It also sounds like a fuel hog. Helicopters are fuel hogs because the rotation of the blade is necessary to provide the lift as well as the thrust. Fixed wing setups have the advantage of getting the lift for cheap. I think if it has any potential it may be at replacing rotor aircraft. Not fixed wings. I don't foresee fuel prices going down in the future.
Exactly. I pay Skype to access phone lines at a competitive rate. If another client lets me connect to their service I still need to pay them to access that service. However, if they change protocol to defeat another client, and if they do not upgrade their linux client accordingly, then they force me as a paying customer to abandon the service. Hence, Skype itself is endangering their revenue stream, not the reverse engineered client.
not affecting the majority does not imply not screwing the userbase. Particularly of paying customers. I use skype for linux. I am not part of the majority, and when they drop support for linux and change the protocols, guess what: I'll be a screwed customer. Customers are not only the majority slice.
Thanks for clarifying that. Nobody knows what the Rogers Center is. Now, Skydome has a meaning. Rogers Center means nothing to me. And it will change name as soon as a new sponsor shows up. I think people should boycott those sponsored names and keep calling structures a true non-changeable name. Whatever the sponsoring says. Sadly, it will never be the case of journalists who have to cater to sponsors.
actually, the article while not saying what it was for kind of hinted at it:
"She was greeted by Premier Dalton McGuinty, on hand to trumpet his government’s commitment to clean renewable power, even though the project is coming in two years late, and costing $1.6 billion instead of the $985 million budgeted."
Clean renewable power + niagara falls = hydro power
I beg to differ. I use Skype on Linux. It may not have all the useless bells and whistles of the Windows client, but It does video conferencing very well and even desktop (or small window) sharing pretty well. I am also a paying customer, which Skype is going to lose very shortly due to their upcoming abandonment of the platform (and obvious new protocols that are going to be introduced to make sure unsupported versions become broken, in the now well established microsoft SOP).
I feel cheated somehow for having supported them till now even though google offered a free alternative (I never did recommend it to anybody, though, because I have always been wary of proprietary solutions) but sadly none of my friends want to use SIP compatible clients, and they do have a nice flat rate long-distance plan.
Lolita is not a dodgy name. It's a perfectly acceptable short form of Dolores in Spanish. That English people have decided to turn it into a bad word is your thing. But it's not dodgy.
or lack of exposure to dustmites. According to the hygiene hypothesis, it may actually be our overly clean environment that is the cause of rising incidence of allergies in the most affluent parts of the world.
The easiest way to use less fossil fuel is: to drive less. Technological improvements have 0 impact on the environment. Why? Well if it really did cost you half to run your car because it used half the gasoline as the old one, you'd probably find out ways to use yoru car more because it's so cheap to run. In the end, you'd run your bill to the same old amount because you're used to spending that much, so it doesn't seem that bad. In summary, you can't be green by spending more. The only way to be green is to spend less (not by looking for deals, but just reducing how much you consume). My bicycle and bus tickets and shoes cost much less combined at the end of the year than your motor vehicle, and I don't care how little it consumes, or how much it cost you to start with. I'm saving money and making a bigger part for the planet. The thing is, if it's possible for me to live car free in a north american city designed around the concept of "everybody owns a car", imagine how easy it would be if most of us did it... not only would it be cheaper for all of us, but by owning and using a car not being the "default setting" anymore, it would be even easier not using a personal vehicle as others' assumptions would no longer be that you have one.
Actually, one thing I found since I switched to TB 3 is that it was much faster than 2. I'm surprised by this news bit to be honest. And I'm not even talking about searches... not only faster but so much better.
Give Apple a break. Of course they couldn't test the iPhone 4 prior to releasing it, on account that one of their employees lost the prototype which was later found by Gizmodo. How were they supposed to test it without the single prototype they had?
Beyond that... there are minerals an energy resources out there. Whoever gets there first with permanent settlements will have a real advantage as we are tapping out most of our resources earthside. The space program has probably never been more important than now. Its importance is not properly valued by most, however. It's obviously not just about putting some "Antarctica" style science base there. It's about putting self-sustaining, potentially growing on their own bases, with the concurrent use of local resources.
The mud (mostly a bentonite clay slurry, with other minerals to add density) offered a means to *seal* the leak. The purpose is to fill the hole with a column heavy enough to cancel the pressure. It also lets you know if there is a leak somewhere down the tube if you lose too much of it. From what I heard, they found out that somewhere (I think 1000 ft down, but that's just from memory), they were losing a lot of mud.... it would only be an estimate from what they guess they were losing through the riser. That's why they stopped all other options (like putting another BOP on top of the riser) that would increase pressure. The odds are that the well liner is compromised, and that any pressure will push the oil through the rock formation, and it will likely start leaking over a wide area.
The problem with the top kill (and any "plugging" method) is that it has to put pressure FROM the top, to fight back the pressure, only releasing it as the column gets close to the reservoir.
The relief well starts filling from the bottom, so the pressure will actually decrease as it moves up. The rocks closer to the surface are subjected to less pressure naturally (because there is less weight on top of them) so they are more likely to break under a given amount of pressure than at greater depth where they have more confining pressure. The relief wells were ALWAYS the preferred method to kill the well. Only public pressure made them attempt the top kill and the dangers involved.
You should look up the Ixtoc spill, also in the Gulf of Mexico, in 1979. There, they succesfully managed to shut down the BOP, but they had to reopen it in a hurry as the pressure caused the oil to leak outside the well head, if I remember correctly. The most certain way to kill a well is ALWAYS the relief well.
I don't think reusing the well is an option. The relief wells will kill it without possibility of reuse. At least that's the plan. As for explosions, they my have unexpected side effects that could conceivably make things worse. When the russians resorted to the nukes, it was because alternatives had be exhausted. Also, you should be wondering if it was so successful, why have they not attempted it again since the early 80s? Was there some undisclosed event that could make it undesirable?
Explosives will be the last resort... yes they "may" collapse the well... but they could also induce fracturing in the rock. You don't want a wide area uncontrolled and uncontrollable leak. As bad as things are, we have to remember that they could be worse. And as we have run out of cheap to extract oil, the risks of further exploitation are only getting worse.
The relief well is the method that offers the best chance of succeeding at plugging the leak, with the least amount of uncertain collateral damage. It does take time, and if anything is to be learned by that is that maybe any future well should be drilled with a relief well started at the same time... that way, if something goes bad, you have a few weeks of drilling to complete the relief well instead of months. The downside is that it doubles the cost of drilling. Given the alternative, I think its a small price to pay.
For this blowout, though, I'm afraid there is nothing else to do but wait. No R & D has been spent by anyone over the past 20 years or so to address containment of a leak in deep ocean until the well can be plugged. It's not just BP that failed the R & D, or the U.S. government that failed to required it... if it existed anywhere, the technology would be used now. The bottom line is nobody invested the resources that they should have on contingency plans... Blow Out Preventers have been treated like miraculous devices that can never fail. Well, I'll stop man rant here. The bottom line, is as frustrating as it is to wait for them... the RW are the only real hope. Ixtoc took 10 months to plug.
This probably does not answer your questions, but it covers a bit more details than the original post. Also, if you click on the title, you will link to the source article.
It's not that easy. Although it is a lot of methane, it is not concentrated. The cost and energy expense would probably be too great to collect. That is why we use mines. Not because some of the minerals found there cannot be found elsewhere in trace amounts, but because the energy cost (let alone the financial cost) of concentrating the resource may prove too great.
What would disprove global warming? A growing or non-retracting polar ice cap would. See, polar ice caps a neat little "global" indicators. The ice thickness there, was such that the small year on year fluctuations would have little effect on them. Yes, you can say all kinds of things about hurricanes, rainfall etc. Because climate is quite complex and it is difficult to take all parameters into account. The polar ice caps, however, have a nice integrating effect on weather observation. Their recession implies a warming of the ocean surrounding them (obviously this affects the arctic more directly), and there is a LOT of water to be warmed up for this to have an effect. So, significant changes in the polar ice caps, indicates sustained changes over decades. If all we had to observe were the local weather pattern changes, there might be some room for debate. The maximum arctic ice thickness having been reduced to a fraction of what it used to be a few decades ago is of more concern, and pretty much seals the deal.
As to what other effects will be brought about by global warming? That is hard to say, and will vary a lot from location to location. Because there will be changes in the weather patterns, some places will be wetter, some places will be drying, some will be colder ironically enough, as the air masses change their boundaries. But the poles never lie.
As anybody living in Canada knows, it doesn't snow on cold winter days. It snows on the warmer winter days. I've never witness snow at les than minus 7 or 10 Celcius. Most of the time, it's not far from the freezing point that you get your really heavy snowfalls. So, I do tend to agree, that lots of snow in no way contradicts global warming.
As for proving or disproving Global warming, a better indicator than any of the temperature measurements is the measurement of the thickness of the icecaps in the arctic. Those massive sheets of ice are not subject to localized short term variations of climate, but reflect the integration of many year's worth of effects. By all accounts the maximum thickness of the arctic ice sheets is decreasing rapidly.
Slashdot Mirror
It also sounds like a fuel hog. Helicopters are fuel hogs because the rotation of the blade is necessary to provide the lift as well as the thrust. Fixed wing setups have the advantage of getting the lift for cheap. I think if it has any potential it may be at replacing rotor aircraft. Not fixed wings. I don't foresee fuel prices going down in the future.
Exactly. I pay Skype to access phone lines at a competitive rate. If another client lets me connect to their service I still need to pay them to access that service. However, if they change protocol to defeat another client, and if they do not upgrade their linux client accordingly, then they force me as a paying customer to abandon the service. Hence, Skype itself is endangering their revenue stream, not the reverse engineered client.
Amen to that. Of course, it also means that when the protocol is changed we will access too.
not affecting the majority does not imply not screwing the userbase. Particularly of paying customers. I use skype for linux. I am not part of the majority, and when they drop support for linux and change the protocols, guess what: I'll be a screwed customer. Customers are not only the majority slice.
Thanks for clarifying that. Nobody knows what the Rogers Center is. Now, Skydome has a meaning. Rogers Center means nothing to me. And it will change name as soon as a new sponsor shows up. I think people should boycott those sponsored names and keep calling structures a true non-changeable name. Whatever the sponsoring says. Sadly, it will never be the case of journalists who have to cater to sponsors.
Technically it's cement concrete. As opposed to asphalt concrete, or other concretes using some other type of binder.
actually, the article while not saying what it was for kind of hinted at it:
"She was greeted by Premier Dalton McGuinty, on hand to trumpet his government’s commitment to clean renewable power, even though the project is coming in two years late, and costing $1.6 billion instead of the $985 million budgeted."
Clean renewable power + niagara falls = hydro power
I beg to differ. I use Skype on Linux. It may not have all the useless bells and whistles of the Windows client, but It does video conferencing very well and even desktop (or small window) sharing pretty well. I am also a paying customer, which Skype is going to lose very shortly due to their upcoming abandonment of the platform (and obvious new protocols that are going to be introduced to make sure unsupported versions become broken, in the now well established microsoft SOP).
I feel cheated somehow for having supported them till now even though google offered a free alternative (I never did recommend it to anybody, though, because I have always been wary of proprietary solutions) but sadly none of my friends want to use SIP compatible clients, and they do have a nice flat rate long-distance plan.
Lolita is not a dodgy name. It's a perfectly acceptable short form of Dolores in Spanish. That English people have decided to turn it into a bad word is your thing. But it's not dodgy.
or lack of exposure to dustmites. According to the hygiene hypothesis, it may actually be our overly clean environment that is the cause of rising incidence of allergies in the most affluent parts of the world.
The easiest way to use less fossil fuel is: to drive less. Technological improvements have 0 impact on the environment. Why? Well if it really did cost you half to run your car because it used half the gasoline as the old one, you'd probably find out ways to use yoru car more because it's so cheap to run. In the end, you'd run your bill to the same old amount because you're used to spending that much, so it doesn't seem that bad. In summary, you can't be green by spending more. The only way to be green is to spend less (not by looking for deals, but just reducing how much you consume). My bicycle and bus tickets and shoes cost much less combined at the end of the year than your motor vehicle, and I don't care how little it consumes, or how much it cost you to start with. I'm saving money and making a bigger part for the planet. The thing is, if it's possible for me to live car free in a north american city designed around the concept of "everybody owns a car", imagine how easy it would be if most of us did it... not only would it be cheaper for all of us, but by owning and using a car not being the "default setting" anymore, it would be even easier not using a personal vehicle as others' assumptions would no longer be that you have one.
Actually, one thing I found since I switched to TB 3 is that it was much faster than 2. I'm surprised by this news bit to be honest. And I'm not even talking about searches... not only faster but so much better.
Give Apple a break. Of course they couldn't test the iPhone 4 prior to releasing it, on account that one of their employees lost the prototype which was later found by Gizmodo. How were they supposed to test it without the single prototype they had?
Are we going to build it... or already part of it? Which pill to take?
Beyond that... there are minerals an energy resources out there. Whoever gets there first with permanent settlements will have a real advantage as we are tapping out most of our resources earthside. The space program has probably never been more important than now. Its importance is not properly valued by most, however. It's obviously not just about putting some "Antarctica" style science base there. It's about putting self-sustaining, potentially growing on their own bases, with the concurrent use of local resources.
The mud (mostly a bentonite clay slurry, with other minerals to add density) offered a means to *seal* the leak. The purpose is to fill the hole with a column heavy enough to cancel the pressure. It also lets you know if there is a leak somewhere down the tube if you lose too much of it. From what I heard, they found out that somewhere (I think 1000 ft down, but that's just from memory), they were losing a lot of mud.... it would only be an estimate from what they guess they were losing through the riser. That's why they stopped all other options (like putting another BOP on top of the riser) that would increase pressure. The odds are that the well liner is compromised, and that any pressure will push the oil through the rock formation, and it will likely start leaking over a wide area.
The problem with the top kill (and any "plugging" method) is that it has to put pressure FROM the top, to fight back the pressure, only releasing it as the column gets close to the reservoir.
The relief well starts filling from the bottom, so the pressure will actually decrease as it moves up. The rocks closer to the surface are subjected to less pressure naturally (because there is less weight on top of them) so they are more likely to break under a given amount of pressure than at greater depth where they have more confining pressure. The relief wells were ALWAYS the preferred method to kill the well. Only public pressure made them attempt the top kill and the dangers involved.
You should look up the Ixtoc spill, also in the Gulf of Mexico, in 1979. There, they succesfully managed to shut down the BOP, but they had to reopen it in a hurry as the pressure caused the oil to leak outside the well head, if I remember correctly. The most certain way to kill a well is ALWAYS the relief well.
I don't think reusing the well is an option. The relief wells will kill it without possibility of reuse. At least that's the plan. As for explosions, they my have unexpected side effects that could conceivably make things worse. When the russians resorted to the nukes, it was because alternatives had be exhausted. Also, you should be wondering if it was so successful, why have they not attempted it again since the early 80s? Was there some undisclosed event that could make it undesirable?
Explosives will be the last resort... yes they "may" collapse the well... but they could also induce fracturing in the rock. You don't want a wide area uncontrolled and uncontrollable leak. As bad as things are, we have to remember that they could be worse. And as we have run out of cheap to extract oil, the risks of further exploitation are only getting worse.
The relief well is the method that offers the best chance of succeeding at plugging the leak, with the least amount of uncertain collateral damage. It does take time, and if anything is to be learned by that is that maybe any future well should be drilled with a relief well started at the same time... that way, if something goes bad, you have a few weeks of drilling to complete the relief well instead of months. The downside is that it doubles the cost of drilling. Given the alternative, I think its a small price to pay.
For this blowout, though, I'm afraid there is nothing else to do but wait. No R & D has been spent by anyone over the past 20 years or so to address containment of a leak in deep ocean until the well can be plugged. It's not just BP that failed the R & D, or the U.S. government that failed to required it... if it existed anywhere, the technology would be used now. The bottom line is nobody invested the resources that they should have on contingency plans... Blow Out Preventers have been treated like miraculous devices that can never fail. Well, I'll stop man rant here. The bottom line, is as frustrating as it is to wait for them... the RW are the only real hope. Ixtoc took 10 months to plug.
Won't ever complain about the pot holes in my street again.
This news post would not be complete without a reference to chasing beaver, and the related Molson Canadian commercial.
So long guys, I'm off chasing beaver (I know, not very common for the Slashdot crowd)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y09YOkVmGg0
This probably does not answer your questions, but it covers a bit more details than the original post. Also, if you click on the title, you will link to the source article.
http://thedragonstales.blogspot.com/2010/04/anaerobic-metazoans.html
and the windmills used to drive the compressors would kill any bird that comes close. Untold dozens of birds. 1 stone.
It's not that easy. Although it is a lot of methane, it is not concentrated. The cost and energy expense would probably be too great to collect. That is why we use mines. Not because some of the minerals found there cannot be found elsewhere in trace amounts, but because the energy cost (let alone the financial cost) of concentrating the resource may prove too great.
What would disprove global warming? A growing or non-retracting polar ice cap would. See, polar ice caps a neat little "global" indicators. The ice thickness there, was such that the small year on year fluctuations would have little effect on them. Yes, you can say all kinds of things about hurricanes, rainfall etc. Because climate is quite complex and it is difficult to take all parameters into account. The polar ice caps, however, have a nice integrating effect on weather observation. Their recession implies a warming of the ocean surrounding them (obviously this affects the arctic more directly), and there is a LOT of water to be warmed up for this to have an effect. So, significant changes in the polar ice caps, indicates sustained changes over decades. If all we had to observe were the local weather pattern changes, there might be some room for debate. The maximum arctic ice thickness having been reduced to a fraction of what it used to be a few decades ago is of more concern, and pretty much seals the deal.
As to what other effects will be brought about by global warming? That is hard to say, and will vary a lot from location to location. Because there will be changes in the weather patterns, some places will be wetter, some places will be drying, some will be colder ironically enough, as the air masses change their boundaries. But the poles never lie.
As anybody living in Canada knows, it doesn't snow on cold winter days. It snows on the warmer winter days. I've never witness snow at les than minus 7 or 10 Celcius. Most of the time, it's not far from the freezing point that you get your really heavy snowfalls. So, I do tend to agree, that lots of snow in no way contradicts global warming.
As for proving or disproving Global warming, a better indicator than any of the temperature measurements is the measurement of the thickness of the icecaps in the arctic. Those massive sheets of ice are not subject to localized short term variations of climate, but reflect the integration of many year's worth of effects. By all accounts the maximum thickness of the arctic ice sheets is decreasing rapidly.