Containment-breaching accidents in the entire history of nuclear power amount to exactly 1 in approximately 10,000 reactor-years of total operation, and the RBMK (Chernobyl) is a dog of a design that under any rational oversight system would never even have been built. This is in line with probabilistic risk assessments which indicate a CMF (core melt frequency) of 1 in 10^4 reactor-years, and a LRF (large release frequency) of 1 in 10^5 reactor-years. Current designs (specifically the AP1000) reduce these to 4x10^-7 and 4x10^-8 respectively. http://www.nuclearinfo.net/twiki/pub/Nuclearpower/ WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower/AP1000Reactor.pdf
Nuclear power isn't without its problems: high capital costs, mostly as a result of legal fees associated with brain-dead NIMBY protesters, and the waste management issue, although even that is only a problem for at most 10,000 years under a competent, well-thought out fuel cycle (e.g. NOT in the US).
Compared to the global economic and environmental consequences of our current fossil fuel addiction, whether or not to transition to nuclear power, and quickly, is no choice at all. But rational inquiry doesn't play as well on the news as "OMG IT'S NUCULAR THINK OF TEH CHILDRENZ!!!!1`one"
As for hydrogen production, there's a much nearer-term option that I find really keen: Honda's "Home Energy Station" concept. Basically, almost every home in the US has natural gas lines running to it. Currently, natural gas is the cheapest way to produce hydrogen, so producing as much hydrogen as you need, straight from your natural gas line, seems a reasonable proposal. Reasonable unless you're worried about the greenhouse gas emissions. Methane reformation releases CO; you can crack it, but not at temperatures they're going to be putting into a consumer product any time soon. Honda's press release doesn't say anything about sequestering the CO, but you have to to keep it from shutting down a PEMFC. So in addition to the platinum catalyst you have to find a way to dispose of some kind of CO-laden material.
Of course, this raises the question, "Why not a natural gas-powered car? Why waste the energy converting it into hydrogen?" Well, apart from the very high energy efficiency of using hydrogen in fuel cells, with Honda's system, the energy released in converting natural gas to hydrogen isn't wasted. The waste heat from the process fires your water heater, so it's an almost lossless system unless you're consuming large amounts of hydrogen and using almost no hot water. There's nothing "lossless" about it. It's less efficient than burning all of the natural gas to heat your water, since some of the heat energy released goes into the steam reformer:
CH4 + H2O + 192 kJ -> CO + 3H2
Since the heat of combustion of methane is 902 kJ/mol, you have to consume about 1.2 mol CH4 to convert 1 mol, so your reformer efficiency is at best 83%, less whatever it takes to get the reformer up to operating temperature (probably 800C or so) and keep it there, less the losses from sequestering CO. Since your water heater isn't pressurized, it can't be put in direct contact with that 800C steam, so there's another hit going through a heat exchanger.
I'm guessing the overall fuel-to-products cycle efficiency for this system is 55%. No matter how much you want it to save the whales and repair the ozone layer, entropy takes its cut. Remember, hydrogen is an energy carrier: for all practical intents and purposes, it doesn't exist naturally, so you have to use some energy to produce it.
It turns out that the way the genome works is pretty analagous to software - there are calls made to "subroutines" at the appropriate places and times during development. So, in this case, the "limb" call was activated four times rather than two, due to some mutation. The reason that's significant is that it implies that dolphins' ancestors had four limbs at some point; at the time they would have been legs, but the subroutine has been rewritten over time to build fins instead. As others have pointed out, there's already substantial fossil and genetic evidence for the relationship between marine and land mammals, but you can never have too much.
One final nitpick: there's no such thing as evolution moving "forward" or "backward". Pejorative terms like that imply a "better" or "more-evolved" state. Evolution occurs whenever there's a selection bias in favor of a particular mutation, and any number of evolutionary changes have disappeared and reappeared over time.
Um, it adds 802.11 and Bluetooth, a larger HD (80 vs 40 GB) and a faster processor (1.5 vs 1.25 GHz) for an extra $100. Otherwise the specs are the same. If you're disappointed by that, I don't see how it's Apple's problem. They're laughing all the way to the bank.
Apple didn't use the word 'innovative'. In fact the only adjective on the press invitations was 'fun'.
This is why Apple is moving to 'stealth' product updates instead of waiting for Macworld or WWDC. Maybe eventually they won't be the only company in the world whose stock drops when it releases new products.
Expecting government, at any level, under whatever label they're using at the time, to do anything out of the goodness of their hearts is lunacy. The only real power we the people have in this country is the prospect of mob rule, and the powers that be have pretty much figured out that we're collectively too lazy to exercise it. No, all we are to them is a big collection of wallets and ballots, and since they don't really need the ballots and their corporate backers have bigger wallets, we're expendable.
The real concern in this whole debacle is that the politicians may have finally reached the point where they can buy a Supreme Court. Checks and balances could be on their last legs.
Did they ever go to jail, considering how well known their criminal past is?
Given how high profile the arrests would be, I bet they would have been prosecuted if:
1. Phreaking was illegal at the time. (IIRC they beat out the federal law on that one.)
2. The statute of limitations hadn't expired.
3. There was any evidence, since their own statements are inadmissible.
Building a case is hard work, which is why smart criminals don't get caught.
Slashdot Mirror
Saying that nuclear power isn't "safe" is ignoring the facts:
8 7.pdf
/ WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower/AP1000Reactor.pdf
A nuclear reactor under normal operating conditions releases less radiation to the environment than a comparably-sized coal power plant. http://www.ornl.gov/info/reports/1977/34456051150
Containment-breaching accidents in the entire history of nuclear power amount to exactly 1 in approximately 10,000 reactor-years of total operation, and the RBMK (Chernobyl) is a dog of a design that under any rational oversight system would never even have been built. This is in line with probabilistic risk assessments which indicate a CMF (core melt frequency) of 1 in 10^4 reactor-years, and a LRF (large release frequency) of 1 in 10^5 reactor-years. Current designs (specifically the AP1000) reduce these to 4x10^-7 and 4x10^-8 respectively. http://www.nuclearinfo.net/twiki/pub/Nuclearpower
Nuclear power isn't without its problems: high capital costs, mostly as a result of legal fees associated with brain-dead NIMBY protesters, and the waste management issue, although even that is only a problem for at most 10,000 years under a competent, well-thought out fuel cycle (e.g. NOT in the US).
Compared to the global economic and environmental consequences of our current fossil fuel addiction, whether or not to transition to nuclear power, and quickly, is no choice at all. But rational inquiry doesn't play as well on the news as "OMG IT'S NUCULAR THINK OF TEH CHILDRENZ!!!!1`one"
It turns out that the way the genome works is pretty analagous to software - there are calls made to "subroutines" at the appropriate places and times during development. So, in this case, the "limb" call was activated four times rather than two, due to some mutation. The reason that's significant is that it implies that dolphins' ancestors had four limbs at some point; at the time they would have been legs, but the subroutine has been rewritten over time to build fins instead. As others have pointed out, there's already substantial fossil and genetic evidence for the relationship between marine and land mammals, but you can never have too much.
One final nitpick: there's no such thing as evolution moving "forward" or "backward". Pejorative terms like that imply a "better" or "more-evolved" state. Evolution occurs whenever there's a selection bias in favor of a particular mutation, and any number of evolutionary changes have disappeared and reappeared over time.
That was only standard on the high-end 1.5 GHz config.
Um, it adds 802.11 and Bluetooth, a larger HD (80 vs 40 GB) and a faster processor (1.5 vs 1.25 GHz) for an extra $100. Otherwise the specs are the same. If you're disappointed by that, I don't see how it's Apple's problem. They're laughing all the way to the bank.
Apple didn't use the word 'innovative'. In fact the only adjective on the press invitations was 'fun'.
This is why Apple is moving to 'stealth' product updates instead of waiting for Macworld or WWDC. Maybe eventually they won't be the only company in the world whose stock drops when it releases new products.
All other things being equal, doesn't this just mean that Apple products are more, for lack of a better word, worthy of coverage?
If people who, presumably, know more about technology than the average person choose to use Macs, what does that imply?
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Expecting government, at any level, under whatever label they're using at the time, to do anything out of the goodness of their hearts is lunacy. The only real power we the people have in this country is the prospect of mob rule, and the powers that be have pretty much figured out that we're collectively too lazy to exercise it. No, all we are to them is a big collection of wallets and ballots, and since they don't really need the ballots and their corporate backers have bigger wallets, we're expendable.
The real concern in this whole debacle is that the politicians may have finally reached the point where they can buy a Supreme Court. Checks and balances could be on their last legs.
1. Phreaking was illegal at the time. (IIRC they beat out the federal law on that one.)
2. The statute of limitations hadn't expired.
3. There was any evidence, since their own statements are inadmissible.
Building a case is hard work, which is why smart criminals don't get caught.
(And, conversely, why this guy did.)
Given that a minority of Americans belong to *any* political party, I doubt it. See how those labels don't really apply very often?
.../. users agree to boycott buildings equipped with "light switch".
Resistivity is generally written as rho, not psi.
The half-life of carbon-14 is about 5700 years, so dating using it only becomes accurate after about 500 years.
In Soviet Russia, Internet addict YOU!
The human race?
Shouldn't we be searching out life under the Earth's surface first? http://www.reptoids.com/
Ah, but does it get 1700 miles per gallon?
The odds are low, but it's the potential impact (no pun intended) that an asteroid would have that makes these defenses worth the expense.
So computers are going to keep getting bigger instead of getting better... big surprise there.
Seriously, these are already giving the FBI all kinds of problems. Big Brother never could keep up with technology.