Actually, nuclear is not a viable replacement for fossil fuel because it does not follow load. The electricity grid is complicated and relies on being able to balance supply and demand during operation. Nuclear is incapable of doing that. Only natural gas turbines and hydro can follow load. Nuclear is probably the best choice to replace coal for base load operation overall but it becomes less competitive in areas where there are geothermal resources or good supplies of biomass. No one energy source can supply all our needs. I'm not preaching, just being practical.
That drove me nuts until somebody told me what it means. The "bobble head" means "I hear you." It's only an acknowledgement that they've heard what you've said and nothing more.
If you take a look at the numbers in the pdf, they only go to March, 2011. Spring runoff doesn't usually start until March and peaks around May or June.
There's more renewable energy coming on the grid because states have mandated a carve-out for renewable energy.
Not all cases. Acidification depends on the local geology.
As for earthquakes, would you rather have cracked tiles now or the risk of a collapsed roof later? Basel was an example of increased tremor activity. This also happens with oil and gas drilling but is not as well known.
However, there are relatively few EGS systems out there that generate more than demonstration power. The most common geothermal systems are hydrothermal. These are difficult to find but generally operate for long periods with minor emissions and waste.
Not quite. You're thinking of an enhanced geothermal system (EGS). These systems use water as a heat transfer fluid in spots where the rock is hot and dry. Pumping water into hot rock does not acidify it. These systems do increase the incidence of earth tremors but that is generally considered a feature, not a bug because the increased frequency of tremors means less magnitude.
I had a similar attitude when I was doing my EE undergrad. I was in it for the piece of paper that gets you a job. As it turns out, what I thought then was useless turned out to be pretty useful later on. The useless English class turned out to be quite valuable for deciphering the meaning of latin rooted words when in conversations where you can't stop to look up words. The CSC course on numerical analysis turned out to be the major tool I needed to do my graduate thesis. I shouldn't have gone to the pub before that class.
My point is that you have a long, unpredictable life ahead of you. You may want to work outside technology later. Learning new, esoteric things now may come back to help you in ways you never could have imagined. While it is true that you can learn just about anything on your own, taking classes usually (not always!) gives you broader coverage of a subject and more context. Some people can do it all on their own. For the rest of us, we get an education because we're better off with one than without one.
Drug costs are a big part of health care costs. A federal government can bargain costs much more efficiently than smaller entities.
There's a moral hazard with private health insurance. Governments have a vested interest in keeping you healthy so you can pay taxes. Private insurers have a vested interest in covering you until you are no longer healthy. This means that individuals with chronic conditions face increasing difficulty in getting coverage. Obamacare failed to address this issue correctly, likely resulting in higher costs in the future.
There are no easy answers to solving the health care issues in America but it is hard to argue against some sort of nationalization when you look at life expectancies and costs in countries where there is government subsidized health care.
Actually, it is all about maintenance. The safest airplane design in the world does not matter if the plane is improperly maintained. Unfortunately, in a competitive market, the first cost to be cut is maintenance. In a corporate environment, it is the obvious target for improving the bottom line without any short term effects. That is why nuclear power is expensive. Fuel costs are not the major cost factor. Regulatory requirements are. Until there is a way to safely handle radioactive material, this environment will never go away, good design or not.
Reduce the costs to what was proportional to the 1963 prices by removing all of the cruft that marxists having injected into the system and insurance would only be needed for catastrophic care - just like it was back in the day.
I think you seriously need to think of whether that is workable or not. I wasn't around in 1963 to make an evaluation and I doubt that you were either. You would have to be about sixty five to really have any experience on health care back then. Times have changed since then and systems have become more complex. Smoking was not considered to be carcinogenic and asbestos was still allowed in building materials. I don't think you or I wants to go back to 1963 health treatments.
Yes, I do know doctors, too. So, don't try to throw that one at me. Health care is getting expensive because it is getting more complicated to treat older people and there are proportionally more older people than younger people than there were in 1963. Should we simply stop treating older people because they use more medical resources? Your solution will not solve this problem except to remove treatment of the elderly from the health care system. It will work but is not the system I want in place.
Before you make any assumptions about who I am and how fucked in the head you think I am, can you offer a workable system beyond the overworn argument of "Let the free market decide?" The free market system that is in place is about twice as expensive as the socialist systems of other countries. It isn't delivering a cost effective solution to treating people's medical needs. The Canadian system, as does the hybrid mix in the UK deliver affordable health care to everyone. The UK system allows you to choose what you will pay for and the Canadian system allows that for cosmetic procedures.
Both those systems also have bureaucratic nonsense but they still seem to function and deliver affordable health care. I agree that streamlining the bureaucracy will help to lower cost but if it is the sole cause, why is it that other socialized systems are working under the same constraints?
In any case, there is a big difference between being able to choose to pay and being able to pay. The issue in the US is that about 10% of the population lacks health insurance and therefore, coverage. If you don't have coverage, your choice is to pay whatever is necessary to fix it, or have a broken leg. Is there a bit of a moral hazard here where the care provider can effectively choose whatever price they want because those in distressed situations do not have much of an option to shop around? What is the free market price to save your life? It is everything you have. I'll believe that a private system is workable when you can tell me how a private system will resist the temptation to gouge the patient.
So, no system is perfect. Socialized medicine delivers cheaper care to more people. Privatized medicine delivers better care to less people. What's your solution?
Considering that the US system relies on private insurance to ration out care, I am not sure what you mean. With respect to a private insurer covering a weird condition, the private insurer is under the same rationing constraints as a socialized system. In either case, you are screwed because it is an expensive condition that falls outside the standard parameters of treatment. The difference between the Canadian system and the American system is that the rationing is meted out by the insurer in the USA and by the government in Canada. The private insurer has a vested interest in making a profit for its shareholders, the government has a vested interested in making a healthy taxpayer.
Note that insurance does not have the same feedback loops as other free market systems. You pay until you have a problem. When you have a problem, the insurer has no interest in fulfilling their end of the deal because their objective is to get payments from those who do not have problems. Ever try to get coverage once you have a recurring condition? We can get all idealistic about how deregulation will make a more efficient health care system but this is not practical in reality. When you break a leg, do you compare prices and services at different hospitals?
You've hit the nail on the head. The US system offers the best care for those with the best ability to pay. Canada offers a relatively even level of care to everybody. As such, those who can afford to do so will get better care in the USA while those who can't get better care in Canada. For the individual, which is better depends on where you stand in the economic ladder.
For the country, it comes down to cost. The US system is expensive and not very effective on an aggregate basis. The Canadian system does not address more expensive treatments or procedures as well as the US system. That being said, you have almost no control over accidents or genetics. The cost to an uncovered individual is backruptcy or death. Because coverage is automatic in Canada, risk of bankruptcy and/or death is mitigated. The cost to the nation is about half that of the USA. For the average joe, which by definition, is most of us, the Canadian system works better.
I'm not trying to be smug about this. The USA is unique in having primarily private healthcare. Most developed nations have socialized healthcare and have not been bankrupted by it yet. Unregulated markets seem to have done a better job of that.
Fuel and power are not easily swapped because of the energy density required for fuels. It is really difficult to get a battery with the same energy/weight ratio as a consumable fuel like gasoline. It is a bit of a misconception that biofuel crops are pushing out food crops because there was, and probably still is, an oversupply of food crops in the USA. Farmers in the midwest were being paid not to grow corn. If there was a shortage of food in this world, agricultural subsidies would not be the political hot potato that it is now.
As for nuclear, it is great for baseload and has the advantage of reducing waste to a point source. However, while it is not expensive to operate, it is very expensive to build because of very stringent permitting requirements. As a base load generator, it also cannot follow the demand curve. For that, you need to have a dam or a natural gas turbine. What this means is while nuclear has some good characteristics, it is not the energy panacea that many people believe it to be.
Sound advice. The requirements you listed are pretty universal throughout the job market, no matter what the industry. However, the issue here is that employers are looking seemless transition from school to work. This is a somewhat unreasonable desire because the people who have the characteristics you list probably could find work without additional education. That leaves everybody else. If you ran a school, could you practically train everyone for all the junior level opportunities offered? Probably not, as the job market is too diverse.
We could argue about the educational process but for me it boils down to the tortoise/hare race. Educating students on technical specifics works well in the short run but has limited shelf life. Educating on generalities lasts a life time. It is up to the student to transfer the generalities to specifics. Those who do that, do well. Ever wonder why those with degrees form the minority of the workforce but run the majority of companies? The degree must be adding value somewhere.
Nuclear facilities fall into the "must run" category and get curtailed only when there are no other options. If there is a surplus of power during a particular time period, the nuke plant traders may pay somebody to take the energy because that has less consequences than curtailing the output. Other suppliers that have more flexible generation (natural gas turbines or windmills) will just shut down until the surplus goes away.
What is not mentioned in that article is that binary systems can also be air cooled. The down side of air cooling is that it doesn't work very well in the summertime, when there is higher demand for electricity.
The limiting factor is the resource, not the cooling.
In this case, I doubt it. That project was a front runner for DOE loan guarantees without the influence of Harry Reid. Considering they would have got the loan anyhow, golden parachute allocations would just be a waste of money.
Many of the geothermal projects are air-cooled. Those that are water cooled are in areas where you can actually get water rights. Water is not the limiting factor in geothermal development.
Actually, none of it. The deal is between NGP, their financiers, and DOE. The loan backstopping is part of ARRA. So far as I know, loan selections were made by DOE, which Harry Reid does not have any influence in.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, nuclear is not a viable replacement for fossil fuel because it does not follow load. The electricity grid is complicated and relies on being able to balance supply and demand during operation. Nuclear is incapable of doing that. Only natural gas turbines and hydro can follow load. Nuclear is probably the best choice to replace coal for base load operation overall but it becomes less competitive in areas where there are geothermal resources or good supplies of biomass. No one energy source can supply all our needs. I'm not preaching, just being practical.
That drove me nuts until somebody told me what it means. The "bobble head" means "I hear you." It's only an acknowledgement that they've heard what you've said and nothing more.
If you take a look at the numbers in the pdf, they only go to March, 2011. Spring runoff doesn't usually start until March and peaks around May or June.
There's more renewable energy coming on the grid because states have mandated a carve-out for renewable energy.
Not all cases. Acidification depends on the local geology.
As for earthquakes, would you rather have cracked tiles now or the risk of a collapsed roof later? Basel was an example of increased tremor activity. This also happens with oil and gas drilling but is not as well known.
However, there are relatively few EGS systems out there that generate more than demonstration power. The most common geothermal systems are hydrothermal. These are difficult to find but generally operate for long periods with minor emissions and waste.
Not quite. You're thinking of an enhanced geothermal system (EGS). These systems use water as a heat transfer fluid in spots where the rock is hot and dry. Pumping water into hot rock does not acidify it. These systems do increase the incidence of earth tremors but that is generally considered a feature, not a bug because the increased frequency of tremors means less magnitude.
It's also called geothermal energy. Very low emissions, sustainable, baseload power. No messy radioactivity to deal. Just expensive to find.
I had a similar attitude when I was doing my EE undergrad. I was in it for the piece of paper that gets you a job. As it turns out, what I thought then was useless turned out to be pretty useful later on. The useless English class turned out to be quite valuable for deciphering the meaning of latin rooted words when in conversations where you can't stop to look up words. The CSC course on numerical analysis turned out to be the major tool I needed to do my graduate thesis. I shouldn't have gone to the pub before that class.
My point is that you have a long, unpredictable life ahead of you. You may want to work outside technology later. Learning new, esoteric things now may come back to help you in ways you never could have imagined. While it is true that you can learn just about anything on your own, taking classes usually (not always!) gives you broader coverage of a subject and more context. Some people can do it all on their own. For the rest of us, we get an education because we're better off with one than without one.
Drug costs are a big part of health care costs. A federal government can bargain costs much more efficiently than smaller entities.
There's a moral hazard with private health insurance. Governments have a vested interest in keeping you healthy so you can pay taxes. Private insurers have a vested interest in covering you until you are no longer healthy. This means that individuals with chronic conditions face increasing difficulty in getting coverage. Obamacare failed to address this issue correctly, likely resulting in higher costs in the future.
There are no easy answers to solving the health care issues in America but it is hard to argue against some sort of nationalization when you look at life expectancies and costs in countries where there is government subsidized health care.
Welfare?
Do you plan to fire the people who can't pay?
They've outsourced drug use, too?
Actually, it is all about maintenance. The safest airplane design in the world does not matter if the plane is improperly maintained. Unfortunately, in a competitive market, the first cost to be cut is maintenance. In a corporate environment, it is the obvious target for improving the bottom line without any short term effects. That is why nuclear power is expensive. Fuel costs are not the major cost factor. Regulatory requirements are. Until there is a way to safely handle radioactive material, this environment will never go away, good design or not.
If this is your solution :
Reduce the costs to what was proportional to the 1963 prices by removing all of the cruft that marxists having injected into the system and insurance would only be needed for catastrophic care - just like it was back in the day.
I think you seriously need to think of whether that is workable or not. I wasn't around in 1963 to make an evaluation and I doubt that you were either. You would have to be about sixty five to really have any experience on health care back then. Times have changed since then and systems have become more complex. Smoking was not considered to be carcinogenic and asbestos was still allowed in building materials. I don't think you or I wants to go back to 1963 health treatments.
Yes, I do know doctors, too. So, don't try to throw that one at me. Health care is getting expensive because it is getting more complicated to treat older people and there are proportionally more older people than younger people than there were in 1963. Should we simply stop treating older people because they use more medical resources? Your solution will not solve this problem except to remove treatment of the elderly from the health care system. It will work but is not the system I want in place.
Before you make any assumptions about who I am and how fucked in the head you think I am, can you offer a workable system beyond the overworn argument of "Let the free market decide?" The free market system that is in place is about twice as expensive as the socialist systems of other countries. It isn't delivering a cost effective solution to treating people's medical needs. The Canadian system, as does the hybrid mix in the UK deliver affordable health care to everyone. The UK system allows you to choose what you will pay for and the Canadian system allows that for cosmetic procedures.
Both those systems also have bureaucratic nonsense but they still seem to function and deliver affordable health care. I agree that streamlining the bureaucracy will help to lower cost but if it is the sole cause, why is it that other socialized systems are working under the same constraints?
In any case, there is a big difference between being able to choose to pay and being able to pay. The issue in the US is that about 10% of the population lacks health insurance and therefore, coverage. If you don't have coverage, your choice is to pay whatever is necessary to fix it, or have a broken leg. Is there a bit of a moral hazard here where the care provider can effectively choose whatever price they want because those in distressed situations do not have much of an option to shop around? What is the free market price to save your life? It is everything you have. I'll believe that a private system is workable when you can tell me how a private system will resist the temptation to gouge the patient.
So, no system is perfect. Socialized medicine delivers cheaper care to more people. Privatized medicine delivers better care to less people. What's your solution?
Considering that the US system relies on private insurance to ration out care, I am not sure what you mean. With respect to a private insurer covering a weird condition, the private insurer is under the same rationing constraints as a socialized system. In either case, you are screwed because it is an expensive condition that falls outside the standard parameters of treatment. The difference between the Canadian system and the American system is that the rationing is meted out by the insurer in the USA and by the government in Canada. The private insurer has a vested interest in making a profit for its shareholders, the government has a vested interested in making a healthy taxpayer.
Note that insurance does not have the same feedback loops as other free market systems. You pay until you have a problem. When you have a problem, the insurer has no interest in fulfilling their end of the deal because their objective is to get payments from those who do not have problems. Ever try to get coverage once you have a recurring condition? We can get all idealistic about how deregulation will make a more efficient health care system but this is not practical in reality. When you break a leg, do you compare prices and services at different hospitals?
You've hit the nail on the head. The US system offers the best care for those with the best ability to pay. Canada offers a relatively even level of care to everybody. As such, those who can afford to do so will get better care in the USA while those who can't get better care in Canada. For the individual, which is better depends on where you stand in the economic ladder.
For the country, it comes down to cost. The US system is expensive and not very effective on an aggregate basis. The Canadian system does not address more expensive treatments or procedures as well as the US system. That being said, you have almost no control over accidents or genetics. The cost to an uncovered individual is backruptcy or death. Because coverage is automatic in Canada, risk of bankruptcy and/or death is mitigated. The cost to the nation is about half that of the USA. For the average joe, which by definition, is most of us, the Canadian system works better.
I'm not trying to be smug about this. The USA is unique in having primarily private healthcare. Most developed nations have socialized healthcare and have not been bankrupted by it yet. Unregulated markets seem to have done a better job of that.
ICANN haz DNSnumber?
Fuel and power are not easily swapped because of the energy density required for fuels. It is really difficult to get a battery with the same energy/weight ratio as a consumable fuel like gasoline. It is a bit of a misconception that biofuel crops are pushing out food crops because there was, and probably still is, an oversupply of food crops in the USA. Farmers in the midwest were being paid not to grow corn. If there was a shortage of food in this world, agricultural subsidies would not be the political hot potato that it is now.
As for nuclear, it is great for baseload and has the advantage of reducing waste to a point source. However, while it is not expensive to operate, it is very expensive to build because of very stringent permitting requirements. As a base load generator, it also cannot follow the demand curve. For that, you need to have a dam or a natural gas turbine. What this means is while nuclear has some good characteristics, it is not the energy panacea that many people believe it to be.
Sound advice. The requirements you listed are pretty universal throughout the job market, no matter what the industry. However, the issue here is that employers are looking seemless transition from school to work. This is a somewhat unreasonable desire because the people who have the characteristics you list probably could find work without additional education. That leaves everybody else. If you ran a school, could you practically train everyone for all the junior level opportunities offered? Probably not, as the job market is too diverse.
We could argue about the educational process but for me it boils down to the tortoise/hare race. Educating students on technical specifics works well in the short run but has limited shelf life. Educating on generalities lasts a life time. It is up to the student to transfer the generalities to specifics. Those who do that, do well. Ever wonder why those with degrees form the minority of the workforce but run the majority of companies? The degree must be adding value somewhere.
Nuclear facilities fall into the "must run" category and get curtailed only when there are no other options. If there is a surplus of power during a particular time period, the nuke plant traders may pay somebody to take the energy because that has less consequences than curtailing the output. Other suppliers that have more flexible generation (natural gas turbines or windmills) will just shut down until the surplus goes away.
but the arguments are circular.
What is not mentioned in that article is that binary systems can also be air cooled. The down side of air cooling is that it doesn't work very well in the summertime, when there is higher demand for electricity.
The limiting factor is the resource, not the cooling.
In this case, I doubt it. That project was a front runner for DOE loan guarantees without the influence of Harry Reid. Considering they would have got the loan anyhow, golden parachute allocations would just be a waste of money.
Many of the geothermal projects are air-cooled. Those that are water cooled are in areas where you can actually get water rights. Water is not the limiting factor in geothermal development.
Actually, none of it. The deal is between NGP, their financiers, and DOE. The loan backstopping is part of ARRA. So far as I know, loan selections were made by DOE, which Harry Reid does not have any influence in.
NOPE - not on planet Earth