The "standardized" AP1000 hasn't even been operating long enough that anyone can make any kind of claims on the economics yet. Only one has gone online in the world and the four in the USA have not been completed yet. If you want to claim the AP1000 a failure before even a half dozen come online then why not make the same claims on wind and solar? We've seen all kinds of failures, cost overruns, poor performance, safety problems, and on and on, from wind and solar projects.
By your metric only the rarest of designs could be considered a success. It's uncommon for a design to survive the first few rounds of implementations, there will be design updates as things are learned from the first few builds. Also, even if the AP1000 proves to be a failure there's dozens of other designs we could try before we declare the entirety of the nuclear power industry a failure.
I'd like to see how you believe wind, solar, and storage can compete with nuclear. We've got 60 years of nuclear power experience showing that it can be profitable. What's lost is the old economies of scale from building dozens of reactors every year. We start doing that again and prices will come down. It's plain bullshit of building reactors by the ones and twos and then calling that an example of a full scale deployment costs. It's no different than the wind and solar power people showing falling prices as deployment increases. You want to see nuclear power get cheaper? That means you have to build them at a rate that economies of scale apply. How many is that? My guess is dozens being built in the USA every year. Given the age of current nuclear power reactors and their expected life span we will have to build nuclear power reactors at dozens per year real soon or see rolling blackouts.
That's assuming we don't simply revert to burning coal. It's coal, nuclear, or the lights go out. Grid scale storage is still an unproven technology, not running long enough or in sufficient quantity to show it will work. Nuclear power works, we know that because we've been doing it for decades.
The performance of the reactors at Fukushima would be relevant to evaluating the future of nuclear power if anyone suggested building reactors like them again.
What you are arguing is that we should stop building airplanes because the Wright Brothers' Flyer was such a poor design.
Japan doesn't have the same kind of access as other nations to coal, wind, hydro, solar, or whatever to provide their energy needs. It's nuclear power or the lights go out. Any claims of some future energy source as a solution is pointless, they need energy now. Japan is not in a unique situation either, many nations will face the same problems as energy demands grow with development and access to oil and coal thins out.
Then why did the Obama Administration issue permits for the killing of thousands of bald and golden eagles to wind power companies? If birds figured out how to avoid the blades then there would be no need for such kill permits.
Windmills do kill birds. If you want to argue that such losses are "acceptable" then that might be a valid argument. Most species of eagles have recovered since they were declared endangered decades ago and so the loss of a few thousand every year to windmills is not likely to be any significant threat. If the powers that be wish to replace coal power with wind power then these bird deaths will be a problem at some point.
Yeah, that's a neat trick. First rush everything so much that there is no time to collect evidence, and then declare that everything is unsubstantiated.
The only reason anything was "rushed" was because the Senate Democrats sat on the letter written to them, for weeks, of accusations against Kavanaugh. Had they brought these accusations to light earlier, such as when the first round of questioning happened, then there would have been much more time for the investigation before SCOTUS returned to session. Now there's an empty seat, which is precisely what the Democrats wanted.
Not dishonest at all, certainly not, how dare you be so impolite to say that.
It's not dishonest or impolite to call the claims unsubstantiated when that is precisely the case.
There is plenty of reason to believe that at least some of the accusations can be substantiated: there are sworn statements that could bring the accusers a lot of legal trouble if they would be lying.
To prove the statements were false the statements made against Kavanaugh would have to be verifiable. Ford has been very nonspecific on crucial details. The date is merely some day in the summer of 1981 or 1982. The place is some private residence in a roughly 50 square mile area. There were no real witnesses to the event. The accused gave one account, the accuser another, and the other person that was said to be present (Mark Judge) wrote a letter claiming he has no recollection of the incident. It certainly doesn't help that Mark Judge has a history of alcohol abuse (dating back to when he was 14 years old, before the incident in question), was claimed to be drunk at the time, and would likely be considered an accessory to any crime if one actually occurred, therefore his account is unlikely to be trustworthy.
Ford risks nothing with her accusations because she never gave enough detail to prove she lied about anything. Certain details don't quite add up, like the dates she gave of her wanting a second front door on her house and her supposed fear of flying. While not likely to get her a perjury charge it does show her memory is far from photographic.
Due diligence would require that these accusations are at least properly investigated. (Not the sham that the FBI was forced to conduct this week.)
Investigate what? There's no physical evidence to look at, that's long gone by now. Ford is unable to to give a specific address, date, or list of potential witnesses. Any interviews the FBI might perform were already done in full view of the public by the Senate. Anyone else the FBI asked in their investigations said they have no recollection of anything happening like Ford said, or gave only hearsay accounts of what Ford told them. The FBI did six background checks on Kavanaugh over his lengthy career in government, and nothing like this ever came up before. To do anything more would require greater specificity from Ford and any other accusers, and/or a formal filing of a crime taking place.
Also, this suspected incident happened in a time and place where the FBI has only limited jurisdiction. If the Senate Democrats were serious about this then they'd ask the local police and sheriff to investigate and/or use the subpoena power of Congress to bring witnesses to report to the committee directly. The FBI did their investigation under orders of POTUS, essentially as a courtesy since Congress cannot simply make demands of the FBI. Senate Republicans brought in a subject matter expert to perform questioning on their behalf and her report to them said that there was not enough evidence to meet even the lowest standards of any kind of criminal or civil case against Kavanaugh.
The 5th Basic Energy Plan, approved in July 2018, maintains the same electricity percentages as agreed in mid-2015. It presents nuclear power as âoean important base-load power source contributing to the stability of the long-term energy supply-and-demand structure,â and states that necessary measures will be taken to achieve nuclear powerâ(TM)s share of 20-22% in the 2030 energy mix.
Japan shutdown all nuclear power plants for reviews on safety after the tsunami hit Fukushima. Since then Japan has declared many of the smaller and older plants unfit for restart, a few newer reactors have already been restarted, and about half of their nuclear power plant fleet is set to be restarted soon, and they have plans for the construction of new nuclear power plants. To get from near 0% to 20% nuclear in little over a decade means they intend to be very aggressive in refits on existing nuclear power and in construction of new nuclear power.
Japan has been restricted by their post-WWII constitution from having any military other than a small self defense force. An air force and/or navy capable of acting beyond territorial waters was barred to them as a condition of surrender, and today is considered provocative by their neighbors. Recent events has made Japan quite willing to build up a very real military, as well as the USA willing to give them the freedom to do so. World War II was a long time ago, and even memories of Fukushima are fading fast, given more pressing matters on energy policy and international politics.
I would not be surprised if Japan acquires nuclear submarines soon.
The terms "biofuel" and "sustainable" are contradictory. There are no biofuels that are sustainable now and the laws of physics prevent biofuels from ever being sustainable.
The reason that airlines are interested in biofuels is "greenwashing", they can advertise being "green" even if they know as a fact that such efforts are futile. Aircraft manufacturers and the military are interested in biofuels because in a fight for our lives against a suitably determined and capable adversary we might have to resort to means of self defense that under any other situation might be considered self destructive. Fueling airliners with biofuels would require so much land area, water, and so on, to produce that it could threaten the food supply of any nation that tried it. In a war the number of planes would be far smaller, and hopefully for such a short duration, that it would be of a greater threat to not turn cropland to producing fuel.
There's "big bucks" in research for defense because not investing in defense of the riches we have means the possibility of losing such riches to war. If you seek peace then prepare for war. Showing one is unable or unwilling to fight means being a big target for someone to come along and take over. We need this research done before it might be needed or risk losing everything.
This is not new. The US Navy has been working on this technology for what I'm guessing is at least a decade. What I'm guessing are the most notable differences are that they intend to get power from nuclear reactors, and perform this process at sea.
But we can't celebrate the US Navy working on this because to many in the "save the planet" group they see nuclear power as worse than global warming. Such people also tend to overlap with those that believe that no nation should have a military.
This gets a big yawn from me as it shows nothing that hasn't already been done. It does nothing to solve the real problems on where this energy comes from. Wind and solar power are inherently expensive and unreliable, nuclear power is not. Powering this process with any kind of carbon based fuel is simply nonsensical. Powering this with hydroelectric means we simply run out of hydro capacity more quickly, assuming that we haven't crossed that line decades ago. Thinking we can power this process with fusion reactors or some other not yet developed energy is just wishful thinking.
This process must get it's power from nuclear fission or it will not be successful any time soon.
Astronaut safety is NASA's number one priority on any space mission.
If safety is above mission success then we all are just hiding under our beds. There's a safety risk in everything, and launching people outside the atmosphere will carry all kinds of risks we would not have otherwise. If safety is above getting people into space then we never go to space. Safety cannot ever be the number one priority, safety needs to be second or third on the list if we are going to space. First priority is success. Second priority, in the case of private space programs, will be profit.
Maybe that's not even the right rank of priorities, profit is likely top on the list. Then comes mission success, as if you can't make money then you can't keep operating to try again. Safety is then third but then obviously dependent on priorities 1 and 2, as few will want profit if they don't survive to enjoy it and a company cannot be successful for long if people are killed or injured in the process.
Safety cannot be the first priority, because nothing is absolutely safe.
it only had those whack thunderbolt-3/USB-C ports which I had precisely zero perhipherals for and all the adaptors where ridiculously expensive and kinda unrelaible
Maybe you could make a case of adapters being expensive and unreliable at the time but that does not apply now. USB-C to USB-A adapters are less than $10 each, and far cheaper than that if bought in pairs/bulk or if you need only USB 2.0 speed and power.
This is not all that different when USB 1.1 was first adopted by Apple, the number of peripherals were few, often quite expensive, and also quite low in quality. USB-C has completed what I consider the "first round" of early adoption woes, that of dangerously non-compliant cables and adapters. The second round will be that of getting quantity. The third round will be that of prices falling. When it comes to USB-C power these three rounds are effectively done, as well as USB-C to USB-A adapters. The adoption for inexpensive and quality cables and devices, other than those two product types I mentioned, will likely be far slower than that of USB 1.1, 2.0, and even 3.0. I say this because we see slow adoption so far and unless or until USB-C demonstrates serving a need beyond being just a port to plug in a charger or USB-A adapter it will continue to have slow adoption.
My guess is that quantity and quality of USB-C products will come as people demand slimmer and lighter computers (in forms of tablets, laptops, smart phones, and so on) with capability to output video. We saw this with MHL adoption on USB micro-B connectors, we are seeing some of this now with vendor specific adapters to get HDMI and other video ports, and people will at some point demand a standard be adopted to get video from USB-C. The problem is that the USB group defined something like six different ways to get video from USB-C. Apple made it's choice with adoption of DisplayPort. Other manufacturers are often simply choosing to simply stick with a separate HDMI port for video output, perhaps some kind of WiFi streaming instead of or in addition to this. As people demand 4K, 5K, and 8K video they will find HDMI and such connections cannot meet such demands, while video over USB-C can.
Your complaint is something that early adopters often see, and you did so when Apple still offered laptops with the now legacy ports. You chose poorly and blame Apple for your choice, and that's simply nonsense.
Let's assume he's 100% innocent. Why should I have more pity for this person than the millions who lost health insurance under Trump? Or Farmers who are losing their livelihoods because of a misguided trade war? [snip]
You should have great concern over the loss of due process. Let's assume he is innocent, and fails to get his appointment to SCOTUS because of an accusation. This is not a "win" for anyone. We need rule of law or everything you are concerned about goes up in smoke, if not now then later, if not figuratively then literally. Loss of the rule of law means we have no bedrock on which to build a society.
We need a society and a government that makes it's decisions based on facts and not "feels". You "feel" he will continue to live a good life even if he fails to get to SCOTUS? He won't. He will forever be an accused rapist. He will never get a day in court to clear his name because no one has actually filed a criminal report. He will never work again. Every decision he's made as a judge would then up for review, because if he has such poor judgement in private life then his judgement as a judge is suspect.
You "feel" the way the government is operating now is not just? Well, by not appointing him we loosen our grasp on justice. If he's guilty then a criminal accusation needs to be filed in jurisdiction in which the crime occurred, which is not with the FBI. Senators keep demanding an investigation from the FBI as if they have some kind of superpower for finding the truth. What's true is that the Senate itself has greater authority to investigate on its own. What's also true is the local police have greater authority to investigate any criminal behavior than the FBI. If these senators don't already know the investigative authority they have, and that of the FBI, then I want their ability to continue in government up for review as well. I'm guessing that for many this will happen very soon.
Kavanaugh needs to be in SCOTUS or in jail. If he's innocent then the process demands his appointment be approved. If he's guilty then he needs to go to jail. Any kind of halfway resolution is an insult to the right of due process that all accused people are guaranteed under the Constitution.
Imagine moving all the good 200 year old farming topsoil from California to Oregon. Retraining farmers from one crop to another while buying them all new tools.
I grew up on a farm and I see no problem here. Farmers get "retraining" all the time. There's new seeds, new fertilizers, new pesticides, and even just new techniques on old stuff. Farmers buy new equipment all the time. They get bigger stuff, they get newer stuff, sometime they even trade down as they go into a semi-retirement. Equipment wears out and needs to be replaced. A single combine harvester might last 50 years but trade hands 10 times in that period, and be moved across several states. Also, that same harvester might be used for corn, soybeans, and wheat, all in the same growing season. Planters will be used for several different crops, as will things like plows and pesticide applicators. It's not like farmers need all new equipment to plant a new crop, there's a lot in common for every crop.
Also, crop rotation has been common practice for a very long time. Farmers already know how to manage multiple crops on their land, and have the equipment for it. Someone that grows a rotation of alfalfa, corn, and soybeans now might in the future have to add wheat because of changing markets and changing climate. Such changes tend to be slow, slow enough for farmers to adapt. They might have to buy new equipment, and learn how to use it, but they do this every year as a matter of keeping their equipment in good operating condition.
Claiming farmers cannot adapt is all a bunch of bullshit based on assumptions that farmers are idiots that know little of their own trade.
Tearing down all the coastline infrastructure in Florida and rebuilding it several miles further inland - while you aren't even sure where the final "save" coastline is going to be at. Building new tornado-safe houses in areas that didn't have a need for them before.
More bullshit. Houses and other structures are replaced all the time. Houses flood, get hit with tornadoes, have fires, and just plain get old. This means they need to be replaced and when they do they will be rebuilt to the standards of the time. Such changes in infrastructure is often planned out decades in advance based on a history of flooding and other weather events. The climate is not changing so quickly that we can't adapt. The claim is a rise of ocean levels by inches over centuries, I think we can manage that just fine without being driven into a panic.
In statistics class we were warned on correlation not meaning causation, as well as a related concept of confounding factors. A confounding factor, as I understand it, is something not considered in the data but shows up as something correlated to something as part of the data.
There must be dozens or hundreds of factors that are major contributors to the economic output of a nation, above that of climate differences by a few degrees. I have my own theories on why warmer climates are less successful but I'm sure I'd just trigger the snowflakes into calling me a racist if I try to explain the differences. It's got to be such nonsense on calling people a racist for pointing out the obvious that it's now a meaningless insult.
I recall reading on Slashdot not too long ago about some breast cancer research on how women of African ancestry have a genetic predisposition for a very difficult to treat form of breast cancer. Then in the next sentence they blame the deaths of so many people of African ancestry from breast cancer on the inherent racism in western culture. No, I'm pretty sure that it's not racism, only that because of a series of unfortunate events the people doing research on this have not been able to discover a means to treat this type of cancer well just yet.
Why are temperate climates more economically prosperous than warmer climates? There's a lot of reasons and many of them correlate with race, that doesn't mean by pointing out these correlations means one is a racist. What it does mean is that people will be reluctant to come forward with useful data because they fear being called a racist.
You want to end the so called "racism inherent in the system"? Then stop calling people racists for merely stating facts that they discovered. We can't have solutions if presenting the problems means getting ostracized.
Stop with the global warming alarmism! I'll stop giving the obvious solution when people stop bringing up the problem.
When I'm presented with a problem then I want to offer solutions. I've investigated this problem and given the data presented to me I see one solution coming up again and again, nuclear power. I also see other solutions, such as wind and solar power, but no one seems to be opposed to those but those solutions are going to be insufficient to solve the problem.
By the time you build a new plant -- which takes a decade-- grid batteries will easily work to scale at a lower price
Okay then, problem solved, right? If we have solved the problem then stop bringing it up. If we haven't solved the problem then we need solutions, and those solutions will need to include nuclear power given all information presented to me so far. Leaving out nuclear power means a solution is still at least ten years out. It's possible that even with nuclear power the solution is ten years out but if we put all our eggs in the one basket that is grid scale batteries. What happens if we hit a problem on the batteries? Just delay the Apocalypse? It seems we cannot wait and so we need all solutions on the table right now. If we leave out nuclear power then we are not taking the problem seriously.
If there were ACTUALLY new ideas to use, then build some prototypes already!
If you were paying attention then you'd know that prototypes were being built. The problem was that the Democrats, the Obama administration primarily, killed most every plan on nuclear power development, any means to dispose of the nuclear waste we currently have, and generally set nuclear power development back at least a decade. The Trump administration is moving as quickly as they can, with Democrats tossing wrenches in the works at every opportunity, to solve our energy problems. I've seen it mentioned before over and over that the Republicans have a majority and so what's stopping them? Well, look at the news on getting a justice appointed to SCOTUS as an example on how the Democrats can and do slow things down. Every appointment by Trump that needs a Senate vote gets held up by Democrats that, as it seems to me, don't want problems solved. That includes problems on global warming.
As the rules are now the building of any nuclear reactor prototypes needs approval from the federal government. The people that do these approvals have been put in place by Democrats. The Democrats oppose nuclear power in every form. These appointments come up in rotating 2 year terms. For things to move on this means Trump needs to make appointments, with Senate approvals, which again means the Democrats have an opportunity to throw wrenches in the works.
All this rests on the Democrats. The high costs of nuclear power is because of Democrats. The long building time of a nuclear power plant rests on the Democrats. The money lost on failed nuclear power projects rest in large part on the Democrats. It's as if the Democrats don't want to see the global warming problem solved.
These are the REAL big problems. You can add nuclear into the debate when people are actually making efforts to prevent and solve the problems but instead these side shows serve to fragment, confuse their opposition, and create doubts.
Nuclear power is a good idea even if there is no global warming. That's because nuclear power is safe, cheap, and domestic. You want to keep the USA out of foreign affairs? Such as those in oil rich Middle East? Then we need domestic energy. That means not only drilling for domestic oil and gas but also developing domestic nuclear power. People want jobs, well then put them to work in building not only nuclear power but also wind and solar. We import far too much solar power collectors, it's time we build them here, which is another thing the Democr
Not quite. Nuclear cannot respond quickly enough to account for fluctuations in wind power.
Neither can coal, and yet Australia burns a lot of coal. As does Germany, another country brought up as an example of the "success" of wind power.
For that, you need spinning reserve, like a hydro dam or a natural gas turbine. Nuclear is a possible solution but has societal tradeoffs that other energy technologies do not have.
Everything has trade offs. Nuclear power has the lowest CO2 produced per energy produced of any energy source we have today. Nuclear power is far safer than even wind and solar. What trade offs are there that go with this? Well, there's the easily addressed waste to be disposed of. This is a far easier problem than the waste from solar power, and perhaps even the waste from wind power.
Nuclear power needs reserve like wind and solar but because nuclear power is so reliable the levels of reserve needed is far less. In fact a fleet of nuclear power plants can be a spinning reserve for the other nuclear power plants in the fleet. They can increase and decrease power quite quickly in small amounts, which when spread over many power plants can mean a considerable level of spinning reserve. Add this to technologies like batteries and pumped hydro storage that people bring up for reserves on wind and solar means nuclear power is just as viable as wind and solar in meeting our energy needs.
All problems with nuclear power are far more easily solved than any problems with wind and solar. In fact the same energy storage technologies used to address the problems with wind and solar are directly applicable to nuclear power.
wow you seem to be ignoring the extend and harm of a few nuclear plant disasters in the past few decades. problems not local at all, cross many countries.
You appear to assume new nuclear reactors would be built the same as those that created these disasters. Estimates of the deaths from Chernobyl has been reduced considerably, to the point that even if we continued to build nuclear power like we did in the 1970s we'd still see nuclear power as safer than anything else by orders of magnitude. Fukushima was built before Chernobyl, and had design problems that were left uncorrected even though they were known about for decades. No one will build a nuclear power plant like either of those again, if only because new designs are cheaper while also being safer.
I am not ignoring the extent of the harm, only recognizing that this harm was temporary and we keep these exclusion zones only out of an abundance of caution that many measures show are unnecessary. Again, such concerns are not relevant to modern nuclear power because no one is proposing to build nuclear reactors like those at Fukushima, Chernobyl, or Three Mile Island again. Those were all second generation designs, and all had problems of needing power to put in a safe condition. Third generation designs do not need power to be rendered safe. Fourth generation designs are being tested now and will likely be in demonstration prototypes in less than 10 years, and in production in 5 years after that.
really solar and energy storage tech has become efficient enough we should go that route, we don't need nuclear any more
You think storage will make solar power competitive? Batteries don't care where the energy comes from. We can charge them up with nuclear power. Those batteries would serve nuclear power well for load following, backup power, maintaining grid stability, and perhaps more.
If we can agree that CO2 is a problem then we need nuclear power. That's because nuclear power provides power with a lower CO2 footprint than solar. It also means less environmental impact from mining, land covered, and lives lost. Solar power is also quite expensive compared to nuclear, even today and nuclear power keeps getting cheaper with each generation of development. Any complaints of nuclear power being expensive now are matters of politics, not technology. We can fix policy, and at a low cost. Solar power is inherently unreliable, because the sun goes down, and inherently expensive, because of the resources required. Technology might fix the problems with solar power in the future but today nuclear power is more reliable, lower cost, safer, and lower CO2.
while I'm not anti-nuclear let's not sugar coat the truth
If you continue to repeat such lies, as well as claim we don't need nuclear power, then you are demonstrably anti-nuclear power. How can you both say we don't need nuclear power and claim to be not anti-nuclear? Do you not see the contradiction here?
Let's not "sugar coat the truth", nuclear power has a lower CO2 output per energy produced. If we agree that CO2 output is a problem then we need energy from the lowest CO2 energy source, and that's nuclear power.
If global warming from CO2 production is a problem then we need to consider all solutions to reduce CO2 production. As it is right now, today, nuclear power produced the least CO2 for the most energy. As it is right now nuclear power is by far the safest energy source we have. Cite: http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...
Anyone that both desires to reduce CO2 immediately and ban the future development of nuclear power is placing us all into an impossible situation. It's possible to both reduce CO2 and not use nuclear power but that means (as shown by the source I linked to above) much more mining of ores for the production of steel, concrete, glass, copper, aluminum, and so many more raw materials. This comes with costs, in money, lives, and standard of living.
Any problems with nuclear power is local, very local, as in limited to the borders of the power plant and the mines. Releases of material beyond these borders are rare, minute, and can be addressed. Issues of CO2 spreading will be global in nature. Any costs of nuclear power must be balanced with the reduced costs of CO2 output it would produce in replacing coal and natural gas.
Wind and solar involve considerable material costs, far more than nuclear. They also have costs in lives from industrial accidents, far less than any from nuclear power per energy produced. Wind and solar are also unreliable and expensive, which when addressing the unreliability means increasing the costs. There may be places where wind and solar are really cheap, and where pumped hydro storage is also cheap, but these places are rare. Suitable sites for nuclear power, especially fourth generation nuclear, are not rare.
I do not believe global warming to be a problem but I will concede that point if it means we get cheap, reliable, and safe nuclear power.
I will believe Australia is taking global warming seriously when they start building nuclear power plants.
Nuclear power has the lowest CO2 output per energy produced than any energy source we have currently with a possible exception for hydroelectric. Nuclear power is also the safest energy source we have, as measured by deaths per energy produced. Any other problems anyone might raise are nothing compared to global warming, assuming that there is in fact man made global warming. cite: http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...
Problems of cost are nothing, because as is pointed out there are costs to continued use of coal. Problems of nuclear waste are nothing, because the waste is contained and localized compared to CO2 which goes everywhere. We know how to deal with waste effectively, put it in a container and keep an eye on it. Presumably in the future we can extract many of the valuable materials from this waste for use in industry and medicine, something we do a limited amount already.
I find it quite contradictory to both complain so vociferously of global warming while having a ban on the use of a technology that has demonstrated a very effective ability to reduce this warming. Go to hell, Australia. Your entire economy is based on the mining of coal and uranium. You burn the coal and export the uranium. You want us in the USA to reduce our CO2? You first! Be an example for the rest of the world. You built up a bunch of wind and then found out it can't work without a big fucking battery to keep the grid stable. You know what would also keep the grid stable? And actually produce energy? Nuclear power plants. Go build your windmills but also build some nuclear power. If you believe global warming will leave your nation desolate then you need to have an "all the above" energy plan, and "all the above" includes nuclear power.
Or it's because the observatory lies on federal land, a national forest.
The FBI does this quite often, according to a former FBI agent friend of mine. A national forest will have a police force from the US Forest Service but if it's more than they can handle for some reason then they call in for help from the FBI. On some federal properties the FBI is the primary law enforcement. As this observatory, and the land it sits on, is managed by multiple federal government agencies I'm guessing that there are FBI agents there regularly.
Nice way to spin a scope that tracks targets through walls.
You seem to imply this is some kind of problem. I'd like the police to know the difference between the victims and the criminals when trying to resolve a hostage situation, even if there is a wall in the way. One thing taught in the Army is that concealment is not always cover, this just adds another dimension to that. I'd rather we figure out how this works before our adversaries do.
Also in that article we find that the polar bears are doing well, CO2 emissions will not lead to a climate catastrophe, pesticides are not poisoning you from fresh fruits and veggies, GMOs are good for you, farmed fish are good for the environment and nutritious, nuclear power is our future, there is no floating plastic island the size of Texas (or of New Hampshire), CO2 is not turning the oceans to acid, and climate change is not killing the trees.
Has anyone noticed that there's no pictures of the plastic floating out at sea? Certainly something that big is visible from space. Or maybe there's some kind of tour one could take to see this plastic, kind of like people going out to see whales.
Getting back on topic, shouldn't there be pictures of the damage to the coral reef? They claim they've documented this. I assume they have before and after photos. I'd like to see those photos. I realize that a lot of this stuff is out at sea where it's difficult for people to see for themselves but someone certainly has taken photos by now. In the past such equipment might have been exceedingly expensive but now a waterproof cameras are sold as child's toys, are a feature of most every cell phone, and if someone wants to get real deep in the water then they might have to spend a few dollars more. For the most part the ability to document this in a way for all to see is quite inexpensive and should be available to even a hobbyist.
If anyone thinks that it's about device jack real estate, upgrading with the times, or innovation, they are hopelessly naive.
Well, you certainly stirred up the pot and got people to respond. I may as well join in.
Let's consider the two sides here. We have you saying Apple is doing this to better enforce DRM, and therefore sell more copies of the same music and DRM encumbered devices. On the other hand we have Apple. I thought for sure that Apple made some kind of statement on why they removed the headphone jack from their phones. A short search of the internet brought me to an interview of someone that claims to be in the know, but I'm not sure the person actually represents Apple in anyway. The person gave four reasons Apple did away with the jack.
First, the port made it difficult to waterproof. I'll give that this might be pretty lame since other people figured out how to water proof the port. The excuse was not that it made it impossible to keep water out, only more difficult. This alone is not a reason but certainly counts against it.
Second, they needed the room for more useful stuff. Again, perhaps a lame excuse but still a point against it. Apple wanted to keep the microphone, motion feedback, speaker, Lightning port, and probably other stuff close together on the bottom and it was getting cramped.
Third, research was showing few people used the port. This may actually be a good excuse. I saw no numbers on usage and, again the person in this interview may not actually have any inside information, but if true then there may simply be a time to get rid of it because so few people care if it's there or not. The interview I read went into more detail about people not liking the cords getting tangled and caught on things but it just came down to people preferring wireless.
Fourth, and this might be the killer, the 1/8" audio port had no real defined standard on how it should work. There's two different versions of how a 1/8" jack should be wired for sound in and out based on the market. Given that people expect the headphone to also control things like volume, track next/last, and perhaps other functions, it just got hard to comply with the different standards and still keep functions that people demanded. For things like active sound cancelling there also needed to be a means to provide power or the headphones would need their own batteries. Those that used wired headphones tended to use the Lightning port anyway to get power, more buttons, clearer sound, and so on. This is in part a restatement of the people not using the port. With the limited features that they could serve on an old 1/8" non-standard "standard" they couldn't keep people happy with the port anyway. Those that demanded the old 1/8" jack could still get an adapter that matched the wiring used in their location.
After reading all that it seems far less of some conspiracy theory to hit people up for another $10 on a $1000 phone. I'll admit that personally I've found myself wishing for a separate port for sound out and power in. Not often enough yet to spend much time looking for some kind of adapter. The claim that this is to close the "analog loophole" is quite silly. Finding some way to grab the audio out of an iPhone and feed that into some kind of recording device is quite trivial. Especially given that most any music that one could get on an iPhone is almost certainly available on some other more "hackable" device. This includes the large variety of Bluetooth to 1/8" jack devices out there.
I'll have to consider the DRM reasons for removing the jack a conspiracy theory. Perhaps you could argue that the DRM enforcement aspects of removing the port is merely another reason but that does not negate the publicly stated reasons for removing the port.
It's really not that difficult. You just say it must be possible to remove the battery without use of any tools or significant effort, by an average person (not a specialist), in less than [x] seconds.
If the regulation is targeted, no manufacturer who cares about their reputation will dare oppose it given the obvious reasons for it and limited cost.
Except a manufacturer that brings up the theft risks of being able to remove a battery from a phone in seconds by an unskilled person without the need for tools. A phone can be tracked, locked, or whatever, a battery removed from the phone cannot. A battery removed from the phone has value, it can be sold as a replacement battery, if damaged or aged the it still has scrap material value, or valuable as a potential weapon if shorted out to make it burn or explode.
Yes, you'll never get absolutely everyone and the enforcement effort to get every last manufacturer and stop every last non-compliant import is not worth it - but if even 50% of the market complies, that's still a huge improvement on today's situation.
What improvement? These batteries have been shown to start sending out sparks and hot gasses if punctured or crushed. I'd much rather they be kept in a case made of aluminum and Gorilla Glass. That would keep criminals and pranksters from turning cellphones into fire hazards.
Oh, you want to require that the removed battery have a durable outer casing? What do you think that phone or tablet is? You want a durable outer casing that's separate from the phone? Now the phone just got twice as thick, half the battery life, and another 50% on the cost.
No thanks, I'll leave the battery removal to the professionals.
Slashdot Mirror
The "standardized" AP1000 hasn't even been operating long enough that anyone can make any kind of claims on the economics yet. Only one has gone online in the world and the four in the USA have not been completed yet. If you want to claim the AP1000 a failure before even a half dozen come online then why not make the same claims on wind and solar? We've seen all kinds of failures, cost overruns, poor performance, safety problems, and on and on, from wind and solar projects.
By your metric only the rarest of designs could be considered a success. It's uncommon for a design to survive the first few rounds of implementations, there will be design updates as things are learned from the first few builds. Also, even if the AP1000 proves to be a failure there's dozens of other designs we could try before we declare the entirety of the nuclear power industry a failure.
I'd like to see how you believe wind, solar, and storage can compete with nuclear. We've got 60 years of nuclear power experience showing that it can be profitable. What's lost is the old economies of scale from building dozens of reactors every year. We start doing that again and prices will come down. It's plain bullshit of building reactors by the ones and twos and then calling that an example of a full scale deployment costs. It's no different than the wind and solar power people showing falling prices as deployment increases. You want to see nuclear power get cheaper? That means you have to build them at a rate that economies of scale apply. How many is that? My guess is dozens being built in the USA every year. Given the age of current nuclear power reactors and their expected life span we will have to build nuclear power reactors at dozens per year real soon or see rolling blackouts.
That's assuming we don't simply revert to burning coal. It's coal, nuclear, or the lights go out. Grid scale storage is still an unproven technology, not running long enough or in sufficient quantity to show it will work. Nuclear power works, we know that because we've been doing it for decades.
The performance of the reactors at Fukushima would be relevant to evaluating the future of nuclear power if anyone suggested building reactors like them again.
What you are arguing is that we should stop building airplanes because the Wright Brothers' Flyer was such a poor design.
Japan doesn't have the same kind of access as other nations to coal, wind, hydro, solar, or whatever to provide their energy needs. It's nuclear power or the lights go out. Any claims of some future energy source as a solution is pointless, they need energy now. Japan is not in a unique situation either, many nations will face the same problems as energy demands grow with development and access to oil and coal thins out.
It's nuclear power or the lights go out.
Then why did the Obama Administration issue permits for the killing of thousands of bald and golden eagles to wind power companies? If birds figured out how to avoid the blades then there would be no need for such kill permits.
https://apnews.com/b8dd6050c70...
Windmills do kill birds. If you want to argue that such losses are "acceptable" then that might be a valid argument. Most species of eagles have recovered since they were declared endangered decades ago and so the loss of a few thousand every year to windmills is not likely to be any significant threat. If the powers that be wish to replace coal power with wind power then these bird deaths will be a problem at some point.
Yeah, that's a neat trick. First rush everything so much that there is no time to collect evidence, and then declare that everything is unsubstantiated.
The only reason anything was "rushed" was because the Senate Democrats sat on the letter written to them, for weeks, of accusations against Kavanaugh. Had they brought these accusations to light earlier, such as when the first round of questioning happened, then there would have been much more time for the investigation before SCOTUS returned to session. Now there's an empty seat, which is precisely what the Democrats wanted.
Not dishonest at all, certainly not, how dare you be so impolite to say that.
It's not dishonest or impolite to call the claims unsubstantiated when that is precisely the case.
There is plenty of reason to believe that at least some of the accusations can be substantiated: there are sworn statements that could bring the accusers a lot of legal trouble if they would be lying.
To prove the statements were false the statements made against Kavanaugh would have to be verifiable. Ford has been very nonspecific on crucial details. The date is merely some day in the summer of 1981 or 1982. The place is some private residence in a roughly 50 square mile area. There were no real witnesses to the event. The accused gave one account, the accuser another, and the other person that was said to be present (Mark Judge) wrote a letter claiming he has no recollection of the incident. It certainly doesn't help that Mark Judge has a history of alcohol abuse (dating back to when he was 14 years old, before the incident in question), was claimed to be drunk at the time, and would likely be considered an accessory to any crime if one actually occurred, therefore his account is unlikely to be trustworthy.
Ford risks nothing with her accusations because she never gave enough detail to prove she lied about anything. Certain details don't quite add up, like the dates she gave of her wanting a second front door on her house and her supposed fear of flying. While not likely to get her a perjury charge it does show her memory is far from photographic.
Due diligence would require that these accusations are at least properly investigated. (Not the sham that the FBI was forced to conduct this week.)
Investigate what? There's no physical evidence to look at, that's long gone by now. Ford is unable to to give a specific address, date, or list of potential witnesses. Any interviews the FBI might perform were already done in full view of the public by the Senate. Anyone else the FBI asked in their investigations said they have no recollection of anything happening like Ford said, or gave only hearsay accounts of what Ford told them. The FBI did six background checks on Kavanaugh over his lengthy career in government, and nothing like this ever came up before. To do anything more would require greater specificity from Ford and any other accusers, and/or a formal filing of a crime taking place.
Also, this suspected incident happened in a time and place where the FBI has only limited jurisdiction. If the Senate Democrats were serious about this then they'd ask the local police and sheriff to investigate and/or use the subpoena power of Congress to bring witnesses to report to the committee directly. The FBI did their investigation under orders of POTUS, essentially as a courtesy since Congress cannot simply make demands of the FBI. Senate Republicans brought in a subject matter expert to perform questioning on their behalf and her report to them said that there was not enough evidence to meet even the lowest standards of any kind of criminal or civil case against Kavanaugh.
Not quite.
The 5th Basic Energy Plan, approved in July 2018, maintains the same electricity percentages as agreed in mid-2015. It presents nuclear power as âoean important base-load power source contributing to the stability of the long-term energy supply-and-demand structure,â and states that necessary measures will be taken to achieve nuclear powerâ(TM)s share of 20-22% in the 2030 energy mix.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/i...
Japan shutdown all nuclear power plants for reviews on safety after the tsunami hit Fukushima. Since then Japan has declared many of the smaller and older plants unfit for restart, a few newer reactors have already been restarted, and about half of their nuclear power plant fleet is set to be restarted soon, and they have plans for the construction of new nuclear power plants. To get from near 0% to 20% nuclear in little over a decade means they intend to be very aggressive in refits on existing nuclear power and in construction of new nuclear power.
Japan has been restricted by their post-WWII constitution from having any military other than a small self defense force. An air force and/or navy capable of acting beyond territorial waters was barred to them as a condition of surrender, and today is considered provocative by their neighbors. Recent events has made Japan quite willing to build up a very real military, as well as the USA willing to give them the freedom to do so. World War II was a long time ago, and even memories of Fukushima are fading fast, given more pressing matters on energy policy and international politics.
I would not be surprised if Japan acquires nuclear submarines soon.
The terms "biofuel" and "sustainable" are contradictory. There are no biofuels that are sustainable now and the laws of physics prevent biofuels from ever being sustainable.
The reason that airlines are interested in biofuels is "greenwashing", they can advertise being "green" even if they know as a fact that such efforts are futile. Aircraft manufacturers and the military are interested in biofuels because in a fight for our lives against a suitably determined and capable adversary we might have to resort to means of self defense that under any other situation might be considered self destructive. Fueling airliners with biofuels would require so much land area, water, and so on, to produce that it could threaten the food supply of any nation that tried it. In a war the number of planes would be far smaller, and hopefully for such a short duration, that it would be of a greater threat to not turn cropland to producing fuel.
There's "big bucks" in research for defense because not investing in defense of the riches we have means the possibility of losing such riches to war. If you seek peace then prepare for war. Showing one is unable or unwilling to fight means being a big target for someone to come along and take over. We need this research done before it might be needed or risk losing everything.
This is not new. The US Navy has been working on this technology for what I'm guessing is at least a decade. What I'm guessing are the most notable differences are that they intend to get power from nuclear reactors, and perform this process at sea.
But we can't celebrate the US Navy working on this because to many in the "save the planet" group they see nuclear power as worse than global warming. Such people also tend to overlap with those that believe that no nation should have a military.
This gets a big yawn from me as it shows nothing that hasn't already been done. It does nothing to solve the real problems on where this energy comes from. Wind and solar power are inherently expensive and unreliable, nuclear power is not. Powering this process with any kind of carbon based fuel is simply nonsensical. Powering this with hydroelectric means we simply run out of hydro capacity more quickly, assuming that we haven't crossed that line decades ago. Thinking we can power this process with fusion reactors or some other not yet developed energy is just wishful thinking.
This process must get it's power from nuclear fission or it will not be successful any time soon.
Astronaut safety is NASA's number one priority on any space mission.
If safety is above mission success then we all are just hiding under our beds. There's a safety risk in everything, and launching people outside the atmosphere will carry all kinds of risks we would not have otherwise. If safety is above getting people into space then we never go to space. Safety cannot ever be the number one priority, safety needs to be second or third on the list if we are going to space. First priority is success. Second priority, in the case of private space programs, will be profit.
Maybe that's not even the right rank of priorities, profit is likely top on the list. Then comes mission success, as if you can't make money then you can't keep operating to try again. Safety is then third but then obviously dependent on priorities 1 and 2, as few will want profit if they don't survive to enjoy it and a company cannot be successful for long if people are killed or injured in the process.
Safety cannot be the first priority, because nothing is absolutely safe.
it only had those whack thunderbolt-3/USB-C ports which I had precisely zero perhipherals for and all the adaptors where ridiculously expensive and kinda unrelaible
Maybe you could make a case of adapters being expensive and unreliable at the time but that does not apply now. USB-C to USB-A adapters are less than $10 each, and far cheaper than that if bought in pairs/bulk or if you need only USB 2.0 speed and power.
This is not all that different when USB 1.1 was first adopted by Apple, the number of peripherals were few, often quite expensive, and also quite low in quality. USB-C has completed what I consider the "first round" of early adoption woes, that of dangerously non-compliant cables and adapters. The second round will be that of getting quantity. The third round will be that of prices falling. When it comes to USB-C power these three rounds are effectively done, as well as USB-C to USB-A adapters. The adoption for inexpensive and quality cables and devices, other than those two product types I mentioned, will likely be far slower than that of USB 1.1, 2.0, and even 3.0. I say this because we see slow adoption so far and unless or until USB-C demonstrates serving a need beyond being just a port to plug in a charger or USB-A adapter it will continue to have slow adoption.
My guess is that quantity and quality of USB-C products will come as people demand slimmer and lighter computers (in forms of tablets, laptops, smart phones, and so on) with capability to output video. We saw this with MHL adoption on USB micro-B connectors, we are seeing some of this now with vendor specific adapters to get HDMI and other video ports, and people will at some point demand a standard be adopted to get video from USB-C. The problem is that the USB group defined something like six different ways to get video from USB-C. Apple made it's choice with adoption of DisplayPort. Other manufacturers are often simply choosing to simply stick with a separate HDMI port for video output, perhaps some kind of WiFi streaming instead of or in addition to this. As people demand 4K, 5K, and 8K video they will find HDMI and such connections cannot meet such demands, while video over USB-C can.
Your complaint is something that early adopters often see, and you did so when Apple still offered laptops with the now legacy ports. You chose poorly and blame Apple for your choice, and that's simply nonsense.
I was also raped by king neckbeard. He was drunk and high on cocaine at the time. His penis looked like that dinosaur on Mario Cart.
If you doubt my claims then you are pro-rape and also have a penis shaped like a video game character.
Let's assume he's 100% innocent. Why should I have more pity for this person than the millions who lost health insurance under Trump? Or Farmers who are losing their livelihoods because of a misguided trade war? [snip]
You should have great concern over the loss of due process. Let's assume he is innocent, and fails to get his appointment to SCOTUS because of an accusation. This is not a "win" for anyone. We need rule of law or everything you are concerned about goes up in smoke, if not now then later, if not figuratively then literally. Loss of the rule of law means we have no bedrock on which to build a society.
We need a society and a government that makes it's decisions based on facts and not "feels". You "feel" he will continue to live a good life even if he fails to get to SCOTUS? He won't. He will forever be an accused rapist. He will never get a day in court to clear his name because no one has actually filed a criminal report. He will never work again. Every decision he's made as a judge would then up for review, because if he has such poor judgement in private life then his judgement as a judge is suspect.
You "feel" the way the government is operating now is not just? Well, by not appointing him we loosen our grasp on justice. If he's guilty then a criminal accusation needs to be filed in jurisdiction in which the crime occurred, which is not with the FBI. Senators keep demanding an investigation from the FBI as if they have some kind of superpower for finding the truth. What's true is that the Senate itself has greater authority to investigate on its own. What's also true is the local police have greater authority to investigate any criminal behavior than the FBI. If these senators don't already know the investigative authority they have, and that of the FBI, then I want their ability to continue in government up for review as well. I'm guessing that for many this will happen very soon.
Kavanaugh needs to be in SCOTUS or in jail. If he's innocent then the process demands his appointment be approved. If he's guilty then he needs to go to jail. Any kind of halfway resolution is an insult to the right of due process that all accused people are guaranteed under the Constitution.
Imagine moving all the good 200 year old farming topsoil from California to Oregon. Retraining farmers from one crop to another while buying them all new tools.
I grew up on a farm and I see no problem here. Farmers get "retraining" all the time. There's new seeds, new fertilizers, new pesticides, and even just new techniques on old stuff. Farmers buy new equipment all the time. They get bigger stuff, they get newer stuff, sometime they even trade down as they go into a semi-retirement. Equipment wears out and needs to be replaced. A single combine harvester might last 50 years but trade hands 10 times in that period, and be moved across several states. Also, that same harvester might be used for corn, soybeans, and wheat, all in the same growing season. Planters will be used for several different crops, as will things like plows and pesticide applicators. It's not like farmers need all new equipment to plant a new crop, there's a lot in common for every crop.
Also, crop rotation has been common practice for a very long time. Farmers already know how to manage multiple crops on their land, and have the equipment for it. Someone that grows a rotation of alfalfa, corn, and soybeans now might in the future have to add wheat because of changing markets and changing climate. Such changes tend to be slow, slow enough for farmers to adapt. They might have to buy new equipment, and learn how to use it, but they do this every year as a matter of keeping their equipment in good operating condition.
Claiming farmers cannot adapt is all a bunch of bullshit based on assumptions that farmers are idiots that know little of their own trade.
Tearing down all the coastline infrastructure in Florida and rebuilding it several miles further inland - while you aren't even sure where the final "save" coastline is going to be at. Building new tornado-safe houses in areas that didn't have a need for them before.
More bullshit. Houses and other structures are replaced all the time. Houses flood, get hit with tornadoes, have fires, and just plain get old. This means they need to be replaced and when they do they will be rebuilt to the standards of the time. Such changes in infrastructure is often planned out decades in advance based on a history of flooding and other weather events. The climate is not changing so quickly that we can't adapt. The claim is a rise of ocean levels by inches over centuries, I think we can manage that just fine without being driven into a panic.
In statistics class we were warned on correlation not meaning causation, as well as a related concept of confounding factors. A confounding factor, as I understand it, is something not considered in the data but shows up as something correlated to something as part of the data.
There must be dozens or hundreds of factors that are major contributors to the economic output of a nation, above that of climate differences by a few degrees. I have my own theories on why warmer climates are less successful but I'm sure I'd just trigger the snowflakes into calling me a racist if I try to explain the differences. It's got to be such nonsense on calling people a racist for pointing out the obvious that it's now a meaningless insult.
I recall reading on Slashdot not too long ago about some breast cancer research on how women of African ancestry have a genetic predisposition for a very difficult to treat form of breast cancer. Then in the next sentence they blame the deaths of so many people of African ancestry from breast cancer on the inherent racism in western culture. No, I'm pretty sure that it's not racism, only that because of a series of unfortunate events the people doing research on this have not been able to discover a means to treat this type of cancer well just yet.
Why are temperate climates more economically prosperous than warmer climates? There's a lot of reasons and many of them correlate with race, that doesn't mean by pointing out these correlations means one is a racist. What it does mean is that people will be reluctant to come forward with useful data because they fear being called a racist.
You want to end the so called "racism inherent in the system"? Then stop calling people racists for merely stating facts that they discovered. We can't have solutions if presenting the problems means getting ostracized.
Get off the nuclear obsession!
Stop with the global warming alarmism! I'll stop giving the obvious solution when people stop bringing up the problem.
When I'm presented with a problem then I want to offer solutions. I've investigated this problem and given the data presented to me I see one solution coming up again and again, nuclear power. I also see other solutions, such as wind and solar power, but no one seems to be opposed to those but those solutions are going to be insufficient to solve the problem.
By the time you build a new plant -- which takes a decade-- grid batteries will easily work to scale at a lower price
Okay then, problem solved, right? If we have solved the problem then stop bringing it up. If we haven't solved the problem then we need solutions, and those solutions will need to include nuclear power given all information presented to me so far. Leaving out nuclear power means a solution is still at least ten years out. It's possible that even with nuclear power the solution is ten years out but if we put all our eggs in the one basket that is grid scale batteries. What happens if we hit a problem on the batteries? Just delay the Apocalypse? It seems we cannot wait and so we need all solutions on the table right now. If we leave out nuclear power then we are not taking the problem seriously.
If there were ACTUALLY new ideas to use, then build some prototypes already!
If you were paying attention then you'd know that prototypes were being built. The problem was that the Democrats, the Obama administration primarily, killed most every plan on nuclear power development, any means to dispose of the nuclear waste we currently have, and generally set nuclear power development back at least a decade. The Trump administration is moving as quickly as they can, with Democrats tossing wrenches in the works at every opportunity, to solve our energy problems. I've seen it mentioned before over and over that the Republicans have a majority and so what's stopping them? Well, look at the news on getting a justice appointed to SCOTUS as an example on how the Democrats can and do slow things down. Every appointment by Trump that needs a Senate vote gets held up by Democrats that, as it seems to me, don't want problems solved. That includes problems on global warming.
As the rules are now the building of any nuclear reactor prototypes needs approval from the federal government. The people that do these approvals have been put in place by Democrats. The Democrats oppose nuclear power in every form. These appointments come up in rotating 2 year terms. For things to move on this means Trump needs to make appointments, with Senate approvals, which again means the Democrats have an opportunity to throw wrenches in the works.
All this rests on the Democrats. The high costs of nuclear power is because of Democrats. The long building time of a nuclear power plant rests on the Democrats. The money lost on failed nuclear power projects rest in large part on the Democrats. It's as if the Democrats don't want to see the global warming problem solved.
These are the REAL big problems. You can add nuclear into the debate when people are actually making efforts to prevent and solve the problems but instead these side shows serve to fragment, confuse their opposition, and create doubts.
Nuclear power is a good idea even if there is no global warming. That's because nuclear power is safe, cheap, and domestic. You want to keep the USA out of foreign affairs? Such as those in oil rich Middle East? Then we need domestic energy. That means not only drilling for domestic oil and gas but also developing domestic nuclear power. People want jobs, well then put them to work in building not only nuclear power but also wind and solar. We import far too much solar power collectors, it's time we build them here, which is another thing the Democr
Not quite. Nuclear cannot respond quickly enough to account for fluctuations in wind power.
Neither can coal, and yet Australia burns a lot of coal. As does Germany, another country brought up as an example of the "success" of wind power.
For that, you need spinning reserve, like a hydro dam or a natural gas turbine. Nuclear is a possible solution but has societal tradeoffs that other energy technologies do not have.
Everything has trade offs. Nuclear power has the lowest CO2 produced per energy produced of any energy source we have today. Nuclear power is far safer than even wind and solar. What trade offs are there that go with this? Well, there's the easily addressed waste to be disposed of. This is a far easier problem than the waste from solar power, and perhaps even the waste from wind power.
Nuclear power needs reserve like wind and solar but because nuclear power is so reliable the levels of reserve needed is far less. In fact a fleet of nuclear power plants can be a spinning reserve for the other nuclear power plants in the fleet. They can increase and decrease power quite quickly in small amounts, which when spread over many power plants can mean a considerable level of spinning reserve. Add this to technologies like batteries and pumped hydro storage that people bring up for reserves on wind and solar means nuclear power is just as viable as wind and solar in meeting our energy needs.
All problems with nuclear power are far more easily solved than any problems with wind and solar. In fact the same energy storage technologies used to address the problems with wind and solar are directly applicable to nuclear power.
wow you seem to be ignoring the extend and harm of a few nuclear plant disasters in the past few decades. problems not local at all, cross many countries.
You appear to assume new nuclear reactors would be built the same as those that created these disasters. Estimates of the deaths from Chernobyl has been reduced considerably, to the point that even if we continued to build nuclear power like we did in the 1970s we'd still see nuclear power as safer than anything else by orders of magnitude. Fukushima was built before Chernobyl, and had design problems that were left uncorrected even though they were known about for decades. No one will build a nuclear power plant like either of those again, if only because new designs are cheaper while also being safer.
I am not ignoring the extent of the harm, only recognizing that this harm was temporary and we keep these exclusion zones only out of an abundance of caution that many measures show are unnecessary. Again, such concerns are not relevant to modern nuclear power because no one is proposing to build nuclear reactors like those at Fukushima, Chernobyl, or Three Mile Island again. Those were all second generation designs, and all had problems of needing power to put in a safe condition. Third generation designs do not need power to be rendered safe. Fourth generation designs are being tested now and will likely be in demonstration prototypes in less than 10 years, and in production in 5 years after that.
really solar and energy storage tech has become efficient enough we should go that route, we don't need nuclear any more
You think storage will make solar power competitive? Batteries don't care where the energy comes from. We can charge them up with nuclear power. Those batteries would serve nuclear power well for load following, backup power, maintaining grid stability, and perhaps more.
If we can agree that CO2 is a problem then we need nuclear power. That's because nuclear power provides power with a lower CO2 footprint than solar. It also means less environmental impact from mining, land covered, and lives lost. Solar power is also quite expensive compared to nuclear, even today and nuclear power keeps getting cheaper with each generation of development. Any complaints of nuclear power being expensive now are matters of politics, not technology. We can fix policy, and at a low cost. Solar power is inherently unreliable, because the sun goes down, and inherently expensive, because of the resources required. Technology might fix the problems with solar power in the future but today nuclear power is more reliable, lower cost, safer, and lower CO2.
while I'm not anti-nuclear let's not sugar coat the truth
If you continue to repeat such lies, as well as claim we don't need nuclear power, then you are demonstrably anti-nuclear power. How can you both say we don't need nuclear power and claim to be not anti-nuclear? Do you not see the contradiction here?
Let's not "sugar coat the truth", nuclear power has a lower CO2 output per energy produced. If we agree that CO2 output is a problem then we need energy from the lowest CO2 energy source, and that's nuclear power.
If global warming from CO2 production is a problem then we need to consider all solutions to reduce CO2 production. As it is right now, today, nuclear power produced the least CO2 for the most energy. As it is right now nuclear power is by far the safest energy source we have.
Cite: http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...
Anyone that both desires to reduce CO2 immediately and ban the future development of nuclear power is placing us all into an impossible situation. It's possible to both reduce CO2 and not use nuclear power but that means (as shown by the source I linked to above) much more mining of ores for the production of steel, concrete, glass, copper, aluminum, and so many more raw materials. This comes with costs, in money, lives, and standard of living.
Any problems with nuclear power is local, very local, as in limited to the borders of the power plant and the mines. Releases of material beyond these borders are rare, minute, and can be addressed. Issues of CO2 spreading will be global in nature. Any costs of nuclear power must be balanced with the reduced costs of CO2 output it would produce in replacing coal and natural gas.
Wind and solar involve considerable material costs, far more than nuclear. They also have costs in lives from industrial accidents, far less than any from nuclear power per energy produced. Wind and solar are also unreliable and expensive, which when addressing the unreliability means increasing the costs. There may be places where wind and solar are really cheap, and where pumped hydro storage is also cheap, but these places are rare. Suitable sites for nuclear power, especially fourth generation nuclear, are not rare.
I do not believe global warming to be a problem but I will concede that point if it means we get cheap, reliable, and safe nuclear power.
I will believe Australia is taking global warming seriously when they start building nuclear power plants.
Nuclear power has the lowest CO2 output per energy produced than any energy source we have currently with a possible exception for hydroelectric. Nuclear power is also the safest energy source we have, as measured by deaths per energy produced. Any other problems anyone might raise are nothing compared to global warming, assuming that there is in fact man made global warming.
cite: http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...
Problems of cost are nothing, because as is pointed out there are costs to continued use of coal. Problems of nuclear waste are nothing, because the waste is contained and localized compared to CO2 which goes everywhere. We know how to deal with waste effectively, put it in a container and keep an eye on it. Presumably in the future we can extract many of the valuable materials from this waste for use in industry and medicine, something we do a limited amount already.
I find it quite contradictory to both complain so vociferously of global warming while having a ban on the use of a technology that has demonstrated a very effective ability to reduce this warming. Go to hell, Australia. Your entire economy is based on the mining of coal and uranium. You burn the coal and export the uranium. You want us in the USA to reduce our CO2? You first! Be an example for the rest of the world. You built up a bunch of wind and then found out it can't work without a big fucking battery to keep the grid stable. You know what would also keep the grid stable? And actually produce energy? Nuclear power plants. Go build your windmills but also build some nuclear power. If you believe global warming will leave your nation desolate then you need to have an "all the above" energy plan, and "all the above" includes nuclear power.
Does anyone have links to stories about those sites being closed as well?
Or it's because the observatory lies on federal land, a national forest.
The FBI does this quite often, according to a former FBI agent friend of mine. A national forest will have a police force from the US Forest Service but if it's more than they can handle for some reason then they call in for help from the FBI. On some federal properties the FBI is the primary law enforcement. As this observatory, and the land it sits on, is managed by multiple federal government agencies I'm guessing that there are FBI agents there regularly.
Nice way to spin a scope that tracks targets through walls.
You seem to imply this is some kind of problem. I'd like the police to know the difference between the victims and the criminals when trying to resolve a hostage situation, even if there is a wall in the way. One thing taught in the Army is that concealment is not always cover, this just adds another dimension to that. I'd rather we figure out how this works before our adversaries do.
The reefs are doing fine, and they always were.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/20...
Also in that article we find that the polar bears are doing well, CO2 emissions will not lead to a climate catastrophe, pesticides are not poisoning you from fresh fruits and veggies, GMOs are good for you, farmed fish are good for the environment and nutritious, nuclear power is our future, there is no floating plastic island the size of Texas (or of New Hampshire), CO2 is not turning the oceans to acid, and climate change is not killing the trees.
Has anyone noticed that there's no pictures of the plastic floating out at sea? Certainly something that big is visible from space. Or maybe there's some kind of tour one could take to see this plastic, kind of like people going out to see whales.
Getting back on topic, shouldn't there be pictures of the damage to the coral reef? They claim they've documented this. I assume they have before and after photos. I'd like to see those photos. I realize that a lot of this stuff is out at sea where it's difficult for people to see for themselves but someone certainly has taken photos by now. In the past such equipment might have been exceedingly expensive but now a waterproof cameras are sold as child's toys, are a feature of most every cell phone, and if someone wants to get real deep in the water then they might have to spend a few dollars more. For the most part the ability to document this in a way for all to see is quite inexpensive and should be available to even a hobbyist.
In other words, photos or it didn't happen.
If anyone thinks that it's about device jack real estate, upgrading with the times, or innovation, they are hopelessly naive.
Well, you certainly stirred up the pot and got people to respond. I may as well join in.
Let's consider the two sides here. We have you saying Apple is doing this to better enforce DRM, and therefore sell more copies of the same music and DRM encumbered devices. On the other hand we have Apple. I thought for sure that Apple made some kind of statement on why they removed the headphone jack from their phones. A short search of the internet brought me to an interview of someone that claims to be in the know, but I'm not sure the person actually represents Apple in anyway. The person gave four reasons Apple did away with the jack.
First, the port made it difficult to waterproof. I'll give that this might be pretty lame since other people figured out how to water proof the port. The excuse was not that it made it impossible to keep water out, only more difficult. This alone is not a reason but certainly counts against it.
Second, they needed the room for more useful stuff. Again, perhaps a lame excuse but still a point against it. Apple wanted to keep the microphone, motion feedback, speaker, Lightning port, and probably other stuff close together on the bottom and it was getting cramped.
Third, research was showing few people used the port. This may actually be a good excuse. I saw no numbers on usage and, again the person in this interview may not actually have any inside information, but if true then there may simply be a time to get rid of it because so few people care if it's there or not. The interview I read went into more detail about people not liking the cords getting tangled and caught on things but it just came down to people preferring wireless.
Fourth, and this might be the killer, the 1/8" audio port had no real defined standard on how it should work. There's two different versions of how a 1/8" jack should be wired for sound in and out based on the market. Given that people expect the headphone to also control things like volume, track next/last, and perhaps other functions, it just got hard to comply with the different standards and still keep functions that people demanded. For things like active sound cancelling there also needed to be a means to provide power or the headphones would need their own batteries. Those that used wired headphones tended to use the Lightning port anyway to get power, more buttons, clearer sound, and so on. This is in part a restatement of the people not using the port. With the limited features that they could serve on an old 1/8" non-standard "standard" they couldn't keep people happy with the port anyway. Those that demanded the old 1/8" jack could still get an adapter that matched the wiring used in their location.
After reading all that it seems far less of some conspiracy theory to hit people up for another $10 on a $1000 phone. I'll admit that personally I've found myself wishing for a separate port for sound out and power in. Not often enough yet to spend much time looking for some kind of adapter. The claim that this is to close the "analog loophole" is quite silly. Finding some way to grab the audio out of an iPhone and feed that into some kind of recording device is quite trivial. Especially given that most any music that one could get on an iPhone is almost certainly available on some other more "hackable" device. This includes the large variety of Bluetooth to 1/8" jack devices out there.
I'll have to consider the DRM reasons for removing the jack a conspiracy theory. Perhaps you could argue that the DRM enforcement aspects of removing the port is merely another reason but that does not negate the publicly stated reasons for removing the port.
I think the axing of the SE is more significant than the new products that were announced. I was still really hoping for an SE 2.
I was hoping for an SE/30.
It's really not that difficult. You just say it must be possible to remove the battery without use of any tools or significant effort, by an average person (not a specialist), in less than [x] seconds.
If the regulation is targeted, no manufacturer who cares about their reputation will dare oppose it given the obvious reasons for it and limited cost.
Except a manufacturer that brings up the theft risks of being able to remove a battery from a phone in seconds by an unskilled person without the need for tools. A phone can be tracked, locked, or whatever, a battery removed from the phone cannot. A battery removed from the phone has value, it can be sold as a replacement battery, if damaged or aged the it still has scrap material value, or valuable as a potential weapon if shorted out to make it burn or explode.
Yes, you'll never get absolutely everyone and the enforcement effort to get every last manufacturer and stop every last non-compliant import is not worth it - but if even 50% of the market complies, that's still a huge improvement on today's situation.
What improvement? These batteries have been shown to start sending out sparks and hot gasses if punctured or crushed. I'd much rather they be kept in a case made of aluminum and Gorilla Glass. That would keep criminals and pranksters from turning cellphones into fire hazards.
Oh, you want to require that the removed battery have a durable outer casing? What do you think that phone or tablet is? You want a durable outer casing that's separate from the phone? Now the phone just got twice as thick, half the battery life, and another 50% on the cost.
No thanks, I'll leave the battery removal to the professionals.