You seem to share Hawking's delusion that more intelligence is an inevitable part of the progression of an intelligent species.
Alas, there really doesn't seem to be much evidence for that. Once you're intelligent enough, in general, to use the machines that your tiny fraction of geniuses comes up with, the impetus towards more intelligence pretty much evaporates. After all, how much intelligence does it really take to do 95+% of all the things required to make a technological civilization work?
You seem to be under the delusion that the only way for a species to become more intelligent is through Darwinian evolution. In a relatively short time, if we want to be more intelligent we'll design ourselves to be more intelligent.
If ETs are interested in finding us they will have been monitoring all the promising planets within range for eons. They either already know about us, the message about us is still on its way to them, or we're too far away for them to care. Barring the extremely unlikely chance that they are also new in the neighborhood.
Mars once had a much thicker atmosphere, so it must have gone somewhere. A mechanism for its loss to space has been proposed, but this is not settled science. Still, there is no obvious place on the planet for most of the old atmosphere, presumably mostly carbon dioxide, to be sequestered (carbonates or what not).
The Earth's magnetic field protects the atmosphere to some extent, and Mars and Venus don't have much of one. Venus has lost most of its original water (or rather the hydrogen that was in the water) to space.
Compressed air storage is only about 50% efficient. It's very hard to find a good use for the heat generated when you compress a gas. Even worse, natural gas is used to offset the cooling that occurs as the air expands when the power is drawn out, so there is still some reliance on fossil fuels. Nonetheless, it's still one of the best options where pumped storage is not practical.
There is good hope that better storage methods will be found. The US government just announced funding for liquid metal batteries, where a major potential application is grid storage
If the world were overpopulated, we've already proved out a simple, humane solution to the problem - raise everyone's standard of living to that of the USA and Western Europe. Then birthrates will fall naturally to low enough levels that population will decline.
A temporary solution at best. Whether it's caused by strong culturalby mores or genetic imperative, the breeders will win in the end.
Greg Craven has taken much the same stance with his book about the climate change debate. He doesn't expect he'll ever make anything over his advance, and he'd like more people to read it. This is the guy who got started by putting up a series of videos on YouTube on the subject.
There is no agreement between the customer and the seller which requires the seller to distribute the source.
There is an implied warranty of merchantability which the seller may have violated in this case, so perhaps the customer could sue for damages. It wouldn't be under copyright law, however.
If they'll agree to it, charge them $1250 for the past use of your old laptop. If they won't go for that, ask for them to provide a company laptop instead so you can really keep your personal and company use separate.
Fission is the splitting of the nucleus into two (or more?) large pieces. It's not a very common decay mode. The release of neutrons and the usual radioactivity of the pieces makes it dirtier.
My guess is that 204Pb will absorb a neutron and transmute to 205Pb, which decays to a stable isotope of thallium, and 208Pb will transmute to 209Pb, which decays to nearly stable bismuth. The other lead isotopes look like they should just become heavier stable lead isotopes. I don't see any obvious waste problems here.
Southwest Texas seems to top out on the map you linked to at just over 6.5, so 5.0 is not close to a factor of two off.
More importantly the map is for solar energy available at latitude tilt. This is quite appropriate for determining how much energy you can get from a given area of solar cells, but hardly for figuring out what's available per acre in the USA. Perfectly find for Ecuador, I guess.
Still, five kilowatts hours per square meter per day was a reasonable number to use.
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Well, I do find it surprising how much private companies have funded GPL projects.
The Ring Nebula in Lyra makes a good target for a 4" scope. Yeah, it's just a featureless ring, but it's a RING!
You seem to be under the delusion that the only way for a species to become more intelligent is through Darwinian evolution. In a relatively short time, if we want to be more intelligent we'll design ourselves to be more intelligent.
If ETs are interested in finding us they will have been monitoring all the promising planets within range for eons. They either already know about us, the message about us is still on its way to them, or we're too far away for them to care. Barring the extremely unlikely chance that they are also new in the neighborhood.
I'm reading Red Mars now. I'm quite disappointed in the science though, so perhaps NASA should look someplace else.
My understanding is that the dust has been collecting, but the wind has been unexpectedly cleaning them.
Aluminum is being smelted in Iceland. The primary power source is hydroelectric, though.
"...total eradication and extinction..."
I doubt that would work with prions. They're simple enough they probably pop up spontaneously from time to time.
Well, we just need more idealists with better lawyers suing the coal plants.
Mars once had a much thicker atmosphere, so it must have gone somewhere. A mechanism for its loss to space has been proposed, but this is not settled science. Still, there is no obvious place on the planet for most of the old atmosphere, presumably mostly carbon dioxide, to be sequestered (carbonates or what not).
The Earth's magnetic field protects the atmosphere to some extent, and Mars and Venus don't have much of one. Venus has lost most of its original water (or rather the hydrogen that was in the water) to space.
Niobium? An important metal but China is not the major source. It's not a rare earth element, either.
Compressed air storage is only about 50% efficient. It's very hard to find a good use for the heat generated when you compress a gas. Even worse, natural gas is used to offset the cooling that occurs as the air expands when the power is drawn out, so there is still some reliance on fossil fuels. Nonetheless, it's still one of the best options where pumped storage is not practical.
There is good hope that better storage methods will be found. The US government just announced funding for liquid metal batteries, where a major potential application is grid storage
A temporary solution at best. Whether it's caused by strong culturalby mores or genetic imperative, the breeders will win in the end.
Greg Craven has taken much the same stance with his book about the climate change debate. He doesn't expect he'll ever make anything over his advance, and he'd like more people to read it. This is the guy who got started by putting up a series of videos on YouTube on the subject.
His agreement with the publisher almost certainly does prohibit distributing the book himself.
There is an implied warranty of merchantability which the seller may have violated in this case, so perhaps the customer could sue for damages. It wouldn't be under copyright law, however.
I think he's referring to the pursuit of the almighty dollar as our state religion.
If they'll agree to it, charge them $1250 for the past use of your old laptop. If they won't go for that, ask for them to provide a company laptop instead so you can really keep your personal and company use separate.
Fission is the splitting of the nucleus into two (or more?) large pieces. It's not a very common decay mode. The release of neutrons and the usual radioactivity of the pieces makes it dirtier.
Oops, the half life of 205Pb is long enough to make it a problem. There won't be a lot of it, though, as 204Pb is only 1.4% of natural lead.
My guess is that 204Pb will absorb a neutron and transmute to 205Pb, which decays to a stable isotope of thallium, and 208Pb will transmute to 209Pb, which decays to nearly stable bismuth. The other lead isotopes look like they should just become heavier stable lead isotopes. I don't see any obvious waste problems here.
The "KH-12" spy satellites are thought to be a bit bigger than the Hubble.
Southwest Texas seems to top out on the map you linked to at just over 6.5, so 5.0 is not close to a factor of two off.
More importantly the map is for solar energy available at latitude tilt. This is quite appropriate for determining how much energy you can get from a given area of solar cells, but hardly for figuring out what's available per acre in the USA. Perfectly find for Ecuador, I guess.
Still, five kilowatts hours per square meter per day was a reasonable number to use.
These days? What do you suppose is produced at a truck farm?
Yes, and iridium even more so.