It's just as dangerous and expensive if you keep it running all night or turn it on or off. The only major difference is fuel costs, and that's just not that much of the cost of a nuclear facility.
The biggest cost of solar is improving minimum performance. Batteries, liquid metal cores to concentrated solar collectors, flywheels: all very expensive. The biggest cost of nuclear is improving maximum performance. At some point you just need another reactor, with all the maintenance and safety costs that requires.
You assume that economies can't lose any money in transition.
This is a flawed idea in that just refuses to consider political action in response. When you can't imagine a government putting the externalized costs of fossil fuels on fossil fuel consumers, this conclusion is a natural one.
That's not to say a nuclear heavy solution is bad, either. The real amazing thing here is that there are so many solutions that simply require not keeping the status quo, and we can collectively bring outselves to do none of them.
The biggest problem with Obamacare, regardless of what the right wing might say, is that it was afraid to go after those who were knowingly overcharging for things.
It's an understandable fear, of course, because what politician wants to be seen as attacking doctors and other life savers? That's been the core of the American problem. You can't free market magic away the fact that you can't negotiate the price of your life. Especially when you're too sick or injured to negotiate at all.
The idea that only had a marginal effect was forcing people to go through insurance companies who negotiate on their behalf. The problem is that, as middlemen, insurance companies have a lot to gain from medicine to be an expensive field, and aren't the hard-nosed negotiators we pretend they are.
To really be the "future of food" there's one critical, fundamental hurdle to cross, regardless of economics, marketing, food quality, and business sense:
Net energy.
Making eggs the natural way is requires about 100x the calories in the egg in solar energy to feed the chickens, due to the metabolism of the chickens and plants involved in that process.
If your process can't beat nature, you're never going to save the world with your technology, because you're going to be less efficient than the real thing.
Can you beat nature? Hypothetically? In the future?
"Do a lot of damage" is a funny way to phrase "Completely destroy"
Nuclear explosions are big. Really damn big. Have you looked at footage of underground nuclear tests?
This was a tiny little 1.2 kiloton bomb under 60 feet of packed soil. Silos aren't packed soil, and though the details are classified, I believe most bombs on ICBMs are somewhere in the megatonish range.
Hypothetically, how about people who want to assemble things in orbit?
Having bulk supplies of raw materials would be hella useful, because it's even more expensive to launch iron from the ground. Imagine the utility of a programmable satellite factory. It'd save a fortune in launch costs and it would generate less space junk. Win-win.
The pebbles don't have a substantial gravity wells to escape. With asteroids you can use minimal thrust and exploit orbital dynamics to hit earth's atmosphere and fall in.
Not to mention it's a little easier to target specific ones that have the elements you're interested in. At first that's going to be low-reactive(i.e. easy to extract) rare metals like gold and platinum.
Slashdot Mirror
No, I'm saying satellites are fucking expensive compared to just building goddamn solar panels on earth, and running some electrical lines.
Neat.
Do you have any other trillion dollar solutions to billion dollar problems?
Nuclear is a kind of funny animal in that regard.
It's just as dangerous and expensive if you keep it running all night or turn it on or off. The only major difference is fuel costs, and that's just not that much of the cost of a nuclear facility.
The biggest cost of solar is improving minimum performance. Batteries, liquid metal cores to concentrated solar collectors, flywheels: all very expensive.
The biggest cost of nuclear is improving maximum performance. At some point you just need another reactor, with all the maintenance and safety costs that requires.
You assume that economies can't lose any money in transition.
This is a flawed idea in that just refuses to consider political action in response. When you can't imagine a government putting the externalized costs of fossil fuels on fossil fuel consumers, this conclusion is a natural one.
That's not to say a nuclear heavy solution is bad, either. The real amazing thing here is that there are so many solutions that simply require not keeping the status quo, and we can collectively bring outselves to do none of them.
FYI, Dotcom wasn't living in the US.
He had never lived in the US.
They thought they'd face civil suits.
What they got blindsided by was criminal charges, where they'd be sent to jail.
You didn't get that maybe it was nonsense when it was a treatment recommended by people whose expertise is stabbing other people?
The biggest problem with Obamacare, regardless of what the right wing might say, is that it was afraid to go after those who were knowingly overcharging for things.
It's an understandable fear, of course, because what politician wants to be seen as attacking doctors and other life savers? That's been the core of the American problem. You can't free market magic away the fact that you can't negotiate the price of your life. Especially when you're too sick or injured to negotiate at all.
The idea that only had a marginal effect was forcing people to go through insurance companies who negotiate on their behalf. The problem is that, as middlemen, insurance companies have a lot to gain from medicine to be an expensive field, and aren't the hard-nosed negotiators we pretend they are.
Well, eventually there won't be any fusion potential left in the universe, which isn't so grand for life's prospects either.
I think you'll find that the density of life is indeed important to our chances of ever discovering any.
Zero traffic means zero traffic interceptions.
Hand rolled encryption scheme you have to install drivers for on all your users' computers, of course.
It'll be perfectly secure, because no one will use it.
It's meant to be simple middleware in network communication: almost transparent to applications, and with only a little system setup, like certs.
I can't imagine reading a five hundred thirty page book about it, much one essential.
They're certainly trying to, yes.
Heat shielding is not the most expensive part of a reentry vehicle.
Getting in orbit in the first place is.
To really be the "future of food" there's one critical, fundamental hurdle to cross, regardless of economics, marketing, food quality, and business sense:
Net energy.
Making eggs the natural way is requires about 100x the calories in the egg in solar energy to feed the chickens, due to the metabolism of the chickens and plants involved in that process.
If your process can't beat nature, you're never going to save the world with your technology, because you're going to be less efficient than the real thing.
Can you beat nature? Hypothetically? In the future?
Oh, but it'll blow the fuck out of that silo. Regardless, we're talking about a substantial fallout cloud.
Not that it'll mean the end of the world as we know it, but Marxist Hacker 42 was definitely engaged in some understatement.
And slow enough with good heat shielding, and you do just fine.
"Do a lot of damage" is a funny way to phrase "Completely destroy"
Nuclear explosions are big. Really damn big. Have you looked at footage of underground nuclear tests?
This was a tiny little 1.2 kiloton bomb under 60 feet of packed soil. Silos aren't packed soil, and though the details are classified, I believe most bombs on ICBMs are somewhere in the megatonish range.
Not if your math is good enough.
The US government already has the ability to destroy the world, thanks in no small part due to NASA research. :-/
I've been trying to make a point of acknowledging when people make good points in response to things I say.
This is a pretty good point.
Hypothetically, how about people who want to assemble things in orbit?
Having bulk supplies of raw materials would be hella useful, because it's even more expensive to launch iron from the ground. Imagine the utility of a programmable satellite factory. It'd save a fortune in launch costs and it would generate less space junk. Win-win.
The moon isn't comprised exclusively of lunar regolith, you know. Some useful elements are more concentrated than on earth.
The pebbles don't have a substantial gravity wells to escape. With asteroids you can use minimal thrust and exploit orbital dynamics to hit earth's atmosphere and fall in.
Not to mention it's a little easier to target specific ones that have the elements you're interested in. At first that's going to be low-reactive(i.e. easy to extract) rare metals like gold and platinum.