Well this particular one for NASA runs on plutonium and has an output of 10 W. It's for a deep space probe. I guess you can't get it, nor do you want it:)
Stirling engines in general seem to be quite maintenance-free however. No explosions involved, etc., so I'd not be surprised if such a setup would be maintainable. Stirlings have had great promise forever, but have been plagued by particular engineers problems. Maybe those have been solved through some advances in materials or some such. Wikipedia and the site linked to in the/. story have good info on Stirlings
This might do something about desertification by slowing winds, providing shade, and stabilizing soil. If you combine this construction with irrigation and build it high enough to enable specially constructed harvesters to move underneath, you might multiply the benefit.
Bauxite mining however does have large impact on local ecosystems and societies. European Aluminium Association:: "The material is mainly extracted by open-cast mining, which has a variable and highly site-specific effect on the local environment. The primary ecological concerns connected to this operation are related to the clearing of vegetation, affect on local flora and fauna, and soil erosion."
Sterling engines that are nearly maintenance-free: "Once the engine gets going, however, it can, in theory, run reliably for a long time. To find out just how long, ask the folks at Stirling Technology Co. in Kennewick, Wash.
The company has a number of projects in hand to generate electricity on Earth and in space. One is a generator being prepared for NASA. It combines high efficiency and longevity, properties critical for a deep-space probe. A test unit with a 10 W output last August passed an operating landmark, more than 87,600 hours of continuous service, or 10 years' running with no maintenance or decline in performance."
Reduction of use We could already vastly increase efficiency by just wasting less. E.g., you'd (not specifically *you*) be amazed how little energy a house can need, using both high- and low-tech measures, and it's feasible even in alpine Austria. http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/communitiessummit/ show_case_study.php/00035.html, and google for "zero energy" and "sustainable building".
Economically it could be argued that investing (by, e.g., giving direct financial support, cheap credits, or tax cuts for energy conservations measures) in a lot of small- and middle-sized companies that provide, e.g., energy conservation technology for home builders, creates a better economy and more useful technology than investing it all in a bunch of huge nuclear reactors and supporting police force and government intrusion required by that.
Distribution of generation Small independent high-tech generators that feed into and suck from a connected net. Laws, technical means, and accounting structures at the big carriers that make it easy to hook up to the system, and get the correct amount of money for any power you feed into the net.
In addition to and partly in place of the centralized plants (you might want to keep some for backup anyway), add small water turbines, biomass energy, heat pumps, sun energy (both direct heat for water and room heating by energy storage in stone etc., and conversion to electricity), wind energy, block heat and power plants (which, btw., can run at 85% efficiency) etc., all according to local applicability, etc., and you get a robust mix of environment-friendly sources. Plus, of course, people would not be slaves to the power companies. Depending on where you stand, it might seem that such a structure would simply create a more pleasant fabric of society, with clearly more independent people.
Why it doesn't happen People would not be slaves to the power companies
When I was at my company's NYC HQ in June, the air conditioning in the highrise could not be regulated per office or anything, and cooled so fiercely that people brought radiant heaters and installed them under their desks
I posted something similar a few days ago but got no replies, and I think this is the most overlooked effect of nuclear energy (including fusion btw, but maybe less so, and except maybe the cold variety;)
Nuclear power leads to a militarization of society due to the huge risks involved, and adds tremendously to a concentration of power - electrical, political, and economical - due to the high complexity and costs, and necessary scale involved.
The first big post-war waves of increased police and governmental control in Europe were pushed through by using precisely these threats, even before terrorism (another kind: RAF and Brigate Rosse, both with well-documented help by the police and secret services btw) played that role for the first time, but of course then the two scares worked together.
Add to that how nuclear power contributes to political instability in the world, and adds danger to the already existing instabilities (take this week's developments in Iran).
Kind of like nitrogen ferilizers having both a good and a bad side.
Oh come on! There is an extent to which this gun nut argument make sense, but you are waaaaay past it. The LD-50 dose of plutonium for a dog is 0.32 mg/kg body weight. A few microgram in your body are enough to give you cancer. And the bombs you can build from plutonium are a bit worse than those from nitrogen fertilizers.
There's no need to argue that you can use pretty much anything to do harm, we know that. The question is, how easy is it to do how much harm (by accident, negligence, or intent), is it controllable, and is it worth it.
They give Dell, et al, huge discounts on Windows, which I'm sure would disappear the moment Dell started considering an alternative OS.
This argument probably holds true for the current state of desktop F/OSS. If MS pulled their discounts if Dell offered SuSE et al., Dell would be in trouble. But with Apple? If MS pulls the discount, Windows will just be more expensive, and Dell as a wonderful other OS to sell. As another poster noted, if Apple want to pull off such a thing, they -will- have an Office contingency plan. I see no risk for Dell
Why is everyone talking about charity? This is not charity AT ALL. This is a business they are in as the defining force, and they have greatly contributed to the fact that things like spambot networks exist in the first place. It's not as if they gave those $7m to a cancer fund or anything.
If a doctor demonstrably makes has a history of grave mistakes, his later giving of a very small percentage of his disposable income to a fund for victims of medical malpractice hardly constitues charity.
Call me a crackpot, but I always had this suspicion that the US didn't mind that driving the Taliban out of Afghanistan and creating a new government made up of warlords would increase the Afghan poppy harvest that suffered a lot under the Taliban, and thus would create new grounds for the so-called war on drugs, which mostly is a war against parts of the US citizenship.
I made the prediction (unfortunately drunk in a bar and not verifiable now) that within 5 years after the invasion, Afghanistan would be the worlds largest poppy producer, and it seems I was right.
How's this a troll? It's an entirely reasonable post, whether you agree or not. Sheesh, at one point we need to think what to do about MS astroturf mods
Ah, the redneck version of Mao Zedong's "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun":)
(More quotations are here, you might like this one: "If the U.S. monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when they will be hanged by the people of the whole world. The same fate awaits the accomplices of the United States.")
It is well-documented that the disaster was brought by inability to read and interpret available data that clearly pointed to possible problems at low temps.
I don't know where you are from, but here (Austria, and Germany) the Green movements and consequently parties have never been environment-only, but have had strong roots in both left/socialist/anarchist and conservative/christian civil rights movements.
[Digression: some tried to focus on environment stuff and of couse failed. They were exclusively made up of the c/c part anyway:) Of course it should have been foreseeable that you can't neglect to discuss how our world can and should work when talking about the environment. Duh.]
Anyway, nuclear power can't only be seen from an environmental perspective either. It has social implications, and at least here, the greens made that part of the discussion in the 70ies/80ies.
The argument, and I share that, was/is that nuclear power leads to a militarization of society due to the huge risks involved. And it is a fact that big waves of increased police and governmental control were pushed through by using precisely these threats, even before terrorists played that role for the first time, albeit another kind: RAF and Brigate Rosse (both with well-documented help by the police and secret services btw.)
Add to that how nuclear power contributes to political instability in the world, and adds danger to the already existing instabilities (take today's developments in Iran). A further issue is that due to danger and complexity it adds tremendously to a concentration of power (both electrical and political).
The greens here have always argued for a healthy mix of several approaches instead of nuclear power:
Reduction of use It was argued that without doing anything else, we could vastly increase efficiency by just wasting less. And in fact, when I was at my company's NYC office last June, I saw with my own eyes that they had brought radiant heaters to fight the freezing cold of the air conditioning. Yeah, I guess we can save a bit right there, without loss of quality of life. You'd be amazed how little energy a house can need, using both high- and low-tech measures, and it's feasible even in alpine Austria. (Google for "zero energy" and "sustainable building").
Economically it was argued that investing (by, e.g., giving direct financial support, cheap credits, or tax cuts for energy conservations measures) in a lot of small- and middle-sized companies that provide, e.g., energy conservation technology for home builders, creates a better economy and more useful technology than investing it all in a bunch of huge nuclear reactors and supporting police force and government intrusion.
Distribution of generation Small independent high-tech generators that feed into and suck from a connected net. Laws, technical means, and accounting structures at the big carriers that make it easy to get the correct amount of money for any power you feed into the net. In addition to and partly in place of the centralized plants (you might want to keep them for backup anyway), add small water turbines, biomass energy, heat pumps, sun energy (both heat and conversion to electricity), wind energy, block heat and power plants (which, btw., can run at 85% efficiency) etc., according to local applicability, etc., and you get a robust mix of environment-friendly sources. Plus, of course, people that are not slaves to the power companies.
As I already noted in another reply, O12's XML format is GPL incompatible due to an advertising clause they needlessly snekaed into it. Just thought I'd clarify that here too:)
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, cause we all know that 14-18 year old girls don't read, don't research, don't go to school, or anything. Jackass
So it has beneficial uses
Well this particular one for NASA runs on plutonium and has an output of 10 W. It's for a deep space probe. I guess you can't get it, nor do you want it :)
/. story have good info on Stirlings
Stirling engines in general seem to be quite maintenance-free however. No explosions involved, etc., so I'd not be surprised if such a setup would be maintainable. Stirlings have had great promise forever, but have been plagued by particular engineers problems. Maybe those have been solved through some advances in materials or some such. Wikipedia and the site linked to in the
Um ... "early total sunshine year-round" ... "cloudy periods"
Build a net/cage around it?
This might do something about desertification by slowing winds, providing shade, and stabilizing soil. If you combine this construction with irrigation and build it high enough to enable specially constructed harvesters to move underneath, you might multiply the benefit.
Bauxite mining however does have large impact on local ecosystems and societies. European Aluminium Association::
"The material is mainly extracted by open-cast mining, which has a variable and highly site-specific effect on the local environment. The primary ecological concerns connected to this operation are related to the clearing of vegetation, affect on local flora and fauna, and soil erosion."
Those on the receiving end are usually not too happy.
Wild guesses:
There are no big bird swarms in the desert. It's not like pigeons in Venice (Italy, that is). Plus self-cleaning glass coatings ("lotus effect").
Sterling engines that are nearly maintenance-free:
"Once the engine gets going, however, it can, in theory, run reliably for a long time. To find out just how long, ask the folks at Stirling Technology Co. in Kennewick, Wash.
The company has a number of projects in hand to generate electricity on Earth and in space. One is a generator being prepared for NASA. It combines high efficiency and longevity, properties critical for a deep-space probe. A test unit with a 10 W output last August passed an operating landmark, more than 87,600 hours of continuous service, or 10 years' running with no maintenance or decline in performance."
How to reduce energy consumption:
/ show_case_study.php/00035.html, and google for "zero energy" and "sustainable building".
Reduction of use
We could already vastly increase efficiency by just wasting less. E.g., you'd (not specifically *you*) be amazed how little energy a house can need, using both high- and low-tech measures, and it's feasible even in alpine Austria. http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/communitiessummit
Economically it could be argued that investing (by, e.g., giving direct financial support, cheap credits, or tax cuts for energy conservations measures) in a lot of small- and middle-sized companies that provide, e.g., energy conservation technology for home builders, creates a better economy and more useful technology than investing it all in a bunch of huge nuclear reactors and supporting police force and government intrusion required by that.
Distribution of generation
Small independent high-tech generators that feed into and suck from a connected net. Laws, technical means, and accounting structures at the big carriers that make it easy to hook up to the system, and get the correct amount of money for any power you feed into the net.
In addition to and partly in place of the centralized plants (you might want to keep some for backup anyway), add small water turbines, biomass energy, heat pumps, sun energy (both direct heat for water and room heating by energy storage in stone etc., and conversion to electricity), wind energy, block heat and power plants (which, btw., can run at 85% efficiency) etc., all according to local applicability, etc., and you get a robust mix of environment-friendly sources.
Plus, of course, people would not be slaves to the power companies. Depending on where you stand, it might seem that such a structure would simply create a more pleasant fabric of society, with clearly more independent people.
Why it doesn't happen
People would not be slaves to the power companies
Business idea for Siberia!
When I was at my company's NYC HQ in June, the air conditioning in the highrise could not be regulated per office or anything, and cooled so fiercely that people brought radiant heaters and installed them under their desks
Lol. And don't forget the trees - that's what clued me in :)
I posted something similar a few days ago but got no replies, and I think this is the most overlooked effect of nuclear energy (including fusion btw, but maybe less so, and except maybe the cold variety ;)
Nuclear power leads to a militarization of society due to the huge risks involved, and adds tremendously to a concentration of power - electrical, political, and economical - due to the high complexity and costs, and necessary scale involved.
The first big post-war waves of increased police and governmental control in Europe were pushed through by using precisely these threats, even before terrorism (another kind: RAF and Brigate Rosse, both with well-documented help by the police and secret services btw) played that role for the first time, but of course then the two scares worked together.
Add to that how nuclear power contributes to political instability in the world, and adds danger to the already existing instabilities (take this week's developments in Iran).
Kind of like nitrogen ferilizers having both a good and a bad side.
Oh come on! There is an extent to which this gun nut argument make sense, but you are waaaaay past it.
The LD-50 dose of plutonium for a dog is 0.32 mg/kg body weight. A few microgram in your body are enough to give you cancer. And the bombs you can build from plutonium are a bit worse than those from nitrogen fertilizers.
There's no need to argue that you can use pretty much anything to do harm, we know that. The question is, how easy is it to do how much harm (by accident, negligence, or intent), is it controllable, and is it worth it.
They give Dell, et al, huge discounts on Windows, which I'm sure would disappear the moment Dell started considering an alternative OS.
This argument probably holds true for the current state of desktop F/OSS. If MS pulled their discounts if Dell offered SuSE et al., Dell would be in trouble. But with Apple?
If MS pulls the discount, Windows will just be more expensive, and Dell as a wonderful other OS to sell. As another poster noted, if Apple want to pull off such a thing, they -will- have an Office contingency plan. I see no risk for Dell
I'd mod the AC up, but can't:
"Here is the first Google hit. This is just one grant for one particular project, they've gotten several more."
Why is everyone talking about charity? This is not charity AT ALL. This is a business they are in as the defining force, and they have greatly contributed to the fact that things like spambot networks exist in the first place. It's not as if they gave those $7m to a cancer fund or anything.
If a doctor demonstrably makes has a history of grave mistakes, his later giving of a very small percentage of his disposable income to a fund for victims of medical malpractice hardly constitues charity.
Afghanistan
Call me a crackpot, but I always had this suspicion that the US didn't mind that driving the Taliban out of Afghanistan and creating a new government made up of warlords would increase the Afghan poppy harvest that suffered a lot under the Taliban, and thus would create new grounds for the so-called war on drugs, which mostly is a war against parts of the US citizenship.
I made the prediction (unfortunately drunk in a bar and not verifiable now) that within 5 years after the invasion, Afghanistan would be the worlds largest poppy producer, and it seems I was right.
Interesting, googling for "war" AND "Afghanistan" shows that I'm not the only one http://www.google.com/search?q=war+Afghanistan
How's this a troll? It's an entirely reasonable post, whether you agree or not. Sheesh, at one point we need to think what to do about MS astroturf mods
They do however require it if the project shall be part of the gnu project, which is different from just being GPL'ed
Ah, the redneck version of Mao Zedong's "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" :)
(More quotations are here, you might like this one: "If the U.S. monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when they will be hanged by the people of the whole world. The same fate awaits the accomplices of the United States.")
I think Novell wanted Ximian b/c of Mono and Evolution.
It is well-documented that the disaster was brought by inability to read and interpret available data that clearly pointed to possible problems at low temps.
opposition to nuclear power
:)
I don't know where you are from, but here (Austria, and Germany) the Green movements and consequently parties have never been environment-only, but have had strong roots in both left/socialist/anarchist and conservative/christian civil rights movements.
[Digression: some tried to focus on environment stuff and of couse failed. They were exclusively made up of the c/c part anyway
Of course it should have been foreseeable that you can't neglect to discuss how our world can and should work when talking about the environment. Duh.]
Anyway, nuclear power can't only be seen from an environmental perspective either. It has social implications, and at least here, the greens made that part of the discussion in the 70ies/80ies.
The argument, and I share that, was/is that nuclear power leads to a militarization of society due to the huge risks involved. And it is a fact that big waves of increased police and governmental control were pushed through by using precisely these threats, even before terrorists played that role for the first time, albeit another kind: RAF and Brigate Rosse (both with well-documented help by the police and secret services btw.)
Add to that how nuclear power contributes to political instability in the world, and adds danger to the already existing instabilities (take today's developments in Iran).
A further issue is that due to danger and complexity it adds tremendously to a concentration of power (both electrical and political).
The greens here have always argued for a healthy mix of several approaches instead of nuclear power:
Reduction of use
It was argued that without doing anything else, we could vastly increase efficiency by just wasting less. And in fact, when I was at my company's NYC office last June, I saw with my own eyes that they had brought radiant heaters to fight the freezing cold of the air conditioning. Yeah, I guess we can save a bit right there, without loss of quality of life.
You'd be amazed how little energy a house can need, using both high- and low-tech measures, and it's feasible even in alpine Austria. (Google for "zero energy" and "sustainable building").
Economically it was argued that investing (by, e.g., giving direct financial support, cheap credits, or tax cuts for energy conservations measures) in a lot of small- and middle-sized companies that provide, e.g., energy conservation technology for home builders, creates a better economy and more useful technology than investing it all in a bunch of huge nuclear reactors and supporting police force and government intrusion.
Distribution of generation
Small independent high-tech generators that feed into and suck from a connected net. Laws, technical means, and accounting structures at the big carriers that make it easy to get the correct amount of money for any power you feed into the net.
In addition to and partly in place of the centralized plants (you might want to keep them for backup anyway), add small water turbines, biomass energy, heat pumps, sun energy (both heat and conversion to electricity), wind energy, block heat and power plants (which, btw., can run at 85% efficiency) etc., according to local applicability, etc., and you get a robust mix of environment-friendly sources.
Plus, of course, people that are not slaves to the power companies.
New technologies
You know the drill
As I already noted in another reply, O12's XML format is GPL incompatible due to an advertising clause they needlessly snekaed into it. Just thought I'd clarify that here too :)