It also depends on where you are and the relative costs and pollution impacts of the fuels you use.
Just look at the different types of biofuels - if we grow switchgrass or algae in areas with sufficient water they can make sense, just as cane sugar biofuel can make sense if we don't burn the crop waste in the fields and use sustainable practices, but in an arid place with high fertilizer usage it makes no sense.
In most cases, a plug-in-hybrid makes sense as at least ONE of the vehicles in a family, preferably as the one most used during in-city usage or for commuting. Some family members would be better off carpooling, biking, walking, or taking the (probably already biodiesel hybrid) bus or light rail.
Costs of first adopters of any technology are always high as they rarely can reuse materials, don't have efficient economy-of-scale production, and don't have all the features later adopters get.
You could cut your global warming emissions in half just by living near where you work, actually.
Caveat - I used to work for Tek Cominco, and have smelted alloys, been a power engineer, and so on.
First, you have to think of the entire life cycle of both production, shipping, usage, and disposal.
Production: depending on the battery used (and there are multiple types being looked at), it may be produced from minerals from say Ontario or BC - in which case it was processed using a combination of methods, some of which use hydroelectric power (green). Acids are used in all metal production pretty much, so you pushing a giant truck down the road involves more acid than the batteries for a plug-in-hybrid which quite frankly has less mass. Smelting frequently uses coal, of course, so it depends on the source and composition of the coal - high-sulfur high-pollution like in China or low-sulfur low-pollution like in Canada. It is NEVER no pollution.
Shipping - again, the parts and batteries will be shipped on a boat using dirty bunker fuel (even in clean ports like LA they only use clean fuel when near the port, a small infinitesimal fraction of fuel usage).
Operation - if you rarely use a car and it just sits there, then your negative pollution cost of operation for batteries is higher - but your pollution of roadways from diesel/gas would be higher still - if you use it a lot it depends on the power source - if hydro, wind, solar and especially if time-shifted so it charges when power demand is low it has lower impact. If you live in a place where electricity comes from coal it's dirtier.
Recycling - if it is - and it will, these are expensive batteries - recycled, the cost of mining and production of the batteries is vastly reduced (anywhere from half to one-twentieth the pollution of getting it again). This is why we recycle scrap from cars and cans, it's cheaper than mining the minerals again.
In general, all things being equal, with typical usage, you will ALWAYS create less pollution with a plug-in-hybrid than with a non-hybrid.
ALWAYS.
Don't confuse battery warranty life with operational battery life, by the way.
I didn't mean to alter the actual measurement of time per se - e.g. as the world slows or speeds we adjust the length of a second.
What I meant was that, in actual fact, there should be leap nanoseconds and atomic clocks handle those adjustments, but we don't record them per se.
As to changing time, the Sumerians didn't even agree as to the precise definition, and many cultures have accurately kept time using wheels and water clocks using other measurements - China, Aztecs, Toltecs, etc.
We really only keep clock seconds - changing the names of the units above it shouldn't matter.
Besides, humans have a natural 25 hour clock, so it seems the earth may have rotated much faster originally, so our current "hours" are probably not correct.
If we had real market competition, like in Japan or other nations where the data transfer speed and storage ranges from 10 to 20 times faster and storage is about 10 to 20 times cheaper, this wouldn't be a problem.
But the 250 GB cap is ironic, especially given plans to rollout 160 GBps cable modem service in selected cities in the US by Comcast by year end.
At that rate, I won't be able to leave my cable modem on for more than a couple of minutes a month...
Should IT unionize? Yes - But they won't
on
Should IT Unionize?
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· Score: 1
Geeks are too suspicious of any organization that would have them as members.
Even if it is in their economic self-interest.
And I say that as a former union member and shop steward (Steelworker USWA Local 480) and an IT guy since 1987.
I was serving in the Army from 1980 to 1989 (got married and wanted to settle down then), and the reality is that what got cut were mostly bogus military programs for Star Wars (which I worked on LRCSW), ships and planes we didn't need and couldn't use, and lots of expensive and very impractical mil hardware.
Instead of $10,000 laptops with removeable drives built to mil specs, we got $2000 laptops with removeable drives off the shelf under Clinton.
Instead of $250,000 fax machines with security that worked only 90 percent of the time we got $500 fax machines with better security off the shelf that worked 99.99 percent of the time under Clinton.
The LIE promulgated by defense contractors is that we got cut - but the reality is we got right-sized and more efficient.
Red Bushies like Bush, McCain, the elder Bush, and Reagan always want bigger government, staffed with partisan cronies, and big tax giveaways and no-bid contracts for the party elites.
They just think you're gullible enough to believe they will give the middle class actual smaller government or actual lower tax burdens, when they do the exact opposite.
Thank you for your input Comrade, I'll file it in the round file where I put useful advice from the Party Which Borrows Like Fish And Spends Like Drunk Fish. Which in the US, is the GOP.
Socratic debates of He Said She Said are a waste of time - we need multiple viewpoints so the sane majority can make it obvious when the lunatics are not part of the sane viewpoint.
Because the 28 percent deadenders that still like the GOP are neither Fair nor Balanced.
Heck, beyond being incompetent, and running up $50,000 in debt for every single American citizen - including babies - this whole Left-Right debate is totally unworkable.
We need what most civilized countries have, a media that reports three to five sides of the debate, and makes it obvious the deadender Red Bushies represent a minority of deluded individuals who hate the Middle Class.
Canada has always had a skills-based immigration policy, where knowledge of the primary languages is critical as well as advanced skills.
The US has a bastardized system of ad-hoc limits on family-based immigration, which most Canadians and Mexicans and many other countries' citizens ignore (aka illegal immigration), since it takes up to 10 years to immigrate, and sometimes 5 years to get a visa permit.
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Still 10 to 20 times more expensive than nations like Japan and South Korea and even Canada.
Um, better? Maybe.
Good?
No.
It also depends on where you are and the relative costs and pollution impacts of the fuels you use.
Just look at the different types of biofuels - if we grow switchgrass or algae in areas with sufficient water they can make sense, just as cane sugar biofuel can make sense if we don't burn the crop waste in the fields and use sustainable practices, but in an arid place with high fertilizer usage it makes no sense.
In most cases, a plug-in-hybrid makes sense as at least ONE of the vehicles in a family, preferably as the one most used during in-city usage or for commuting. Some family members would be better off carpooling, biking, walking, or taking the (probably already biodiesel hybrid) bus or light rail.
Costs of first adopters of any technology are always high as they rarely can reuse materials, don't have efficient economy-of-scale production, and don't have all the features later adopters get.
You could cut your global warming emissions in half just by living near where you work, actually.
Caveat - I used to work for Tek Cominco, and have smelted alloys, been a power engineer, and so on.
First, you have to think of the entire life cycle of both production, shipping, usage, and disposal.
Production: depending on the battery used (and there are multiple types being looked at), it may be produced from minerals from say Ontario or BC - in which case it was processed using a combination of methods, some of which use hydroelectric power (green). Acids are used in all metal production pretty much, so you pushing a giant truck down the road involves more acid than the batteries for a plug-in-hybrid which quite frankly has less mass. Smelting frequently uses coal, of course, so it depends on the source and composition of the coal - high-sulfur high-pollution like in China or low-sulfur low-pollution like in Canada. It is NEVER no pollution.
Shipping - again, the parts and batteries will be shipped on a boat using dirty bunker fuel (even in clean ports like LA they only use clean fuel when near the port, a small infinitesimal fraction of fuel usage).
Operation - if you rarely use a car and it just sits there, then your negative pollution cost of operation for batteries is higher - but your pollution of roadways from diesel/gas would be higher still - if you use it a lot it depends on the power source - if hydro, wind, solar and especially if time-shifted so it charges when power demand is low it has lower impact. If you live in a place where electricity comes from coal it's dirtier.
Recycling - if it is - and it will, these are expensive batteries - recycled, the cost of mining and production of the batteries is vastly reduced (anywhere from half to one-twentieth the pollution of getting it again). This is why we recycle scrap from cars and cans, it's cheaper than mining the minerals again.
In general, all things being equal, with typical usage, you will ALWAYS create less pollution with a plug-in-hybrid than with a non-hybrid.
ALWAYS.
Don't confuse battery warranty life with operational battery life, by the way.
I didn't mean to alter the actual measurement of time per se - e.g. as the world slows or speeds we adjust the length of a second.
What I meant was that, in actual fact, there should be leap nanoseconds and atomic clocks handle those adjustments, but we don't record them per se.
As to changing time, the Sumerians didn't even agree as to the precise definition, and many cultures have accurately kept time using wheels and water clocks using other measurements - China, Aztecs, Toltecs, etc.
We really only keep clock seconds - changing the names of the units above it shouldn't matter.
Besides, humans have a natural 25 hour clock, so it seems the earth may have rotated much faster originally, so our current "hours" are probably not correct.
Try not feeding her - I think you'll find she'll wake you up a lot earlier ...
I fail to see why there's any urgency to decide this, as we don't have leap nanoseconds or even leap milliseconds.
I set my non-existent watch by the solar-powered parking meters along the street, actually.
And why are we still keeping to a 60 second or 60 minute clock anyway?
We here at the Ministry of Silly Walks are hard at work training our spies in how to avoid detection.
Our chief weapons are Fear, Torture, and a nice Samba.
Personally, I prefer a side-scrabble scuttle with a twirl at the end mind you.
Our enemies will NEVER figure this out and join German Expressionist Dance Troupes and Russian Ballet Dance Companies!
That would be ... unthinkable!
Is that all?
Man, that's dirt slow.
Still, we could easily fill up our quota in a few hours ...
you're assuming I'd max out the download every second ...
If we had real market competition, like in Japan or other nations where the data transfer speed and storage ranges from 10 to 20 times faster and storage is about 10 to 20 times cheaper, this wouldn't be a problem.
But the 250 GB cap is ironic, especially given plans to rollout 160 GBps cable modem service in selected cities in the US by Comcast by year end.
At that rate, I won't be able to leave my cable modem on for more than a couple of minutes a month ...
Geeks are too suspicious of any organization that would have them as members.
Even if it is in their economic self-interest.
And I say that as a former union member and shop steward (Steelworker USWA Local 480) and an IT guy since 1987.
I just don't get how they can patent something I used in 1980 on my old Apple II+ ...
So, the hero saves the princess and takes over the town.
Hire the gold farmers to play the NPC army to retake the town, recapture the princess, and set everything right again.
Problem solved!
(luckily I like playing evil characters who kill the princess, making this a quandry for the next guy)
"Cap'n, me poor wee bairns can't handle the power!"
"Damn it, Scotty, I told you to upgrade from the coal fired turbines!"
LOL. You obviously haven't been paying attention to the deficit or the budget since 2000 ... comrade.
Hey, even McSame admits he's going to TRIPLE the US Budget Deficit.
Now, get back to work!
This is a lie.
I was serving in the Army from 1980 to 1989 (got married and wanted to settle down then), and the reality is that what got cut were mostly bogus military programs for Star Wars (which I worked on LRCSW), ships and planes we didn't need and couldn't use, and lots of expensive and very impractical mil hardware.
Instead of $10,000 laptops with removeable drives built to mil specs, we got $2000 laptops with removeable drives off the shelf under Clinton.
Instead of $250,000 fax machines with security that worked only 90 percent of the time we got $500 fax machines with better security off the shelf that worked 99.99 percent of the time under Clinton.
The LIE promulgated by defense contractors is that we got cut - but the reality is we got right-sized and more efficient.
Now, go enlist and stop whining.
Red Bushies like Bush, McCain, the elder Bush, and Reagan always want bigger government, staffed with partisan cronies, and big tax giveaways and no-bid contracts for the party elites.
They just think you're gullible enough to believe they will give the middle class actual smaller government or actual lower tax burdens, when they do the exact opposite.
Thank you for your input Comrade, I'll file it in the round file where I put useful advice from the Party Which Borrows Like Fish And Spends Like Drunk Fish. Which in the US, is the GOP.
Socratic debates of He Said She Said are a waste of time - we need multiple viewpoints so the sane majority can make it obvious when the lunatics are not part of the sane viewpoint.
Because the 28 percent deadenders that still like the GOP are neither Fair nor Balanced.
Heck, beyond being incompetent, and running up $50,000 in debt for every single American citizen - including babies - this whole Left-Right debate is totally unworkable.
We need what most civilized countries have, a media that reports three to five sides of the debate, and makes it obvious the deadender Red Bushies represent a minority of deluded individuals who hate the Middle Class.
But, that's my humble opinion.
Actually, the US has two things to offer that Canada doesn't:
1. Massive trade deficit.
2. Massive budget deficit.
Canada has neither of these.
Very true.
Canada has always had a skills-based immigration policy, where knowledge of the primary languages is critical as well as advanced skills.
The US has a bastardized system of ad-hoc limits on family-based immigration, which most Canadians and Mexicans and many other countries' citizens ignore (aka illegal immigration), since it takes up to 10 years to immigrate, and sometimes 5 years to get a visa permit.
And the subsequent elimination of 1 million H1-B visas and the fake usage of T1 and T2 as well as L1 visas, I wouldn't hold my breath.
Thanks for helping replace US citizens with your labor - Comrades McCain and Bush thank you!
And have they solved that annoying water dripping effect from condensation on the lenses?
Some of us don't carry de-fogging equipment around with us.
Amount of increased national debt (2008 National Debt - 2000 National Debt)
plus
Widow's and orphans benefits and social security payouts for soldiers dead in Iraq
times Ohio's population (2000)
divided by US total population (2000)
And then TREBLE DAMAGES.
Because that's how much it cost us.
Thank God my state uses mail-in permanent absentee optical scan paper ballots and only uses electronic ballots for disabled and/or elderly voters.
Have to agree.
My son's all into WSG and BG for the cool trinkets and up spec, but I regard that as ultra boring.
Give me the quests - although I hate the ones that are really 2-3 player but are supposed to be "solo".
But it would be nice to be able to multi-box if only for some of the more difficult quests, or to get a decent dungeon run-thru.