Bio fuels are a dead end. There is not enough arable land in the world to allow us to fill our gas tanks and our stomachs.
A hydrogen economy can work if the hydrogen is bound to carbon atoms. Synthesized hydrocarbons from nuclear power is where I think things will inevitably lead. Synthesized hydrocarbons do not require a significant change in the infrastructure. Nuclear power is the only energy source we have that is dense enough, cheap enough, and reliable enough to replace coal and petroleum fuels.
In theory there is enough wind and sun to drive our economy but only if the production is severely overbuilt, or there is a serious amount of storage systems built, to account for when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. With current use of wind and solar power being relatively insignificant the variability of that energy is well within the power grid's ability to cope. That variability is handled by things like hydroelectric and natural gas power plants that can adjust to load changes very quickly.
With the mandate on the use of ethanol in our gasoline the price of corn has shot through the roof. The economy has adjusted to compensate to a point, primarily by the increased land devoted to corn. Any further increase in the use of arable land for fuels will very likely make food very expensive, and energy very expensive. The use of bio fuels is the road to poverty. We need to stop using food for fuel. If you do not want to see lifestyle sacrifices then you do not want bio fuels.
I'm not sure I can buy the claim that algae fuels will not compete with arable land. The algae needs sun and water like any other photosynthesizing life form. Any where that sun and water commingle is very likely to be arable land.
ATT offered users an unlimited data plan, no wait, they required one with an iPhone. Now the problems with ATT's network are the fault of those selfish users who took ATT's offer seriously. Give me a break. ATT is rolling in money from iPhone, they should use it to build out their network.
Another solution that seems obvious to me is to offer the iPhone without the data plan. If the iPhone users are killing the cell towers with so much usage then offer them a "discount" for not using the cell towers for internet access. In other words, by not paying for unlimited access you are limited to using the Wi-Fi capability for your web surfing needs.
I have unlimited broadband at home and a Wi-Fi access point. Nearly every place I go around town there is someone offering Wi-Fi for free or by subscription. Even while traveling I have little trouble finding Wi-Fi, I see it advertised at every rest stop, coffee shop, hotel, and airport. Since I don't make a habit of using the phone, and especially the internet, while walking, driving, or flying I can certainly wait until I reach my destination, or a convenient rest stop along the way, to check my e-mail.
I think that if people are offered to purchase, or rather required to buy, unlimited internet service with their iPhone no one should be surprised if people actually take advantage of that service. It's like someone offering an all you can eat buffet complaining on how people stuff themselves with every meal. If I'm buying the $10 all you can eat buffet I'm making sure I get my money's worth. If I get the $6 plate meal then I'll eat what is offered, and think real hard if I need another plate once I've finished.
Straw is an agricultural waste-product which will either be fed to animals, burned or left to decompose (also creating CO2) - it also has a very short carbon cycle unlke burning fossil fuels
Having lived on a farm I can tell you that any thing that can be fed to animals is not "waste". Animals raised for meat, milk, hide, etc. take a lot of feed. Most of that feed is quite expensive since it is also used for human food, like corn and soybeans. Farmers and ranchers will fight over that "waste" if it is a suitable substitute for the more expensive alternatives.
After decades of taking the straw off of fields to be used for feed and bedding for cattle local farmers have realized that erosion is washing their fields down the Mississippi. They need to leave some of that straw in the field so that there is something to keep the soil from blowing away. Completely removing the carbon content of the soil is also not good for the crops. Leaving some of that straw in the field means a bio-available carbon rich cover to protect the soil from erosion. Using some of that straw for livestock bedding means it can be used to soak up the manure (another highly bio-available carbon source) to allow for a healthier livestock and the bedding can be placed back in the field for fertilizer.
I am very suspicious of people that claim that straw is "waste" and can be taken from it's traditional uses without serious affects on the future viability of the agricultural land from which it was taken. That carbon needs to be returned to the soil for the next crop. Without that straw it's quite likely it must come from somewhere. Perhaps the increased CO2 in the air will make up for it. Perhaps it must come from artificial fertilizers. If artificial fertilizers are needed to keep the land viable then I have to wonder about the wisdom of burning the straw for heat.
So if the points between starvation, plagues, and endless manual labor sucked, does that mean that starvation, plagues, and endless manual labor were the high points?
But, if we end up in that situation, we may not have a choice. Humans are not going to choose a stone-age existence. If it comes down to either doing actions with major adverse environmental consequences or tossing society in the gutter, humans can be counted on to choose the former every time.
That's only if nuclear power is taken out of the choices available.
I read the story. It produces heat not electricity. Appropriate for Congress, and it is a valid thing for a coal burning plant to do.
I also read the story and I also found that the power plant producing "more heat than light" to be amusing and appropriate for the District as well.
Where I went to college there was a coal fired power plant on campus. It's primary purpose was to produce the heating and cooling for the buildings on the main campus. It had the capability to produce electricity but the generators where mostly kept at low power since it was cheaper to buy electricity from the city than produce it themselves. Best I could tell from my tour was that the generators were only running because the plant was not designed in a way to allow them to turn them off completely.
I've come across other places with a large number of buildings that have a coal fired plant to provide heat and cooling for their buildings. It makes sense. Coal is cheap when it comes to heating. The efficiency of an electric power plant goes up with the size of the plant. Making a power plant large enough to compete with municipal power on efficiency (and therefore cost of electricity) would be difficult with the exception of a facility the size of a city. Making a power plant big enough to justify burning coal instead of natural gas or fuel oil is a much smaller hurdle. I've even seen coal furnaces for residential use.
I do not find the use of a coal fired plant to produce heat, and not electricity, to be inappropriate. I see it as quite the opposite. Coal is perfect for heating. It's energy dense, it is produced domestically, it's cheap, and really not much good for anything else (which is probably why it is so cheap).
Burning coal only produces pollutants in excess of other energy sources if the combustion is incomplete (and any modern and well maintained plant should not do so) and if one considers carbon dioxide a pollutant (which I, of course, do not).
Actually the BATFE has been quite straightforward that there are few guns getting across the border. I suspect it's partly because there is some (a lot actually) truth to the matter but also because if the guns were coming from the US then it would make them look bad.
How exactly does that work with, for example, stolen goods? Some poor schmuck robs a bank and drives off with with $5,000,000. Police chase, he goes off a bridge trying to get away. Money floats down the river while the crook swims to shore. Police pick him up some time later in the woods, without a dime on him, and claim he stashed the goods some where in the woods. Judge offers leniency if money is returned.
So, he serves essentially a life sentence as he will not be released until he shows where he stashed the money. Since the money is probably either floating among pop bottles and rubber duckies in the north Pacific or buried in silt in some river delta the guy will continue to be held in contempt.
Cash transactions, especially those done in a criminal enterprise, won't have receipts tabulated by a certified accountant.
So the judge asks, "Where is the money?" The response? "Lost in a fire." "Scattered over the Amazon." "Under a big 'W'." "Stolen by Jimmy the Nose." "I just don't know, your honor." The crook goes back in the cell for "contempt".
How does one prove lack of knowledge? How do you prove something is truly lost or destroyed?
And then when they arrived they found out it's just 72 geeky guys.
Then send some homosexual radical Muslim astronauts. Duh.
With billions of people on this planet there has to be a few people that fit those requirements. Problem is that they will probably want to blow up the spaceship on the way. (Was that taking it too far?)
I don't think the idea is to tear up perfectly good roads to replace them with these solar panel. New roads are built all the time, use this instead of the traditional asphalt for the surface. Roads wear out and need to be resurfaced, when it comes time for that the solar panels can replace the asphalt, concrete, gravel, or whatever.
Yes, in fact, women with AIS tend to be *less* masculinized than normal women. They're XY, and yet athletically disadvantaged compared to your average XX woman.
I'm not so sure that an XY woman with AIS would always be disadvantaged. It might depend on the sport as well. I'm having difficulty finding the reference now but one of the articles about Caster Semenya pointed out a case of a very successful female athlete that was found to have complete AIS only after an autopsy performed after her death. She was shot in a robbery or something.
The Wikipedia article on Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome indicates that people with the syndrome would grow taller than the average female. In most sports the increased height would be advantageous. There was nothing in the Wikipedia article that would indicate a person with AIS would have reduced strength (or increased strength either), or other conditions detrimental to athleticism.
They will be forced to change by tax and trade. If carbon emissions are taxed then the lowest bidder will likely be the one with the smallest CO2 output.
The problem is, this doesn't address the problem. The problem is too many cars on the road causing too much pollution. The solution isn't cheaper cars! The solution is FEWER cars, and less energy usage in general. This will undoubtedly have some effects on the lifestyle of some people, but it's unavoidable.
You are so right. There are too many cars on the road. So, why don't you sell your car and take the bus everywhere?
I'll assume that you are not a hypocrite and do not own a car because of your beliefs. Now, explain to me how you convince people to give up their cars? You are asking people to lower their standard of living (giving up personal transport) so that others can improve their standard of living (less crowded roads). How do we decide who can keep their personal vehicle and who cannot? Do we raise taxes on gasoline and/or fees on automotive licensing to the point that it drives people to give up their cars? I am very opposed to social engineering through taxes for a variety of reasons.
Also, I don't buy the "pollution" argument. Modern internal combustion engines burn fuel very cleanly. Most of that is because the fuels we use now have the sulfur removed and no longer add lead. People will argue that CO2 is a "pollutant" which I don't agree with, CO2 is plant food. CO2 is a naturally occurring substance that all plant life needs to survive, by adding it to the atmosphere we are feeding the plants that feed us.
I don't think that the reduction of our lifestyle is unavoidable. We can avoid the use of petroleum fuels by using nuclear power and synthetic fuels, electric vehicles, improved mass transit, and so on. We can all keep our standard of living and reduce our pollution with the adoption of more nuclear power. The problems we have right now are political, not technological.
Running AC full blast might be a problem (could be alleviated with solar cells, like the prius already has), but the other power drains (minimal lighting, radio) won't drain the batteries significantly.
I'll just do some real quick and dirty math here. The sun gives out something like 1000 watts per square meter. We'll assume that one can have a 2 square meter panel on the roof of a car. Common consumer grade solar panels have an efficiency somewhere around 20%. So that gives the solar panel output somewhere around 400 watts.
A small window air conditioner I found is rated at 5000 BTU/hr. That works out to about 1500 watts. Given an SEER rating of about 10 for a small air conditioner (which qualifies it for Energy Star) gives a coefficient of performance of about 3. So that 1500 watt cooling capacity air conditioner consumes about 500 watts.
That is taking some rather optimal conditions. I doubt a solar panel on the roof of a car is going to produce 400 watts since the angle towards the sun is going to be very non-optimal since it will be sitting flat on a roof. Also, by having to be on a car, the solar panels are not likely to be the cleanest further reducing the insolation. (I suppose it wouldn't be too much of a hassle to wash the panels if they look too dirty before heading out to drive, so this is probably a minor point.) The panels are going to be quite warm further reducing efficiency, and cooling them with the A/C is going to add an additional load on the air conditioning.
I just don't see a solar panel being able to produce enough power to keep a car cool except in the most optimal of conditions. Sitting idle in traffic is far from ideal. Then there is the cost of the solar panels and required circuitry to connect it to the battery. How much will that solar panel cost?
I don't see solar panels on a car to be very practical. I say this after having worked on a solar powered race car in college. That car was plastered with solar cells and had a 1500 watt motor to propel it and it took all day in the sun charging to drive a few hours.
I don't believe that biofuels will come before a hydrogen economy. That is simply because there is not enough arable land to meet our fuel needs while still feeding everyone. It's true that biofuel production is simple, low tech, etc. but it has proven itself to not work to anyone that pays attention. We tried 10% ethanol and using ethanol as a pollution control additive to gasoline. There have been claims that a move to 15% ethanol in gasoline that, along with ruining a large number of car engines, it will drive food an fuel prices through the roof. Biofuels takes us down the road to poverty.
Getting to fuel cells... It may be true that fuel cells are not as expensive and delicate as I have been lead to believe. It is also quite true that the problem of hydrogen storage and transport is a difficult one. So difficult that I think that hydrogen powered vehicles will remain limited to vary large vehicles where economies of scale can be applied to the storage vessel. Vehicles like space craft, cargo planes, and ships at sea.
One method of hydrogen storage that I neglected earlier is the mixing of hydrogen with methane. When those two gasses are mixed in the proper ratio the problems of metal embrittlement are very small to nonexistent. This would also allow for the use of the existing natural gas distribution system for transport and storage (as long as the gas is not liquified in storage, the gasses will separate at that point).
This methane/hydrogen mixture is not conducive to fuel cell use. There are fuel cells that can use methane as fuel but they remain experimental at this point. I think that internal combustion is going to be the preferred use of hydrogen/methane for the foreseeable future.
Even if there is widespread use of hydrogen/methane to avoid many of the storage and transport issues of pure hydrogen the methane must come from somewhere. As long as drilling for natural gas is feasible that is going to be the primary source. Should that dry up for practical or political reasons the use of synthesized methane is an obvious choice.
Another possible means of storing hydrogen as a fuel, while avoiding the problems of pure hydrogen, is by synthesizing ammonia. Ammonia is a viable fuel, already used in combustion engines where other fuels are rare or politically more accepted than petro-fuels. It also enjoys an existing infrastructure. I'm not aware of any fuel cells that are compatible with ammonia but I am aware of other means of deriving motive power from it.
By volume pure hydrogen can only compete with methane and ammonia when liquified. Liquifiying hydrogen is very energy intensive and only worthwhile when the energy density by mass is desirable, such as in the Space Shuttle. For use in cars, trucks, trains, etc. the energy payback would be much higher if the hydrogen was bonded with carbon or nitrogen to liquify it. I just don't see pure hydrogen being used as a mainstream fuel.
If we've got the hydrogen storage problem licked, and with all the R&D focusing on precisely that we very well might someday in the not too far future, then why use an IC engine over a fuel cell?
Because fuel cells require high purity fuel, expensive materials, and are generally very delicate. An internal combustion engine is very durable, a known quantity, and quite cheap. Of course that may change when/if we figure out how to store hydrogen with an energy density similar to gasoline or diesel fuel but I'm not terribly optimistic on that.
But then your premise is that we don't have the hydrogen storage problem licked already. All we have to do to store that hydrogen in a form that is liquid at sea level and room temperature is bond it with carbon. Synthetic hydrocarbons, IMHO, is the future of the "hydrogen economy". We already have the transportation and storage infrastructure for hydrocarbons and the engines to consume them. All we need is a source of carbon (coal, sewage, household garbage, industrial waste) a source of hydrogen (natural gas, water) and a plentiful energy source (nuclear power). While it's not as fanciful as fuel cell cars nuclear fission reactors driving synthetic fuel plants is quite feasible now.
We might see fuel cells become commonplace but, as you point out, we need to fix that hydrogen storage problem.
You are so right, the right to privacy is not enumerated in the Constitution. What the Constitution does say, paraphrasing a Supreme Court Justice, we do have a right to be left alone. (I so wish I could remember who said that.)
I define rights as liberties that preexist government and which government cannot provide nor take away. We have the right to defend ourselves, and therefore the right to the tools of self defense. That is one right enumerated in the Constitution since the founders of our nation felt it so important. Just because we have the right to arm ourselves does not mean the government must provide us arms.
We have the right to privacy, since even before the government existed if we found someone snooping around we certainly had the right to defend our property. The founders of our nation felt that right to privacy was important enough to codify in the right to be free from unwarranted searches and seizures. While the words "right to privacy" do not exist in the Constitution the effect is the same as if it had.
Just as the right to arms does not mean the government will provide arms to us it also means that the government is not required to provide us privacy. If we should find privacy the government does not have the power to take it away arbitrarily.
This whole "right to..." nonsense is getting out of hand. People demand the "right to health care" or the "right to education". We have that right but it can only exist if we seek it and we find it. The right to health care means, IMHO, that if you can find someone willing to care for your health needs (generally in exchange for something, such as money) then the government can not interfere. You have the right to education, and that is partially codified in the rights to assemble, speak, and of the press. You must still seek out that education, find someone willing to teach, etc. The right to health care and education also fit nicely together since if you can educate yourself then you can more easily find your health care by learning enough to provide for many of your own health needs. We don't need government approved physicians to prescribe medicines if the people are free to educate themselves enough to find out what medicines will make them better, or at least people should be free enough to educate themselves on who is trustworthy enough to advise them on medicine.
You have the right to privacy, its just not stated that way in the Constitution. Any right not stated explicitly in the Constitution is still protected by the 9th and 10th Amendments. The problem I see is making the government get back in the box constructed for it in the Constitution. We've had too many rights turned into "privileges" and too many privileges seen as "rights".
As for human-global-warming, I think it's trivial to resolve the basic point. (1)It is indisputed reality that humans have been increasing the levels of CO2, methane, and related gases in the atmosphere. (2)It is indisputed trivial physics fact that CO2, methane, and gases trap infrared radiation, i.e. they trap heat. (3) There is no 3. That's it, over, Q.E.D., done, finito, the fat lady sang.
I won't dispute points one and two. What I do dispute is point three. Once one has established that CO2 and methane are greenhouse gasses and that they are produced by human activity, one is now required to prove that those gasses are produced in a significant quantity.
The greatest greenhouse gas in the Earth's atmosphere is water. Water vapor accounts for something around 95% of the greenhouse effect. Human activity introduces a minuscule amount of water into the air in comparison to natural activities, such as the wind blowing over the ocean. I forget the exact number but its something like five percent of the remaining five percent of the greenhouse gasses are produced by human activity. That makes human produced greenhouse gasses producing somewhere close to 0.25% of the greenhouse effect. That small amount of greenhouse effect due to human activity well within solar variation and therefore within the ability of life on Earth to adapt. If life on Earth cannot adapt to such variation then it would have died out long ago or will do so in the next solar cycle.
If there is still global warming (the Earth has warmed but now seems to be cooling for the last decade) then it is not our fault. Of all the things we can do to adjust to the changing climate reducing our CO2 output is not one of them since it is not our CO2 production warming the planet.
OK, fine, let's assume for the sake of argument that I have been convinced of man made global warming and that it is in fact bad for us. What do we do about it? It would seem to me that the logical solution to the carbon output is to build nuclear power plants. Once we have built enough nuclear power plants to make coal mining just a note in the history books then we need to continue building nuclear power plants and build liquid fuel synthesis plants to make drilling for oil just another notation in the history books.
Until someone takes the infrastructure needed to take us off of petro-fuels seriously the status quo will continue. Trains and trucks need diesel fuel, airplanes need kerosene. Without those fuels we don't have modern transportation. Trains can be electrified and airplanes can run off of liquid hydrogen but cars and trucks will still need a fuel with the energy density, stability at room temperature and pressure, and as inexpensive as gasoline to compete with gasoline. Ethanol, and most every other bio-fuel, is a dead end. There just is not enough land for crops to feed everyone and keep the cars and truck moving. Electric cars might be fine for the daily commute for many but delivery trucks are going to need diesel fuel.
Cap and tax is based on the premise that if the government makes things suck enough for every one that someone will come up with a better solution to petro-fuels. We can't mandate technological progress. We need infrastructure. We need nuclear power. We need the government to lift the shackles that inhibit the growth of that infrastructure. There has not been a nuclear power plant built in the USA in 35 years. It's not that people weren't willing to build them, its that politicians were not willing to allow them to be built.
Since nuclear power has the second lowest carbon footprint, second only to hydroelectric, that is the best solution to remove the need for petro-fuels. I would certainly like to see the USA no longer need to import crude oil but not because of global warming. I would like to see the USA not import oil because it is a serious drain on our economy.
I do not prefer the status quo and I will not yet concede on man-made global warming. You, like so many others, claim the debate is over while not even trying to offer facts in your defense. I have read about the studies on global warming and have so far been unconvinced. Most of what is said is all propaganda, bought and paid for by special interests. If the goal was reduction of CO2 output we'd be talking about nuclear power. Instead the politicians are talking about taxes, government oversight, more taxes, UN agreements, treaties, "carbon credits", and so on. They're not even taxing the right things, there is a huge tax on the importation of bio-fuels (claimed by many to be our salvation) but no taxes on the import of crude oil.
If you want to see a reduction in carbon output then lets do something productive rather than just make the government bigger.
I had to go check and, yep, my current cell phone is completely encased in plastic. It would seem that thermal issues are not the problem you make them out to be. Is there some indication that these new plastics would somehow be less thermally conductive?
I don't know who to hate more, the UK government for jailing men on the content of their speech or the USA government for not granting them asylum?
What happened to this land of the free and home of the brave I've heard about? The judges that did not grant asylum were spineless. They were probably more concerned about placating a supposed ally than about protecting freedom.
I don't necessarily consider myself a "global warming denier" but I do have a problem with those that claim "the debate is over". The debate is never over. Here's my take, first I have to be convinced that the world is actually warming. Considering that there is sufficient debate on how much, and even IF, the world is warming the debate is far from over. The historical records on temperatures were not always taken with the highest level of scientific rigor. Claiming a rise in global temperature of 0.2C is difficult to swallow since even finding a thermometer with that level of precision, and applying it to something as poorly defined as "global temperature", is nearly impossible.
Assuming I am convinced that the world is warming then I would have to be convinced that it is caused by human activity. With all the life on earth, all the geologic activity, and the solar variation I find it difficult that any one can say, with even the slightest level of confidence, that human activity is the primary driver in global temperatures. The oceans cover 3/4 of Earth's surface, that is a lot of water to soak up carbon dioxide and sustain plant life to consume it. I find it difficult to believe that humans pumping oil out of the ground can overwhelm that massive of a carbon sink.
Assume that I am convinced that humans have somehow thrown the Earth atmosphere out of balance and are now warming the planet. I'd still have to be convinced that global warming is a bad thing. So, for the sake of argument, let's assume that human activity is causing the CO2 levels in the air to rise. With more CO2 plants become more robust, and can grow in places they could not before. Some people may be driven from their homes by rising sea levels but on the whole human civilization is now better off because food is more plentiful.
I do my best to be "green" but I have my limits. I bought some CFL bulbs and will very likely never do so again. I've had too many of those bulbs fail prematurely, I found out that those bulbs interfere with IR remotes, they have an unpleasant color, and introduce mercury into my home. I've had a coworker point out how using an incandescent bulb means more mercury spewed out from coal fired power plants. First, that mercury is "out there" and not "in here". That mercury being spilled into the outside air is very different than a broken CFL bulb in my home. Second, if people were truly concerned and informed about mercury in the environment they'd be screaming for more nuclear power. The same goes for CO2, nuclear power is second only to hydroelectric in "carbon footprint". That may sound counter intuitive given how "green" wind and solar are but the manufacture of those windmills and solar panels requires the very carbon heavy industries of refining aluminum and silicon. Nuclear power requires plenty of CO2 production in the pouring of concrete but it is more than offset over the life of the plant in comparison.
One thing that makes me very skeptical of global warming is that the global warming people talk about how many people that agree with them, that is just bandwagon and propaganda. The people that deny global warming point out the temperature data, the poorly maintained and poorly placed weather stations, solar activity, among other things. The global warming deniers tend to talk about facts, not how Al Gore told them it is so.
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Bio fuels are a dead end. There is not enough arable land in the world to allow us to fill our gas tanks and our stomachs.
A hydrogen economy can work if the hydrogen is bound to carbon atoms. Synthesized hydrocarbons from nuclear power is where I think things will inevitably lead. Synthesized hydrocarbons do not require a significant change in the infrastructure. Nuclear power is the only energy source we have that is dense enough, cheap enough, and reliable enough to replace coal and petroleum fuels.
In theory there is enough wind and sun to drive our economy but only if the production is severely overbuilt, or there is a serious amount of storage systems built, to account for when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. With current use of wind and solar power being relatively insignificant the variability of that energy is well within the power grid's ability to cope. That variability is handled by things like hydroelectric and natural gas power plants that can adjust to load changes very quickly.
With the mandate on the use of ethanol in our gasoline the price of corn has shot through the roof. The economy has adjusted to compensate to a point, primarily by the increased land devoted to corn. Any further increase in the use of arable land for fuels will very likely make food very expensive, and energy very expensive. The use of bio fuels is the road to poverty. We need to stop using food for fuel. If you do not want to see lifestyle sacrifices then you do not want bio fuels.
I'm not sure I can buy the claim that algae fuels will not compete with arable land. The algae needs sun and water like any other photosynthesizing life form. Any where that sun and water commingle is very likely to be arable land.
ATT offered users an unlimited data plan, no wait, they required one with an iPhone. Now the problems with ATT's network are the fault of those selfish users who took ATT's offer seriously. Give me a break. ATT is rolling in money from iPhone, they should use it to build out their network.
Another solution that seems obvious to me is to offer the iPhone without the data plan. If the iPhone users are killing the cell towers with so much usage then offer them a "discount" for not using the cell towers for internet access. In other words, by not paying for unlimited access you are limited to using the Wi-Fi capability for your web surfing needs.
I have unlimited broadband at home and a Wi-Fi access point. Nearly every place I go around town there is someone offering Wi-Fi for free or by subscription. Even while traveling I have little trouble finding Wi-Fi, I see it advertised at every rest stop, coffee shop, hotel, and airport. Since I don't make a habit of using the phone, and especially the internet, while walking, driving, or flying I can certainly wait until I reach my destination, or a convenient rest stop along the way, to check my e-mail.
I think that if people are offered to purchase, or rather required to buy, unlimited internet service with their iPhone no one should be surprised if people actually take advantage of that service. It's like someone offering an all you can eat buffet complaining on how people stuff themselves with every meal. If I'm buying the $10 all you can eat buffet I'm making sure I get my money's worth. If I get the $6 plate meal then I'll eat what is offered, and think real hard if I need another plate once I've finished.
Straw is an agricultural waste-product which will either be fed to animals, burned or left to decompose (also creating CO2) - it also has a very short carbon cycle unlke burning fossil fuels
Having lived on a farm I can tell you that any thing that can be fed to animals is not "waste". Animals raised for meat, milk, hide, etc. take a lot of feed. Most of that feed is quite expensive since it is also used for human food, like corn and soybeans. Farmers and ranchers will fight over that "waste" if it is a suitable substitute for the more expensive alternatives.
After decades of taking the straw off of fields to be used for feed and bedding for cattle local farmers have realized that erosion is washing their fields down the Mississippi. They need to leave some of that straw in the field so that there is something to keep the soil from blowing away. Completely removing the carbon content of the soil is also not good for the crops. Leaving some of that straw in the field means a bio-available carbon rich cover to protect the soil from erosion. Using some of that straw for livestock bedding means it can be used to soak up the manure (another highly bio-available carbon source) to allow for a healthier livestock and the bedding can be placed back in the field for fertilizer.
I am very suspicious of people that claim that straw is "waste" and can be taken from it's traditional uses without serious affects on the future viability of the agricultural land from which it was taken. That carbon needs to be returned to the soil for the next crop. Without that straw it's quite likely it must come from somewhere. Perhaps the increased CO2 in the air will make up for it. Perhaps it must come from artificial fertilizers. If artificial fertilizers are needed to keep the land viable then I have to wonder about the wisdom of burning the straw for heat.
So if the points between starvation, plagues, and endless manual labor sucked, does that mean that starvation, plagues, and endless manual labor were the high points?
Yes.
But, if we end up in that situation, we may not have a choice. Humans are not going to choose a stone-age existence. If it comes down to either doing actions with major adverse environmental consequences or tossing society in the gutter, humans can be counted on to choose the former every time.
That's only if nuclear power is taken out of the choices available.
I read the story. It produces heat not electricity. Appropriate for Congress, and it is a valid thing for a coal burning plant to do.
I also read the story and I also found that the power plant producing "more heat than light" to be amusing and appropriate for the District as well.
Where I went to college there was a coal fired power plant on campus. It's primary purpose was to produce the heating and cooling for the buildings on the main campus. It had the capability to produce electricity but the generators where mostly kept at low power since it was cheaper to buy electricity from the city than produce it themselves. Best I could tell from my tour was that the generators were only running because the plant was not designed in a way to allow them to turn them off completely.
I've come across other places with a large number of buildings that have a coal fired plant to provide heat and cooling for their buildings. It makes sense. Coal is cheap when it comes to heating. The efficiency of an electric power plant goes up with the size of the plant. Making a power plant large enough to compete with municipal power on efficiency (and therefore cost of electricity) would be difficult with the exception of a facility the size of a city. Making a power plant big enough to justify burning coal instead of natural gas or fuel oil is a much smaller hurdle. I've even seen coal furnaces for residential use.
I do not find the use of a coal fired plant to produce heat, and not electricity, to be inappropriate. I see it as quite the opposite. Coal is perfect for heating. It's energy dense, it is produced domestically, it's cheap, and really not much good for anything else (which is probably why it is so cheap).
Burning coal only produces pollutants in excess of other energy sources if the combustion is incomplete (and any modern and well maintained plant should not do so) and if one considers carbon dioxide a pollutant (which I, of course, do not).
Actually the BATFE has been quite straightforward that there are few guns getting across the border. I suspect it's partly because there is some (a lot actually) truth to the matter but also because if the guns were coming from the US then it would make them look bad.
How exactly does that work with, for example, stolen goods? Some poor schmuck robs a bank and drives off with with $5,000,000. Police chase, he goes off a bridge trying to get away. Money floats down the river while the crook swims to shore. Police pick him up some time later in the woods, without a dime on him, and claim he stashed the goods some where in the woods. Judge offers leniency if money is returned.
So, he serves essentially a life sentence as he will not be released until he shows where he stashed the money. Since the money is probably either floating among pop bottles and rubber duckies in the north Pacific or buried in silt in some river delta the guy will continue to be held in contempt.
Cash transactions, especially those done in a criminal enterprise, won't have receipts tabulated by a certified accountant.
So the judge asks, "Where is the money?" The response? "Lost in a fire." "Scattered over the Amazon." "Under a big 'W'." "Stolen by Jimmy the Nose." "I just don't know, your honor." The crook goes back in the cell for "contempt".
How does one prove lack of knowledge? How do you prove something is truly lost or destroyed?
And then when they arrived they found out it's just 72 geeky guys.
Then send some homosexual radical Muslim astronauts. Duh.
With billions of people on this planet there has to be a few people that fit those requirements. Problem is that they will probably want to blow up the spaceship on the way. (Was that taking it too far?)
That explains some of the behavior of my Drill Sergeants.
I don't think the idea is to tear up perfectly good roads to replace them with these solar panel. New roads are built all the time, use this instead of the traditional asphalt for the surface. Roads wear out and need to be resurfaced, when it comes time for that the solar panels can replace the asphalt, concrete, gravel, or whatever.
Yes, in fact, women with AIS tend to be *less* masculinized than normal women. They're XY, and yet athletically disadvantaged compared to your average XX woman.
I'm not so sure that an XY woman with AIS would always be disadvantaged. It might depend on the sport as well. I'm having difficulty finding the reference now but one of the articles about Caster Semenya pointed out a case of a very successful female athlete that was found to have complete AIS only after an autopsy performed after her death. She was shot in a robbery or something.
The Wikipedia article on Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome indicates that people with the syndrome would grow taller than the average female. In most sports the increased height would be advantageous. There was nothing in the Wikipedia article that would indicate a person with AIS would have reduced strength (or increased strength either), or other conditions detrimental to athleticism.
They will be forced to change by tax and trade. If carbon emissions are taxed then the lowest bidder will likely be the one with the smallest CO2 output.
The problem is, this doesn't address the problem. The problem is too many cars on the road causing too much pollution. The solution isn't cheaper cars! The solution is FEWER cars, and less energy usage in general. This will undoubtedly have some effects on the lifestyle of some people, but it's unavoidable.
You are so right. There are too many cars on the road. So, why don't you sell your car and take the bus everywhere?
I'll assume that you are not a hypocrite and do not own a car because of your beliefs. Now, explain to me how you convince people to give up their cars? You are asking people to lower their standard of living (giving up personal transport) so that others can improve their standard of living (less crowded roads). How do we decide who can keep their personal vehicle and who cannot? Do we raise taxes on gasoline and/or fees on automotive licensing to the point that it drives people to give up their cars? I am very opposed to social engineering through taxes for a variety of reasons.
Also, I don't buy the "pollution" argument. Modern internal combustion engines burn fuel very cleanly. Most of that is because the fuels we use now have the sulfur removed and no longer add lead. People will argue that CO2 is a "pollutant" which I don't agree with, CO2 is plant food. CO2 is a naturally occurring substance that all plant life needs to survive, by adding it to the atmosphere we are feeding the plants that feed us.
I don't think that the reduction of our lifestyle is unavoidable. We can avoid the use of petroleum fuels by using nuclear power and synthetic fuels, electric vehicles, improved mass transit, and so on. We can all keep our standard of living and reduce our pollution with the adoption of more nuclear power. The problems we have right now are political, not technological.
Running AC full blast might be a problem (could be alleviated with solar cells, like the prius already has), but the other power drains (minimal lighting, radio) won't drain the batteries significantly.
I'll just do some real quick and dirty math here. The sun gives out something like 1000 watts per square meter. We'll assume that one can have a 2 square meter panel on the roof of a car. Common consumer grade solar panels have an efficiency somewhere around 20%. So that gives the solar panel output somewhere around 400 watts.
A small window air conditioner I found is rated at 5000 BTU/hr. That works out to about 1500 watts. Given an SEER rating of about 10 for a small air conditioner (which qualifies it for Energy Star) gives a coefficient of performance of about 3. So that 1500 watt cooling capacity air conditioner consumes about 500 watts.
That is taking some rather optimal conditions. I doubt a solar panel on the roof of a car is going to produce 400 watts since the angle towards the sun is going to be very non-optimal since it will be sitting flat on a roof. Also, by having to be on a car, the solar panels are not likely to be the cleanest further reducing the insolation. (I suppose it wouldn't be too much of a hassle to wash the panels if they look too dirty before heading out to drive, so this is probably a minor point.) The panels are going to be quite warm further reducing efficiency, and cooling them with the A/C is going to add an additional load on the air conditioning.
I just don't see a solar panel being able to produce enough power to keep a car cool except in the most optimal of conditions. Sitting idle in traffic is far from ideal. Then there is the cost of the solar panels and required circuitry to connect it to the battery. How much will that solar panel cost?
I don't see solar panels on a car to be very practical. I say this after having worked on a solar powered race car in college. That car was plastered with solar cells and had a 1500 watt motor to propel it and it took all day in the sun charging to drive a few hours.
I say we have a World War II every 50 years just to keep things fresh.
...and to keep the population numbers under control. Millions of people dying from wars, famine, and genocide is a good thing, right?
I don't believe that biofuels will come before a hydrogen economy. That is simply because there is not enough arable land to meet our fuel needs while still feeding everyone. It's true that biofuel production is simple, low tech, etc. but it has proven itself to not work to anyone that pays attention. We tried 10% ethanol and using ethanol as a pollution control additive to gasoline. There have been claims that a move to 15% ethanol in gasoline that, along with ruining a large number of car engines, it will drive food an fuel prices through the roof. Biofuels takes us down the road to poverty.
Getting to fuel cells... It may be true that fuel cells are not as expensive and delicate as I have been lead to believe. It is also quite true that the problem of hydrogen storage and transport is a difficult one. So difficult that I think that hydrogen powered vehicles will remain limited to vary large vehicles where economies of scale can be applied to the storage vessel. Vehicles like space craft, cargo planes, and ships at sea.
One method of hydrogen storage that I neglected earlier is the mixing of hydrogen with methane. When those two gasses are mixed in the proper ratio the problems of metal embrittlement are very small to nonexistent. This would also allow for the use of the existing natural gas distribution system for transport and storage (as long as the gas is not liquified in storage, the gasses will separate at that point).
This methane/hydrogen mixture is not conducive to fuel cell use. There are fuel cells that can use methane as fuel but they remain experimental at this point. I think that internal combustion is going to be the preferred use of hydrogen/methane for the foreseeable future.
Even if there is widespread use of hydrogen/methane to avoid many of the storage and transport issues of pure hydrogen the methane must come from somewhere. As long as drilling for natural gas is feasible that is going to be the primary source. Should that dry up for practical or political reasons the use of synthesized methane is an obvious choice.
Another possible means of storing hydrogen as a fuel, while avoiding the problems of pure hydrogen, is by synthesizing ammonia. Ammonia is a viable fuel, already used in combustion engines where other fuels are rare or politically more accepted than petro-fuels. It also enjoys an existing infrastructure. I'm not aware of any fuel cells that are compatible with ammonia but I am aware of other means of deriving motive power from it.
By volume pure hydrogen can only compete with methane and ammonia when liquified. Liquifiying hydrogen is very energy intensive and only worthwhile when the energy density by mass is desirable, such as in the Space Shuttle. For use in cars, trucks, trains, etc. the energy payback would be much higher if the hydrogen was bonded with carbon or nitrogen to liquify it. I just don't see pure hydrogen being used as a mainstream fuel.
If we've got the hydrogen storage problem licked, and with all the R&D focusing on precisely that we very well might someday in the not too far future, then why use an IC engine over a fuel cell?
Because fuel cells require high purity fuel, expensive materials, and are generally very delicate. An internal combustion engine is very durable, a known quantity, and quite cheap. Of course that may change when/if we figure out how to store hydrogen with an energy density similar to gasoline or diesel fuel but I'm not terribly optimistic on that.
But then your premise is that we don't have the hydrogen storage problem licked already. All we have to do to store that hydrogen in a form that is liquid at sea level and room temperature is bond it with carbon. Synthetic hydrocarbons, IMHO, is the future of the "hydrogen economy". We already have the transportation and storage infrastructure for hydrocarbons and the engines to consume them. All we need is a source of carbon (coal, sewage, household garbage, industrial waste) a source of hydrogen (natural gas, water) and a plentiful energy source (nuclear power). While it's not as fanciful as fuel cell cars nuclear fission reactors driving synthetic fuel plants is quite feasible now.
We might see fuel cells become commonplace but, as you point out, we need to fix that hydrogen storage problem.
You are so right, the right to privacy is not enumerated in the Constitution. What the Constitution does say, paraphrasing a Supreme Court Justice, we do have a right to be left alone. (I so wish I could remember who said that.)
I define rights as liberties that preexist government and which government cannot provide nor take away. We have the right to defend ourselves, and therefore the right to the tools of self defense. That is one right enumerated in the Constitution since the founders of our nation felt it so important. Just because we have the right to arm ourselves does not mean the government must provide us arms.
We have the right to privacy, since even before the government existed if we found someone snooping around we certainly had the right to defend our property. The founders of our nation felt that right to privacy was important enough to codify in the right to be free from unwarranted searches and seizures. While the words "right to privacy" do not exist in the Constitution the effect is the same as if it had.
Just as the right to arms does not mean the government will provide arms to us it also means that the government is not required to provide us privacy. If we should find privacy the government does not have the power to take it away arbitrarily.
This whole "right to ..." nonsense is getting out of hand. People demand the "right to health care" or the "right to education". We have that right but it can only exist if we seek it and we find it. The right to health care means, IMHO, that if you can find someone willing to care for your health needs (generally in exchange for something, such as money) then the government can not interfere. You have the right to education, and that is partially codified in the rights to assemble, speak, and of the press. You must still seek out that education, find someone willing to teach, etc. The right to health care and education also fit nicely together since if you can educate yourself then you can more easily find your health care by learning enough to provide for many of your own health needs. We don't need government approved physicians to prescribe medicines if the people are free to educate themselves enough to find out what medicines will make them better, or at least people should be free enough to educate themselves on who is trustworthy enough to advise them on medicine.
You have the right to privacy, its just not stated that way in the Constitution. Any right not stated explicitly in the Constitution is still protected by the 9th and 10th Amendments. The problem I see is making the government get back in the box constructed for it in the Constitution. We've had too many rights turned into "privileges" and too many privileges seen as "rights".
As for human-global-warming, I think it's trivial to resolve the basic point.
(1)It is indisputed reality that humans have been increasing the levels of CO2, methane, and related gases in the atmosphere.
(2)It is indisputed trivial physics fact that CO2, methane, and gases trap infrared radiation, i.e. they trap heat.
(3) There is no 3. That's it, over, Q.E.D., done, finito, the fat lady sang.
I won't dispute points one and two. What I do dispute is point three. Once one has established that CO2 and methane are greenhouse gasses and that they are produced by human activity, one is now required to prove that those gasses are produced in a significant quantity.
The greatest greenhouse gas in the Earth's atmosphere is water. Water vapor accounts for something around 95% of the greenhouse effect. Human activity introduces a minuscule amount of water into the air in comparison to natural activities, such as the wind blowing over the ocean. I forget the exact number but its something like five percent of the remaining five percent of the greenhouse gasses are produced by human activity. That makes human produced greenhouse gasses producing somewhere close to 0.25% of the greenhouse effect. That small amount of greenhouse effect due to human activity well within solar variation and therefore within the ability of life on Earth to adapt. If life on Earth cannot adapt to such variation then it would have died out long ago or will do so in the next solar cycle.
If there is still global warming (the Earth has warmed but now seems to be cooling for the last decade) then it is not our fault. Of all the things we can do to adjust to the changing climate reducing our CO2 output is not one of them since it is not our CO2 production warming the planet.
OK, fine, let's assume for the sake of argument that I have been convinced of man made global warming and that it is in fact bad for us. What do we do about it? It would seem to me that the logical solution to the carbon output is to build nuclear power plants. Once we have built enough nuclear power plants to make coal mining just a note in the history books then we need to continue building nuclear power plants and build liquid fuel synthesis plants to make drilling for oil just another notation in the history books.
Until someone takes the infrastructure needed to take us off of petro-fuels seriously the status quo will continue. Trains and trucks need diesel fuel, airplanes need kerosene. Without those fuels we don't have modern transportation. Trains can be electrified and airplanes can run off of liquid hydrogen but cars and trucks will still need a fuel with the energy density, stability at room temperature and pressure, and as inexpensive as gasoline to compete with gasoline. Ethanol, and most every other bio-fuel, is a dead end. There just is not enough land for crops to feed everyone and keep the cars and truck moving. Electric cars might be fine for the daily commute for many but delivery trucks are going to need diesel fuel.
Cap and tax is based on the premise that if the government makes things suck enough for every one that someone will come up with a better solution to petro-fuels. We can't mandate technological progress. We need infrastructure. We need nuclear power. We need the government to lift the shackles that inhibit the growth of that infrastructure. There has not been a nuclear power plant built in the USA in 35 years. It's not that people weren't willing to build them, its that politicians were not willing to allow them to be built.
Since nuclear power has the second lowest carbon footprint, second only to hydroelectric, that is the best solution to remove the need for petro-fuels. I would certainly like to see the USA no longer need to import crude oil but not because of global warming. I would like to see the USA not import oil because it is a serious drain on our economy.
I do not prefer the status quo and I will not yet concede on man-made global warming. You, like so many others, claim the debate is over while not even trying to offer facts in your defense. I have read about the studies on global warming and have so far been unconvinced. Most of what is said is all propaganda, bought and paid for by special interests. If the goal was reduction of CO2 output we'd be talking about nuclear power. Instead the politicians are talking about taxes, government oversight, more taxes, UN agreements, treaties, "carbon credits", and so on. They're not even taxing the right things, there is a huge tax on the importation of bio-fuels (claimed by many to be our salvation) but no taxes on the import of crude oil.
If you want to see a reduction in carbon output then lets do something productive rather than just make the government bigger.
I had to go check and, yep, my current cell phone is completely encased in plastic. It would seem that thermal issues are not the problem you make them out to be. Is there some indication that these new plastics would somehow be less thermally conductive?
I don't know who to hate more, the UK government for jailing men on the content of their speech or the USA government for not granting them asylum?
What happened to this land of the free and home of the brave I've heard about? The judges that did not grant asylum were spineless. They were probably more concerned about placating a supposed ally than about protecting freedom.
I don't necessarily consider myself a "global warming denier" but I do have a problem with those that claim "the debate is over". The debate is never over. Here's my take, first I have to be convinced that the world is actually warming. Considering that there is sufficient debate on how much, and even IF, the world is warming the debate is far from over. The historical records on temperatures were not always taken with the highest level of scientific rigor. Claiming a rise in global temperature of 0.2C is difficult to swallow since even finding a thermometer with that level of precision, and applying it to something as poorly defined as "global temperature", is nearly impossible.
Assuming I am convinced that the world is warming then I would have to be convinced that it is caused by human activity. With all the life on earth, all the geologic activity, and the solar variation I find it difficult that any one can say, with even the slightest level of confidence, that human activity is the primary driver in global temperatures. The oceans cover 3/4 of Earth's surface, that is a lot of water to soak up carbon dioxide and sustain plant life to consume it. I find it difficult to believe that humans pumping oil out of the ground can overwhelm that massive of a carbon sink.
Assume that I am convinced that humans have somehow thrown the Earth atmosphere out of balance and are now warming the planet. I'd still have to be convinced that global warming is a bad thing. So, for the sake of argument, let's assume that human activity is causing the CO2 levels in the air to rise. With more CO2 plants become more robust, and can grow in places they could not before. Some people may be driven from their homes by rising sea levels but on the whole human civilization is now better off because food is more plentiful.
I do my best to be "green" but I have my limits. I bought some CFL bulbs and will very likely never do so again. I've had too many of those bulbs fail prematurely, I found out that those bulbs interfere with IR remotes, they have an unpleasant color, and introduce mercury into my home. I've had a coworker point out how using an incandescent bulb means more mercury spewed out from coal fired power plants. First, that mercury is "out there" and not "in here". That mercury being spilled into the outside air is very different than a broken CFL bulb in my home. Second, if people were truly concerned and informed about mercury in the environment they'd be screaming for more nuclear power. The same goes for CO2, nuclear power is second only to hydroelectric in "carbon footprint". That may sound counter intuitive given how "green" wind and solar are but the manufacture of those windmills and solar panels requires the very carbon heavy industries of refining aluminum and silicon. Nuclear power requires plenty of CO2 production in the pouring of concrete but it is more than offset over the life of the plant in comparison.
One thing that makes me very skeptical of global warming is that the global warming people talk about how many people that agree with them, that is just bandwagon and propaganda. The people that deny global warming point out the temperature data, the poorly maintained and poorly placed weather stations, solar activity, among other things. The global warming deniers tend to talk about facts, not how Al Gore told them it is so.
I am a dairy farmer you insensitive clod!