Over how many years? I get $303.32 at 8% per year and 10 years. Even straight-line amortization plus interest at the beginning would be $2500 depreciation + $2000 interest = $4500/year = $375/month.
Then make a dome like this (hope that link isn't messed up due to its length) and glue a bunch of strong tapes or flat braided poly guys into the structure. Connect the guys to dead-man or screw anchors going around the structure. I'm sure you could build the anchor system strong enough to resist any wind load that would not collapse the dome, and a good dome would be much stronger than a square structure of the same materials.
(aside: what MORON made Mozilla unable to handle tiffs by default, and refused to allow the user to do anything useful with a right-click like SAVE THEM?)
Suppose it lasts 10 years; that's roughly $2000 per year depreciation plus interest on a loan, which at 8% would start at $1600/year. Call it $300/month.
How many poor families are paying a lot more than $300 month and still have utility bills that the cardboard house doesn't need? Plenty, I bet. I bet you are too.
It would take almost nothing for the spammers to use masses of zombie-bots as proxy web sites which issue redirects to the real sites. Hitting the zombies would not cost the spammers anything, and it would be trivial for the zombies to keep lists of requesters and redirect redundant requests to targets they'd like to DoS.
The only way you could avoid this is if the zombie bots' ISP's notice huge amounts of incoming traffic and take them off-line. If this functions as a mechanism for notifying ISP's that a particular user is running a zombie, it would be all to the good; unfortunately the first step isn't perfect by itself, it's just one more step in the arms race.
Solar panels have their place, but they're never going to produce the amount of hydrogen needed for even a single nation's infrastructure. Even if solar panels were much more efficient, electrolysis itself isn't very energy efficient.
Let's see how that claim stacks up to reality.
The USA used about 99 quadrillion BTU (quads) of total energy in 2003.
The USA also has approximately 110,000 square kilometers of impervious area in the form of roofs and pavement, roughly enough to cover Ohio.
Assuming 700 W/m^2 peak incoming sunlight over 6 hours on the average day, 365 days/year, that is (700/1054.4*3600*6*365*1.10e11) = 576 quads.
Obviously, solar energy is capable of supplying current US needs even at 20% efficiency. The reasons we're nowhere near to running the country with it are:
Solar energy cannot be scheduled; it is not available at night or through clouds.
That requires storage technologies in addition to capture and conversion.
Conversion of solar energy to anything except heat is quite a bit less efficient than most other sources (though this may change).
While it is all but certain that we will develop the technology to power the nation using solar energy (it's physically possible and we already have hints about most of the technology) nuclear is going to be cheaper for some time.
Declaring massive wind farms covering the globe is nothing more than speculating on one of these parameters, generally roughness or friction to estimate the amount of momentum transferred to the surface grid point (via wind farm?).
We know what the roughness does; it's easily calculated from the profile of wind velocity versus altitude. And we know how much energy and momentum a wind turbine takes out of a flow (it's part of the analysis for any big structure). We may not have the best numbers for some of the other things in the climate model, but those things have empirical confirmation.
A modern high-performance sailplane can glide upwards of 60 feet forward for every foot it sinks (Lift/Drag >= 60), and the tip-speed ratio of a turbine isn't closely related to L/D. Heck, if you tried getting close to that ratio the tips would be supersonic at anything like good wind speeds.
The argument will never be settled so long as some people insist on using arguments which have no basis in physical evidence. If "faith" isn't discarded a priori, then any hallucination or delusion with a following is grounds for continuing the argument into eternity and re-writing the school curriculum where its adherents hold sway.
The 11% produced during the time when everything else is working poorly and supplies are tight is worth more per unit than the 89% produced when everything is cranking and you've got a bumper crop; the more uneven your supply, the greater the investment you need in storage and backups.
Systems based on imaging optics (including parabolic reflectors) can't make use of diffuse sunlight; anything coming from off-axis gets bounced to one side of your target and goes off uselessly. While the Sahara would be solar-concentrator paradise, areas where large amounts of the total insolation is diffused by clouds are going to collect more useful energy (and a LOT more during periods of lower supply, when it's more valuable) with flat-plate and non-imaging collectors than with the dishes required to run a Stirling engine.
The Russians were looking to try a reactor cooled by a lead-bismuth alloy, which would not have the chemical reactivity of sodium yet would have good neutron-economy properties. It was known as the "solder-pot reactor", IIRC.
If we paid the Russians I'm sure we could get them to build a test reactor for a small fraction of what it would cost in the US. Maybe that's what we have to do... outsource our nuclear R&D. Heck, S. Africa is ahead of us in pebble-bed HTGRs, we might as well concede research to our NIMBYs.:/
You can only avoid a problem via MAD if mutual destruction is unacceptable to the enemy. This is emphatically not true for some of the apocalyptic visionary nuts we're facing; Al Qaeda not only doesn't mind death for the sake of striking blows, it seems to seek it out. We certainly could incinerate Pakistan if Al Qaeda got hold of its arsenal and destroyed New York and Los Angeles, but that would be cold comfort to those New Yorkers and Angelinos fortunate enough to survive.
If you'd actually considered the issue, it might occur to you that the problems faced by Oakland Public Schools might not be solvable within the framework of the current system. To name just one thing, the problem of huge numbers of ESL students requires Federal action to constrain immigration (both legal and illegal).
Some of the problems are of local origin and can't be fixed anywhere else:
Defective and counterproductive educational philosophy, and
Bureaucratic empire-building at the expense of the putative purpose of the organization.
For a couple of very informative yet entertaining rants on these subjects, I suggest that you read this regarding the former, and this regarding the latter. Then read the rest of the first site, especially some of the links.
Silicon may be passé in the next few years; there are several companies already making flexible PV based on dye-activated titanium dioxide particles at substantially cheaper prices per peak watt.
The efficiency isn't great (they aren't going to make self-powered electric cars), but this doesn't matter. When we've already covered an area equivalent to Ohio with impervious surfaces, we've got plenty of area we could re-cover with PV. If 1/4 of the 112,610 square km of impervious area was covered with 8% efficient PV, it would have a peak power potential of approximately 2.25 terawatts (more than double current US nameplate generating capacity). I think that would hold us for a while.
Lets assume co2-units = 100 (owned by A).
For A: 1 co2-unit is worth $2.
For B: 1 co2-unit is worth £2,66 (2/0,75)
There's the problem. How did A get to own the credits in the first place? Was there some insider allocation where they were passed out at less than their market value, like a standard Wall Street IPO?
If B can make more value out of a unit of CO2 than A, there is no reason for A to be involved in any way, let alone be paid for getting the hell out of there. Consider CO2 emissions as a scarce good. Each unit is worth some price to someone. If the price is set at N, the users to whom it is worth N or more will buy it and the rest will go empty-handed. The cost of their products will reflect the CO2 contribution, and affect people's buying decisions to make them more ecologically sound. None of this can happen if credits are handed out on the basis of what companies used to emit.
It's not like that I'm saying that a co2-tax won't work, I'm saying that the overall created value is lower.
If that's true, you've done a very poor job of explaining it. Based on what I've seen so far I cannot agree; your examples still involve payments to entities for no reason other than they exist, which is the definition of rent. Creating opportunities for rents will create rent-seeking behavior as opposed to creative behavior, which is bad.
If we choose tax as the tool: How are you going to tax all producers in all countries just the same? That can't be fair, because it's going to for example bankrupt all the cement-producers in bangladesh. That's not politically acceptable either.
Tax level set by international treaty, as I said. It's as fair as trade in any good that travels internationally. It will only bankrupt the cement producers in Bangladesh if they are much less efficient than their counterparts in Korea (CO2 output from Bengali > CO2 output of Korean + transport), and if they are it is BETTER for the world that they stop making cement, is it not?
I do not understand your final example. I get the feeling that English is not your first language, so maybe we just won't be able to understand each other unless we write things as very simple mathematical statements.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that any form of energy capture, no matter how you do it is going to take energy out of the environment and that as a result changes the environment.
You can replace dark roof shingles with dark solar cells. They'll both be black, but the solar cells will capture useful energy.
I don't think we know enough to be able to balance energy capture in the way that's desirable, aside from wanting to keep cities cooler in the summer to reduce the formation of photochemical smog.
Cooling the pole means that it would tend to increase pack ice in the Arctic ocean and reduce the rate of melting of the Greenland ice sheet. This could have a significant effect on sea levels, and perhaps keep Florida from going underwater.
It would be considerably more difficult to do this for Antarctica because of the lack of land in the vicinity. Perhaps this is how Seasteads will come to the extreme southern oceans: not for the sake of freedom, but to put enormous wind farms there to keep the ice cap from turning all our favorite coasts into coral reef habitat.
Japanese firm A gets $2 profit while emitting 1 CO2 unit per widget.
Japanese startup B has a new process which would get the same $2 profit while emitting 0.75 CO2 units per widget.
Situation under Kyoto: Firm A has an allocation of CO2 units. Startup B has no allocation, so has to buy them from firm A. Startup B cannot beat firm A's margins because it has to subsidize its competition, and the potential reductions in pollution are not realized.
Situation under a carbon tax: Firm A has to pay tax on 1 CO2 unit per widget; call it $1 per CO2 unit. Startup B only has to pay tax on 0.75 CO2 units per widget, yielding a $.25/widget cost advantage. Startup B can take over market share from inefficient firm A and reduce overall pollution; alternatively, firm A is forced to adopt the improvements rather than resting on its laurels.
And do I even need to mention that in your example the co2-pollution is far greater?
You have shown no such thing. You have not even made a hand-waving argument for that assertion.
It can't be monopoly because all the countries within the agreement are given co2-units.
Why should any country be given anything?
Elimintation of the least-efficient is no beauty, when is means elimination of the most-earning.
The only way you can say that is if you abandon the concept of externalities.
The problem with allocation of CO2 units is that the allocation itself entrenches the current scheme of doing things. Why should cement makers get a gift of CO2-emissions credits, when the makers of other building materials do not? If rammed earth makes a more ecologically-sound wall than concrete, why should the concrete user get an allocation of CO2 emissions to use or sell while the rammed-earth contractor gets none? Why shouldn't the price of aluminum (made with electricity which increases demand for gas and coal) go up relative to wood?
Allocations appeal to bureaucrats, who get power from their ability pick favorites. This influence is deeply corrupting, and it should be eschewed. A uniform tax requires no bureaucracy, chooses no a priori favorites, and lets the people in the economy find better solutions than any bureaucrat could ever come up with.
I get a feeling that these things should have been thought out by economists by now...
What makes you think that economists had anything to do with the Kyoto regime? These things are hashed out by diplomats (politicians), not economists or technologists.
I'll have to think about that some other time becaue that's a bit more complicated
All right. You've created a fictitious good, doled out amounts to various companies and individuals just because they're "using" it now (a subsidy), and created a brand-new market in it (with its own transaction costs).
This moves the incentive for pollution reduction down to individual companies
Gee, so does a tax. If there is a $100/ton tax on carbon, anything I do that saves me from having to buy that ton of fuel saves me $100. Better yet, I don't have to pay money to someone who got their carbon credits for free; I start equal to them rather than at a disadvantage.
which can trade their shares of their country's rights.
Why should any country have any fixed amount of any such right? The ones which produce inefficiently should get out of the business and NOT get paid for doing what they should do anyway.
So, there will clearly be economic advantages for companies to invest money (create jobs) in reducing their own emissions.
You can do this without adding transaction costs and subsidies and gain much more efficiency. See here.
A tax regime is non-corrupting (and much more efficient) because it doesn't pay subsidies to existing polluters just because they were there first. For a thumbnail sketch of why, see this response.
Slashdot Mirror
(aside: what MORON made Mozilla unable to handle tiffs by default, and refused to allow the user to do anything useful with a right-click like SAVE THEM?)
How many poor families are paying a lot more than $300 month and still have utility bills that the cardboard house doesn't need? Plenty, I bet. I bet you are too.
The only way you could avoid this is if the zombie bots' ISP's notice huge amounts of incoming traffic and take them off-line. If this functions as a mechanism for notifying ISP's that a particular user is running a zombie, it would be all to the good; unfortunately the first step isn't perfect by itself, it's just one more step in the arms race.
- The USA used about 99 quadrillion BTU (quads) of total energy in 2003.
- The USA also has approximately 110,000 square kilometers of impervious area in the form of roofs and pavement, roughly enough to cover Ohio.
- Assuming 700 W/m^2 peak incoming sunlight over 6 hours on the average day, 365 days/year, that is (700/1054.4*3600*6*365*1.10e11) = 576 quads.
Obviously, solar energy is capable of supplying current US needs even at 20% efficiency. The reasons we're nowhere near to running the country with it are:- Solar energy cannot be scheduled; it is not available at night or through clouds.
- That requires storage technologies in addition to capture and conversion.
- Conversion of solar energy to anything except heat is quite a bit less efficient than most other sources (though this may change).
While it is all but certain that we will develop the technology to power the nation using solar energy (it's physically possible and we already have hints about most of the technology) nuclear is going to be cheaper for some time.How's Bryan Roberts coming along with the gyromill concept? I haven't seen anything new about this since the BBC news piece some time back.
A modern high-performance sailplane can glide upwards of 60 feet forward for every foot it sinks (Lift/Drag >= 60), and the tip-speed ratio of a turbine isn't closely related to L/D. Heck, if you tried getting close to that ratio the tips would be supersonic at anything like good wind speeds.
The argument will never be settled so long as some people insist on using arguments which have no basis in physical evidence. If "faith" isn't discarded a priori, then any hallucination or delusion with a following is grounds for continuing the argument into eternity and re-writing the school curriculum where its adherents hold sway.
The 11% produced during the time when everything else is working poorly and supplies are tight is worth more per unit than the 89% produced when everything is cranking and you've got a bumper crop; the more uneven your supply, the greater the investment you need in storage and backups.
Systems based on imaging optics (including parabolic reflectors) can't make use of diffuse sunlight; anything coming from off-axis gets bounced to one side of your target and goes off uselessly. While the Sahara would be solar-concentrator paradise, areas where large amounts of the total insolation is diffused by clouds are going to collect more useful energy (and a LOT more during periods of lower supply, when it's more valuable) with flat-plate and non-imaging collectors than with the dishes required to run a Stirling engine.
If we paid the Russians I'm sure we could get them to build a test reactor for a small fraction of what it would cost in the US. Maybe that's what we have to do... outsource our nuclear R&D. Heck, S. Africa is ahead of us in pebble-bed HTGRs, we might as well concede research to our NIMBYs. :/
You'll probably enjoy the links I put here.
You can only avoid a problem via MAD if mutual destruction is unacceptable to the enemy. This is emphatically not true for some of the apocalyptic visionary nuts we're facing; Al Qaeda not only doesn't mind death for the sake of striking blows, it seems to seek it out. We certainly could incinerate Pakistan if Al Qaeda got hold of its arsenal and destroyed New York and Los Angeles, but that would be cold comfort to those New Yorkers and Angelinos fortunate enough to survive.
Some of the problems are of local origin and can't be fixed anywhere else:
For a couple of very informative yet entertaining rants on these subjects, I suggest that you read this regarding the former, and this regarding the latter. Then read the rest of the first site, especially some of the links.
Nanosolar SolarPly is one of these products. The manufacturer claims a cost as little as $30 per square meter (cheaper than some fancy non-solar roofing materials) and less than $2 per peak watt by 2006.
The efficiency isn't great (they aren't going to make self-powered electric cars), but this doesn't matter. When we've already covered an area equivalent to Ohio with impervious surfaces, we've got plenty of area we could re-cover with PV. If 1/4 of the 112,610 square km of impervious area was covered with 8% efficient PV, it would have a peak power potential of approximately 2.25 terawatts (more than double current US nameplate generating capacity). I think that would hold us for a while.
The solar cells will pay back the energy used to make them in one to four years; neither slate nor asphalt shingles will yield anything.
If B can make more value out of a unit of CO2 than A, there is no reason for A to be involved in any way, let alone be paid for getting the hell out of there. Consider CO2 emissions as a scarce good. Each unit is worth some price to someone. If the price is set at N, the users to whom it is worth N or more will buy it and the rest will go empty-handed. The cost of their products will reflect the CO2 contribution, and affect people's buying decisions to make them more ecologically sound. None of this can happen if credits are handed out on the basis of what companies used to emit.
If that's true, you've done a very poor job of explaining it. Based on what I've seen so far I cannot agree; your examples still involve payments to entities for no reason other than they exist, which is the definition of rent. Creating opportunities for rents will create rent-seeking behavior as opposed to creative behavior, which is bad. Tax level set by international treaty, as I said. It's as fair as trade in any good that travels internationally. It will only bankrupt the cement producers in Bangladesh if they are much less efficient than their counterparts in Korea (CO2 output from Bengali > CO2 output of Korean + transport), and if they are it is BETTER for the world that they stop making cement, is it not?I do not understand your final example. I get the feeling that English is not your first language, so maybe we just won't be able to understand each other unless we write things as very simple mathematical statements.
I don't think we know enough to be able to balance energy capture in the way that's desirable, aside from wanting to keep cities cooler in the summer to reduce the formation of photochemical smog.
It would be considerably more difficult to do this for Antarctica because of the lack of land in the vicinity. Perhaps this is how Seasteads will come to the extreme southern oceans: not for the sake of freedom, but to put enormous wind farms there to keep the ice cap from turning all our favorite coasts into coral reef habitat.
Japanese firm A gets $2 profit while emitting 1 CO2 unit per widget.
Japanese startup B has a new process which would get the same $2 profit while emitting 0.75 CO2 units per widget.
Situation under Kyoto: Firm A has an allocation of CO2 units. Startup B has no allocation, so has to buy them from firm A. Startup B cannot beat firm A's margins because it has to subsidize its competition, and the potential reductions in pollution are not realized.
Situation under a carbon tax: Firm A has to pay tax on 1 CO2 unit per widget; call it $1 per CO2 unit. Startup B only has to pay tax on 0.75 CO2 units per widget, yielding a $.25/widget cost advantage. Startup B can take over market share from inefficient firm A and reduce overall pollution; alternatively, firm A is forced to adopt the improvements rather than resting on its laurels.
You have shown no such thing. You have not even made a hand-waving argument for that assertion. Why should any country be given anything? The only way you can say that is if you abandon the concept of externalities.The problem with allocation of CO2 units is that the allocation itself entrenches the current scheme of doing things. Why should cement makers get a gift of CO2-emissions credits, when the makers of other building materials do not? If rammed earth makes a more ecologically-sound wall than concrete, why should the concrete user get an allocation of CO2 emissions to use or sell while the rammed-earth contractor gets none? Why shouldn't the price of aluminum (made with electricity which increases demand for gas and coal) go up relative to wood?
Allocations appeal to bureaucrats, who get power from their ability pick favorites. This influence is deeply corrupting, and it should be eschewed. A uniform tax requires no bureaucracy, chooses no a priori favorites, and lets the people in the economy find better solutions than any bureaucrat could ever come up with.
A tax regime is non-corrupting (and much more efficient) because it doesn't pay subsidies to existing polluters just because they were there first. For a thumbnail sketch of why, see this response.