(Brian Blessed enters the cave stage left, dressed in primitive leather tunic. He stands in front of a group of jobbing actors, also in leather tunics. He speaks.)
"I, for one, welcome our new overlord, the Star Wars Kid.. (Slaps his thigh and laughs heartily)
(Dr Who (Tom Baker) enters to the right) "Not so fast, Zogdor.." (Laser flash hits just above the Doctor's head. Pan to a Dalek with the Star Wars Kid entering stage left. Dramatic close up of horrified expression on Doctors face. Cut to Dr Who theme/playout. Finish...)
Oh well I was bored..
"Sponges grow in the ocean. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn't happen" - Steven Wright
Didn't you read? I just showed you that by covering half
my roof with the best solar cells available on the market, I
cannot even cover my own electricity needs. What do you suggest,
covering the countryside with panels?
I am not saying that solar tiling would always be the *only*
source of power - but that if houses did have solar tiling we
would save a huge amount of power. Top that up with Wind power,
Tidal power, Hydro-electric, then make sure houses use energy
saving lightbulbs, are well insulated, etc, and you can have a
national energy system wihich needs little or no
coal/oil/nuclear.. This is not some sort fantasy - it is already
starting to happen. Maybe we shouldnt cover the countryside, but what about the
deserts of the world ?
>Such projects are up and running around Europe now, and
pay back for themselves in a few years, even comparing to cheap
dig it up and burn electricity.
Where, pray tell? Publications to defend your assertions?
I scheme I recall quoted a break-even time of about 5 years -
ie, even at todays prices, the houses will pay for the extra cost
of solar tiling on the roofs in 5 years in terms of electricity
savings - I will have to dig that link out again..
>France is not yet paying fully to *get rid* of the
nuclear waste - its shipping the stuff to the UK to reprocess.
Completely wrong. France has a reprocessing plant in La Hague
which actually also reprocesses other countries' used fuel. You
are mixing it up with the British Sellafield reprocessing plant,
which is indeed closing down.
Fair point about la Hague, we have imported reprocessing waste
from Europe through the Chunnel, but France does have its own
reprocessing plant.
>People are scratching their heads and saying hang
on, what do you *do* with plutonium that is going to be
radioactive for centuries, and has to be guarded in case some
terrorist digs it up to make a dirty bomb..
The solution is well known and widely used: you get your
plutonium and you mix it with regular fissible U235 to make a
combustible called MOX. Then you feed MOX into nuclear reactors
for energy production. The plutonium is degraded into
shorter-life elements (mostly Americanium 241) which are less
toxic and need to be stored for a few years instead of a few
millenia. That's what the French and other Europeans are doing
since the 80s. Big bonus: You can also use plutonium coming from
disarmed nuclear warheard.
You would not be suprised to learn that Greenpeace
do not agree with that. The technique you describe sounds
good in theory, but in practice reprocessing still generates
unacceptable levels radioactive pollution and waste that is still
very difficult to deal in
practice. BNFL have had particular problems with liquid waste
products that are very expensive to handle and dispose of safely
- its the practical details that are the problem. Furthermore
Oh sure, of course its not *exactly* the same, particlarly things like electronics & control systems have evolved a lot, but the basic technology is much the same - big rocket, Soyuz capsule on top, with a big fat heat shield for re-entry. (Check this site about the russian space program)
Its just amazing that despite decades of new designs (either on paper, or for real like the Shuttle) we might be coming back to that original design concept as the safest way to take humans into space.
Perhaps that should be some sort of benchmark for a new system to beat - ie any new space plane design should be cheaper and more reliable than that system.. So, should NASA be spending billions on the "space plane"? As I have said before I think "X-Prize" style competitions are the way to go, get independant entreprenuers to evolve cheap, robust designs, then NASA can buy up the best that arise..
If Progress/Soyuz was used *just* for crews, and other US rockets like Delta/Atlas used for cargo, would there be enough Progress/Soyuz available until a Shuttle replacement is available? The Shuttle is just an incredibly expensive system for launches, its been eating up a huge slice of the US space budget for a long time..
Why continue to run the shuttle? Why not just use the money for fast development of new vehicles? Cheaper to buy Soyuz/Progress rockets from the Russians for now..
Now isnt that ironic - The US would end up having to buy what is essentially much the same rocket that Uri Gagarin used in 1961..:-)
Will the pupils be safe if it crashes? Will it still take 5 minutes to boot up the school each morning? Theres a Linux school down the road thats been running for 10 years without crashing..
Rubbish. It depends *how* small you make the generators, of course - maybe joe bloggs with a little solar panel on his roof is not going to get a fantastically efficient system (that does not mean it is not sometimes viable or desirable). Where that sort of system can really pay off is in new build estates - where all the houses have solar built into the roofs feeding a local power-management system, which can feed excess power back to the grid, etc. Such projects are up and running around Europe now, and pay back for themselves in a few years, even comparing to cheap "dig it up and burn" electricity.. France is not yet paying fully to *get rid* of the nuclear waste - its shipping the stuff to the UK to reprocess - except that the UK is closing down the reprocessing plant because it doesnt pay. People are scratching their heads and saying "hang on, what do you *do* with plutonium that is going to be radioactive for centuries, and has to be guarded in case some terrorist digs it up to make a dirty bomb..". You think its cheap? Those "bearded weirdo lefties" (Blair etc) in UK government dont think so, they are winding down nuclear and investing in Wind power... THe UK has wasted countless billions on a disasterously uneconomic nuclear program - the same money in alternatives would have given us economic wind power today.
Sigh. I did say OVER centralised. Alternatives power
generation is ALREADY a commercial reality - providing a diverse
mixture of large (centralised) and small (local) generation
facilitys. It can be small, like a new housing estate with solar
built into every roof, feeding a local regulation system. Or a
medium sized Windfarm. Or it can be large, like the huge offshore
wind farms the UK is building, as it dumps its uneconomical
and disasterous nuclear program. By definition a system which
includes a lot of power generation from renewable resources MUST
be more de-centralised than old fashioned coal/oil/nuclear,
because the resources are spread out over larger areas. A power
system to collect and distribute it must be better at
controlling/regulating the energy to function correctly.
Actually, a fundamental strength of the grid is its centralization. A central facility generating gigawatts of power can afford to spend millions of dollars ekeing the last few percentage points of efficiency out, and wiping out the last few percent of emissions, because the economies of scale kick in
Sure there are ways in which it pays to do things big - a large coal plant can be a bit cleaner than several small ones. But it does have critical failings too - a system with a diverse range of small generators is far more resistant to failure than one with a big central generator feeding power out to the nodes. Think of the internet and how it works..
Local power schemes, since they will be purchase by The General Public, can not and will not spend the money on these extra niceties, and as a result will necessarily be less efficient and more polluting per watt then centralized power. There is no way around this, there is no argument that can wipe it away, it's a fundamental economic fact of life.
Local power generation is one of the boondogles the bad environmentalists promote, without stopping for a moment to think that it's even worse then the alternative. (Altogether too many environmentalists aren't bothered by little things like "truth" or "evidence", which is why I can't call myself one, even though in theory I ought to be able to.)
Sorry, thats just plain wrong. It depends *how* small you make the generators, of course - maybe joe bloggs with a little solar panel on his roof is not going to get a fantastically efficient system, but that does not mean it is not viable or desirable. Where that sort of system can really pay off is in new build estates - where all the houses have solar built into the roofs feeding a local power-management system, which can feed excess power back to the grid, etc. Such projects are up and running around Europe now, and pay back for themselves in a few years, even comparing to cheap "dig it up and burn" electricity.. And we havent even begun to discuss Wind-power - the UK government is scrapping nuclear and going for Wind power big time..
I laugh out loud every time I hear such tripe. Do you have any idea how bad for the environment the cretion of solar cells is?
Less bad than burning oil/coal/uranium? Remember making a solar cell or a wind generator is a "one off", the things last a few decades, and dont pollute while they make electricity. Whereas everytime you fill your gas tank, or take power from a power station, it means a whole load of CO2,CO,NO,Hg,Pb, etc goes up in smoke, somewhere in the world..
Yeah solar will do SO much good in the areas hit by the blackout
Yeah, solar would indeed do so much good in the areas hit by the blackout. Ok, not just solar, but all the alternatives. The system would *have* to be more robust and modern to manage such resources. Nuclear power is incredibly uneconomical, as governments are finding out now they have to de-commision old nuclear plants and find somewhere to store the waste. The UK government is winding down nuclear and switching to alternatives like wind, etc..
Covering your roof with solar cells is not a practical
solution at this point. Covering your NEW house is.
Well, its better to and cheaper to build them in to
start, but that doesnt mean it should not also be done with
existing housing where access is practical. Remember a lot
depends on what you call the real cost of electricity
- sure if you pump/dig your energy out of the ground in the
cheapest way possible, with no regard to current/future
environmental damage, sure its somewhat cheaper to burn
oil/coal/uranium..
To feed the grid via private enterprise without safety
precautions, well thought out implementation plans and regulation
would be at best ill conceived, and at worst, homicidal.
The technology of regulating and storing power in in a power
network which has a number of smaller providers is one that has
evolved a lot recently, and is improving rapidly with new
techniques, as demand for such networks increase. The wind-power industry in the UK is a classic case..
A fundemental weakness of the grid is its over-centralisation. Another argument for environmentally friendly local power generation schemes. Cover your house with "solar" roof tiles that generate power that is fed back to the local grid, etc..
Electricity from nuclear power "too cheap to meter".. Linux to supplant Windows on desktop PCs. Economic non petrol based cars. A version of Windows that loads/runs quicker than Win 3.1 on a 386sx. An alternative quantum-type technology to replace silicon. A good movie with Bruce Willis in. A Genuine HAL-9000-type thinking computer. A cheap reusable space vehicle. 3D TV.. An everlasting pint of beer. (ok thats a personal one)
The first string says to the bartender, "Give me a beer." The bartender turns to the second string and says, "and what about for you?" To which the second string replies, "I would also like a beer#@a9101gb230b81;kajf3#$B89*#(&)*13!$%#@$" and goes on and on spewing gibberish.
The bartender, shocked, asks the first string, "What is your buddy's problem?"
The first string answers, "Oh, you'll have to excuse him, he isn't null terminated."
Wasn't there an EU directive some time back that stated that if a company (like MS) made a standard API which was used widely in the industry, they could not patent it? ie, it is perfectly legal for someone to design a Windows emulator that used the Win32 API, because MS effectively put it in thew public domain by making it a standard. How would a WORD document be different?
Slashdot Mirror
(Brian Blessed enters the cave stage left, dressed in primitive leather tunic. He stands in front of a group of jobbing actors, also in leather tunics. He speaks.)
"I, for one, welcome our new overlord, the Star Wars Kid.. (Slaps his thigh and laughs heartily)
(Dr Who (Tom Baker) enters to the right)
"Not so fast, Zogdor.."
(Laser flash hits just above the Doctor's head. Pan to a Dalek with the Star Wars Kid entering stage left. Dramatic close up of horrified expression on Doctors face. Cut to Dr Who theme/playout.
Finish...)
Oh well I was bored..
"Sponges grow in the ocean. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn't happen" - Steven Wright
As the inventor and patent holder for Morse (TM) every ham operator must pay a $299 licence fee to.. etc..
Darl McBride
Sounds like a good read. Give me Pragmatism over Knee jerk reaction every time..
Didn't you read? I just showed you that by covering half my roof with the best solar cells available on the market, I cannot even cover my own electricity needs. What do you suggest, covering the countryside with panels?
I am not saying that solar tiling would always be the *only* source of power - but that if houses did have solar tiling we would save a huge amount of power. Top that up with Wind power, Tidal power, Hydro-electric, then make sure houses use energy saving lightbulbs, are well insulated, etc, and you can have a national energy system wihich needs little or no coal/oil/nuclear.. This is not some sort fantasy - it is already starting to happen. Maybe we shouldnt cover the countryside, but what about the deserts of the world ?
>Such projects are up and running around Europe now, and pay back for themselves in a few years, even comparing to cheap dig it up and burn electricity.
Where, pray tell? Publications to defend your assertions?
Plenty, just Google solar roof tiles estate
Zero annual electricity bills for these guys - the tiles make as much electricity as they take from the grid. (ok with gas heating). Check also This link, This link , This link or This link
I scheme I recall quoted a break-even time of about 5 years - ie, even at todays prices, the houses will pay for the extra cost of solar tiling on the roofs in 5 years in terms of electricity savings - I will have to dig that link out again..
>France is not yet paying fully to *get rid* of the nuclear waste - its shipping the stuff to the UK to reprocess.
Completely wrong. France has a reprocessing plant in La Hague which actually also reprocesses other countries' used fuel. You are mixing it up with the British Sellafield reprocessing plant, which is indeed closing down.
Fair point about la Hague, we have imported reprocessing waste from Europe through the Chunnel, but France does have its own reprocessing plant.
>People are scratching their heads and saying hang on, what do you *do* with plutonium that is going to be radioactive for centuries, and has to be guarded in case some terrorist digs it up to make a dirty bomb..
The solution is well known and widely used: you get your plutonium and you mix it with regular fissible U235 to make a combustible called MOX. Then you feed MOX into nuclear reactors for energy production. The plutonium is degraded into shorter-life elements (mostly Americanium 241) which are less toxic and need to be stored for a few years instead of a few millenia. That's what the French and other Europeans are doing since the 80s. Big bonus: You can also use plutonium coming from disarmed nuclear warheard.
You would not be suprised to learn that Greenpeace do not agree with that. The technique you describe sounds good in theory, but in practice reprocessing still generates unacceptable levels radioactive pollution and waste that is still very difficult to deal in practice. BNFL have had particular problems with liquid waste products that are very expensive to handle and dispose of safely - its the practical details that are the problem. Furthermore
Oh sure, of course its not *exactly* the same, particlarly things like electronics & control systems have evolved a lot, but the basic technology is much the same - big rocket, Soyuz capsule on top, with a big fat heat shield for re-entry. (Check this site about the russian space program)
Its just amazing that despite decades of new designs (either on paper, or for real like the Shuttle) we might be coming back to that original design concept as the safest way to take humans into space.
Perhaps that should be some sort of benchmark for a new system to beat - ie any new space plane design should be cheaper and more reliable than that system.. So, should NASA be spending billions on the "space plane"? As I have said before I think "X-Prize" style competitions are the way to go, get independant entreprenuers to evolve cheap, robust designs, then NASA can buy up the best that arise..
If Progress/Soyuz was used *just* for crews, and other US rockets like Delta/Atlas used for cargo, would there be enough Progress/Soyuz available until a Shuttle replacement is available? The Shuttle is just an incredibly expensive system for launches, its been eating up a huge slice of the US space budget for a long time..
Why continue to run the shuttle? Why not just use the money for fast development of new vehicles? Cheaper to buy Soyuz/Progress rockets from the Russians for now..
:-)
Now isnt that ironic - The US would end up having to buy what is essentially much the same rocket that Uri Gagarin used in 1961..
Will the pupils be safe if it crashes? Will it still take 5 minutes to boot up the school each morning? Theres a Linux school down the road thats been running for 10 years without crashing..
Well said! Alternatives really do pay already, compared to fossil/nuclear, and the maths gets better all the time as the technology is refined..
Rubbish. It depends *how* small you make the generators, of course - maybe joe bloggs with a little solar panel on his roof is not going to get a fantastically efficient system (that does not mean it is not sometimes viable or desirable). Where that sort of system can really pay off is in new build estates - where all the houses have solar built into the roofs feeding a local power-management system, which can feed excess power back to the grid, etc. Such projects are up and running around Europe now, and pay back for themselves in a few years, even comparing to cheap "dig it up and burn" electricity.. France is not yet paying fully to *get rid* of the nuclear waste - its shipping the stuff to the UK to reprocess - except that the UK is closing down the reprocessing plant because it doesnt pay. People are scratching their heads and saying "hang on, what do you *do* with plutonium that is going to be radioactive for centuries, and has to be guarded in case some terrorist digs it up to make a dirty bomb..". You think its cheap? Those "bearded weirdo lefties" (Blair etc) in UK government dont think so, they are winding down nuclear and investing in Wind power... THe UK has wasted countless billions on a disasterously uneconomic nuclear program - the same money in alternatives would have given us economic wind power today.
Sigh. I did say OVER centralised. Alternatives power generation is ALREADY a commercial reality - providing a diverse mixture of large (centralised) and small (local) generation facilitys. It can be small, like a new housing estate with solar built into every roof, feeding a local regulation system. Or a medium sized Windfarm. Or it can be large, like the huge offshore wind farms the UK is building, as it dumps its uneconomical and disasterous nuclear program. By definition a system which includes a lot of power generation from renewable resources MUST be more de-centralised than old fashioned coal/oil/nuclear, because the resources are spread out over larger areas. A power system to collect and distribute it must be better at controlling/regulating the energy to function correctly.
Actually, a fundamental strength of the grid is its centralization. A central facility generating gigawatts of power can afford to spend millions of dollars ekeing the last few percentage points of efficiency out, and wiping out the last few percent of emissions, because the economies of scale kick in
Sure there are ways in which it pays to do things big - a large coal plant can be a bit cleaner than several small ones. But it does have critical failings too - a system with a diverse range of small generators is far more resistant to failure than one with a big central generator feeding power out to the nodes. Think of the internet and how it works..
Local power schemes, since they will be purchase by The General Public, can not and will not spend the money on these extra niceties, and as a result will necessarily be less efficient and more polluting per watt then centralized power. There is no way around this, there is no argument that can wipe it away, it's a fundamental economic fact of life. Local power generation is one of the boondogles the bad environmentalists promote, without stopping for a moment to think that it's even worse then the alternative. (Altogether too many environmentalists aren't bothered by little things like "truth" or "evidence", which is why I can't call myself one, even though in theory I ought to be able to.)
Sorry, thats just plain wrong. It depends *how* small you make the generators, of course - maybe joe bloggs with a little solar panel on his roof is not going to get a fantastically efficient system, but that does not mean it is not viable or desirable. Where that sort of system can really pay off is in new build estates - where all the houses have solar built into the roofs feeding a local power-management system, which can feed excess power back to the grid, etc. Such projects are up and running around Europe now, and pay back for themselves in a few years, even comparing to cheap "dig it up and burn" electricity.. And we havent even begun to discuss Wind-power - the UK government is scrapping nuclear and going for Wind power big time..
I used the phrase OVER-centralised. TO some extent centralised power production is obviously necessary and desirable..
I laugh out loud every time I hear such tripe. Do you have any idea how bad for the environment the cretion of solar cells is?
Less bad than burning oil/coal/uranium? Remember making a solar cell or a wind generator is a "one off", the things last a few decades, and dont pollute while they make electricity. Whereas everytime you fill your gas tank, or take power from a power station, it means a whole load of CO2,CO,NO,Hg,Pb, etc goes up in smoke, somewhere in the world..
Yeah solar will do SO much good in the areas hit by the blackout
Yeah, solar would indeed do so much good in the areas hit by the blackout. Ok, not just solar, but all the alternatives. The system would *have* to be more robust and modern to manage such resources. Nuclear power is incredibly uneconomical, as governments are finding out now they have to de-commision old nuclear plants and find somewhere to store the waste. The UK government is winding down nuclear and switching to alternatives like wind, etc..
Covering your roof with solar cells is not a practical solution at this point. Covering your NEW house is.
Well, its better to and cheaper to build them in to start, but that doesnt mean it should not also be done with existing housing where access is practical. Remember a lot depends on what you call the real cost of electricity - sure if you pump/dig your energy out of the ground in the cheapest way possible, with no regard to current/future environmental damage, sure its somewhat cheaper to burn oil/coal/uranium..
To feed the grid via private enterprise without safety precautions, well thought out implementation plans and regulation would be at best ill conceived, and at worst, homicidal.
The technology of regulating and storing power in in a power network which has a number of smaller providers is one that has evolved a lot recently, and is improving rapidly with new techniques, as demand for such networks increase. The wind-power industry in the UK is a classic case..
A fundemental weakness of the grid is its over-centralisation. Another argument for environmentally friendly local power generation schemes. Cover your house with "solar" roof tiles that generate power that is fed back to the local grid, etc..
I wish to inform you that I wrote the Malloc routine for FreeDOS.
Please send me $299 for each installed copy of FreeDOS you have on your PCs..
Darl McBride
I have this funny feeling of deja vu...
Electricity from nuclear power "too cheap to meter"..
Linux to supplant Windows on desktop PCs.
Economic non petrol based cars.
A version of Windows that loads/runs quicker than Win 3.1 on a 386sx.
An alternative quantum-type technology to replace silicon.
A good movie with Bruce Willis in.
A Genuine HAL-9000-type thinking computer.
A cheap reusable space vehicle.
3D TV..
An everlasting pint of beer. (ok thats a personal one)
Do you think the ESA Rosetta comet chaser will be ready by then?
Two strings walk into a bar.
The first string says to the bartender, "Give me a beer." The bartender turns to the second string and says, "and what about for you?" To which the second string replies, "I would also like a beer#@a9101gb230b81;kajf3#$B89*#(&)*13!$%#@$" and goes on and on spewing gibberish.
The bartender, shocked, asks the first string, "What is your buddy's problem?"
The first string answers, "Oh, you'll have to excuse him, he isn't null terminated."
Wasn't there an EU directive some time back that stated that if a company (like MS) made a standard API which was used widely in the industry, they could not patent it? ie, it is perfectly legal for someone to design a Windows emulator that used the Win32 API, because MS effectively put it in thew public domain by making it a standard. How would a WORD document be different?
Just a thought..
Wormwood in Russian is "chernobyl" - in case you are interested..