On the other hand, if coal ever goes out of fashion, I guess the state will have to make a decision - with coal and tourism being our two biggest sources of money, I guess they'll have to decide whether the state parks are more valuable for tourism or generating power.
It doesn't have to be an "either/or" situation. You can go to LA, CA, and not realize the city sits on one of the US's largest oil fields, Wilmington Oil Field. The city has a lot of operating oil wells but they are hidden. Actually that's where the La Brea Tar Pits come from.
One day, hopefully, we will be trying to extend our society beyond the life of the Sun.
While the sun is thought to have billions of years before it burns out, men as in the male sex may only have on the order of a few hundred thousand years before they become extinct. A debate is going on as to whether man can continue without intervention, as in genetic engineering.
we as a species are trying to maintain our style/standard of living out as far as possible
I'm no Malthusian but I don't think the whole world can live as people in the US do today.
The company that obtains and delivers my electricity does not own the generation methods.
You're in California then? In many places the transmitter is the generator. For instance where I am the power company is Xcel and they own the powerlines and the generators.
Solar PV STILL has not been able to pay for itself within 20 years.
Solar PVs can and do pay for themselves, in some locations though not all. Warranties on components last longer than the payback period, after which the energy is "free".
Wind is a proven technology, although all these horizontal-axis wind turbines are stupid.
Not all wind turbines are horizontal axis. There are vertical axis turbines as well. Actually there's a Best Buy in my area that has had a vertical axis wind turbine for years, the last tyme I went there they had added another one.
Out of curiosity when I went in I asked the greeter if they were selling them. He didn't know.
Geothermal is not the answer. Solar would be far more useful, as it produces power when we need it most, and we have control over the pollution inherent to the process... which we do NOT have over geothermal.
Solar is not the answer either. The answer is to use what is available in a given location. That means solar where solar is feasible, wind where it is plentiful, and geothermal where it is. Right now geothermal provides 30 MW, 20% of Hawaii's Big Island's energy. New York State has case studies of geothermal used in the state. Geothermal sources provide 27% of the Philippines energy. In 2007 California produced 13 terawatthours of energy, 4.5% of the energy the state used. Not only does geothermal provide 24% of Iceland's energy but it heats 87% of all buildings.
It is totally hogwash to discount the energy geothermal sources can provide.
PV may eventually become useful but it isn't there yet, and won't be any time soon. Wind power never will unless physics changes which seems rather unlikely. His concise descriptions weren't far off.
A lot of people use solar and/or wind quite successfully.
Photovoltaics do have the advantage of being deployable very close to where the electricity will be used, which could (partly) pay for itself in reduced power grid work.
I support solar, and wind, and geothermal, but solar PVs are not practical everywhere. Neither are concentrators. Use what energy is practical in each location.
It is all just a matter of being dependent on other countries natural reserves vs. funding it with tax money.
Bullshit!!! Coal gets more federal subsidies than any other energy source in the US. That is unless the cost of war is included, in which case it's petroleum. Nuclear power is second, unless farm subsidies for corn, which is a bad feedstock, based ethanol is included. Each receives multiples of billions of US dollars in taxpayer money. Yet until Obama became president all alternative source, except the fore mentioned corn based ethanol, had to share about $1 Billion. Rep Edward Markey brags "My Climate Bill 'Has Huge Subsidies For Clean Coal! Huge!'" In it he lists some of the subsidies various energy sources get. And Chevron CEO Dave O'Reilly agrees to lobby with Sierra Club to end coal subsidies. The article originally published in Reason: Free Minds and Free Markets" then published online by CATO Institute: Individual Liberty, Free Markets, and Peace titled "Nuclear Energy: Risky Business" starts with "Nuclear energy is to the Right what solar energy is to the Left: Religious devotion in practice, a wonderful technology in theory, but an economic white elephant in fact (some crossovers on both sides notwithstanding)." Another CATO article, Hooked on Subsidies, first published in "Forbes" says how the Nuclear Power industry is as the title says, "hooked on subsidies". Even in countries where nuclear power is big, China, France, India, and Russia it's state actors or the government and not the market that decides what gets built. In brief the US Department of Energy answers the question How much does the Federal Government spend on energy-specific subsidies and support? By fiscal year 2007 all forms of renewable energy got $4.9 billion in subsides, $3 billion of that for ethanol. All other sources had to share the other $1.9 billion. Now how much did coal get? Refined coal got about $2.4 billion and with another $854 million on other coal. And nuclear power got $1.267 billion.
Personally I'd rather see all energy subsidies eliminated. ALL!!! Let a freer market decide winners and losers not government. What governments can do is make sure the markets are kept open as long as they can compeat, and they pay all their costs including external costs.
As to the third component. This is the fairy tale:
The prions in the sheep brain crossed into the cow in a way that would never have happened without people intervening
In my response to you I elaborated on how the transmission of prion diseases is far more complicated than gstoddart realized. That I confused you with gstoddart was my mistake, but my points still stand.
You did not say "component", you said "sentence". Therefore I counted sentences. And if nouns, subjects, verbs, and such are not components (of sentences) then what is a component?
My criticism of your post was not a denial of mad cow, only your assertion that it was a predictable outcome.
First, it was NOT my post you replied to. Secondly I included the part of your post I was replying to, specifically "Your first sentence is correct. The second paragraph is only tangentially related to the truth. The third is a fairy tale." Now let's look at that:
The first sentence is "Basically, they use them as a broad-spectrum prophylactic against things that might otherwise affect them and make them less productive/healthy animals." You say it is correct. The second sentence says "Essentially to compensate for industrial farming practices which are more or less awful conditions (cows enclosed in a stall standing in their own shit for hours at a stretch) they inoculate them against everything." That is exactly why factory farmed animals are shot with antibiotics. Cattle, sheep, pigs, and other livestock raised in pastures or other open spaces generally are not shot up with antibiotic cocktails. And the third sentence, which you say is a fairy tale, says "They're also feeding them stuffthatwould make you cringe... mad cow came from feeding sheep-parts (brains) to the cows (herbivores) for instance to put more protein in their diet." All of that is true, except maybe the "make you cringe" part, and many people would cringe about it.
I was also criticizing your assertion that it never would have happened without human intervention.
Again, I didn't state anything like that. I said nothing about how Mad Cow Disease or prions are transmitted, I dare you to point out where in my post you replied to that I did make such an assertion.
Your first sentence is correct. The second paragraph is only tangentially related to the truth. The third is a fairy tale.
What? You really didn't know, and didn't bother to read the articles linked to, that cows were fed animal parts? I don't know why I'm bothering, you'll probably not read it, but here's a link to a CDC, a US federal agency, page on how BSE or Mad Cow Disease possibly originated by feeding cows meat-and-bone meal from other cows or from sheep.
pesticides and the subsequent run-off, monocultures, exploitation of third world labor to provide us with out of season vegetables.
What exactly is your point? Vegetarians are responsible for GMO crops? For run-off, monocultures, or third world labor to provide us with out of season vegetables?
First let me get this out of the way, I am not a vegetarian or a vegan. I eat animals and animal products. I even love to hunt. However I eat a lot of vegetables as well, especially what I grow in my garden. And I preserve what I can. So far this year with tomatoes I've canned juice, sauce, and soup. With tomatillos I made some salsa. I used ginger, oranges, and rhubarb to make sauce. With root veggies I made root soup. I pickled cucumbers and onions. And I'm not done. I've got some more rhubarb and strawberries I'll can as well as use to make fruit leathers with.
As a vegetarian, you're threatening the food chain on an even deeper level:
http://www.safe-food.org/-issue/dangers.html
What does that have to do with vegetarian diets? All that page talks about is genetic engineering. Forget "vegetarian", "veg" doesn't even appear on that page.
Falcon
Oh, and no, I'm not a vegetarian. Or a vegan. I am an omnivore. And I love to hunt.
The fact that logics show that "not living long" is not the same than "dying right now".
I then invite you to be the first person infected by a multiple drug resistant bacteria. You can then use your wealth to find a cure. Oh, and you only have 1 month to live without a treatment.
I buy my milk almost direct from the cow - at least, I get to pump the stuff from the tank at the dairy into my tanker. However, since I work in Australia, where dairy products have to be made from pasteurised milk, I am required to pasteurise it myself.
Canada too requires milk to be pasteurized, well at least some of the provinces do. In the US some states but not all require it, some allow raw milk. Since 1987, according to the above link, the FDA requires "milk sold and distributed between states for human consumption be pasteurized". However there is a raw milk movement in the US seeking to get rid of laws requiring pasteurization.
This is something I'm often asked about, especially by members of the Slowfood movement
A movement I support, even if only in spirit.
Every now and then, I get the occasional wanker who insists that a "real" cheese should be redolent of the barnyard.
I have used pasteurized milk to make cheese but I want to use raw milk when I next make some.
Although I would agree that we should only feed animals feed that evolution has designed them to eat, what they eat has little or nothing to do with bacteriological disease. The bacteriological and viral diseases are there because the animals are penned up in much closer proximity than thay are evolved for.
What animals eat does have something to do with "bacteriological disease". Eating the wrong food reduces the immune system which make animals more prone to diseases. In humans changing diets can also alter the human flora in people's guts. The same applies to other species of animals. Some of these microorganisms are beneficial while others may be harmful, changing the diet can increase harmful and decrease beneficial organisms.
cats REALLY like fish
One of my cats caught and partially ate a rabbit. I say "partially" because someone else in my building scared the cat away then complained about the carcass in the yard and I had to dispose of it.
If you would have RTFA, you would realize that the animals are being pumped full of antibiotics to increase size, not to keep them disease free.
You obviously missed "'The problem is that the animal agriculture industry makes massive use of low-dose antibiotics for growth promotion and in place of effective infection prevention methods,' Young said". Antibiotics are used for both growth promotion AND to keep the animals "disease free".
A. Brown says the corn feeding or corn fattened cows are done for two reasons, adding weight and homogenizing the taste.
Cattle were originally fed corn because farmers had silos full of corn ranchers could get cheap. This worked out for both as the farmers were guarantied buyers. Today most of the corn grown in the US is fed to livestock. That's one reason vegetarians push their diet, if most people switched to vegetarian diets then less land would be needed to grow food. Even so, personally I don't plan on becoming one myself though I'd rather grow, hunt, and raise, or trade most of my food.
a good chance that:
1) There are farmers markets around.
I live 15 minutes bike ride from downtown Minneapolis and we have farmers markets there. Nicollet Mall, with a street section where only buses and taxis are allowed, has farmers market stands on both sides of the street over several blocks I've walked.
2) Some farmers let you just buy a side of a cow (or an entire cow).
There's also Community-supported agriculture or CSA where people buy a share of a farm's output. Buy a share and every week or so you'll get a box of produce, milk and cheese, meat, or what have you.
Slashdot Mirror
Our brown coal won't run out for thousands of years at the current rate!
Are Reserves of the Largest US Coal Field Overstated by 50%? Coal reserves: "Perhaps no question has more relevance to strategies for dealing with the global warming crisis than the distribution and quantity of coal available for future mining." How much coal is out there?
Falcon
On the other hand, if coal ever goes out of fashion, I guess the state will have to make a decision - with coal and tourism being our two biggest sources of money, I guess they'll have to decide whether the state parks are more valuable for tourism or generating power.
It doesn't have to be an "either/or" situation. You can go to LA, CA, and not realize the city sits on one of the US's largest oil fields, Wilmington Oil Field. The city has a lot of operating oil wells but they are hidden. Actually that's where the La Brea Tar Pits come from.
Falcon
Watch out for those volcanos in LA
One day, hopefully, we will be trying to extend our society beyond the life of the Sun.
While the sun is thought to have billions of years before it burns out, men as in the male sex may only have on the order of a few hundred thousand years before they become extinct. A debate is going on as to whether man can continue without intervention, as in genetic engineering.
we as a species are trying to maintain our style/standard of living out as far as possible
I'm no Malthusian but I don't think the whole world can live as people in the US do today.
Falcon
The company that obtains and delivers my electricity does not own the generation methods.
You're in California then? In many places the transmitter is the generator. For instance where I am the power company is Xcel and they own the powerlines and the generators.
Falcon
Solar PV STILL has not been able to pay for itself within 20 years.
Solar PVs can and do pay for themselves, in some locations though not all. Warranties on components last longer than the payback period, after which the energy is "free".
Falcon
Wind is a proven technology, although all these horizontal-axis wind turbines are stupid.
Not all wind turbines are horizontal axis. There are vertical axis turbines as well. Actually there's a Best Buy in my area that has had a vertical axis wind turbine for years, the last tyme I went there they had added another one.
Out of curiosity when I went in I asked the greeter if they were selling them. He didn't know.
Geothermal is not the answer. Solar would be far more useful, as it produces power when we need it most, and we have control over the pollution inherent to the process... which we do NOT have over geothermal.
Solar is not the answer either. The answer is to use what is available in a given location. That means solar where solar is feasible, wind where it is plentiful, and geothermal where it is. Right now geothermal provides 30 MW, 20% of Hawaii's Big Island's energy. New York State has case studies of geothermal used in the state. Geothermal sources provide 27% of the Philippines energy. In 2007 California produced 13 terawatthours of energy, 4.5% of the energy the state used. Not only does geothermal provide 24% of Iceland's energy but it heats 87% of all buildings.
It is totally hogwash to discount the energy geothermal sources can provide.
Falcon
PV may eventually become useful but it isn't there yet, and won't be any time soon. Wind power never will unless physics changes which seems rather unlikely. His concise descriptions weren't far off.
A lot of people use solar and/or wind quite successfully.
Falcon
Photovoltaics do have the advantage of being deployable very close to where the electricity will be used, which could (partly) pay for itself in reduced power grid work.
I support solar, and wind, and geothermal, but solar PVs are not practical everywhere. Neither are concentrators. Use what energy is practical in each location.
Falcon
Yea, railroads can use that geothermal energy to power those high speed maglevs.
Falcon
It is all just a matter of being dependent on other countries natural reserves vs. funding it with tax money.
Bullshit!!! Coal gets more federal subsidies than any other energy source in the US. That is unless the cost of war is included, in which case it's petroleum. Nuclear power is second, unless farm subsidies for corn, which is a bad feedstock, based ethanol is included. Each receives multiples of billions of US dollars in taxpayer money. Yet until Obama became president all alternative source, except the fore mentioned corn based ethanol, had to share about $1 Billion. Rep Edward Markey brags "My Climate Bill 'Has Huge Subsidies For Clean Coal! Huge!'" In it he lists some of the subsidies various energy sources get. And Chevron CEO Dave O'Reilly agrees to lobby with Sierra Club to end coal subsidies. The article originally published in Reason: Free Minds and Free Markets" then published online by CATO Institute: Individual Liberty, Free Markets, and Peace titled "Nuclear Energy: Risky Business" starts with "Nuclear energy is to the Right what solar energy is to the Left: Religious devotion in practice, a wonderful technology in theory, but an economic white elephant in fact (some crossovers on both sides notwithstanding)." Another CATO article, Hooked on Subsidies, first published in "Forbes" says how the Nuclear Power industry is as the title says, "hooked on subsidies". Even in countries where nuclear power is big, China, France, India, and Russia it's state actors or the government and not the market that decides what gets built. In brief the US Department of Energy answers the question How much does the Federal Government spend on energy-specific subsidies and support? By fiscal year 2007 all forms of renewable energy got $4.9 billion in subsides, $3 billion of that for ethanol. All other sources had to share the other $1.9 billion. Now how much did coal get? Refined coal got about $2.4 billion and with another $854 million on other coal. And nuclear power got $1.267 billion.
You say you're in Germany. The article Spain slashes solar energy subsidies laments that Berlin decided to continue to use nuclear power. And that Madrid slashed solar subsidies. Another says the same in Germany, Germany to cut subsidies for solar energy .
Personally I'd rather see all energy subsidies eliminated. ALL!!! Let a freer market decide winners and losers not government. What governments can do is make sure the markets are kept open as long as they can compeat, and they pay all their costs including external costs.
Falcon
As to the third component. This is the fairy tale:
The prions in the sheep brain crossed into the cow in a way that would never have happened without people intervening
In my response to you I elaborated on how the transmission of prion diseases is far more complicated than gstoddart realized. That I confused you with gstoddart was my mistake, but my points still stand.
You did not say "component", you said "sentence". Therefore I counted sentences. And if nouns, subjects, verbs, and such are not components (of sentences) then what is a component?
Falcon
My criticism of your post was not a denial of mad cow, only your assertion that it was a predictable outcome.
First, it was NOT my post you replied to. Secondly I included the part of your post I was replying to, specifically "Your first sentence is correct. The second paragraph is only tangentially related to the truth. The third is a fairy tale." Now let's look at that:
The first sentence is "Basically, they use them as a broad-spectrum prophylactic against things that might otherwise affect them and make them less productive/healthy animals." You say it is correct. The second sentence says "Essentially to compensate for industrial farming practices which are more or less awful conditions (cows enclosed in a stall standing in their own shit for hours at a stretch) they inoculate them against everything." That is exactly why factory farmed animals are shot with antibiotics. Cattle, sheep, pigs, and other livestock raised in pastures or other open spaces generally are not shot up with antibiotic cocktails. And the third sentence, which you say is a fairy tale, says "They're also feeding them stuff that would make you cringe ... mad cow came from feeding sheep-parts (brains) to the cows (herbivores) for instance to put more protein in their diet." All of that is true, except maybe the "make you cringe" part, and many people would cringe about it.
I was also criticizing your assertion that it never would have happened without human intervention.
Again, I didn't state anything like that. I said nothing about how Mad Cow Disease or prions are transmitted, I dare you to point out where in my post you replied to that I did make such an assertion.
Falcon
Your first sentence is correct. The second paragraph is only tangentially related to the truth. The third is a fairy tale.
What? You really didn't know, and didn't bother to read the articles linked to, that cows were fed animal parts? I don't know why I'm bothering, you'll probably not read it, but here's a link to a CDC, a US federal agency, page on how BSE or Mad Cow Disease possibly originated by feeding cows meat-and-bone meal from other cows or from sheep.
Falcon
pesticides and the subsequent run-off, monocultures, exploitation of third world labor to provide us with out of season vegetables.
What exactly is your point? Vegetarians are responsible for GMO crops? For run-off, monocultures, or third world labor to provide us with out of season vegetables?
First let me get this out of the way, I am not a vegetarian or a vegan. I eat animals and animal products. I even love to hunt. However I eat a lot of vegetables as well, especially what I grow in my garden. And I preserve what I can. So far this year with tomatoes I've canned juice, sauce, and soup. With tomatillos I made some salsa. I used ginger, oranges, and rhubarb to make sauce. With root veggies I made root soup. I pickled cucumbers and onions. And I'm not done. I've got some more rhubarb and strawberries I'll can as well as use to make fruit leathers with.
Falcon
As a vegetarian, you're threatening the food chain on an even deeper level:
http://www.safe-food.org/-issue/dangers.html
What does that have to do with vegetarian diets? All that page talks about is genetic engineering. Forget "vegetarian", "veg" doesn't even appear on that page.
Falcon
Oh, and no, I'm not a vegetarian. Or a vegan. I am an omnivore. And I love to hunt.
BS! I dare you to cite one scientific study supporting your statement. Here are some studies or references to studies that conclude organic food [pdf] can feed the world.
Falcon
The fact that logics show that "not living long" is not the same than "dying right now".
I then invite you to be the first person infected by a multiple drug resistant bacteria. You can then use your wealth to find a cure. Oh, and you only have 1 month to live without a treatment.
Falcon
I buy my milk almost direct from the cow - at least, I get to pump the stuff from the tank at the dairy into my tanker. However, since I work in Australia, where dairy products have to be made from pasteurised milk, I am required to pasteurise it myself.
Canada too requires milk to be pasteurized, well at least some of the provinces do. In the US some states but not all require it, some allow raw milk. Since 1987, according to the above link, the FDA requires "milk sold and distributed between states for human consumption be pasteurized". However there is a raw milk movement in the US seeking to get rid of laws requiring pasteurization.
This is something I'm often asked about, especially by members of the Slowfood movement
A movement I support, even if only in spirit.
Every now and then, I get the occasional wanker who insists that a "real" cheese should be redolent of the barnyard.
I have used pasteurized milk to make cheese but I want to use raw milk when I next make some.
Falcon
Although I would agree that we should only feed animals feed that evolution has designed them to eat, what they eat has little or nothing to do with bacteriological disease. The bacteriological and viral diseases are there because the animals are penned up in much closer proximity than thay are evolved for.
What animals eat does have something to do with "bacteriological disease". Eating the wrong food reduces the immune system which make animals more prone to diseases. In humans changing diets can also alter the human flora in people's guts. The same applies to other species of animals. Some of these microorganisms are beneficial while others may be harmful, changing the diet can increase harmful and decrease beneficial organisms.
cats REALLY like fish
One of my cats caught and partially ate a rabbit. I say "partially" because someone else in my building scared the cat away then complained about the carcass in the yard and I had to dispose of it.
Falcon
If you would have RTFA, you would realize that the animals are being pumped full of antibiotics to increase size, not to keep them disease free.
You obviously missed "'The problem is that the animal agriculture industry makes massive use of low-dose antibiotics for growth promotion and in place of effective infection prevention methods,' Young said". Antibiotics are used for both growth promotion AND to keep the animals "disease free".
Falcon
That's why laws should change according to pressure from citizens (environment), which is what often, but not always, happens :)
Should there be a law?
Falcon
In Hog Valley, FL? Gosh, it's been years since I've hunted there, along the St John's River, or in the Everglades.
Falcon
A. Brown says the corn feeding or corn fattened cows are done for two reasons, adding weight and homogenizing the taste.
Cattle were originally fed corn because farmers had silos full of corn ranchers could get cheap. This worked out for both as the farmers were guarantied buyers. Today most of the corn grown in the US is fed to livestock. That's one reason vegetarians push their diet, if most people switched to vegetarian diets then less land would be needed to grow food. Even so, personally I don't plan on becoming one myself though I'd rather grow, hunt, and raise, or trade most of my food.
Falcon
a good chance that:
1) There are farmers markets around.
I live 15 minutes bike ride from downtown Minneapolis and we have farmers markets there. Nicollet Mall, with a street section where only buses and taxis are allowed, has farmers market stands on both sides of the street over several blocks I've walked.
2) Some farmers let you just buy a side of a cow (or an entire cow).
There's also Community-supported agriculture or CSA where people buy a share of a farm's output. Buy a share and every week or so you'll get a box of produce, milk and cheese, meat, or what have you.
Falcon
A "Universal Awareness" isn't needed, why introduce one?
Falcon