And electric resistance heating is the most thermally efficient and cost effective solution for affecting a minor low temperature change. Cheers!
Do yourself a favor and convert the cost of heating oil/nat. gas to electricity and then re-evaluate your statement.
I challenge your anecdote with my own. My winter time temps are 14C - 19C. Sometimes 22C for company. These are max temps located at the center of my home. I haven't replaced a CFL bulb yet. Most are the super, cheap harsh 9W ikea type. They are 4yr old.
Yeah, or those same people who print money if Saudi or Algier regimes become destabilized. I'm guessing the upside to their gamble is significantly greater than the downside you propose if AGW is defeated. You know, we still have resources controlled by repressive regimes, dwindling supplies, economic competitiveness, and speculation that can easily increase ROI compared to business as usual. Generally, in the US residential solar adopters received their economic incentives up front anyway...
Way to make a non-point. The dual-core will need to be upgraded sooner than the quad core. so "Again" said user would delay upgrading longer. As are your apparent plans. Or right, I forgot we're using your arbitrary definitions of adequate performance.
and "more profitable" is also different from short term profitability. Over the horizons on which societies should plan, renewable energy wins. And by that I mean 30yr+. Hands down. Nuclear energy wins too, barring irrational fears of terrorists and accidents....
No. The issue is not cost. Mainly the barriers are how the costs are distributed and the risk and uncertainty associated with large capital and energy investments. These barriers exist due to the nature of our financial institutions and society at large. Only short sighted people (and hence institutions and hence the US) identify current infrastructure as less costly. Oil and natural gas are not cheaper than solar energy over the next 40 yr. No one disputes this. Arguably break even is 10 yr, less arguable is 20 yr and so on A command economy can leverage this fact to leap ahead. The question is, who in the free market will take the plunge and drag the rest of us knuckle draggers along for the ride?
bla bla, you're crowing as a customer or a shareholder is just as shallow as the apple hate. Their valuation is unmistakably linked to future growth. Jobs is inextricably linked with the company's success. It stands to reason that his absence will affect apparent value. The fickle nature of consumer markets makes the issue more sensitive. Any failure or problem in his absence, specifically associated with finish or quality, could be extremely damaging to the apparent value of the company. In the short term, the investment is significantly riskier. The long term growth of a continually successful Apple is a separate issue. How large do you think they will become? Without dividends and absent (or declining) growth, their valuation will suffer.
This is a simplistic notion. The barriers are economic in so much as they require different ways of using capital. E.g. Large initial capital costs. Our financial systems are bad at this presently due to our inability to measure risk and uncertainty or differentiate the two. Especially in a climate where when alternatives exist that are compatible with our financial systems. Did you hear me? Our financial systems (banks, treasuries, governments, insurance companies) are presently incapable of making the (obvious) optimal choices. That is the economic barrier, not the cost or the ROI. Net cost easily favors of renewable resources given the proper outlook (e.g. decade+). Our institutions, inertia, etc, can not cope with this. However, transition will occur and the amount of money that will be made from the transition will be staggering by _any_ historical standard. Just wait and see who gets it right. Presently, the command and spend approach looks invincible. While the west squabbles over the next few quarters or years, the command approach is dumping capital with a view 40 years past the horizon... Good luck to us.
Yes. You are correct Coal is cheap. China will run out of coal before 2050, however. And their demand (~3x the US and rising) will inflate coal prices as they go along. Thus, coal has no where to go but up. Especially as transportation costs rise. Social and political issues will solve themselves when the economics of renewable energy mature. This is not a question of "if", but a question of "when". Forward looking people have noted for 50 yr, that net costs ( in real terms) to society will continue to increase as we delay this transition. Thus, by saving a buck now, or restricting the economic outlook to the near term, we are in fact increasing the long term costs. In so much as it is theoretically possible, the transition may prove to be economically untenable if we delay it too long. e.g. if we run the wells dry as some propose...
There is no single solution. Wave and wind do scale to proportions that are economically viable for very relevant demographics. Big hydro has its problems, but "dirty" seems like a misnomer.
Not really. Solving the liquid fuel problem will unburden 90%+ of crude demand. OPEC will lose all power. It is not inherently more difficult to synthesize petroleum byproducts as well..
Since when can we only work on one issue at a time? What kind of psycho would completely neglect one important "piece of pie" because another "pie slice" is 10% larger? What kind of psycho neglects thermal efficiency when comparing stationary power generation to ICE? or the ease and pace at which we replace ICE technology compared to coal plants? Why should we work on any earthly problems at all, when we all know the sun will die and matter will decay? Please go spend time ranting about things you know more about. Thanks.
Les Stroud is a whiny bitch who doesn't really know anything. As with Bear, Les is, at best, entertainment. Watch his documentary on off grid living if you want to see true foolishness. Maybe it makes you feel nice that such a clumsy idiot can get along in the wilderness. I don't know. However, there is no legitimate comparison between the survivalist skill sets of Bear Grylls and Les Stroud. Bear Gyrlls will eat Les Strouds arm to survive. Les Stroud will weep while his one remaining arm strums a somber chord on his cigar box ukulele.
the main advantage is that none of your ideas are mutually exclusive and they can be combined with turning off PCs. I won't argue the virtue of your statement that they are all better than offing pcs [although you are wrong]. Instead, I chose to emphasize your totally bankrupt perspective on the issue.
The idea that it is a waste of time or not worth the effort to conserve is precisely the attitude that has brought us global energy problems. It isn't necessarily about saving pennies or grams of CO2, its about becoming aware of our resource usage and understanding the value and costs of high availability, high quality energy.
Unfortunately, this thread is filled with a bunch of skeptical assholes who don't know what they are talking about. Don't be one of them.
Nope I was giving a weight on stationary ~100kw generators that I've worked with. 605lb is heavy enough to reiterate my point. Not to mention the FCX clarity is a million(s) dollar car.
How do you shed significant weight from a generator/motor? Do they use the same drive motor for regen braking? A 400 lb motor + batteries ? That is going to be heavier than an IC system ? Backward progress. No point in sizing the system to capture excessive amounts of braking power for the rare instances where that happens.
Forget the battery. A 100hp generator weighs 1500 pounds. Even ~10 hp generators are excessively heavy for mobile application. I assume that's what keeps the regenerative braking (for 'normal' braking) efficiency 60% in toyotas... unless they use some other method?
You can buy plenty of solar at less than $1/W. Check the internet bargain bins for super low efficiency cells, rejects, used cells, broken panels, surplus inventory, etc. Many options are available for you, troll. You can easily make solar power at less than a dollar a watt.
You lose.
If you came out from under your bridge you might know that manufacturing at $1/W has been an important target for well over a decade. Thus, the announcement hardly seems useless.
"Again, I'll say it: the car hasn't been built yet (and never will) that doesn't need periodic maintenace"
Not true. Vehicles don't need any maintenance for years. Most leased vehicles will satisfy your requirement. Bold use of the word never considering an electric car is absent every thing that gets maintained in a modern car before about 100k miles. Besides, why are you using such a inappropriate analogy? Mechanical wear in no way resembles broadband, computer hardware, or software.
Broadband connectivity has obvious advantages even for stupid old people. All services, TV, phone, etc can converge over a single pipe. It will provide new delivery/tech. opportunities. It will allow us to abandon old crap. We can establish local utilities that maintain 1 cable for all this stuff (and hopefully make it independent of content delivery). It will save money and resources. In short, it has little to do with the internet. It makes sense.
I'm also totally fine with letting stupid old people cling to funny copper lines that dangle over the streets and connect to nothing while the rest of the world enjoys the fruits of our technological labor. But F me for having to maintain that ancient crap because a bunch of clueless idiots can't cope with change.
Good points except,
"They need to be angled for the best sun during the time the power need is greatest."
This is true under only very specific circumstances that I think do not apply in this situation. I think in most cases, for grid connected systems with no tracking, the panels should be oriented to receive the greatest amount of solar radiation on an annual basis. This is basically at or near latitude (minimizes the incidence angle, expect variations depending on local climate and weather patterns). This is independent of the power requirements of the load. The load should only enter in the calculations if the economics have a tremendous influence (e.g. high dollars for desert A/C). It seems to me that early-adopters would maximize green power over ROI.
You shouldn't be so critical. His experience will be more typical of future solar converts than your know-it-all solution. One of the main problems is that solar energy will necessarily have to respond to the twisted and misinformed attitudes of most people... Relatively speaking this guy seems on the ball...
Besides your answer is just as half-assed when compared to a number of other 'superior' methods.
I'm confused whether your argument is against green gadgets or the entire green industry.
Either way, true that most of it is contaminated for business purposes, but some of it is hard science. I think your derision is accurate, but not to all green products... Even so, the 'sham movement' will help in the long run because even if specific claims are bogus the fundamental principle is sound. I suppose it could backfire, but that's a risk I'll take (vs. what?) and I think a compromise we have to make given USA culture.
Offhand, elimination of a phantom load is an example where greenness is quantified because there is virtually no change to the product. The Energy Star program is a good example of a rigorous green program. I can't give other examples because I don't know anything about gadgets... and the the vast majority of gadget purchases can't be justified to any environmental extent.
More generally, green metrics can be established when the output changes solely as a function of the quantity of input. It's really easy to do this in building construction, e.g. I know the energy/resources/cost input to both insulation and N*insulation and I can quantify the heat loss over their equivalent lifetime. I use this to market the 2nd case as green.
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And electric resistance heating is the most thermally efficient and cost effective solution for affecting a minor low temperature change. Cheers! Do yourself a favor and convert the cost of heating oil/nat. gas to electricity and then re-evaluate your statement.
I challenge your anecdote with my own. My winter time temps are 14C - 19C. Sometimes 22C for company. These are max temps located at the center of my home. I haven't replaced a CFL bulb yet. Most are the super, cheap harsh 9W ikea type. They are 4yr old.
So you aren't buying warm full spectrum bulbs then? Oh ok.
Yeah, or those same people who print money if Saudi or Algier regimes become destabilized. I'm guessing the upside to their gamble is significantly greater than the downside you propose if AGW is defeated. You know, we still have resources controlled by repressive regimes, dwindling supplies, economic competitiveness, and speculation that can easily increase ROI compared to business as usual. Generally, in the US residential solar adopters received their economic incentives up front anyway...
Way to make a non-point. The dual-core will need to be upgraded sooner than the quad core. so "Again" said user would delay upgrading longer. As are your apparent plans. Or right, I forgot we're using your arbitrary definitions of adequate performance.
and "more profitable" is also different from short term profitability. Over the horizons on which societies should plan, renewable energy wins. And by that I mean 30yr+. Hands down. Nuclear energy wins too, barring irrational fears of terrorists and accidents....
No. The issue is not cost. Mainly the barriers are how the costs are distributed and the risk and uncertainty associated with large capital and energy investments. These barriers exist due to the nature of our financial institutions and society at large. Only short sighted people (and hence institutions and hence the US) identify current infrastructure as less costly. Oil and natural gas are not cheaper than solar energy over the next 40 yr. No one disputes this. Arguably break even is 10 yr, less arguable is 20 yr and so on A command economy can leverage this fact to leap ahead. The question is, who in the free market will take the plunge and drag the rest of us knuckle draggers along for the ride?
bla bla, you're crowing as a customer or a shareholder is just as shallow as the apple hate. Their valuation is unmistakably linked to future growth. Jobs is inextricably linked with the company's success. It stands to reason that his absence will affect apparent value. The fickle nature of consumer markets makes the issue more sensitive. Any failure or problem in his absence, specifically associated with finish or quality, could be extremely damaging to the apparent value of the company. In the short term, the investment is significantly riskier. The long term growth of a continually successful Apple is a separate issue. How large do you think they will become? Without dividends and absent (or declining) growth, their valuation will suffer.
This is a simplistic notion. The barriers are economic in so much as they require different ways of using capital. E.g. Large initial capital costs. Our financial systems are bad at this presently due to our inability to measure risk and uncertainty or differentiate the two. Especially in a climate where when alternatives exist that are compatible with our financial systems. Did you hear me? Our financial systems (banks, treasuries, governments, insurance companies) are presently incapable of making the (obvious) optimal choices. That is the economic barrier, not the cost or the ROI. Net cost easily favors of renewable resources given the proper outlook (e.g. decade+). Our institutions, inertia, etc, can not cope with this. However, transition will occur and the amount of money that will be made from the transition will be staggering by _any_ historical standard. Just wait and see who gets it right. Presently, the command and spend approach looks invincible. While the west squabbles over the next few quarters or years, the command approach is dumping capital with a view 40 years past the horizon... Good luck to us.
Yes. You are correct Coal is cheap. China will run out of coal before 2050, however. And their demand (~3x the US and rising) will inflate coal prices as they go along. Thus, coal has no where to go but up. Especially as transportation costs rise. Social and political issues will solve themselves when the economics of renewable energy mature. This is not a question of "if", but a question of "when". Forward looking people have noted for 50 yr, that net costs ( in real terms) to society will continue to increase as we delay this transition. Thus, by saving a buck now, or restricting the economic outlook to the near term, we are in fact increasing the long term costs. In so much as it is theoretically possible, the transition may prove to be economically untenable if we delay it too long. e.g. if we run the wells dry as some propose...
There is no single solution. Wave and wind do scale to proportions that are economically viable for very relevant demographics. Big hydro has its problems, but "dirty" seems like a misnomer.
Not really. Solving the liquid fuel problem will unburden 90%+ of crude demand. OPEC will lose all power. It is not inherently more difficult to synthesize petroleum byproducts as well..
The world is scary. I suggest you stay within that walled garden over there.
Since when can we only work on one issue at a time? What kind of psycho would completely neglect one important "piece of pie" because another "pie slice" is 10% larger? What kind of psycho neglects thermal efficiency when comparing stationary power generation to ICE? or the ease and pace at which we replace ICE technology compared to coal plants? Why should we work on any earthly problems at all, when we all know the sun will die and matter will decay? Please go spend time ranting about things you know more about. Thanks.
Les Stroud is a whiny bitch who doesn't really know anything. As with Bear, Les is, at best, entertainment. Watch his documentary on off grid living if you want to see true foolishness. Maybe it makes you feel nice that such a clumsy idiot can get along in the wilderness. I don't know. However, there is no legitimate comparison between the survivalist skill sets of Bear Grylls and Les Stroud. Bear Gyrlls will eat Les Strouds arm to survive. Les Stroud will weep while his one remaining arm strums a somber chord on his cigar box ukulele.
It's not a smoke screen. They have to actually SELL lots of these cars to raise their avg fuel economy.
the main advantage is that none of your ideas are mutually exclusive and they can be combined with turning off PCs. I won't argue the virtue of your statement that they are all better than offing pcs [although you are wrong]. Instead, I chose to emphasize your totally bankrupt perspective on the issue.
The idea that it is a waste of time or not worth the effort to conserve is precisely the attitude that has brought us global energy problems. It isn't necessarily about saving pennies or grams of CO2, its about becoming aware of our resource usage and understanding the value and costs of high availability, high quality energy.
Unfortunately, this thread is filled with a bunch of skeptical assholes who don't know what they are talking about. Don't be one of them.
Nope I was giving a weight on stationary ~100kw generators that I've worked with. 605lb is heavy enough to reiterate my point. Not to mention the FCX clarity is a million(s) dollar car.
How do you shed significant weight from a generator/motor? Do they use the same drive motor for regen braking? A 400 lb motor + batteries ? That is going to be heavier than an IC system ? Backward progress. No point in sizing the system to capture excessive amounts of braking power for the rare instances where that happens.
Forget the battery. A 100hp generator weighs 1500 pounds. Even ~10 hp generators are excessively heavy for mobile application. I assume that's what keeps the regenerative braking (for 'normal' braking) efficiency 60% in toyotas... unless they use some other method?
I'm looking forward to serving on jury duty for the sole purpose of acquitting alleged criminals and declaring laws void.
You can buy plenty of solar at less than $1/W. Check the internet bargain bins for super low efficiency cells, rejects, used cells, broken panels, surplus inventory, etc. Many options are available for you, troll. You can easily make solar power at less than a dollar a watt.
You lose.
If you came out from under your bridge you might know that manufacturing at $1/W has been an important target for well over a decade. Thus, the announcement hardly seems useless.
What purpose does your whining serve?
"Again, I'll say it: the car hasn't been built yet (and never will) that doesn't need periodic maintenace"
Not true. Vehicles don't need any maintenance for years. Most leased vehicles will satisfy your requirement. Bold use of the word never considering an electric car is absent every thing that gets maintained in a modern car before about 100k miles. Besides, why are you using such a inappropriate analogy? Mechanical wear in no way resembles broadband, computer hardware, or software.
Broadband connectivity has obvious advantages even for stupid old people. All services, TV, phone, etc can converge over a single pipe. It will provide new delivery/tech. opportunities. It will allow us to abandon old crap. We can establish local utilities that maintain 1 cable for all this stuff (and hopefully make it independent of content delivery). It will save money and resources. In short, it has little to do with the internet. It makes sense.
I'm also totally fine with letting stupid old people cling to funny copper lines that dangle over the streets and connect to nothing while the rest of the world enjoys the fruits of our technological labor. But F me for having to maintain that ancient crap because a bunch of clueless idiots can't cope with change.
Good points except, "They need to be angled for the best sun during the time the power need is greatest."
This is true under only very specific circumstances that I think do not apply in this situation. I think in most cases, for grid connected systems with no tracking, the panels should be oriented to receive the greatest amount of solar radiation on an annual basis. This is basically at or near latitude (minimizes the incidence angle, expect variations depending on local climate and weather patterns). This is independent of the power requirements of the load. The load should only enter in the calculations if the economics have a tremendous influence (e.g. high dollars for desert A/C). It seems to me that early-adopters would maximize green power over ROI.
You shouldn't be so critical. His experience will be more typical of future solar converts than your know-it-all solution. One of the main problems is that solar energy will necessarily have to respond to the twisted and misinformed attitudes of most people... Relatively speaking this guy seems on the ball... Besides your answer is just as half-assed when compared to a number of other 'superior' methods.
I'm confused whether your argument is against green gadgets or the entire green industry. Either way, true that most of it is contaminated for business purposes, but some of it is hard science. I think your derision is accurate, but not to all green products... Even so, the 'sham movement' will help in the long run because even if specific claims are bogus the fundamental principle is sound. I suppose it could backfire, but that's a risk I'll take (vs. what?) and I think a compromise we have to make given USA culture.
Offhand, elimination of a phantom load is an example where greenness is quantified because there is virtually no change to the product. The Energy Star program is a good example of a rigorous green program. I can't give other examples because I don't know anything about gadgets... and the the vast majority of gadget purchases can't be justified to any environmental extent.
More generally, green metrics can be established when the output changes solely as a function of the quantity of input. It's really easy to do this in building construction, e.g. I know the energy/resources/cost input to both insulation and N*insulation and I can quantify the heat loss over their equivalent lifetime. I use this to market the 2nd case as green.