While oil drilling isnt that deep in comparison to deep drilling for geothermal, I dont think I'd wanna do it... heck, safety (or smarts) aside, I'd rather not see such a beautiful area despoiled by the greedy.
Ah but TFA says "And it doesn't even have to require drilling." But you're right I wouldn't want to see Yellowstone despoiled.
You ARE correct - about the drilling part - IF this wasnt a DEEP DRILL scenario. Creating enough power to power the US via Geothermal requires DEEP DRILL setups... not near surface setups such as are used for smaller implementations (small towns, individual houses, etc).
My statement is based on assuming (by the article's reference about creating enough power for the world) that they are talking about large scale geothermal plants which drill through to the magma layer...
But what if instead of large scale projects many small scale projects were done? What's needed to solve the energy problem isn't a large one size fits all approach but many little things together. Geothermal is just another piece of the puzzle.
USGS simply can't predict when eruptions of the magnitude that you are talking about will occur. So they are never going to say something as alarmist as "Yellowstone is due to erupt". To draw that conclusion from a mere three data points was extremely irresponsible of whatever journalist was the source of this meme. In fact USGS says this about Yellowstone's potential for a catastrophic eruption (ref)
Thanks for the link. However I'm left wondering how much this was affected by the Bush admin, who has been cited a number tymes for altering science they didn't agree with even though they didn't have the qualifications, suppressing it, or totally ignoring science.
The first is localized ground/surface water pollution. The water pulled from deep geothermal springs has many chemicals dissolved in it that are not normally found in high concentrations in surface waters
Fossil water isn't needed. Actually water may not be the best carrier of heat to use, but if used water doesn't need to be pumped up. A closed loop can pump surface water down where it is heated up then it comes back up where a heat pump then extracts the heat.
Extra heat must be dispelled from some point in the power plant to maintain a thermal gradient. Efficiency requires a high level of heat transfer, so the excess heat will have to be dumped into the environment.
What extra heat? Where you see "waste heat", I see another energy source. And efficiency requires more of that heat energy to be extracted. If the water is hot it still has plenty of energy that can be used.
If direct ejection into freshwater systems is not feasible, then the water will have to be cooled in a cooling tower,
In a closed loop the cooled water is just pumped back down where it picks up more heat before coming back up. If the water still has heat before being pumped back down then 1, more energy can be extracted or 2, it won't need to heat up as much but this isn't as efficient as the first option. Also where it's cold cogeneration can be used. The heated water can be used to heat building as is done in Iceland. Oh, I see you mention it later. Another place that use cogeneration systems like this is NYC.
Isn't Yellowstone park just one great big fuck off source of hot water?
Yellowstone is a supervolcano. Forget about human emissions of greenhouse gases, GHGs, if Yellowstone were ever to erupt in a short tyme it would emit more GHGs than all the GHGs man has emitted since coming out of the trees.
My personal favorite fantasy geothermal solution has been to go into Utah and just burn/dig an enormous hole through the coal into the depths. I mean like a hole you can drive huge trucks down into corkscrew like around the edges spiraling into the darkness. Once you've excavated all the coal down to a few miles, you can tap the geothermal energy at the bottom of the pit.
You don't need to go to Utah to use geothermal. At least one home in New York City uses geothermal for heating, cooling, and hot water. This one is too expensive though, the asking price is almost $8M.
Some Evangelicals may be Protestant but I don't believe they all are. Catholics aren't Protestant either, and most definitely Muslims aren't either. Muslims protest Jesus was the last word sure, Mohammad was, but they're not Protestants.
What I wonder is why people need to try to convert people when the religion is supposed to be personally revealed?
I think that many who try to convert others are really insecure in their belief and want validation of the belief by converting nonbelievers. If some convert it must be right sort of thing.
Similarly, Dell and Walmart (and Newegg and...) are now selling computers that contain MS Windows or linux. Most people are as interested in this internal detail as they are in the brand name of their car's engine.
I don't think using car engines is appropriate in this case, car engine analogues would be more appropriate when discussing what CPU is in the PC.
You're not a normal person at all. Teenage boys know such things; engineers and mechanics know such things;
Possibly you're are. Growing up maybe a tenth of the boys, and some girls at that, worked on cars fixing and repairing them in my neighborhood. Myself, I've rebuilt engines and transmissions, repaired the breaking system, and did some body work.
Actually, Microsoft's choice of OS names will add to this confusion.
Especially with all the different versions of Vista. Linux has the same problem, only bigger as there's a bunch of distributions. Apple doesn't have as much a problem here, every 1 1/2 to 2 year releases a new OS with only 2 versions but people only hear about 1, the other is for servers.
It's entirely possible that Microsoft's downfall will be because of this. If they can't maintain their monopoly control of small-computer vendors, and those vendors are permitted to sell machines running linux, Microsoft could lose, and none of their customers would even know.
Actually I don't think small venders will have that much an impact. Most people don't get their PCs from small venders. What they do is go down to the local big box store, Best Buy, Circuit City, and what have you to buy a computer and while these stores may have a store branded computer they generally won't have one from the local computer builder. I think about the only people who buy from the local builder are those who want a specially configured PC, however if they know what they want, what parts and such more than likely they'll build it themselves. As you bring up above not many want to do that, what they want is to buy a computer and bring it open, then open the box and set it up, plug it in, and let it bootup.
Even if tomorrow we discover that horses were roaming around on earth before fishes crawled out of the ocean, totally demolishing the theory of evolution
This wouldn't destroy evolution, instead evolution would be modified to take this into consideration.
I've done much the same. "Ok, if Pascal's Wager says you should believe in 'God', which one should you believe in? Most 'Gods' are jealous and will smite thee if thee worships the wrong one."
As for why ID is always conflated with religion, it's because the only people pushing ID are Creationist Protestant Christians, and the last thing they would accept is a philosopher questioning their statements in any classes where ID is taught.
What I don't understand about the ID vs. evolution argument is why ID is always assumed to mean belief in God/support for organized religion and evolution/natural selection couldn't have been "intelligently designed." It's almost as if someone just wanted to create a topic to incite people to argue endlessly about it and stifle discussions that could actually lead to some enlightenment.
That's the back door, the creator created it all. But who's the creator? It must be something supernational, ie a deity or god. ID tries to introduce an untestable, unprovable thing a ma jig.
What I do have a problem with is teaching inhuman logic in a human science class. The world works according to certain rules, and trying to inject extra-worldly concepts isn't appropriate.
Same here, I don't mind if religion is taught in school. Where I have the problem is when it's in science classes. Teach it in history, or what some do in the name of their religion. Teach it in social studies classes, it can be taught in philosophy as well but in this case give each religion some tyme to be learned, without bias.
And here I'll just point out that Judaism, Islam and Christianity are simply branches of the same sect, all three of which base their religion on the "Old Testament"/Torah/Tawrat.
One professor I had put it this way, paraphrasing, "Judaism is the law, Christianity is an interpretation of the law, and Islam is the practical application of the law." Of course Christianity adds and changes some as does Islam. But then again Judaism may of borrowed from Zoroastrianism the idea of the Dualism between good and evil. Darn, I thought I read an article along this line in the magazine "Tikkun" but I don't see it on the website.
Someone smart, born in a coal mining town in West Virginia isn't going to stay there. There's no tech sector there, no research labs, no Silicon Valley.
So smart people have to work in a sterilized research lab or in a clean room in Silicon Valley? West Virginia along with the rest of the Appalachians is a great lab all of it's own. It's great for ecological research for one.
does one perform a scientific review of religion? either believe or not, there is no science. that's why they call it faith.
They, those pushing ID, don't want science they want their religious faith to be taught in public schools. I sometimes think their belief is so weak they have to have it mandated, they can't allow others to choose to believe.
The point is that Apple could do the same, except Steve Jobs knows whats best for everyone and their customers think the same.
Some customers not all. I used, and was hooked by, a Mac before I ever used MSDOS. After a decade of using Windows I decided to switch back to Macs. In general I prefer them but I love how configurable PCs are and wish Macs were just as configurable.
I believe this is largely due to two major factors. First, Apple isn't a huge company. Yeah, they're worth plenty, but they don't have anything like the number of employees that, say, Dell has, and, though I wouldn't even know where to go to look it up, I rather suspect their budget is similarly smaller. That means that they can't easily afford to make the thousands of different configurations that are possible with Dell.
Apple can afford to have the personnel to be able to configure a bunch of different lines of computers, they can definitely afford to create a couple of lines in between what they have now. If they were to create a desktop or minitower those who want to configure a system may buy one at a price point of half, or less, the price of the Mac Pro. And I don't see how Dell could afford it but Apple couldn't, whereas Dell has a market capitalization of less than $55B Apple has one almost $160B, 3 tymes as high as Dell's. Dell's quarter income ending in August was $746M with profits of $2,951M (though it doesn't say I imagine for the year so far) and Apple's was $904M with profits of $6,120M Apple's profits were 3 tymes what Dell's was. If Apple wanted to they could very well afford to introduce 1 or 2 more Mac lines.
The second reason is one of philosophy: Apple has always been very much about not confusing the user (sometimes taken to extremes: see the one-button mouse). I can tell you from personal experience that even smart, moderately computer-savvy (for a non-geek) people trying to look at stuff on Dell's site can get very bewildered by the dizzying range of options. Apple's way gives very clear, easy-to-understand product lines, with a few different choices within those lines, and then a small amount of build-to-order customization available.
Oh, I agree, it makes it easier for people who want to buy a Mac. However, for "geeks only" perhaps, they could allow custom builds.
Maybe if they grow to 50 times their current size, then they'll be both willing and able to cater to all the different market segments that Dell does,
Apple is 3 tymes the size of Dell and if Dell can do it so can Apple.
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From what I read Google didn't invest in Nanosolar, the founders did.
FalconWhile oil drilling isnt that deep in comparison to deep drilling for geothermal, I dont think I'd wanna do it... heck, safety (or smarts) aside, I'd rather not see such a beautiful area despoiled by the greedy.
Ah but TFA says "And it doesn't even have to require drilling." But you're right I wouldn't want to see Yellowstone despoiled.
FalconYou ARE correct - about the drilling part - IF this wasnt a DEEP DRILL scenario. Creating enough power to power the US via Geothermal requires DEEP DRILL setups... not near surface setups such as are used for smaller implementations (small towns, individual houses, etc).
My statement is based on assuming (by the article's reference about creating enough power for the world) that they are talking about large scale geothermal plants which drill through to the magma layer...
But what if instead of large scale projects many small scale projects were done? What's needed to solve the energy problem isn't a large one size fits all approach but many little things together. Geothermal is just another piece of the puzzle.
FalconUSGS simply can't predict when eruptions of the magnitude that you are talking about will occur. So they are never going to say something as alarmist as "Yellowstone is due to erupt". To draw that conclusion from a mere three data points was extremely irresponsible of whatever journalist was the source of this meme. In fact USGS says this about Yellowstone's potential for a catastrophic eruption (ref)
Thanks for the link. However I'm left wondering how much this was affected by the Bush admin, who has been cited a number tymes for altering science they didn't agree with even though they didn't have the qualifications, suppressing it, or totally ignoring science.
Falconbut drilling through that pressure cap (rock, etc) creates a the risk of releasing that pressure in a massive blast or blasts.
However I heard some years ago that Bush wants to allow oil companies to drill in Yellowstone for oil.
FalconIs somebody going to suddenly start giving away power for free?
When you can generate your own energy big energy businesses will look at it as if you are stealing from them.
Solar is expensive and can't be built (on a large scale) just anywhere.
Those who build Off the Grid can have a payback period of as low as 7 years. The problem as you say is solar can't be built everywhere.
FalconThe first is localized ground/surface water pollution. The water pulled from deep geothermal springs has many chemicals dissolved in it that are not normally found in high concentrations in surface waters
Fossil water isn't needed. Actually water may not be the best carrier of heat to use, but if used water doesn't need to be pumped up. A closed loop can pump surface water down where it is heated up then it comes back up where a heat pump then extracts the heat.
Extra heat must be dispelled from some point in the power plant to maintain a thermal gradient. Efficiency requires a high level of heat transfer, so the excess heat will have to be dumped into the environment.
What extra heat? Where you see "waste heat", I see another energy source. And efficiency requires more of that heat energy to be extracted. If the water is hot it still has plenty of energy that can be used.
If direct ejection into freshwater systems is not feasible, then the water will have to be cooled in a cooling tower,
In a closed loop the cooled water is just pumped back down where it picks up more heat before coming back up. If the water still has heat before being pumped back down then 1, more energy can be extracted or 2, it won't need to heat up as much but this isn't as efficient as the first option. Also where it's cold cogeneration can be used. The heated water can be used to heat building as is done in Iceland. Oh, I see you mention it later. Another place that use cogeneration systems like this is NYC.
FalconIsn't Yellowstone park just one great big fuck off source of hot water?
Yellowstone is a supervolcano. Forget about human emissions of greenhouse gases, GHGs, if Yellowstone were ever to erupt in a short tyme it would emit more GHGs than all the GHGs man has emitted since coming out of the trees.
FalconMy personal favorite fantasy geothermal solution has been to go into Utah and just burn/dig an enormous hole through the coal into the depths. I mean like a hole you can drive huge trucks down into corkscrew like around the edges spiraling into the darkness. Once you've excavated all the coal down to a few miles, you can tap the geothermal energy at the bottom of the pit.
You don't need to go to Utah to use geothermal. At least one home in New York City uses geothermal for heating, cooling, and hot water. This one is too expensive though, the asking price is almost $8M.
FalconSome Evangelicals may be Protestant but I don't believe they all are. Catholics aren't Protestant either, and most definitely Muslims aren't either. Muslims protest Jesus was the last word sure, Mohammad was, but they're not Protestants.
FalconWhat I wonder is why people need to try to convert people when the religion is supposed to be personally revealed?
I think that many who try to convert others are really insecure in their belief and want validation of the belief by converting nonbelievers. If some convert it must be right sort of thing.
FalconSimilarly, Dell and Walmart (and Newegg and ...) are now selling computers that contain MS Windows or linux. Most people are as interested in this internal detail as they are in the brand name of their car's engine.
I don't think using car engines is appropriate in this case, car engine analogues would be more appropriate when discussing what CPU is in the PC.
You're not a normal person at all. Teenage boys know such things; engineers and mechanics know such things;
Possibly you're are. Growing up maybe a tenth of the boys, and some girls at that, worked on cars fixing and repairing them in my neighborhood. Myself, I've rebuilt engines and transmissions, repaired the breaking system, and did some body work.
Actually, Microsoft's choice of OS names will add to this confusion.
Especially with all the different versions of Vista. Linux has the same problem, only bigger as there's a bunch of distributions. Apple doesn't have as much a problem here, every 1 1/2 to 2 year releases a new OS with only 2 versions but people only hear about 1, the other is for servers.
It's entirely possible that Microsoft's downfall will be because of this. If they can't maintain their monopoly control of small-computer vendors, and those vendors are permitted to sell machines running linux, Microsoft could lose, and none of their customers would even know.
Actually I don't think small venders will have that much an impact. Most people don't get their PCs from small venders. What they do is go down to the local big box store, Best Buy, Circuit City, and what have you to buy a computer and while these stores may have a store branded computer they generally won't have one from the local computer builder. I think about the only people who buy from the local builder are those who want a specially configured PC, however if they know what they want, what parts and such more than likely they'll build it themselves. As you bring up above not many want to do that, what they want is to buy a computer and bring it open, then open the box and set it up, plug it in, and let it bootup.
FalconEven if tomorrow we discover that horses were roaming around on earth before fishes crawled out of the ocean, totally demolishing the theory of evolution
This wouldn't destroy evolution, instead evolution would be modified to take this into consideration.
FalconI've done much the same. "Ok, if Pascal's Wager says you should believe in 'God', which one should you believe in? Most 'Gods' are jealous and will smite thee if thee worships the wrong one."
FalconNow then, what was the question again?
Falcon
Oh, Thanks for all the fish.Would that be on Turtle Island?
FalconAs for why ID is always conflated with religion, it's because the only people pushing ID are Creationist Protestant Christians, and the last thing they would accept is a philosopher questioning their statements in any classes where ID is taught.
No, Protestants aren't the only ones who believe in and push for ID. Evangelicals as well a Catholics believe in ID. Here's a webpage on "Why Muslims Should Support Intelligent Design".
FalconWhat I don't understand about the ID vs. evolution argument is why ID is always assumed to mean belief in God/support for organized religion and evolution/natural selection couldn't have been "intelligently designed." It's almost as if someone just wanted to create a topic to incite people to argue endlessly about it and stifle discussions that could actually lead to some enlightenment.
That's the back door, the creator created it all. But who's the creator? It must be something supernational, ie a deity or god. ID tries to introduce an untestable, unprovable thing a ma jig.
FalconWhat I do have a problem with is teaching inhuman logic in a human science class. The world works according to certain rules, and trying to inject extra-worldly concepts isn't appropriate.
Same here, I don't mind if religion is taught in school. Where I have the problem is when it's in science classes. Teach it in history, or what some do in the name of their religion. Teach it in social studies classes, it can be taught in philosophy as well but in this case give each religion some tyme to be learned, without bias.
FalconAnd what reason is that? And does it apply to Intersexuals, those born with an ambiguous sex?
FalconAnd here I'll just point out that Judaism, Islam and Christianity are simply branches of the same sect, all three of which base their religion on the "Old Testament"/Torah/Tawrat.
One professor I had put it this way, paraphrasing, "Judaism is the law, Christianity is an interpretation of the law, and Islam is the practical application of the law." Of course Christianity adds and changes some as does Islam. But then again Judaism may of borrowed from Zoroastrianism the idea of the Dualism between good and evil. Darn, I thought I read an article along this line in the magazine "Tikkun" but I don't see it on the website.
FalconSomeone smart, born in a coal mining town in West Virginia isn't going to stay there. There's no tech sector there, no research labs, no Silicon Valley.
So smart people have to work in a sterilized research lab or in a clean room in Silicon Valley? West Virginia along with the rest of the Appalachians is a great lab all of it's own. It's great for ecological research for one.
Falcondoes one perform a scientific review of religion? either believe or not, there is no science. that's why they call it faith.
They, those pushing ID, don't want science they want their religious faith to be taught in public schools. I sometimes think their belief is so weak they have to have it mandated, they can't allow others to choose to believe.
FalconThe point is that Apple could do the same, except Steve Jobs knows whats best for everyone and their customers think the same.
Some customers not all. I used, and was hooked by, a Mac before I ever used MSDOS. After a decade of using Windows I decided to switch back to Macs. In general I prefer them but I love how configurable PCs are and wish Macs were just as configurable.
FalconI believe this is largely due to two major factors. First, Apple isn't a huge company. Yeah, they're worth plenty, but they don't have anything like the number of employees that, say, Dell has, and, though I wouldn't even know where to go to look it up, I rather suspect their budget is similarly smaller. That means that they can't easily afford to make the thousands of different configurations that are possible with Dell.
Apple can afford to have the personnel to be able to configure a bunch of different lines of computers, they can definitely afford to create a couple of lines in between what they have now. If they were to create a desktop or minitower those who want to configure a system may buy one at a price point of half, or less, the price of the Mac Pro. And I don't see how Dell could afford it but Apple couldn't, whereas Dell has a market capitalization of less than $55B Apple has one almost $160B, 3 tymes as high as Dell's. Dell's quarter income ending in August was $746M with profits of $2,951M (though it doesn't say I imagine for the year so far) and Apple's was $904M with profits of $6,120M Apple's profits were 3 tymes what Dell's was. If Apple wanted to they could very well afford to introduce 1 or 2 more Mac lines.
The second reason is one of philosophy: Apple has always been very much about not confusing the user (sometimes taken to extremes: see the one-button mouse). I can tell you from personal experience that even smart, moderately computer-savvy (for a non-geek) people trying to look at stuff on Dell's site can get very bewildered by the dizzying range of options. Apple's way gives very clear, easy-to-understand product lines, with a few different choices within those lines, and then a small amount of build-to-order customization available.
Oh, I agree, it makes it easier for people who want to buy a Mac. However, for "geeks only" perhaps, they could allow custom builds.
Maybe if they grow to 50 times their current size, then they'll be both willing and able to cater to all the different market segments that Dell does,
Apple is 3 tymes the size of Dell and if Dell can do it so can Apple.
Falcon