Correct me if I'm wrong, but back when I was in college in the early 1990's, Computer Science was essentially a math degree, where you learned a lot of theory of how computer CPU's work along with the other circuit level internals that make up a computer.
It was true then and still is true now.
People that write good code understand the process of good design. Rarely does a computer science department even offer such courses, at least at the undergraduate level. What they do even less often is require students take any of these courses to graduate. The process of good design is, however, required of all engineering students. Back then, in the 1990s, the words "software" and "engineering" rarely appeared together. It was certainly possible to graduate in computer science and understand good design but this was never required in any curriculum I saw.
Employers know that a computer science degree does not always equate to knowing how to write good code. At least the smart ones do. I found this out in searching for a job. I got hired because I knew engineering and how to code. The computer science majors ended up babysitting the servers and running the help desk, not writing code.
Oh, and another thing the smart employers are figuring out is that a college degree is becoming worthless in determining the quality of applicants. Colleges are working hard to get students and keep them around long enough to graduate. They did this by watering down the standards, both to get in and to get out. If you are the kind that likes to babysit servers and fix other people's computer issues then get yourself some certifications and skip college. A certification from Cisco, Microsoft, VMWare, CompTIA, or whatever, are likely more valuable than a college degree. But there's still a lot of employers that require people to graduate college to get hired so it might be a good idea to get a degree but a degree in computer science is certainly not required for the job you want.
Go look at the requirements for many jobs in the computer field. What you will find is something like "must have BS in computer science or related field" in the description. Software engineering is certainly a related field, and would be far more valuable than computer science for a company looking for someone to manage a software project. Also certainly related is computer engineering. So is statistics, any engineering major, mathematics, physics, business analytics, aerospace studies, chemistry, economics, geology, data science, finance, informatics, nursing, biology, management, sociology, urban/regional planning, and architecture.
If you get a degree in music education, and you have certificates from Microsoft and/or CompTIA, then you can walk into a job teaching math and computer science at most any high school or community college. This is because they will know you learned how to teach, just generally, and that they can have you also teach some music classes too. In my high school the computer skills classes were taught by two teachers, one also taught chemistry and the other was a PE instructor and wrestling coach. Specializing too much can leave you nearly unemployable. I worked at a software company for a while and most of the programmers had degrees in accounting, business, finance, and such because the software they published were for filing taxes. There were computer science majors as well but they kept the servers running more than they wrote any code.
If you want to get into programming then think of a field where they need programmers then major in that. While in college take some programming classes and get some certifications. There are classes in writing good code outside of computer science. Engineering departments teach a lot of people how to write code, as do the departments for mathematics, business, statistics, and physics.
Code is only valuable if what it does is valuable. If you don't understand the goal then you can't write good code to reach
The only thing "global warming" has to do with this is that the likelihood of fires like these are increased as global warming worsens.
Then PG&E needs nuclear power to lower their carbon output. Nuclear power has the lowest CO2 produced per kWh produced as well as the lowest rate of deaths per kWh.
If global warming caused these fires then PG&E is contributing to the problem by not using the lowest CO2 energy source we have available. This is their own fault, they deserve to go under. Let someone that understands the science of CO2 production replace them. Maybe then we can actually solve this problem than use the non-solution that is wind and solar. Wind and solar not only produce more CO2 per kWh but also cost far more. They also contribute to an unreliable grid since they cannot produce energy when it is needed.
For the people working there payroll is their profit. If you want good people working there then you need to pay them and pay them well. No matter what you say about non-profit organizations there will be people making money.
Remember that the NFL used to be a non-profit until enough people complained about millionaires sheltering their own personal profits under this part of tax law. There is still a lot of money made in non-profit corporations, saying otherwise is provably false.
That might be because in the Midwest, where I live, we don't have an irrational fear of far cheaper and far more reliable nuclear power. A state that wants to be "carbon free" and also deny itself access to cheap, reliable, and "carbon free" nuclear power will inevitably have far higher energy costs.
I found out recently that the nuclear power plant near me is threatening to close down and not build a new nuclear power plant to replace it. I expect this will raise rates and increase the potential for outages. If we can't get power from that nuclear power plant then it must be carried over far longer lines where there would be higher probability of a downed power line somewhere between the power plant and customers.
The not in my backyard types are to blame here.
(NB: I put "carbon free" in scare quotes because there is no energy source that is truly carbon free. What we do know from actual science is that nuclear power produces less carbon per energy unit produced than wind or solar. If wind and solar fit the definition of "carbon free" then so should nuclear power.)
Basically, PG&E is what happens when governments try to allow a regulated monopoly to provide critical utilities instead of a municipal electric company or a regional nonprofit. Every dollar that went to PG&E's sharedholders is a dollar that should have been used for routine maintenance and upgrades. If that money had been used that way, close to a hundred people would likely still be alive today, just from those two incidents alone. The problem is, the primary goal of any for-profit corporation, no matter how highly regulated, is and always will be profit, and their concern for public safety will always be limited to doing the bare minimum necessary to avoid getting sued out of existence.
If there's no profit in providing electrical services then why would anyone bother to invest in it? Think about that.
I think you let your government schooling interfere with your education. There's nothing inherently wrong with people making money on this. Don't blame this on malice when incompetence would suffice. I'm guessing that the people running this utility live in an area that could go up in smoke if something went wrong. I feel confident in this assumption because as big as California might be there's a good chance that the people involved here run the risk of their own hide getting burned if there is a wildfire caused by mismanagement of the largest utility in the state. If it's not their own life they care about then it's that of their family or friends.
Profit is a great motivator and we can use this as motivation to provide better services and products. Apple and Microsoft don't make computers and software because they are nice people, they do it because it makes them money. What is an even better motivator is keeping things around them from going up in smoke so the people involved won't see their house turned to ashes and having to attend the funeral of a loved one.
These people need to make money providing electricity or they will be forced to make their money doing something else. There must be a profit or the lights go out. You believe a non-profit could do better? Why? The people must still be paid for doing their jobs or they can't afford to eat. This is still a profit even if there isn't a stockholder expecting a dividend. Or you thing a government could to better? Then tell me when a government has ever got something done on time and under budget.
This is not something that can be fixed by removing the profit motive. If these people are not concerned about their own house getting burned down in a wildfire then they simply need to be removed from working at an electrical utility, and quite likely put in a mental hospital and treated for suicidal tendencies.
They think that they can blame this on global warming? I call bullshit. Global warming and it's effects on humanity has been something people in the USA have been beaten over the head with for at least 30 years now. They knew that global warming would mean greater demand for electricity for air conditioning, that this meant greater threats of storms and wild fires, this is not news. What have they been doing for the last 30 years to stop this from happening?
I will say that PG&E might not have all the blame here, they are in a business that is highly regulated by government. The government of California is likely the most to blame here, and some of this might land on the shoulders of the federal government too.
Even before global warming was in the common vocabulary we had threats of acid rain and other environmental disaster. What did California do about this? They declared the state a "nuclear free zone" meaning that they denied themselves access to the safest and cleanest source of energy available. This was true then and now. Nuclear power is far cheaper and far more reliable than wind or solar power. If they were paying attention to the science on global warming then they should also have been paying attention to the best science could tell them on how to combat it.
This is why I believe that so many politicians are anti-science, they've legislated themselves into a global warming corner. If you want to convince me that the "science is settled" on global warming then why are you ignoring the science on the safest and lowest CO2 energy source we have? Which is the greater threat to California, America, and the world? Is it global warming or nuclear power? If you say global warming then you are fools for shutting down the nuclear power plants you had and not building more. If you say global warming then you are fools for not planning on the effects and costs they will entail decades ago.
Nope, you can't blame this on global warming you fools. This is just bad management from the top to the bottom. I hope you enjoy freezing in the dark.
Because I got news you for there are a LOT of evil Dictators that claim to be running pure capitalism.
There is no such thing as "pure capitalism" under a dictatorship.
A free market that defines capitalism requires the ability to buy and sell products and services that would be antithetical to a dictatorship. Do you believe I could sell t-shirts that read "The king is an asshole!" under a dictatorship? Of course not. Would a dictatorship allow a private citizen to purchase a handgun for personal defense, hunting, or sport? That's unlikely, unless this person is somehow a trusted member of the ruling class. Could I open a religious school under a dictatorship? Also unlikely as nearly every religion teaches it's students that there is a higher power than any person on Earth, including "dear leader".
Any dictatorship, excepting the most benevolent and impotent, would not survive for long with an economy that allows the free trade of information, weapons that are in the least potentially lethal, or free travel. If people are free to travel then they are free to leave the dictator to rule over an abandoned nation. If people can speak freely then they can tell "dear leader" to go fuck himself and not fear being imprisoned, beaten, or killed. People capable of defending themselves from government thuggery cannot be coerced into submission. Such freedoms are incompatible with a dictatorship and restrictions on these freedoms are incompatible with a free market that we understand as capitalism.
These dictators can "claim" they allow economic freedom but this will be a lie.
Go read a dictionary, capitalism defines both an economic system and a political system. There cannot be "pure capitalism" under a dictatorship.
Building arms en masse, especially the old ones, requires massive resources not the least of which is steel and energy.
I can agree to that, if perhaps only in part.
Here's where I disagree, I mention those 100 year old weapons as an example of how far back in technology people would have to be driven to deny them the ability to make any kind of firearm we'd recognize as "modern". The Model 1911 has undergone a number of revisions since it came out, improving comfort, safety, accuracy, durability, and so on. For the most part it's largely unchanged and could be mass produced with anyone that has access to 120 year old technology.
What we have today though is new materials, new manufacturing processes, and therefore the ability to make firearms with an ease not possible 100 or so years ago. In World War II there were efforts to make firearms far simpler to manufacture, such as the M3 "grease gun". The M3 was made largely of stamped steel pieces that were welded or riveted together. The only machined parts were the bolt face and barrel. What this means is that it's quite likely to mass produce modern machineguns with not much more than a brake press, welder, and lathe.
Give people time and they will figure out how to make vital parts from softer materials than steel like brass, aluminum, plastic, and wood. Such weapons already exist in the form of the nearly ubiquitous AR-15 rifle, most every handgun on the market today, and even going back to brass frame revolvers from before the American Civil War. You can argue on if a Reconstruction Era weapon is "modern" or not, the point is that the designs from then are not all that different from today. It's quite possible to use the designs and materials from 150 years ago and combine that with design and manufacturing updates since then to mass produce very lethal weapons and not need massive resources or energy.
No, I'm saying that to disarm the people means both restricting movement, restricting communication, restricting the private ownership of the means of production, and that people must be constantly in fear of the government searching their homes, businesses, and their persons.
It's not a matter of which is easier, producing weapons or smuggling them in, only that to disarm the people means denying them of all the freedoms we currently enjoy in the USA.
In modern society how could a government ban guns without also banning the information to build them?
I suspect a lot of firearm enthusiasts here have heard of the Model 1911 pistol. They would also know why it is called that. It's because the design was adopted by the US Army in the year 1911. Same with the Model 1897 shotgun and Model 1917 revolver. And for machineguns with model numbers 1917, 1918, 1919, and 1928. This is technology that is over 100 years old or soon will be. These were weapons that were likely designed under the light of oil lamps, mass produced by steam powered machines, and long before any computers. People in this time likely didn't have telephones but they could order a machinegun from the Sears and Roebuck catalog by mail.
To keep people from building their own firearms from scrap metal and common metal working tools means a government that is so overbearing that if someone so much as attempts to melt down some lead fishing weights that a government stooge will know about it.
Now just imagine how easily it would be for a nation of free people to arm themselves in an age of $1000 CNC mills, 3D printers, internet, and freedom of movement. There is no gun control without people control. The government cannot disarm the people without also controlling the movement of information, materials, and people.
Building a machinegun might not be so easy that a caveman could do it but it is easy enough that people with oil lamps and steam power could. To disarm people means denying them access to the most basic of technology. That's how North Korea has kept itself as the largest open air prison on Earth, by denying the people access to any information other than what the powers that be approve of first.
Venezuela did not get anything right here. They disarmed the people by denying them the most basic rights of freedom of movement and communication.
I don't believe we will ever see the complete removal of the steering wheel. Maybe the mechanical steering wheel will go away and get replaced with a "drive by wire" system where the operator gets a joystick or something instead. There's just too much convenience in moving the car where it needs to be by direct controls than trying to describe to a computer where you want the car to be and how you want it to get there.
Again a flawed argument. Meat is neither richer in protein nor richer in calories compared to plant based food. Of course grass is not what I talk about. I do eat meat, but I do not convince myself it is somehow healthy or even necessary to eat.
Humans evolved on a diet that included fish, milk, eats, and red meat. Lacking any of these means a diet lacking in the vital vitamin B-12. People can live on a diet lacking animal products today only because of synthetic B-12 supplements. This is not anything close to a "natural" diet. A diet that requires synthetic additives to meet a vital nutritional need is quite likely not all that healthy, and quite possibly not "sustainable".
The argument was that humans are omnivores and therefore a diet of all plant matter is an option, the truth is that this is not an option. It is only with modern technology to synthesize B-12 in a factory that vegans can survive today. Humans could not live on a diet lacking animal products only a few decades ago. This is most evident in the evolutionary shift in adults able to tolerate lactose. The humans that did not drink milk from animals tended to die off. Those humans that domesticated animals for food tended to have a better chance of survival than those that did not. Humans evolved from cultures that ate cooked vegetables and meat. A diet lacking cooked vegetables and meat is going to be a diet that is lacking in something important to life.
Eating a diet that varies so wildly from our ancestors is a diet that puts a person's health at risk. If you value animal life more than your own then you deserve to die a painful death, you are an error in the evolutionary process and your death will correct it.
That's an interesting question. Imagine a driver that had a sudden heart attack and died. I assume that a car that keeps driving, with a dead man behind the wheel, is preferable to a car veering wildly into traffic. The car will stop eventually after the fuel runs out or the battery dies (too), which I assume would result in the car puttering to a halt in the middle of the road. This might not be ideal but still preferable to many more likely alternatives where an auto-pilot is not present.
Nothing is going to change that. Carbon taxes won't fix that because the people that sell the carbon based fuels just pass that cost on to the people buying the fuel. The people buying the fuel bear this external cost in whatever form that takes, be it global warming or air pollution. The only way to fix that is to use an alternative that is cheaper and cleaner than coal, that's nuclear power. Nuclear power has it's own external cost but that's far lower than anything else.
3. Despite this, coal _is_ losing in the marketplace, in the sense that its absolute use and relative use in energy consumption are decreasing.
Coal is losing to natural gas and nothing else. This is a good thing.
So what are you talking about?
I'm tired of the lies. I'm tired of promises of future technologies that never come to be.
Wind and solar cannot displace coal, at least not any time soon. This might change in the future with the batteries that keep getting promised so we need something that works today. Nuclear works today. Most everything I hear against nuclear power is a lie or a political construct. Most everything I hear in favor of wind and solar is also a lie. Maybe it's true that wind, solar, and batteries are the future but that's not helpful today. What can you offer *TODAY* as a solution? Batteries are not a solution today, therefore wind and solar are not a solution today. What works today is nuclear power, as proven by hundreds of operational nuclear power plants all over the world.
Here's an idea, let's not put our eggs in one basket. I keep hearing that nuclear power is not helpful because it takes ten years to finish a single nuclear power plant. That's a lie but let's go with it. Another lie I keep hearing is that in ten years we will have solved the problems of making batteries big enough and cheap enough so that wind and solar power can replace all the coal. Okay then, let's start building those nuclear power plants, and work on those batteries. In a decade from now let's see who cleans up the air and water first.
Here's the neat part about that nuclear power, they aren't asking for money from the government, they ask only for permission. Give them permission and nuclear power plants will get built. If you say they can't get built without a government loan then I say fine, don't give them a loan. I'm still quite certain that they get built. They need a permit though, but the government has issued maybe a half dozen in the last 50 years. They'll have to issue a dozen every year if we are going to solve the problems of global warming, pollution, and so on. That's not growth by the way, that's just replacing the existing coal power plants being shut down. If you want to see natural gas get replaced too then that means 24 new gigawatt sized nuclear power plants every year, or more likely half nuclear and half wind/solar/batteries/whatever.
If we don't see nuclear power plant permits then we will just see more natural gas. I'm fine with that too, because I'm not convinced global warming is a real problem. If you think it is then we can't wait for battery technology to save us, we need a solution *TODAY*. If the global warming alarmists can't agree on more nuclear power to solve this problem then I have to wonder just how seriously they take this problem.
That's fine for large nations like the USA, what about Japan?
Oh, I know the answer. Japan is restarting many of their shuttered nuclear power plants, and has plans to build more.
Then think of all the other inhabited islands spread around the world. They can't spread out their electrical grid like you propose. This is especially true in places that are subject to hurricanes and such. A nuclear power plant in Florida kept running during a hurricane because under that large concrete dome they don't much care about how much sun and wind they get. With proper design earthquakes can be managed too. Fukushima didn't melt down because of the quake, it melted down because it was a design older than Chernobyl and lost the power needed to keep cool. A newer design would not do this.
Maybe an island nation like Japan could in the future rely on sun, wind, and storage for their power needs. Perhaps on an island differential pricing will help as well. What they can't do is widen their grid to gather more of the intermittent sun and wind.
Oh, and I'm sure someone will want to bring up tidal power or some other undersea power source. When that starts to be profitable then let me know. Until then Japan, Hawaii, and other islands will need oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear power to keep the lights on.
Nuclear doesn't ramp up and down when you need it, but battery storage systems are immediate.
You wrote that but didn't see the obvious (to me at least) implications. What if we mate a large battery with a nuclear power plant? That means we have a means to get power, rain or shine, day or night, and still be able to load follow.
Aren't your lips chapped from all the time you spend fellating nuclear power?
As oppose to your lips and wind power?
IMHO, batteries won't save wind and solar power. I suspect that in fact they will lead to their death. If we can charge a battery from coal or nuclear power, and let the battery handle the minute by minute shift in demand, then we don't have to worry about where or when the wind blows.
With a fleet of nuclear power plants, to have a sufficient overcapacity for maintenance periods and unscheduled outages, and a fleet of batteries, then we can have a 100% nuclear powered world. Just like we could have a 100% wind and solar powered world with enough batteries backing up wind and solar. I don't believe either world is realistic, and neither should you.
There's billions in that industry already, your suction can make no practical difference.
There's billions of dollars, likely trillions in fact, riding on who can build the better energy source. Batteries alone cannot save wind power from competition from nuclear power. There's billions of dollars in nuclear power too. Some of that from the military because it turns out we abandoned wind powered ships a long time ago. Nuclear power makes the navies of the world move now. That means technology in nuclear power will improve if only to make warships move faster. That technology will find its way into the commercial designs and the result will mean cheaper nuclear power in the future.
Nuclear power is not dead. It will not die at the hands of wind and solar so long as there are aircraft carriers at sea. Because nuclear power is so safe, clean, energy dense, low CO2, plentiful, and reliable, it will find its way into the commercial electrical generation market. Again, this might be only to keep nuclear engineers employed so the navies of the world can keep warships moving at sea.
We need "nukes". The level of vacuum you can create will not change this unless you can find a way to make an aircraft carrier move by wind and solar power at a performance that exceeds nuclear power.
Might not need a fab but it would help to have FPGAs that are cheap enough and fast enough to make usable computers for people to use.
There's some pretty powerful development boards out there that can be turned into a usable general purpose PC if given the right programming, software, and maybe some help with off the shelf on GPUs or such. Just being able to drive a few USB ports for display (DisplayLink USB to HDMI chip comes to mind), storage, keyboard, mouse, etc. can go a long way. Compile a Linux kernel and some other open source software for it, and there's a lot that can be done.
There would have to be an instruction set built to fit on FPGAs that enough people can afford to play with. Get it this far and perhaps there would be enough interest in time for a fab to produce a lower cost processor as a drop in replacement.
There's this thing called a battery. You may have heard of it.
Yes, I have heard of it. That's what the lawyer said I did when that treehugger got in my face and wouldn't stop screaming about how I'm ruining the planet for driving my truck.
The judge let me go. It turns out that you can't scream in someone's ear and think they can't push you out of their way.
If you want to see wind power displace coal then go buy yourself some windmills, sell electricity, and if you can stay in business doing this then coal plants will go away out of a free market competition. Using the force of government to prop up wind power only means that in the end we will see government prop up coal power to keep the lights on. Get rid of the subsidies, all of them. Taxes on carbon is likely to result in more charges of battery as people riot, as is happening in France. Government cannot solve this problem, only business and technology. If the wind power industry can't compete on an open market, such as producing electricity at a low enough cost to cover the expense of storage for when the wind does not blow, then it does not deserve to stay in business.
windmill noun windÂâmill | \Ëwin(d)-ËOEmil \ Definition of windmill
(Entry 1 of 2)
1a : a mill or machine operated by the wind usually acting on oblique vanes or sails that radiate from a horizontal shaft especially : a wind-driven water pump or electric generator
b : the wind-driven wheel of a windmill
2 : something that resembles or suggests a windmill especially : a calisthenic exercise that involves alternately lowering each outstretched hand to touch the toes of the opposite foot
3 [ from the episode in Don Quixote by Cervantes in which the hero attacks windmills under the illusion that they are giants ] : an imaginary wrong, evil, or opponent â"usually used in the phrase to tilt at windmills
It's a fucking windmill and so I'm going to call it a windmill.
So the real question is: how much of all generating capacity is unprofitable?
Precisely. I get political fliers in the mail all the time asking me to vote for politicians that support wind subsidies, asking me to call my congresscritters to support wind subsidies, or even from my utility asking me to pay extra for electricity produced from wind.
If wind power is in fact cheaper than coal then I should not be seeing these fliers in my mail.
Wind is not cheaper than coal. This is especially true when taking into account the over capacity needed to compensate for the poor capacity factor, the natural gas turbines needed for when the wind does not blow, or whatever else is needed to make up for how unreliable wind power is as an energy source.
I use wind as an example here because I live in "tornado alley"... oops, I mean "the wind corridor". I see windmill parts getting trucked down the interstate every day. This entire industry lives and dies on government subsidy. We hear in the news on how President Trump made use of some kind of executive decree to keep coal and nuclear power plants open. I suspect that the subsidies on wind and solar power had something to do with these plants being scheduled for retirement.
Get rid of the subsidies, let the market decide the price, and we'd see these coal plants go out of business naturally instead of being propped up by subsidy or government decree.
Oh, another thing, individual parts of a business might be running at a loss but this has no reflection on the business as a whole. A large utility might own a bunch of windmills, solar panels, hydro dams, nuclear power plants, and coal power plants. Even if some of the coal power plants are operating at a loss the utility may choose to keep them open. Why? Because they'd likely experience a greater loss by closing them. Losing customers, reduced sales, or having to pay fines, because of a brownout costs money. Building a new plant costs money. If they believe this loss is temporary, they already have upgrades on the hydro dam underway as an example, they might run this coal plant at a loss for years just so they can maintain a profit on the whole of the business.
Something is keeping these coal plants open when operating at a loss. My guess is it's government interference preventing market forces from closing them, upgrading them, or allowing prices to rise to match costs so they can make a profit.
So, what percentage of wind power is operating at a loss? My guess is it's far higher than 40%, because if it was 0% then I wouldn't be getting these fliers in my mail asking to prop up that entire industry.
but if the fossil fuel companies weren't permitted to pass their externalities off onto everyone on the planet instead of having to deal with their own emissions (let alone the downstream emissions) then biofuels from algae would be more profitable than petrofuels today.
Well, they are allowed this externality. France tried to address this externality with a carbon tax and now they have riots. That's assuming this fuel tax was actually used to offset the carbon with subsidies on solar power or something and not simply dumped on the rest of the burning pile of cash that most governments seem to be today.
There is an external cost to fossil fuels, or at least I will concede that this is likely the case. So, now what? Internalizing this externality is nearly impossible because when tried you simply get a new set of politicians elected in the next cycle to repeal the government regulations that forced this on the industry, or you have a peasant revolt on having to bear this cost with higher taxes.
That's ignorant at best, or more likely knowing you, an outright lie. It's not theoretical at all; the ground work was laid in the 1980s.
I'd be willing to concede this as well if I see a demonstration of the algae fuels used to run an airplane, even a model airplane, like was done by the US Navy people. I'll read about someone working on this every so often. I'll even see photos of the pools of algae and the clear plastic pipes used to let the sun shine in. What I haven't seen yet is a whole lot on how much this would cost in the real world, or much of a demonstration of this working on a real engine.
Synthetic fuels aren't new either. The technology the US Navy is working on had it's start in the 1940s, possibly far earlier. All they are doing is proving that it will work on a nuclear powered ship at sea, and with carbon from CO2 rather than coal or bio-mass, and at a cost that is reasonable for them. This is not just making it cost effective but also pared down in size and weight, and built solidly enough, to fit comfortably and keep working on a ship that will be rolling about on the waves.
You can complain about the externalities or you can work on the process so that the cost is competitive in spite of them. The US Navy chose to work on lowering the cost than trying to internalize the external. It appears that they've been quite successful so far. The US Air Force has their own bio-fuel program but it's not working out nearly as well as the Navy program on costs. I wish them both success but given the lead the Navy has on this I'm guessing algae fuels will never come to market.
A psychological puzzle of the modern world are people who think nuclear is a solution to anything although it has repeatedly shown to be an economical failure.
Then why would Japan restart their nuclear power plants as a cost saving measure?
If alternatives are cheaper then Japan would have abandoned nuclear power completely by now. A psychological puzzle is people continuously claiming nuclear power to be an economical failure when it is producing far more energy in the world today than wind and sun.
Here's where nuclear power is an obvious solution, naval propulsion. We have nuclear powered submarines, aircraft carriers, and icebreakers. These are now so large and powerful that no other energy source could possibly make them work as well as they do. Maybe in the future this will be the only place where nuclear power is used but I point this out as a place where nuclear power is a solution to something.
Nuclear power is a solution to something, possibly only one thing, and I expect it will remain so for centuries.
It's a myth that wind and solar require massive amounts of mining.
It requires mining still, no? The dispute is not on if solar and wind require mining, only how much compared to nuclear power. We will have to mine. Claiming that wind and solar has no impact in the environment is a myth. There is an impact which so many people ignore. One is the land needed for these windmills and solar panels. Maybe the land under both can be still be used for other things but there is a natural limit on how much energy can be extracted per area, and that limit is quite small. Nuclear power can produce far more energy per area as proven by ships at sea sailing for decades on a single "fill up" of uranium.
If wind and solar power can compete with nuclear on materials and space then we'd be using that to power our warships instead of nuclear power.
I don't much care if you are unconvinced. I'm not convinced that we can power a first world economy without nuclear power. Japan seems to agree. It seems that the US federal government is slowly coming around to this realization as well. If you think we can do without nuclear power then go ahead and try. If you can make wind and solar cheaper than nuclear power then I will happily admit I was wrong since I'll have more money in my pocket to buy something to wash down the crow I'll be eating.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but back when I was in college in the early 1990's, Computer Science was essentially a math degree, where you learned a lot of theory of how computer CPU's work along with the other circuit level internals that make up a computer.
It was true then and still is true now.
People that write good code understand the process of good design. Rarely does a computer science department even offer such courses, at least at the undergraduate level. What they do even less often is require students take any of these courses to graduate. The process of good design is, however, required of all engineering students. Back then, in the 1990s, the words "software" and "engineering" rarely appeared together. It was certainly possible to graduate in computer science and understand good design but this was never required in any curriculum I saw.
Employers know that a computer science degree does not always equate to knowing how to write good code. At least the smart ones do. I found this out in searching for a job. I got hired because I knew engineering and how to code. The computer science majors ended up babysitting the servers and running the help desk, not writing code.
Oh, and another thing the smart employers are figuring out is that a college degree is becoming worthless in determining the quality of applicants. Colleges are working hard to get students and keep them around long enough to graduate. They did this by watering down the standards, both to get in and to get out. If you are the kind that likes to babysit servers and fix other people's computer issues then get yourself some certifications and skip college. A certification from Cisco, Microsoft, VMWare, CompTIA, or whatever, are likely more valuable than a college degree. But there's still a lot of employers that require people to graduate college to get hired so it might be a good idea to get a degree but a degree in computer science is certainly not required for the job you want.
Go look at the requirements for many jobs in the computer field. What you will find is something like "must have BS in computer science or related field" in the description. Software engineering is certainly a related field, and would be far more valuable than computer science for a company looking for someone to manage a software project. Also certainly related is computer engineering. So is statistics, any engineering major, mathematics, physics, business analytics, aerospace studies, chemistry, economics, geology, data science, finance, informatics, nursing, biology, management, sociology, urban/regional planning, and architecture.
If you get a degree in music education, and you have certificates from Microsoft and/or CompTIA, then you can walk into a job teaching math and computer science at most any high school or community college. This is because they will know you learned how to teach, just generally, and that they can have you also teach some music classes too. In my high school the computer skills classes were taught by two teachers, one also taught chemistry and the other was a PE instructor and wrestling coach. Specializing too much can leave you nearly unemployable. I worked at a software company for a while and most of the programmers had degrees in accounting, business, finance, and such because the software they published were for filing taxes. There were computer science majors as well but they kept the servers running more than they wrote any code.
If you want to get into programming then think of a field where they need programmers then major in that. While in college take some programming classes and get some certifications. There are classes in writing good code outside of computer science. Engineering departments teach a lot of people how to write code, as do the departments for mathematics, business, statistics, and physics.
Code is only valuable if what it does is valuable. If you don't understand the goal then you can't write good code to reach
The only thing "global warming" has to do with this is that the likelihood of fires like these are increased as global warming worsens.
Then PG&E needs nuclear power to lower their carbon output. Nuclear power has the lowest CO2 produced per kWh produced as well as the lowest rate of deaths per kWh.
If global warming caused these fires then PG&E is contributing to the problem by not using the lowest CO2 energy source we have available. This is their own fault, they deserve to go under. Let someone that understands the science of CO2 production replace them. Maybe then we can actually solve this problem than use the non-solution that is wind and solar. Wind and solar not only produce more CO2 per kWh but also cost far more. They also contribute to an unreliable grid since they cannot produce energy when it is needed.
Payroll is an expense, not a profit.
For the people working there payroll is their profit. If you want good people working there then you need to pay them and pay them well. No matter what you say about non-profit organizations there will be people making money.
Remember that the NFL used to be a non-profit until enough people complained about millionaires sheltering their own personal profits under this part of tax law. There is still a lot of money made in non-profit corporations, saying otherwise is provably false.
That might be because in the Midwest, where I live, we don't have an irrational fear of far cheaper and far more reliable nuclear power. A state that wants to be "carbon free" and also deny itself access to cheap, reliable, and "carbon free" nuclear power will inevitably have far higher energy costs.
I found out recently that the nuclear power plant near me is threatening to close down and not build a new nuclear power plant to replace it. I expect this will raise rates and increase the potential for outages. If we can't get power from that nuclear power plant then it must be carried over far longer lines where there would be higher probability of a downed power line somewhere between the power plant and customers.
The not in my backyard types are to blame here.
(NB: I put "carbon free" in scare quotes because there is no energy source that is truly carbon free. What we do know from actual science is that nuclear power produces less carbon per energy unit produced than wind or solar. If wind and solar fit the definition of "carbon free" then so should nuclear power.)
Basically, PG&E is what happens when governments try to allow a regulated monopoly to provide critical utilities instead of a municipal electric company or a regional nonprofit. Every dollar that went to PG&E's sharedholders is a dollar that should have been used for routine maintenance and upgrades. If that money had been used that way, close to a hundred people would likely still be alive today, just from those two incidents alone. The problem is, the primary goal of any for-profit corporation, no matter how highly regulated, is and always will be profit, and their concern for public safety will always be limited to doing the bare minimum necessary to avoid getting sued out of existence.
If there's no profit in providing electrical services then why would anyone bother to invest in it? Think about that.
I think you let your government schooling interfere with your education. There's nothing inherently wrong with people making money on this. Don't blame this on malice when incompetence would suffice. I'm guessing that the people running this utility live in an area that could go up in smoke if something went wrong. I feel confident in this assumption because as big as California might be there's a good chance that the people involved here run the risk of their own hide getting burned if there is a wildfire caused by mismanagement of the largest utility in the state. If it's not their own life they care about then it's that of their family or friends.
Profit is a great motivator and we can use this as motivation to provide better services and products. Apple and Microsoft don't make computers and software because they are nice people, they do it because it makes them money. What is an even better motivator is keeping things around them from going up in smoke so the people involved won't see their house turned to ashes and having to attend the funeral of a loved one.
These people need to make money providing electricity or they will be forced to make their money doing something else. There must be a profit or the lights go out. You believe a non-profit could do better? Why? The people must still be paid for doing their jobs or they can't afford to eat. This is still a profit even if there isn't a stockholder expecting a dividend. Or you thing a government could to better? Then tell me when a government has ever got something done on time and under budget.
This is not something that can be fixed by removing the profit motive. If these people are not concerned about their own house getting burned down in a wildfire then they simply need to be removed from working at an electrical utility, and quite likely put in a mental hospital and treated for suicidal tendencies.
They think that they can blame this on global warming? I call bullshit. Global warming and it's effects on humanity has been something people in the USA have been beaten over the head with for at least 30 years now. They knew that global warming would mean greater demand for electricity for air conditioning, that this meant greater threats of storms and wild fires, this is not news. What have they been doing for the last 30 years to stop this from happening?
I will say that PG&E might not have all the blame here, they are in a business that is highly regulated by government. The government of California is likely the most to blame here, and some of this might land on the shoulders of the federal government too.
Even before global warming was in the common vocabulary we had threats of acid rain and other environmental disaster. What did California do about this? They declared the state a "nuclear free zone" meaning that they denied themselves access to the safest and cleanest source of energy available. This was true then and now. Nuclear power is far cheaper and far more reliable than wind or solar power. If they were paying attention to the science on global warming then they should also have been paying attention to the best science could tell them on how to combat it.
This is why I believe that so many politicians are anti-science, they've legislated themselves into a global warming corner. If you want to convince me that the "science is settled" on global warming then why are you ignoring the science on the safest and lowest CO2 energy source we have? Which is the greater threat to California, America, and the world? Is it global warming or nuclear power? If you say global warming then you are fools for shutting down the nuclear power plants you had and not building more. If you say global warming then you are fools for not planning on the effects and costs they will entail decades ago.
Nope, you can't blame this on global warming you fools. This is just bad management from the top to the bottom. I hope you enjoy freezing in the dark.
Because I got news you for there are a LOT of evil Dictators that claim to be running pure capitalism.
There is no such thing as "pure capitalism" under a dictatorship.
A free market that defines capitalism requires the ability to buy and sell products and services that would be antithetical to a dictatorship. Do you believe I could sell t-shirts that read "The king is an asshole!" under a dictatorship? Of course not. Would a dictatorship allow a private citizen to purchase a handgun for personal defense, hunting, or sport? That's unlikely, unless this person is somehow a trusted member of the ruling class. Could I open a religious school under a dictatorship? Also unlikely as nearly every religion teaches it's students that there is a higher power than any person on Earth, including "dear leader".
Any dictatorship, excepting the most benevolent and impotent, would not survive for long with an economy that allows the free trade of information, weapons that are in the least potentially lethal, or free travel. If people are free to travel then they are free to leave the dictator to rule over an abandoned nation. If people can speak freely then they can tell "dear leader" to go fuck himself and not fear being imprisoned, beaten, or killed. People capable of defending themselves from government thuggery cannot be coerced into submission. Such freedoms are incompatible with a dictatorship and restrictions on these freedoms are incompatible with a free market that we understand as capitalism.
These dictators can "claim" they allow economic freedom but this will be a lie.
Go read a dictionary, capitalism defines both an economic system and a political system. There cannot be "pure capitalism" under a dictatorship.
Building arms en masse, especially the old ones, requires massive resources not the least of which is steel and energy.
I can agree to that, if perhaps only in part.
Here's where I disagree, I mention those 100 year old weapons as an example of how far back in technology people would have to be driven to deny them the ability to make any kind of firearm we'd recognize as "modern". The Model 1911 has undergone a number of revisions since it came out, improving comfort, safety, accuracy, durability, and so on. For the most part it's largely unchanged and could be mass produced with anyone that has access to 120 year old technology.
What we have today though is new materials, new manufacturing processes, and therefore the ability to make firearms with an ease not possible 100 or so years ago. In World War II there were efforts to make firearms far simpler to manufacture, such as the M3 "grease gun". The M3 was made largely of stamped steel pieces that were welded or riveted together. The only machined parts were the bolt face and barrel. What this means is that it's quite likely to mass produce modern machineguns with not much more than a brake press, welder, and lathe.
Give people time and they will figure out how to make vital parts from softer materials than steel like brass, aluminum, plastic, and wood. Such weapons already exist in the form of the nearly ubiquitous AR-15 rifle, most every handgun on the market today, and even going back to brass frame revolvers from before the American Civil War. You can argue on if a Reconstruction Era weapon is "modern" or not, the point is that the designs from then are not all that different from today. It's quite possible to use the designs and materials from 150 years ago and combine that with design and manufacturing updates since then to mass produce very lethal weapons and not need massive resources or energy.
No, I'm saying that to disarm the people means both restricting movement, restricting communication, restricting the private ownership of the means of production, and that people must be constantly in fear of the government searching their homes, businesses, and their persons.
It's not a matter of which is easier, producing weapons or smuggling them in, only that to disarm the people means denying them of all the freedoms we currently enjoy in the USA.
In modern society how could a government ban guns without also banning the information to build them?
I suspect a lot of firearm enthusiasts here have heard of the Model 1911 pistol. They would also know why it is called that. It's because the design was adopted by the US Army in the year 1911. Same with the Model 1897 shotgun and Model 1917 revolver. And for machineguns with model numbers 1917, 1918, 1919, and 1928. This is technology that is over 100 years old or soon will be. These were weapons that were likely designed under the light of oil lamps, mass produced by steam powered machines, and long before any computers. People in this time likely didn't have telephones but they could order a machinegun from the Sears and Roebuck catalog by mail.
To keep people from building their own firearms from scrap metal and common metal working tools means a government that is so overbearing that if someone so much as attempts to melt down some lead fishing weights that a government stooge will know about it.
Now just imagine how easily it would be for a nation of free people to arm themselves in an age of $1000 CNC mills, 3D printers, internet, and freedom of movement. There is no gun control without people control. The government cannot disarm the people without also controlling the movement of information, materials, and people.
Building a machinegun might not be so easy that a caveman could do it but it is easy enough that people with oil lamps and steam power could. To disarm people means denying them access to the most basic of technology. That's how North Korea has kept itself as the largest open air prison on Earth, by denying the people access to any information other than what the powers that be approve of first.
Venezuela did not get anything right here. They disarmed the people by denying them the most basic rights of freedom of movement and communication.
I don't believe we will ever see the complete removal of the steering wheel. Maybe the mechanical steering wheel will go away and get replaced with a "drive by wire" system where the operator gets a joystick or something instead. There's just too much convenience in moving the car where it needs to be by direct controls than trying to describe to a computer where you want the car to be and how you want it to get there.
Again a flawed argument. Meat is neither richer in protein nor richer in calories compared to plant based food. Of course grass is not what I talk about.
I do eat meat, but I do not convince myself it is somehow healthy or even necessary to eat.
Humans evolved on a diet that included fish, milk, eats, and red meat. Lacking any of these means a diet lacking in the vital vitamin B-12. People can live on a diet lacking animal products today only because of synthetic B-12 supplements. This is not anything close to a "natural" diet. A diet that requires synthetic additives to meet a vital nutritional need is quite likely not all that healthy, and quite possibly not "sustainable".
The argument was that humans are omnivores and therefore a diet of all plant matter is an option, the truth is that this is not an option. It is only with modern technology to synthesize B-12 in a factory that vegans can survive today. Humans could not live on a diet lacking animal products only a few decades ago. This is most evident in the evolutionary shift in adults able to tolerate lactose. The humans that did not drink milk from animals tended to die off. Those humans that domesticated animals for food tended to have a better chance of survival than those that did not. Humans evolved from cultures that ate cooked vegetables and meat. A diet lacking cooked vegetables and meat is going to be a diet that is lacking in something important to life.
Eating a diet that varies so wildly from our ancestors is a diet that puts a person's health at risk. If you value animal life more than your own then you deserve to die a painful death, you are an error in the evolutionary process and your death will correct it.
So the cops came along to put him in a box to sober up.
Problem solved.
If the driver dies, does the car just keep going?
That's an interesting question. Imagine a driver that had a sudden heart attack and died. I assume that a car that keeps driving, with a dead man behind the wheel, is preferable to a car veering wildly into traffic. The car will stop eventually after the fuel runs out or the battery dies (too), which I assume would result in the car puttering to a halt in the middle of the road. This might not be ideal but still preferable to many more likely alternatives where an auto-pilot is not present.
Yes, really. I saw it right here -> https://www.merriam-webster.co...
1. Coal is heavily subsidized in the US
No, it's not. Not on a per kWh basis. https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...
2. Coal is not made to bear external costs.
Nothing is going to change that. Carbon taxes won't fix that because the people that sell the carbon based fuels just pass that cost on to the people buying the fuel. The people buying the fuel bear this external cost in whatever form that takes, be it global warming or air pollution. The only way to fix that is to use an alternative that is cheaper and cleaner than coal, that's nuclear power. Nuclear power has it's own external cost but that's far lower than anything else.
3. Despite this, coal _is_ losing in the marketplace, in the sense that its absolute use and relative use in energy consumption are decreasing.
Coal is losing to natural gas and nothing else. This is a good thing.
So what are you talking about?
I'm tired of the lies. I'm tired of promises of future technologies that never come to be.
Wind and solar cannot displace coal, at least not any time soon. This might change in the future with the batteries that keep getting promised so we need something that works today. Nuclear works today. Most everything I hear against nuclear power is a lie or a political construct. Most everything I hear in favor of wind and solar is also a lie. Maybe it's true that wind, solar, and batteries are the future but that's not helpful today. What can you offer *TODAY* as a solution? Batteries are not a solution today, therefore wind and solar are not a solution today. What works today is nuclear power, as proven by hundreds of operational nuclear power plants all over the world.
Here's an idea, let's not put our eggs in one basket. I keep hearing that nuclear power is not helpful because it takes ten years to finish a single nuclear power plant. That's a lie but let's go with it. Another lie I keep hearing is that in ten years we will have solved the problems of making batteries big enough and cheap enough so that wind and solar power can replace all the coal. Okay then, let's start building those nuclear power plants, and work on those batteries. In a decade from now let's see who cleans up the air and water first.
Here's the neat part about that nuclear power, they aren't asking for money from the government, they ask only for permission. Give them permission and nuclear power plants will get built. If you say they can't get built without a government loan then I say fine, don't give them a loan. I'm still quite certain that they get built. They need a permit though, but the government has issued maybe a half dozen in the last 50 years. They'll have to issue a dozen every year if we are going to solve the problems of global warming, pollution, and so on. That's not growth by the way, that's just replacing the existing coal power plants being shut down. If you want to see natural gas get replaced too then that means 24 new gigawatt sized nuclear power plants every year, or more likely half nuclear and half wind/solar/batteries/whatever.
If we don't see nuclear power plant permits then we will just see more natural gas. I'm fine with that too, because I'm not convinced global warming is a real problem. If you think it is then we can't wait for battery technology to save us, we need a solution *TODAY*. If the global warming alarmists can't agree on more nuclear power to solve this problem then I have to wonder just how seriously they take this problem.
That's fine for large nations like the USA, what about Japan?
Oh, I know the answer. Japan is restarting many of their shuttered nuclear power plants, and has plans to build more.
Then think of all the other inhabited islands spread around the world. They can't spread out their electrical grid like you propose. This is especially true in places that are subject to hurricanes and such. A nuclear power plant in Florida kept running during a hurricane because under that large concrete dome they don't much care about how much sun and wind they get. With proper design earthquakes can be managed too. Fukushima didn't melt down because of the quake, it melted down because it was a design older than Chernobyl and lost the power needed to keep cool. A newer design would not do this.
Maybe an island nation like Japan could in the future rely on sun, wind, and storage for their power needs. Perhaps on an island differential pricing will help as well. What they can't do is widen their grid to gather more of the intermittent sun and wind.
Oh, and I'm sure someone will want to bring up tidal power or some other undersea power source. When that starts to be profitable then let me know. Until then Japan, Hawaii, and other islands will need oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear power to keep the lights on.
Nuclear doesn't ramp up and down when you need it, but battery storage systems are immediate.
You wrote that but didn't see the obvious (to me at least) implications. What if we mate a large battery with a nuclear power plant? That means we have a means to get power, rain or shine, day or night, and still be able to load follow.
Aren't your lips chapped from all the time you spend fellating nuclear power?
As oppose to your lips and wind power?
IMHO, batteries won't save wind and solar power. I suspect that in fact they will lead to their death. If we can charge a battery from coal or nuclear power, and let the battery handle the minute by minute shift in demand, then we don't have to worry about where or when the wind blows.
With a fleet of nuclear power plants, to have a sufficient overcapacity for maintenance periods and unscheduled outages, and a fleet of batteries, then we can have a 100% nuclear powered world. Just like we could have a 100% wind and solar powered world with enough batteries backing up wind and solar. I don't believe either world is realistic, and neither should you.
There's billions in that industry already, your suction can make no practical difference.
There's billions of dollars, likely trillions in fact, riding on who can build the better energy source. Batteries alone cannot save wind power from competition from nuclear power. There's billions of dollars in nuclear power too. Some of that from the military because it turns out we abandoned wind powered ships a long time ago. Nuclear power makes the navies of the world move now. That means technology in nuclear power will improve if only to make warships move faster. That technology will find its way into the commercial designs and the result will mean cheaper nuclear power in the future.
Nuclear power is not dead. It will not die at the hands of wind and solar so long as there are aircraft carriers at sea. Because nuclear power is so safe, clean, energy dense, low CO2, plentiful, and reliable, it will find its way into the commercial electrical generation market. Again, this might be only to keep nuclear engineers employed so the navies of the world can keep warships moving at sea.
We need "nukes". The level of vacuum you can create will not change this unless you can find a way to make an aircraft carrier move by wind and solar power at a performance that exceeds nuclear power.
Might not need a fab but it would help to have FPGAs that are cheap enough and fast enough to make usable computers for people to use.
There's some pretty powerful development boards out there that can be turned into a usable general purpose PC if given the right programming, software, and maybe some help with off the shelf on GPUs or such. Just being able to drive a few USB ports for display (DisplayLink USB to HDMI chip comes to mind), storage, keyboard, mouse, etc. can go a long way. Compile a Linux kernel and some other open source software for it, and there's a lot that can be done.
There would have to be an instruction set built to fit on FPGAs that enough people can afford to play with. Get it this far and perhaps there would be enough interest in time for a fab to produce a lower cost processor as a drop in replacement.
There's this thing called a battery. You may have heard of it.
Yes, I have heard of it. That's what the lawyer said I did when that treehugger got in my face and wouldn't stop screaming about how I'm ruining the planet for driving my truck.
The judge let me go. It turns out that you can't scream in someone's ear and think they can't push you out of their way.
If you want to see wind power displace coal then go buy yourself some windmills, sell electricity, and if you can stay in business doing this then coal plants will go away out of a free market competition. Using the force of government to prop up wind power only means that in the end we will see government prop up coal power to keep the lights on. Get rid of the subsidies, all of them. Taxes on carbon is likely to result in more charges of battery as people riot, as is happening in France. Government cannot solve this problem, only business and technology. If the wind power industry can't compete on an open market, such as producing electricity at a low enough cost to cover the expense of storage for when the wind does not blow, then it does not deserve to stay in business.
From: https://www.merriam-webster.co...
windmill noun
windÂâmill | \Ëwin(d)-ËOEmil \
Definition of windmill
(Entry 1 of 2)
1a : a mill or machine operated by the wind usually acting on oblique vanes or sails that radiate from a horizontal shaft especially : a wind-driven water pump or electric generator
b : the wind-driven wheel of a windmill
2 : something that resembles or suggests a windmill especially : a calisthenic exercise that involves alternately lowering each outstretched hand to touch the toes of the opposite foot
3 [ from the episode in Don Quixote by Cervantes in which the hero attacks windmills under the illusion that they are giants ] : an imaginary wrong, evil, or opponent â"usually used in the phrase to tilt at windmills
It's a fucking windmill and so I'm going to call it a windmill.
So the real question is: how much of all generating capacity is unprofitable?
Precisely. I get political fliers in the mail all the time asking me to vote for politicians that support wind subsidies, asking me to call my congresscritters to support wind subsidies, or even from my utility asking me to pay extra for electricity produced from wind.
If wind power is in fact cheaper than coal then I should not be seeing these fliers in my mail.
Wind is not cheaper than coal. This is especially true when taking into account the over capacity needed to compensate for the poor capacity factor, the natural gas turbines needed for when the wind does not blow, or whatever else is needed to make up for how unreliable wind power is as an energy source.
I use wind as an example here because I live in "tornado alley"... oops, I mean "the wind corridor". I see windmill parts getting trucked down the interstate every day. This entire industry lives and dies on government subsidy. We hear in the news on how President Trump made use of some kind of executive decree to keep coal and nuclear power plants open. I suspect that the subsidies on wind and solar power had something to do with these plants being scheduled for retirement.
Get rid of the subsidies, let the market decide the price, and we'd see these coal plants go out of business naturally instead of being propped up by subsidy or government decree.
Oh, another thing, individual parts of a business might be running at a loss but this has no reflection on the business as a whole. A large utility might own a bunch of windmills, solar panels, hydro dams, nuclear power plants, and coal power plants. Even if some of the coal power plants are operating at a loss the utility may choose to keep them open. Why? Because they'd likely experience a greater loss by closing them. Losing customers, reduced sales, or having to pay fines, because of a brownout costs money. Building a new plant costs money. If they believe this loss is temporary, they already have upgrades on the hydro dam underway as an example, they might run this coal plant at a loss for years just so they can maintain a profit on the whole of the business.
Something is keeping these coal plants open when operating at a loss. My guess is it's government interference preventing market forces from closing them, upgrading them, or allowing prices to rise to match costs so they can make a profit.
So, what percentage of wind power is operating at a loss? My guess is it's far higher than 40%, because if it was 0% then I wouldn't be getting these fliers in my mail asking to prop up that entire industry.
but if the fossil fuel companies weren't permitted to pass their externalities off onto everyone on the planet instead of having to deal with their own emissions (let alone the downstream emissions) then biofuels from algae would be more profitable than petrofuels today.
Well, they are allowed this externality. France tried to address this externality with a carbon tax and now they have riots. That's assuming this fuel tax was actually used to offset the carbon with subsidies on solar power or something and not simply dumped on the rest of the burning pile of cash that most governments seem to be today.
There is an external cost to fossil fuels, or at least I will concede that this is likely the case. So, now what? Internalizing this externality is nearly impossible because when tried you simply get a new set of politicians elected in the next cycle to repeal the government regulations that forced this on the industry, or you have a peasant revolt on having to bear this cost with higher taxes.
That's ignorant at best, or more likely knowing you, an outright lie. It's not theoretical at all; the ground work was laid in the 1980s.
I'd be willing to concede this as well if I see a demonstration of the algae fuels used to run an airplane, even a model airplane, like was done by the US Navy people. I'll read about someone working on this every so often. I'll even see photos of the pools of algae and the clear plastic pipes used to let the sun shine in. What I haven't seen yet is a whole lot on how much this would cost in the real world, or much of a demonstration of this working on a real engine.
Synthetic fuels aren't new either. The technology the US Navy is working on had it's start in the 1940s, possibly far earlier. All they are doing is proving that it will work on a nuclear powered ship at sea, and with carbon from CO2 rather than coal or bio-mass, and at a cost that is reasonable for them. This is not just making it cost effective but also pared down in size and weight, and built solidly enough, to fit comfortably and keep working on a ship that will be rolling about on the waves.
You can complain about the externalities or you can work on the process so that the cost is competitive in spite of them. The US Navy chose to work on lowering the cost than trying to internalize the external. It appears that they've been quite successful so far. The US Air Force has their own bio-fuel program but it's not working out nearly as well as the Navy program on costs. I wish them both success but given the lead the Navy has on this I'm guessing algae fuels will never come to market.
A psychological puzzle of the modern world are people who think nuclear is a solution to anything although it has repeatedly shown to be an economical failure.
Then why would Japan restart their nuclear power plants as a cost saving measure?
If alternatives are cheaper then Japan would have abandoned nuclear power completely by now. A psychological puzzle is people continuously claiming nuclear power to be an economical failure when it is producing far more energy in the world today than wind and sun.
Here's where nuclear power is an obvious solution, naval propulsion. We have nuclear powered submarines, aircraft carriers, and icebreakers. These are now so large and powerful that no other energy source could possibly make them work as well as they do. Maybe in the future this will be the only place where nuclear power is used but I point this out as a place where nuclear power is a solution to something.
Nuclear power is a solution to something, possibly only one thing, and I expect it will remain so for centuries.
It's a myth that wind and solar require massive amounts of mining.
It requires mining still, no? The dispute is not on if solar and wind require mining, only how much compared to nuclear power. We will have to mine. Claiming that wind and solar has no impact in the environment is a myth. There is an impact which so many people ignore. One is the land needed for these windmills and solar panels. Maybe the land under both can be still be used for other things but there is a natural limit on how much energy can be extracted per area, and that limit is quite small. Nuclear power can produce far more energy per area as proven by ships at sea sailing for decades on a single "fill up" of uranium.
If wind and solar power can compete with nuclear on materials and space then we'd be using that to power our warships instead of nuclear power.
I don't much care if you are unconvinced. I'm not convinced that we can power a first world economy without nuclear power. Japan seems to agree. It seems that the US federal government is slowly coming around to this realization as well. If you think we can do without nuclear power then go ahead and try. If you can make wind and solar cheaper than nuclear power then I will happily admit I was wrong since I'll have more money in my pocket to buy something to wash down the crow I'll be eating.