Right, because a place far from any electrical grid, nuclear power, natural gas, or hydro electric plant finds it suitable to put up solar panels the usefulness of solar power is proven for those that do have access to an electrical grid, nuclear, natural gas, etc. I think you assume too much.
If photovoltaic power is so mainstream then there would be no need to mandate its use. Think about that for a minute. Solar power is far from mainstream, the fact you had to pull Antarctica out as an example proves my point.
1) energy storage doesn't have to be expensive and in many cases *isn't.
I didn't say it was expensive, I said it costs money. If you believe that energy storage is free then I suggest you go back to school and/or put down your crack pipe.
Natural gas right now is really cheap, and building another gas turbine plant is relatively cheap. Any storage system not only has to be cheaper than natural gas for energy output but it also must make up for the cost of buying the energy and any losses it has. If prices do go negative then storage systems get paid to store energy, which is good for them. For energy prices to go negative the people producing it must be willing to pay, which is bad for them. If the same people own both the solar power and the storage then they'd have to be able to get both the production and storage cheaper than a natural gas power producer or they don't make any money. With the high prices of solar power right now, even with subsidies, I don't see this happening any time soon, perhaps not for decades.
This can definitely be disruptive to the utility industry but the reasons you've given don't wash.
You can say that but the economists that study this sort of thing tell me otherwise.
OMG, NO! Not cheap electricity! Anything but that! OH THE HUMANITY!
Solar panels cost money, if people cannot get a return on that investment then the solar power industry collapses. If you want to see solar power succeed then you might want to consider the validity of subsidies as a method of making solar power a viable technology.
I've seen a number of studies that tackle the limits of solar power from a number of angles, these include technical and economic.
A technical problem with solar power is that peak output is at noon but peak load is near sunset. Temperatures typically reach a maximum at about 4:00. People tend to go home to cook supper at about 5:00. Along with a few other factors that add to the electric load the viability of solar power peaks at about 30% of total production. Anything more and additional solar power can negatively affect the grid.
The economics are also problematic. If there is too much solar power then the price at solar production peaks can make the price go negative. That might seem nonsensical but if supply exceeds demand then there are people that would be willing to pay people to take their power just so that they don't have to go through the expensive process of shutting down power production to avoid the also expensive process of starting it back up once the sun goes down. Solar subsidies make this problem worse. The solar panel owners are paid subsidies by how much power they put on the grid, if the price is negative they still get paid the subsidy and if the subsidy covers the negative price then it's profitable. Again the estimates I've seen is that if solar power capacity exceeds about 30% these economic factors start to become a problem. In a free market this fixes itself but with mandates like this, and subsidies already in effect, the problem remains.
Those are just two examples on how too much solar can be problematic. Technologies like grid storage is not a solution because storage costs money and even if solar power were free this storage would have to be cheaper than things like wind, hydro, coal, natural gas, nuclear, or whatever else comes along. With nuclear, coal, natural gas (especially natural gas), hydro, and wind being so cheap the mandating of solar power on a market that's not ready for it is asking for disaster.
As terrible as it would be I'd feel a bit of schadenfreude if California sees blackouts because the solar panels overwhelmed the grid.
You want to tell me that can't happen? Consider this, with all the solar panels out there is it possible for the grid to see more energy coming in than going out. This means the grid will become unstable unless some of the solar panel capacity is disconnected. What mechanism is there to disconnect these panels? Who is going to see their personal income reduced from selling power so that the rest of the grid remains stable? This is the tragedy of the commons at work. The solution is not more government since that is the "commons" the tragedy warns us about. The solution is to let people chose, to let them take ownership. How is this done? I'm not sure. What I am quite sure about is that the solution would take more words than a Slashdot comment window would allow.
The same way a lot of small businesses in California are dealing with the number of business unfriendly mandates like this, they pack up and move to Arizona or Texas.
The population in California is growing but this is largely due to immigration, legal and otherwise. The people that have an education, speak fluent English, know a trade, and are generally employable and have employees, tend to leave for greener pastures in other states. The people left behind are not the same level of wage earners as those that leave.
California is going out of business. I'll be watching from a safe distance as it burns.
For people that find it hard enough to pay the rent even a small cost like this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. As pointed out in one of those articles from the summary the city would get greater carbon reductions and reduced housing costs if they only allowed for taller residential buildings in the city.
Taller buildings are more efficient buildings. Taller buildings means more people per area, reducing costs and spreading the tax burden. People would be happier, wealthier, "greener", and I'm having a hard time coming up with a down side here.
Having taller buildings does not mean people cannot still put solar panels on their roof. What this mandate does demonstrate is that solar power is not ready for the market yet. If it were then people would be putting up solar panels anyway.
If San Francisco wants to have a future free of fossil fuels then they need to consider nuclear power. A carbon free future is doomed to fail without nuclear power. Waiting for some future technology to save us means that global warming must not be a threat, since we'd have time to wait. It also means we'd be waiting for a train that might not come.
Oh, and nuclear power is cheaper than solar. That would help the poor too.
While this is an interesting experiment we'd need to see some sort of baseline to place any meaning on this. I propose walking around some nuclear power plants that didn't have a reactor core breach. I have a few more suggestions, like walking around a coal fired power plant, in a few of those big old granite buildings that governments like to construct for people to gather, some rocky beaches, and just some random homes.
I recall reading that the radiation levels in New York's Grand Central Terminal exceeds that considered acceptable by the Nuclear Regulatory Committee for a nuclear power plant. With regulations like that it's no wonder the nuclear power industry is in such a sad state today.
In my mind any energy plan that does not include nuclear power is going to fail. This is especially true if this energy plan includes a desire to reduce carbon output.
To those of you that claim nuclear power is too dangerous, too expensive, or too much whatever else I say that if this is true then global warming is not a threat. Besides hydro electric power nothing beats nuclear power on safety, price, availability, or reduction in carbon output. If global warming threatens the lives of billions then we can do nuclear power to save them even in the highly unlikely event that means another Chernobyl.
Wind, solar, and whatever else that is "green" just cannot provide the energy we need. Any reliance on some future technology to make them viable again means that global warming is not a threat. If we can wait 20 years for fusion to come along, meaning we keep burning coal until then, means that global warming is not a threat.
Since the US Senate has not passed a bill that includes support for nuclear power then they don't seem to believe that global warming is a threat. By "support" I don't mean subsidies, there are other ways to show support besides money. Requiring the US DOE to actually do their job and provide a path free from fossil fuels would be a start.
I've followed the efforts to renew the nuclear power industry for some time now and there are several people that claim to have nuclear reactor designs that can destroy nuclear waste from solid fuel nuclear power reactors. This waste is not from a reactor made to produce power but the reactors used for power and those to produce plutonium are quite similar.
If I understand the issue correctly it seems this waste is from the production of plutonium and contains some very nasty medium lived wastes. The short lived stuff would have decayed away long ago. Any long lived wastes are not likely any more of a hazard than common dirt. Even though medium lived wastes pose the greatest threat to human life it is also a problem that solves itself in time. After about 300 years this stuff isn't radioactive any more, or rather no more radioactive than anything else.
If these waste annihilating reactors can do what they claim, destroy radioactive waste while producing power, then this place sounds like a great place to test this theory. If it works then they've solved two problems, the waste on site can be destroyed and we've found a carbon free form of energy. If these waste annihilating reactors don't work then the amount of new radioactive waste we've added to the problem is minimal.
There are several forms of these waste annihilating reactors that people have designed so it's not like it's we just try it once and if it fails we don't have other options. We can keep trying different ways. There are people that are willing to pay money for this waste in an effort to have the chance to prove they can destroy it. If they are successful then this waste might in fact become a product they can sell as fuel rather than a cost. This waste might not have much value as fuel so that is unlikely but if it does work out then the waste is destroyed for all time. The other option is containing it carefully for the next 300 years or so until it decays away on its own.
They admit this is a problem that will cost billions of dollars over decades to clean up. Perhaps they can toss a few million dollars at these people that claim they can destroy this stuff in a reactor. This might save them billions of dollars in the future.
My guess is that since the space between the outer and inner walls of the tank is quite large a small leak could mean that the water has evaporated and is part of the air in that space. If I make further assumptions that in this space the humidity is controlled with desiccants to prevent rust then the water is contained in those desiccant materials.
I had to look up her name on IMDB and after reading her bio there I believe I recall what you are talking about, but then it's quite possible I am completely wrong. Before becoming an actress she was known in the industry for her work with Jim Henson as a Muppeteer. In an effort to distance herself from her work with Jim Henson she'd use her middle name when applying for acting roles. Of course she found success as an actress and her work with the Muppets is just a side note on IMDB.
Bill Gates is no doubt an intelligent and educated man, he is also no doubt acting in his own self interests. From where he sits he stands to benefit from more government spending on research since that is then research he does not have to fund himself but is also in a position to turn into products quickly. The internet is something that Gates did not see coming, and from what I recall from history he was either late to realize the impact it would have or perhaps even was dragged kicking and screaming into the internet age since the internet is something he could not control.
It is rare to see government funding result in something beneficial to mankind. Frankly it is rare to see any research result in anything beneficial. However there is a big difference between private and public funding. Private funding means someone with an idea has to convince someone that has amassed their wealth from smart business decisions, hard work, and perhaps a bit of luck, to hand over some money to make it happen, with the hope that it makes them wealthier. Public funding means convincing a US senator that won a popularity/beauty contest to get into office to hand over money they did not earn in the hope of not getting a product that can make a return on that investment but to buy enough votes to stay in office so that they can spend more money that they did not earn to buy more votes six years later.
In my mind people turn to government funds as a means of last resort. It tells me that these people were unable to make a business case to any one of thousands or millions of people with the money to fund their research. It tells me that these people either have a slim to none chance of success or are terrible at public relations, in either case they are unlikely to make a product that can sell.
What might benefit Gates and the nation more than more federal research funds is more freedom for people to invest as they wish. This can take the form of lowered taxes so that people have more money to invest in new business ventures and technologies. This can take the form of loosening restrictions on research.
I hear horror stories of people with terrible illnesses that want to take some experimental drugs but the FDA will not approve them. This lack of approval may be because of insufficient data on its effectiveness, known side effects, or whatever. I'd think that if the patient is given proper notification of the risks, and a physician approves, then the FDA need not be involved.
When it comes to energy research Gates should realized the roadblocks the government has put in place. Gates is a fan of nuclear power and if we want to see more research then we don't need government money, what we need is government permission. There's lots of money out there that people would like to invest in nuclear power but the government has so far forbidden much of it. People are willing to invest because nuclear power has the potential to make them much more in return.
Greed is not bad, it is a survival tactic. We can use greed to make the world a better place, because people like new stuff, a more comfortable life, etc. and are willing to spend money on it.
I know people will reply with the mention of nuclear power and greed by claiming we'd get nuclear power plants that will run for ten years and then explode, because that is what greedy people will do. I say, fuck off. No one is so greedy that they'd put their own profits at risk like that, especially if it's their neighborhood that could get irradiated in this failed nuclear power plant experiment. No one makes money doing that, except perhaps when the government is funding it. Take the government money out of it and it's the investors' money on the line, that will give us safe nuclear power. Remember that all the nuclear power plant disasters we've had were from power plants that passed government inspections. The worst of all, Chernobyl, was a government project from beginning to explosive end.
The first thing that came to mind is make them out of metal. Metals are infinitely recyclable, unlike paper or plastic. The other requirements seems to be met, rigidity, air tight, and compatible with the foil tops they use now.
I imagine the problem is cost. Common metals for food storage are aluminum, copper/brass, and steel. These metals are expensive. Cheaper metals, like lead, would be a big fail.
I believe the problem is less about finding a material that works but one that works and is as cheap as what they use now.
(a) Producing electricity from fossil fuels at large thermal generating plants and using that electricity to move a car is far more efficient than burning gasoline in a car to make a car move
That may be true but electric cars are expensive, have shorter range, and much longer recharge/refill times than gasoline. All of those combine to make electric vehicles very unattractive.
(b) The electricity system is likely to be powered increasingly by renewable sources of energy in the future.
You mean like nuclear? Anything else has a higher cost, higher carbon footprint, or both. Well, except perhaps hydro but we ran out of rivers worth a dam a long time ago.
This grid will be very expensive and very vulnerable.
To make renewable energy sources competitive requires a very large and expensive electric grid so that when the wind blows over the plains in Oklahoma it can keep the lights on in St. Louis. It also means that the setting sun on the west coast is keeping lights on where it's already dark on the east coast. If there happens to be a tornado in Kansas then this delicate balance is gone, those downed power lines mean even if the sun is shining and the wind blowing the power can't get to where it's needed.
If we build redundancies for such issues then costs go up. If we bury lines to keep the weather from damaging lines then costs go up. If the costs go up too much then wind and solar don't look so competitive.
Turning off residential air conditioning and such can manage the load but only to a point. Running enough power lines to make renewable energy work is certainly possible in theory for large land masses like the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and maybe smaller ones like Australia and Greenland. For islands, geographical or political, renewable energy will not work.
What does work is nuclear power. We have small modular nuclear power designs that are safe, inexpensive, and reliable. How do I know this? Because the US Navy figured this out decades ago, and the US Air Force came up with some better ideas not much later.
If we want to keep electricity cheap and reliable then we don't need massive "smart" grids, we need small "stupid" ones.
You can just replace coal with nuclear. We can do it at an assembly line with a pace of one GW power plant per week, or there about. We can build them in a shipyard as 100 ton building blocks. Barge the blocks to the construction site and start stacking up the blocks. If the US DOE gets up off of their thumbs we should have a prototype in five years and a functional assembly line less than five years after that.
While this won't get us off of fossil fuels in ten years it puts us on a path to do so in perhaps 100 years.
Why did people move from wood to coal? Candles and gas lamps to electric lights? Was there a shortage of wood available? This was quite likely in some cases.
While I admit to not having done a rigorous analysis of this topic I do recall from history class in college that electric lights were cheaper, safer, and easier to manage. Coal is energy dense and it doesn't take from the wood supply used for construction.
People moved to these new energy sources because they were better than what they had. Much like how the stone age didn't end for lack of stones.
If we want to see a shift away from fossil fuels then we need to have something that is cheaper, safer, and plentiful. This must also take into account the cost of changing the infrastructure. Some transitions are easier than others. Gas pipes in homes became conduit for electric wires, making that transition something that could be done without tearing walls open. Moving from wood to coal likely meant they could use the same boilers, just shovel in coal instead.
What won't be as easy is shifting gasoline and diesel fueled vehicles to whatever this professor thinks can replace them. We can replace coal with nuclear, that's not a big shift in infrastructure. Shifting away from natural gas for heating would take some time since people aren't going to throw away a working furnace on a whim. I presume this would be replaced with electricity, which likely means a greater electric load. Cars and trucks on the other hand cannot be just replaced with electric. Ethanol might be considered but only as long as it takes someone to do the math on how much crop land it would take to produce enough ethanol for every car to run from it.
One way out of this is to synthesize hydrocarbons using nuclear power. This would close the carbon loop since the carbon released in burning is recycled from the air to produce more hydrocarbons. The US Navy has been experimenting with this for a few years now. The change in infrastructure would be minimal but it would mean replacing every oil well and refinery with enough nuclear power plants and fuel synthesis plants. Unless the US Department of Energy starts handing out nuclear power operation licenses like never before then it cannot happen. I've done the math before and we'd need something like one new nuclear power plant coming online every month, perhaps more.
The bottleneck on this is regulation. I believe that it always was. The USA and many other nations could have built nuclear power plants like France did and free themselves from coal a long time ago. The costs to build a nuclear power plant today largely rides on appeasing the regulators, not in building a safe power plant. We know how to build a safe nuclear reactor, and we've known how to do that for decades.
I believe that humanity will reach a nuclear powered world, it's just a matter of when. It might happen in ten years because government policy makers listen to people like this professor. It might take one thousand years because we've run out of coal to burn. If we don't move to nuclear power then civilization will die. Energy is life. We can't live without it. If we don't move to nuclear power then we die. Well, not all of us will die. Those that remain will be hunter gatherers in tropical rain forests.
So then perhaps one might conclude it better to not have insurance at all and pay for everything in cash? If we can't trust the government, or the insurance companies, then perhaps it's best to leave these middlemen out.
I'm not saying hospitals have never had a data breach but at least I'd minimize the number of places that my data can be stolen from. It also makes the attacks much harder. Instead of attacking a big insurance company, or a government agency, the people that want health records would have to attack a hospital, where the number of records available would be smaller.
The climate crisis people just retire to their corner and whine. If the climate is a real problem, then we can't afford to ignore ideas that don't fit some secondary agenda. On the other hand, if we do rule them out, then maybe climate wasn't as bad a problem as some claimed.
You mean like nuclear power? I see this a lot, the claim is that global warming is the greatest threat to humanity, national security, whatever, and therefore we must have some radical plan to solve this. I then propose nuclear power and people go nuts, "we can't do that, people will die!" or some shit. Well people will die, we've established that. What we should to is make it so as few people as possible die and the people that survive can live a healthy and happy life. This is assuming of course that future nuclear power plants will blow up like Chernobyl did, which they won't.
Nuclear power has the best safety record of any power source we have. Big failures that happen once every thirty years or so make the news but little failures don't. By little failures I mean people falling from windmills and solar panels, people crushed to death in a coal mine, people suffocating from a natural gas leak, or people run over by trains and trucks carrying coal, oil, and ethanol. I'm not saying people won't die from nuclear power, it has its industrial accidents like any other industry, but fewer people would die if we used nuclear power.
Instead of real solutions like nuclear power we have distractions like wind, solar, and ethanol. Instead of actually solving the problem we have dictators with their hands out at the UN demanding money from the free nations of the world because the poor people of their nation are harmed by the carbon released by the wealthy free nations. Never mind that this money would never actually reach the people harmed, it would just buy them a bigger palace to live in. Never mind that these people would be much better off with coal power to light and air condition their homes, and things like clean water to drink and sewage treatment plants.
The problem isn't that these people are seeing sea level rise, or more extreme weather events. The problem is that they don't have the freedom to build a better life without some war lord coming along to burn it all down.
Severe punishment is not a deterrent. Knowledge that one will almost certainly be caught is a deterrent.
Getting caught is only half of it. They must face punishment and quickly. Word spreads among the criminal community and that is a deterrent. Dead people tell no tales, and they don't serve as a warning.
Every so often I see on one of those news programs where they go into a prison and talk to people on death row and/or serving life in prison. I wondered why they did this. It was only fairly recently I realized this. People don't see prisons, they don't see prisoners. I'm a rare person that has worked inside a prison with convicted felons and not have committed a felony myself. (I am a contracted state employee, I work on the computers the prisoners use.)
People need to know that people do get punished for breaking the law. We also need to know what those conditions are. We need to know both that they are treated well enough and that it's still not a pleasant place to be.
All too often criminals will get caught but there is not enough prison space for them. What happens then is that petty criminals keep up with their petty crimes because they never see the inside of a prison. They get probation after probation. It's only when they cross a certain line that they get confinement. We can thank the "war on some drugs" and mandatory minimums for much of this.
In my mind no prison sentence should exceed five years for a single crime. Getting 15 years in prison for having a couple doobies in a pocket is insane, first because marijuana possession should not be a crime, and second because people convicted of aggravated assault might get only 10 years.
One argument against a five year maximum is that some people just need to go away for a long time. Okay, then charge them with multiple crimes. It's not like we don't have enough crimes on the books to find something. I remember a guy that broke into a house, tied up the family, raped the women, and then set the house on fire. Only the father survived by tearing through his restraints enough to crawl out of the burning house. So let's add that up, five counts unlawful imprisonment, four counts murder in the first, one count attempted murder, two counts rape, one count arson. If convicted on all crimes that thug is effectively getting a life sentence.
Prison also needs to be an unpleasant experience. They should not get to see sports on TV. They can read it in the newspaper. If they behave themselves then they can listen to it on the radio. They need to learn a trade and have a job by the time they get out. I think that by giving the incentive of getting out early they'd at least try to learn and find a job.
People speed and 99 times out of 100 they don't get caught.
That brings to mind another thing. Don't punish released criminals for trying to protect themselves and their families. By that I mean this prohibition on convicted felons from possessing firearms is cruel and unusual in my mind. It is also why I believe that that there are so many criminals returning to prison. Certainly some criminals possess firearms to return to crime but if one is truly reformed in prison then we should allow them to own a shotgun to go hunt with their children. If they are no longer a threat to the point that we can release them from confinement then we can allow them to keep a pistol on the nightstand while they sleep in their crappy apartment.
Tell me which is worse, getting caught armed by the police and doing another ten years in prison or getting caught unarmed by a home invader and ending up dead? This is precisely the dilemma the Second Amendment was created to avoid.
You're implying that there are software engineering jobs for which security is somehow not a required skill.
I'm quite certain I did not imply that, I stated it quite clearly and plainly. There are many software development jobs where training in cyber security is not required.
Also, I did not claim to give a complete list of all ways to write secure software. I also did not claim to give all vectors by which a program can be attacked.
one would have to be fairly knowledgeable about information security in order to truthfully make that claim.
I am knowledgeable on computer security. I have several IT security certifications and took training in several more. I have written code for some very secure systems, the kind that the government asks a lot of questions before they let you look at their software requirements.
As a rule, if you are writing software, you ought to be thinking about security.
No doubt, because that is just good software practice. As such this should be taught as part of writing good code, we don't need separate courses on information security. When information security rises to the level of stopping a determined attacker then I'd think that should be part of the on the job training, an optional course or set of courses for an undergrad, or a separate field of study perhaps at the graduate level. We have such programs at many schools, typically called "information assurance" or similar.
What if the rapist brought a gun, but didn't plan to use it until the victim showed hers? Now she's dead.
I hear this a lot, the criminal will just kill you, or take your gun and use it against you, or give them what they want and they won't hurt you.
So, we tell women to disarm themselves because like you say the thug will only rape them and let them live. Then what is to stop them? What kind of world would that be? We know what that world is like, Jamaica. Jamaica has some very strict gun control laws. I recall reading a story about life in Jamaica and there are crime stats to back it up. In some parts of Jamaica half of the population does not know who their father is because rape is so rampant. That story I read is that if a woman was not raped at least once in their teens then they'd be called a "mule", a reference to a mule being unable to reproduce and being unattractive. That idea that a woman would just end up dead if they carry a gun is asinine. If the thugs know that a woman cannot fight back then they have no fear. Put a little fear in their hearts and they are much less likely to commit crimes. Also, if a thug waits until a woman shows a gun before they use their own then they must rely on the fact that they are faster on the trigger every time, it takes only one woman to get a good shot in first to end this one thug.
Also, a disarmed woman is relying on the mercy of the thug to let them live. They don't know if the thug will kill them or not. Anyone that is assaulting a woman like that should face potentially lethal force from the woman.
So give them what they want and they won't hurt you, but isn't getting raped rather hurtful? If they know a particular woman will not fight back and submit every time then what is to stop that woman from getting raped repeatedly?
You are one sadistic fucker if you think that a woman should not carry a gun and just allow themselves to get raped.
Oh, and Jamaica has a serious murder problem too. Gun control will do that. So you have some sick in the head thugs out there that get their jollies by raping, murdering, and thieving, and they do so in relative safety because few people own guns. Because so few people learn how to properly use a gun at a young age they have to import police officers because the locals can't hit the side of barn from the inside.
Sanitizing unit inputs is a beginning, but it's not the end of secure software design.
Of course. That is why the basics of well written software should be part of the assignment but not overshadow it. In the beginning a student should be, for example, taught things like how to grab input from a keyboard and then the next step should be how to check for invalid input. Then show how to filter out bad characters. Then more, and more, and so on.
Things like validating inputs should be taught from the start and be a part of everything that the student writes. As the student progresses to more complex programs then the instructor should expect more in the ways of proper coding techniques, documentation, and so forth. We don't need to have a class on cyber security (and I'm starting to hate that term) but I'd think it is appropriate to instruct students on how to do some basics of writing good code from the very beginning and keep that as an aspect of writing code at every level of their education.
The very subtle interactions between portions of code that you describe may be something best left for on the job training, graduate school level courses in cyber security and/or quality control, or just for those students that choose to emphasize in that aspect of programming as an undergrad. This is not something that I feel all students in computer science need to know at an undergrad level.
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Right, because a place far from any electrical grid, nuclear power, natural gas, or hydro electric plant finds it suitable to put up solar panels the usefulness of solar power is proven for those that do have access to an electrical grid, nuclear, natural gas, etc. I think you assume too much.
If photovoltaic power is so mainstream then there would be no need to mandate its use. Think about that for a minute. Solar power is far from mainstream, the fact you had to pull Antarctica out as an example proves my point.
1) energy storage doesn't have to be expensive and in many cases *isn't.
I didn't say it was expensive, I said it costs money. If you believe that energy storage is free then I suggest you go back to school and/or put down your crack pipe.
Natural gas right now is really cheap, and building another gas turbine plant is relatively cheap. Any storage system not only has to be cheaper than natural gas for energy output but it also must make up for the cost of buying the energy and any losses it has. If prices do go negative then storage systems get paid to store energy, which is good for them. For energy prices to go negative the people producing it must be willing to pay, which is bad for them. If the same people own both the solar power and the storage then they'd have to be able to get both the production and storage cheaper than a natural gas power producer or they don't make any money. With the high prices of solar power right now, even with subsidies, I don't see this happening any time soon, perhaps not for decades.
This can definitely be disruptive to the utility industry but the reasons you've given don't wash.
You can say that but the economists that study this sort of thing tell me otherwise.
OMG, NO! Not cheap electricity! Anything but that! OH THE HUMANITY!
Solar panels cost money, if people cannot get a return on that investment then the solar power industry collapses. If you want to see solar power succeed then you might want to consider the validity of subsidies as a method of making solar power a viable technology.
I've seen a number of studies that tackle the limits of solar power from a number of angles, these include technical and economic.
A technical problem with solar power is that peak output is at noon but peak load is near sunset. Temperatures typically reach a maximum at about 4:00. People tend to go home to cook supper at about 5:00. Along with a few other factors that add to the electric load the viability of solar power peaks at about 30% of total production. Anything more and additional solar power can negatively affect the grid.
The economics are also problematic. If there is too much solar power then the price at solar production peaks can make the price go negative. That might seem nonsensical but if supply exceeds demand then there are people that would be willing to pay people to take their power just so that they don't have to go through the expensive process of shutting down power production to avoid the also expensive process of starting it back up once the sun goes down. Solar subsidies make this problem worse. The solar panel owners are paid subsidies by how much power they put on the grid, if the price is negative they still get paid the subsidy and if the subsidy covers the negative price then it's profitable. Again the estimates I've seen is that if solar power capacity exceeds about 30% these economic factors start to become a problem. In a free market this fixes itself but with mandates like this, and subsidies already in effect, the problem remains.
Those are just two examples on how too much solar can be problematic. Technologies like grid storage is not a solution because storage costs money and even if solar power were free this storage would have to be cheaper than things like wind, hydro, coal, natural gas, nuclear, or whatever else comes along. With nuclear, coal, natural gas (especially natural gas), hydro, and wind being so cheap the mandating of solar power on a market that's not ready for it is asking for disaster.
As terrible as it would be I'd feel a bit of schadenfreude if California sees blackouts because the solar panels overwhelmed the grid.
You want to tell me that can't happen? Consider this, with all the solar panels out there is it possible for the grid to see more energy coming in than going out. This means the grid will become unstable unless some of the solar panel capacity is disconnected. What mechanism is there to disconnect these panels? Who is going to see their personal income reduced from selling power so that the rest of the grid remains stable? This is the tragedy of the commons at work. The solution is not more government since that is the "commons" the tragedy warns us about. The solution is to let people chose, to let them take ownership. How is this done? I'm not sure. What I am quite sure about is that the solution would take more words than a Slashdot comment window would allow.
The same way a lot of small businesses in California are dealing with the number of business unfriendly mandates like this, they pack up and move to Arizona or Texas.
The population in California is growing but this is largely due to immigration, legal and otherwise. The people that have an education, speak fluent English, know a trade, and are generally employable and have employees, tend to leave for greener pastures in other states. The people left behind are not the same level of wage earners as those that leave.
California is going out of business. I'll be watching from a safe distance as it burns.
Why do you hate poor people?
For people that find it hard enough to pay the rent even a small cost like this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. As pointed out in one of those articles from the summary the city would get greater carbon reductions and reduced housing costs if they only allowed for taller residential buildings in the city.
Taller buildings are more efficient buildings. Taller buildings means more people per area, reducing costs and spreading the tax burden. People would be happier, wealthier, "greener", and I'm having a hard time coming up with a down side here.
Having taller buildings does not mean people cannot still put solar panels on their roof. What this mandate does demonstrate is that solar power is not ready for the market yet. If it were then people would be putting up solar panels anyway.
If San Francisco wants to have a future free of fossil fuels then they need to consider nuclear power. A carbon free future is doomed to fail without nuclear power. Waiting for some future technology to save us means that global warming must not be a threat, since we'd have time to wait. It also means we'd be waiting for a train that might not come.
Oh, and nuclear power is cheaper than solar. That would help the poor too.
While this is an interesting experiment we'd need to see some sort of baseline to place any meaning on this. I propose walking around some nuclear power plants that didn't have a reactor core breach. I have a few more suggestions, like walking around a coal fired power plant, in a few of those big old granite buildings that governments like to construct for people to gather, some rocky beaches, and just some random homes.
I recall reading that the radiation levels in New York's Grand Central Terminal exceeds that considered acceptable by the Nuclear Regulatory Committee for a nuclear power plant. With regulations like that it's no wonder the nuclear power industry is in such a sad state today.
In my mind any energy plan that does not include nuclear power is going to fail. This is especially true if this energy plan includes a desire to reduce carbon output.
To those of you that claim nuclear power is too dangerous, too expensive, or too much whatever else I say that if this is true then global warming is not a threat. Besides hydro electric power nothing beats nuclear power on safety, price, availability, or reduction in carbon output. If global warming threatens the lives of billions then we can do nuclear power to save them even in the highly unlikely event that means another Chernobyl.
Wind, solar, and whatever else that is "green" just cannot provide the energy we need. Any reliance on some future technology to make them viable again means that global warming is not a threat. If we can wait 20 years for fusion to come along, meaning we keep burning coal until then, means that global warming is not a threat.
Since the US Senate has not passed a bill that includes support for nuclear power then they don't seem to believe that global warming is a threat. By "support" I don't mean subsidies, there are other ways to show support besides money. Requiring the US DOE to actually do their job and provide a path free from fossil fuels would be a start.
I've followed the efforts to renew the nuclear power industry for some time now and there are several people that claim to have nuclear reactor designs that can destroy nuclear waste from solid fuel nuclear power reactors. This waste is not from a reactor made to produce power but the reactors used for power and those to produce plutonium are quite similar.
If I understand the issue correctly it seems this waste is from the production of plutonium and contains some very nasty medium lived wastes. The short lived stuff would have decayed away long ago. Any long lived wastes are not likely any more of a hazard than common dirt. Even though medium lived wastes pose the greatest threat to human life it is also a problem that solves itself in time. After about 300 years this stuff isn't radioactive any more, or rather no more radioactive than anything else.
If these waste annihilating reactors can do what they claim, destroy radioactive waste while producing power, then this place sounds like a great place to test this theory. If it works then they've solved two problems, the waste on site can be destroyed and we've found a carbon free form of energy. If these waste annihilating reactors don't work then the amount of new radioactive waste we've added to the problem is minimal.
There are several forms of these waste annihilating reactors that people have designed so it's not like it's we just try it once and if it fails we don't have other options. We can keep trying different ways. There are people that are willing to pay money for this waste in an effort to have the chance to prove they can destroy it. If they are successful then this waste might in fact become a product they can sell as fuel rather than a cost. This waste might not have much value as fuel so that is unlikely but if it does work out then the waste is destroyed for all time. The other option is containing it carefully for the next 300 years or so until it decays away on its own.
They admit this is a problem that will cost billions of dollars over decades to clean up. Perhaps they can toss a few million dollars at these people that claim they can destroy this stuff in a reactor. This might save them billions of dollars in the future.
Wait... If it's sealed, how does it dry out?
My guess is that since the space between the outer and inner walls of the tank is quite large a small leak could mean that the water has evaporated and is part of the air in that space. If I make further assumptions that in this space the humidity is controlled with desiccants to prevent rust then the water is contained in those desiccant materials.
I had to look up her name on IMDB and after reading her bio there I believe I recall what you are talking about, but then it's quite possible I am completely wrong. Before becoming an actress she was known in the industry for her work with Jim Henson as a Muppeteer. In an effort to distance herself from her work with Jim Henson she'd use her middle name when applying for acting roles. Of course she found success as an actress and her work with the Muppets is just a side note on IMDB.
Bill Gates is no doubt an intelligent and educated man, he is also no doubt acting in his own self interests. From where he sits he stands to benefit from more government spending on research since that is then research he does not have to fund himself but is also in a position to turn into products quickly. The internet is something that Gates did not see coming, and from what I recall from history he was either late to realize the impact it would have or perhaps even was dragged kicking and screaming into the internet age since the internet is something he could not control.
It is rare to see government funding result in something beneficial to mankind. Frankly it is rare to see any research result in anything beneficial. However there is a big difference between private and public funding. Private funding means someone with an idea has to convince someone that has amassed their wealth from smart business decisions, hard work, and perhaps a bit of luck, to hand over some money to make it happen, with the hope that it makes them wealthier. Public funding means convincing a US senator that won a popularity/beauty contest to get into office to hand over money they did not earn in the hope of not getting a product that can make a return on that investment but to buy enough votes to stay in office so that they can spend more money that they did not earn to buy more votes six years later.
In my mind people turn to government funds as a means of last resort. It tells me that these people were unable to make a business case to any one of thousands or millions of people with the money to fund their research. It tells me that these people either have a slim to none chance of success or are terrible at public relations, in either case they are unlikely to make a product that can sell.
What might benefit Gates and the nation more than more federal research funds is more freedom for people to invest as they wish. This can take the form of lowered taxes so that people have more money to invest in new business ventures and technologies. This can take the form of loosening restrictions on research.
I hear horror stories of people with terrible illnesses that want to take some experimental drugs but the FDA will not approve them. This lack of approval may be because of insufficient data on its effectiveness, known side effects, or whatever. I'd think that if the patient is given proper notification of the risks, and a physician approves, then the FDA need not be involved.
When it comes to energy research Gates should realized the roadblocks the government has put in place. Gates is a fan of nuclear power and if we want to see more research then we don't need government money, what we need is government permission. There's lots of money out there that people would like to invest in nuclear power but the government has so far forbidden much of it. People are willing to invest because nuclear power has the potential to make them much more in return.
Greed is not bad, it is a survival tactic. We can use greed to make the world a better place, because people like new stuff, a more comfortable life, etc. and are willing to spend money on it.
I know people will reply with the mention of nuclear power and greed by claiming we'd get nuclear power plants that will run for ten years and then explode, because that is what greedy people will do. I say, fuck off. No one is so greedy that they'd put their own profits at risk like that, especially if it's their neighborhood that could get irradiated in this failed nuclear power plant experiment. No one makes money doing that, except perhaps when the government is funding it. Take the government money out of it and it's the investors' money on the line, that will give us safe nuclear power. Remember that all the nuclear power plant disasters we've had were from power plants that passed government inspections. The worst of all, Chernobyl, was a government project from beginning to explosive end.
The first thing that came to mind is make them out of metal. Metals are infinitely recyclable, unlike paper or plastic. The other requirements seems to be met, rigidity, air tight, and compatible with the foil tops they use now.
I imagine the problem is cost. Common metals for food storage are aluminum, copper/brass, and steel. These metals are expensive. Cheaper metals, like lead, would be a big fail.
I believe the problem is less about finding a material that works but one that works and is as cheap as what they use now.
(a) Producing electricity from fossil fuels at large thermal generating plants and using that electricity to move a car is far more efficient than burning gasoline in a car to make a car move
That may be true but electric cars are expensive, have shorter range, and much longer recharge/refill times than gasoline. All of those combine to make electric vehicles very unattractive.
(b) The electricity system is likely to be powered increasingly by renewable sources of energy in the future.
You mean like nuclear? Anything else has a higher cost, higher carbon footprint, or both. Well, except perhaps hydro but we ran out of rivers worth a dam a long time ago.
This grid will be very expensive and very vulnerable.
To make renewable energy sources competitive requires a very large and expensive electric grid so that when the wind blows over the plains in Oklahoma it can keep the lights on in St. Louis. It also means that the setting sun on the west coast is keeping lights on where it's already dark on the east coast. If there happens to be a tornado in Kansas then this delicate balance is gone, those downed power lines mean even if the sun is shining and the wind blowing the power can't get to where it's needed.
If we build redundancies for such issues then costs go up. If we bury lines to keep the weather from damaging lines then costs go up. If the costs go up too much then wind and solar don't look so competitive.
Turning off residential air conditioning and such can manage the load but only to a point. Running enough power lines to make renewable energy work is certainly possible in theory for large land masses like the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and maybe smaller ones like Australia and Greenland. For islands, geographical or political, renewable energy will not work.
What does work is nuclear power. We have small modular nuclear power designs that are safe, inexpensive, and reliable. How do I know this? Because the US Navy figured this out decades ago, and the US Air Force came up with some better ideas not much later.
If we want to keep electricity cheap and reliable then we don't need massive "smart" grids, we need small "stupid" ones.
I was actually just reading on how this can be done.
http://thorconpower.com/docs/d...
You can just replace coal with nuclear. We can do it at an assembly line with a pace of one GW power plant per week, or there about. We can build them in a shipyard as 100 ton building blocks. Barge the blocks to the construction site and start stacking up the blocks. If the US DOE gets up off of their thumbs we should have a prototype in five years and a functional assembly line less than five years after that.
While this won't get us off of fossil fuels in ten years it puts us on a path to do so in perhaps 100 years.
Why did people move from wood to coal? Candles and gas lamps to electric lights? Was there a shortage of wood available? This was quite likely in some cases.
While I admit to not having done a rigorous analysis of this topic I do recall from history class in college that electric lights were cheaper, safer, and easier to manage. Coal is energy dense and it doesn't take from the wood supply used for construction.
People moved to these new energy sources because they were better than what they had. Much like how the stone age didn't end for lack of stones.
If we want to see a shift away from fossil fuels then we need to have something that is cheaper, safer, and plentiful. This must also take into account the cost of changing the infrastructure. Some transitions are easier than others. Gas pipes in homes became conduit for electric wires, making that transition something that could be done without tearing walls open. Moving from wood to coal likely meant they could use the same boilers, just shovel in coal instead.
What won't be as easy is shifting gasoline and diesel fueled vehicles to whatever this professor thinks can replace them. We can replace coal with nuclear, that's not a big shift in infrastructure. Shifting away from natural gas for heating would take some time since people aren't going to throw away a working furnace on a whim. I presume this would be replaced with electricity, which likely means a greater electric load. Cars and trucks on the other hand cannot be just replaced with electric. Ethanol might be considered but only as long as it takes someone to do the math on how much crop land it would take to produce enough ethanol for every car to run from it.
One way out of this is to synthesize hydrocarbons using nuclear power. This would close the carbon loop since the carbon released in burning is recycled from the air to produce more hydrocarbons. The US Navy has been experimenting with this for a few years now. The change in infrastructure would be minimal but it would mean replacing every oil well and refinery with enough nuclear power plants and fuel synthesis plants. Unless the US Department of Energy starts handing out nuclear power operation licenses like never before then it cannot happen. I've done the math before and we'd need something like one new nuclear power plant coming online every month, perhaps more.
The bottleneck on this is regulation. I believe that it always was. The USA and many other nations could have built nuclear power plants like France did and free themselves from coal a long time ago. The costs to build a nuclear power plant today largely rides on appeasing the regulators, not in building a safe power plant. We know how to build a safe nuclear reactor, and we've known how to do that for decades.
I believe that humanity will reach a nuclear powered world, it's just a matter of when. It might happen in ten years because government policy makers listen to people like this professor. It might take one thousand years because we've run out of coal to burn. If we don't move to nuclear power then civilization will die. Energy is life. We can't live without it. If we don't move to nuclear power then we die. Well, not all of us will die. Those that remain will be hunter gatherers in tropical rain forests.
So then perhaps one might conclude it better to not have insurance at all and pay for everything in cash? If we can't trust the government, or the insurance companies, then perhaps it's best to leave these middlemen out.
I'm not saying hospitals have never had a data breach but at least I'd minimize the number of places that my data can be stolen from. It also makes the attacks much harder. Instead of attacking a big insurance company, or a government agency, the people that want health records would have to attack a hospital, where the number of records available would be smaller.
The climate crisis people just retire to their corner and whine. If the climate is a real problem, then we can't afford to ignore ideas that don't fit some secondary agenda. On the other hand, if we do rule them out, then maybe climate wasn't as bad a problem as some claimed.
You mean like nuclear power? I see this a lot, the claim is that global warming is the greatest threat to humanity, national security, whatever, and therefore we must have some radical plan to solve this. I then propose nuclear power and people go nuts, "we can't do that, people will die!" or some shit. Well people will die, we've established that. What we should to is make it so as few people as possible die and the people that survive can live a healthy and happy life. This is assuming of course that future nuclear power plants will blow up like Chernobyl did, which they won't.
Nuclear power has the best safety record of any power source we have. Big failures that happen once every thirty years or so make the news but little failures don't. By little failures I mean people falling from windmills and solar panels, people crushed to death in a coal mine, people suffocating from a natural gas leak, or people run over by trains and trucks carrying coal, oil, and ethanol. I'm not saying people won't die from nuclear power, it has its industrial accidents like any other industry, but fewer people would die if we used nuclear power.
Instead of real solutions like nuclear power we have distractions like wind, solar, and ethanol. Instead of actually solving the problem we have dictators with their hands out at the UN demanding money from the free nations of the world because the poor people of their nation are harmed by the carbon released by the wealthy free nations. Never mind that this money would never actually reach the people harmed, it would just buy them a bigger palace to live in. Never mind that these people would be much better off with coal power to light and air condition their homes, and things like clean water to drink and sewage treatment plants.
The problem isn't that these people are seeing sea level rise, or more extreme weather events. The problem is that they don't have the freedom to build a better life without some war lord coming along to burn it all down.
Or maybe their car was merely convenient. The closest one without a car alarm but still with tires worth money on the grey market.
Just nuke them from orbit, just to be sure.
Severe punishment is not a deterrent.
Knowledge that one will almost certainly be caught is a deterrent.
Getting caught is only half of it. They must face punishment and quickly. Word spreads among the criminal community and that is a deterrent. Dead people tell no tales, and they don't serve as a warning.
Every so often I see on one of those news programs where they go into a prison and talk to people on death row and/or serving life in prison. I wondered why they did this. It was only fairly recently I realized this. People don't see prisons, they don't see prisoners. I'm a rare person that has worked inside a prison with convicted felons and not have committed a felony myself. (I am a contracted state employee, I work on the computers the prisoners use.)
People need to know that people do get punished for breaking the law. We also need to know what those conditions are. We need to know both that they are treated well enough and that it's still not a pleasant place to be.
All too often criminals will get caught but there is not enough prison space for them. What happens then is that petty criminals keep up with their petty crimes because they never see the inside of a prison. They get probation after probation. It's only when they cross a certain line that they get confinement. We can thank the "war on some drugs" and mandatory minimums for much of this.
In my mind no prison sentence should exceed five years for a single crime. Getting 15 years in prison for having a couple doobies in a pocket is insane, first because marijuana possession should not be a crime, and second because people convicted of aggravated assault might get only 10 years.
One argument against a five year maximum is that some people just need to go away for a long time. Okay, then charge them with multiple crimes. It's not like we don't have enough crimes on the books to find something. I remember a guy that broke into a house, tied up the family, raped the women, and then set the house on fire. Only the father survived by tearing through his restraints enough to crawl out of the burning house. So let's add that up, five counts unlawful imprisonment, four counts murder in the first, one count attempted murder, two counts rape, one count arson. If convicted on all crimes that thug is effectively getting a life sentence.
Prison also needs to be an unpleasant experience. They should not get to see sports on TV. They can read it in the newspaper. If they behave themselves then they can listen to it on the radio. They need to learn a trade and have a job by the time they get out. I think that by giving the incentive of getting out early they'd at least try to learn and find a job.
People speed and 99 times out of 100 they don't get caught.
That brings to mind another thing. Don't punish released criminals for trying to protect themselves and their families. By that I mean this prohibition on convicted felons from possessing firearms is cruel and unusual in my mind. It is also why I believe that that there are so many criminals returning to prison. Certainly some criminals possess firearms to return to crime but if one is truly reformed in prison then we should allow them to own a shotgun to go hunt with their children. If they are no longer a threat to the point that we can release them from confinement then we can allow them to keep a pistol on the nightstand while they sleep in their crappy apartment.
Tell me which is worse, getting caught armed by the police and doing another ten years in prison or getting caught unarmed by a home invader and ending up dead? This is precisely the dilemma the Second Amendment was created to avoid.
You're implying that there are software engineering jobs for which security is somehow not a required skill.
I'm quite certain I did not imply that, I stated it quite clearly and plainly. There are many software development jobs where training in cyber security is not required.
Also, I did not claim to give a complete list of all ways to write secure software. I also did not claim to give all vectors by which a program can be attacked.
one would have to be fairly knowledgeable about information security in order to truthfully make that claim.
I am knowledgeable on computer security. I have several IT security certifications and took training in several more. I have written code for some very secure systems, the kind that the government asks a lot of questions before they let you look at their software requirements.
As a rule, if you are writing software, you ought to be thinking about security.
No doubt, because that is just good software practice. As such this should be taught as part of writing good code, we don't need separate courses on information security. When information security rises to the level of stopping a determined attacker then I'd think that should be part of the on the job training, an optional course or set of courses for an undergrad, or a separate field of study perhaps at the graduate level. We have such programs at many schools, typically called "information assurance" or similar.
What if the rapist brought a gun, but didn't plan to use it until the victim showed hers? Now she's dead.
I hear this a lot, the criminal will just kill you, or take your gun and use it against you, or give them what they want and they won't hurt you.
So, we tell women to disarm themselves because like you say the thug will only rape them and let them live. Then what is to stop them? What kind of world would that be? We know what that world is like, Jamaica. Jamaica has some very strict gun control laws. I recall reading a story about life in Jamaica and there are crime stats to back it up. In some parts of Jamaica half of the population does not know who their father is because rape is so rampant. That story I read is that if a woman was not raped at least once in their teens then they'd be called a "mule", a reference to a mule being unable to reproduce and being unattractive. That idea that a woman would just end up dead if they carry a gun is asinine. If the thugs know that a woman cannot fight back then they have no fear. Put a little fear in their hearts and they are much less likely to commit crimes. Also, if a thug waits until a woman shows a gun before they use their own then they must rely on the fact that they are faster on the trigger every time, it takes only one woman to get a good shot in first to end this one thug.
Also, a disarmed woman is relying on the mercy of the thug to let them live. They don't know if the thug will kill them or not. Anyone that is assaulting a woman like that should face potentially lethal force from the woman.
So give them what they want and they won't hurt you, but isn't getting raped rather hurtful? If they know a particular woman will not fight back and submit every time then what is to stop that woman from getting raped repeatedly?
You are one sadistic fucker if you think that a woman should not carry a gun and just allow themselves to get raped.
Oh, and Jamaica has a serious murder problem too. Gun control will do that. So you have some sick in the head thugs out there that get their jollies by raping, murdering, and thieving, and they do so in relative safety because few people own guns. Because so few people learn how to properly use a gun at a young age they have to import police officers because the locals can't hit the side of barn from the inside.
Sanitizing unit inputs is a beginning, but it's not the end of secure software design.
Of course. That is why the basics of well written software should be part of the assignment but not overshadow it. In the beginning a student should be, for example, taught things like how to grab input from a keyboard and then the next step should be how to check for invalid input. Then show how to filter out bad characters. Then more, and more, and so on.
Things like validating inputs should be taught from the start and be a part of everything that the student writes. As the student progresses to more complex programs then the instructor should expect more in the ways of proper coding techniques, documentation, and so forth. We don't need to have a class on cyber security (and I'm starting to hate that term) but I'd think it is appropriate to instruct students on how to do some basics of writing good code from the very beginning and keep that as an aspect of writing code at every level of their education.
The very subtle interactions between portions of code that you describe may be something best left for on the job training, graduate school level courses in cyber security and/or quality control, or just for those students that choose to emphasize in that aspect of programming as an undergrad. This is not something that I feel all students in computer science need to know at an undergrad level.