From these that you have mentioned only hydro power is semi-reliable.
Have a long rainless summer and see how that goes with all them air conditioners turned on.
Well, hope you've got a lot of gas turbine power plants, because when there's too little water, nuclear and coal power plants will have to stop or reduce their power production, too.
However, a long rainless summer usually means that you'll get plenty of mileage out of anything that's solar-based.
Venezuela recently announced the addition of 30 billion additional barrels of proven reserves,
So about.. 1 year's worth of global oil consumption (provided it stays constant).
and is expecting to add up to another hundred billion barrels over the next two years as exploration expands.
3 more years.
Brazil has announced the addition of between 10 billion and 16 billion barrels of oil to its reserves courtesy of the Tupi and Jupiter oil fields, and they may be able to size those up once analysis is complete.
Half a year.
There may be trillions of additional barrels available under the salt layers around the world.
Ah. Now we're talking about the real future (i.e. in human generations) of oil. There's a big "maybe" here.
So if a capitalist dumps poison in my well because he's too lazy to clean up after his manufacturing process, he's not infringing on my rights? But if the government orders him to stop, it is infringing on his rights?
Why, even better: When you start dumping poison in _his_ well, then the government will throw you in jail if you didn't do it for profit.
I don't value the discovery alien life so much that I'm willing to have my species destroyed for it.
Don't worry - if the aliens are capable to sent anything destructive our way, they're quite likely also capable to detect our presence without us announcing it.
It appears to me that you haven't fixed anything, unless you want to argue that the worlds largest empire/police state has little clout in obtaining good deals on internation oil agreements -- good luck with that.
Then why is the wholesale price for gasoline (i.e. before tax) in Europe pretty much the same (or even cheaper) than in the States ?
Yes, at the pump we pay almost $9/gal over here, but still over 50% of that is taxes. The price for the actual gasoline is the same as in the States. Your gas is "cheap" at the pump because the government doesn't tax it. And I don't see how any amount of political or military "clout" will help you with the prices at one of the oil/distillate exchanges (e.g. in Rotterdam) of the world - the only thing that'll count there is all the "clout" in your wallet.
If the choice is latency of several hundred thousand years or no communication at all, I opt for none.
You could have had a few thousand years of advance warning that the giant planet-eating space-monster is headed your way... but you opted for no communication. Too bad.
Even at $110/barrel people don't realize just how good America has it on the cost of oil. Americans buy gas at roughly 2-3 times less on average than other nations -- primarily because...
the government (neither state nor federal) does not dare to tax gasoline heavily.
There, fixed that for you.
(And don't start whining about those few cents per gallon. With "heavy", I mean that more than 50% of what you pay at the pump is actually taxes.)
Even if that were the case, consider how a distance of 200 light years (a rather short distance in cosmic terms) compares to the age of the universe. You won't get many conversations in over 15 billion years.
I still get a pretty big number after the division. But that's not really the point. Interstellar communications wouldn't be "conversations", they would carry essential, long term information (important scientific breakthroughs, targets of new colonization ships (to avoid redundancy/fights/etc), data about how the colony is doing ("Hey, we're not dead yet."), etc).
Unless aliens have some sort of incredible way of communicating through subspace, or wormholes, or some other fantastic medium through which they can shorten or eliminate the pesky problem of distance,
Add to the list:
... or they simply live much longer than humans and are way more patient...
Look at the impedance for an inductor (which any power line is). It's i * omega * L. L rises with the length of the line. Omega is 2 * pi * f. f for DC is zero (duh!), for AC it's, generally speaking, some positive number. Higher impedance means transmission losses in addition to the purely resistive loss (which does not depend on the frequency).
36% in concentrator cells, but they'll be stuck in the lab for quite a while, and will probably be infeasible for large installations.
Thermal is currently 40% in some units, and a prototype achieved 60%.
That's the efficiency of the turbine itself. The plant will have some additional losses (not all of the sunlight hitting the area of the plant will actually be collected, etc).
I wonder how much less I could run my A/C every year just because of the shade provided by solar cells on my roof?
Probably fairly little. You could get the same effect by putting something that's not solar panels (and therefore much cheaper) on your roof, or a larger effect by spending the money you'd spent on solar cells to improve the insulation of your house (provided that there's still potential to do so, i.e. the house isn't wrapped in 12 inches of insulation yet).
You could also try to shade your windows (on the outside) during the periods of most sunshine. I've always wondered why window blinds are usually on the inside in the States - sure, it keeps the some of the light out of the room, but the heat is already in.
I also always wondered why people don't advertise how much cooler CFL bulbs are than incandescent bulbs.
I've always wondered why Americans aren't catching on that they're paying _twice_ for inefficient electrical devices in their homes - once for the extra electricity used by the device, and once for having all of that waste heat moved out of their house by the AC (ok, in the winter, it acts as extra heating, but usually heating by turning electricity into heat is one of the most expensive ways to heat your house compared to the alternatives).
So basically now I save electricity while saving electricity.
Exactly. Now go and tell your coworkers/buddies/family about it.
wouldn't the better solution be to not get married to someone who is abusive?
Unfortunately, many people still cling to the romantic notion that a person can be "changed" (especially through "love"), and that even the most deranged psycho will eventually turn into a normal person if given enough "love".
Tell your friend to get a lancet, puncture her finger and splash a drop of blood on a vertical surface somewhere in her home which is fairly obvious.
Don't forget the part about flooding the car so there's inch-deep standing water in it. Even if the spouse in question manages to escape the clutches of the legal system, their car will still be messed up (bonus if it was an expensive car).
Sorry, unless you're Jeebus himself, someone with clinical depression won't "grow some skin" just like a paraplegic won't "get up and walk" or a blind person will "open his eyes and see".
Sorry if this offends your delicate sensibilities, but at the end of the day, Megan chose to end her own life.
You're again assuming that everyone makes choices like a robot and has a completely unclouded judgement and complete freedom of will all the time. Have you ever been experienced people slipping into clinical depression (and I don't mean feeling somewhat "blue" or "depressive", but the real thing) ? They're not acting like the person you've known anymore. Same goes for many other psychological disorders. Scrap the notion that the human brain is a perfect, computer-like decision-making machine all the time. It's not.
Capitalism also works best when people have perfect information. Is brand B really more durable than brand A or is just priced higher to trick me into thinking that?
Actually, you're confusing capitalism with a free market. Capitalism doesn't necessarily require a free market... in fact, certain restrictions to the market can increase the profits for the people owning "the capital" (i.e. the means required for production). Even more so if those people can control the restrictions (see things like cartels, protectionism, advertising, etc.). Having a monopoly on a certain good is wonderful for whoever owns the means to make this good (and can keep others from making it in whatever legal or illegal way), but it's pretty much the opposite of a free market situation.
The other way around, a free market pretty much requires some degree of capitalism, unless you can convince people to compete for the sake of competition instead of for profit.
If the consumer is easily tricked, then deceptive advertising will be prevalent.
Let me fix that for you:
If the consumer is human, then deceptive advertising will be prevalent.
That's the whole reason why no theoretical form of society lives up to its lofty promises in the real world - humanity, as a whole, consists neither selfless drones, nor of sharply calculating, ever-optimizing, greedy-but-honest bots, nor any other simplified and idealized model that some sociologist will come up with.
You can't build up a complete resistance to advertising unless your state of mind is so much different from that of what the majority considers "normal" that you run the risk of being stuck in a mental institution. It's the way the human brain works. You may as well try to get your heart to stop or to hold your breath for half an hour.
Its not like all ads are the same, and the reason for having them is not always the same. Sometimes it's as simple as "your life would be easier if you had one of these, but you've never seen them." That's the best case for advertising. In that case, it'll work well.
Well, kind of. More often than not this kind of advertising tries to sell stuff that's about as superfluous as a fifth wheel mounted on the roof of your car. My basement is full of junk that I bought when I still believed in this kind of ad. Maybe it's because an engineer - if there's something that will make my life easier, I'm quite likely to think of it first and then go looking whether there's an appropriate product on the market (which is usually the case:), if it weren't, I'd be running a couple of businesses by now).
Then there's the issue of ads for the purpose of adding choice. Sure, you may think that McDonalds is the best restaurant ever, but you don't want to go there all the time. See an ad for a new place, then you try it out.
That's a good point. However, the level of "intensity" to make your business known is very low. For me, even a mention in the yellow pages will do. You're running a restaurant that serves the type of food I'm interested in ? I'm probably going to find out by looking in the phone book.
Then there's the only kind of blanket advertising that actually has a chance to sway things for me - when it doesn't matter one whit.
Yep... in that case, I'll probably go for the product that has the funnier ads. Not because it has anything to do with the product, but because it'll reward companies that make funny ads.
Of course, commercials that insult my intelligence by making me think that their as-good-as-everything-else products are in some way actually better without presenting any facts have the opposite effect, and make me less likely to buy.
And here's the scary thing: Even ads that blatantly insult the intelligence of the viewer work. That shows that most people don't realize just how stupid these ads are.
To that end, why are there so many ads? Well, ads simply *work*.
Ads work on the majority. On me, they usually have the opposite effect (not going to buy stuff that's advertised in particularly annoying/stupid/psychologically exploitive ways).
Ads can be annoying and overdone, but they are a product of a free capitalistic society.
Ads take away the consumers freedom to chose the better product (yes - ads _work_ that way on many people. There are subconscious effects that are very, very hard to suppress. Most people can't do this at all, which is one of the reasons why ads work so well), shifting the focus on the product that is marketed best. Quite possibly, ads are what turns customers into consumers.
If you came up with a formula for a soda that tastes better than the established alternatives while being healthier, do you think it'd fly off the shelves ? Nope. It's not Coke or Pepsi. You'd first have to fight a marketing battle against companies whose marketing budget is probably a few orders of magnitude larger than what your company is worth. And they'd fight your better product with tooth and claw - not by making their products better, but by stepping up their marketing efforts.
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Well, hope you've got a lot of gas turbine power plants, because when there's too little water, nuclear and coal power plants will have to stop or reduce their power production, too.
However, a long rainless summer usually means that you'll get plenty of mileage out of anything that's solar-based.
You forgot "or Earths atmosphere has disappeared into space".
Anyway, in any of those cases we'll have bigger problems than the lack of wind.
So about .. 1 year's worth of global oil consumption (provided it stays constant).
and is expecting to add up to another hundred billion barrels over the next two years as exploration expands.
3 more years.
Brazil has announced the addition of between 10 billion and 16 billion barrels of oil to its reserves courtesy of the Tupi and Jupiter oil fields, and they may be able to size those up once analysis is complete.
Half a year.
There may be trillions of additional barrels available under the salt layers around the world.
Ah. Now we're talking about the real future (i.e. in human generations) of oil. There's a big "maybe" here.
Why, even better: When you start dumping poison in _his_ well, then the government will throw you in jail if you didn't do it for profit.
Example of a nuclear plant with 16 GW of electrical output, please. Else I'll call BS.
Don't worry - if the aliens are capable to sent anything destructive our way, they're quite likely also capable to detect our presence without us announcing it.
Then why is the wholesale price for gasoline (i.e. before tax) in Europe pretty much the same (or even cheaper) than in the States ?
Yes, at the pump we pay almost $9/gal over here, but still over 50% of that is taxes. The price for the actual gasoline is the same as in the States. Your gas is "cheap" at the pump because the government doesn't tax it. And I don't see how any amount of political or military "clout" will help you with the prices at one of the oil/distillate exchanges (e.g. in Rotterdam) of the world - the only thing that'll count there is all the "clout" in your wallet.
You could have had a few thousand years of advance warning that the giant planet-eating space-monster is headed your way ... but you opted for no communication. Too bad.
the government (neither state nor federal) does not dare to tax gasoline heavily.
There, fixed that for you.
(And don't start whining about those few cents per gallon. With "heavy", I mean that more than 50% of what you pay at the pump is actually taxes.)
I still get a pretty big number after the division. But that's not really the point. Interstellar communications wouldn't be "conversations", they would carry essential, long term information (important scientific breakthroughs, targets of new colonization ships (to avoid redundancy/fights/etc), data about how the colony is doing ("Hey, we're not dead yet."), etc).
Add to the list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_impedance
Look at the impedance for an inductor (which any power line is). It's i * omega * L. L rises with the length of the line. Omega is 2 * pi * f. f for DC is zero (duh!), for AC it's, generally speaking, some positive number. Higher impedance means transmission losses in addition to the purely resistive loss (which does not depend on the frequency).
36% in concentrator cells, but they'll be stuck in the lab for quite a while, and will probably be infeasible for large installations.
Thermal is currently 40% in some units, and a prototype achieved 60%.
That's the efficiency of the turbine itself. The plant will have some additional losses (not all of the sunlight hitting the area of the plant will actually be collected, etc).
Probably fairly little. You could get the same effect by putting something that's not solar panels (and therefore much cheaper) on your roof, or a larger effect by spending the money you'd spent on solar cells to improve the insulation of your house (provided that there's still potential to do so, i.e. the house isn't wrapped in 12 inches of insulation yet).
You could also try to shade your windows (on the outside) during the periods of most sunshine. I've always wondered why window blinds are usually on the inside in the States - sure, it keeps the some of the light out of the room, but the heat is already in.
I also always wondered why people don't advertise how much cooler CFL bulbs are than incandescent bulbs.
I've always wondered why Americans aren't catching on that they're paying _twice_ for inefficient electrical devices in their homes - once for the extra electricity used by the device, and once for having all of that waste heat moved out of their house by the AC (ok, in the winter, it acts as extra heating, but usually heating by turning electricity into heat is one of the most expensive ways to heat your house compared to the alternatives).
So basically now I save electricity while saving electricity.
Exactly. Now go and tell your coworkers/buddies/family about it.
Unfortunately, many people still cling to the romantic notion that a person can be "changed" (especially through "love"), and that even the most deranged psycho will eventually turn into a normal person if given enough "love".
Don't forget the part about flooding the car so there's inch-deep standing water in it. Even if the spouse in question manages to escape the clutches of the legal system, their car will still be messed up (bonus if it was an expensive car).
Sorry, unless you're Jeebus himself, someone with clinical depression won't "grow some skin" just like a paraplegic won't "get up and walk" or a blind person will "open his eyes and see".
You're again assuming that everyone makes choices like a robot and has a completely unclouded judgement and complete freedom of will all the time. Have you ever been experienced people slipping into clinical depression (and I don't mean feeling somewhat "blue" or "depressive", but the real thing) ? They're not acting like the person you've known anymore. Same goes for many other psychological disorders. Scrap the notion that the human brain is a perfect, computer-like decision-making machine all the time. It's not.
Yes, because everyone has to behave like a robot, especially teenagers and people with psychological problems.
You might as well say "If you fall down, you stand up again.". Which works for everone who is healthy enough to get up on their own.
Actually, you're confusing capitalism with a free market. Capitalism doesn't necessarily require a free market ... in fact, certain restrictions to the market can increase the profits for the people owning "the capital" (i.e. the means required for production). Even more so if those people can control the restrictions (see things like cartels, protectionism, advertising, etc.). Having a monopoly on a certain good is wonderful for whoever owns the means to make this good (and can keep others from making it in whatever legal or illegal way), but it's pretty much the opposite of a free market situation.
The other way around, a free market pretty much requires some degree of capitalism, unless you can convince people to compete for the sake of competition instead of for profit.
Let me fix that for you:
If the consumer is human, then deceptive advertising will be prevalent.
That's the whole reason why no theoretical form of society lives up to its lofty promises in the real world - humanity, as a whole, consists neither selfless drones, nor of sharply calculating, ever-optimizing, greedy-but-honest bots, nor any other simplified and idealized model that some sociologist will come up with.
You can't build up a complete resistance to advertising unless your state of mind is so much different from that of what the majority considers "normal" that you run the risk of being stuck in a mental institution. It's the way the human brain works. You may as well try to get your heart to stop or to hold your breath for half an hour.
Two words: Drug ads.
"Ask your doctor if Blahkillenozil is right for you."
Well, kind of. More often than not this kind of advertising tries to sell stuff that's about as superfluous as a fifth wheel mounted on the roof of your car. My basement is full of junk that I bought when I still believed in this kind of ad. Maybe it's because an engineer - if there's something that will make my life easier, I'm quite likely to think of it first and then go looking whether there's an appropriate product on the market (which is usually the case
Then there's the issue of ads for the purpose of adding choice. Sure, you may think that McDonalds is the best restaurant ever, but you don't want to go there all the time. See an ad for a new place, then you try it out.
That's a good point. However, the level of "intensity" to make your business known is very low. For me, even a mention in the yellow pages will do. You're running a restaurant that serves the type of food I'm interested in ? I'm probably going to find out by looking in the phone book.
Then there's the only kind of blanket advertising that actually has a chance to sway things for me - when it doesn't matter one whit.
Yep
Of course, commercials that insult my intelligence by making me think that their as-good-as-everything-else products are in some way actually better without presenting any facts have the opposite effect, and make me less likely to buy.
And here's the scary thing: Even ads that blatantly insult the intelligence of the viewer work. That shows that most people don't realize just how stupid these ads are.
If you leave the sound on, they sound like retards, too. Why should that impression change one bit when you turn the sound off ?
Ads work on the majority. On me, they usually have the opposite effect (not going to buy stuff that's advertised in particularly annoying/stupid/psychologically exploitive ways).
Ads can be annoying and overdone, but they are a product of a free capitalistic society.
Ads take away the consumers freedom to chose the better product (yes - ads _work_ that way on many people. There are subconscious effects that are very, very hard to suppress. Most people can't do this at all, which is one of the reasons why ads work so well), shifting the focus on the product that is marketed best. Quite possibly, ads are what turns customers into consumers.
If you came up with a formula for a soda that tastes better than the established alternatives while being healthier, do you think it'd fly off the shelves ? Nope. It's not Coke or Pepsi. You'd first have to fight a marketing battle against companies whose marketing budget is probably a few orders of magnitude larger than what your company is worth. And they'd fight your better product with tooth and claw - not by making their products better, but by stepping up their marketing efforts.