants that generate about 100-200 MW and were built between 1940-1970 (the vast majority) have LOADS of acres. Now, if you build out the collectors on the land, and use them to heat the water before the final boost, you can cut emissions and fuel use by around 15-20% on average (for the west, it would be closer to 25-30%). Imagine if we cut our electric emissions by around 10% WHILE CUTTING COSTS. That is a significant incentive. Just have to get companies doing it and lowering the price of collectors. Once the collectors are being built, then the full size plants like Az's become CHEAP to do.
Well, you are right. That was a rant. The fact is, that landing under power, vs. landing via parachutes are RADICALLY different in level of technology required. Now, parachutes have been around for over 5 centuries. We have loads of time to figure these out. That does not mean that the new ones did not require some interesting new tech.
OTH, the use of rockets to provide thrust from which to land has been around for about 50 years. Which idea is simpler? Parachutes. Which Idea has been around longer and had time to more fully develop? Parachutes, by 10 times.
I do not knock the landing on mars. I am simply stating a fact that landing on the moon is multitudes time more difficult than landing on mars.
The fact is, that we are in this situation because we became dependent on fossil fuel (oil, natural gas, coal). We need to have a diverse matrix of various energy. We DO need more nukes, but I would like to see it be limited to no more than 1/3 of your total energy. And once we are larger and more diverse, then I would like to see it limited further back to 25, or even the current 20%. THough to be fair, nukes are 20% of ELECTRICITY, not energy.
Tape,
you are thinking of EGS, of which you want to trap the water underneath. OTH, many of the current geo-thermals will work in a single well. Basically, have a an opening 200' below where you pull from. Push your water down there, and then it slowly rises to the opening and is heated.
Look again. Abengoa is a full solar thermal plant. That means that you have energy storage (typically oil or salts) as well as extra collectors that are devoted to that storage (about 1/2 to 2/3 of the collectors). In addition, you have to bring lines out there, have new water for it ("whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting" is the motto out here in the west)
OTH, by using the money on JUST solar collectors to be added to existing fossil fuel plants, then the money is used 100% to drop emissions and lower costs. It would benefit a large number of companies that build these, and would spread over the majority of the USA.
Personally, I am not that wild about even the loans. The problem is that after we bailed out the banks, they have been investing into China, rather than here. Sad, sad, sad.
With that said, one company is Spanish. And yes, the profits will go back to Spain. BUT, keep in mind that Spain is based on the Euro which is freely traded against the dollar. As such, if enough dollars flows to EU, then EU gets quite strong against the dollar. The real problem is with nations like China, South Korea, and India. China has a free trade agreement with us, but has not lived up to even a bit of their agreement. There are more trade barriers today, then there were in 1999. In addition, India and South Korea have large trade barriers as well. Finally, you have all 3 manipulating their money against the dollar. Indians and SOuth Korean like to claim that it is not, but you can not have 10% growth against a nation for 10-30 years and have your money stay stable or even DROP against that other country. That alone is the surest sign that you are manipulating your money.
As I said elsewhere, I would have preferred that the loans have gone to power companies to buy the solar thermal collectors iff the collectors come from nations that have true free trade. IOW, we need to quit sending our money all over when the other nation has intentions of only it being one-way.
Abound Solar got its original money from the state of Colorado. The Solar Thermal plant being proposed in AZ, gots its original money from the state of Az. Basically, these companies are living far far more on gov. funding then are the suggestions that I had.
In my case, there are multiple companies that create collectors. So, by lending the money to Thermal power plants for collectors, and requiring that it be from nations/company not dumping, it means that MULTIPLE companies are helped out. Likewise, by doing the geo-thermal approach that I suggested, the drilling company already has skin in the game (lots of it), and are simply being given enough to continue drilling to a depth in which they will hit geo-thermal levels. Then for less costs of processing oil, they can add electrical generators and get power. Heck, if these companies were smart, they would combine those units with some solar collectors. The solar Collectors can bump up the temps and increase the efficiencies.
Man did it. This time, it is a fully automated system that has to do this. There is a HUGE difference. And Mars has been all about physics. Simple parachutes. Though MSL is about to be the first system that this is not true.
These are loans, not give away money. I am fine with that. Obama's 1'st years and W' 8 years did trillions of give away dollars all based on deficits. This is the feds lending the money at a low rate. The 2 billion loan will probably cost us around 100 million long-term. In fact, the smartest thing that Obama/congress can do is to lend the money to state and local entities to build out projects. Had they done that originally, then we would have a pretty low debt down the road (though with the potential to have much higher).
The 2 billion SHOULD HAVE GONE TO GEO-THERMAL AND SOLAR THERMAL. Look, one of the smartest things that Obama can do is to increase AE, as well as push for electric cars. That is good. The problem is that AE, in wind and solar PV, already has massive backing. OTH, Solar Thermal has some real potential. In particular, collectors should be added to thermal systems. That would allow these to be used 100% for dropping the use of coal/natural gas. OTH, when building a new solar thermal plant, half to 2/3 of the collectors are used for during none sun times. But that adds a lot of expense to solar thermal.
Likewise, Geothermal has minor amounts of funds. Yet, we are on the edge really getting it cheap. Why? Potter drilling and Foro Energy. Both are working on spallation approaches to drilling (hydro and laser). In addition, there is a REAL simple and relatively inexpensive way to get to geo-thermal. Basically create tax breaks, or even subsidies, to continue drilling down on dry wells. Many wells are exploratory and will be dry wells. These are typically at around 8-10K feet. But, we offer up breaks/subsidies to continue down to hot areas so that the well is not a total bust for the drilling company. Most of the Geo-thermal area is around 12-16K. That is expensive if you are starting from the surface. But if you are starting from a well at 5-10K, then it is relatively cheap. And from the drilling companies POV, they would very much like to make money in places that they drill. If they can not have oil/natural gas, they will be excited to have 10-50 MW geo-thermal power.
Rovers are MUCH easier to design, and build, esp. when you already had others there.
Mars is MUCH easier to land at esp. for something as light as the rovers. It has an atmosphere.
OTH, doing a humanoid robot will enable it to be of use here in the states. Why? Low-end work. In addition, such a robot will be useful for a mars/moon base. The reason is that they will have similar constraints as humans, but will tolerate extremes better. They will basically be able to continue building a base while humans do things that robots can not do; think, adjust intellectually to numerous conditions, such as figuring out what rocks or crevasses to look at, etc.
Yes, Obama is all about killing NASA. In his first year, he bumped up the budget 2 billion. He has taken NASA back to its roots of doing the RD and advanced systems that private companies do not want to do. And he has focused NASA on doing the ground work for monster projects; Such as a fuel depot. Or an inflatable Space Station (lowering costs a great deal, and increasing safety). Automated docking for the fuel depot. Multiple types of space-rated engines;
OTH, W bumped the budget in 2006, while pushing a nightmare system starting in 2004.
Seriously, the VTVL are actually designed for the moon. The amount of energy to llo is about the same as to hit 60 m/100 km on earth. That means that if the vehicles (including armadillo, new shepard, and masten's) are able to hit 60 m, then they can come back from lunar surface. What is the use of that? Send a large fuel depot and then we have a truck that can send cargo down to the surface and then return.
BTW, the fact that this was done so quickly, hints to me that this is the second vehicle. I am guessing that the first vehicle IS the new shepard.
Get an agreement between feds and states to do one reasonable rate. Then apply it, while cutting spending. Pass a balanced budget amendment as well. We need to balance our budget. And then start paying off this massive debt. It was our deficit spending during good times ('83-'90; '03 -'07) that accounts for a major chunk of where we are today.
For those of you pointing to nokia, let me point out that overall nokia is already pretty open. THey were SYmbian OS and that is now Opened.
OTH, SAP is a VERY closed German system. Now, some may claim that is nothing more than a accounting system so it should not count. Yet, elaborate applications are produced on it and there are a number of closed hooks that SAP makes use of, that others can not. In fact, SAP is in many ways far more closed than Windows or Mac.
Yet, I noticed that they did not list it. There are other EU companies and groups out there with closed systems. WIll they also be forced open?
Do not do it serially. Keep in mind that you can design with batteries in parallel fashion, and then connect the batteries serially logically. The funny thing is, that I DID think about this 3 years ago. For the last 3 years, I have been putting loads of batteries in kids toys and some of them just plained sux to put batteries in.
ALL the companies? For example,will it include EU companies? Will it include Chinese?
And why stop at IT? Why not continue with other industries that are prevalent in EU? Will all German drug companies be forced to open up how they make their drugs and open their patents/copyrights on them?
Yes, they have dominated. HOWEVER, with the approach that I just suggested, it would allow them to help move things up a notch, and give them a chance to buy a potential competitor down the road, and turn it into subsidiary.
They should put on-line a DB of documents that have been translated and then allow others to build a translator. In fact, if smart, they would do this as a competition in which the winner could create a new company based on it, with a large investment by Google.
Slashdot Mirror
As I said, it is a TRIVIAL amount in comparison to Solar and Wind. Yet, geo-thermal and nukes are the only one that are 24x7. In addition, geo-thermal is the ONLY choice that can be the cheapest. There are none others that will be cheaper than it. THat is a fact.
As a libertarian (more l, than L these days), I mostly support what you say. The ISSUE is that the gov MUST DO WHAT IS IN THE NATION'S BEST INTEREST. And economics does not take into account national security or its interests. With that said, I prefer that the gov. does minimal amounts of choosing and minimal amounts of investments to change our directions. HOWEVER, the truth is, that much of our infrastructure was actually built via gov. interference and investments. The old phone system that was developed from 30's-50's counted on a great deal of gov. investment. Likewise, our roads, which were also once the envy of the world counted on large gov. investment. Our aircraft system depended on large gov. investment. Our one time large amounts of railroads depended on gov. investments. Finally, our nukes and coal plants were all via gov. investment. Our dams and water control were also the envy of the world. Basically, America was made great during the mid-late 1800's, and again from 1932-1970.
OTH, our crumbling infrastructure is what occurs when businesses are given monopolies and have no real requirement to invest, starting since 1980.
The problem is that if you are going to de-regulate, that is good. BUT, you have to remove the monopolies, and at times, the gov. STILL have to help push business to do what is national interests.
That Russia's system. And of course, the same one that the Chinese stole as well. What I said is that NASA is developing their own (or they might consider working with ESA).
So, not only are you an irrational idiot, but you are rude as well.
The fact is, that congress gave him the money for this. But let me guess. You are one of those types that believe that Obama was born in Kenya? Or that the democrats actually were behind 9/11?
No, you do not. YOu use the solar collectors to bring the temperatures up, and then use coal or gas to fill the rest. In addition, the majority of the coal plants are located INSIDE of cities, but were built before the city edge hit there. In addition, they were built before we had loads of pollution control. As such, these they had LOTS of land around these plants so that loads of coal could be brought in, and the soot did not fall on close homes.
Basically, the coal plants that generate about 100-200 MW and were built between 1940-1970 (the vast majority) have LOADS of acres. Now, if you build out the collectors on the land, and use them to heat the water before the final boost, you can cut emissions and fuel use by around 15-20% on average (for the west, it would be closer to 25-30%). Imagine if we cut our electric emissions by around 10% WHILE CUTTING COSTS. That is a significant incentive. Just have to get companies doing it and lowering the price of collectors. Once the collectors are being built, then the full size plants like Az's become CHEAP to do.
Well, you are right. That was a rant. The fact is, that landing under power, vs. landing via parachutes are RADICALLY different in level of technology required. Now, parachutes have been around for over 5 centuries. We have loads of time to figure these out. That does not mean that the new ones did not require some interesting new tech.
OTH, the use of rockets to provide thrust from which to land has been around for about 50 years. Which idea is simpler? Parachutes. Which Idea has been around longer and had time to more fully develop? Parachutes, by 10 times.
I do not knock the landing on mars. I am simply stating a fact that landing on the moon is multitudes time more difficult than landing on mars.
The fact is, that we are in this situation because we became dependent on fossil fuel (oil, natural gas, coal). We need to have a diverse matrix of various energy. We DO need more nukes, but I would like to see it be limited to no more than 1/3 of your total energy. And once we are larger and more diverse, then I would like to see it limited further back to 25, or even the current 20%. THough to be fair, nukes are 20% of ELECTRICITY, not energy.
Of course the fact that this is a loan and not a subsidy appears to be missing from your facts, and your logic.
Tape,
you are thinking of EGS, of which you want to trap the water underneath. OTH, many of the current geo-thermals will work in a single well. Basically, have a an opening 200' below where you pull from. Push your water down there, and then it slowly rises to the opening and is heated.
Look again. Abengoa is a full solar thermal plant. That means that you have energy storage (typically oil or salts) as well as extra collectors that are devoted to that storage (about 1/2 to 2/3 of the collectors). In addition, you have to bring lines out there, have new water for it ("whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting" is the motto out here in the west)
OTH, by using the money on JUST solar collectors to be added to existing fossil fuel plants, then the money is used 100% to drop emissions and lower costs. It would benefit a large number of companies that build these, and would spread over the majority of the USA.
Please explain to us exactly how electricity from the sun replaces any oil right now.
Personally, I am not that wild about even the loans. The problem is that after we bailed out the banks, they have been investing into China, rather than here. Sad, sad, sad.
With that said, one company is Spanish. And yes, the profits will go back to Spain. BUT, keep in mind that Spain is based on the Euro which is freely traded against the dollar. As such, if enough dollars flows to EU, then EU gets quite strong against the dollar. The real problem is with nations like China, South Korea, and India. China has a free trade agreement with us, but has not lived up to even a bit of their agreement. There are more trade barriers today, then there were in 1999. In addition, India and South Korea have large trade barriers as well. Finally, you have all 3 manipulating their money against the dollar. Indians and SOuth Korean like to claim that it is not, but you can not have 10% growth against a nation for 10-30 years and have your money stay stable or even DROP against that other country. That alone is the surest sign that you are manipulating your money.
As I said elsewhere, I would have preferred that the loans have gone to power companies to buy the solar thermal collectors iff the collectors come from nations that have true free trade. IOW, we need to quit sending our money all over when the other nation has intentions of only it being one-way.
Abound Solar got its original money from the state of Colorado. The Solar Thermal plant being proposed in AZ, gots its original money from the state of Az. Basically, these companies are living far far more on gov. funding then are the suggestions that I had.
In my case, there are multiple companies that create collectors. So, by lending the money to Thermal power plants for collectors, and requiring that it be from nations/company not dumping, it means that MULTIPLE companies are helped out. Likewise, by doing the geo-thermal approach that I suggested, the drilling company already has skin in the game (lots of it), and are simply being given enough to continue drilling to a depth in which they will hit geo-thermal levels. Then for less costs of processing oil, they can add electrical generators and get power. Heck, if these companies were smart, they would combine those units with some solar collectors. The solar Collectors can bump up the temps and increase the efficiencies.
Man did it. This time, it is a fully automated system that has to do this. There is a HUGE difference. And Mars has been all about physics. Simple parachutes. Though MSL is about to be the first system that this is not true.
These are loans, not give away money. I am fine with that. Obama's 1'st years and W' 8 years did trillions of give away dollars all based on deficits. This is the feds lending the money at a low rate. The 2 billion loan will probably cost us around 100 million long-term. In fact, the smartest thing that Obama/congress can do is to lend the money to state and local entities to build out projects. Had they done that originally, then we would have a pretty low debt down the road (though with the potential to have much higher).
The 2 billion SHOULD HAVE GONE TO GEO-THERMAL AND SOLAR THERMAL. Look, one of the smartest things that Obama can do is to increase AE, as well as push for electric cars. That is good. The problem is that AE, in wind and solar PV, already has massive backing. OTH, Solar Thermal has some real potential. In particular, collectors should be added to thermal systems. That would allow these to be used 100% for dropping the use of coal/natural gas. OTH, when building a new solar thermal plant, half to 2/3 of the collectors are used for during none sun times. But that adds a lot of expense to solar thermal.
Likewise, Geothermal has minor amounts of funds. Yet, we are on the edge really getting it cheap. Why? Potter drilling and Foro Energy. Both are working on spallation approaches to drilling (hydro and laser). In addition, there is a REAL simple and relatively inexpensive way to get to geo-thermal. Basically create tax breaks, or even subsidies, to continue drilling down on dry wells. Many wells are exploratory and will be dry wells. These are typically at around 8-10K feet. But, we offer up breaks/subsidies to continue down to hot areas so that the well is not a total bust for the drilling company. Most of the Geo-thermal area is around 12-16K. That is expensive if you are starting from the surface. But if you are starting from a well at 5-10K, then it is relatively cheap. And from the drilling companies POV, they would very much like to make money in places that they drill. If they can not have oil/natural gas, they will be excited to have 10-50 MW geo-thermal power.
OTH, doing a humanoid robot will enable it to be of use here in the states. Why? Low-end work. In addition, such a robot will be useful for a mars/moon base. The reason is that they will have similar constraints as humans, but will tolerate extremes better. They will basically be able to continue building a base while humans do things that robots can not do; think, adjust intellectually to numerous conditions, such as figuring out what rocks or crevasses to look at, etc.
Yes, Obama is all about killing NASA. In his first year, he bumped up the budget 2 billion. He has taken NASA back to its roots of doing the RD and advanced systems that private companies do not want to do. And he has focused NASA on doing the ground work for monster projects; Such as a fuel depot. Or an inflatable Space Station (lowering costs a great deal, and increasing safety). Automated docking for the fuel depot. Multiple types of space-rated engines;
OTH, W bumped the budget in 2006, while pushing a nightmare system starting in 2004.
Seriously, the VTVL are actually designed for the moon. The amount of energy to llo is about the same as to hit 60 m/100 km on earth. That means that if the vehicles (including armadillo, new shepard, and masten's) are able to hit 60 m, then they can come back from lunar surface. What is the use of that? Send a large fuel depot and then we have a truck that can send cargo down to the surface and then return.
BTW, the fact that this was done so quickly, hints to me that this is the second vehicle. I am guessing that the first vehicle IS the new shepard.
Get an agreement between feds and states to do one reasonable rate. Then apply it, while cutting spending. Pass a balanced budget amendment as well. We need to balance our budget. And then start paying off this massive debt. It was our deficit spending during good times ('83-'90; '03 -'07) that accounts for a major chunk of where we are today.
For those of you pointing to nokia, let me point out that overall nokia is already pretty open. THey were SYmbian OS and that is now Opened.
OTH, SAP is a VERY closed German system. Now, some may claim that is nothing more than a accounting system so it should not count. Yet, elaborate applications are produced on it and there are a number of closed hooks that SAP makes use of, that others can not. In fact, SAP is in many ways far more closed than Windows or Mac.
Yet, I noticed that they did not list it. There are other EU companies and groups out there with closed systems. WIll they also be forced open?
Somehow, I seriously doubt it.
Do not do it serially. Keep in mind that you can design with batteries in parallel fashion, and then connect the batteries serially logically. The funny thing is, that I DID think about this 3 years ago. For the last 3 years, I have been putting loads of batteries in kids toys and some of them just plained sux to put batteries in.
ALL the companies? For example,will it include EU companies? Will it include Chinese?
And why stop at IT? Why not continue with other industries that are prevalent in EU? Will all German drug companies be forced to open up how they make their drugs and open their patents/copyrights on them?
Yes, they have dominated. HOWEVER, with the approach that I just suggested, it would allow them to help move things up a notch, and give them a chance to buy a potential competitor down the road, and turn it into subsidiary.
They should put on-line a DB of documents that have been translated and then allow others to build a translator. In fact, if smart, they would do this as a competition in which the winner could create a new company based on it, with a large investment by Google.