all we have to do is pay humans to plant the seeds, nurture the plants until they're ready for harvest, pick them, and transport them to market.
All I have to do for a lot of my food is the first three. I already planted my garden and I work in it two, three, or more days a week. I've already harvested some some greens, those being green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, and chard. Some of my tomatoes and tomatillos look good, as does the broccoli and cauliflower though I haven't seen any peppers or squash yet.
Energy is a tax at every level of the food-enterprise, and eliminating the energy tax would allow farmers and the other people in the food chain to collect most of the money that gets spent therein.
In the US congress passed a farm bill that gives $307 billion in farm subsidies. And enough congress critters voted for it to survive a presidential veto.
What happens when the lineman makes the final connection and closes the gap? Under a normal situation where the power flows only one way, nothing, as the power's been cut off at the transformer upline. Once he's done and has moved to a safe distance, the power company turns the transformer back on and life continues. However, if my excess power is being fed back in to the grid, SURPRISE! The line is live the instant the final connection is made. The lineman gets a nasty (and likely fatal) shock.
This is why inverters have low voltage cutoffs. UL and IEEE have rules and standards to prevent inverters from islanding and harming repairmen. Many systems that intertie into the power grid require these cutoffs so that when the powerline drops to zero the inverter won't feed power to the lines. This has been worked out quite well already.
I think some of the biggest problems with health care and utilities arise purely from the fact that they become a political hot potatoes and the currently democratic process both here & world wide (USA/UK/etc) is set up to favour the present not the future.
I agree, the biggest problem medicine and health care have has to do with politics.
John Howard was only finally voted out here after completely destroying our workplace laws costing many people their jobs and was also, in a manner of speaking, corrupt - he routinely lied to the voting public whilst lining the pockets of groups whose votes he needed.
My memory is bad and I may be wrong here but I thought one of the reasons John Howard lost was because he supported Bush's invasion of Iraq.
if you don't have health insurance, you're basically fucked if you get hit with anything worse than a bacterial infection or a broken bone.
I was hit by something worse than a "bacterial infection" and suffered something worse than a "broken bone". And though I DID NOT have health insurance I was treated by doctors in a hospital. I spent more than 1/2 a year being treated and the costs came to more than $120,000.
So much for having to have insurance, or be rich, to get medical care.
It may not be perfect, but I feel it's a heck of a lot better than the mess that's the USA healthcare system.
You don't say where you are but I live in the USA and have had quite an experience with healthcare here. As a college student without insurance I was hit while riding my bike one day after my classes. I was medevacted by helicopter to the hospital where I got treatment while in a coma. I spent about a month in the hospital before I was moved to a rehabilitation house where I lived about 1 1/2 months while getting therapy. When I left the house I moved into my mother's house. I went to the hospital 2 days a week for more therapy for a couple of months. My medical bills totaled more than $120,000 yet all that was spent despite no one, doctors, hospital, or rehab house knowing if they would see a dime from me. Actually while I was in the coma the docs told my family it would be a miracle if I lived and as a student I wouldn't have been able to pay. Even today more than 10 years later I'd argue with them about my being alive is a miracle, my life has been more like a living hell.
Even without my experience, I have an idea how medical practice is in the USA, my mother is a lab tech in the hospital I was taken to, actually that's how she found out, a coworker asked her if she knew me. I also have a sister who's a nurse. As it is now, by law a hospital has to provide medical care in an emergency in the US even if the patient has no insurance.
Don't get me wrong, I don't believe the USA has the best health care system in the world for everyone but I do believe a free market, which the US does not have in health care, can lower costs and make medical care affordable for more people. Some people say France has the best system but the Organization For Economic Co-operation a Development, OECD, disagrees. In the report "Private Health Insurance in France" it says "While France has a universal public health insurance system, the coverage it provides is incomplete and the vast majority the French population has private complementary health insurance."
I think some people are so deep into their cynicism about governmental incompetence that they rarely stop to check if their cynicism is borne out by the facts...
And some are so deeply enamored with government they don't stop to check why there is a problem with health care. The problem is because the government passed wage control laws during WWII, employers weren't allowed to pay employees more. However because this caused a problem for employers the government allowed them to offer fringe benefits such as health insurance, and gave them tax breaks for doing so. Now if the government allowed employers to pay employees more, without raising taxes, then people could buy insurance on their own instead of depending on employers for it. Competition would then drive prices down.
Yup, and the voting public seem to fall for it every single time. Either by not caring, or by caring yet not having the attention span to remember about it when they are in the polling booth.
Some have an even shorter attention and or memory span than that. It was government meddling that caused the health care problems to begin with. During WWII the US government passed price and wage control laws. Employers weren't allowed to offer employees more by law. However government saw how this harmed businesses so the let employers offer fringe benefits such as health insurance to their employees, and gave them tax breaks for doing it. Those tax breaks are still on the books so there is no free market in health care and insurance. If government gave those same tax breaks to people who bought their own insurance then you could have a freer market. If they wanted they could join a health care coop. Or buy private insurance. They'd be able to open a health savings account which they could then use to pay normal medical expenses while buying catastrophic coverage to pay catastrophic expenses like cancer.
As for putting the power company out of business, I'm all for it. Whoever had the bright idea of privatizing a utility should be shot. Fundemental public services should not be privatized they should be public and operating in a fully transparent manner. Roads, Schools, Libraries, Utilities, and Health Care.
Yea, we don't want things to work right, we want them to fail because nobody has a financial interest in making them work right. I can accept roads and libraries being government supported, local governments though, state government for most roads while the federal government can do the interstate highways. Actually because the feds have such a straggle hold on highway funding they were able to tell the states they had to change their IDs and drivers licenses. But not utilities or health care. You want transparency? And just how transparent has Bush been? Or congress? For instance though the public was 70% to 80% against giving subsidies to farmers congress approved a $307 billion farm bill. Though Bush was against it it sailed through congress with big enough a margin to override a veto. Now I've criticized Bush a lot but this is one thing I agree with him on. Now what will happen to those congress critters? I bet most will be reelected.
According to the article California will not allow homeowners to sell more power back into the grid than they are buying. He doesn't say why. I don't understand the reasoning for such a restriction, since the possibility of selling more than you buy would encourage wider adoption.
California has net metering in which case you're paid as much for power you generate as you would pay for power, the retail price. More than likely if you could have a negative amount of power, ie you generated more than you used, the power you generate would have to be priced lower. The power transmission companies, in CA power generation and transmission capabilities are owned by separate companies, still have to make a profit. But if they have to pay you retail prices when you generate more than you use then it'll cut into their bottom line. And they still have to maintain the infrastructure, power lines, transformers, and such.
The early style bulbs had 4 tubes that projected straight out - they were not at all shaped like a light bulb - like the newer ones today that corkscrew to create a 'light bulb' outline - hence why I couldn't fit one inside of my porch light fixture globe.
I've bought the ones with straight bars sticking out, ones with two "U" shaped bulbs, and the cork screw bulbs. The old straight bar ones didn't fit many fixtures but the cork screw bulbs are about the same size as the incandescent bulbs they replaced. The ones I got are 12 watt though and the 15 watt bulbs probably won't fit.
All the replacement bulbs I have now are CFLs, and as the incandescent bulbs die out, they are being replaced by CFLs.
That's what I did, as the incandescent bulbs burnt out I replaced them with CFLs. I recommend this over simply replacing good, well still working, incandescent bulbs. Buy one or two CFLs then when an old bulb burns out replae it with a CFL then buy another CFL. With the drop in prices, and the wider availability of CFLs, it doesn't matter much any more but it allows people to evaluate the bulbs. If one isn't good they know not to get anymore of them.
Yeah, I used to work at a place where the only way the light went on/off in the bathroom was a motion sensor. Sitting on the toilet you had to wave your arms around every now and then or be plunged into darkness.
I' say the placement of the motion sensor(s) were bad. I had the same problem at an apartment I lived in, the light for the patio was on a motion sensor. I smoke but not inside, so I'd step out to the patio to light up. I always bring something to read but at night the light frequently turned off. On the other hand the lights would turn on when deer went by, which was frequently while I lived there, between fall and spring.
the bright white, unnatural light gives me a headache and causes my eyes to strain much faster when I am working under it for a long period of time.
The unnatural light from incandescent lights?
I never have this problem at home, with my "regular" lighting, only here at work under the fluorescents.
I've never had problems with CFLs, the only florescent lights I have had problems with were the old 4' tubes in offices, factory floors, and sales warehouses.
if you've used CFL's on any scale, you'll certainly know that the quality/reliability of these products is miserable bordering on pathetic.
I have 12 CFLs in 6 light fixtures and don't have a problem with any of them.
I'm currently quite convinced that my switch to CFLs has cost more energy (and money) in terms of replacing failing bulbs than it has saved in electricity.
In about 20 years I've only had to replace 3 CFLs. Darn it, in earlier posts I said I only had to replace one but early this year I had to replace two more.
I use 12 CFLs in 6 fixtures and I have no problem with them.
it's still expensive to get the good lights.
The latest CFLs I bought I got at Walmart for $3 something for a 2 pack.
LEDs aren't as bad, but they're quite bright and I personally cringe when people suggest that the alternatives to incandescent light bulbs are truly ready for prime time.
Now LEDs are expensive, and most are only good for spot lighting, only the really expensive ones are good for area lighting.
They will do. My parents were early adopters (must be over 15 years since we had them)
I bought my first CFL 20 year ago, for US$20, and the first one I had burnout burnt out last year.
I remember the first ones cost about £10 and were massive, heavy things and they did flicker, and take five minutes to warm up.
Though as I say above the first one was expensive, it fit into the light fixture. I've never had a CFL flicker. Now, those first ones did take a minute or so to warm up, but not the ones I have now.
I've got two of the "high quality" CFLs over my head as we speak. They have 95+ CRI and give everything in the room a very accurate color cast. But if it wasn't for a couple incandescent bulbs next to them I'd have vertigo and a throbbing headache.
All I have over my head is CFLs, I only have one light fixture in my apartment with incandescent bulbs and I rarely use that light, and I have no trouble with the lighting.
I'm not normally the sensitive sort -- strobe lights and flashing video games don't bother me in the least
Besides being a photographer I am kind of sensitive to light, between the two it can get hard as when I'm out in the sun I almost always wear sunglasses. I can easily get eye aches without them. However I need to take them off when I shoot. And strobe lights can bother me.
That's all well and good but you would be surprised at how much mercury gets into the environment from dental fillings and how few people will pay the extra $15.00 to get composite fillings!
Not everyone knows dental fillings contain mercury. I got into an argument with someone over that, I had to prove to them mercury was used. And not all dentists use composite fillings.
They appear the same except the CFLs are brighter and their light isn't as yellow.
Actually it depends on the light bulb as to what colour is emitted. Different CFLs have different colour temperatures, some emit yellow light, some emit blue light, and some emit a more balanced light, day lighting.
I think it's over 5 years since my parents and myself use only CFL and none broke.
I bought my first CFL about 20 years ago, it cost more than $20, and I've only bought CFL light bulbs since except for flashlights and I have yet to have one break. On the other hand, it's possible to drop one when changing bulbs. What I do is hold the light shade or dome under the bulb so if it does drop it will be caught.
Slashdot Mirror
all we have to do is pay humans to plant the seeds, nurture the plants until they're ready for harvest, pick them, and transport them to market.
All I have to do for a lot of my food is the first three. I already planted my garden and I work in it two, three, or more days a week. I've already harvested some some greens, those being green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, and chard. Some of my tomatoes and tomatillos look good, as does the broccoli and cauliflower though I haven't seen any peppers or squash yet.
Energy is a tax at every level of the food-enterprise, and eliminating the energy tax would allow farmers and the other people in the food chain to collect most of the money that gets spent therein.
In the US congress passed a farm bill that gives $307 billion in farm subsidies. And enough congress critters voted for it to survive a presidential veto.
Falcon
What happens when the lineman makes the final connection and closes the gap? Under a normal situation where the power flows only one way, nothing, as the power's been cut off at the transformer upline. Once he's done and has moved to a safe distance, the power company turns the transformer back on and life continues. However, if my excess power is being fed back in to the grid, SURPRISE! The line is live the instant the final connection is made. The lineman gets a nasty (and likely fatal) shock.
This is why inverters have low voltage cutoffs. UL and IEEE have rules and standards to prevent inverters from islanding and harming repairmen. Many systems that intertie into the power grid require these cutoffs so that when the powerline drops to zero the inverter won't feed power to the lines. This has been worked out quite well already.
IEEE's Xplore has an article on this, "Virtual inductor-based islanding detection method for grid-connected power inverter of distributed power generation system" [only a summary].
Falcon
I think some of the biggest problems with health care and utilities arise purely from the fact that they become a political hot potatoes and the currently democratic process both here & world wide (USA/UK/etc) is set up to favour the present not the future.
I agree, the biggest problem medicine and health care have has to do with politics.
John Howard was only finally voted out here after completely destroying our workplace laws costing many people their jobs and was also, in a manner of speaking, corrupt - he routinely lied to the voting public whilst lining the pockets of groups whose votes he needed.
My memory is bad and I may be wrong here but I thought one of the reasons John Howard lost was because he supported Bush's invasion of Iraq.
Falcon
if you don't have health insurance, you're basically fucked if you get hit with anything worse than a bacterial infection or a broken bone.
I was hit by something worse than a "bacterial infection" and suffered something worse than a "broken bone". And though I DID NOT have health insurance I was treated by doctors in a hospital. I spent more than 1/2 a year being treated and the costs came to more than $120,000.
So much for having to have insurance, or be rich, to get medical care.
Falcon
It may not be perfect, but I feel it's a heck of a lot better than the mess that's the USA healthcare system.
You don't say where you are but I live in the USA and have had quite an experience with healthcare here. As a college student without insurance I was hit while riding my bike one day after my classes. I was medevacted by helicopter to the hospital where I got treatment while in a coma. I spent about a month in the hospital before I was moved to a rehabilitation house where I lived about 1 1/2 months while getting therapy. When I left the house I moved into my mother's house. I went to the hospital 2 days a week for more therapy for a couple of months. My medical bills totaled more than $120,000 yet all that was spent despite no one, doctors, hospital, or rehab house knowing if they would see a dime from me. Actually while I was in the coma the docs told my family it would be a miracle if I lived and as a student I wouldn't have been able to pay. Even today more than 10 years later I'd argue with them about my being alive is a miracle, my life has been more like a living hell.
Even without my experience, I have an idea how medical practice is in the USA, my mother is a lab tech in the hospital I was taken to, actually that's how she found out, a coworker asked her if she knew me. I also have a sister who's a nurse. As it is now, by law a hospital has to provide medical care in an emergency in the US even if the patient has no insurance.
Don't get me wrong, I don't believe the USA has the best health care system in the world for everyone but I do believe a free market, which the US does not have in health care, can lower costs and make medical care affordable for more people. Some people say France has the best system but the Organization For Economic Co-operation a Development, OECD, disagrees. In the report "Private Health Insurance in France" it says "While France has a universal public health insurance system, the coverage it provides is incomplete and the vast majority the French population has private complementary health insurance."
Falcon
You may want to take a look at this paper about health care in France.
Thanks for the link. Now when someone says how good France's health care is I have a reliable source to point to that differs.
Falcon
I think some people are so deep into their cynicism about governmental incompetence that they rarely stop to check if their cynicism is borne out by the facts...
And some are so deeply enamored with government they don't stop to check why there is a problem with health care. The problem is because the government passed wage control laws during WWII, employers weren't allowed to pay employees more. However because this caused a problem for employers the government allowed them to offer fringe benefits such as health insurance, and gave them tax breaks for doing so. Now if the government allowed employers to pay employees more, without raising taxes, then people could buy insurance on their own instead of depending on employers for it. Competition would then drive prices down.
Falcon
Yup, and the voting public seem to fall for it every single time. Either by not caring, or by caring yet not having the attention span to remember about it when they are in the polling booth.
Some have an even shorter attention and or memory span than that. It was government meddling that caused the health care problems to begin with. During WWII the US government passed price and wage control laws. Employers weren't allowed to offer employees more by law. However government saw how this harmed businesses so the let employers offer fringe benefits such as health insurance to their employees, and gave them tax breaks for doing it. Those tax breaks are still on the books so there is no free market in health care and insurance. If government gave those same tax breaks to people who bought their own insurance then you could have a freer market. If they wanted they could join a health care coop. Or buy private insurance. They'd be able to open a health savings account which they could then use to pay normal medical expenses while buying catastrophic coverage to pay catastrophic expenses like cancer.
Falcon
Who wants a working healthcare system when you can privatise it
Who wants a working health care system when you can blame greedy corporations and socialize it instead??
Falcon
As for putting the power company out of business, I'm all for it. Whoever had the bright idea of privatizing a utility should be shot. Fundemental public services should not be privatized they should be public and operating in a fully transparent manner. Roads, Schools, Libraries, Utilities, and Health Care.
Yea, we don't want things to work right, we want them to fail because nobody has a financial interest in making them work right. I can accept roads and libraries being government supported, local governments though, state government for most roads while the federal government can do the interstate highways. Actually because the feds have such a straggle hold on highway funding they were able to tell the states they had to change their IDs and drivers licenses. But not utilities or health care. You want transparency? And just how transparent has Bush been? Or congress? For instance though the public was 70% to 80% against giving subsidies to farmers congress approved a $307 billion farm bill. Though Bush was against it it sailed through congress with big enough a margin to override a veto. Now I've criticized Bush a lot but this is one thing I agree with him on. Now what will happen to those congress critters? I bet most will be reelected.
Falcon
According to the article California will not allow homeowners to sell more power back into the grid than they are buying. He doesn't say why. I don't understand the reasoning for such a restriction, since the possibility of selling more than you buy would encourage wider adoption.
California has net metering in which case you're paid as much for power you generate as you would pay for power, the retail price. More than likely if you could have a negative amount of power, ie you generated more than you used, the power you generate would have to be priced lower. The power transmission companies, in CA power generation and transmission capabilities are owned by separate companies, still have to make a profit. But if they have to pay you retail prices when you generate more than you use then it'll cut into their bottom line. And they still have to maintain the infrastructure, power lines, transformers, and such.
Falcon
The early style bulbs had 4 tubes that projected straight out - they were not at all shaped like a light bulb - like the newer ones today that corkscrew to create a 'light bulb' outline - hence why I couldn't fit one inside of my porch light fixture globe.
I've bought the ones with straight bars sticking out, ones with two "U" shaped bulbs, and the cork screw bulbs. The old straight bar ones didn't fit many fixtures but the cork screw bulbs are about the same size as the incandescent bulbs they replaced. The ones I got are 12 watt though and the 15 watt bulbs probably won't fit.
All the replacement bulbs I have now are CFLs, and as the incandescent bulbs die out, they are being replaced by CFLs.
That's what I did, as the incandescent bulbs burnt out I replaced them with CFLs. I recommend this over simply replacing good, well still working, incandescent bulbs. Buy one or two CFLs then when an old bulb burns out replae it with a CFL then buy another CFL. With the drop in prices, and the wider availability of CFLs, it doesn't matter much any more but it allows people to evaluate the bulbs. If one isn't good they know not to get anymore of them.
Falcon
Yeah, I used to work at a place where the only way the light went on/off in the bathroom was a motion sensor. Sitting on the toilet you had to wave your arms around every now and then or be plunged into darkness.
I' say the placement of the motion sensor(s) were bad. I had the same problem at an apartment I lived in, the light for the patio was on a motion sensor. I smoke but not inside, so I'd step out to the patio to light up. I always bring something to read but at night the light frequently turned off. On the other hand the lights would turn on when deer went by, which was frequently while I lived there, between fall and spring.
Falcon
"and almost all the bad ones were made in China"
Were almost all the good ones were made in China too? ;)
No, actually the better ones were made either in the US or in Europe according to the report.
Falcon
I RTFA, from Purdue U, and didn't see any ads, where are they?
Falcon
the bright white, unnatural light gives me a headache and causes my eyes to strain much faster when I am working under it for a long period of time.
The unnatural light from incandescent lights?
I never have this problem at home, with my "regular" lighting, only here at work under the fluorescents.
I've never had problems with CFLs, the only florescent lights I have had problems with were the old 4' tubes in offices, factory floors, and sales warehouses.
Falcon
if you've used CFL's on any scale, you'll certainly know that the quality/reliability of these products is miserable bordering on pathetic.
I have 12 CFLs in 6 light fixtures and don't have a problem with any of them.
I'm currently quite convinced that my switch to CFLs has cost more energy (and money) in terms of replacing failing bulbs than it has saved in electricity.
In about 20 years I've only had to replace 3 CFLs. Darn it, in earlier posts I said I only had to replace one but early this year I had to replace two more.
Falcon
They're not full spectrum like sunlight
There are full spectrum CFLs, they cost more but are available.
-All of today's CFLs are NOT created equally.
This is definitely true. I recently read a report about CFLs, and almost all the bad ones were made in China.
Falcon
I use 12 CFLs in 6 fixtures and I have no problem with them.
it's still expensive to get the good lights.
The latest CFLs I bought I got at Walmart for $3 something for a 2 pack.
LEDs aren't as bad, but they're quite bright and I personally cringe when people suggest that the alternatives to incandescent light bulbs are truly ready for prime time.
Now LEDs are expensive, and most are only good for spot lighting, only the really expensive ones are good for area lighting.
Falcon
I've never had a CFL burnout
They will do. My parents were early adopters (must be over 15 years since we had them)
I bought my first CFL 20 year ago, for US$20, and the first one I had burnout burnt out last year.
I remember the first ones cost about £10 and were massive, heavy things and they did flicker, and take five minutes to warm up.
Though as I say above the first one was expensive, it fit into the light fixture. I've never had a CFL flicker. Now, those first ones did take a minute or so to warm up, but not the ones I have now.
Falcon
I've got two of the "high quality" CFLs over my head as we speak. They have 95+ CRI and give everything in the room a very accurate color cast. But if it wasn't for a couple incandescent bulbs next to them I'd have vertigo and a throbbing headache.
All I have over my head is CFLs, I only have one light fixture in my apartment with incandescent bulbs and I rarely use that light, and I have no trouble with the lighting.
I'm not normally the sensitive sort -- strobe lights and flashing video games don't bother me in the least
Besides being a photographer I am kind of sensitive to light, between the two it can get hard as when I'm out in the sun I almost always wear sunglasses. I can easily get eye aches without them. However I need to take them off when I shoot. And strobe lights can bother me.
Falcon
you can't put fluorescent lighting on a dimmer
CFLs can be used with dimmers, there are dimmable CFLs.
Falcon
That's all well and good but you would be surprised at how much mercury gets into the environment from dental fillings and how few people will pay the extra $15.00 to get composite fillings!
Not everyone knows dental fillings contain mercury. I got into an argument with someone over that, I had to prove to them mercury was used. And not all dentists use composite fillings.
Falcon
They appear the same except the CFLs are brighter and their light isn't as yellow.
Actually it depends on the light bulb as to what colour is emitted. Different CFLs have different colour temperatures, some emit yellow light, some emit blue light, and some emit a more balanced light, day lighting.
Falcon
I think it's over 5 years since my parents and myself use only CFL and none broke.
I bought my first CFL about 20 years ago, it cost more than $20, and I've only bought CFL light bulbs since except for flashlights and I have yet to have one break. On the other hand, it's possible to drop one when changing bulbs. What I do is hold the light shade or dome under the bulb so if it does drop it will be caught.
Falcon