I can't imagine too many Eskimo women operating front end loaders. Not because they are not physically or mentally capable of operating such equipment but because a "front end engineer" doesn't just drive a tractor. They would also be responsible for the maintenance on the machine, occasionally getting off the tractor and using a shovel, picking up bits and pieces that fall off the loader, etc. This small part of the job requires strength that women do not typically have. If someone is going to hire a tractor operator then they are going to pick the one that is willing and able to pick up a shovel once in a while.
For example, I was driving past a construction site the other day and I saw a small track loader just covered in sticky mud, to the point it could hardly move. The operator had a shovel or hoe and was picking at the mud stuck around the tracks so it could move properly again. I don't see too many women complaining that they don't have jobs like that.
Getting back to the "tech" jobs, I took some "tech" jobs that others would not. For a while I had a job as a "tech" but I put "tech" in quotes because the job involved taking large laser printers, loading them on a 2.5 ton truck, driving for hours to the destination, hooking up the printer, loading the one it replaced onto the truck, and then driving for hours back to the warehouse. The truly "tech" part of the job was setting the IP address on the new printer to match the old and verifying the dozen or so printers in the offices could print to the new printer.
I'm not a small guy, 220 pounds last I checked, and I had to manhandle these printers which was a challenge even for me. I can just imagine what an "Eskimo woman" would do in that situation. Would a woman half my size be able to move a roughly 300 pound printer as quickly and safely as me? It seems that just finding someone willing to drive a 2.5 ton truck was a challenge for this company.
If you were hiring someone to be a "tech", and you had to hire either a 220 pound man or a 110 pound woman, to install 300 pound laser printers then which would you choose? I'm not surprised that women don't go into tech as much, or get paid as much when they do.
To those that think we need more government intrusion in our lives to save us from catastrophic anthropogenic global warming I give this incident as just one example of many on why we cannot rely on government to save us. If we want to see CAGW averted then we need to do this through non-government means.
We are going to see CAGW averted not because of government but in spite of it. It's the government that propped up GM when it was near bankruptcy, several times now. Had GM gone under Tesla would have been able to buy up their old factories and be making more electric cars, and do so cheaper. We'd have seen a lot of GM employees out of work for a while, which would no doubt be unfortunate, but in the long run we'd have seen them back at work making electric cars faster and cheaper.
If you want to see electric cars gain in the market then we don't need government to interfere, we need them to get out of the way. Same goes for things like wind, solar, and nuclear power.
If we cannot get government out of the way then we'll have to do like what Tesla is doing and get creative. One thing that also must be done is refuse government subsidies, or at least choose very carefully which ones are taken. Those subsidies come with handcuffs. If you want the freedom to win in the market then you have to know you can do so without a government safety net.
Whenever someone goes to court not only is the person on trial but so is the law. We've seen laws get struck down before in the courts. The court could have ruled the law a violation of a greater freedom, a violation of government limits of authority, or something similar. We've seen courts do legal gymnastics for "the greater good" before, why not in this case?
Perhaps calling a ruling in Tesla's favor some sort of "gymnastics" is a bit over the top. I don't know the law in any detail except what was in the linked articles. It seems to me that this could be ruled either way depending on how one interprets the law. The letter of the law is sometimes not enough, we'll need some information on the intent to decide some unusual cases like this.
I don't have numbers, at least not all of them. Here's a few to consider, the average IQ in the USA is 98, in India it's 81.
I'm sure India has a lot of very smart people, if only because of their large population and the way the bell curve works. So even with an average IQ of 81 there's probably more geniuses in India than the USA. However, if the smartest people in India keep leaving for places like the USA then one can expect India to have a brain drain over time.
It would be in India's best interest to somehow keep these intelligent people in their borders.
I think of a sport analogy more like the World Series, points equals votes and games equals states. If if's team HRC vs team DJT and you get a score like 9-1, 9-1, 9-1, for wins for HRC followed by DJT wins by 3-4, 3-4, 3-4, 3-4 then team DJT wins 4 games to HRC's 3 wins. HRC got 39 total point compared to DJT having 15. Quite the spread there in points and one might argue that team HRC is in fact the better team based upon that. The narrow wins by DJT can be considered flukes, luck, and this can bring doubt on them being "worthy" of getting the trophy.
What I think has happened is that team DJT understood the goal better, they knew the rules. A defeat in a game is a defeat regardless of the point spread. What counts are the wins, even if the win is by a small margin.
What we've been seeing through the election is a large number of national polls which showed HRC ahead. This, IMHO, influenced the election, which was the intent. What the polling places wanted to do is create an image in the people's minds of a HRC win. I believe this actually worked against them. The less informed voter saw these numbers and thought HRC would win and this discouraged HRC voters to show, because if there are enough votes then she wins anyway.
The informed voter, on the other hand, would take a closer look at the numbers and find where in the demographics DJT was weak. DJT went to rally in places where doing so would have the best chance of changing people's minds. HRC went around to places that she'd already won and tried to get her old base motivated to vote, they didn't see to care about getting more people, only to have their traditional voter base to show up.
This tactic by both parties made the national polling look good for HRC but that is not how the election works. We don't vote as a nation, we vote as a federation. It was only near the end when team HRC saw that they might not have enough states to win that they tried making up for their bad strategy. HRC at some point figured out that it's states that need to be won, not votes, but by then it was too little too late.
I hear team HRC complain about the loss. I've also seen team DJT respond that if the rules were different then they'd have played a different game, and likely still won. We cannot change the rule is the middle of the game because it makes one team look bad. Part of the game is knowing the rules.
Have you considered the possibility that lowering the number of technology workers coming to the USA from India would help India?
Think about it this way, these people coming to the USA for work are supposed to be the best and brightest in the world. If they weren't the best in the world then employers would find someone better elsewhere. If these people leave India then we've now deprived India of their intelligence, education, and work ethic.
These visiting workers might send money home for their family but that would not help India near as much as if they were doing this work in their home nation. While they are working in the USA they are mentoring people in the USA, depriving India further of their intelligence and education. If these people had stayed in India then they'd be training the next generation of technology workers, people that are currently living in the slums of India.
For the sake of the people in India I believe we should stop importing workers from there. I'd be willing to have co-workers of lesser intelligence and education if it helps out people in the slums of India.
You are a religious nut. For every successful christian country I can name you several failed ones.
I did not say that a Christian tradition assured success, only that success tends to be higher for Christian nations than for those lacking those traditions. This tradition includes the separation of church and state. If a nation fails to separate the church and the state then they are likely to see both the church and the state fail in some fundamental way.
Basically the only religion that has a 100% corellation to success is shintoism, and that only because of a sample size of 1.
Have you considered why Shintoism has a sample size of one while Christianity has many more? I believe this spread of Christianity is in itself a sign of its success in bringing up healthy societies. Consider the failure of societies which have chosen to discourage the exercise of the Christian faith, like socialist and communist nations that wish to drive people to atheism. Whatever gains they made when the Christian faith dominated tends to stagnate or slide backward once Christianity is driven from them. Again, it's not the belief in Christ that brings success, IMHO, it's the social structures that Christianity creates. There's a lot of backward ideas in Christianity but for the most part they got a lot of things right.
This is only one example why we cannot and will not do away with cash or some equivalent.
People seem to have an inherent understanding of the true value of things. An example, one day I went to a coin shop over lunch and bought some silver coins. At the time sliver was trading at about $20 per ounce. I got to talking with some of my coworkers about my recent purchase and showed them the coins. You'd think they never saw something worth $100 before. My iPod cost me more than those coins but that doesn't grab people's attention like silver coins. There is an inherent value in cash and people know this. There is an inherent value in tradeable goods and people know this. If cash is removed then tradeable goods will replace it.
Cash will continue or people will revert to barter. If they take our cash then people will deal in silver. If they come for our silver then free markets are dead.
Going cashless with never be easy and convenient, at least compared to cash.
My debit card may be near universal but it's not ever more convenient than cash. If they make it more convenient than it is, like removing the need for ID, a PIN, or signature, then theft becomes a problem. The easy thing about cash is that I can walk to the corner store while half awake, get a coffee, toss the cashier a bill, gather my change, and I don't have to try to remember a PIN or even my name in my decaffeinated state.
Some time ago most stores and/or EFT companies did away with the need to have an authorization for purchases under $20. That's great in many ways and I'm sure it did a lot for business. All that did though was make being cashless on par with cash on ease of use. When a tank of gas can cost $60, and a trip to the grocery store can cost $100, then it's not any easier any more. If they raise the limit on purchases that need authorization then the risk of theft and fraud comes back.
This faith in cashless systems must be upheld or people will not use it. It will require some method of authorization and authentication or abuse will happen. This authorization and authentication will have to mean using things like PINs, passwords, or something. This will remove the ease and convenience compared to cash.
Lived in the US for 5 years, I dont recall any outages for electronic payment systems, not for cards at least. I keep a bit of cash on me just incase.
I have to wonder about issues like power outages, what's the backup plan? Power outages have become less common around here but when they do occur it tends to be in times when the weather is poor and failure to get necessities like food and fuel could be life threatening. In a cashless society there is no backup plan, no cash to back up to.
I carry cash and use it for a large portion of my purchases, basically anything under $200 or so. I pay cash at the filling station, at the grocery store, at restaurants, and more. Why? Because it tends to be faster. While others are waiting for their card to clear through the computer I've got my change and I'm gone.
I have to think that retailers don't want this. I recall going to a coffee shop for breakfast and they just gave me the food because their cash register was down. They did the math that it was better for business to give the food away and keep people happy than close shop. Good for me, bad for that business. Had they not been so reliant on those electronics then they'd have been able to take my money.
One can argue that the cost is already passed onto the consumer in slightly inflated prices across the board, so if you're not using a credit card with some type of reward system you're just subsidizing those that do.
Or I can not participate in this and tell them that I'm not for sale. I used to have one of those "rewards cards" from a grocery store and I found it not worth it. I got endless "deals" on items I didn't want in the mail, on the phone, and everywhere I turned. I was just bombarded with advertising. I decided I wasn't going to do that any more. This also happened to be about the same time I had to move to a new town. I saw the junk in my mailbox almost disappear. I don't get near as many phone calls from people trying to sell me stuff.
There's been a few times where I had to break my rules on dealing in cash and I can see an immediate change in the junk I get in the mail. I'll use a credit card to buy gas and days later I get an offer for a credit card in the mail from that gas station chain. The small amount of savings on my purchases from using electronic payment is just not worth it.
... so ultimately all you're doing is arguing against having the convenience.
Isn't that enough to oppose this? How many reasons do I need to tell the government to get out of my personal business? Assuming the government can already track all my monetary transactions that does not mean I am somehow obligated to make it easier for them.
The reasons black markets exist is because the government has imposed some restrictions on trade. By shifting what would have been legal before into the black market now the government has the ability to fine, imprison, or otherwise make life more miserable for something we used to be able to do freely.
We should not have to turn to the black market to get what we want and need. Places where black markets thrive tend to be tyrannical hellholes where mothers have to sell their hair to wig makers to get enough cash to buy milk for their children.
Free markets are where bread sits in lines waiting for me. The alternative is me waiting in lines for bread.
Reading the article I see the push for this cashless system is to assure that the government gets their cut of the deal. I have an idea, do away with sales taxes and get your revenue by means less likely to get subverted. How many ways do people need to be taxed? Should not one form of taxes be enough? I assume Australia is much like any other Anglosphere nation where there is a sales tax, income tax, property tax, "sin" tax (on alcohol, tobacco, and such), homeowner tax, Homer tax, bear tax, poll tax, pole tax, polecat tax, poll cat tax, cat on a pole tax, and a tax tax.
Where is it written that a government *MUST* tax sales? I'm not saying governments do not or should not have the ability to impose any taxes, only that the number of taxes imposed by most governments is excessive. I know why governments impose taxes like this, it hides just how much money they are collecting by spreading it around so that it is difficult to see just how much the government is taking. I believe that a government that is honest with its citizens would make the taxes simple.
They are fighting a battle they cannot win. If they impose restrictions on the movement of cash then people will revert to barter.
This also gets into the "mark of the beast" territory from Christian tradition. You can call it just a superstition if you like but psychologists, sociologists, and economists have made connections between Christian tradition and a healthy society. I'm not saying following every Christian belief will bring an ideal society, only that we've seen Christian societies excel where others did not. I say it may be helpful to see the Bible as a historical document, full of parables, advice, and warnings for building a healthy society.
I know people will feel the urge to mod me down for getting all religious. This is not about religion though, but religion does play a part in this. There will be people that oppose this on religious grounds. There will be people that oppose this because they see the hazards this has on society. These are not mutually exclusive groups. Removing the ability for people to conduct business with cash is dangerous, and some people roughly 2000 years ago warned us of this. I believe that we should think real hard about what a cashless society means. It won't take divine intervention to destroy society, we'll do that on our own.
Or do you again want to include working accidents like falling from a roof in case of solar or mining accidents in case of coal (which seem to happen mostly in the US, surprisingly for me) into "energy safety"??
Why would you not include falling off the roof installing a solar panel as a death counted against solar power? Why would you not count a coal mining accident against coal power?
Let's flip this around. Would falling from a cooling tower at a nuclear power plant be considered a death against nuclear power? I think it should, just as if that person fell from a cooling tower at a coal plant, or a windmill tower. What of someone that died while mining uranium, is that a death against nuclear power? I think it should just as if that person was mining coal for a coal plant or mining aluminum for a wind mill factory.
In my country it is the most expensive power we have.Not on the energy bill, but on the tax bill.
That's not an inherent problem with nuclear power, that's a problem with the regulation of nuclear power. Nuclear power is expensive only because the governments around the world deem it so. We were able to build nuclear power plants 60 years ago, back when computers were the size of automobiles. We know so much more now, and have access to resources we didn't have then. We've been building nuclear power plants the same way for 60 years because the laws haven't changed to reflect new technology.
If we fix the laws then we can build nuclear power plants on an assembly line, like we do with commercial jetliners. We can build thousands of them in a year, have them tested and put into service. These are multimillion dollar machines with as much material, engineering, parts, labor, and such like any nuclear reactor. If you believe that this is not valid comparison then consider oil tankers, commercial office buildings, coal fired power plants, and on and on. We can make nuclear power safe, inexpensive, and do so on a massive scale if we only decide to do so.
Do you really need someone to explain to you the difference between a tiny submarine reactor versus a power plant?
No, but you did bring something to mind. If we can build a small nuclear reactor in that time, then we can build ten in that time. We can build thousands in that time. This is the concept behind the small modular reactor. Once designed and the patterns laid out for construction they can be mass produced.
Something on the scale of 10MW to 100MW can fit on a train or barge. Build them in a factory, ship them to the power plant site, hook them up to a generator, and off you go. There is no reason we cannot do this. Big or small doesn't matter. The only reason we've been building these massive gigawatt scale reactors is because the regulations are such that only building them this big makes economic sense.
If it's so easy to build a 10MW reactor compared to a 1000MW reactor then just build 100 of those 10MW reactors instead.
The point is we know how to solve this problem. The only thing holding this back right now is the regulation on nuclear power, basically the powers that be aren't properly motivated to issue licenses for these reactors and so none get built. There is no physical reason we cannot be building nuclear reactors on a mass scale, and do so safely and economically. We've simply told ourselves it cannot be done and so it cannot be done. Once we tell ourselves it can be done then it will happen.
Nuclear powerplants take a variety of skills and take longer than a year to build. Whilst you might able to break ground on plant two and three whilst plant one is in subsequent phases of construction even that won't happen in year 2.
We aren't starting from zero here. There are already many nuclear power plants being built around the world. People are already getting training in nuclear power. Also, as you point out, it takes a variety of skills to build a nuclear power plant. Much of those skills coincide with existing power plants. Not everyone building a nuclear power plant needs to be experts on nuclear power. Most of them merely need to be experienced in building a power plant. Since we've never stopped building power plants we have plenty of people already trained in this. Since nuclear would replace fossil fuels then they'd merely see a job for nuclear power replace a job for fossil fuel power.
In terms of skills to build an actual reactor, someone working on the job for a year would not be qualified a group of untrained staff the next, so there would be very quickly a skills shortage without a massive additional training programme.
Then train them. What's the problem here? There are already plenty of universities capable of training people in nuclear power. The US Navy trains plenty as well. Again, we are not starting from zero here. It takes four years to get a BSE in nuclear engineering, so start training them now. By the time they graduate we can have all kinds of nuclear engineering jobs and put them to work.
Since for a given level of output nuclear plants are more capital intensive the amount of investment required would not be flat.
That's just plain false. Capital expenses for nuclear power are so close to that of coal power that they are effectively identical. The cost difference between coal and nuclear are purely legal, and if we fix that then people will naturally shift to nuclear power because that is where the money would be.
Whilst I think nuclear could be a useful part of future energy production, your plan is unrealistic.
Saying something cannot be done is a self fulfilling statement. The only reason nuclear power has not outpaced coal is because the government has deemed that it cannot. Several times in the past, decades ago, we've seen nuclear reactors go from nothing to fully operational in less than three years. A blank sheet of paper in 1951 to the USS Nautilus in 1954. If we cannot repeat that today then it is only because we told ourselves so.
A bit simplistic, right ? Just because someone is concerned about AGW, doesn't mean that don't have any other objections to things that could reduce CO2.
There's AGW, anthropogenic global warming, and there's CAGW, catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. If we can agree that the globe is warming, and that humans are causing it, then the question is if this warming is cause for concern or not. If there is no cause for concern, as in it's not catastrophic or even inconvenient, then having objections to some forms of CO2 reduction is understandable. If AGW might be a concern, short of catastrophic, as in it produces certain inconveniences and expenses, then objections to CO2 reduction efforts become more difficult to defend.
What we keep hearing though is that AGW will in fact be catastrophic. That if we do not do reduce our CO2 output immediately then we risk ecological collapse, mass starvation, environmental refugees, resource wars, and on and on. If CAGW is real then it becomes real hard to defend any objections to any means to reduce CO2 production.
Nuclear power is the safest energy source we currently know of, safer than solar and wind based on deaths per energy produced. That alone is reason enough to support it. If the Democrats object to nuclear power given its potential to provide safe and carbon free energy then they must not see CAGW as a real threat. They are broadcasting to Americans that nuclear power is a greater threat to us than CAGW.
Any politician that objects to nuclear power is either willfully and criminally ignorant, or a CAGW denier lunatic that wants to see the world burn. The Democratic platform documents object to the development of nuclear power. The Republicans see nuclear power as a viable future source of energy, as seen in their party platform documents.
Am I being simplistic? Perhaps. I am working off of the assumptions and data given to me. If we assume that CAGW is a real threat, and data shows that nuclear power is safe, comparatively inexpensive, and carbon free, then objecting to the use of nuclear power is denying the threat CAGW poses or the threat nuclear power poses. The Democrats want me to believe two conflicting facts, one cannot see CAGW is real and still object to nuclear power.
At least the Republicans can pass on this. Some see CAGW as real, some are neutral, and some deny it as a threat. Since they see nuclear power as viable then their views on CAGW are, IMHO at least, irrelevant. If CAGW is real (and I'm not so sure it is) then we must use nuclear power. If CAGW is not real then nuclear power still looks good as a source of safe and inexpensive energy.
Building nuclear power plants is as close to a CAGW preventing "magic wand" as we can get.
To those that think nuclear power plants are some kind of threat to the health and safety of the public I must ask, which is the real threat here? Are we to be concerned about the near certainty of CAGW or the highly unlikely event of another Chernobyl disaster?
Nuclear power is the safest energy source we have, based on deaths per megawatt-hour produced. Not even wind and solar are safer. If you don't believe me then look it up, I shouldn't have to give a link when you have access to Google.
No one is ever going to build another nuclear power plant like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, or Fukushima. We learned a lot from those disasters. We learned so much from Chernobyl and Three Mile Island that no one has died from Fukushima. Thousands of people were swept out to sea to die in that tsunami but people remember the nuclear power plant meltdown where no one died. How fucked up is that?
If only we had enough people that could get their heads out of their respective asses and do the math then they'd realize we had the answer to CAGW sixty years ago. Every week we should be breaking ground on a new nuclear power plant somewhere in the world. If we start building nuclear power plants at that rate we'd never build another coal plant and we'd be carbon free in 50 years. If that sounds like too long then we need to build more of them in less time. Sound impossible to you? Then perhaps you don't have your head in the right place.
I have to wonder if people even care that we keep burning fossil fuels. If you look at current polling the concern over catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is far down the list of what people are concerned about. People are more concerned about things like having a job, not getting killed by Muslims, and if they can catch the next Pokemon.
Look at the powers that be in US Congress, they seem to "know" that CO2 causes CAGW, that nuclear power is a carbon free energy source, and that the US Navy has developed the technology to use nuclear energy and seawater to make mil-spec aviation fuel. But when the US Navy asks for funds to build more nuclear powered ships and develop this fuel synthesis process it gets denied.
Why should I care about CAGW if the people in Congress do not? They should be aware of the threats posed by things like global warming, Islamic jihad, and Pokemon roaming freely, and they seem to choose catching Pokemon.
We have the "war monger" Republicans, and the "tree hugger" Democrats, voting on what kind of ships to build for the US Navy and US Coast Guard. The US Navy wants three dozen nuclear powered destroyers. You'd think a reasonable decision would be to agree that since we need a navy, and we don't want to keep burning fuel oil, that the Navy would get the nuclear powered ships they want. No, they got more oil burning ships. Is this because the Republicans are running things? No, this got approved when the Democrats were in charge. So even the Democrats don't seem concerned about CAGW any more.
The US Coast Guard wants six new ice breakers. This is so we can keep three ships in constant rotation on each pole to service shipping around the North Pole and scientific and humanitarian efforts around the Antarctic. Congress didn't fund this. Perhaps this is consistent with the claim that the ice will just disappear soon. Russia has been operating nuclear powered icebreakers for years now. You'd think that the USA could use a few to make sure those new Navy destroyers don't get stuck in the ice should we find ourselves in a war in the North Atlantic again. Congress didn't fund new icebreakers, much less nuclear powered ones, and so we keep operating the old oil burning ones in sensitive Arctic and Antarctic waters. While operating oil fired icebreakers is not quite the same threat to the environment as sailing a single hull oil tanker in the North Pacific one would think that reducing the number of oil fired ships in these waters would be a good thing, especially those that are there to make sure the existing oil fired ships aren't trying to dodge icebergs and other hazards.
Congress does not seem concerned about CAGW. If they were then we'd be building a new civilian nuclear power plant every month, the US Navy would have every ship larger than an inflatable dinghy powered by a nuclear reactor, the US Coast Guard would have a half dozen nuclear powered ice breakers, all the armed forces would be burning synthesized fuel (not only because of CAGW but because of other national security concerns) in their jeeps/generators/stoves/planes/tanks/helicopters/whatever, and on and on.
Again, Congress knows what the threats are better than I ever could because they have access to experts in climate, energy, national security, and so on while I do not. Since they seem to be occupied with playing Pokemon then all must be well with the world.
Moores law for transistors works with roughly the same amount of investment each year. This doesn't work in many other areas. You can't double clean energy production every 5 years without doubling the investment.
Yes and no. To keep up with growing demand and retiring of old power plants and other consumers of fossil fuels there is always new construction. New coal and natural gas plants are built every day as are new factories for cars, trucks, planes, trains, and ships. We cannot just stop building these thing or our economy goes to shit and people will die from starvation and what not.
What we can do is declare that every year we will double the replacement rate of fossil fuel burners with nuclear powered equivalents. This year we build one nuclear power plant. Next year, now that we have people trained in the building of a nuclear power plant we spread them around and train more people so they can build two. The year after we build four, after that eight nuclear power plants. We keep going until we reach a rate by which we are building nuclear power plants at the rate in which they are retired.
If we are building gigawatt scale nuclear power plants then we reach this goal fairly quickly since in the USA this would mean building something like 10 to 15 nuclear power plants every year. That's one new nuclear power plant going online roughly every month. Anything less means we are not bringing our carbon footprint to zero.
When it comes to other fossil fuel burners like heating, transportation, and so on this can mean using synthesized fuel or converting to electricity. Either way this increases the demand on nuclear power needed. Wind, solar, and hydro power cannot produce liquid fuels directly. What they can do is power fuel synthesis plants. Jet planes need kerosene or something equivalent, they cannot run on electricity. We can synthesize hydrocarbons, keep pumping crude out of the ground, or we can not fly any more.
The money invested in the switch to nuclear power would still double every year but this would only replace the investment we'd be doing in fossil fuels. Total money spent would remain roughly the same. Any claims that nuclear power costs more than coal or any other power source is bogus. Any knowledgeable engineer can tell you the materials and effort needed to build a nuclear power plant is nearly identical to that of building a coal plant. The cost difference is purely in the fucked up regulations from government.
If the government regulated coal power like it did nuclear power then we'd be building nuclear power every time if only because of the radiation that coal plants spread into the environment. You think that coal power is free from radiation? It is not. That coal dust and soot contains radioactive elements dug from the ground and spread into the air and water. Nuclear power would destroy these elements. We'd still be digging them up but then we'd turn them into stuff that isn't radioactive any more.
That's not what is happening though. What we have are people that go to the clinic and get tested for tumors. When the results come back negative then they get mad at the surgeon, scream about how they are a "cancer denier", and storm off to another clinic. They keep looking for clinics and surgeons to test them for tumors until they find enough that agree so they can tell all their friends that they do in fact have a tumor.
Once it is widely spread in their circle of friends that they have a tumor they go back to the surgeons looking for treatments. The surgeons that say the tumor is benign are called "quacks". The ones that claim that it might be cancerous but it will take time to know for sure are ignored. The ones that say that invasive surgery will be required, followed by chemotherapy, radiation treatment, all of which will be exceedingly painful and expensive, are given complete attention. Then these people go around and tell everyone else that they must pay for this treatment because if they don't then they are heartless bastards and cancer deniers that want to see people suffer and die.
The headaches, dry throat, depression, elevated blood pressure and other symptoms are likely from getting all worked up over nothing. The symptoms are just as likely imagined. There is no cancer. Just calm down and the headaches should go away on their own.
If we could get people to agree on some very basic facts then catastrophic anthropogenic global warming would no longer be a threat.
Of all the energy sources we have available to us right now only one of them is inexpensive, does not rely on favorable geography, reliable, carbon free, and is plentiful. That is nuclear power. It's not without it's problems but if CAGW is a real threat then any problems with nuclear power should pale in comparison. We know how to deal with nuclear waste. We have plenty of nuclear fuel. To those people that think nuclear weapons are a threat I must ask, what do you propose we do with the weapons we already have? Would not destroying the fissile material be preferable to keeping them under guard forever? The only way we have to destroy fissile material is in a nuclear reactor. It not like we haven't turned nuclear weapons into electricity before, the term "megatons to megawatts" should be familiar to some reading this.
Nuclear reactors alone won't solve the problem since we cannot power automobiles and aircraft with nuclear reactors, we need a fuel like we get from petroleum for that. Good thing the US Navy solved that problem. They have a device capable of extracting CO2 from the environment and turning that into hydrocarbons. This is a fuel that is a direct replacement for fuels derived from petroleum and natural gas. All powered by nuclear reactors, of course. This synthetic fuel, when burned, will release the CO2 back into the air which can then be recaptured by the fuel synthesis devices, closing the carbon cycle. No additional CO2 would be added to the environment. If carbon sequestration is something people want then we can take these hydrocarbons and pump them back into the ground.
This gets to why I don't believe that CAGW is a real threat. There are people in Congress that know the US Navy has built these hydrocarbon synthesis devices. These people also know that the US Navy has an impeccable record operating nuclear reactors. When the US Navy went to Congress asking for more nuclear powered ships, and additional funding for their fuel synthesis research, it was denied. The cries for something to be done about CAGW largely comes from the Democrats. The denial for more nuclear powered Navy ships, and more civilian nuclear reactors, largely comes from the Democrats.
We know what the problem is. We know where to find the solution to the problem. Why haven't we solved the problem already? Democrats.
If there are Democrats wondering why they got an ass kicking in the last election then I propose they look at their policies on how to deal with CAGW. If Democrats want to start winning elections again then I propose they look at making some small compromises on how they deal with nuclear power. To keep up with the rate at which we are retiring coal fired power plants, and account for future growth in energy needs, then we need a new gigawatt scale nuclear reactor in the US every month. If Democrats are not willing to allow that to happen then I propose they start to get used to losing elections.
Americans have gone from an average of 2.6 to 2.3 TVs in a six year period but what kind of error bars are on that?
Let's think this through... - TVs last a long time so even though someone might upgrade on a TV the old one might still be working when it's replaced. - That TV that's moved from the primary viewing location to it's new home might not even be used, or not used enough to matter. I've seen people put TVs in basements, garages, and spare bedrooms just because they wanted a new TV but didn't want to throw away one that still worked. So it's put some where where it could be used but probably won't. - There was the switch to digital TV in 2009 that made a lot of TVs obsolete. So, those rarely used TVs that were in basements and spare bedrooms got tossed but never replaced. - TV programming quality took a dive, people are now watching more stuff from the internet using computers and such. - The economy took a dive. People that might have got a new TV just because they wanted one a decade ago will now not be so willing to spend money on such luxuries. - While people are watching less TV and instead spending that time watching internet based content the devices to connect the TV to the internet are still quite new. Given time I expect this to change.
So, to me this looks more like a statistically insignificant change in American TV viewing habits. I believe that all we are seeing is the lag in the "recovery" from people having to toss out their analog TV sets in 2009. As people get more money (from an improving economy and people building up wealth as they age), they'll start to put their still working but moderately outdated TVs into basements and spare bedrooms again. There's more 4K content, more internet based content, and increasing wealth to drive TV purchases. I expect in five years or so we'll see the average number of TVs in American households to get to the 2009 level again.
I think back to the years prior and for a long time people just tended to have two or three TVs. There would be one in a living room, perhaps in the kitchen, maybe the parents had one in their bedroom. If a family had more than that then it'd be a wealthy family with a large house, and they'd have more TVs because they had more rooms to accommodate them. The typical American house hasn't changed much over the decades as far as layout and room usage goes. Houses may have become larger but the number of rooms didn't really change.
Had there been a larger change than this, and it not so close to the digital broadcast TV change, then I might see this as more interesting. The switch to digital TV, a poor economy, declining TV programming quality, all add up to slightly fewer TVs owned. Had the TV ownership increased in this time then I might be surprised.
Slashdot Mirror
When I read "front end engineer" my first thought was of an operator of a front end loader.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/ind...
I can't imagine too many Eskimo women operating front end loaders. Not because they are not physically or mentally capable of operating such equipment but because a "front end engineer" doesn't just drive a tractor. They would also be responsible for the maintenance on the machine, occasionally getting off the tractor and using a shovel, picking up bits and pieces that fall off the loader, etc. This small part of the job requires strength that women do not typically have. If someone is going to hire a tractor operator then they are going to pick the one that is willing and able to pick up a shovel once in a while.
For example, I was driving past a construction site the other day and I saw a small track loader just covered in sticky mud, to the point it could hardly move. The operator had a shovel or hoe and was picking at the mud stuck around the tracks so it could move properly again. I don't see too many women complaining that they don't have jobs like that.
Getting back to the "tech" jobs, I took some "tech" jobs that others would not. For a while I had a job as a "tech" but I put "tech" in quotes because the job involved taking large laser printers, loading them on a 2.5 ton truck, driving for hours to the destination, hooking up the printer, loading the one it replaced onto the truck, and then driving for hours back to the warehouse. The truly "tech" part of the job was setting the IP address on the new printer to match the old and verifying the dozen or so printers in the offices could print to the new printer.
I'm not a small guy, 220 pounds last I checked, and I had to manhandle these printers which was a challenge even for me. I can just imagine what an "Eskimo woman" would do in that situation. Would a woman half my size be able to move a roughly 300 pound printer as quickly and safely as me? It seems that just finding someone willing to drive a 2.5 ton truck was a challenge for this company.
If you were hiring someone to be a "tech", and you had to hire either a 220 pound man or a 110 pound woman, to install 300 pound laser printers then which would you choose? I'm not surprised that women don't go into tech as much, or get paid as much when they do.
To those that think we need more government intrusion in our lives to save us from catastrophic anthropogenic global warming I give this incident as just one example of many on why we cannot rely on government to save us. If we want to see CAGW averted then we need to do this through non-government means.
We are going to see CAGW averted not because of government but in spite of it. It's the government that propped up GM when it was near bankruptcy, several times now. Had GM gone under Tesla would have been able to buy up their old factories and be making more electric cars, and do so cheaper. We'd have seen a lot of GM employees out of work for a while, which would no doubt be unfortunate, but in the long run we'd have seen them back at work making electric cars faster and cheaper.
If you want to see electric cars gain in the market then we don't need government to interfere, we need them to get out of the way. Same goes for things like wind, solar, and nuclear power.
If we cannot get government out of the way then we'll have to do like what Tesla is doing and get creative. One thing that also must be done is refuse government subsidies, or at least choose very carefully which ones are taken. Those subsidies come with handcuffs. If you want the freedom to win in the market then you have to know you can do so without a government safety net.
Whenever someone goes to court not only is the person on trial but so is the law. We've seen laws get struck down before in the courts. The court could have ruled the law a violation of a greater freedom, a violation of government limits of authority, or something similar. We've seen courts do legal gymnastics for "the greater good" before, why not in this case?
Perhaps calling a ruling in Tesla's favor some sort of "gymnastics" is a bit over the top. I don't know the law in any detail except what was in the linked articles. It seems to me that this could be ruled either way depending on how one interprets the law. The letter of the law is sometimes not enough, we'll need some information on the intent to decide some unusual cases like this.
I don't have numbers, at least not all of them. Here's a few to consider, the average IQ in the USA is 98, in India it's 81.
I'm sure India has a lot of very smart people, if only because of their large population and the way the bell curve works. So even with an average IQ of 81 there's probably more geniuses in India than the USA. However, if the smartest people in India keep leaving for places like the USA then one can expect India to have a brain drain over time.
It would be in India's best interest to somehow keep these intelligent people in their borders.
I think of a sport analogy more like the World Series, points equals votes and games equals states. If if's team HRC vs team DJT and you get a score like 9-1, 9-1, 9-1, for wins for HRC followed by DJT wins by 3-4, 3-4, 3-4, 3-4 then team DJT wins 4 games to HRC's 3 wins. HRC got 39 total point compared to DJT having 15. Quite the spread there in points and one might argue that team HRC is in fact the better team based upon that. The narrow wins by DJT can be considered flukes, luck, and this can bring doubt on them being "worthy" of getting the trophy.
What I think has happened is that team DJT understood the goal better, they knew the rules. A defeat in a game is a defeat regardless of the point spread. What counts are the wins, even if the win is by a small margin.
What we've been seeing through the election is a large number of national polls which showed HRC ahead. This, IMHO, influenced the election, which was the intent. What the polling places wanted to do is create an image in the people's minds of a HRC win. I believe this actually worked against them. The less informed voter saw these numbers and thought HRC would win and this discouraged HRC voters to show, because if there are enough votes then she wins anyway.
The informed voter, on the other hand, would take a closer look at the numbers and find where in the demographics DJT was weak. DJT went to rally in places where doing so would have the best chance of changing people's minds. HRC went around to places that she'd already won and tried to get her old base motivated to vote, they didn't see to care about getting more people, only to have their traditional voter base to show up.
This tactic by both parties made the national polling look good for HRC but that is not how the election works. We don't vote as a nation, we vote as a federation. It was only near the end when team HRC saw that they might not have enough states to win that they tried making up for their bad strategy. HRC at some point figured out that it's states that need to be won, not votes, but by then it was too little too late.
I hear team HRC complain about the loss. I've also seen team DJT respond that if the rules were different then they'd have played a different game, and likely still won. We cannot change the rule is the middle of the game because it makes one team look bad. Part of the game is knowing the rules.
Have you considered the possibility that lowering the number of technology workers coming to the USA from India would help India?
Think about it this way, these people coming to the USA for work are supposed to be the best and brightest in the world. If they weren't the best in the world then employers would find someone better elsewhere. If these people leave India then we've now deprived India of their intelligence, education, and work ethic.
These visiting workers might send money home for their family but that would not help India near as much as if they were doing this work in their home nation. While they are working in the USA they are mentoring people in the USA, depriving India further of their intelligence and education. If these people had stayed in India then they'd be training the next generation of technology workers, people that are currently living in the slums of India.
For the sake of the people in India I believe we should stop importing workers from there. I'd be willing to have co-workers of lesser intelligence and education if it helps out people in the slums of India.
You are a religious nut. For every successful christian country I can name you several failed ones.
I did not say that a Christian tradition assured success, only that success tends to be higher for Christian nations than for those lacking those traditions. This tradition includes the separation of church and state. If a nation fails to separate the church and the state then they are likely to see both the church and the state fail in some fundamental way.
Basically the only religion that has a 100% corellation to success is shintoism, and that only because of a sample size of 1.
Have you considered why Shintoism has a sample size of one while Christianity has many more? I believe this spread of Christianity is in itself a sign of its success in bringing up healthy societies. Consider the failure of societies which have chosen to discourage the exercise of the Christian faith, like socialist and communist nations that wish to drive people to atheism. Whatever gains they made when the Christian faith dominated tends to stagnate or slide backward once Christianity is driven from them. Again, it's not the belief in Christ that brings success, IMHO, it's the social structures that Christianity creates. There's a lot of backward ideas in Christianity but for the most part they got a lot of things right.
Pushing a button does not magically return all the goods and services purchased with those fraudulent transactions.
This is only one example why we cannot and will not do away with cash or some equivalent.
People seem to have an inherent understanding of the true value of things. An example, one day I went to a coin shop over lunch and bought some silver coins. At the time sliver was trading at about $20 per ounce. I got to talking with some of my coworkers about my recent purchase and showed them the coins. You'd think they never saw something worth $100 before. My iPod cost me more than those coins but that doesn't grab people's attention like silver coins. There is an inherent value in cash and people know this. There is an inherent value in tradeable goods and people know this. If cash is removed then tradeable goods will replace it.
Cash will continue or people will revert to barter. If they take our cash then people will deal in silver. If they come for our silver then free markets are dead.
On what planet do you live?
Apparently on a planet where cashiers aren't as feeble minded as the ones where you live.
Going cashless with never be easy and convenient, at least compared to cash.
My debit card may be near universal but it's not ever more convenient than cash. If they make it more convenient than it is, like removing the need for ID, a PIN, or signature, then theft becomes a problem. The easy thing about cash is that I can walk to the corner store while half awake, get a coffee, toss the cashier a bill, gather my change, and I don't have to try to remember a PIN or even my name in my decaffeinated state.
Some time ago most stores and/or EFT companies did away with the need to have an authorization for purchases under $20. That's great in many ways and I'm sure it did a lot for business. All that did though was make being cashless on par with cash on ease of use. When a tank of gas can cost $60, and a trip to the grocery store can cost $100, then it's not any easier any more. If they raise the limit on purchases that need authorization then the risk of theft and fraud comes back.
This faith in cashless systems must be upheld or people will not use it. It will require some method of authorization and authentication or abuse will happen. This authorization and authentication will have to mean using things like PINs, passwords, or something. This will remove the ease and convenience compared to cash.
Lived in the US for 5 years, I dont recall any outages for electronic payment systems, not for cards at least. I keep a bit of cash on me just incase.
I have to wonder about issues like power outages, what's the backup plan? Power outages have become less common around here but when they do occur it tends to be in times when the weather is poor and failure to get necessities like food and fuel could be life threatening. In a cashless society there is no backup plan, no cash to back up to.
I carry cash and use it for a large portion of my purchases, basically anything under $200 or so. I pay cash at the filling station, at the grocery store, at restaurants, and more. Why? Because it tends to be faster. While others are waiting for their card to clear through the computer I've got my change and I'm gone.
I have to think that retailers don't want this. I recall going to a coffee shop for breakfast and they just gave me the food because their cash register was down. They did the math that it was better for business to give the food away and keep people happy than close shop. Good for me, bad for that business. Had they not been so reliant on those electronics then they'd have been able to take my money.
One can argue that the cost is already passed onto the consumer in slightly inflated prices across the board, so if you're not using a credit card with some type of reward system you're just subsidizing those that do.
Or I can not participate in this and tell them that I'm not for sale. I used to have one of those "rewards cards" from a grocery store and I found it not worth it. I got endless "deals" on items I didn't want in the mail, on the phone, and everywhere I turned. I was just bombarded with advertising. I decided I wasn't going to do that any more. This also happened to be about the same time I had to move to a new town. I saw the junk in my mailbox almost disappear. I don't get near as many phone calls from people trying to sell me stuff.
There's been a few times where I had to break my rules on dealing in cash and I can see an immediate change in the junk I get in the mail. I'll use a credit card to buy gas and days later I get an offer for a credit card in the mail from that gas station chain. The small amount of savings on my purchases from using electronic payment is just not worth it.
... so ultimately all you're doing is arguing against having the convenience.
Isn't that enough to oppose this? How many reasons do I need to tell the government to get out of my personal business? Assuming the government can already track all my monetary transactions that does not mean I am somehow obligated to make it easier for them.
The reasons black markets exist is because the government has imposed some restrictions on trade. By shifting what would have been legal before into the black market now the government has the ability to fine, imprison, or otherwise make life more miserable for something we used to be able to do freely.
We should not have to turn to the black market to get what we want and need. Places where black markets thrive tend to be tyrannical hellholes where mothers have to sell their hair to wig makers to get enough cash to buy milk for their children.
Free markets are where bread sits in lines waiting for me. The alternative is me waiting in lines for bread.
Reading the article I see the push for this cashless system is to assure that the government gets their cut of the deal. I have an idea, do away with sales taxes and get your revenue by means less likely to get subverted. How many ways do people need to be taxed? Should not one form of taxes be enough? I assume Australia is much like any other Anglosphere nation where there is a sales tax, income tax, property tax, "sin" tax (on alcohol, tobacco, and such), homeowner tax, Homer tax, bear tax, poll tax, pole tax, polecat tax, poll cat tax, cat on a pole tax, and a tax tax.
Where is it written that a government *MUST* tax sales? I'm not saying governments do not or should not have the ability to impose any taxes, only that the number of taxes imposed by most governments is excessive. I know why governments impose taxes like this, it hides just how much money they are collecting by spreading it around so that it is difficult to see just how much the government is taking. I believe that a government that is honest with its citizens would make the taxes simple.
They are fighting a battle they cannot win. If they impose restrictions on the movement of cash then people will revert to barter.
This also gets into the "mark of the beast" territory from Christian tradition. You can call it just a superstition if you like but psychologists, sociologists, and economists have made connections between Christian tradition and a healthy society. I'm not saying following every Christian belief will bring an ideal society, only that we've seen Christian societies excel where others did not. I say it may be helpful to see the Bible as a historical document, full of parables, advice, and warnings for building a healthy society.
I know people will feel the urge to mod me down for getting all religious. This is not about religion though, but religion does play a part in this. There will be people that oppose this on religious grounds. There will be people that oppose this because they see the hazards this has on society. These are not mutually exclusive groups. Removing the ability for people to conduct business with cash is dangerous, and some people roughly 2000 years ago warned us of this. I believe that we should think real hard about what a cashless society means. It won't take divine intervention to destroy society, we'll do that on our own.
Or do you again want to include working accidents like falling from a roof in case of solar or mining accidents in case of coal (which seem to happen mostly in the US, surprisingly for me) into "energy safety"??
Why would you not include falling off the roof installing a solar panel as a death counted against solar power? Why would you not count a coal mining accident against coal power?
Let's flip this around. Would falling from a cooling tower at a nuclear power plant be considered a death against nuclear power? I think it should, just as if that person fell from a cooling tower at a coal plant, or a windmill tower. What of someone that died while mining uranium, is that a death against nuclear power? I think it should just as if that person was mining coal for a coal plant or mining aluminum for a wind mill factory.
In my country it is the most expensive power we have.Not on the energy bill, but on the tax bill.
That's not an inherent problem with nuclear power, that's a problem with the regulation of nuclear power. Nuclear power is expensive only because the governments around the world deem it so. We were able to build nuclear power plants 60 years ago, back when computers were the size of automobiles. We know so much more now, and have access to resources we didn't have then. We've been building nuclear power plants the same way for 60 years because the laws haven't changed to reflect new technology.
If we fix the laws then we can build nuclear power plants on an assembly line, like we do with commercial jetliners. We can build thousands of them in a year, have them tested and put into service. These are multimillion dollar machines with as much material, engineering, parts, labor, and such like any nuclear reactor. If you believe that this is not valid comparison then consider oil tankers, commercial office buildings, coal fired power plants, and on and on. We can make nuclear power safe, inexpensive, and do so on a massive scale if we only decide to do so.
Do you really need someone to explain to you the difference between a tiny submarine reactor versus a power plant?
No, but you did bring something to mind. If we can build a small nuclear reactor in that time, then we can build ten in that time. We can build thousands in that time. This is the concept behind the small modular reactor. Once designed and the patterns laid out for construction they can be mass produced.
Something on the scale of 10MW to 100MW can fit on a train or barge. Build them in a factory, ship them to the power plant site, hook them up to a generator, and off you go. There is no reason we cannot do this. Big or small doesn't matter. The only reason we've been building these massive gigawatt scale reactors is because the regulations are such that only building them this big makes economic sense.
If it's so easy to build a 10MW reactor compared to a 1000MW reactor then just build 100 of those 10MW reactors instead.
The point is we know how to solve this problem. The only thing holding this back right now is the regulation on nuclear power, basically the powers that be aren't properly motivated to issue licenses for these reactors and so none get built. There is no physical reason we cannot be building nuclear reactors on a mass scale, and do so safely and economically. We've simply told ourselves it cannot be done and so it cannot be done. Once we tell ourselves it can be done then it will happen.
Nuclear powerplants take a variety of skills and take longer than a year to build. Whilst you might able to break ground on plant two and three whilst plant one is in subsequent phases of construction even that won't happen in year 2.
We aren't starting from zero here. There are already many nuclear power plants being built around the world. People are already getting training in nuclear power. Also, as you point out, it takes a variety of skills to build a nuclear power plant. Much of those skills coincide with existing power plants. Not everyone building a nuclear power plant needs to be experts on nuclear power. Most of them merely need to be experienced in building a power plant. Since we've never stopped building power plants we have plenty of people already trained in this. Since nuclear would replace fossil fuels then they'd merely see a job for nuclear power replace a job for fossil fuel power.
In terms of skills to build an actual reactor, someone working on the job for a year would not be qualified a group of untrained staff the next, so there would be very quickly a skills shortage without a massive additional training programme.
Then train them. What's the problem here? There are already plenty of universities capable of training people in nuclear power. The US Navy trains plenty as well. Again, we are not starting from zero here. It takes four years to get a BSE in nuclear engineering, so start training them now. By the time they graduate we can have all kinds of nuclear engineering jobs and put them to work.
Since for a given level of output nuclear plants are more capital intensive the amount of investment required would not be flat.
That's just plain false. Capital expenses for nuclear power are so close to that of coal power that they are effectively identical. The cost difference between coal and nuclear are purely legal, and if we fix that then people will naturally shift to nuclear power because that is where the money would be.
Whilst I think nuclear could be a useful part of future energy production, your plan is unrealistic.
Saying something cannot be done is a self fulfilling statement. The only reason nuclear power has not outpaced coal is because the government has deemed that it cannot. Several times in the past, decades ago, we've seen nuclear reactors go from nothing to fully operational in less than three years. A blank sheet of paper in 1951 to the USS Nautilus in 1954. If we cannot repeat that today then it is only because we told ourselves so.
A bit simplistic, right ? Just because someone is concerned about AGW, doesn't mean that don't have any other objections to things that could reduce CO2.
There's AGW, anthropogenic global warming, and there's CAGW, catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. If we can agree that the globe is warming, and that humans are causing it, then the question is if this warming is cause for concern or not. If there is no cause for concern, as in it's not catastrophic or even inconvenient, then having objections to some forms of CO2 reduction is understandable. If AGW might be a concern, short of catastrophic, as in it produces certain inconveniences and expenses, then objections to CO2 reduction efforts become more difficult to defend.
What we keep hearing though is that AGW will in fact be catastrophic. That if we do not do reduce our CO2 output immediately then we risk ecological collapse, mass starvation, environmental refugees, resource wars, and on and on. If CAGW is real then it becomes real hard to defend any objections to any means to reduce CO2 production.
Nuclear power is the safest energy source we currently know of, safer than solar and wind based on deaths per energy produced. That alone is reason enough to support it. If the Democrats object to nuclear power given its potential to provide safe and carbon free energy then they must not see CAGW as a real threat. They are broadcasting to Americans that nuclear power is a greater threat to us than CAGW.
Any politician that objects to nuclear power is either willfully and criminally ignorant, or a CAGW denier lunatic that wants to see the world burn. The Democratic platform documents object to the development of nuclear power. The Republicans see nuclear power as a viable future source of energy, as seen in their party platform documents.
Am I being simplistic? Perhaps. I am working off of the assumptions and data given to me. If we assume that CAGW is a real threat, and data shows that nuclear power is safe, comparatively inexpensive, and carbon free, then objecting to the use of nuclear power is denying the threat CAGW poses or the threat nuclear power poses. The Democrats want me to believe two conflicting facts, one cannot see CAGW is real and still object to nuclear power.
At least the Republicans can pass on this. Some see CAGW as real, some are neutral, and some deny it as a threat. Since they see nuclear power as viable then their views on CAGW are, IMHO at least, irrelevant. If CAGW is real (and I'm not so sure it is) then we must use nuclear power. If CAGW is not real then nuclear power still looks good as a source of safe and inexpensive energy.
Building nuclear power plants is as close to a CAGW preventing "magic wand" as we can get.
To those that think nuclear power plants are some kind of threat to the health and safety of the public I must ask, which is the real threat here? Are we to be concerned about the near certainty of CAGW or the highly unlikely event of another Chernobyl disaster?
Nuclear power is the safest energy source we have, based on deaths per megawatt-hour produced. Not even wind and solar are safer. If you don't believe me then look it up, I shouldn't have to give a link when you have access to Google.
No one is ever going to build another nuclear power plant like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, or Fukushima. We learned a lot from those disasters. We learned so much from Chernobyl and Three Mile Island that no one has died from Fukushima. Thousands of people were swept out to sea to die in that tsunami but people remember the nuclear power plant meltdown where no one died. How fucked up is that?
If only we had enough people that could get their heads out of their respective asses and do the math then they'd realize we had the answer to CAGW sixty years ago. Every week we should be breaking ground on a new nuclear power plant somewhere in the world. If we start building nuclear power plants at that rate we'd never build another coal plant and we'd be carbon free in 50 years. If that sounds like too long then we need to build more of them in less time. Sound impossible to you? Then perhaps you don't have your head in the right place.
I have to wonder if people even care that we keep burning fossil fuels. If you look at current polling the concern over catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is far down the list of what people are concerned about. People are more concerned about things like having a job, not getting killed by Muslims, and if they can catch the next Pokemon.
Look at the powers that be in US Congress, they seem to "know" that CO2 causes CAGW, that nuclear power is a carbon free energy source, and that the US Navy has developed the technology to use nuclear energy and seawater to make mil-spec aviation fuel. But when the US Navy asks for funds to build more nuclear powered ships and develop this fuel synthesis process it gets denied.
Why should I care about CAGW if the people in Congress do not? They should be aware of the threats posed by things like global warming, Islamic jihad, and Pokemon roaming freely, and they seem to choose catching Pokemon.
We have the "war monger" Republicans, and the "tree hugger" Democrats, voting on what kind of ships to build for the US Navy and US Coast Guard. The US Navy wants three dozen nuclear powered destroyers. You'd think a reasonable decision would be to agree that since we need a navy, and we don't want to keep burning fuel oil, that the Navy would get the nuclear powered ships they want. No, they got more oil burning ships. Is this because the Republicans are running things? No, this got approved when the Democrats were in charge. So even the Democrats don't seem concerned about CAGW any more.
The US Coast Guard wants six new ice breakers. This is so we can keep three ships in constant rotation on each pole to service shipping around the North Pole and scientific and humanitarian efforts around the Antarctic. Congress didn't fund this. Perhaps this is consistent with the claim that the ice will just disappear soon. Russia has been operating nuclear powered icebreakers for years now. You'd think that the USA could use a few to make sure those new Navy destroyers don't get stuck in the ice should we find ourselves in a war in the North Atlantic again. Congress didn't fund new icebreakers, much less nuclear powered ones, and so we keep operating the old oil burning ones in sensitive Arctic and Antarctic waters. While operating oil fired icebreakers is not quite the same threat to the environment as sailing a single hull oil tanker in the North Pacific one would think that reducing the number of oil fired ships in these waters would be a good thing, especially those that are there to make sure the existing oil fired ships aren't trying to dodge icebergs and other hazards.
Congress does not seem concerned about CAGW. If they were then we'd be building a new civilian nuclear power plant every month, the US Navy would have every ship larger than an inflatable dinghy powered by a nuclear reactor, the US Coast Guard would have a half dozen nuclear powered ice breakers, all the armed forces would be burning synthesized fuel (not only because of CAGW but because of other national security concerns) in their jeeps/generators/stoves/planes/tanks/helicopters/whatever, and on and on.
Again, Congress knows what the threats are better than I ever could because they have access to experts in climate, energy, national security, and so on while I do not. Since they seem to be occupied with playing Pokemon then all must be well with the world.
Moores law for transistors works with roughly the same amount of investment each year. This doesn't work in many other areas. You can't double clean energy production every 5 years without doubling the investment.
Yes and no. To keep up with growing demand and retiring of old power plants and other consumers of fossil fuels there is always new construction. New coal and natural gas plants are built every day as are new factories for cars, trucks, planes, trains, and ships. We cannot just stop building these thing or our economy goes to shit and people will die from starvation and what not.
What we can do is declare that every year we will double the replacement rate of fossil fuel burners with nuclear powered equivalents. This year we build one nuclear power plant. Next year, now that we have people trained in the building of a nuclear power plant we spread them around and train more people so they can build two. The year after we build four, after that eight nuclear power plants. We keep going until we reach a rate by which we are building nuclear power plants at the rate in which they are retired.
If we are building gigawatt scale nuclear power plants then we reach this goal fairly quickly since in the USA this would mean building something like 10 to 15 nuclear power plants every year. That's one new nuclear power plant going online roughly every month. Anything less means we are not bringing our carbon footprint to zero.
When it comes to other fossil fuel burners like heating, transportation, and so on this can mean using synthesized fuel or converting to electricity. Either way this increases the demand on nuclear power needed. Wind, solar, and hydro power cannot produce liquid fuels directly. What they can do is power fuel synthesis plants. Jet planes need kerosene or something equivalent, they cannot run on electricity. We can synthesize hydrocarbons, keep pumping crude out of the ground, or we can not fly any more.
The money invested in the switch to nuclear power would still double every year but this would only replace the investment we'd be doing in fossil fuels. Total money spent would remain roughly the same. Any claims that nuclear power costs more than coal or any other power source is bogus. Any knowledgeable engineer can tell you the materials and effort needed to build a nuclear power plant is nearly identical to that of building a coal plant. The cost difference is purely in the fucked up regulations from government.
If the government regulated coal power like it did nuclear power then we'd be building nuclear power every time if only because of the radiation that coal plants spread into the environment. You think that coal power is free from radiation? It is not. That coal dust and soot contains radioactive elements dug from the ground and spread into the air and water. Nuclear power would destroy these elements. We'd still be digging them up but then we'd turn them into stuff that isn't radioactive any more.
You mean the one where global warming was "solved" with a nuclear winter?
That's not what is happening though. What we have are people that go to the clinic and get tested for tumors. When the results come back negative then they get mad at the surgeon, scream about how they are a "cancer denier", and storm off to another clinic. They keep looking for clinics and surgeons to test them for tumors until they find enough that agree so they can tell all their friends that they do in fact have a tumor.
Once it is widely spread in their circle of friends that they have a tumor they go back to the surgeons looking for treatments. The surgeons that say the tumor is benign are called "quacks". The ones that claim that it might be cancerous but it will take time to know for sure are ignored. The ones that say that invasive surgery will be required, followed by chemotherapy, radiation treatment, all of which will be exceedingly painful and expensive, are given complete attention. Then these people go around and tell everyone else that they must pay for this treatment because if they don't then they are heartless bastards and cancer deniers that want to see people suffer and die.
The headaches, dry throat, depression, elevated blood pressure and other symptoms are likely from getting all worked up over nothing. The symptoms are just as likely imagined. There is no cancer. Just calm down and the headaches should go away on their own.
It's not a tumor.
If we could get people to agree on some very basic facts then catastrophic anthropogenic global warming would no longer be a threat.
Of all the energy sources we have available to us right now only one of them is inexpensive, does not rely on favorable geography, reliable, carbon free, and is plentiful. That is nuclear power. It's not without it's problems but if CAGW is a real threat then any problems with nuclear power should pale in comparison. We know how to deal with nuclear waste. We have plenty of nuclear fuel. To those people that think nuclear weapons are a threat I must ask, what do you propose we do with the weapons we already have? Would not destroying the fissile material be preferable to keeping them under guard forever? The only way we have to destroy fissile material is in a nuclear reactor. It not like we haven't turned nuclear weapons into electricity before, the term "megatons to megawatts" should be familiar to some reading this.
Nuclear reactors alone won't solve the problem since we cannot power automobiles and aircraft with nuclear reactors, we need a fuel like we get from petroleum for that. Good thing the US Navy solved that problem. They have a device capable of extracting CO2 from the environment and turning that into hydrocarbons. This is a fuel that is a direct replacement for fuels derived from petroleum and natural gas. All powered by nuclear reactors, of course. This synthetic fuel, when burned, will release the CO2 back into the air which can then be recaptured by the fuel synthesis devices, closing the carbon cycle. No additional CO2 would be added to the environment. If carbon sequestration is something people want then we can take these hydrocarbons and pump them back into the ground.
This gets to why I don't believe that CAGW is a real threat. There are people in Congress that know the US Navy has built these hydrocarbon synthesis devices. These people also know that the US Navy has an impeccable record operating nuclear reactors. When the US Navy went to Congress asking for more nuclear powered ships, and additional funding for their fuel synthesis research, it was denied. The cries for something to be done about CAGW largely comes from the Democrats. The denial for more nuclear powered Navy ships, and more civilian nuclear reactors, largely comes from the Democrats.
We know what the problem is. We know where to find the solution to the problem. Why haven't we solved the problem already? Democrats.
If there are Democrats wondering why they got an ass kicking in the last election then I propose they look at their policies on how to deal with CAGW. If Democrats want to start winning elections again then I propose they look at making some small compromises on how they deal with nuclear power. To keep up with the rate at which we are retiring coal fired power plants, and account for future growth in energy needs, then we need a new gigawatt scale nuclear reactor in the US every month. If Democrats are not willing to allow that to happen then I propose they start to get used to losing elections.
Americans have gone from an average of 2.6 to 2.3 TVs in a six year period but what kind of error bars are on that?
Let's think this through...
- TVs last a long time so even though someone might upgrade on a TV the old one might still be working when it's replaced.
- That TV that's moved from the primary viewing location to it's new home might not even be used, or not used enough to matter. I've seen people put TVs in basements, garages, and spare bedrooms just because they wanted a new TV but didn't want to throw away one that still worked. So it's put some where where it could be used but probably won't.
- There was the switch to digital TV in 2009 that made a lot of TVs obsolete. So, those rarely used TVs that were in basements and spare bedrooms got tossed but never replaced.
- TV programming quality took a dive, people are now watching more stuff from the internet using computers and such.
- The economy took a dive. People that might have got a new TV just because they wanted one a decade ago will now not be so willing to spend money on such luxuries.
- While people are watching less TV and instead spending that time watching internet based content the devices to connect the TV to the internet are still quite new. Given time I expect this to change.
So, to me this looks more like a statistically insignificant change in American TV viewing habits. I believe that all we are seeing is the lag in the "recovery" from people having to toss out their analog TV sets in 2009. As people get more money (from an improving economy and people building up wealth as they age), they'll start to put their still working but moderately outdated TVs into basements and spare bedrooms again. There's more 4K content, more internet based content, and increasing wealth to drive TV purchases. I expect in five years or so we'll see the average number of TVs in American households to get to the 2009 level again.
I think back to the years prior and for a long time people just tended to have two or three TVs. There would be one in a living room, perhaps in the kitchen, maybe the parents had one in their bedroom. If a family had more than that then it'd be a wealthy family with a large house, and they'd have more TVs because they had more rooms to accommodate them. The typical American house hasn't changed much over the decades as far as layout and room usage goes. Houses may have become larger but the number of rooms didn't really change.
Had there been a larger change than this, and it not so close to the digital broadcast TV change, then I might see this as more interesting. The switch to digital TV, a poor economy, declining TV programming quality, all add up to slightly fewer TVs owned. Had the TV ownership increased in this time then I might be surprised.