Your argument is disingenuous. No country produces 100% of its energy from a single source (well, maybe some tiny country somewhere does), and doing so would be extremely expensive at best and completely impractical at worst.
So what to do if the sun isn't shining? Well, typically when a given power source -- be it coal, nuclear, hydro, gas, solar, wind, or whatever -- is unavailable or undesirable for use, a utility will use another source or import the required electricity from another utility or another country. In other words, two of the solutions that you claim are not simple are really quite routine.
For example, during California's energy crisis a few years ago, electricity was imported from other US states and Canada. France generates some 80% of its electricity from nuclear power, which means it has enormous amounts of excess electricity available at night (since it can't shut the reactors down overnight and restart them at the drop of a hat). What does it do with it all? It sells it to other countries, notably Switzerland. And what do utilities all over the world do when power demand increases in the afternoon and evening hours? Coal and nuclear power plants can't adapt quickly enough to meet the rising demand, only to be ramped down later in the evening, so they turn to another energy source (often gas or hydro, which can be switched on and off quickly).
From my recollection, cells that are used with concentrators tend to brown, deteriorate, and lose production capacity much faster than those that aren't. That hasn't changed, has it?
Yes. The browning was caused the combined effects of UV and heat on the silicone used inside the solar panels, and even occurred with cells not used in concentrators (you're probably thinking of the Carissa Plains installation). The formulation of the silicon is much different now, besides which concentrator geometry is generally different and the cells are often not encapsulated in the same manner.
Wow, that's just 3.025 square miles to generate 1.21 gigawatts.
Or about 4-12 times less land than would be required to do the same job with coal, if you account for the land surface used by coal mines. And if you compare the energy generated by the two plants -- accounting for the fact the sun doesn't shine 24/7 -- coal still uses between 1 and 3 times as much land. (According to the Department of Energy, coal uses 6-20 acres per megawatt of generating capacity.)
The ones designed for home operation are wimpy, apparently intended for a home where people trim back on using energy in electrical form,
Considering the price of PV systems, that's typically the first thing homeowners are advised to do when buying one. It's a lot cheaper to buy high-efficiency appliances than it is to buy enough PV to power low-efficiency ones.
So I'd like to run my kitchen from solar and wind generated electricity. That means I need on the order of 12 kW of power just for potential peak cooking. Add another 2 kW for microwave. Add some more watts for the blender, coffee maker, refrigerator, etc. It adds up.
Holy cow! That's going to be one expensive kitchen if you plan to power it all from PV, the inverter notwithstanding. Nonetheless, why not use two inverters in parallel? If you have, say, a 15 kW inverter but only draw 2 kW most of the time then there's a good chance your inverter will operating at a very low-efficiency part of its load curve. Then you'll be throwing away energy and need even more PV to make up the difference. With two in parallel you have one switch on only when needed and operate your system more efficiently. In theory, anyway -- many inverters don't seem to support this kind of operation.
As for the rest of what you said, I tend to agree -- inverters need a lot of work.
The need for pure silicon in the computer industry forced us to develop cheap methods of manufacturing pure silicon, which is perfect for solar panels.
True.
But the demand for silicon in the creation of computers, has kept the price high.
Not true. At least, not entirely. As of early August, the spot market price for electronics-grade silicon feedstock was over $200/kg. This is up from about $8/kg along about 1998. Part of the reason the price is up so high now is the recovery of the microelectronics industry, but the single greatest reason is the explosive growth of the solar industry over the past decade. In 1998, the industry was growing rapidly but still small enough to survive off of ultra-cheap scrap from the microelectronics industry. Just 8 years later, in 2006, the solar industry will surpass the microelectronics industry as the largest consumer of electronics-grade silicon (remember, a single wafer yields hundreds, even thousands, of microelectronic devices, but just one solar cell, so the demand for silicon is phenomenal compared to integrated circuits). And since it takes only 6-12 months to build a new solar module plant, but 18-24 months to build a new silicon foundry the silicon manufacturers have simply not been able to keep up with the new demand from the solar industry.
One of the big problems with mirrors as lenses is that they have to be cleaned.
So do solar cells. It's a real problem with roof mounted home units.
Not really. I'm affiliated with a rather large PV project that's been operating for some 7 years and we gave up on cleaning the modules after the first year because it only improved the output by a couple percent. The effect of rain was about the same as the effect of our cleaning, so there was really no point. I've also never met any other system owners who saw much point in washing their systems once they had done it a few times and saw how small the effect was.
The part I'm confused is : why haven't I seen yet a combined system.
There has been plenty of experimentation with such systems, but the benefit to the PV (which works better when it's cooler) and the quality of the heat extracted (which is basically lukewarm) has not really made it cost-effective. You get a boost of about 3-4% in electrical power output, but the water is really only useful if you use the PV panels as pre-heaters and can move the water to another heating system to finish the job before it loses the heat gained from the PV. Thus far it has been more economical to keep the two systems separated.
It *IS* true, that a certain class of panels, manufactured a certain way, had a plastic substrate that turned brown over the years, and the panels lost a certain percent of efficiency.
You're referring to PV modules made from crystalline silicon solar cells, which typically embedded in silicone and sandwiched between a sheet of glass and a polymer backing material. The silicon turned brown with exposure to the combination of UV light and heat. They also leached acetic acid under these conditions, which corroded the electrical connections between solar cells. Individual cells removed from such "browned" modules generally worked just as well as they did the day they were put inside. Newer generations of silicone don't have these problems and modules are typically warranted to produce at least 80% of their rated output after 20-25 years.
So-called "thin-film" PV modules, mostly made from amorphous silicon, have had problems in humid climates with corrosion of the transparent conducting oxide that forms the electrical connection for the front of the module. This problem has also supposedly been fixed, though I know of at least one major installer who won't use amorphous silicon modules until he's seen enough field data to convince him that the problem has truly been fixed.
Another interesting run is the Solar Tower project in Australia [enviromission.com.au]. I'm really excited by this one! Once built, the operating costs drop to near ZERO.
The same can be said about the operating costs for traditional photovoltaics. As for the tower, its size was recently scaled down significantly after it failed to win an important piece of funding (which went instead to a photovoltaic project).
When he describes Opera as a "Swiss army knife" he makes it sound like it's chock-a-block full of useless tools that hog memory and CPU whether you want them or not. Yet I find that Opera uses far less memory-intensive and certainly no more CPU-intensive than Firefox. It also starts up faster, renders pages faster, and "feels" lighter and more single-purpose than Firefox despite its other capabilities. In short, it has all the things that made me switch to Firefox way back when. Thunderbird seems to be moving in the same direction, and unless the Eudora folks can save it I'll be looking for yet another email client soon. I haven't checked the Agent page in eons.
I guess what I'd like to know is where all the bloat and sluggishness in Firefox is coming from. It's too bad, because it pretty quickly went from being my favorite program to being something I only use when I encounter a page that Opera can't handle because of some page design flaw. I've noticed that highly skinnable programs seem to be amongst the most memory-hungry and sluggish around -- could that be it? But then, for all I know Opera is highly skinnable, I've never bothered to check....
All it takes is a few minutes at the web site of your local newspaper to get informed. Candidates for major offices like Governor or Senator will often have a good bit of information available, but most candidates simply have a few short statements about where they stand and that's about it. Plus, I suspect you're more informed on major and highly visible issues than you think. I got informed for today's election in about 30 minutes yesterday, and most of that time was spent reading up on candidates for Drain Commissioner and the like.
I have to admit, thought, that in my neck of the woods at least it was probably a bit easier to get informed this time around, as the candidates for most every office were so busy hurling insults at one another that they hardly bothered to let the electorate know where they stand....
Oddly though, novelists and studio musicians have invented some strange notion that they need to get paid more than once. They want some money for writing the book (or recording the song), and then some more money for every copy sold.
Not really. Copyright is exactly what it sounds like -- the creator of a work has the right to decide who and how a work may be copied. In practical terms, this usually means they make one or more agreements with people who have the means to reproduce the work and distribute it. In so doing they may sell all of their rights to the work, relinquishing all future claims on it; they may sell limited reproduction rights for a flat fee (these first two are how magazine articles are usually sold); they may sell limited reproduction rights for a royalty on each copy sold (which is typically how books and music are sold); or they may make some other agreement. In the end, it's up to the creator and distributor to make an agreement that is fair and equitable for everybody.
As for your sister's artwork, when she sells a piece to a customer without making an explicit copyright agreement I'm not sure what rights she retains to the piece (IANAL). Certainly she cannot reclaim the physical object she created, but if her customer attempts to produce and sell reprints of the work she may have some rights, either to prevent the reproduction or collect royalties on sales of the reprint. Of course, there are all sorts of legal vagaries that come into play -- for example, if she sells a commissioned piece it is my understanding that it is a "work for hire" and she sells all rights unless she and the client explicitly agree otherwise. The bottom line is, there are a great deal of artists who do collect royalties on their work, regardless of whether your sister does. And they don't collect them out of a sense of entitlement, they collect them because they negociated an agreement to do so. Isn't that how the free market is supposed to work?
I think the hundreds of authors who make less than minimum wage for years of work on their first book, and the recording artists who can sell a million records and make less than a waitress would disagree on that.
I think you're missing the point. If you write a book nobody wants to read or record a song that nobody wants to hear then why should anybody pay you for it? Now, you can argue that the way in which the money is collected, divvied up, and/or distributed to the artist is unfair, but the amount of money collected for a work is proportional to demand for that particular work. And if you go back and re-read the Courtney Love speech you referred to earlier you'll see that she doesn't claim artists are underpaid, but that they don't receive a fair share of the money collected by the record companies -- a completely different argument from the one you appear to be making.
I used to do that, but it wastes an enormous amount of water and I always ran out of hot water long before my shower was finished. I still needed some sort of lubricant to keep the razor firmly against my face, though, and used shaving cream or shaving soap because I couldn't find a suitable "regular" soap.
I remember when people had one blade with two sides, and you could just replace the blade and not have to buy a whole new plastic razor. (before disposable razors)
You can still get them. Google "double edged safety razor". Though new ones tend to be a bit expensive these days (but with blades a cheap as 10 cents -- compared to a couple dollars a cartridge for a Mach 3 -- it pays for itself rather quickly over time). You can usually buy one off eBay for less, but with a recent resurgence in shaving this way the prices have been bid up over the past year or two.
You realize that a pack of blades and a non-disposable razor fits in your luggage much better than a 5-pack of disposables.
The only problem with double-edged razors is that you can't take the blades on an airplane unless they're in your checked luggage. Not a problem for a vacation, but it can be for an overnight business trip.
That presumes you can shave fast enough to shave your entire face before the hairs dry out. I've tried shaving that way before and it was an unmitigated disaster. It would be an even worse idea now that I use a double-edged safety razor -- it frees me from painful razor bumps and saves me a lot of money, but I also have to do more than one pass over my face (but I get a closer shave than I did with a Mach 3, and with zero razor bumps). As fast as my face dries out after a shower, I can't even get through one pass using water alone.
The only purpose of shaving cream is to hold the water to wet your beard for a minute or two while the hairs gets saturated.
Not true. Shaving cream also lubricates the skin so the razor glides over it more easily. The other problem I have with shaving without it is that when my skin is warm and wet the razor tends to stick and bounce over my face instead of gliding smoothly. That was less of a problem back when I used a Mach 3, mainly because I could apply more pressure without cutting myself (but which also removed more skin and cut the hairs deeper, which made the razor bumps worse and threw in a few pimples for good measure). With the double-edged safety razor it's an issue.
That said, if you're comparing your method to the foam that comes out of a can you're probably better off using nothing but water -- canned foam is worthless. A good-quality shaving cream or soap (most of which are lathered and applied with an old-fashioned brush) is a different animal altogether. While some of those creams seem rather expensive, a container will generally last you 2-3 times as long as a can of Gilette and a lot of them are really quite cheap.
We are talking about ALL terrorist attacks against the United States and if you consider that then you will see the majority (and quite large majority) were carried out by militant Islamists. Take a look here: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001454.html [infoplease.com]
Your list is woefully incomplete. What about Eric Robert Rudolph, who bombed abortion clinics in Birmingham and Atlanta, a gay nightclub in Atlanta, and a concert given during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta? What about the vast number of attacks on Americans -- kidnappings, hijackings, bombings -- in and around Columbia over the past several decades? I'm rather certain those attacks far outnumber attacks against Americans by "militant Islamists" prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq (assuming you classify all the suicide bombings in Iraq as terrorist acts, as opposed to acts of war). What else can I come up with off the top of my head? The Hutu rebels who attacked tourist camps in Uganda in 1999. The disgruntled FedEx employee who, sometime in the '90s, attempted to hijack a FedEx 747 on takeoff and crash it into the company's headquarters in Memphis (he was stopped by the pilot and copilot, but not before he cracked their skulls with an axe). The rocket-propelled grenade fired through the window of the U.S. embassy in Moscow in 1995. The Catalan rebels who bombed a bar full of U.S. servicemen in Barcelona in the late '80s. For that matter, it's missing the world's first bombing of an airliner, which was committed in the '60s by a man from Missouri in an insurance scam.
Heck, with a little research I might really be able to make a list. If you think Muslims are the only significant perpetrators of terrorism in the world, you aren't paying attention. Your point of view is precisely why the idea of racial profiling is so popular these days. The more fact-based approach is the reason security experts say racial profiling not only doesn't work, but makes us less secure by focusing our attention in the wrong places.
Would this process also be useful for making silicon based solar cells?
Doubtful. Silicon solar cells generally don't use any silicon dioxide layers, so a low-temperature method for forming silicon dioxide isn't much help. Not to mention that most of the cost of a solar cell is in the silicon wafer itself, not anything you do to the silicon after wafer production.
It has been awhile since I was familiar with regulations on Ham radio frequencies, and I know that at least some of them have changed in recent years. However, there are restrictions on what frequencies can be used for what types of communication, and possibly on the amount of bandwidth that one is allowed to use. That said, some Hams have been using packet radio for decades. However, aside from having to be licensed, there are restrictions against broadcasting and commercial use -- Ham radio is meant for two-way communication between station operators. A Ham radio operator cannot legally pretend to be a DJ and broadcast music and advertising, for example. So while two operators could send data back and forth to one another (on certain frequencies, anyway), operating a Ham shack as an ISP would probably get your license revoked.
Let the states regulate broadcasts that are only available inside state lines.
That would be tough to do, IMO. For one thing, AM radio stations often carry much farther at night than they do during the day -- does such a station only get regulated at night? And since atmospheric conditions can change from night to night, how does the station know when it has throttled back its power level enough?
Also, what about the international treaties that divided up the frequency spectrum to begin with? If broadcasts from Michigan cross the border into Canada, but not into another U.S. state, does the FCC have jurisdiction? Conversely, suppose a broadcaster in Michigan decides to use what are now typically AM radio frequencies for television and an AM radio broadcast from Canada interferes. Does the broadcaster have any recourse?
Then there's the hardware issue. Does anybody really want a TV that only works in Iowa?
So sure, if you fill out a credit app, tear it up, and some bozo then pieces it back together, you're in trouble - but if you don't ever fill it out, where's the problem? Seems like a big pile of sensasionalist FUD to me.
Okay, suppose you tear up a credit card application and toss it in the garbage. A few days later you tear up a paycheck stub, old tax form, bank or brokerage statement -- anything with your SSN on it -- and throw that away. What makes you think that a garbage raider won't find the information and use it to fill out the torn-up application? Sure there are other, more dastardly things they could with the information, and even without the application the thief could simply go online, but small-time crooks are often opportunists who do whatever is most convenient.
Something like this is not far-fetched in the least, at least not if credit card companies will process a taped-together application. Years ago someone fished my torn-up credit card information out of the garbage and used it to subscribe to a porn site (the fact that the moron logged in regularly was his undoing). Needless to say, I now shred 80% of everything that arrives in my mailbox.
I didn't say it was -- I was only addressing the specific case you brought up.
I have no idea how you can say Ford and Chrysler never had problems with the UAW.
Again, I never said they didn't. My example using Ford was only a single case, but I was using to show that the UAW's relationship with other auto companies was not as bad as it was with GM in the late '80s-early '90s.
My friends working in Meijer first told me of the union shop law, baggers and checkers were unionized.
I'd forgotten about Meijer -- I did have one friend who was a member of the union at Meijer. And while I realize that many of Kroger's employees are unionized, I don't think all of them are. I don't recall my cousin being a union member when he worked there. But there are plenty of non-union places to buy groceries in Michigan; if that's what you want, just avoid Meijer, Kroger, and Farmer Jack.
That's simply not true. I lived in Michigan for 25 years and I have quite a few friends and relatives who work in grocery stores there. Not a single one of them has ever been a union member.
That's why I don't like unions, because I've seen the end game,
I have to agree with the others who pointed out that you're forming your opinion on the basis of a single example. Furthermore, your example doesn't even embody the entire UAW, just the very aggressive stance of the UAW locals in the Flint area. Eventually, GM decided that it couldn't afford the demands of those locals and closed its plants in Flint. One of those plants, as I recall, was relocated to Lansing -- just a few counties away, but with a much less aggressive local. Not long after that, you may recall, the UAW forged a new contract with Ford that sacrificed cash in exchange for guarantees of job security. Chrysler also never had the problems the GM had in Flint.
You might also recall the long, multi-union strike against the Detroit Newspaper Agency in the mid-'90s. The unions were resistant to modernization and figured that in Michigan they'd find sympathy amongst the newspapers' readers. However, the Detroit Newspaper Agency so convincingly made its case -- that the newspapers would soon go out of business if they didn't modernize (e.g., use computers to lay out the newspaper) their production facilities -- that many union members, particularly amongst the writers, quit their unions and continued going to work. Officially the strike lasted many years, but most people forgot all about it within a couple of months. In the end, the unions essentially gave up.
Most unions understand that their survival depends on their employers' survival. Your example is one of the few cases where the union cut off its nose to spite its face.
In the Bible, "servant" and "slave" are synonymous. This is widely accepted amongst Biblical scholars.
But is it widely accepted by the average Christian reading the Bible?
Yes, at least for those who actually attend church. You'll find, if you haven't already, that there are similar issues of comprehension with Quran. Many Muslim leaders say that terrorist groups misuse verses from the Quran that they misinterpret (either purposely or accidentally) to recruit new members and justify their actions.
Yes, the teachings of Jesus are contained in the New Testament, but don't let that fool you into thinking that diminishes the importance of the Old Testament. After all, what do you think was Jesus' primary religious text?
Is it not true that a lot of the teachings of the New Testament contradict those of the Old, and that the God of the New Testament seems a bit different than that of the Old?
Yes. It is also true that portions of the New Testament contradict other portions of the New Testament, and that not all of Jesus' gospels were included in the New Testament. That, along with the obvious political maneuvering that went on during the creation of the New Testament, are some of my biggest problems with the Christian religion. This is an aside and not terribly relevant here, but in one of the gospels not included, a young Jesus whithers teachers he doesn't like and turns playmates who piss him off into stone. I can see that it makes Jesus look human and petty, and can understand why the creators of the New Testament chose not to include it, but is one of the gospels. Seems rather dishonest to me.
It was my personal response to your apology of Mohammad having slaves/Islam condoning slavery on the grounds that Islam may have said that slaves should have been treated "nicely."
Are you even reading what I'm saying? I'm anything but an apologist for slavery. I have not condoned slavery, not even that supposedly advocated in the Quran. I have simply stated historical facts about slavery and attacked your argument that because Mohammed had slaves, Muslims are to be despised. Any conclusions you might draw from that argument about how I personally feel about slavery are likely to be false, because I purposely kept my personal feelings about the issue out of it.
My point being that you cannot condemn Muslims for a history of slavery without also condemning a vast number of pre-18th century cultures for the same practice.
And can one not condemn a murderer without also condemning all other murderers that have ever lived?
That doesn't follow logically from my statement. I'm not talking about an individual, I'm talking about the practice of slavery. The statement that would logically follow is, "And can one not condemn murder without also condeming all murderers?" to which I would say no. If you find some murder acceptable, you clearly don't condemn murder. Are you saying you can condemn some slavers, but not others? Obviously it's possible to do so, but it's rare in practice -- few people condemn only some slavery. If you choose to condemn only Muslim slavery, I guess that's your perogative.
the fact remains that the only pre-18th century culture which still exists today, and still wishes to return to its pre-18th century way of life is Islam.
That's hardly a fact; quite a few cultures have resisted modernization. Some of them are isolated on islands in the South Pacific, but many of them live in areas where they are surrounded by the modern world (the Amish and the Mennonites come to mind). Granted they don't all condone slavery, but I suspect that some do (and some engage in some pretty grisly practices, at least by Western standards). Furthermore, I don't think it's universally accepted that Muslims wish to live a pre-18th century way of life. None of those I know personally do.
Now, I'm not sure what it is supposed to mean, but the term used is servant, instead of slave, which refers to a completely different relationship between the master and the individual.
No. In the Bible, "servant" and "slave" are synonymous. This is widely accepted amongst Biblical scholars. Many words in the Bible don't have their modern meanings (e.g., "to know" = "to have sex with" in some translations). This is partly because the meanings of words change over time and partly because many words were translated in a "politically correct" manner. Of course, it always depends on which translation you're reading, too....
In the parable, he neither supports nor condemns slavery, but it is a parable.
Then what's the problem?
Um, to discuss slavery but neither support nor condemn it in a parable implies at best acceptance and at worst condoning of it.
And the Roman Catholic church was virtually all of Christianity -- particularly in Europe -- for much of the past two millenia.
And the veneer of education slips away. Need I remind you of Orthodox Christianity?
Need I remind you that the Catholic and Orthodox churches were one, with one Pope and shared dogma, until the 11th century?
I'm pretty sure that slavery is the antithesis of freedom. As such, the phrase "Life free or die" does have quite a bit so do with slavery.
Nope. It refers to the American revolution. Yes, I'm being pedantic, but no more than you were when you dismissed whole swaths of Christian belief because they don't come from a book that suits you. Or, to put it as you might have, I don't think either the Quran or the Bible say that. But, since by your own admission, you have no interest in Christian theology, allow me a moment to educate you. A great deal of the Old Testament -- particularly Genesis, the Ten Commandments, and the story of Adam and Eve -- are not only important, but crucial to both ancient and modern Christianity. Most of the high-profile Christianity-related litigation happening in Western nations today is related to the Old Testament. Yes, the teachings of Jesus are contained in the New Testament, but don't let that fool you into thinking that diminishes the importance of the Old Testament. After all, what do you think was Jesus' primary religious text?
That said, your attempts to tell me what Christians do and don't believe, followed by your bumbled facts and admission that you don't know what Christians believe, lead me to think that your knowledge of Islam is similarly suspect.
you attempted to defend Islam by stating that Islam compels people to treat slaves nicely -- whatever that means.
Not at all. I merely pointed out that slavery was a societal norm across a broad range cultures and religions, and that slaves in those societies were treated differently than we think of slaves being treated today. It's not a defense of the practice, merely a statement of fact. My point being that you cannot condemn Muslims for a history of slavery without also condemning a vast number of pre-18th century cultures for the same practice. Yes, you've made it abundantly clear that Mohammed had slaves. Yes, you've claimed that Muslims consider Mohammed perfect and aim to emulate him. You seem to imply that this alone should be reason to fear and hate Muslims, but what you haven't shown is that slavery is still a widespread practice amongst Muslims. I have no doubt you can find Muslims who have owned slaves in modern times; I can find Christians and Hindus who have done the same. But until you can show that slavery is widely accepted and widely practiced by modern Muslims, your argument is exposed for the irrational religious hatred that I believe it to be.
Oh, please! You sound... well, rather like a Muslim fundamentalist raving about the U.S.
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Your argument is disingenuous. No country produces 100% of its energy from a single source (well, maybe some tiny country somewhere does), and doing so would be extremely expensive at best and completely impractical at worst.
So what to do if the sun isn't shining? Well, typically when a given power source -- be it coal, nuclear, hydro, gas, solar, wind, or whatever -- is unavailable or undesirable for use, a utility will use another source or import the required electricity from another utility or another country. In other words, two of the solutions that you claim are not simple are really quite routine.
For example, during California's energy crisis a few years ago, electricity was imported from other US states and Canada. France generates some 80% of its electricity from nuclear power, which means it has enormous amounts of excess electricity available at night (since it can't shut the reactors down overnight and restart them at the drop of a hat). What does it do with it all? It sells it to other countries, notably Switzerland. And what do utilities all over the world do when power demand increases in the afternoon and evening hours? Coal and nuclear power plants can't adapt quickly enough to meet the rising demand, only to be ramped down later in the evening, so they turn to another energy source (often gas or hydro, which can be switched on and off quickly).
From my recollection, cells that are used with concentrators tend to brown, deteriorate, and lose production capacity much faster than those that aren't. That hasn't changed, has it?
Yes. The browning was caused the combined effects of UV and heat on the silicone used inside the solar panels, and even occurred with cells not used in concentrators (you're probably thinking of the Carissa Plains installation). The formulation of the silicon is much different now, besides which concentrator geometry is generally different and the cells are often not encapsulated in the same manner.
Wow, that's just 3.025 square miles to generate 1.21 gigawatts.
Or about 4-12 times less land than would be required to do the same job with coal, if you account for the land surface used by coal mines. And if you compare the energy generated by the two plants -- accounting for the fact the sun doesn't shine 24/7 -- coal still uses between 1 and 3 times as much land. (According to the Department of Energy, coal uses 6-20 acres per megawatt of generating capacity.)
The ones designed for home operation are wimpy, apparently intended for a home where people trim back on using energy in electrical form,
Considering the price of PV systems, that's typically the first thing homeowners are advised to do when buying one. It's a lot cheaper to buy high-efficiency appliances than it is to buy enough PV to power low-efficiency ones.
So I'd like to run my kitchen from solar and wind generated electricity. That means I need on the order of 12 kW of power just for potential peak cooking. Add another 2 kW for microwave. Add some more watts for the blender, coffee maker, refrigerator, etc. It adds up.
Holy cow! That's going to be one expensive kitchen if you plan to power it all from PV, the inverter notwithstanding. Nonetheless, why not use two inverters in parallel? If you have, say, a 15 kW inverter but only draw 2 kW most of the time then there's a good chance your inverter will operating at a very low-efficiency part of its load curve. Then you'll be throwing away energy and need even more PV to make up the difference. With two in parallel you have one switch on only when needed and operate your system more efficiently. In theory, anyway -- many inverters don't seem to support this kind of operation.
As for the rest of what you said, I tend to agree -- inverters need a lot of work.
The need for pure silicon in the computer industry forced us to develop cheap methods of manufacturing pure silicon, which is perfect for solar panels.
True.
But the demand for silicon in the creation of computers, has kept the price high.
Not true. At least, not entirely. As of early August, the spot market price for electronics-grade silicon feedstock was over $200/kg. This is up from about $8/kg along about 1998. Part of the reason the price is up so high now is the recovery of the microelectronics industry, but the single greatest reason is the explosive growth of the solar industry over the past decade. In 1998, the industry was growing rapidly but still small enough to survive off of ultra-cheap scrap from the microelectronics industry. Just 8 years later, in 2006, the solar industry will surpass the microelectronics industry as the largest consumer of electronics-grade silicon (remember, a single wafer yields hundreds, even thousands, of microelectronic devices, but just one solar cell, so the demand for silicon is phenomenal compared to integrated circuits). And since it takes only 6-12 months to build a new solar module plant, but 18-24 months to build a new silicon foundry the silicon manufacturers have simply not been able to keep up with the new demand from the solar industry.
One of the big problems with mirrors as lenses is that they have to be cleaned.
So do solar cells. It's a real problem with roof mounted home units.
Not really. I'm affiliated with a rather large PV project that's been operating for some 7 years and we gave up on cleaning the modules after the first year because it only improved the output by a couple percent. The effect of rain was about the same as the effect of our cleaning, so there was really no point. I've also never met any other system owners who saw much point in washing their systems once they had done it a few times and saw how small the effect was.
The part I'm confused is : why haven't I seen yet a combined system.
There has been plenty of experimentation with such systems, but the benefit to the PV (which works better when it's cooler) and the quality of the heat extracted (which is basically lukewarm) has not really made it cost-effective. You get a boost of about 3-4% in electrical power output, but the water is really only useful if you use the PV panels as pre-heaters and can move the water to another heating system to finish the job before it loses the heat gained from the PV. Thus far it has been more economical to keep the two systems separated.
That said, a company called Solarwall recently announced a combined PV/air heating system that it put together. No word on economics or commercial plans, though.
It *IS* true, that a certain class of panels, manufactured a certain way, had a plastic substrate that turned brown over the years, and the panels lost a certain percent of efficiency.
You're referring to PV modules made from crystalline silicon solar cells, which typically embedded in silicone and sandwiched between a sheet of glass and a polymer backing material. The silicon turned brown with exposure to the combination of UV light and heat. They also leached acetic acid under these conditions, which corroded the electrical connections between solar cells. Individual cells removed from such "browned" modules generally worked just as well as they did the day they were put inside. Newer generations of silicone don't have these problems and modules are typically warranted to produce at least 80% of their rated output after 20-25 years.
So-called "thin-film" PV modules, mostly made from amorphous silicon, have had problems in humid climates with corrosion of the transparent conducting oxide that forms the electrical connection for the front of the module. This problem has also supposedly been fixed, though I know of at least one major installer who won't use amorphous silicon modules until he's seen enough field data to convince him that the problem has truly been fixed.
Another interesting run is the Solar Tower project in Australia [enviromission.com.au]. I'm really excited by this one! Once built, the operating costs drop to near ZERO.
The same can be said about the operating costs for traditional photovoltaics. As for the tower, its size was recently scaled down significantly after it failed to win an important piece of funding (which went instead to a photovoltaic project).
When he describes Opera as a "Swiss army knife" he makes it sound like it's chock-a-block full of useless tools that hog memory and CPU whether you want them or not. Yet I find that Opera uses far less memory-intensive and certainly no more CPU-intensive than Firefox. It also starts up faster, renders pages faster, and "feels" lighter and more single-purpose than Firefox despite its other capabilities. In short, it has all the things that made me switch to Firefox way back when. Thunderbird seems to be moving in the same direction, and unless the Eudora folks can save it I'll be looking for yet another email client soon. I haven't checked the Agent page in eons.
I guess what I'd like to know is where all the bloat and sluggishness in Firefox is coming from. It's too bad, because it pretty quickly went from being my favorite program to being something I only use when I encounter a page that Opera can't handle because of some page design flaw. I've noticed that highly skinnable programs seem to be amongst the most memory-hungry and sluggish around -- could that be it? But then, for all I know Opera is highly skinnable, I've never bothered to check....
All it takes is a few minutes at the web site of your local newspaper to get informed. Candidates for major offices like Governor or Senator will often have a good bit of information available, but most candidates simply have a few short statements about where they stand and that's about it. Plus, I suspect you're more informed on major and highly visible issues than you think. I got informed for today's election in about 30 minutes yesterday, and most of that time was spent reading up on candidates for Drain Commissioner and the like.
I have to admit, thought, that in my neck of the woods at least it was probably a bit easier to get informed this time around, as the candidates for most every office were so busy hurling insults at one another that they hardly bothered to let the electorate know where they stand....
Oddly though, novelists and studio musicians have invented some strange notion that they need to get paid more than once. They want some money for writing the book (or recording the song), and then some more money for every copy sold.
Not really. Copyright is exactly what it sounds like -- the creator of a work has the right to decide who and how a work may be copied. In practical terms, this usually means they make one or more agreements with people who have the means to reproduce the work and distribute it. In so doing they may sell all of their rights to the work, relinquishing all future claims on it; they may sell limited reproduction rights for a flat fee (these first two are how magazine articles are usually sold); they may sell limited reproduction rights for a royalty on each copy sold (which is typically how books and music are sold); or they may make some other agreement. In the end, it's up to the creator and distributor to make an agreement that is fair and equitable for everybody.
As for your sister's artwork, when she sells a piece to a customer without making an explicit copyright agreement I'm not sure what rights she retains to the piece (IANAL). Certainly she cannot reclaim the physical object she created, but if her customer attempts to produce and sell reprints of the work she may have some rights, either to prevent the reproduction or collect royalties on sales of the reprint. Of course, there are all sorts of legal vagaries that come into play -- for example, if she sells a commissioned piece it is my understanding that it is a "work for hire" and she sells all rights unless she and the client explicitly agree otherwise. The bottom line is, there are a great deal of artists who do collect royalties on their work, regardless of whether your sister does. And they don't collect them out of a sense of entitlement, they collect them because they negociated an agreement to do so. Isn't that how the free market is supposed to work?
"The compensation is fair and equitable."
I think the hundreds of authors who make less than minimum wage for years of work on their first book, and the recording artists who can sell a million records and make less than a waitress would disagree on that.
I think you're missing the point. If you write a book nobody wants to read or record a song that nobody wants to hear then why should anybody pay you for it? Now, you can argue that the way in which the money is collected, divvied up, and/or distributed to the artist is unfair, but the amount of money collected for a work is proportional to demand for that particular work. And if you go back and re-read the Courtney Love speech you referred to earlier you'll see that she doesn't claim artists are underpaid, but that they don't receive a fair share of the money collected by the record companies -- a completely different argument from the one you appear to be making.
As others have mentioned, shave in the shower.
I used to do that, but it wastes an enormous amount of water and I always ran out of hot water long before my shower was finished. I still needed some sort of lubricant to keep the razor firmly against my face, though, and used shaving cream or shaving soap because I couldn't find a suitable "regular" soap.
I remember when people had one blade with two sides, and you could just replace the blade and not have to buy a whole new plastic razor. (before disposable razors)
You can still get them. Google "double edged safety razor". Though new ones tend to be a bit expensive these days (but with blades a cheap as 10 cents -- compared to a couple dollars a cartridge for a Mach 3 -- it pays for itself rather quickly over time). You can usually buy one off eBay for less, but with a recent resurgence in shaving this way the prices have been bid up over the past year or two.
You realize that a pack of blades and a non-disposable razor fits in your luggage much better than a 5-pack of disposables.
The only problem with double-edged razors is that you can't take the blades on an airplane unless they're in your checked luggage. Not a problem for a vacation, but it can be for an overnight business trip.
You don't need shaving cream to shave.
That presumes you can shave fast enough to shave your entire face before the hairs dry out. I've tried shaving that way before and it was an unmitigated disaster. It would be an even worse idea now that I use a double-edged safety razor -- it frees me from painful razor bumps and saves me a lot of money, but I also have to do more than one pass over my face (but I get a closer shave than I did with a Mach 3, and with zero razor bumps). As fast as my face dries out after a shower, I can't even get through one pass using water alone.
The only purpose of shaving cream is to hold the water to wet your beard for a minute or two while the hairs gets saturated.
Not true. Shaving cream also lubricates the skin so the razor glides over it more easily. The other problem I have with shaving without it is that when my skin is warm and wet the razor tends to stick and bounce over my face instead of gliding smoothly. That was less of a problem back when I used a Mach 3, mainly because I could apply more pressure without cutting myself (but which also removed more skin and cut the hairs deeper, which made the razor bumps worse and threw in a few pimples for good measure). With the double-edged safety razor it's an issue.
That said, if you're comparing your method to the foam that comes out of a can you're probably better off using nothing but water -- canned foam is worthless. A good-quality shaving cream or soap (most of which are lathered and applied with an old-fashioned brush) is a different animal altogether. While some of those creams seem rather expensive, a container will generally last you 2-3 times as long as a can of Gilette and a lot of them are really quite cheap.
We are talking about ALL terrorist attacks against the United States and if you consider that then you will see the majority (and quite large majority) were carried out by militant Islamists. Take a look here: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001454.html [infoplease.com]
Your list is woefully incomplete. What about Eric Robert Rudolph, who bombed abortion clinics in Birmingham and Atlanta, a gay nightclub in Atlanta, and a concert given during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta? What about the vast number of attacks on Americans -- kidnappings, hijackings, bombings -- in and around Columbia over the past several decades? I'm rather certain those attacks far outnumber attacks against Americans by "militant Islamists" prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq (assuming you classify all the suicide bombings in Iraq as terrorist acts, as opposed to acts of war). What else can I come up with off the top of my head? The Hutu rebels who attacked tourist camps in Uganda in 1999. The disgruntled FedEx employee who, sometime in the '90s, attempted to hijack a FedEx 747 on takeoff and crash it into the company's headquarters in Memphis (he was stopped by the pilot and copilot, but not before he cracked their skulls with an axe). The rocket-propelled grenade fired through the window of the U.S. embassy in Moscow in 1995. The Catalan rebels who bombed a bar full of U.S. servicemen in Barcelona in the late '80s. For that matter, it's missing the world's first bombing of an airliner, which was committed in the '60s by a man from Missouri in an insurance scam.
Heck, with a little research I might really be able to make a list. If you think Muslims are the only significant perpetrators of terrorism in the world, you aren't paying attention. Your point of view is precisely why the idea of racial profiling is so popular these days. The more fact-based approach is the reason security experts say racial profiling not only doesn't work, but makes us less secure by focusing our attention in the wrong places.
Would this process also be useful for making silicon based solar cells?
Doubtful. Silicon solar cells generally don't use any silicon dioxide layers, so a low-temperature method for forming silicon dioxide isn't much help. Not to mention that most of the cost of a solar cell is in the silicon wafer itself, not anything you do to the silicon after wafer production.
It has been awhile since I was familiar with regulations on Ham radio frequencies, and I know that at least some of them have changed in recent years. However, there are restrictions on what frequencies can be used for what types of communication, and possibly on the amount of bandwidth that one is allowed to use. That said, some Hams have been using packet radio for decades. However, aside from having to be licensed, there are restrictions against broadcasting and commercial use -- Ham radio is meant for two-way communication between station operators. A Ham radio operator cannot legally pretend to be a DJ and broadcast music and advertising, for example. So while two operators could send data back and forth to one another (on certain frequencies, anyway), operating a Ham shack as an ISP would probably get your license revoked.
But then I could be wrong. After all, IANAHRO.
That would be tough to do, IMO. For one thing, AM radio stations often carry much farther at night than they do during the day -- does such a station only get regulated at night? And since atmospheric conditions can change from night to night, how does the station know when it has throttled back its power level enough?
Also, what about the international treaties that divided up the frequency spectrum to begin with? If broadcasts from Michigan cross the border into Canada, but not into another U.S. state, does the FCC have jurisdiction? Conversely, suppose a broadcaster in Michigan decides to use what are now typically AM radio frequencies for television and an AM radio broadcast from Canada interferes. Does the broadcaster have any recourse?
Then there's the hardware issue. Does anybody really want a TV that only works in Iowa?
So sure, if you fill out a credit app, tear it up, and some bozo then pieces it back together, you're in trouble - but if you don't ever fill it out, where's the problem? Seems like a big pile of sensasionalist FUD to me.
Okay, suppose you tear up a credit card application and toss it in the garbage. A few days later you tear up a paycheck stub, old tax form, bank or brokerage statement -- anything with your SSN on it -- and throw that away. What makes you think that a garbage raider won't find the information and use it to fill out the torn-up application? Sure there are other, more dastardly things they could with the information, and even without the application the thief could simply go online, but small-time crooks are often opportunists who do whatever is most convenient.
Something like this is not far-fetched in the least, at least not if credit card companies will process a taped-together application. Years ago someone fished my torn-up credit card information out of the garbage and used it to subscribe to a porn site (the fact that the moron logged in regularly was his undoing). Needless to say, I now shred 80% of everything that arrives in my mailbox.
the UAW's foolishness isn't limited to Flint.
I didn't say it was -- I was only addressing the specific case you brought up.
I have no idea how you can say Ford and Chrysler never had problems with the UAW.
Again, I never said they didn't. My example using Ford was only a single case, but I was using to show that the UAW's relationship with other auto companies was not as bad as it was with GM in the late '80s-early '90s.
My friends working in Meijer first told me of the union shop law, baggers and checkers were unionized.
I'd forgotten about Meijer -- I did have one friend who was a member of the union at Meijer. And while I realize that many of Kroger's employees are unionized, I don't think all of them are. I don't recall my cousin being a union member when he worked there. But there are plenty of non-union places to buy groceries in Michigan; if that's what you want, just avoid Meijer, Kroger, and Farmer Jack.
Every grocery store is a union shop in Michigan.
That's simply not true. I lived in Michigan for 25 years and I have quite a few friends and relatives who work in grocery stores there. Not a single one of them has ever been a union member.
That's why I don't like unions, because I've seen the end game,
I have to agree with the others who pointed out that you're forming your opinion on the basis of a single example. Furthermore, your example doesn't even embody the entire UAW, just the very aggressive stance of the UAW locals in the Flint area. Eventually, GM decided that it couldn't afford the demands of those locals and closed its plants in Flint. One of those plants, as I recall, was relocated to Lansing -- just a few counties away, but with a much less aggressive local. Not long after that, you may recall, the UAW forged a new contract with Ford that sacrificed cash in exchange for guarantees of job security. Chrysler also never had the problems the GM had in Flint.
You might also recall the long, multi-union strike against the Detroit Newspaper Agency in the mid-'90s. The unions were resistant to modernization and figured that in Michigan they'd find sympathy amongst the newspapers' readers. However, the Detroit Newspaper Agency so convincingly made its case -- that the newspapers would soon go out of business if they didn't modernize (e.g., use computers to lay out the newspaper) their production facilities -- that many union members, particularly amongst the writers, quit their unions and continued going to work. Officially the strike lasted many years, but most people forgot all about it within a couple of months. In the end, the unions essentially gave up.
Most unions understand that their survival depends on their employers' survival. Your example is one of the few cases where the union cut off its nose to spite its face.
But is it widely accepted by the average Christian reading the Bible?
Yes, at least for those who actually attend church. You'll find, if you haven't already, that there are similar issues of comprehension with Quran. Many Muslim leaders say that terrorist groups misuse verses from the Quran that they misinterpret (either purposely or accidentally) to recruit new members and justify their actions.
Is it not true that a lot of the teachings of the New Testament contradict those of the Old, and that the God of the New Testament seems a bit different than that of the Old?
Yes. It is also true that portions of the New Testament contradict other portions of the New Testament, and that not all of Jesus' gospels were included in the New Testament. That, along with the obvious political maneuvering that went on during the creation of the New Testament, are some of my biggest problems with the Christian religion. This is an aside and not terribly relevant here, but in one of the gospels not included, a young Jesus whithers teachers he doesn't like and turns playmates who piss him off into stone. I can see that it makes Jesus look human and petty, and can understand why the creators of the New Testament chose not to include it, but is one of the gospels. Seems rather dishonest to me.
It was my personal response to your apology of Mohammad having slaves/Islam condoning slavery on the grounds that Islam may have said that slaves should have been treated "nicely."
Are you even reading what I'm saying? I'm anything but an apologist for slavery. I have not condoned slavery, not even that supposedly advocated in the Quran. I have simply stated historical facts about slavery and attacked your argument that because Mohammed had slaves, Muslims are to be despised. Any conclusions you might draw from that argument about how I personally feel about slavery are likely to be false, because I purposely kept my personal feelings about the issue out of it.
And can one not condemn a murderer without also condemning all other murderers that have ever lived?
That doesn't follow logically from my statement. I'm not talking about an individual, I'm talking about the practice of slavery. The statement that would logically follow is, "And can one not condemn murder without also condeming all murderers?" to which I would say no. If you find some murder acceptable, you clearly don't condemn murder. Are you saying you can condemn some slavers, but not others? Obviously it's possible to do so, but it's rare in practice -- few people condemn only some slavery. If you choose to condemn only Muslim slavery, I guess that's your perogative.
the fact remains that the only pre-18th century culture which still exists today, and still wishes to return to its pre-18th century way of life is Islam.
That's hardly a fact; quite a few cultures have resisted modernization. Some of them are isolated on islands in the South Pacific, but many of them live in areas where they are surrounded by the modern world (the Amish and the Mennonites come to mind). Granted they don't all condone slavery, but I suspect that some do (and some engage in some pretty grisly practices, at least by Western standards). Furthermore, I don't think it's universally accepted that Muslims wish to live a pre-18th century way of life. None of those I know personally do.
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No. In the Bible, "servant" and "slave" are synonymous. This is widely accepted amongst Biblical scholars. Many words in the Bible don't have their modern meanings (e.g., "to know" = "to have sex with" in some translations). This is partly because the meanings of words change over time and partly because many words were translated in a "politically correct" manner. Of course, it always depends on which translation you're reading, too....
Then what's the problem?
Um, to discuss slavery but neither support nor condemn it in a parable implies at best acceptance and at worst condoning of it.
And the veneer of education slips away. Need I remind you of Orthodox Christianity?
Need I remind you that the Catholic and Orthodox churches were one, with one Pope and shared dogma, until the 11th century?
I'm pretty sure that slavery is the antithesis of freedom. As such, the phrase "Life free or die" does have quite a bit so do with slavery.
Nope. It refers to the American revolution. Yes, I'm being pedantic, but no more than you were when you dismissed whole swaths of Christian belief because they don't come from a book that suits you. Or, to put it as you might have, I don't think either the Quran or the Bible say that. But, since by your own admission, you have no interest in Christian theology, allow me a moment to educate you. A great deal of the Old Testament -- particularly Genesis, the Ten Commandments, and the story of Adam and Eve -- are not only important, but crucial to both ancient and modern Christianity. Most of the high-profile Christianity-related litigation happening in Western nations today is related to the Old Testament. Yes, the teachings of Jesus are contained in the New Testament, but don't let that fool you into thinking that diminishes the importance of the Old Testament. After all, what do you think was Jesus' primary religious text?
That said, your attempts to tell me what Christians do and don't believe, followed by your bumbled facts and admission that you don't know what Christians believe, lead me to think that your knowledge of Islam is similarly suspect.
you attempted to defend Islam by stating that Islam compels people to treat slaves nicely -- whatever that means.
Not at all. I merely pointed out that slavery was a societal norm across a broad range cultures and religions, and that slaves in those societies were treated differently than we think of slaves being treated today. It's not a defense of the practice, merely a statement of fact. My point being that you cannot condemn Muslims for a history of slavery without also condemning a vast number of pre-18th century cultures for the same practice. Yes, you've made it abundantly clear that Mohammed had slaves. Yes, you've claimed that Muslims consider Mohammed perfect and aim to emulate him. You seem to imply that this alone should be reason to fear and hate Muslims, but what you haven't shown is that slavery is still a widespread practice amongst Muslims. I have no doubt you can find Muslims who have owned slaves in modern times; I can find Christians and Hindus who have done the same. But until you can show that slavery is widely accepted and widely practiced by modern Muslims, your argument is exposed for the irrational religious hatred that I believe it to be.