"Switchgrass may do better, but we're not there yet."
Exactly.
The technology for corn-based ethanol is available NOW. The equipment for corn-based ethanol is available NOW. The business plan for corn-based ethanol is available NOW.
You can take those three to a bank or a VC firm and get the money to build the plant NOW.
Then, in 5 or ten years, when the switchgrass system is working, you go back to the bank, and get a loan for a side-stream cellulose digester. Which over the next 5 or ten years and a couple of expansions, displaces the original corn system.
The alternative that people keep missing is that the alternative to corn is do nothing, ie, keep burning oil. The sugar based plants are better, and available now, but sugar cane doesn't grow in most of the US. Small parts of three states is all I know of. Sugar beets seem to be no better than corn.
Corn-based ethanol is a transition phase, not the final magic bullet. In fact, there is not going to be a magic bullet (as in one technology solves everything) this time. But that is another discussion.
And methanol. Take the CO from this widget, add some hydrogen, and form methanol.
Fuel cells run on methanol, various race engines on on methanol, you can even convert a briggs and stratton lawnmower engine to run on methanol.
And methanol is a liquid, so the existing liquid fuel transport systems can be used to ship it around.
And if you just don't like methanol, then combine 2 of them to make ethanol. Or 4 of them to make butanol.
The hydrogen economy works best if you convert the hydrogen to methanol.
Re:The best tools stay out of the way...
on
Goodbye Cruel Word
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· Score: 1
"That is very much a matter of taste. I found the Office 2007 user interface an unusable, intrusive abomination, that was constantly in my way when I was trying to work"
Ditto. Excel's graphing ability has been almost completely neutralized, unless you want the default "simplistic column graph". Nothing else has improved either.
1. Solar power is not carbon neutral. Silicon is mined, and nobody is running mining equipment on biodiesel, nor are they transporting it to power plants using biodiesel, ethanol, or even renewable generated electricity on electric locomotives. To be sure, the amount of carbon is extremely low per kWh of electricity generated, but very small > 0, even for very small cases of very small.
There; fixed it for you. And if you want to wave your arms about some other solar technology, rest assured their starting materials are mined too. (as in copper, indium, gallium, selenium, cadmium, tellurium, and sulfur.)
Also, since I work at a PV silicon production plant, rest assured that we use lots of natural gas to heat the hot oil system that supplies the heat to the reboilers in the distillation circuit. And the hydrogen we use comes from a methane reformer.
The electricity comes from hydropower though, so that is at least renewable. Unless Greenpeace and Judge Redden gets their way and rip the dams out, then 1) we are out of business, and 2) coal plants get built to replace both the electricity that was being made at the dams, and the electricity the solar cells would have made.
x-ray fluorescence. There are portable "guns" that can do this now, for only about $30,000.
The old ones took up a room, had a radioactive source, and the spectrometer had to be cooled with liquid N2.
The modern PMIs are pretty nice. Point at a piece of metal, pull the trigger, and in 5 seconds it tells you if it is 304, 316, C-276, 800HT, or whatever. If the metal is not in the database, then it tells you the elemental makeup so you can look it up, and if it's a real alloy enter it into the database. If it's some odd corrosion product (C-276, but missing some chrome) that can help analyze corrosion problems.
I have one on next year's budget wish list. (And yes, I am a metallurgical engineer.)
"They do not start at full brightness, but are plenty bright to see when entering a room,...."
Having lived with CFL's for awhile now, I now consider that to be a feature, not a bug. My eyes get noticeably less blasted when I come in at night and flip on the lights.
The "not rated for outdoor use" on the label is the biggest problem I still have. The LED lights are the obvious answer there, but they are still scarce and pricey. That will change over time.
The second problem is will the CFL Fit? A $5 CFL that needs a new $30 fixture, which in turn needs a $100 of drywall (or heaven forbid, plaster) repair and new paint is not a good deal. Again the LEDs should be able to fit in some of those old (house built in 1950's) small and closed (no ventilation) fixtures.
Hopefully they will keep making heat lamps for when you actually want the heat.
"What is it about the eBook articles on slashdot (a tech geek site FFS) that seems to bring all the Ludites out of the woodwork?"
Actually, many years ago noted non-Luddite Isaac Asimov wrote a short story that started with imagining the best possible computerized reading system, and ended up with the paperback book.
If it isn't broke, don't fix it.
Blinky-lights are neither necessary nor sufficient for a good story.
"Vanadium is VERY common - almost as common as carbon."
I want some of what you're smoking, but after I retire, so I can keep my job, so I can eventually retire.
This is from the 2007 Mineral Commodities Survey, from USGS.
"Eight U.S. firms that make up the domestic vanadium industry produced ferrovanadium, vanadium pentoxide, vanadium metal, and vanadium-bearing chemicals or specialty alloys by processing materials such as petroleum residues, spent catalysts, utility ash, and vanadium-bearing pig iron slag. Metallurgical use, primarily as an alloying agent for iron and steel, accounted for about 90% of the domestic vanadium consumption in 2006. Of the other uses for vanadium, the major nonmetallurgical use was in catalysts for the production of maleic anhydride and sulfuric acid."
Note that we sift through ashes to get the stuff. It's not common. It's rarely concentrated enough to mine directly.
The same reference also mentions that total US demand of 3810 tons (in 2006) were 100% imported. They used to get a little from the phosphorous mine in Idaho, but since that closed down, no useful domestic production. And the going rate is $8/lb based on V2O5, so about $14/lb for the metal.
So you aren't powering enough new vanadium super batteries from bunker-oil ashes to save the world.
"Thanks to E-911, you should hypothetically be routed to the call center nearest to the tower you're calling from."
The key word didn't even notice was "hypothetically".
"Given the spotty reliability of mobile phones in some buildings and rural areas," is another point, though not applicable in the stated case. When I'm on call, the company cell phone gives 1 bar of signal strength inside, 2 bars outside.
Cheapest Cell phone plan I can find here is about $30/month. Landline, $25/month. So cell phones are not cheaper, not better quality, and the "yak while moving" aspects are not to my advantage.
So we are staying on the wires until Verizon gets tired of fixing them. Admittedly, that could be any time now. Then we'll have to find something with an external antenna. A base-station cell phone? I wonder if there is such a thing?
Is it idiocy? The economy is shifting from goods to services. To tax only the (physical) goods while letting the services off free keeps putting more of the tax load on less and less of the economy.
Typically, "the rich" use more services than the poor, so that would increase the overall "take" as well, and in a non-regressive manner when compared to a high tax on goods.
I'm actually surprised the politicians haven't figured this out before.
"Most business PCs run many proprietary pieces of software that will only work properly on Windows."
Let me make one change to make that 100% accurate.
"Most business PCs run many proprietary pieces of software that will only work properly on Windows XP."
If you have to upgrade everyone's software to use Vista anyway, there is a great opportunity to leave all of Windows behind for good. Especially at $400 per seat. Plus the gamer level graphics card. My work XP box isn't going to run Vista Business. Basic would work. Maybe. I'd have to look up to see if the embedded graphics can handle it.
"The problem now is that we don't produce much in our factories, import massive amounts of energy from overseas, and our currency isn't valued as much on the international market."
The last point will eventually correct the first point. The overvalued dollar nearly destroyed the domestic industrial base because all those lower-valued currencies made it cheaper to build new factories overseas. That situation is rapidly going away. Capital is starting to flow into the country again. My employer is putting in multiple expansions that add up to about $1.1 billion. Now Singapore got the $4 billion expansion, but the tide is starting to turn.
The second point is the intractable one, but not as bad as it seems. The imports are in one sector, transportation. Fixing a structural problem in one sector is easier than trying to do it all at once.
As to the point that "Even if China completely floated the Yuan to a fair and free market value against the dollar their goods would still be cheaper" I'm not so sure. Their demand would soar as well if they weren't being systematically kept poor. And they are still building heavy infrastructure.
Did you know that their government will not allow Chinese steel to be used in high-pressure steam piping? There was a minor scandal where some company bought Chinese pipe, routed it Texas, stamped it Made in USA, and sent it back to China. Where it blew up under pressure killing 6. This won't last, eventually they will figure out how to make a good pipe, but if the dollar comes down we can still compete.
And it better. The '90's dream that we would close down all "that nasty polluting industry" and get rich off of software and media content has been shown to be pretty hollow.
Now, back to my Death to the Dollar dance....
Odd, but since WWII the key to economic prosperity is to drive down the value of your own currency. France, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, China...(not sure about about the rupee) now it's the US's turn.
Since I have a mining background I'll chime in. They found so much up through the '70's they sort of quit looking for more, especially after TMI when the demand dried up. Even without breeder Rx, there is enough for a couple hundred years. With breeders, five or six hundred; with thorium breeders, a couple thousand? And this is what we know about now. There is actually a surprising amount of the stuff in seawater, so if the price goes up enough that supply becomes viable too.
In many land deposits, the uranium is trapped in sandstone between two shale layers (look up roll front deposit). In this happy case, you can use a system of wells to dissolve the uranium and pump it out without sending anyone underground.
The planet is so loaded with uranium and thorium you have to wonder about the supernova that seeded our proto-solar nebula.
Your ability to read (or your understanding of grammer) is as limited as your sense.
"and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States." The Milita/National Guard is owned by the States unless specifically called into Federal service. The Army and Navy are ALWAYS under the President, who is the Commander in Chief, peacetime or wartime.
And what is your list of environmentally safe mines? How do you verify your Prius is only constructed with materials from mines of which you approve? Mines that meet the EPA requirements? That's all of them in this country. And those were the ones (the only ones) Federal policies can shut down. So, you have basically agreed to export pollution to somewhere you won't have to look at it.
And we did meet the EPA rules. And we were shut down because a permit was pulled. The State giveth, and State taketh away. We didn't have the money to spend three years in court proving the permit was pulled without cause, and forcing them to reinstate it. Without that particular permit, the mine was not viable, and we were done.
Now, with regards to logging, you can buy lumber only from privately held, domestic, non-clearcut, spotted owl free forests. So I'll grant you that one. Have you ever done it? Does/did/will your contract with a home builder specify "sustainable products only?"
I see your benefits from your plan. "Inconveniences" exported elsewhere, cheap labor from the people in the countryside pushed out of work and forced to relocate. Cheap vacation/retirement homes from those same people (with the added benefit that they are already built and you don't have to worry about the "sustainable products only" issue. And from those of the dispossesed that do manage to get thing's back together (at least if they move to the city) the holy grail, Increased Property Values for your existing house.
It is a great deal for you. I just resent having had to pay for it.
"And he's only the Commander in Chief in wartime."
Gotcha, poser. Constitution, Article 2, Section 2, paragraph 1. "The President shall be commander in Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States..."
No restrictions on wartime only. Which I knew, having once been in the military, in (relative) peace time.
"Oh, do regale of the tales of when and your out of work buddies became bandits, raiding local Wal-Marts and and Home Depots for food and supplies, then racing back to the hills in your Ford Rangers."
No, we went to the unemployment lines. And when the benefits ran out, we sold our houses at a loss ($27,000, in my case) and moved elsewhere, like the dispossessed everywhere. And took a job at a much lower pay rate than mining paid.
And I note that you did not answer the question. If mining and miners are so evil, and you approve of running them out of the country, where do you get the materials for your house, your Prius, and your PC? Planning to trade your fine poetry for steel? It's a great deal if you can get it. Of course, someone somewhere is still mining. But as long as it's not around your potential vacation destinations, I suppose you don't care.
I can see life + 25 for "Original" works of fiction and scholarly research. For those few cases where the author hits it big, then commits stupidity, there is an interest in seeing that any offspring gets an education. But not a lifetime of ease and leisure.
Non-fiction should be 20 years max.
Works for hire should also be for 20 years. In fact, no corporation should be able to retain a copyright for over 20 years.
Newspapers and periodicals (news in general) should be seven years.
Computer software should be 7 years after the last update. And to copyright computer programs, the source code would have to be submitted along with with adequate documentation to build the binary.
Gardening robots. One that can tell the difference between the desired plants, and pigweeds, my personal bane.
Then we can add strawberry picking, install armor plate for blackberry picking, and put on an extension to get the upper apricots. And for winter, a snow-shoveling attachment. Eventually I might trust one enough with a lawn mower, but let's start without the weaponry.
What do I need a robot for inside the house? Well, nothing.
Which I believe was your point. They keep looking at the wrong market.
"And just how many miners and loggers perished due to environmental restrictions, exactly? Speaking of, tough shit. The rest of us have to live here too, and don't want to suffer polluted water and bare mountains just so you can make a quick buck."
So, you will support the upcoming War for Copper? Or how about a War for Wood? Or are you living in some utopia where you do not use wood, or any metal, concrete, or stone? And no glass either. And your food does not use any phosphate or potassium fertilizers? All those goodies are to be provided on demand, and cheap, from where, exactly? And let's not forget the silicon in the computer you used to post your reply. That came from where again? A Mine? Oh No!
As for "And just how many miners and loggers perished due to environmental restrictions, exactly?" Did the environmental restrictions increase the poverty rate? Likely yes. And would an increase in poverty indirectly kill people? Yes. Can you quantify it? Only with great difficulty. Is the cost to benefit ratio worth the exchange? 20 years ago I'd have answered yes. Now, regulations are doing ever more economic damage for ever smaller environmental gains.
If a Republican were to propose a program to tax the lower income groups, and push more of them into poverty, incidentally increasing their death rate, but in an hard to detect way, would you still feel "Yawn.... Tough shit?."
If Exxon builds a refinery in an unpopular third world country, and kills the inhabitants somewhat more detectably, would you still be happy? After all, your water and pretty mountains are still unaffected. Is your vacation worth a few lower class lives?
"He did not lie under oath in his capacity as President of the United States."
I was unaware that he had turned over the office to Al while he was giving that deposition. If he didn't, then he was President. And therefore what he did was in an official capacity. Military personnel are still subject to the UCMJ even if they are off-duty, on leave, and out of uniform. And he is Commander in chief.
"Given the choice between a chickenhawk that will entangle the whole country in reprehensible, unwinable, and expensive (in dollars and in lives) military actions around the world"
Don't forget tossing the Constitution to the winds either. Warrantless wiretapping indeed.
I keep wondering if he really will leave in 2009, or decide the "national emergency" requires that he stay in office. It's happened in other countries.
"He made false statements that helped send us to war, but he's not liable in any way because he didn't make them while under oath? "
True. Call it an unintended consequence of Slick Willie. Slick DID lie under oath, and it was found to be inadequate grounds for impeachment, or at least removal from office. So any statement not made under oath is not actionable at all.
Besides, politicians lie non-stop. You can't be a politician unless you can lie non-stop. Some of Slick's and Al's lies put thousands of people out of work. A good many of them were forced into poverty. Some fraction of them died. Now W's corpses are pretty easy to identify, while Slicks' were not. Dead is still dead though.
(Poverty is like low-level nuclear radiation, you can't say this person without doubt died of it, but you can say that there were N excess deaths per 100,000 of affected population.)
If you are wondering about the Slick and Al lies I was referring too, it was the War on the West, mining and logging were hammered badly to please environmentalist voters. I was on the pointy end of that stick. It wasn't pretty. It took until last year to get back to my 1994 income, even though I went back to school for a doctorate.
"The need to upgrade your PC every 2 years to keep up with the software is passed"
That's it in a nutshell.
My Mac is 5 1/2 years old, and still runs everything I need. I'm debating whether to put Leopard on it. It's not a slam dunk, as many of the hot features in Leopard are not useful for me. I did decide to try out the new iWork, which works fine.
On the PC side, my PC at work is 4 1/2 years old, and with the recent memory upgrade runs everything I need there. Now the built-in video would puke all over the video editing I do at home, but as I don't edit video at work, it's not an issue.
And the PC won't run Vista either, due to that video "card". And Vista won't run most of the special work related stuff either. (Office 2007 broke all sorts of stuff. I have no idea why the IT department thought that upgrade was a good idea.)
The PC market has matured. That is what is supposed to happen. Now if Ballmer will mature things will get a lot calmer.
"You know it's funny how you Open Source people constantly wave this red flag about lawsuits and contamination when the reality is Microsoft has never sued any individual over these issue."
But their stooge, SCO, did sue IBM over the exact same prInciple. Once you've seen the holy (SysV/.Net) code, you are forever doomed to merely recreate it's glory, and therefore your work is really their work, and you have to pay them to use the code you wrote.
Yes SCO lost, but can you afford several million in legal fees to exonerate yourself? Especially since Microsoft has already been making noise about all the patent violations already in Linux? They want a fight that they can win against Linux. Since SCO has flamed out, they will be more careful the second time; to wit, they will make sure there really is some code that at least looks like theirs before they file suit.
So, in proper/. format;
1) Get hapless kid to look at.Net code. 2) Kid then goes and implements something similar in Mono or elsewhere in Linux. 3) Sic the lawyers on the kid, terrorizing said kid into admitting he copied the secret code. 4) Wave around headlines "Linux coder admits copying secret MS code!" 5) Turn loose Lyons, Enderle, O'Gara, Didio, and any other shill they can buy to terrorize PHBs. 6) Profit!!
Optional #7, buy wreckage of Novell for two ship's peanuts, set up program to "Help honest businesses bamboozled by those Linux Pirates to convert to a safe, legal operating environment."
A simple straightforward business plan with a very low set up cost. And no downside. If it fails, (no one takes the bait) in a year no one will remember it anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
"Switchgrass may do better, but we're not there yet."
Exactly.
The technology for corn-based ethanol is available NOW.
The equipment for corn-based ethanol is available NOW.
The business plan for corn-based ethanol is available NOW.
You can take those three to a bank or a VC firm and get the money to build the plant NOW.
Then, in 5 or ten years, when the switchgrass system is working, you go back to the bank, and get a loan for a side-stream cellulose digester. Which over the next 5 or ten years and a couple of expansions, displaces the original corn system.
The alternative that people keep missing is that the alternative to corn is do nothing, ie, keep burning oil. The sugar based plants are better, and available now, but sugar cane doesn't grow in most of the US. Small parts of three states is all I know of. Sugar beets seem to be no better than corn.
Corn-based ethanol is a transition phase, not the final magic bullet. In fact, there is not going to be a magic bullet (as in one technology solves everything) this time. But that is another discussion.
"a high-quality Windows experience"
Point well taken. But I've been wondering why they would try to stuff eXtra-Pokey onto the OLPC? Windows CE would be a better fit, and it sucks less.
"Fuel cells can run on hydrogen or ammonia,"
And methanol. Take the CO from this widget, add some hydrogen, and form methanol.
Fuel cells run on methanol, various race engines on on methanol, you can even convert a briggs and stratton lawnmower engine to run on methanol.
And methanol is a liquid, so the existing liquid fuel transport systems can be used to ship it around.
And if you just don't like methanol, then combine 2 of them to make ethanol. Or 4 of them to make butanol.
The hydrogen economy works best if you convert the hydrogen to methanol.
"That is very much a matter of taste. I found the Office 2007 user interface an unusable, intrusive abomination, that was constantly in my way when I was trying to work"
Ditto. Excel's graphing ability has been almost completely neutralized, unless you want the default "simplistic column graph". Nothing else has improved either.
1. Solar power is not carbon neutral. Silicon is mined, and nobody is running mining equipment on biodiesel, nor are they transporting it to power plants using biodiesel, ethanol, or even renewable generated electricity on electric locomotives. To be sure, the amount of carbon is extremely low per kWh of electricity generated, but very small > 0, even for very small cases of very small.
There; fixed it for you. And if you want to wave your arms about some other solar technology, rest assured their starting materials are mined too. (as in copper, indium, gallium, selenium, cadmium, tellurium, and sulfur.)
Also, since I work at a PV silicon production plant, rest assured that we use lots of natural gas to heat the hot oil system that supplies the heat to the reboilers in the distillation circuit. And the hydrogen we use comes from a methane reformer.
The electricity comes from hydropower though, so that is at least renewable. Unless Greenpeace and Judge Redden gets their way and rip the dams out, then 1) we are out of business, and 2) coal plants get built to replace both the electricity that was being made at the dams, and the electricity the solar cells would have made.
x-ray fluorescence. There are portable "guns" that can do this now, for only about $30,000.
The old ones took up a room, had a radioactive source, and the spectrometer had to be cooled with liquid N2.
The modern PMIs are pretty nice. Point at a piece of metal, pull the trigger, and in 5 seconds it tells you if it is 304, 316, C-276, 800HT, or whatever. If the metal is not in the database, then it tells you the elemental makeup so you can look it up, and if it's a real alloy enter it into the database. If it's some odd corrosion product (C-276, but missing some chrome) that can help analyze corrosion problems.
I have one on next year's budget wish list. (And yes, I am a metallurgical engineer.)
"They do not start at full brightness, but are plenty bright to see when entering a room, ...."
Having lived with CFL's for awhile now, I now consider that to be a feature, not a bug. My eyes get noticeably less blasted when I come in at night and flip on the lights.
The "not rated for outdoor use" on the label is the biggest problem I still have. The LED lights are the obvious answer there, but they are still scarce and pricey. That will change over time.
The second problem is will the CFL Fit? A $5 CFL that needs a new $30 fixture, which in turn needs a $100 of drywall (or heaven forbid, plaster) repair and new paint is not a good deal. Again the LEDs should be able to fit in some of those old (house built in 1950's) small and closed (no ventilation) fixtures.
Hopefully they will keep making heat lamps for when you actually want the heat.
"What is it about the eBook articles on slashdot (a tech geek site FFS) that seems to bring all the Ludites out of the woodwork?"
Actually, many years ago noted non-Luddite Isaac Asimov wrote a short story that started with imagining the best possible computerized reading system, and ended up with the paperback book.
If it isn't broke, don't fix it.
Blinky-lights are neither necessary nor sufficient for a good story.
"Vanadium is VERY common - almost as common as carbon."
I want some of what you're smoking, but after I retire, so I can keep my job, so I can eventually retire.
This is from the 2007 Mineral Commodities Survey, from USGS.
"Eight U.S. firms that make up the domestic vanadium industry produced
ferrovanadium, vanadium pentoxide, vanadium metal, and vanadium-bearing chemicals or specialty alloys by
processing materials such as petroleum residues, spent catalysts, utility ash, and vanadium-bearing pig iron slag.
Metallurgical use, primarily as an alloying agent for iron and steel, accounted for about 90% of the domestic vanadium
consumption in 2006. Of the other uses for vanadium, the major nonmetallurgical use was in catalysts for the
production of maleic anhydride and sulfuric acid."
Note that we sift through ashes to get the stuff. It's not common. It's rarely concentrated enough to mine directly.
The same reference also mentions that total US demand of 3810 tons (in 2006) were 100% imported. They used to get a little from the phosphorous mine in Idaho, but since that closed down, no useful domestic production. And the going rate is $8/lb based on V2O5, so about $14/lb for the metal.
So you aren't powering enough new vanadium super batteries from bunker-oil ashes to save the world.
"Thanks to E-911, you should hypothetically be routed to the call center nearest to the tower you're calling from."
The key word didn't even notice was "hypothetically".
"Given the spotty reliability of mobile phones in some buildings and rural areas," is another point, though not applicable in the stated case. When I'm on call, the company cell phone gives 1 bar of signal strength inside, 2 bars outside.
Cheapest Cell phone plan I can find here is about $30/month. Landline, $25/month. So cell phones are not cheaper, not better quality, and the "yak while moving" aspects are not to my advantage.
So we are staying on the wires until Verizon gets tired of fixing them. Admittedly, that could be any time now. Then we'll have to find something with an external antenna. A base-station cell phone? I wonder if there is such a thing?
Is it idiocy? The economy is shifting from goods to services. To tax only the (physical) goods while letting the services off free keeps putting more of the tax load on less and less of the economy.
Typically, "the rich" use more services than the poor, so that would increase the overall "take" as well, and in a non-regressive manner when compared to a high tax on goods.
I'm actually surprised the politicians haven't figured this out before.
"Most business PCs run many proprietary pieces of software that will only work properly on Windows."
Let me make one change to make that 100% accurate.
"Most business PCs run many proprietary pieces of software that will only work properly on Windows XP."
If you have to upgrade everyone's software to use Vista anyway, there is a great opportunity to leave all of Windows behind for good. Especially at $400 per seat. Plus the gamer level graphics card. My work XP box isn't going to run Vista Business. Basic would work. Maybe. I'd have to look up to see if the embedded graphics can handle it.
"The problem now is that we don't produce much in our factories, import massive amounts of energy from overseas, and our currency isn't valued as much on the international market."
The last point will eventually correct the first point. The overvalued dollar nearly destroyed the domestic industrial base because all those lower-valued currencies made it cheaper to build new factories overseas. That situation is rapidly going away. Capital is starting to flow into the country again. My employer is putting in multiple expansions that add up to about $1.1 billion. Now Singapore got the $4 billion expansion, but the tide is starting to turn.
The second point is the intractable one, but not as bad as it seems. The imports are in one sector, transportation. Fixing a structural problem in one sector is easier than trying to do it all at once.
As to the point that "Even if China completely floated the Yuan to a fair and free market value against the dollar their goods would still be cheaper" I'm not so sure. Their demand would soar as well if they weren't being systematically kept poor. And they are still building heavy infrastructure.
Did you know that their government will not allow Chinese steel to be used in high-pressure steam piping? There was a minor scandal where some company bought Chinese pipe, routed it Texas, stamped it Made in USA, and sent it back to China. Where it blew up under pressure killing 6. This won't last, eventually they will figure out how to make a good pipe, but if the dollar comes down we can still compete.
And it better. The '90's dream that we would close down all "that nasty polluting industry" and get rich off of software and media content has been shown to be pretty hollow.
Now, back to my Death to the Dollar dance....
Odd, but since WWII the key to economic prosperity is to drive down the value of your own currency. France, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, China...(not sure about about the rupee) now it's the US's turn.
"How plentiful is Uranium for nuclear power? "
Since I have a mining background I'll chime in. They found so much up through the '70's they sort of quit looking for more, especially after TMI when the demand dried up. Even without breeder Rx, there is enough for a couple hundred years. With breeders, five or six hundred; with thorium breeders, a couple thousand? And this is what we know about now. There is actually a surprising amount of the stuff in seawater, so if the price goes up enough that supply becomes viable too.
In many land deposits, the uranium is trapped in sandstone between two shale layers (look up roll front deposit). In this happy case, you can use a system of wells to dissolve the uranium and pump it out without sending anyone underground.
The planet is so loaded with uranium and thorium you have to wonder about the supernova that seeded our proto-solar nebula.
Your ability to read (or your understanding of grammer) is as limited as your sense.
"and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States." The Milita/National Guard is owned by the States unless specifically called into Federal service. The Army and Navy are ALWAYS under the President, who is the Commander in Chief, peacetime or wartime.
And what is your list of environmentally safe mines? How do you verify your Prius is only constructed with materials from mines of which you approve? Mines that meet the EPA requirements? That's all of them in this country. And those were the ones (the only ones) Federal policies can shut down. So, you have basically agreed to export pollution to somewhere you won't have to look at it.
And we did meet the EPA rules. And we were shut down because a permit was pulled. The State giveth, and State taketh away. We didn't have the money to spend three years in court proving the permit was pulled without cause, and forcing them to reinstate it. Without that particular permit, the mine was not viable, and we were done.
Now, with regards to logging, you can buy lumber only from privately held, domestic, non-clearcut, spotted owl free forests. So I'll grant you that one. Have you ever done it? Does/did/will your contract with a home builder specify "sustainable products only?"
I see your benefits from your plan. "Inconveniences" exported elsewhere, cheap labor from the people in the countryside pushed out of work and forced to relocate. Cheap vacation/retirement homes from those same people (with the added benefit that they are already built and you don't have to worry about the "sustainable products only" issue. And from those of the dispossesed that do manage to get thing's back together (at least if they move to the city) the holy grail, Increased Property Values for your existing house.
It is a great deal for you. I just resent having had to pay for it.
"And he's only the Commander in Chief in wartime."
Gotcha, poser. Constitution, Article 2, Section 2, paragraph 1. "The President shall be commander in Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States..."
No restrictions on wartime only. Which I knew, having once been in the military, in (relative) peace time.
"Oh, do regale of the tales of when and your out of work buddies became bandits, raiding local Wal-Marts and and Home Depots for food and supplies, then racing back to the hills in your Ford Rangers."
No, we went to the unemployment lines. And when the benefits ran out, we sold our houses at a loss ($27,000, in my case) and moved elsewhere, like the dispossessed everywhere. And took a job at a much lower pay rate than mining paid.
And I note that you did not answer the question. If mining and miners are so evil, and you approve of running them out of the country, where do you get the materials for your house, your Prius, and your PC? Planning to trade your fine poetry for steel? It's a great deal if you can get it. Of course, someone somewhere is still mining. But as long as it's not around your potential vacation destinations, I suppose you don't care.
I can see life + 25 for "Original" works of fiction and scholarly research. For those few cases where the author hits it big, then commits stupidity, there is an interest in seeing that any offspring gets an education. But not a lifetime of ease and leisure. Non-fiction should be 20 years max. Works for hire should also be for 20 years. In fact, no corporation should be able to retain a copyright for over 20 years. Newspapers and periodicals (news in general) should be seven years. Computer software should be 7 years after the last update. And to copyright computer programs, the source code would have to be submitted along with with adequate documentation to build the binary.
Gardening robots. One that can tell the difference between the desired plants, and pigweeds, my personal bane.
Then we can add strawberry picking, install armor plate for blackberry picking, and put on an extension to get the upper apricots. And for winter, a snow-shoveling attachment. Eventually I might trust one enough with a lawn mower, but let's start without the weaponry.
What do I need a robot for inside the house? Well, nothing.
Which I believe was your point. They keep looking at the wrong market.
"And just how many miners and loggers perished due to environmental restrictions, exactly? Speaking of, tough shit. The rest of us have to live here too, and don't want to suffer polluted water and bare mountains just so you can make a quick buck."
... Tough shit?."
So, you will support the upcoming War for Copper? Or how about a War for Wood? Or are you living in some utopia where you do not use wood, or any metal, concrete, or stone? And no glass either. And your food does not use any phosphate or potassium fertilizers? All those goodies are to be provided on demand, and cheap, from where, exactly? And let's not forget the silicon in the computer you used to post your reply. That came from where again? A Mine? Oh No!
As for "And just how many miners and loggers perished due to environmental restrictions, exactly?" Did the environmental restrictions increase the poverty rate? Likely yes. And would an increase in poverty indirectly kill people? Yes. Can you quantify it? Only with great difficulty. Is the cost to benefit ratio worth the exchange? 20 years ago I'd have answered yes. Now, regulations are doing ever more economic damage for ever smaller environmental gains.
If a Republican were to propose a program to tax the lower income groups, and push more of them into poverty, incidentally increasing their death rate, but in an hard to detect way, would you still feel "Yawn.
If Exxon builds a refinery in an unpopular third world country, and kills the inhabitants somewhat more detectably, would you still be happy? After all, your water and pretty mountains are still unaffected. Is your vacation worth a few lower class lives?
"He did not lie under oath in his capacity as President of the United States."
I was unaware that he had turned over the office to Al while he was giving that deposition. If he didn't, then he was President. And therefore what he did was in an official capacity. Military personnel are still subject to the UCMJ even if they are off-duty, on leave, and out of uniform. And he is Commander in chief.
"Given the choice between a chickenhawk that will entangle the whole country in reprehensible, unwinable, and expensive (in dollars and in lives) military actions around the world"
Don't forget tossing the Constitution to the winds either. Warrantless wiretapping indeed.
I keep wondering if he really will leave in 2009, or decide the "national emergency" requires that he stay in office. It's happened in other countries.
"He made false statements that helped send us to war, but he's not liable in any way because he didn't make them while under oath? "
True. Call it an unintended consequence of Slick Willie. Slick DID lie under oath, and it was found to be inadequate grounds for impeachment, or at least removal from office. So any statement not made under oath is not actionable at all.
Besides, politicians lie non-stop. You can't be a politician unless you can lie non-stop. Some of Slick's and Al's lies put thousands of people out of work. A good many of them were forced into poverty. Some fraction of them died. Now W's corpses are pretty easy to identify, while Slicks' were not. Dead is still dead though.
(Poverty is like low-level nuclear radiation, you can't say this person without doubt died of it, but you can say that there were N excess deaths per 100,000 of affected population.)
If you are wondering about the Slick and Al lies I was referring too, it was the War on the West, mining and logging were hammered badly to please environmentalist voters. I was on the pointy end of that stick. It wasn't pretty. It took until last year to get back to my 1994 income, even though I went back to school for a doctorate.
"The need to upgrade your PC every 2 years to keep up with the software is passed"
That's it in a nutshell.
My Mac is 5 1/2 years old, and still runs everything I need. I'm debating whether to put Leopard on it. It's not a slam dunk, as many of the hot features in Leopard are not useful for me. I did decide to try out the new iWork, which works fine.
On the PC side, my PC at work is 4 1/2 years old, and with the recent memory upgrade runs everything I need there. Now the built-in video would puke all over the video editing I do at home, but as I don't edit video at work, it's not an issue.
And the PC won't run Vista either, due to that video "card". And Vista won't run most of the special work related stuff either. (Office 2007 broke all sorts of stuff. I have no idea why the IT department thought that upgrade was a good idea.)
The PC market has matured. That is what is supposed to happen. Now if Ballmer will mature things will get a lot calmer.
"No problem. Spaceman Spiff justs adjusts the microwave transmitter from the orbital solar array, and you get instant power."
As a long-time fan of Calvin and Hobbes, I can only say giving Spaceman Spiff control of a 10 MW directed energy beam is a profoundly bad idea.
Unless, of course, you are a tiger.
"You know it's funny how you Open Source people constantly wave this red flag about lawsuits and contamination when the reality is Microsoft has never sued any individual over these issue."
/. format;
.Net code.
But their stooge, SCO, did sue IBM over the exact same prInciple. Once you've seen the holy (SysV/.Net) code, you are forever doomed to merely recreate it's glory, and therefore your work is really their work, and you have to pay them to use the code you wrote.
Yes SCO lost, but can you afford several million in legal fees to exonerate yourself? Especially since Microsoft has already been making noise about all the patent violations already in Linux? They want a fight that they can win against Linux. Since SCO has flamed out, they will be more careful the second time; to wit, they will make sure there really is some code that at least looks like theirs before they file suit.
So, in proper
1) Get hapless kid to look at
2) Kid then goes and implements something similar in Mono or elsewhere in Linux.
3) Sic the lawyers on the kid, terrorizing said kid into admitting he copied the secret code.
4) Wave around headlines "Linux coder admits copying secret MS code!"
5) Turn loose Lyons, Enderle, O'Gara, Didio, and any other shill they can buy to terrorize PHBs.
6) Profit!!
Optional #7, buy wreckage of Novell for two ship's peanuts, set up program to "Help honest businesses bamboozled by those Linux Pirates to convert to a safe, legal operating environment."
A simple straightforward business plan with a very low set up cost. And no downside. If it fails, (no one takes the bait) in a year no one will remember it anyway.
avoid a program called keyfile.
Evil, Evil, Evil!
At least the part that's not brain-damaged.