It's absurd to me that so many people will happily enjoy the abundance of a scientific society, but the moment scientists suggest action that requires personal inconvenience, those same people will attack scientists ruthlessly.
That's just it, it's not the scientists that are calling for any kind of personal inconvenience.
The people calling for this inconvenience are the science "deniers" in groups like Greenpeace. There's plenty of evidence that nuclear power is safe, plentiful, environmentally friendly, and as "zero carbon" as wind or solar. If these people were scientific in their suggestions for action then we'd hear as much about nuclear power as we do wind, water, and sun.
Personally I believe solar power is so expensive, resource heavy, unreliable, and not all that friendly to the environment generally, that it should be a source of last resort. Leave solar power for pocket calculators and communications satellites. If people want to invest their own money on it then that's fine by me, just don't go writing laws that divert my tax dollars for it. Wind is good, unreliable but cheap enough and low impact on the environment that I have no real problem with it. Hydro power is just awesome, both as an energy source but also as demonstrations of impressive engineering projects. Nuclear power needs to be part of our energy policy or we will never achieve energy independence, reduce our environmental damage, or generally see our lives improve.
We don't need any personal inconvenience to reduce our environmental impact, we need nuclear power. To get that we need new laws or a government willing to issue permits under the laws we have. Nuclear power doesn't need any money from the government to succeed, but it does need permission. And it doesn't require me to change my light bulbs or whatever to happen.
Oh, and I still think this is not news. Every day there is another "discovery" to make an excuse to put global warming in the news. I've had enough of it. We already have a solution to the problem, it's just that idiots like those in Greenpeace won't put down their protest signs long enough to pick up a book and educate themselves.
Before we can even bring nuclear to the table as a potential solution, we must first agree there's a problem.
To agree on a solution does not mean all must agree on the problem. Nuclear power is a solution to a lot of problems.
You want to get rid of all that dangerous plutonium we've piled up from the Cold War? Megatons to Megawatts isn't just a good idea to get rid of old Soviet weapons, it's a good idea to get rid of our own.
You want to see the USA be more energy independent? As a nation we import a lot of natural gas for electricity and heating, if we had more nuclear power then we wouldn't have to import so much. Hawaii and Puerto Rico still burn a lot of oil for electricity, get them some nuclear power and it will reduce our dependence on imported petroleum as well.
You want cleaner air? Sure would be nice to have more nuclear power so we aren't burning so much coal. (And oil.)
Are water prices too high for your tastes? If we had some nuclear power on the coasts then we could desalinate water cheaply, day and night.
Does the threat of war in the Middle East look like a threat to the nation's ability to fuel our military to you? Maybe Congress should get the US Navy and Coast Guard those nuclear powered ships they've been asking for. Nuclear power isn't just for carriers and submarines. We had nuclear powered cruisers and destroyers before, perhaps it's time to build them again. Icebreakers and amphibious assault ships would be excellent platforms for nuclear power as well. Oh, and the US Navy has been working on a seawater-to-jetfuel program for some time now, maybe Congress could put some money towards that. If it works well for the Navy then maybe we could see if it can work commercially as an alternative to petroleum on the open market.
There, I just gave five good reasons to deploy nuclear power in the USA. Add global warming to the list and it's a half dozen.
Yet another article on how doomed we all are. How about some solutions? Here's one we should embrace, nuclear power. If nuclear power isn't in a national energy policy, along with wind and hydro, then I believe the policy makers don't believe what they are shoveling or have an unrealistic belief on the threats nuclear power pose. Much like how people choose to drive instead of fly because they saw a news report on a plane crash.
I've heard this term before, "global lukewarming". Perhaps this is how I should describe myself, a "global lukewarmer". This is the idea that global warming is happening, it's man made, but it will be mild enough that we have plenty of time to resolve the problem. If I'm right then we need nuclear power. If I'm wrong then we need nuclear power right now. There is no long term energy policy that does not include nuclear power any more. Hoping and wishing for wind, water, and solar power to save us is not an energy policy. That's just waiting at the port for a ship that might not come.
Discovering deep ocean temperatures as evidence of faster than expected global warming is not news to me, I recall hearing this at least a decade ago. Making this discovery over and over again is either evidence of a short memory among the scientists or that they've been making bad predictions for the last 40 years or more. I'm guessing it's a bit of both.
When there is a freak cloudy but humid day people still want to run their air-conditioners.
And why would you want to run an AC then? Sorry, that is beyond me.
When the humidity in a house gets above about 50% it can be very uncomfortable at any temperature, the AC will dehumidify as it cools and so people will still want to run the air conditioner even if the thermostat is set to what would otherwise be a comfortable temperature.
If the humidity gets above about 60% then it's not only uncomfortable but also unhealthy. I'm guessing that such high humidity is rare in Arizona but while I lived in Texas that kind of humidity was relatively common. I've been living in the American Midwest for many years now and humidity is always a problem, it will always be too high or too low. Whole house humidifiers are pretty common, and I've had conversations with people considering whole house DE-humidifiers. My guess is that with better insulation on houses today running the air conditioner to dehumidify is not always practical.
If you cannot fathom the idea of running the air conditioner on a cool and humid day then you must live in a very moderate climate, or one so cold that heating will always be enough to dehumidify the house.
First off, countries like Germany have been working with solar for decades as part of their infrastructure without issue.
Sure, that's quite likely true. There's a problem though. It's trivial to go from 0% unreliable energy to 20% unreliable energy. Going from 20% to 40% will be a bit harder but not insurmountable. From 40% to 60% will be very very difficult. Beyond that is effectively impossible.
Hydroelectric power is the only viable means we have of grid scale electric storage. Germany doesn't have a lot of hydro dams, neither does Arizona. That will make deploying wind and solar a problem beyond perhaps 20% or 40%. Germany likes to talk big about how much energy the export, but they can only do so because their neighbors have a lot of coal, nuclear, and hydro. If they keep going like they are, as well as their neighbors deploying more wind and solar, then they will run out of hydro storage, run out of reliable energy sources like coal and nuclear, and generally find themselves in an impossible situation.
Germany is doing fine now with their plan of replacing coal and nuclear with unreliable wind and solar but this will not last. They will have to return to nuclear power or become totally reliant on their neighbors to keep their grid stable, and that is a national security (economically and militarily speaking) problem.
Not all that often I assume, but night happens quite regularly. I haven't lived in Arizona myself but I know people that have, it gets hot even at night and you will need air conditioning after the sun sets. Even if the utility was able to store up the electricity produced during the day a single cloudy day could deplete any stores they might have. This will mean they will have to black out customers or buy electricity from somewhere else at a cost. With people running air conditioning in the early evening, along with other loads, this will be a lot of energy.
The only economical electricity storage we have on a utility scale is hydro, and Arizona doesn't have a lot of water. Shipping the electricity off to a place that can store it, and shipping it back when they need it in Arizona, costs money. An honest calculation of solar energy costs will reflect this cost for storage. If solar was truly cheaper than natural gas then there would not be this resistance from the utilities for more solar power.
If you want the utilities to buy more solar power then find a way to make it truly cheaper than natural gas.
Well, that explains the obesity problem.;^) Sorry, couldn't let that typo slide by.
Heating your home with wood pellets is good for you now but what happens when more people also choose to do this? The price of wood pellets is a very simple supply vs. demand scenario. The price of heating oil and wood pellets is relatively stable because both can be tanked up, stored for long periods easily, transported with relative speed and low cost, therefore what you pay for it day to day, hour to hour, and even year to year, is known and doesn't change quickly. Solar power is not like that.
Solar power costs, like electricity costs generally, changes minute by minute. We, as residential consumers, don't see this but utilities and large consumers do. Solar power is not only highly variable in cost but also very difficult to store, not always easily transported elsewhere, and therefore can't simply be dipped into on demand like wood pellets, oil, natural gas, or any other fuel.
It's like that old joke, you have the cook on a cattle drive saying to his fellow cattle drivers when the gather for supper, "Well boys, I have good news and bad news. Bad news is all we have for supper is horse shit. The good news is we have plenty of it." Having plenty of solar power is not always good news if the bad news is that it's expensive to store, expensive to transport, and is not available when you need it.
âoeThey are fighting this so hard because they know they will make more money off of natural gas than they will off of renewables,â Mayes said. âoeThatâ(TM)s my viewpoint as a former regulator.â
Greed is human nature, of course they will choose the option that makes them the most money. Humans have survived as long as they have because people are greedy. Nobody can remove greed from the human soul. If you want solar power to succeed then make it cheaper than natural gas.
Carbon taxes won't fix this, that's an artificial cost that not only will be difficult to pass into law but also merely hides the costs in shuffling the numbers about. The true costs will still be reflected upon the consumer in some way, and people will do what they can to lower their costs. As an example of this I ran some numbers for a thought experiment. I computed how much natural gas I'd have to buy to run my own generator to power my house. This was for a common household backup generator, just the average backup generator someone could buy from a local hardware store. If I ignored the cost of the generator then I'd be paying the same for my electricity that I generated myself compared to my utility bill. Now, I'd have to account for the cost of the generator in there somehow so I'd still have to pay for the initial investment of the generator, installation costs, as well as maintenance. If there is a carbon tax then the costs of the electricity and natural gas will shift to account for that tax.
With the cost difference so small it is conceivable for it to be cheaper for people to run natural gas or propane generators in their backyard than buy electricity from the utility if there is a carbon tax on the utility for their burning of coal, natural gas or (primarily for Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico) fuel oil.
People are greedy because that is a very basic survival instinct. Don't try to fight it, make it work for you. You want greedy people to buy solar power? Then make it something that they can make (or save) money on. Trying to force the matter in law will always fail in one way or another, because voters are greedy too.
I realize that's a joke based on human exposure to helium but I have to wonder if that wouldn't be what really happens. The video in the article showed the stopwatch on the phone running fast before it crashed. If the helium was leaking into the clock and made everything run fast then it might shift the voice synthesis up in frequency too.
I'd test that theory if I had some helium and a recent model iDevice that I didn't mind crashing.
Let's back this up. Your question from earlier was...
Do the calculations for the amount of nuclear power also take into account the cost and materials needed for synthetic hydrocarbon plants ? Or does it count on transportation going mostly electric ?
I'll ask you a similar question, do the calculations for the amount of wind, water, and sun power also take into account the cost and materials needed for synthetic hydrocarbon plants ? Or does it count on transportation going mostly electric?
The discussion on "Roadmap to Nowhere" assumes the energy calculations done by Jacobson and company is correct. They proved quite clearly that the plan to power the USA by only wind, water, and sun is not viable. They only use the 100% nuclear scenario as a counterpoint, not as a prescription for a national energy plan. In the first chapter they state quite plainly that 100% nuclear power is unrealistic, just as must as a 100% wind, water, and sun is unrealistic, they only pose this as a thought experiment to prove their point.
The answer still is that it doesn't matter. Whatever form transportation energy takes is irrelevant. The USA will be unable to meet its energy needs in the foreseeable future unless nuclear power is part of the plan. It does not matter if the vehicles are powered by batteries or synthesized hydrocarbons.
China figured out how to make nuclear power economical. One thing they do to keep costs down is shoot any protestors that hold up construction.
So how do you explain the relatively small contribution of nuclear to China's energy mix in future plans ?
They are reloading?
China has 19 nuclear reactors under construction today. They plan to have 150 GWe of nuclear power capacity by 2030 by adding about 8 GWe capacity each year. It's only "relatively small" because China is big and had very little nuclear power capacity until just a few years ago. If they are successful in their plans then China will be the largest producer of nuclear power in the world before their 2030 goal.
Do the calculations for the amount of nuclear power also take into account the cost and materials needed for synthetic hydrocarbon plants ? Or does it count on transportation going mostly electric ?
Either way to reach a zero carbon economy we will not be drilling for oil for our transportation fuel. Whatever path is taken the energy for electric vehicles or synthesizing hydrocarbons will come from the chosen mix of zero carbon energy sources. This is a fixed cost regardless and so doesn't mean much if anything in where this energy comes from. What is quite clear is that a solution that does not include nuclear power will have a materials cost many times higher than a solution that does include nuclear power.
And they don't live among the type of people who pride themselves on driving huge diesel trucks and putting black smoke in everybody's face. I've said it many times before, but the best possible thing that could happen for BOTH the earth AND human beings is for the price of oil to skyrocket. Would it cause an economic disaster? Probably. Would it be worth it? You can bet your own health on it.
You want to see an environmental disaster? Go ahead, make oil prices "skyrocket". When winter comes people will be chopping down every tree in sight to burn for heat.
Oh, you want to subsidize heating fuel to counteract this? Go look at what happens in India. I had a friendly chat with a gentleman from India and he told me about how the auto-rickshaw drivers would run their gas engines on the kerosene intended for heating. Normally this would not work but desperate people get creative. They get the engine started on gasoline and then get it nice and hot, usually with the idle set high, then slowly switch over to kerosene. The engine will run, and leave a trail of blue soot behind. Enforcement is impossible because no one can afford to pay any fines. So many people do it that they can't lock them all up.
When people run out of wood to burn then they'll turn to burning whatever else they can find, plastics, rags, cattle dung, paper, paint, lubricating oil, whatever. They won't be burning them in a fancy stove with a catalytic converter, forced draft air, and electrostatic particle filtration. They'll be burning this junk in steel drums.
Go ahead. I dare you. Make oil prices "skyrocket" to save the environment. You'll wish you hadn't.
Why do we need nuclear? What is wrong with existing renewable and storage technology?
The problem is we can't build it fast enough. Wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal take too much material. We don't have enough capacity to create sufficient amounts of steel, concrete, and other materials to build enough renewable energy to displace coal.
If you want to tell me that we can wait until we have the infrastructure to build enough cement kilns and steel mills to keep up with the closing of current coal and nuclear, as well as increased needs for these materials not just for energy generation but also other construction, then I have to wonder just how urgent this need is to hold off global warming.
Even with over-building capacity it's still much cheaper than nuclear, and one of the primary objections to doing anything about climate change is the cost.
We need to do this quick, and it has to make economic sense or it won't happen, and renewables offer massive opportunities for jobs and growth.
I agree, we must be quick. That's why we need to build wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, AND nuclear. If nuclear is not included then the world will fail to meet any CO2 reduction goals declared by the United Nations. Nuclear power makes economic sense. Any problems of costs for nuclear power are NOT in engineering, materials, or labor. The only costs associated with nuclear power that might make it uneconomical is political and regulatory. China figured out how to make nuclear power economical. One thing they do to keep costs down is shoot any protestors that hold up construction. I'm not saying we should do that in the USA but we can keep them from filing frivolous lawsuits and imprison them for their dangerous antics that interfere with solving this problem.
I saw in another thread someone claiming (jokingly I assume) that Greenpeace is causing global warming. Well, that's not far from the truth. The science shows that nuclear power would allow for a significant reduction in CO2 production, but Greenpeace opposes this. The science shows that cutting down trees for lumber, and planting new trees in their place, would create a considerable carbon sink for the CO2 we already produced, but Greenpeace opposes this.
Science tells us we need nuclear power or we will fail to reduce our CO2 in any meaningful time frame. That's why we need nuclear power. We need to include nuclear power in our solution to reduce CO2 or we will see CO2 output grow with all the global warming that comes with.
It seems you fail to understand the problem. We've come to a point where we can no longer wait for some new technology to come along to save humanity, if the global warming alarmists are to be believed. We can't wait for some compressed air storage, or PowerWall batteries, or roofing tiles with solar cells in them, or whatever else is being worked on. We need to build out new low carbon generating capacity starting now, build it quickly, and displace the coal power that dominates energy production throughout the world. That includes nuclear power.
You want to see the nuclear power plants insured in full before they are built? What kind of insurance do you have against the failure of the world to reduce their CO2 production?
There is a choice, nuclear power or global warming. There is no third option because there is no time for a third option.
Just to be clear this does not mean nuclear power to the exclusion of all other energy sources. The world simply will not be able to reduce our CO2 production quickly enough if we don't build out "all the above" energy solutions. This means nuclear power must be part of the solution along with wind, solar, hydro, or whatever else you can come up with.
Whatever problem you can point out that nuclear power might have, like that insurance cost, will have to be ignored, dealt with, worked on along the way, or pushed off into the future. There isn't time to be bitching about little matters like insurance. This is a matter of runaway global warming if we can't bring down our CO2 production. Everything else is nothing by comparison.
The conference is being held in collaboration with UN Environment, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (CCAC) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).
Affordable strategies exist to reduce key pollution emissions from the transport, energy, agriculture, waste and housing sectors. Health-conscious strategies can reduce climate change and support Sustainable Development Goals for health, energy and cities.
It's a bunch of people getting together to bash coal and oil interests again with the thin veneer of air pollution concerns on top of global warming alarmism.
The United Nations is overrun by a bunch of dictators just looking to take more money from the free nations that solved their own air pollution problems long ago. These hellhole nations can have clean air too but to get it they have to offer their subjects the freedom to trade freely with the free nations that developed this technology. The problem isn't a lack of money, or a lack of energy, it's a lack of freedom.
Anyway, USB-C is certainly a welcome trend, including host-side USB-C. But now we are back to crossover cables, try to explain to a user why you can't just cable two computers together like you can with Ethernet. The isolated complaints will soon turn into a chorus.
How do you mean "back to crossover cables"? As far as I know there is no such thing for USB-C. I mean I can connect two Apple computers by a standard USB-C cable and they will talk to each other but other manufacturers don't implement this feature of USB-C. For people to demand this feature they must first believe it to be useful. Apple might create this expectation among the public but there's enough wireless options now that people don't even think of trying to use a wired connection.
I would be pleased if more manufacturers supported a host-to-host USB-C connection but I would not be surprised if this remains in the realm of Apple systems. I suspect we'll see a USB-C replacement port come with this feature first, one with greater bandwidth even. USB-C is fast but people are already hitting it's limits with things like external GPUs and large drive arrays.
This isn't anything new, and not any kind of scientific analysis. This is a wishful thinking opinion piece on a technology that has yet to be proven economically viable.
So, how many silly ideas are we going to have to shoot down before we come to a realization that we already have a solution with decades of proving itself economically viable, reliable, incredibly safe, and effectively unlimited? That would be nuclear power by the way.
These air storage facilities would be incredibly large infrastructure projects, likely taking decades to pay off, and add no real energy generation capacity. If we put that same effort into real world energy production, like wind, hydro (which doubles as storage), and nuclear, then we'd be far more ahead than trying to turn wishful thinking into something viable.
Even more entertaining that you think the public american's experience of firearms is in any way related to the situations and skills required to fight such a war is going to be a massive win.
There's lots of veterans in the USA that are quite familiar with how a modern military fights. If the fit hits the shan then there's going to be plenty of people outside of the military quite capable of waging a war. A wise government will use such resources for its own defense against threats foreign and domestic. An unwise government would be one willing to try to disarm its own people.
There will soon come a day when technology renders all gun control laws impossible to enforce, assuming we haven't crossed that line already. You can say that we'd be safer with gun control all you like but when people can just print a machine gun from plans downloaded off the internet there is nothing the government can do to disarm the people ever again.
Sure, let's dispense with the bullshit. Any gun control law you can think of is meaningless in a time and place where people are as free, educated, and wealthy as Americans are today. If people want to have firearms then they will get them faster than any government could possibly take them away and melt them down into manhole covers. There is no such thing as "common sense gun control" any more because a machine that can mass produce firearms from scrap aluminum can be bought on the internet for a price less than many people spent on their TV set.
I'm not saying anything about gun control other than to refute your rather ridiculous assertion that an armed police force *has* to come from an armed populace otherwise they are poorly trained.
That's not what I said, and I believe you know that's not what I said. Instead of making an argument against what I said you chose to argue against a straw man.
We have never had a gun culture in the UK and yet we have never had an issue training a drafted military force in times of war. Indeed, our police force and military is among the best trained in the world.
A nation without gun control is not wasting police resources in disarming the law abiding public. A nation that allows it's people to own firearms will always have more people to draw from that are already familiar with marksmanship than a nation that does not if there is a need to gather people quickly to fight a war. I have no doubt that UK has a well trained military, only that by disarming the public the military will always be at a disadvantage over nations that don't disarm the public.
As an example of how an armed American public is better equipped to fight off a nation like the UK that does not allow for private ownership of arms I give a war fought by both nations about 240 years ago. It seems a bunch of farmers with hunting rifles beat what was likely the best trained military in the world at the time.
Basically the rest of your post is the same old rant against gun control, and can be tuned out. I'm happy living in a country with gun control.
In other words I speak the truth, it is irrefutable, and you cannot create any coherent argument against it.
See, I can prop up straw men too. If you believe I can just be "tuned out" then why reply at all? If I'm getting flak then I must be close to the target.
The Apple adapter is more of a mini-dock than just a video adapter, it allows for power pass-through on USB-C, a USB-A port, and HDMI. Also it's only $69, not $80. https://www.apple.com/shop/pro...
If the higher priced and more capable mini-dock is too much for you then buy something cheaper. Such as this $16.99 HDMI adapter from Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/AmazonB...
Amazon also offers a mini-dock much like Apple's but for nearly half the price. If you think Apple is charging too much, or that it might not work with your Dell, then don't buy it. Amazon claims their adapters are fully compatible with Apple computers, as well as recent Windows versions, and appears to have a very good return policy if it does not work. You aren't forced to buy Apple adapters for your Apple computer.
Go ahead though, keep propping up strawmen to make your case. I'll just knock them down.
I didn't say Apple was first with USB-C on a tablet. I said Apple produced a port with as many features as USB-C has today in 2012. Apple was first to have a port that supported audio, video, 12 watt charging, on a "flippable" connector. USB-C surpassed Lightning in features when it extended the spec to include an audio accessory mode last year. The ability for USB-C to allow for greater power transfer than Lightning was largely irrelevant until now since devices capable of taking advantage of this are a recent development.
I was being very "Apple centric" in my commentary because this is a where we are discussing an article on a potential Apple product announcement. Had this been a discussion on Samsung products then I'd be talking about that company.
You can talk about how great gun control is where you are but here's the problem in the USA, there's more guns than people. There will never be any effective gun control any more, that's impossible now. Guns are durable devices, they are simple devices, because of this people have been building them as a hobby and keeping them functional for decades. With modern manufacturing techniques, including 3D printing, the means to produce a firearm is now far more widely spread. These guns are not on any government register, more are produced every day, and any attempt to control this will be met with fierce resistance. If not because of the gun control itself but because of the search and seizure laws that would be required to have anything close to removing these guns from the law abiding public.
Gun control is a waste of police resources. Gun ownership is not indicative of criminal tendencies any more than ownership of a hammer is indicative of a tendency to smash windows. There's better ways to use limited police resources to keep people safe than enforcing gun control. Also, gun control by it's very nature is a limitation on people's freedoms. You might see it as a minor limitation because you don't own a gun, but for someone that owns a gun this is a big deal.
Let's get to the point of keeping and maintaining a military and/or police force. Gun control is fine so long as things are relatively peaceful. So long as there is time to train adults for marksmanship then there is no need for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to get their rifle marksmanship badge. If something big happens, like another meat grinder of a world war, then there will be a need to obtain people that can shoot quickly. America will be at an advantage on this because an 18 year old recruit that had shot even a BB gun in the Boy Scouts at age 12, and hunting rabbits or punching holes in paper targets with an air rifle since, will have 6 years of experience beyond that of any recruit from any other nation on the planet. If there is ever an army that makes a beachhead on American soil then they will have to face the average American that is armed with rifles and shotguns than a population armed with broomsticks and kitchen knives.
I just find it difficult to comprehend a government that cannot trust the law abiding to be armed. What do they fear? That the public will rise up against them? Maybe this wouldn't happen if the government treated the public well. Gun control is not only indicative of a nation that does not respect rights of the people but also fears them because they are a bunch of abusive assholes to the public they at least claim to serve. Serve the people well and they won't have to fear them. If there is a need to defend the nation then the people can actually do so than run to the invaders and help them overthrow the assholes that disarmed them.
This gets back to my earlier point, don't create a government you would not want to hand over to your opposition. If you are disarmed and a bunch of murderous psychopaths take over the government then you have nothing to stop them. There's all kinds of examples of this happening throughout history.
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It's absurd to me that so many people will happily enjoy the abundance of a scientific society, but the moment scientists suggest action that requires personal inconvenience, those same people will attack scientists ruthlessly.
That's just it, it's not the scientists that are calling for any kind of personal inconvenience.
The people calling for this inconvenience are the science "deniers" in groups like Greenpeace. There's plenty of evidence that nuclear power is safe, plentiful, environmentally friendly, and as "zero carbon" as wind or solar. If these people were scientific in their suggestions for action then we'd hear as much about nuclear power as we do wind, water, and sun.
Personally I believe solar power is so expensive, resource heavy, unreliable, and not all that friendly to the environment generally, that it should be a source of last resort. Leave solar power for pocket calculators and communications satellites. If people want to invest their own money on it then that's fine by me, just don't go writing laws that divert my tax dollars for it. Wind is good, unreliable but cheap enough and low impact on the environment that I have no real problem with it. Hydro power is just awesome, both as an energy source but also as demonstrations of impressive engineering projects. Nuclear power needs to be part of our energy policy or we will never achieve energy independence, reduce our environmental damage, or generally see our lives improve.
We don't need any personal inconvenience to reduce our environmental impact, we need nuclear power. To get that we need new laws or a government willing to issue permits under the laws we have. Nuclear power doesn't need any money from the government to succeed, but it does need permission. And it doesn't require me to change my light bulbs or whatever to happen.
Oh, and I still think this is not news. Every day there is another "discovery" to make an excuse to put global warming in the news. I've had enough of it. We already have a solution to the problem, it's just that idiots like those in Greenpeace won't put down their protest signs long enough to pick up a book and educate themselves.
Before we can even bring nuclear to the table as a potential solution, we must first agree there's a problem.
To agree on a solution does not mean all must agree on the problem. Nuclear power is a solution to a lot of problems.
You want to get rid of all that dangerous plutonium we've piled up from the Cold War? Megatons to Megawatts isn't just a good idea to get rid of old Soviet weapons, it's a good idea to get rid of our own.
You want to see the USA be more energy independent? As a nation we import a lot of natural gas for electricity and heating, if we had more nuclear power then we wouldn't have to import so much. Hawaii and Puerto Rico still burn a lot of oil for electricity, get them some nuclear power and it will reduce our dependence on imported petroleum as well.
You want cleaner air? Sure would be nice to have more nuclear power so we aren't burning so much coal. (And oil.)
Are water prices too high for your tastes? If we had some nuclear power on the coasts then we could desalinate water cheaply, day and night.
Does the threat of war in the Middle East look like a threat to the nation's ability to fuel our military to you? Maybe Congress should get the US Navy and Coast Guard those nuclear powered ships they've been asking for. Nuclear power isn't just for carriers and submarines. We had nuclear powered cruisers and destroyers before, perhaps it's time to build them again. Icebreakers and amphibious assault ships would be excellent platforms for nuclear power as well. Oh, and the US Navy has been working on a seawater-to-jetfuel program for some time now, maybe Congress could put some money towards that. If it works well for the Navy then maybe we could see if it can work commercially as an alternative to petroleum on the open market.
There, I just gave five good reasons to deploy nuclear power in the USA. Add global warming to the list and it's a half dozen.
Yet another article on how doomed we all are. How about some solutions? Here's one we should embrace, nuclear power. If nuclear power isn't in a national energy policy, along with wind and hydro, then I believe the policy makers don't believe what they are shoveling or have an unrealistic belief on the threats nuclear power pose. Much like how people choose to drive instead of fly because they saw a news report on a plane crash.
I've heard this term before, "global lukewarming". Perhaps this is how I should describe myself, a "global lukewarmer". This is the idea that global warming is happening, it's man made, but it will be mild enough that we have plenty of time to resolve the problem. If I'm right then we need nuclear power. If I'm wrong then we need nuclear power right now. There is no long term energy policy that does not include nuclear power any more. Hoping and wishing for wind, water, and solar power to save us is not an energy policy. That's just waiting at the port for a ship that might not come.
Discovering deep ocean temperatures as evidence of faster than expected global warming is not news to me, I recall hearing this at least a decade ago. Making this discovery over and over again is either evidence of a short memory among the scientists or that they've been making bad predictions for the last 40 years or more. I'm guessing it's a bit of both.
When there is a freak cloudy but humid day people still want to run their air-conditioners.
And why would you want to run an AC then? Sorry, that is beyond me.
When the humidity in a house gets above about 50% it can be very uncomfortable at any temperature, the AC will dehumidify as it cools and so people will still want to run the air conditioner even if the thermostat is set to what would otherwise be a comfortable temperature.
If the humidity gets above about 60% then it's not only uncomfortable but also unhealthy. I'm guessing that such high humidity is rare in Arizona but while I lived in Texas that kind of humidity was relatively common. I've been living in the American Midwest for many years now and humidity is always a problem, it will always be too high or too low. Whole house humidifiers are pretty common, and I've had conversations with people considering whole house DE-humidifiers. My guess is that with better insulation on houses today running the air conditioner to dehumidify is not always practical.
If you cannot fathom the idea of running the air conditioner on a cool and humid day then you must live in a very moderate climate, or one so cold that heating will always be enough to dehumidify the house.
First off, countries like Germany have been working with solar for decades as part of their infrastructure without issue.
Sure, that's quite likely true. There's a problem though. It's trivial to go from 0% unreliable energy to 20% unreliable energy. Going from 20% to 40% will be a bit harder but not insurmountable. From 40% to 60% will be very very difficult. Beyond that is effectively impossible.
Hydroelectric power is the only viable means we have of grid scale electric storage. Germany doesn't have a lot of hydro dams, neither does Arizona. That will make deploying wind and solar a problem beyond perhaps 20% or 40%. Germany likes to talk big about how much energy the export, but they can only do so because their neighbors have a lot of coal, nuclear, and hydro. If they keep going like they are, as well as their neighbors deploying more wind and solar, then they will run out of hydro storage, run out of reliable energy sources like coal and nuclear, and generally find themselves in an impossible situation.
Germany is doing fine now with their plan of replacing coal and nuclear with unreliable wind and solar but this will not last. They will have to return to nuclear power or become totally reliant on their neighbors to keep their grid stable, and that is a national security (economically and militarily speaking) problem.
Clouds and humidity in Arizona?
Not all that often I assume, but night happens quite regularly. I haven't lived in Arizona myself but I know people that have, it gets hot even at night and you will need air conditioning after the sun sets. Even if the utility was able to store up the electricity produced during the day a single cloudy day could deplete any stores they might have. This will mean they will have to black out customers or buy electricity from somewhere else at a cost. With people running air conditioning in the early evening, along with other loads, this will be a lot of energy.
The only economical electricity storage we have on a utility scale is hydro, and Arizona doesn't have a lot of water. Shipping the electricity off to a place that can store it, and shipping it back when they need it in Arizona, costs money. An honest calculation of solar energy costs will reflect this cost for storage. If solar was truly cheaper than natural gas then there would not be this resistance from the utilities for more solar power.
If you want the utilities to buy more solar power then find a way to make it truly cheaper than natural gas.
and their dessert climate
Well, that explains the obesity problem. ;^) Sorry, couldn't let that typo slide by.
Heating your home with wood pellets is good for you now but what happens when more people also choose to do this? The price of wood pellets is a very simple supply vs. demand scenario. The price of heating oil and wood pellets is relatively stable because both can be tanked up, stored for long periods easily, transported with relative speed and low cost, therefore what you pay for it day to day, hour to hour, and even year to year, is known and doesn't change quickly. Solar power is not like that.
Solar power costs, like electricity costs generally, changes minute by minute. We, as residential consumers, don't see this but utilities and large consumers do. Solar power is not only highly variable in cost but also very difficult to store, not always easily transported elsewhere, and therefore can't simply be dipped into on demand like wood pellets, oil, natural gas, or any other fuel.
It's like that old joke, you have the cook on a cattle drive saying to his fellow cattle drivers when the gather for supper, "Well boys, I have good news and bad news. Bad news is all we have for supper is horse shit. The good news is we have plenty of it." Having plenty of solar power is not always good news if the bad news is that it's expensive to store, expensive to transport, and is not available when you need it.
âoeThey are fighting this so hard because they know they will make more money off of natural gas than they will off of renewables,â Mayes said. âoeThatâ(TM)s my viewpoint as a former regulator.â
Greed is human nature, of course they will choose the option that makes them the most money. Humans have survived as long as they have because people are greedy. Nobody can remove greed from the human soul. If you want solar power to succeed then make it cheaper than natural gas.
Carbon taxes won't fix this, that's an artificial cost that not only will be difficult to pass into law but also merely hides the costs in shuffling the numbers about. The true costs will still be reflected upon the consumer in some way, and people will do what they can to lower their costs. As an example of this I ran some numbers for a thought experiment. I computed how much natural gas I'd have to buy to run my own generator to power my house. This was for a common household backup generator, just the average backup generator someone could buy from a local hardware store. If I ignored the cost of the generator then I'd be paying the same for my electricity that I generated myself compared to my utility bill. Now, I'd have to account for the cost of the generator in there somehow so I'd still have to pay for the initial investment of the generator, installation costs, as well as maintenance. If there is a carbon tax then the costs of the electricity and natural gas will shift to account for that tax.
With the cost difference so small it is conceivable for it to be cheaper for people to run natural gas or propane generators in their backyard than buy electricity from the utility if there is a carbon tax on the utility for their burning of coal, natural gas or (primarily for Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico) fuel oil.
People are greedy because that is a very basic survival instinct. Don't try to fight it, make it work for you. You want greedy people to buy solar power? Then make it something that they can make (or save) money on. Trying to force the matter in law will always fail in one way or another, because voters are greedy too.
I realize that's a joke based on human exposure to helium but I have to wonder if that wouldn't be what really happens. The video in the article showed the stopwatch on the phone running fast before it crashed. If the helium was leaking into the clock and made everything run fast then it might shift the voice synthesis up in frequency too.
I'd test that theory if I had some helium and a recent model iDevice that I didn't mind crashing.
Let's back this up. Your question from earlier was...
Do the calculations for the amount of nuclear power also take into account the cost and materials needed for synthetic hydrocarbon plants ? Or does it count on transportation going mostly electric ?
I'll ask you a similar question, do the calculations for the amount of wind, water, and sun power also take into account the cost and materials needed for synthetic hydrocarbon plants ? Or does it count on transportation going mostly electric?
The discussion on "Roadmap to Nowhere" assumes the energy calculations done by Jacobson and company is correct. They proved quite clearly that the plan to power the USA by only wind, water, and sun is not viable. They only use the 100% nuclear scenario as a counterpoint, not as a prescription for a national energy plan. In the first chapter they state quite plainly that 100% nuclear power is unrealistic, just as must as a 100% wind, water, and sun is unrealistic, they only pose this as a thought experiment to prove their point.
The answer still is that it doesn't matter. Whatever form transportation energy takes is irrelevant. The USA will be unable to meet its energy needs in the foreseeable future unless nuclear power is part of the plan. It does not matter if the vehicles are powered by batteries or synthesized hydrocarbons.
China figured out how to make nuclear power economical. One thing they do to keep costs down is shoot any protestors that hold up construction.
So how do you explain the relatively small contribution of nuclear to China's energy mix in future plans ?
They are reloading?
China has 19 nuclear reactors under construction today. They plan to have 150 GWe of nuclear power capacity by 2030 by adding about 8 GWe capacity each year. It's only "relatively small" because China is big and had very little nuclear power capacity until just a few years ago. If they are successful in their plans then China will be the largest producer of nuclear power in the world before their 2030 goal.
Cite:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a...
Do the calculations for the amount of nuclear power also take into account the cost and materials needed for synthetic hydrocarbon plants ? Or does it count on transportation going mostly electric ?
Either way to reach a zero carbon economy we will not be drilling for oil for our transportation fuel. Whatever path is taken the energy for electric vehicles or synthesizing hydrocarbons will come from the chosen mix of zero carbon energy sources. This is a fixed cost regardless and so doesn't mean much if anything in where this energy comes from. What is quite clear is that a solution that does not include nuclear power will have a materials cost many times higher than a solution that does include nuclear power.
And they don't live among the type of people who pride themselves on driving huge diesel trucks and putting black smoke in everybody's face. I've said it many times before, but the best possible thing that could happen for BOTH the earth AND human beings is for the price of oil to skyrocket. Would it cause an economic disaster? Probably. Would it be worth it? You can bet your own health on it.
You want to see an environmental disaster? Go ahead, make oil prices "skyrocket". When winter comes people will be chopping down every tree in sight to burn for heat.
Oh, you want to subsidize heating fuel to counteract this? Go look at what happens in India. I had a friendly chat with a gentleman from India and he told me about how the auto-rickshaw drivers would run their gas engines on the kerosene intended for heating. Normally this would not work but desperate people get creative. They get the engine started on gasoline and then get it nice and hot, usually with the idle set high, then slowly switch over to kerosene. The engine will run, and leave a trail of blue soot behind. Enforcement is impossible because no one can afford to pay any fines. So many people do it that they can't lock them all up.
When people run out of wood to burn then they'll turn to burning whatever else they can find, plastics, rags, cattle dung, paper, paint, lubricating oil, whatever. They won't be burning them in a fancy stove with a catalytic converter, forced draft air, and electrostatic particle filtration. They'll be burning this junk in steel drums.
Go ahead. I dare you. Make oil prices "skyrocket" to save the environment. You'll wish you hadn't.
Why do we need nuclear? What is wrong with existing renewable and storage technology?
The problem is we can't build it fast enough. Wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal take too much material. We don't have enough capacity to create sufficient amounts of steel, concrete, and other materials to build enough renewable energy to displace coal.
Here's an article that gives just a taste of the problem:
http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...
A very comprehensive analysis was done here:
http://www.roadmaptonowhere.co...
And here:
https://www.withouthotair.com/
If you want to tell me that we can wait until we have the infrastructure to build enough cement kilns and steel mills to keep up with the closing of current coal and nuclear, as well as increased needs for these materials not just for energy generation but also other construction, then I have to wonder just how urgent this need is to hold off global warming.
Even with over-building capacity it's still much cheaper than nuclear, and one of the primary objections to doing anything about climate change is the cost.
Nuclear is as cheap as wind and solar wish they could be. Some of the math is here: http://www.roadmaptonowhere.co...
We need to do this quick, and it has to make economic sense or it won't happen, and renewables offer massive opportunities for jobs and growth.
I agree, we must be quick. That's why we need to build wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, AND nuclear. If nuclear is not included then the world will fail to meet any CO2 reduction goals declared by the United Nations. Nuclear power makes economic sense. Any problems of costs for nuclear power are NOT in engineering, materials, or labor. The only costs associated with nuclear power that might make it uneconomical is political and regulatory. China figured out how to make nuclear power economical. One thing they do to keep costs down is shoot any protestors that hold up construction. I'm not saying we should do that in the USA but we can keep them from filing frivolous lawsuits and imprison them for their dangerous antics that interfere with solving this problem.
I saw in another thread someone claiming (jokingly I assume) that Greenpeace is causing global warming. Well, that's not far from the truth. The science shows that nuclear power would allow for a significant reduction in CO2 production, but Greenpeace opposes this. The science shows that cutting down trees for lumber, and planting new trees in their place, would create a considerable carbon sink for the CO2 we already produced, but Greenpeace opposes this.
Science tells us we need nuclear power or we will fail to reduce our CO2 in any meaningful time frame. That's why we need nuclear power. We need to include nuclear power in our solution to reduce CO2 or we will see CO2 output grow with all the global warming that comes with.
IT'S SCIENCE!! Are you a science denier?
It seems you fail to understand the problem. We've come to a point where we can no longer wait for some new technology to come along to save humanity, if the global warming alarmists are to be believed. We can't wait for some compressed air storage, or PowerWall batteries, or roofing tiles with solar cells in them, or whatever else is being worked on. We need to build out new low carbon generating capacity starting now, build it quickly, and displace the coal power that dominates energy production throughout the world. That includes nuclear power.
You want to see the nuclear power plants insured in full before they are built? What kind of insurance do you have against the failure of the world to reduce their CO2 production?
There is a choice, nuclear power or global warming. There is no third option because there is no time for a third option.
Just to be clear this does not mean nuclear power to the exclusion of all other energy sources. The world simply will not be able to reduce our CO2 production quickly enough if we don't build out "all the above" energy solutions. This means nuclear power must be part of the solution along with wind, solar, hydro, or whatever else you can come up with.
Whatever problem you can point out that nuclear power might have, like that insurance cost, will have to be ignored, dealt with, worked on along the way, or pushed off into the future. There isn't time to be bitching about little matters like insurance. This is a matter of runaway global warming if we can't bring down our CO2 production. Everything else is nothing by comparison.
I saw it too. Here:
http://www.who.int/news-room/e...
The conference is being held in collaboration with UN Environment, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (CCAC) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).
Affordable strategies exist to reduce key pollution emissions from the transport, energy, agriculture, waste and housing sectors. Health-conscious strategies can reduce climate change and support Sustainable Development Goals for health, energy and cities.
It's a bunch of people getting together to bash coal and oil interests again with the thin veneer of air pollution concerns on top of global warming alarmism.
The United Nations is overrun by a bunch of dictators just looking to take more money from the free nations that solved their own air pollution problems long ago. These hellhole nations can have clean air too but to get it they have to offer their subjects the freedom to trade freely with the free nations that developed this technology. The problem isn't a lack of money, or a lack of energy, it's a lack of freedom.
Anyway, USB-C is certainly a welcome trend, including host-side USB-C. But now we are back to crossover cables, try to explain to a user why you can't just cable two computers together like you can with Ethernet. The isolated complaints will soon turn into a chorus.
How do you mean "back to crossover cables"? As far as I know there is no such thing for USB-C. I mean I can connect two Apple computers by a standard USB-C cable and they will talk to each other but other manufacturers don't implement this feature of USB-C. For people to demand this feature they must first believe it to be useful. Apple might create this expectation among the public but there's enough wireless options now that people don't even think of trying to use a wired connection.
I would be pleased if more manufacturers supported a host-to-host USB-C connection but I would not be surprised if this remains in the realm of Apple systems. I suspect we'll see a USB-C replacement port come with this feature first, one with greater bandwidth even. USB-C is fast but people are already hitting it's limits with things like external GPUs and large drive arrays.
This isn't anything new, and not any kind of scientific analysis. This is a wishful thinking opinion piece on a technology that has yet to be proven economically viable.
So, how many silly ideas are we going to have to shoot down before we come to a realization that we already have a solution with decades of proving itself economically viable, reliable, incredibly safe, and effectively unlimited? That would be nuclear power by the way.
These air storage facilities would be incredibly large infrastructure projects, likely taking decades to pay off, and add no real energy generation capacity. If we put that same effort into real world energy production, like wind, hydro (which doubles as storage), and nuclear, then we'd be far more ahead than trying to turn wishful thinking into something viable.
Even more entertaining that you think the public american's experience of firearms is in any way related to the situations and skills required to fight such a war is going to be a massive win.
There's lots of veterans in the USA that are quite familiar with how a modern military fights. If the fit hits the shan then there's going to be plenty of people outside of the military quite capable of waging a war. A wise government will use such resources for its own defense against threats foreign and domestic. An unwise government would be one willing to try to disarm its own people.
Laugh if you like, that won't change a thing.
So don't come to me with your bullshit, OK?
You first.
There will soon come a day when technology renders all gun control laws impossible to enforce, assuming we haven't crossed that line already. You can say that we'd be safer with gun control all you like but when people can just print a machine gun from plans downloaded off the internet there is nothing the government can do to disarm the people ever again.
Sure, let's dispense with the bullshit. Any gun control law you can think of is meaningless in a time and place where people are as free, educated, and wealthy as Americans are today. If people want to have firearms then they will get them faster than any government could possibly take them away and melt them down into manhole covers. There is no such thing as "common sense gun control" any more because a machine that can mass produce firearms from scrap aluminum can be bought on the internet for a price less than many people spent on their TV set.
I'm not saying anything about gun control other than to refute your rather ridiculous assertion that an armed police force *has* to come from an armed populace otherwise they are poorly trained.
That's not what I said, and I believe you know that's not what I said. Instead of making an argument against what I said you chose to argue against a straw man.
We have never had a gun culture in the UK and yet we have never had an issue training a drafted military force in times of war. Indeed, our police force and military is among the best trained in the world.
A nation without gun control is not wasting police resources in disarming the law abiding public. A nation that allows it's people to own firearms will always have more people to draw from that are already familiar with marksmanship than a nation that does not if there is a need to gather people quickly to fight a war. I have no doubt that UK has a well trained military, only that by disarming the public the military will always be at a disadvantage over nations that don't disarm the public.
As an example of how an armed American public is better equipped to fight off a nation like the UK that does not allow for private ownership of arms I give a war fought by both nations about 240 years ago. It seems a bunch of farmers with hunting rifles beat what was likely the best trained military in the world at the time.
Basically the rest of your post is the same old rant against gun control, and can be tuned out. I'm happy living in a country with gun control.
In other words I speak the truth, it is irrefutable, and you cannot create any coherent argument against it.
See, I can prop up straw men too. If you believe I can just be "tuned out" then why reply at all? If I'm getting flak then I must be close to the target.
The Apple adapter is more of a mini-dock than just a video adapter, it allows for power pass-through on USB-C, a USB-A port, and HDMI. Also it's only $69, not $80.
https://www.apple.com/shop/pro...
If the higher priced and more capable mini-dock is too much for you then buy something cheaper. Such as this $16.99 HDMI adapter from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/AmazonB...
Amazon also offers a mini-dock much like Apple's but for nearly half the price. If you think Apple is charging too much, or that it might not work with your Dell, then don't buy it. Amazon claims their adapters are fully compatible with Apple computers, as well as recent Windows versions, and appears to have a very good return policy if it does not work. You aren't forced to buy Apple adapters for your Apple computer.
Go ahead though, keep propping up strawmen to make your case. I'll just knock them down.
I didn't say Apple was first with USB-C on a tablet. I said Apple produced a port with as many features as USB-C has today in 2012. Apple was first to have a port that supported audio, video, 12 watt charging, on a "flippable" connector. USB-C surpassed Lightning in features when it extended the spec to include an audio accessory mode last year. The ability for USB-C to allow for greater power transfer than Lightning was largely irrelevant until now since devices capable of taking advantage of this are a recent development.
I was being very "Apple centric" in my commentary because this is a where we are discussing an article on a potential Apple product announcement. Had this been a discussion on Samsung products then I'd be talking about that company.
No.
Next question, please.
You can talk about how great gun control is where you are but here's the problem in the USA, there's more guns than people. There will never be any effective gun control any more, that's impossible now. Guns are durable devices, they are simple devices, because of this people have been building them as a hobby and keeping them functional for decades. With modern manufacturing techniques, including 3D printing, the means to produce a firearm is now far more widely spread. These guns are not on any government register, more are produced every day, and any attempt to control this will be met with fierce resistance. If not because of the gun control itself but because of the search and seizure laws that would be required to have anything close to removing these guns from the law abiding public.
Gun control is a waste of police resources. Gun ownership is not indicative of criminal tendencies any more than ownership of a hammer is indicative of a tendency to smash windows. There's better ways to use limited police resources to keep people safe than enforcing gun control. Also, gun control by it's very nature is a limitation on people's freedoms. You might see it as a minor limitation because you don't own a gun, but for someone that owns a gun this is a big deal.
Let's get to the point of keeping and maintaining a military and/or police force. Gun control is fine so long as things are relatively peaceful. So long as there is time to train adults for marksmanship then there is no need for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to get their rifle marksmanship badge. If something big happens, like another meat grinder of a world war, then there will be a need to obtain people that can shoot quickly. America will be at an advantage on this because an 18 year old recruit that had shot even a BB gun in the Boy Scouts at age 12, and hunting rabbits or punching holes in paper targets with an air rifle since, will have 6 years of experience beyond that of any recruit from any other nation on the planet. If there is ever an army that makes a beachhead on American soil then they will have to face the average American that is armed with rifles and shotguns than a population armed with broomsticks and kitchen knives.
I just find it difficult to comprehend a government that cannot trust the law abiding to be armed. What do they fear? That the public will rise up against them? Maybe this wouldn't happen if the government treated the public well. Gun control is not only indicative of a nation that does not respect rights of the people but also fears them because they are a bunch of abusive assholes to the public they at least claim to serve. Serve the people well and they won't have to fear them. If there is a need to defend the nation then the people can actually do so than run to the invaders and help them overthrow the assholes that disarmed them.
This gets back to my earlier point, don't create a government you would not want to hand over to your opposition. If you are disarmed and a bunch of murderous psychopaths take over the government then you have nothing to stop them. There's all kinds of examples of this happening throughout history.