Right, he's ending the policy now that he's had three years in office. I'd be impressed if he did this in his first 100 days, not when he's running for a second term and his polling numbers are under water.
Still pretty sure there's plenty of blame to go around. This administration has not been very forthcoming when it comes to things like tax payers' money flushed down the toilet propping up "green" companies, where bailout money has been spent, how American made weapons are ending up in the hands of illegal alien murderers, and why there are so many illegal aliens in this country in the first place.
This administration has had ample opportunity to explain its actions and policies to Congress and the people (but I repeat myself) but has chose to delay, obfuscate, and outright lie instead.
Exactly. I believe this is precisely what is happening right now with the "Operation Fast and Furious" scandal. It seems that the House Oversight Committee has the nasty habit of asking the right questions of the right people and knowing precisely what documents to look for. They already know the answers, most of them anyway, since there have been numerous agents within BATFE and Border Patrol that have come forward and fed them information on the gun walking operation.
It seems that numerous people in Congress are giving the DOJ just enough rope to hang themselves. The DOJ is really getting beat up over this. It seems that people in State and Homeland Security were involved as well. The DOJ coming up with this rule to allow them to keep documents secret seems to be an attempt to contain the damage.
I just have to wonder, do they really think they they have the authority to deny these documents to Congress? Can they "lie" to the House Oversight Committee about the existence of documents? I would imagine that they can keep certain information from the public but they cannot keep the documents from Congress for long. These departments exist because of an act of Congress, if they get too far out of line then Congress can make them disappear. I believe that DOJ was reminded of this at some point since they backed off on this suicidal policy change.
Of course Obama is to blame. Just because other Presidents have done the same just means all of them are to blame. Obama has the authority to end bad precedent set by his predecessors. By not doing so he shares in the blame.
If you read the fine article (I know, this is Slashdot) you'd have seen the part where the waste these reactors produce are considered nuclear waste for hundreds of years, not thousands. Also, every thorium reactor design I am aware of is capable of "burning" what would otherwise be considered waste from just about every other reactor operating right now. Not only do these reactors produce less waste than previous designs (since the half-life is orders of magnitude shorter) they will use the waste from previous designs as fuel.
NOT building new nuclear power plants is insane. This is especially true for a country rich in thorium reserve and lacking in coal, oil, and natural gas like India. It's nearly impossible to run heavy industry on wind and solar power. If one wants things like ships, planes, cars, trains, bulldozers, tractors, cranes, and so on needed for a modern economy one needs a power source that is up to that task.
I recall video of a physician in Africa talking about how the solar panels he had for his clinic produced only enough power to run either the lights or the refrigerator. Sure, he could get more solar panels but solar panels are very expensive. The way he put it was that he described not having access to oil or coal (and I assume nuclear would fit as well but these are people that still have a long way to go to get to even India's standard of living) was "suicide". Without coal or nuclear power they would not have refrigeration for food and medicine. Without that refrigeration even the slightest interruption in the food supply chain, or medical supply chain, meant that people died.
Nuclear power is safe, abundant, (relatively) cheap, and has a smaller carbon footprint than even solar and wind. I agree that the nuclear waste problem is not going away. What we can do is create reactors that produce less waste, burn up some of the existing waste, until we can find a more permanent solution to our energy problems. I believe that at some point in my lifetime we will see fusion power become viable. Even if we do see fusion power in the next fifty years building more nuclear power plants NOW means that much less pollution from coal power until then.
Or are we calling "climate change" this week. It's so hard to keep up.
Let's assume for the moment that: - The Earth is warming. - Global warming is bad for us. - The primary cause is human produced CO2.
Let's now talk about solutions. Let's talk about solutions that people can support even if they are skeptical of global warming. I propose nuclear power.
Nuclear power has the lowest carbon footprint of any electric power source save hydroelectric. Nuclear power is a power source that we can produce ourselves, that means jobs. I seem to recall a few mentions of unemployment problems in this country on the radio lately. It also means that "electric" cars are no longer powered by coal. (I have to wonder how much carbon is really saved in a coal fired electric vehicle vs. a similarly sized and equipped gasoline or diesel fuel powered vehicle.)
Nuclear power should appeal to the economists not only because of domestic jobs but also because it means less money shipped outside our borders for energy that we could be producing ourselves. It could also mean another export for the USA, those wires that ship electricity in from Mexico and Canada could just as easily carry the current the other way.
Nuclear power should be something the peaceniks enjoy as it provides a means to turn those nuclear warheads into cheap and clean energy. Using a modern design the reactors could not be used to breed more fission material that can be weaponized. Modern reactor designs should also make the environmentalists even more happy because these can burn the "waste" from the old reactors.
Without coal or nuclear power we'd have to resort to some very expensive, and typically unreliable, energy sources like wind and solar. That would mean energy prices would triple and drive our economy into the ground.
Give me a solution to this (supposed) problem of global warming that does not involve raising my taxes, reducing my freedom, and generally growing government. Just get the government out of the way of nuclear power development and the problem will solve itself. I see too many watermelons telling me how to live my life, people with a "red" socialists/communists core wrapped up in a "green" environmentalist shell.
I grow tired of all the people trying to prove global warming without offering solutions. I understand that the solutions are outside the area of expertise of those doing the research in "climate change" but all the lobbyists and politicians that are trying to convince people of the existence of global warming caused by human activity rarely have anything to say about what we should do about it. When they do come up with solutions they typically involve more money being flushed down the toilet trying to prop up failed companies that for some reason cannot stay in business making solar panels, electric cars, or what ever, and then passing the bill onto the taxpayers.
How about we talk about some real solutions.
When it comes to "electric" cars those cars are powered by electricity produced by something. In most every case that "something" is coal. An "electric" car is really a coal powered car so long as we are burning coal to produce our electricity. Solar power might have a very small carbon footprint compared to coal but it is so outrageously expensive right now that no one has been able to turn a profit without heavy taxpayer subsidies. Solar has other problems, such as being unreliable as it only produces power when the sun shines.
Wind is relatively cheap, has a small carbon footprint, and can share the land with crops. (I suppose it could share land with solar panels but I've never seen it done. Might have something to do with putting too much expensive equipment in the same place. One storm will bust up the expensive mills but also the extremely expensive solar panels.) Wind power has the same problem as solar, it's unreliable. This problem must be solved with either backup power (usually natural gas) or over-sizing the mills and panels and have some sort of electric storage system. These storage systems are not cheap, this makes any significant usage of wind power very expensive.
If we use natural gas to back up the wind or solar power then we need to have domestic drilling for natural gas. Natural gas tends to be where the oil is located. Without domestic oil and gas we don't have wind or solar. Natural gas is very expensive to ship in, it is only viable if carried by pipes. Shipping in natural gas means not only very high prices but dependence on the willingness of a foreign nation to sell us this natural gas.
When it comes to the amount of energy produced compared to carbon output nothing beats hydroelectric power. Problem is that we've already dammed up all the rivers worth a dam. Next in line is nuclear power. If we build more nuclear power plants then these "electric" cars are not coal powered any more. Nuclear power is not dependent on the weather, does not require foreign sourced fuel, and it's as cheap as coal. The only problem with nuclear power is that the federal government has an effective ban on any new construction of nuclear power plants.
Okay, there is another problem with nuclear power. It cannot be ramped up and down like natural gas. We'd still have to have an expensive electric storage system and/or a natural gas backup for the peak loads. Hydroelectric dams can be a relatively cheap electric storage facility if only outfitted with pumps to pump the water up the hill when there is a surplus of electric capacity. This is only a partial solution as there are only so many dams to go around.
If we assume that human activity, from CO2 output, is causing global warming then we need to stop burning coal yesterday. They only things we have to replace that "dirty" power source is the not much cleaner natural gas or nuclear power. We can add in some wind and solar only so far as we have a means to store that power and/or provide a backup. This storage and backup solution means a mix of natural gas and hydroelectric. More natural gas means more domestic oil drilling, something else the federal government has effectively banned.
I've grown tired of all the talk of how we are destroying the planet with coal and oil. If coal and oil is the problem then we need a solution. The only solution I see in the here and now is nuclear power.
It was a couple years after I heard about this Microsoft trouble that they stopped issuing "MSCE" certificates but started to use the terms "professional", "developer", "technician", "architect" (I have to wonder if that term is legally loaded as well), "administrator", "specialist", and perhaps a few other terms. Microsoft no longer claims to be producing engineers.
I've had jobs where my title included the term "engineer" but I've never been licensed by the state as an engineer. That somehow seems to get around the law. Perhaps my engineering degree, issued by a state recognized university, allowed me to do that without legal trouble. Maybe the "certified engineer" term is what got Microsoft in trouble.
Point is that certain words have legal meaning, "engineer" is one of them. Be careful how and where you use that word.
I read that birds have been seen flying into trees and hillsides. There is a reason we have the term "bird brained", birds are not smart and will fly into all kinds of things. Solid things. Things that are plainly visible. We'll see them run into windows because the window is transparent enough that a person can see the bird. Also, the glass does not deaden the sound as much as a solid wall meaning if we didn't see it then we'll hear it.
Long ago when I lived on a dairy farm I'd see birds fly into the side of the barn. I'd hear them fly into the side of the house. Most people probably don't hear the birds hit their house since most houses today have more insulation that one built during the Depression. I also did see birds fly into ventilation fans. I doubt the birds could see the fast moving blades so they'd see the fan opening as an escape. Took me years to figure out why there were so many feathers in front of this one particularly large ventilation fan but no birds to be seen. One day I happened to see a bird fly into the fan, which explained the feathers, and one of our cats came to pick up the pieces, which explained where the birds went.
Even though many many birds will kill themselves flying into buildings and trees few people seem aware of this. One is that people will not often see or hear it happen. The other is that the evidence will disappear once the dead or injured bird is found by a passing cat or other small furry woodland creature.
It seems to me that windows pose just as much of a hazard to birds as tree trunks. Perhaps a better description is that the birds are a hazard to themselves.
The article says the uranium will be stored at the facility. This would mean that the government is still in charge of guarding and maintaining the material. If the government did sell it off as fuel they would first have to dilute it down (mix it with depleted uranium, natural uranium, or something similar) so that it is no longer weapons grade. This costs money. Considering the military value, and the cost in disposing of the material, I'm a bit doubtful the government would ever sell it off. The government has already done some serious downsizing of their nuclear arsenal, I suspect there is considerable reluctance to downsize it more.
Also, why do you claim the storage cost would be "far less"? I doubt the size and weight matters much since the warhead is unlikely to be moved. It is still one item on a list that needs to be tracked, guarded, etc. Considering the value of the item, and the danger it poses to those that handle it, this uranium core is not just going to be dropped in a box with the rest of the uranium cores. It is going to be placed in a very expensive enclosure, monitored for radioactivity or something, and given ample room around it so someone can't just go running in and grab it.
Unless I read otherwise I'm going to assume this uranium is going to be kept in the government inventory.
He who beats his swords into plowshares plows for the one that did not.
If you wish for peace, prepare for war.
That's a couple sound bites that describe a complex situation in an overly simplistic fashion. They do get real close to the real point though. We cannot dismantle ALL of our weapons and turn them into something useful. We cannot get rid of ALL of our nuclear weapons either. I do see the point in dismantling these old and, with current military thinking, exceedingly large warheads.
This dismantling of the warhead does not, IMHO, reduce the cost to the government in any significant manner. The uranium core will still exist and need to have all the same precautions in keeping it safe as did the intact weapon.
The matter of compliance with weapon treaties is an entirely different matter than the costs involved and any real or theoretical usefulness of the uranium core.
This is not your grandfather's airship. This is a heavier-than-air aircraft that happens to use a lighter-than-air gas to provide a portion of the lift. Since this is a heavier than air craft it does not have the same limitations on altitude, speed, and weather sensitivity as an airship. Making comparisons between this hybrid design and an airship from 100 years ago has no merit, they are completely different aircraft.
I agree that craft like this cannot compete directly with ship or rail but I do see it compete with ship AND rail. This hybrid aircraft can take cargo or passengers from one inland location to another inland location and not be concerned about how much water is between them. There would be no transferring the cargo from a ship to a train, that has to be worth something. It can move non-stop over land and not be hassled with changing tracks, slowing down through cities, or snow or flood water covering the tracks.
These aircraft need very little infrastructure and therefore can operate in places where the trains or ships could not go.
I see the CO2 footprint as a minor point. It's cute that they can claim zero carbon output but when it comes down to it this thing needs to work first then we can talk about how it's going to save the world or something.
If the aircraft needs no fuel to stay aloft what is placing the limit on the range? At some point it would have to come down of course but why couldn't it stay up for 10,000 km instead of just 1000 km?
Lifting body aircraft with lighter than air gas to assist in lift has been tried before unsuccessfully. This is different in using solar power to drive the engines. With the low density in solar power I find it difficult to believe solar power is enough to keep the aircraft aloft. Perhaps that is where the range limitation comes in, there is only enough battery power + solar power to stay airborne for 1000 km.
Given the current technology in batteries and photovoltaic panels I'm tending to believe that a coal burning steam engine makes about as much sense in aircraft. I'll have to do the math but the power to weight ratios might just be comparable. I'll guess the coal burning would not go over very well with the global warming crowd. Perhaps a steam engine that burns wood, hemp, switchgrass, sugar beets, or some other biomass would be more acceptable and still keep the power to weight ratio within the same ball park as an electric battery pack.
I'm pleased to see technology like this getting some attention. I think that airships will make a comeback as energy prices rise and material science improves. I'm just a bit of a skeptic when it comes to solar power.
Longer answer: It's very difficult to achieve a vacuum in the first place. If there is even the slightest leak the air will be rushing in with the force of a one atmosphere pressure difference. With a lighter than air gas the pressure difference is quite low and any leak can be handled with a periodic "topping off" to keep out the air. Even if we had the technology to produce a "vacuum ship" it would not likely be cost effective since the lift gained by a pure vacuum is very small compared to that of helium or hydrogen gas.
An envelope that held a vacuum for lift would be under considerable forces. There is the force of holding back the outside air. There is the force of the gondola which carries the cargo. There would be wind, birds, stupid rednecks shooting at it, among other things that would try to punch holes in it or rip it up. It's just not practical.
So, we have an item that is commonly stolen to be sold for scrap. Let's just say that "commonly stolen" means that one of every ten people that sell this item have stolen it. So, we are going to crack down on this by requiring all trade in this item to be done by traceable means. That means the other nine out of ten people, the ones that did not steal anything, are now inconvenienced by this law. I can hear it now, "If you have nothing to hide then you should not have any problem if the government has a look." Last I checked the government cannot look unless they first show cause to look. I also recall something about not being obligated to provide evidence against myself.
We've seen things like this before and it does not actually catch any real criminals. An example, in Canada all firearms must be registered to their owner. Firearms are a "commonly stolen item", as some might put it. When the police in Canada catch the crooks with a stolen firearm they are not charged with not registering the firearm. They have a Bill of Rights very similar to our own in that they cannot be compelled to register the firearm since it would require them to self incriminate. What does happen is that the firearm is traced with the gun registry to the previous owner and that person is charged with failure to store the weapon properly.
I see the same thing happening here. The crooks will avoid any penalties from this under our Fifth Amendment protections but the people in honest trade of scrap copper will get hit with this all the time.
By the way, Canada is going through the process to repeal the firearm registry laws. It seems after billions of dollars spent they did not actually catch any criminals from it. They did piss off enough people that those responsible for the registry are no longer in office right now.
This is where the differences between Canada and US law diverge. Canada does not have a constitutionally protected right to arms so that never, or rarely, came up in debate. Their rights on private transactions differs a bit as well. What did happen is that few to nothing positive came of this law. It was shown to be a money pit where nothing productive could be done. They learned that they need to track the criminals, not the tools of their trade, to be effective in fighting the crime.
There are no records kept in the illegal trade in copper so this law will do nothing but waste time, money, and resources.
We haven't exhausted all the possibilities for producing fuel from the environment by a long shot.
Of course not. The problem is that we need a solution now. As of right now the alternatives to fossil fuels is either nuclear power or reverting to a simpler, harsher, existence. Energy sources like solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal do not have the reliability, density, low cost, and general "convenience" that we get from fossil fuels and nuclear power. Nuclear power by itself lacks certain convenience that fossil fuels provide but it is plentiful and inexpensive enough that I believe we can convert the energy to a more convenient form, with the losses that are inevitable, and still come out ahead from the alternatives. I'm not saying hydro, solar, wind, and geothermal are dead ends, worthless, or otherwise lack a place in our society. I am saying that these sources cannot be a primary source of energy in a modern society. There are places where the wind does not blow enough, the sun doesn't shine enough, the water does not flow enough, or the mantle thin enough to sustain the energy required for our standard of living.
For example, I would consider farming algae and making fuel from that to count as such a method. If the method doesn't need to be net energy-positive, that makes it all the easier.
Algae based fuels may prove to be an energy positive, and economically viable, technology but right now it has not proved to be so. Until that happens, and for years afterward, we will need fossil fuels to maintain our standard of living. Algae looks promising but I'm concerned about the land it will take to soak up enough sun to work. Algae needs sun that might better be used to grow food, provide electricity, or whatever. If algae is not energy positive then it will need an energy source to complete the process of converting an inconvenient energy source to a convenient one. The most likely candidate right now is something like oil shale, coal, or nuclear power.
In the long run, we'll have to switch away from oil, and the technologies to do so could take decades or even centuries to develop.
I disagree. We have all the technology we need right now to shift away from fossil fuels. There is enough nuclear material on this planet to provide all the energy we need until the sun consumes the planet with the use of existing fission power designs. Combine that with hydro, solar, geothermal, wind, and perhaps a few other technologies we might discover along the way and we should have no shortage of power. The inconvenience of these energy sources (lack of portability among them) can be addressed with various storage systems we already have like pumped hydroelectric, synthesized hydrocarbons, and compressed or liquified gasses.
What will take time is developing the infrastructure to move away from fossil fuels. The most obvious path to me is to build nuclear power plants and hydrocarbon synthesis plants. This involves no new technologies and allows us to deviate very little from the world as we know it now. Most of the barriers to this change is social and political. People don't like nuclear power even if that means our President must bow to foreign dictators to keep the oil flowing.
Anyway, that kind of got away from me, but the point is that, even if anthropogenic global climate change isn't happening, there's enough of a chance that it is, and enough other reasons (such as simple energy independence, as you say) to take the steps that would curb it, that we should, if we may err, err on the side of caution, rather than wild, carefree abandon.
I agree. We will run out of oil eventually, and relying so heavily on foreign energy is dangerous to this federation's security and economy. I'm not suggesting acting with "carefree abandon" but logical and careful steps. The federal government has placed an effective ban on the building of new nuclear power pla
The question then becomes, if you have to use another energy source to extract the oil, can you use that other energy source to make an oil equivalent from, for example, water and atmospheric CO2?
Sure, it's possible. Converting one form of energy to another is nearly trivial any more. Extracting CO2 from the atmosphere is trivial as well.
If you can, is it possible to do it with less energy?
Unlikely. The energy extracted from the oil shale and oil sand is near unity. It might be 10:1 or 1:10 as far as energy in to energy out. Squeezing the CO2 out of the atmosphere is a very energy intensive process. This has much to do with how little CO2 is in the air. People talk about how the amount of CO2 in the air is increasing but we are still measuring the amount of CO2 in the air in parts per million. There are much better sources of carbon for hydrocarbon production that do not involve so much energy and yet will still reduce the CO2 that escapes into the air. Household, commercial, and industrial waste has high levels of carbon. Agricultural "waste" is usually not wasted but is used to return that carbon to the fields. Removal of this so called "agricultural waste" from the fields will result in erosion, depletion of soil productivity, and generally bad things for our food supply. Having grown up on a farm I have learned that there is no such thing as agricultural "waste".
Also, if factors such as convenience play a role, then factors such as environmental impact (which equates to convenience in the long term) should as well. So even if alternate energy source to extract oil is cheaper than alternate energy source to synthesize oil, is alternate energy source to extract oil + negative environmental impact cheaper than alternate energy source to synthesize oil?
Sure, environmental impact is part of the equation. What I have not been convinced of is the impact we have on the environment from CO2 released into the atmosphere. The claim that we are destroying the environment is an extraordinary claim and I have yet to see the extraordinary evidence required to back up that claim. A few decimal points in degrees C rise in temperature just shows me how stable the temperature has been on this planet.
As I've said before I'll play along with the global warming alarmist if that means more energy independence for this country and other countries. I feel that many of the coming resource wars can be averted if more countries can feed and clothe themselves. I'm not talking about isolationism but national sovereignty. A nation is not a nation if they have to bow to another for the basics to survive. That is where the USA is now, we are no longer an independent country because we cannot (or will not, a distinction without a difference) produce the food, clothing, energy, and so on that we need to survive on our own.
I'll play along with the global warming story, even though I'm not convinced, if the end result is more economic freedom and more domestic industry. We need the economic freedom to build more nuclear power to process this oil shale and oil sand, or to squeeze the CO2 out of the air , or whatever to wean us off of foreign energy.
I believe we will continue to drill for oil long after it is energy positive because of the convenience that oil offers to consumers. I also believe that we will be drilling for oil long after it is energy positive because we will not know for sure when we have reached that point. The true cost in energy will be lost in the complex equations, government secrets, corporate privacy, long term contracts, and so on. People just will not be willing to provide all the information needed to perform the computations and the math will be too complex for any human to comprehend.
I see that at some point fossil fuels will no longer be energy positive. We need to act now to prepare for that. Barring some near magical advancement in technology that mea
No, if you cherry pick one or two particular years you can show a cooling trend up to 2010, if you pick any other year you will see a warming trend.
Isn't that pretty much what I said? How is any one year more or less scientifically valid than any other to take in computing this trend?
Point is that there is still a debate over whether or not we are actually seeing global warming. I recall pointing out to some people that it has snowed in Baghdad for the first time in 80 years. That there were polar bears spotted in Iceland for the first time in 80 years. That Peru had the coldest winter in 80 years. Chicago had the coldest winter in 80 years. They dismissed all of that as "regional" cooling but that the rest of the world is warming. If I assume this is true then why should I assume that polar ice caps melting is a result of "global" warming and not "regional" warming?
What is "normal" global temperature anyway? Maybe the world is "supposed" to be warmer. Maybe humankind would be, as a whole, more productive in a warmer world. Yes, a warmer world would suck for those that got flooded out but the rest of the world could be better off.
To me most of the global warming alarmists are either "watermelons" (green environmentalists on the outside, red communists on the inside) or the useful idiots that bought into the watermelons' theories. The global warming theories would be much more convincing if the "solutions" did not involve more government and less freedom.
Personally I really like the idea of burning less fossil fuels. I am also realistic enough to know that we cannot remove fossil fuels from the economy without some serious side effects in less than fifty years. To remove fossil fuels from the economy we need an alternative. Right now the only alternative to coal, which is probably the biggest producer of "green house" gasses, is nuclear power. To stop burning coal in fifty years we need to start building nuclear power plants today.
For people to burn less fossil fuels we need alternatives, alternatives to sitting in the dark. Nuclear power is one of many answers to that problem but the USA has not built a new nuclear power plant in 35 years. I find it impossible to believe that no one has been able to find a way to build a profitable and safe nuclear power plant in that time excepting some sort of government interference.
Believers? it's a scientific facts. And climate is trending, not a specific hurricane or hurricane season.
The "trend" can be influenced on what starting point one uses for their data. If we pick one year I can show "scientifically" that the temperature is rising. If I pick another the "science" shows global cooling. There seems to be a lot of discussion on what the "normal" is for the environment. We can only assume that the current global temperature is somehow "normal" but as we all know at some point in history the global temperature has been much warmer and much cooler. I can certainly agree that the current global temperature is desirable since it involves no adaptation on my part to live in an unchanging climate.
What we must all realize is that the climate has changed and therefore will change in the future. We will have to adapt to whatever changes come to us.
What really bothers me about those that believe in man-made global warming is the "need" for me to spend considerable amounts of my money on things that reduce my standard of living with no means to determine if this cost will result in any payback. This could all be for nothing if we are wrong. Even if we are "right" we cannot determine how much is enough to stop this global warming "trend" that people claim is happening.
You can talk all about environmental refugees and resource wars all you like and it makes no difference to me. We've had those forever and nothing is going to change that. We will always have volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, drought, famine, floods, hurricanes, and so on and so on. My "carbon footprint" will not change that.
Here's where I can agree with the global warming alarmists, we need to get off of foreign oil. If the US, Japan, China, and most every European country cannot become energy independent then there will be resource wars and refugees moving into nuclear capable countries. I've seen this before, I didn't come up with this, but I find it a very convenient summation:
We have three choices. - Continued use of fossil fuels and all the failings that come with it. - Agrarian society. (Subsistence farming for most, transportation reduced to beasts of burden and sail driven ships.) - Nuclear power.
These are the choices we have for the foreseeable future until we either run out of fossil fuels or some new technology comes along. I suggest we move on to nuclear power now and we might avoid the worst of the resource wars and environmental refugees. There is also the possibility of avoiding the global warming threat but that is not of a concern for me. If global warming is what it takes to get people to agree with building more nuclear power then I can play along. What I see from most of the global warming alarmists are watermelons, they are "green" environmentalists on the outside but "red" communists on the inside. I can agree to just about any environmental policy that does not require the growth of government or the reductions of my freedom. Get the government out of the way of nuclear power development and we can all be happy.
There's a lot of money in converting one form of energy to another even if it results in considerable loss of energy. Take electricity for example, there is a lot of loss of energy in heat when converting coal to electricity. This is even more "wasteful" when the electricity is used to make heat, such as an electric stove, oven, or furnace. This loss of energy is recovered in the convenience.
With oil shale the loss of energy can be a non-issue if the source of the energy is in an "inconvenient" form. People like to drive cars. People like to drive cars for distances that are currently impossible for electric cars. If we can somehow find an "inconvenient" energy source that can be turned into a "convenient" one like gasoline then we have found a way to maintain the convenience of our gasoline powered cars.
From my understanding the means to remove the oil from the oil shale and oil sands is by heating the oil until it is liquid enough to boil away (to be condensed) or liquified (to be filtered out). This heat could come from a number of less convenient energy sources like natural gas, solar, geothermal, nuclear, or just burning some of the oil shale to recover the oil from other oil shale. This heating of the oil shale to recover the oil could be from heat that might otherwise be wasted from some other energy production or industrial process, turning an energy negative process into an energy positive one.
Some very real limitation of technology, physics, economics, etc. means that we will be burning fossil fuels for the next fifty years even if that means energy lost in the process. Airplanes need kerosene, cargo ships and trains need diesel fuel. The operational lifespan of these vehicles is on the order of decades. The infrastructure needed to support any other kind of fuel does not yet exist and will also take decades to shift. The US military thinks fifty years into the future on what weapons they build now. That means, barring some kind of war on the scale of WWII, what is on the drawing boards now will be in production in ten years, be used for thirty, and kept in reserve for another ten. This time scale seems nearly universal from combat boots to battleships.
There is no way that I can see moving away from an economy that does not run on hydrocarbon fuels in less than fifty years unless someone is already designing airplanes that run on liquid hydrogen, prototyping nuclear powered cargo ships, and planning out transcontinental electric rail lines.
This loss of energy is only a theoretical one. In reality, or economically speaking, there is energy gained in that energy is gained in a form that is useful (or just more convenient) and therefore valuable. The economics of energy is more complex than the physics. This is especially true when politics is added to energy and economy.
This can be done by putting the cattle or pig dung in the gasifier. This would be after feeding the corn to the animals of course. It would have to be dried first, same as the coffee grounds. I recall seeing videos of people using dried dung for cooking and heating so there seems to be enough energy density in the dung to make it comparable to wood. Probably a better solution than the coffee beans since they needed to start the process with wood to get the coffee to burn.
It also works with cellulose (the parts of the plant you don't eat). No strip mining, no tailings, no net CO2 (assuming you keep growing the plant, you are just cycling the CO2).
You mean that same cellulose left in the fields by farmers to control erosion, reduce fertilizer costs, and control weeds?
Does anyone else see a problem with this logic?
Considering that most synthetic fertilizer uses natural gas as feedstock and/or fuel would it not be simpler and more energy efficient to leave the cellulose in the fields and burn the natural gas in our cars? I've seen what corn ethanol has done to food and fuel prices. I don't want to live through what doubling down on that will do to my cost of living.
I believe we have experimented with bio-fuels enough to know that it cannot be viable beyond some very narrow constraints. Burning our food to power our cars sounds to me like the road to starvation. I suggest we put our effort into building more nuclear power plants before the oil and coal run out so we are not forced to decide between eating and driving to the hospital/work/whatever in the future.
Why would one want to use dirty old coal?
Perhaps because it means we get to eat, stay warm, and travel freely all at the same time. There are ways to burn coal more cleanly. Nuclear, wind, and solar in a nice mix with some energy storage systems like flywheels and pumped hydro could also mean a coal free society without having to resort to burning our food.
Bio-fuels have been a disaster. I believe it's best we abandon it now before too many people get the wrong idea.
I believe that many people have a misconception about what computer science is really about. Computer science is about algorithms, sorting, databases, mathematics, and not so much about software development and programming.
I studied electrical engineering and in my job interviews before and after graduation I was repeatedly told that they were looking for people with more programming experience. After being told that so many times I took a look at a degree in computer science. At my university the computer science department lives under the liberal arts college. In the liberal arts college they require all students to take X credits or foreign language, Y credits in natural science, and Z credits in social science. The core courses in both computer science and computer engineering were largely identical but the computer science degree had many requirements outside of the core that had nothing to do with computer science but were there to fulfill the requirements of the liberal arts college. The computer engineering degree overlapped quite a bit with my electrical engineering degree so the requirements in the engineering program were already met, things like physics, chemistry, mathematics, "pre-engineering" (the courses covering the basics of the engineering process), and composition/communications.
Other schools place computer science in the same realm as engineering and so you might not have the same experience I did. I chose computer engineering over computer science since I did not feel the desire to take another foreign language course (the engineering college still had a humanities requirement and I took Spanish to fulfill that requirement, going to the liberal arts college would have meant I needed another semester of foreign language) or take a class on public speaking (all liberal arts majors had to take a public speaking course at my school).
Depending on how you feel about things like taking a foreign language (something I recommend), studying in the social sciences (which you'll have to take in any four year program it's just a matter of quantity), and other topics in the realm outside of engineering a major in liberal arts might be something that you enjoy. It sounds to me like you really want a broader study inside engineering. Other people here have suggested electrical engineering.because of its high content in control theory. I can agree to that but control theory is emphasized in other engineering disciplines like aerospace, industrial, and biomedical engineering. Software engineering is becoming a bachelor degree track in many schools now, that is something to consider as well besides computer science and probably something more fitting to your desire to do embedded controls.
If you want to take an emphasis in bio-energy sources then you may want to consider a degree in biomedical engineering, biological systems engineering, chemical engineering, or environmental engineering. A college education that leads to two engineering degrees will almost definitely provide room to fit in plenty of study in programming and control theory. A proper choice in majors will allow you to take some courses that may be open to only those people in certain degree programs. For example a course on control systems will almost always be open to anyone majoring in engineering but a course on microorganisms might only be open to someone majoring in biology or biological systems engineering. (I use a microorganism class as an example because if you want to work on bio-diesel or ethanol that is something you might find very interesting.)
Where I went to school there is a program called "agricultural engineering" which has an interesting mix of mechanical and biological systems engineering. That is something that might be right up your alley. Farm machinery use a lot of interesting means to transfer power so they cover mechanical, electrical, and hydraulic systems. Moving and processing grain leads to some interesting courses on control theory and biology. There is also the possibility of taking course that might be of a side interest to you like erosion control, sustainable farming, and natural resources.
My concern was not that you didn't cover the fossil fuels running out, but that you didn't note how the energy from it did come from elsewhere. I recognize that you did cover the subject, but so briefly, that you didn't get to the real meat of the issue, which besides the difference of formation versus consumption, also emphasizes why we can do so many of the inefficient things we do today.
We're sponging off the residues of the ages. It's like somebody having built a cistern in the desert, and it built up a lot of water, so somebody starts using it profligately, without realizing that he just doesn't have a steady replenishment of the water.
That attitude will be costly.
I admit that fossil fuels will run and I expect and even demand we look for an alternative. How is that attitude costly?
And you don't see the consequences to this, which is becoming dependent on a supply of oil, which will, inevitably, not be there. You may think that the market will react in a prepared manner, but me, I think it'll be a catastrophic one, and we'll be worse off than if we slowed down and thought about what to do before it came close to running out.
I do not think the market will react in a prepared manner. I see this now in that this federation has not built a nuclear power plant in 35 years. The federal government (through the Department of (No) Energy, the EPA, etc.) has not allowed the development of known working energy sources. Instead the federal government has been subsidizing corn ethanol (which has not been shown to be energy positive), banned drilling for oil, and prevented the construction of new nuclear power plants.
The federal government seems to believe that we should increase our reliance on foreign energy. We have decades worth of oil and gas on our own lands. It would be stupid to not take advantage of that to avoid starvation, freezing, riots, and economic collapse while at the same time moving to an energy source that has been shown to be safe, cheap, and nearly limitless.
I believe we agree more than we disagree.
You should do a survey of people opposed to nuclear energy sometime. Cross-correlate it with attitudes on the environment. You'll find that many of those most staunchly opposed to nuclear energy are...strongly supportive of fossil fuel usage, and other attitudes that are not representative of the environmental movement.
Nuclear energy IS scary to some people, but they aren't all environmentalists.
Whatever. Don't care. Whatever labels these people choose for themselves, of have placed on them by others, is irrelevant. This fear of nuclear power is misplaced and needs to be dealt with. We need a federal government that will embrace nuclear power, endorse it, and make it happen. Sadly we have not seen that for some time. In the mean time we will continue to burn fossil fuels as the alternative is undesirable.
We have thousands of other choices. Your hyper-focus on one major choice is destroying your ability to recognize the many, many, other choices to consider.
Thousands? Please enlighten me. Of all the energy sources I have seen only nuclear power has the quantity and density available to us to have any real chance of replacing fossil fuels. All the others I have seen are much too expensive or scarce to work on a global scale. Few places in this world are blessed with hydro, geothermal, wind, or solar power in such an excess that people could have a modern lifestyle on that alone. The rest of us must choose coal, nuclear, or the dark and cold of winter.
And I'm afraid you'll make it go faster, by ignoring the many dozens of other things that can be done.
We re-built our cities just a few decades ago, we're still rebuilding them today, but you know what? Maybe we don't need all that sub-urban sprawl that practically mandates car-usage. Maybe we can utilize more local lands
One thing you're leaving out, perhaps inadvertently, is that the fossil fuel energy also came from somewhere else.
No, I did not leave that out. I fully expect the fossil fuels to run out. There will be a point when the extraction of oil and coal will no longer be energy positive. Until that happens I see no reason to stop digging for it. Even if we are screwing up the planet in the process we will need that energy to survive what we in the Midwest call "winter". The global warming scare means nothing if we cannot survive the next snowfall.
Proceeding with that attitude will, even absent any concerns about the climatological impact, lead to a shortage, sooner, rather than later.
No, it won't. My attitude is that we need realistic solutions to the problem at hand. Here's my solution, nuclear power. That's not the end of the solution but the start. Once we can start building nuclear power plants to end our addiction to coal and natural gas fired power plants then we can consider ways to move away from petroleum.
Unless someone can offer a solution to the global warming problem then I don't care. Unless there is another path we can take that does not involve me freezing or starving to death this winter I will continue to happily fill my truck up with gasoline and heat my home with natural gas. The solution I see is nuclear energy. In the mean time drill, baby, drill.
When the oil runs out we will be forced to another solution. The tree huggers won't let us build nuclear power plants because its scary or something. Let's see how they think about that once people start cutting down the Redwoods for firewood.
Electrical energy and other aspects of technology that will render your concerns about living like a Sodbuster irrelevant.
I'm doing this to emphasize my point. Right now, today, we have no other choices. We might have some other choice in the future but if we rule out fossil fuels we can choose sodbuster or atom smasher. I fully expect the human race to at some point find a means to power our lives in other ways. I am optimistic about nuclear fusion power and I feel that once someone figures out how to make it work it will be a game changer. Until we discover something else this is what we have.
I will admit that our burning of fossil fuels has allowed us to build an infrastructure, and develop technologies, that will allow us to live in a wind, solar, bio, and hydro fueled world without having to revert completely back to the lifestyle of the sodbuster. One problem is that this world now has a population of a size that depends on the energy density that only fossil fuels and nuclear power can provide. Until that infrastructure can sustain our lifestyle without the use of fossil fuels the status quo must continue or many people will die from starvation, freezing, and scarcity wars. So, again, in the mean time we need nuclear power, or continued drilling for oil and natural gas.
Without the choice between nuclear power and fossil fuels there will be no army on this planet that can save the forests from the mobs of people that will do anything to keep from freezing. Until something better comes along we have fossil fuels, nuclear power, and Little House on the Prairie. We might have enough oil to last until something better comes along. I'm not liking my chances on that. That's a gamble that too many are willing to make and it disgusts me. We need nuclear power or we will have a very real environmental disaster on our hands as people fight over the last twig on this planet to cook the last crow.
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Right, he's ending the policy now that he's had three years in office. I'd be impressed if he did this in his first 100 days, not when he's running for a second term and his polling numbers are under water.
Still pretty sure there's plenty of blame to go around. This administration has not been very forthcoming when it comes to things like tax payers' money flushed down the toilet propping up "green" companies, where bailout money has been spent, how American made weapons are ending up in the hands of illegal alien murderers, and why there are so many illegal aliens in this country in the first place.
This administration has had ample opportunity to explain its actions and policies to Congress and the people (but I repeat myself) but has chose to delay, obfuscate, and outright lie instead.
Exactly. I believe this is precisely what is happening right now with the "Operation Fast and Furious" scandal. It seems that the House Oversight Committee has the nasty habit of asking the right questions of the right people and knowing precisely what documents to look for. They already know the answers, most of them anyway, since there have been numerous agents within BATFE and Border Patrol that have come forward and fed them information on the gun walking operation.
It seems that numerous people in Congress are giving the DOJ just enough rope to hang themselves. The DOJ is really getting beat up over this. It seems that people in State and Homeland Security were involved as well. The DOJ coming up with this rule to allow them to keep documents secret seems to be an attempt to contain the damage.
I just have to wonder, do they really think they they have the authority to deny these documents to Congress? Can they "lie" to the House Oversight Committee about the existence of documents? I would imagine that they can keep certain information from the public but they cannot keep the documents from Congress for long. These departments exist because of an act of Congress, if they get too far out of line then Congress can make them disappear. I believe that DOJ was reminded of this at some point since they backed off on this suicidal policy change.
Of course Obama is to blame. Just because other Presidents have done the same just means all of them are to blame. Obama has the authority to end bad precedent set by his predecessors. By not doing so he shares in the blame.
If you read the fine article (I know, this is Slashdot) you'd have seen the part where the waste these reactors produce are considered nuclear waste for hundreds of years, not thousands. Also, every thorium reactor design I am aware of is capable of "burning" what would otherwise be considered waste from just about every other reactor operating right now. Not only do these reactors produce less waste than previous designs (since the half-life is orders of magnitude shorter) they will use the waste from previous designs as fuel.
NOT building new nuclear power plants is insane. This is especially true for a country rich in thorium reserve and lacking in coal, oil, and natural gas like India. It's nearly impossible to run heavy industry on wind and solar power. If one wants things like ships, planes, cars, trains, bulldozers, tractors, cranes, and so on needed for a modern economy one needs a power source that is up to that task.
I recall video of a physician in Africa talking about how the solar panels he had for his clinic produced only enough power to run either the lights or the refrigerator. Sure, he could get more solar panels but solar panels are very expensive. The way he put it was that he described not having access to oil or coal (and I assume nuclear would fit as well but these are people that still have a long way to go to get to even India's standard of living) was "suicide". Without coal or nuclear power they would not have refrigeration for food and medicine. Without that refrigeration even the slightest interruption in the food supply chain, or medical supply chain, meant that people died.
Nuclear power is safe, abundant, (relatively) cheap, and has a smaller carbon footprint than even solar and wind. I agree that the nuclear waste problem is not going away. What we can do is create reactors that produce less waste, burn up some of the existing waste, until we can find a more permanent solution to our energy problems. I believe that at some point in my lifetime we will see fusion power become viable. Even if we do see fusion power in the next fifty years building more nuclear power plants NOW means that much less pollution from coal power until then.
Or are we calling "climate change" this week. It's so hard to keep up.
Let's assume for the moment that:
- The Earth is warming.
- Global warming is bad for us.
- The primary cause is human produced CO2.
Let's now talk about solutions. Let's talk about solutions that people can support even if they are skeptical of global warming. I propose nuclear power.
Nuclear power has the lowest carbon footprint of any electric power source save hydroelectric. Nuclear power is a power source that we can produce ourselves, that means jobs. I seem to recall a few mentions of unemployment problems in this country on the radio lately. It also means that "electric" cars are no longer powered by coal. (I have to wonder how much carbon is really saved in a coal fired electric vehicle vs. a similarly sized and equipped gasoline or diesel fuel powered vehicle.)
Nuclear power should appeal to the economists not only because of domestic jobs but also because it means less money shipped outside our borders for energy that we could be producing ourselves. It could also mean another export for the USA, those wires that ship electricity in from Mexico and Canada could just as easily carry the current the other way.
Nuclear power should be something the peaceniks enjoy as it provides a means to turn those nuclear warheads into cheap and clean energy. Using a modern design the reactors could not be used to breed more fission material that can be weaponized. Modern reactor designs should also make the environmentalists even more happy because these can burn the "waste" from the old reactors.
Without coal or nuclear power we'd have to resort to some very expensive, and typically unreliable, energy sources like wind and solar. That would mean energy prices would triple and drive our economy into the ground.
Give me a solution to this (supposed) problem of global warming that does not involve raising my taxes, reducing my freedom, and generally growing government. Just get the government out of the way of nuclear power development and the problem will solve itself. I see too many watermelons telling me how to live my life, people with a "red" socialists/communists core wrapped up in a "green" environmentalist shell.
I grow tired of all the people trying to prove global warming without offering solutions. I understand that the solutions are outside the area of expertise of those doing the research in "climate change" but all the lobbyists and politicians that are trying to convince people of the existence of global warming caused by human activity rarely have anything to say about what we should do about it. When they do come up with solutions they typically involve more money being flushed down the toilet trying to prop up failed companies that for some reason cannot stay in business making solar panels, electric cars, or what ever, and then passing the bill onto the taxpayers.
How about we talk about some real solutions.
When it comes to "electric" cars those cars are powered by electricity produced by something. In most every case that "something" is coal. An "electric" car is really a coal powered car so long as we are burning coal to produce our electricity. Solar power might have a very small carbon footprint compared to coal but it is so outrageously expensive right now that no one has been able to turn a profit without heavy taxpayer subsidies. Solar has other problems, such as being unreliable as it only produces power when the sun shines.
Wind is relatively cheap, has a small carbon footprint, and can share the land with crops. (I suppose it could share land with solar panels but I've never seen it done. Might have something to do with putting too much expensive equipment in the same place. One storm will bust up the expensive mills but also the extremely expensive solar panels.) Wind power has the same problem as solar, it's unreliable. This problem must be solved with either backup power (usually natural gas) or over-sizing the mills and panels and have some sort of electric storage system. These storage systems are not cheap, this makes any significant usage of wind power very expensive.
If we use natural gas to back up the wind or solar power then we need to have domestic drilling for natural gas. Natural gas tends to be where the oil is located. Without domestic oil and gas we don't have wind or solar. Natural gas is very expensive to ship in, it is only viable if carried by pipes. Shipping in natural gas means not only very high prices but dependence on the willingness of a foreign nation to sell us this natural gas.
When it comes to the amount of energy produced compared to carbon output nothing beats hydroelectric power. Problem is that we've already dammed up all the rivers worth a dam. Next in line is nuclear power. If we build more nuclear power plants then these "electric" cars are not coal powered any more. Nuclear power is not dependent on the weather, does not require foreign sourced fuel, and it's as cheap as coal. The only problem with nuclear power is that the federal government has an effective ban on any new construction of nuclear power plants.
Okay, there is another problem with nuclear power. It cannot be ramped up and down like natural gas. We'd still have to have an expensive electric storage system and/or a natural gas backup for the peak loads. Hydroelectric dams can be a relatively cheap electric storage facility if only outfitted with pumps to pump the water up the hill when there is a surplus of electric capacity. This is only a partial solution as there are only so many dams to go around.
If we assume that human activity, from CO2 output, is causing global warming then we need to stop burning coal yesterday. They only things we have to replace that "dirty" power source is the not much cleaner natural gas or nuclear power. We can add in some wind and solar only so far as we have a means to store that power and/or provide a backup. This storage and backup solution means a mix of natural gas and hydroelectric. More natural gas means more domestic oil drilling, something else the federal government has effectively banned.
I've grown tired of all the talk of how we are destroying the planet with coal and oil. If coal and oil is the problem then we need a solution. The only solution I see in the here and now is nuclear power.
When I worked in Texas I heard about some legal trouble that Microsoft got into. They were handing out these pieces of paper that said "certified engineer" on them. Well, in Texas law (IIRC) the only legal way you could claim to be an engineer was if you had a professional engineer license issued by the state, or you operated a train. People got around this by using the "MSCE" acronym and not defining the term on resumés, business cards, and such. People would also say that they "have an engineering degree" which was OK under the law since people did not claim to be an actual engineer but only had the training to become one.
It was a couple years after I heard about this Microsoft trouble that they stopped issuing "MSCE" certificates but started to use the terms "professional", "developer", "technician", "architect" (I have to wonder if that term is legally loaded as well), "administrator", "specialist", and perhaps a few other terms. Microsoft no longer claims to be producing engineers.
Point is that people cannot just call themselves an engineer if they like. Words mean stuff. The word "engineer" is a legal term in many states. Putting "software engineer" on a business card or resumé and not having an engineering license from the state can get a person in trouble for practicing engineering without a license, or some other crime.
I've had jobs where my title included the term "engineer" but I've never been licensed by the state as an engineer. That somehow seems to get around the law. Perhaps my engineering degree, issued by a state recognized university, allowed me to do that without legal trouble. Maybe the "certified engineer" term is what got Microsoft in trouble.
Point is that certain words have legal meaning, "engineer" is one of them. Be careful how and where you use that word.
I read that birds have been seen flying into trees and hillsides. There is a reason we have the term "bird brained", birds are not smart and will fly into all kinds of things. Solid things. Things that are plainly visible. We'll see them run into windows because the window is transparent enough that a person can see the bird. Also, the glass does not deaden the sound as much as a solid wall meaning if we didn't see it then we'll hear it.
Long ago when I lived on a dairy farm I'd see birds fly into the side of the barn. I'd hear them fly into the side of the house. Most people probably don't hear the birds hit their house since most houses today have more insulation that one built during the Depression. I also did see birds fly into ventilation fans. I doubt the birds could see the fast moving blades so they'd see the fan opening as an escape. Took me years to figure out why there were so many feathers in front of this one particularly large ventilation fan but no birds to be seen. One day I happened to see a bird fly into the fan, which explained the feathers, and one of our cats came to pick up the pieces, which explained where the birds went.
Even though many many birds will kill themselves flying into buildings and trees few people seem aware of this. One is that people will not often see or hear it happen. The other is that the evidence will disappear once the dead or injured bird is found by a passing cat or other small furry woodland creature.
It seems to me that windows pose just as much of a hazard to birds as tree trunks. Perhaps a better description is that the birds are a hazard to themselves.
The article says the uranium will be stored at the facility. This would mean that the government is still in charge of guarding and maintaining the material. If the government did sell it off as fuel they would first have to dilute it down (mix it with depleted uranium, natural uranium, or something similar) so that it is no longer weapons grade. This costs money. Considering the military value, and the cost in disposing of the material, I'm a bit doubtful the government would ever sell it off. The government has already done some serious downsizing of their nuclear arsenal, I suspect there is considerable reluctance to downsize it more.
Also, why do you claim the storage cost would be "far less"? I doubt the size and weight matters much since the warhead is unlikely to be moved. It is still one item on a list that needs to be tracked, guarded, etc. Considering the value of the item, and the danger it poses to those that handle it, this uranium core is not just going to be dropped in a box with the rest of the uranium cores. It is going to be placed in a very expensive enclosure, monitored for radioactivity or something, and given ample room around it so someone can't just go running in and grab it.
Unless I read otherwise I'm going to assume this uranium is going to be kept in the government inventory.
He who beats his swords into plowshares plows for the one that did not.
If you wish for peace, prepare for war.
That's a couple sound bites that describe a complex situation in an overly simplistic fashion. They do get real close to the real point though. We cannot dismantle ALL of our weapons and turn them into something useful. We cannot get rid of ALL of our nuclear weapons either. I do see the point in dismantling these old and, with current military thinking, exceedingly large warheads.
This dismantling of the warhead does not, IMHO, reduce the cost to the government in any significant manner. The uranium core will still exist and need to have all the same precautions in keeping it safe as did the intact weapon.
The matter of compliance with weapon treaties is an entirely different matter than the costs involved and any real or theoretical usefulness of the uranium core.
This is not your grandfather's airship. This is a heavier-than-air aircraft that happens to use a lighter-than-air gas to provide a portion of the lift. Since this is a heavier than air craft it does not have the same limitations on altitude, speed, and weather sensitivity as an airship. Making comparisons between this hybrid design and an airship from 100 years ago has no merit, they are completely different aircraft.
I agree that craft like this cannot compete directly with ship or rail but I do see it compete with ship AND rail. This hybrid aircraft can take cargo or passengers from one inland location to another inland location and not be concerned about how much water is between them. There would be no transferring the cargo from a ship to a train, that has to be worth something. It can move non-stop over land and not be hassled with changing tracks, slowing down through cities, or snow or flood water covering the tracks.
These aircraft need very little infrastructure and therefore can operate in places where the trains or ships could not go.
I see the CO2 footprint as a minor point. It's cute that they can claim zero carbon output but when it comes down to it this thing needs to work first then we can talk about how it's going to save the world or something.
If the aircraft needs no fuel to stay aloft what is placing the limit on the range? At some point it would have to come down of course but why couldn't it stay up for 10,000 km instead of just 1000 km?
Lifting body aircraft with lighter than air gas to assist in lift has been tried before unsuccessfully. This is different in using solar power to drive the engines. With the low density in solar power I find it difficult to believe solar power is enough to keep the aircraft aloft. Perhaps that is where the range limitation comes in, there is only enough battery power + solar power to stay airborne for 1000 km.
Given the current technology in batteries and photovoltaic panels I'm tending to believe that a coal burning steam engine makes about as much sense in aircraft. I'll have to do the math but the power to weight ratios might just be comparable. I'll guess the coal burning would not go over very well with the global warming crowd. Perhaps a steam engine that burns wood, hemp, switchgrass, sugar beets, or some other biomass would be more acceptable and still keep the power to weight ratio within the same ball park as an electric battery pack.
I'm pleased to see technology like this getting some attention. I think that airships will make a comeback as energy prices rise and material science improves. I'm just a bit of a skeptic when it comes to solar power.
Short answer: no.
Longer answer:
It's very difficult to achieve a vacuum in the first place. If there is even the slightest leak the air will be rushing in with the force of a one atmosphere pressure difference. With a lighter than air gas the pressure difference is quite low and any leak can be handled with a periodic "topping off" to keep out the air. Even if we had the technology to produce a "vacuum ship" it would not likely be cost effective since the lift gained by a pure vacuum is very small compared to that of helium or hydrogen gas.
An envelope that held a vacuum for lift would be under considerable forces. There is the force of holding back the outside air. There is the force of the gondola which carries the cargo. There would be wind, birds, stupid rednecks shooting at it, among other things that would try to punch holes in it or rip it up. It's just not practical.
So, we have an item that is commonly stolen to be sold for scrap. Let's just say that "commonly stolen" means that one of every ten people that sell this item have stolen it. So, we are going to crack down on this by requiring all trade in this item to be done by traceable means. That means the other nine out of ten people, the ones that did not steal anything, are now inconvenienced by this law. I can hear it now, "If you have nothing to hide then you should not have any problem if the government has a look." Last I checked the government cannot look unless they first show cause to look. I also recall something about not being obligated to provide evidence against myself.
We've seen things like this before and it does not actually catch any real criminals. An example, in Canada all firearms must be registered to their owner. Firearms are a "commonly stolen item", as some might put it. When the police in Canada catch the crooks with a stolen firearm they are not charged with not registering the firearm. They have a Bill of Rights very similar to our own in that they cannot be compelled to register the firearm since it would require them to self incriminate. What does happen is that the firearm is traced with the gun registry to the previous owner and that person is charged with failure to store the weapon properly.
I see the same thing happening here. The crooks will avoid any penalties from this under our Fifth Amendment protections but the people in honest trade of scrap copper will get hit with this all the time.
By the way, Canada is going through the process to repeal the firearm registry laws. It seems after billions of dollars spent they did not actually catch any criminals from it. They did piss off enough people that those responsible for the registry are no longer in office right now.
This is where the differences between Canada and US law diverge. Canada does not have a constitutionally protected right to arms so that never, or rarely, came up in debate. Their rights on private transactions differs a bit as well. What did happen is that few to nothing positive came of this law. It was shown to be a money pit where nothing productive could be done. They learned that they need to track the criminals, not the tools of their trade, to be effective in fighting the crime.
There are no records kept in the illegal trade in copper so this law will do nothing but waste time, money, and resources.
We haven't exhausted all the possibilities for producing fuel from the environment by a long shot.
Of course not. The problem is that we need a solution now. As of right now the alternatives to fossil fuels is either nuclear power or reverting to a simpler, harsher, existence. Energy sources like solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal do not have the reliability, density, low cost, and general "convenience" that we get from fossil fuels and nuclear power. Nuclear power by itself lacks certain convenience that fossil fuels provide but it is plentiful and inexpensive enough that I believe we can convert the energy to a more convenient form, with the losses that are inevitable, and still come out ahead from the alternatives. I'm not saying hydro, solar, wind, and geothermal are dead ends, worthless, or otherwise lack a place in our society. I am saying that these sources cannot be a primary source of energy in a modern society. There are places where the wind does not blow enough, the sun doesn't shine enough, the water does not flow enough, or the mantle thin enough to sustain the energy required for our standard of living.
For example, I would consider farming algae and making fuel from that to count as such a method. If the method doesn't need to be net energy-positive, that makes it all the easier.
Algae based fuels may prove to be an energy positive, and economically viable, technology but right now it has not proved to be so. Until that happens, and for years afterward, we will need fossil fuels to maintain our standard of living. Algae looks promising but I'm concerned about the land it will take to soak up enough sun to work. Algae needs sun that might better be used to grow food, provide electricity, or whatever. If algae is not energy positive then it will need an energy source to complete the process of converting an inconvenient energy source to a convenient one. The most likely candidate right now is something like oil shale, coal, or nuclear power.
In the long run, we'll have to switch away from oil, and the technologies to do so could take decades or even centuries to develop.
I disagree. We have all the technology we need right now to shift away from fossil fuels. There is enough nuclear material on this planet to provide all the energy we need until the sun consumes the planet with the use of existing fission power designs. Combine that with hydro, solar, geothermal, wind, and perhaps a few other technologies we might discover along the way and we should have no shortage of power. The inconvenience of these energy sources (lack of portability among them) can be addressed with various storage systems we already have like pumped hydroelectric, synthesized hydrocarbons, and compressed or liquified gasses.
What will take time is developing the infrastructure to move away from fossil fuels. The most obvious path to me is to build nuclear power plants and hydrocarbon synthesis plants. This involves no new technologies and allows us to deviate very little from the world as we know it now. Most of the barriers to this change is social and political. People don't like nuclear power even if that means our President must bow to foreign dictators to keep the oil flowing.
Anyway, that kind of got away from me, but the point is that, even if anthropogenic global climate change isn't happening, there's enough of a chance that it is, and enough other reasons (such as simple energy independence, as you say) to take the steps that would curb it, that we should, if we may err, err on the side of caution, rather than wild, carefree abandon.
I agree. We will run out of oil eventually, and relying so heavily on foreign energy is dangerous to this federation's security and economy. I'm not suggesting acting with "carefree abandon" but logical and careful steps. The federal government has placed an effective ban on the building of new nuclear power pla
The question then becomes, if you have to use another energy source to extract the oil, can you use that other energy source to make an oil equivalent from, for example, water and atmospheric CO2?
Sure, it's possible. Converting one form of energy to another is nearly trivial any more. Extracting CO2 from the atmosphere is trivial as well.
If you can, is it possible to do it with less energy?
Unlikely. The energy extracted from the oil shale and oil sand is near unity. It might be 10:1 or 1:10 as far as energy in to energy out. Squeezing the CO2 out of the atmosphere is a very energy intensive process. This has much to do with how little CO2 is in the air. People talk about how the amount of CO2 in the air is increasing but we are still measuring the amount of CO2 in the air in parts per million. There are much better sources of carbon for hydrocarbon production that do not involve so much energy and yet will still reduce the CO2 that escapes into the air. Household, commercial, and industrial waste has high levels of carbon. Agricultural "waste" is usually not wasted but is used to return that carbon to the fields. Removal of this so called "agricultural waste" from the fields will result in erosion, depletion of soil productivity, and generally bad things for our food supply. Having grown up on a farm I have learned that there is no such thing as agricultural "waste".
Also, if factors such as convenience play a role, then factors such as environmental impact (which equates to convenience in the long term) should as well. So even if alternate energy source to extract oil is cheaper than alternate energy source to synthesize oil, is alternate energy source to extract oil + negative environmental impact cheaper than alternate energy source to synthesize oil?
Sure, environmental impact is part of the equation. What I have not been convinced of is the impact we have on the environment from CO2 released into the atmosphere. The claim that we are destroying the environment is an extraordinary claim and I have yet to see the extraordinary evidence required to back up that claim. A few decimal points in degrees C rise in temperature just shows me how stable the temperature has been on this planet.
As I've said before I'll play along with the global warming alarmist if that means more energy independence for this country and other countries. I feel that many of the coming resource wars can be averted if more countries can feed and clothe themselves. I'm not talking about isolationism but national sovereignty. A nation is not a nation if they have to bow to another for the basics to survive. That is where the USA is now, we are no longer an independent country because we cannot (or will not, a distinction without a difference) produce the food, clothing, energy, and so on that we need to survive on our own.
I'll play along with the global warming story, even though I'm not convinced, if the end result is more economic freedom and more domestic industry. We need the economic freedom to build more nuclear power to process this oil shale and oil sand, or to squeeze the CO2 out of the air , or whatever to wean us off of foreign energy.
I believe we will continue to drill for oil long after it is energy positive because of the convenience that oil offers to consumers. I also believe that we will be drilling for oil long after it is energy positive because we will not know for sure when we have reached that point. The true cost in energy will be lost in the complex equations, government secrets, corporate privacy, long term contracts, and so on. People just will not be willing to provide all the information needed to perform the computations and the math will be too complex for any human to comprehend.
I see that at some point fossil fuels will no longer be energy positive. We need to act now to prepare for that. Barring some near magical advancement in technology that mea
No, if you cherry pick one or two particular years you can show a cooling trend up to 2010, if you pick any other year you will see a warming trend.
Isn't that pretty much what I said? How is any one year more or less scientifically valid than any other to take in computing this trend?
Point is that there is still a debate over whether or not we are actually seeing global warming. I recall pointing out to some people that it has snowed in Baghdad for the first time in 80 years. That there were polar bears spotted in Iceland for the first time in 80 years. That Peru had the coldest winter in 80 years. Chicago had the coldest winter in 80 years. They dismissed all of that as "regional" cooling but that the rest of the world is warming. If I assume this is true then why should I assume that polar ice caps melting is a result of "global" warming and not "regional" warming?
What is "normal" global temperature anyway? Maybe the world is "supposed" to be warmer. Maybe humankind would be, as a whole, more productive in a warmer world. Yes, a warmer world would suck for those that got flooded out but the rest of the world could be better off.
To me most of the global warming alarmists are either "watermelons" (green environmentalists on the outside, red communists on the inside) or the useful idiots that bought into the watermelons' theories. The global warming theories would be much more convincing if the "solutions" did not involve more government and less freedom.
Personally I really like the idea of burning less fossil fuels. I am also realistic enough to know that we cannot remove fossil fuels from the economy without some serious side effects in less than fifty years. To remove fossil fuels from the economy we need an alternative. Right now the only alternative to coal, which is probably the biggest producer of "green house" gasses, is nuclear power. To stop burning coal in fifty years we need to start building nuclear power plants today.
For people to burn less fossil fuels we need alternatives, alternatives to sitting in the dark. Nuclear power is one of many answers to that problem but the USA has not built a new nuclear power plant in 35 years. I find it impossible to believe that no one has been able to find a way to build a profitable and safe nuclear power plant in that time excepting some sort of government interference.
Government is the problem not the solution.
Believers? it's a scientific facts. And climate is trending, not a specific hurricane or hurricane season.
The "trend" can be influenced on what starting point one uses for their data. If we pick one year I can show "scientifically" that the temperature is rising. If I pick another the "science" shows global cooling. There seems to be a lot of discussion on what the "normal" is for the environment. We can only assume that the current global temperature is somehow "normal" but as we all know at some point in history the global temperature has been much warmer and much cooler. I can certainly agree that the current global temperature is desirable since it involves no adaptation on my part to live in an unchanging climate.
What we must all realize is that the climate has changed and therefore will change in the future. We will have to adapt to whatever changes come to us.
What really bothers me about those that believe in man-made global warming is the "need" for me to spend considerable amounts of my money on things that reduce my standard of living with no means to determine if this cost will result in any payback. This could all be for nothing if we are wrong. Even if we are "right" we cannot determine how much is enough to stop this global warming "trend" that people claim is happening.
You can talk all about environmental refugees and resource wars all you like and it makes no difference to me. We've had those forever and nothing is going to change that. We will always have volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, drought, famine, floods, hurricanes, and so on and so on. My "carbon footprint" will not change that.
Here's where I can agree with the global warming alarmists, we need to get off of foreign oil. If the US, Japan, China, and most every European country cannot become energy independent then there will be resource wars and refugees moving into nuclear capable countries. I've seen this before, I didn't come up with this, but I find it a very convenient summation:
We have three choices.
- Continued use of fossil fuels and all the failings that come with it.
- Agrarian society. (Subsistence farming for most, transportation reduced to beasts of burden and sail driven ships.)
- Nuclear power.
These are the choices we have for the foreseeable future until we either run out of fossil fuels or some new technology comes along. I suggest we move on to nuclear power now and we might avoid the worst of the resource wars and environmental refugees. There is also the possibility of avoiding the global warming threat but that is not of a concern for me. If global warming is what it takes to get people to agree with building more nuclear power then I can play along. What I see from most of the global warming alarmists are watermelons, they are "green" environmentalists on the outside but "red" communists on the inside. I can agree to just about any environmental policy that does not require the growth of government or the reductions of my freedom. Get the government out of the way of nuclear power development and we can all be happy.
There's a lot of money in converting one form of energy to another even if it results in considerable loss of energy. Take electricity for example, there is a lot of loss of energy in heat when converting coal to electricity. This is even more "wasteful" when the electricity is used to make heat, such as an electric stove, oven, or furnace. This loss of energy is recovered in the convenience.
With oil shale the loss of energy can be a non-issue if the source of the energy is in an "inconvenient" form. People like to drive cars. People like to drive cars for distances that are currently impossible for electric cars. If we can somehow find an "inconvenient" energy source that can be turned into a "convenient" one like gasoline then we have found a way to maintain the convenience of our gasoline powered cars.
From my understanding the means to remove the oil from the oil shale and oil sands is by heating the oil until it is liquid enough to boil away (to be condensed) or liquified (to be filtered out). This heat could come from a number of less convenient energy sources like natural gas, solar, geothermal, nuclear, or just burning some of the oil shale to recover the oil from other oil shale. This heating of the oil shale to recover the oil could be from heat that might otherwise be wasted from some other energy production or industrial process, turning an energy negative process into an energy positive one.
Some very real limitation of technology, physics, economics, etc. means that we will be burning fossil fuels for the next fifty years even if that means energy lost in the process. Airplanes need kerosene, cargo ships and trains need diesel fuel. The operational lifespan of these vehicles is on the order of decades. The infrastructure needed to support any other kind of fuel does not yet exist and will also take decades to shift. The US military thinks fifty years into the future on what weapons they build now. That means, barring some kind of war on the scale of WWII, what is on the drawing boards now will be in production in ten years, be used for thirty, and kept in reserve for another ten. This time scale seems nearly universal from combat boots to battleships.
There is no way that I can see moving away from an economy that does not run on hydrocarbon fuels in less than fifty years unless someone is already designing airplanes that run on liquid hydrogen, prototyping nuclear powered cargo ships, and planning out transcontinental electric rail lines.
This loss of energy is only a theoretical one. In reality, or economically speaking, there is energy gained in that energy is gained in a form that is useful (or just more convenient) and therefore valuable. The economics of energy is more complex than the physics. This is especially true when politics is added to energy and economy.
Compromise is what got us in this mess. We need to stop compromising on our principles.
This can be done by putting the cattle or pig dung in the gasifier. This would be after feeding the corn to the animals of course. It would have to be dried first, same as the coffee grounds. I recall seeing videos of people using dried dung for cooking and heating so there seems to be enough energy density in the dung to make it comparable to wood. Probably a better solution than the coffee beans since they needed to start the process with wood to get the coffee to burn.
It also works with cellulose (the parts of the plant you don't eat). No strip mining, no tailings, no net CO2 (assuming you keep growing the plant, you are just cycling the CO2).
You mean that same cellulose left in the fields by farmers to control erosion, reduce fertilizer costs, and control weeds?
Does anyone else see a problem with this logic?
Considering that most synthetic fertilizer uses natural gas as feedstock and/or fuel would it not be simpler and more energy efficient to leave the cellulose in the fields and burn the natural gas in our cars? I've seen what corn ethanol has done to food and fuel prices. I don't want to live through what doubling down on that will do to my cost of living.
I believe we have experimented with bio-fuels enough to know that it cannot be viable beyond some very narrow constraints. Burning our food to power our cars sounds to me like the road to starvation. I suggest we put our effort into building more nuclear power plants before the oil and coal run out so we are not forced to decide between eating and driving to the hospital/work/whatever in the future.
Why would one want to use dirty old coal?
Perhaps because it means we get to eat, stay warm, and travel freely all at the same time. There are ways to burn coal more cleanly. Nuclear, wind, and solar in a nice mix with some energy storage systems like flywheels and pumped hydro could also mean a coal free society without having to resort to burning our food.
Bio-fuels have been a disaster. I believe it's best we abandon it now before too many people get the wrong idea.
I believe that many people have a misconception about what computer science is really about. Computer science is about algorithms, sorting, databases, mathematics, and not so much about software development and programming.
I studied electrical engineering and in my job interviews before and after graduation I was repeatedly told that they were looking for people with more programming experience. After being told that so many times I took a look at a degree in computer science. At my university the computer science department lives under the liberal arts college. In the liberal arts college they require all students to take X credits or foreign language, Y credits in natural science, and Z credits in social science. The core courses in both computer science and computer engineering were largely identical but the computer science degree had many requirements outside of the core that had nothing to do with computer science but were there to fulfill the requirements of the liberal arts college. The computer engineering degree overlapped quite a bit with my electrical engineering degree so the requirements in the engineering program were already met, things like physics, chemistry, mathematics, "pre-engineering" (the courses covering the basics of the engineering process), and composition/communications.
Other schools place computer science in the same realm as engineering and so you might not have the same experience I did. I chose computer engineering over computer science since I did not feel the desire to take another foreign language course (the engineering college still had a humanities requirement and I took Spanish to fulfill that requirement, going to the liberal arts college would have meant I needed another semester of foreign language) or take a class on public speaking (all liberal arts majors had to take a public speaking course at my school).
Depending on how you feel about things like taking a foreign language (something I recommend), studying in the social sciences (which you'll have to take in any four year program it's just a matter of quantity), and other topics in the realm outside of engineering a major in liberal arts might be something that you enjoy. It sounds to me like you really want a broader study inside engineering. Other people here have suggested electrical engineering.because of its high content in control theory. I can agree to that but control theory is emphasized in other engineering disciplines like aerospace, industrial, and biomedical engineering. Software engineering is becoming a bachelor degree track in many schools now, that is something to consider as well besides computer science and probably something more fitting to your desire to do embedded controls.
If you want to take an emphasis in bio-energy sources then you may want to consider a degree in biomedical engineering, biological systems engineering, chemical engineering, or environmental engineering. A college education that leads to two engineering degrees will almost definitely provide room to fit in plenty of study in programming and control theory. A proper choice in majors will allow you to take some courses that may be open to only those people in certain degree programs. For example a course on control systems will almost always be open to anyone majoring in engineering but a course on microorganisms might only be open to someone majoring in biology or biological systems engineering. (I use a microorganism class as an example because if you want to work on bio-diesel or ethanol that is something you might find very interesting.)
Where I went to school there is a program called "agricultural engineering" which has an interesting mix of mechanical and biological systems engineering. That is something that might be right up your alley. Farm machinery use a lot of interesting means to transfer power so they cover mechanical, electrical, and hydraulic systems. Moving and processing grain leads to some interesting courses on control theory and biology. There is also the possibility of taking course that might be of a side interest to you like erosion control, sustainable farming, and natural resources.
My concern was not that you didn't cover the fossil fuels running out, but that you didn't note how the energy from it did come from elsewhere. I recognize that you did cover the subject, but so briefly, that you didn't get to the real meat of the issue, which besides the difference of formation versus consumption, also emphasizes why we can do so many of the inefficient things we do today.
We're sponging off the residues of the ages. It's like somebody having built a cistern in the desert, and it built up a lot of water, so somebody starts using it profligately, without realizing that he just doesn't have a steady replenishment of the water.
That attitude will be costly.
I admit that fossil fuels will run and I expect and even demand we look for an alternative. How is that attitude costly?
And you don't see the consequences to this, which is becoming dependent on a supply of oil, which will, inevitably, not be there. You may think that the market will react in a prepared manner, but me, I think it'll be a catastrophic one, and we'll be worse off than if we slowed down and thought about what to do before it came close to running out.
I do not think the market will react in a prepared manner. I see this now in that this federation has not built a nuclear power plant in 35 years. The federal government (through the Department of (No) Energy, the EPA, etc.) has not allowed the development of known working energy sources. Instead the federal government has been subsidizing corn ethanol (which has not been shown to be energy positive), banned drilling for oil, and prevented the construction of new nuclear power plants.
The federal government seems to believe that we should increase our reliance on foreign energy. We have decades worth of oil and gas on our own lands. It would be stupid to not take advantage of that to avoid starvation, freezing, riots, and economic collapse while at the same time moving to an energy source that has been shown to be safe, cheap, and nearly limitless.
I believe we agree more than we disagree.
You should do a survey of people opposed to nuclear energy sometime. Cross-correlate it with attitudes on the environment. You'll find that many of those most staunchly opposed to nuclear energy are...strongly supportive of fossil fuel usage, and other attitudes that are not representative of the environmental movement.
Nuclear energy IS scary to some people, but they aren't all environmentalists.
Whatever. Don't care. Whatever labels these people choose for themselves, of have placed on them by others, is irrelevant. This fear of nuclear power is misplaced and needs to be dealt with. We need a federal government that will embrace nuclear power, endorse it, and make it happen. Sadly we have not seen that for some time. In the mean time we will continue to burn fossil fuels as the alternative is undesirable.
We have thousands of other choices. Your hyper-focus on one major choice is destroying your ability to recognize the many, many, other choices to consider.
Thousands? Please enlighten me. Of all the energy sources I have seen only nuclear power has the quantity and density available to us to have any real chance of replacing fossil fuels. All the others I have seen are much too expensive or scarce to work on a global scale. Few places in this world are blessed with hydro, geothermal, wind, or solar power in such an excess that people could have a modern lifestyle on that alone. The rest of us must choose coal, nuclear, or the dark and cold of winter.
And I'm afraid you'll make it go faster, by ignoring the many dozens of other things that can be done.
We re-built our cities just a few decades ago, we're still rebuilding them today, but you know what? Maybe we don't need all that sub-urban sprawl that practically mandates car-usage. Maybe we can utilize more local lands
One thing you're leaving out, perhaps inadvertently, is that the fossil fuel energy also came from somewhere else.
No, I did not leave that out. I fully expect the fossil fuels to run out. There will be a point when the extraction of oil and coal will no longer be energy positive. Until that happens I see no reason to stop digging for it. Even if we are screwing up the planet in the process we will need that energy to survive what we in the Midwest call "winter". The global warming scare means nothing if we cannot survive the next snowfall.
Proceeding with that attitude will, even absent any concerns about the climatological impact, lead to a shortage, sooner, rather than later.
No, it won't. My attitude is that we need realistic solutions to the problem at hand. Here's my solution, nuclear power. That's not the end of the solution but the start. Once we can start building nuclear power plants to end our addiction to coal and natural gas fired power plants then we can consider ways to move away from petroleum.
Unless someone can offer a solution to the global warming problem then I don't care. Unless there is another path we can take that does not involve me freezing or starving to death this winter I will continue to happily fill my truck up with gasoline and heat my home with natural gas. The solution I see is nuclear energy. In the mean time drill, baby, drill.
When the oil runs out we will be forced to another solution. The tree huggers won't let us build nuclear power plants because its scary or something. Let's see how they think about that once people start cutting down the Redwoods for firewood.
Electrical energy and other aspects of technology that will render your concerns about living like a Sodbuster irrelevant.
I'm doing this to emphasize my point. Right now, today, we have no other choices. We might have some other choice in the future but if we rule out fossil fuels we can choose sodbuster or atom smasher. I fully expect the human race to at some point find a means to power our lives in other ways. I am optimistic about nuclear fusion power and I feel that once someone figures out how to make it work it will be a game changer. Until we discover something else this is what we have.
I will admit that our burning of fossil fuels has allowed us to build an infrastructure, and develop technologies, that will allow us to live in a wind, solar, bio, and hydro fueled world without having to revert completely back to the lifestyle of the sodbuster. One problem is that this world now has a population of a size that depends on the energy density that only fossil fuels and nuclear power can provide. Until that infrastructure can sustain our lifestyle without the use of fossil fuels the status quo must continue or many people will die from starvation, freezing, and scarcity wars. So, again, in the mean time we need nuclear power, or continued drilling for oil and natural gas.
Without the choice between nuclear power and fossil fuels there will be no army on this planet that can save the forests from the mobs of people that will do anything to keep from freezing. Until something better comes along we have fossil fuels, nuclear power, and Little House on the Prairie. We might have enough oil to last until something better comes along. I'm not liking my chances on that. That's a gamble that too many are willing to make and it disgusts me. We need nuclear power or we will have a very real environmental disaster on our hands as people fight over the last twig on this planet to cook the last crow.