Exactly, geocentric is a perfectly valid referencial, as is heliocentric. People who stupidely mock it in fact imagine an absolute frame of reference in which Earth revolves around Sun, which itself revolves around the Milky Way, etc. However the basis of relativity is that no such absolute reference exist, in fact all are equivalent. Now the equations of movement of the celestial bodies are probably expressed more simply, using the adequate approximations, in this frame, however that doesn't make it more "true" than any other one.
This is similar to when people say that this or that comet is cruising at this or that speed, this is stupid. This speed compared to what?
By the way what is the status of the FDR from 9/11 WTC aircrafts? I've heard that they have been claimed not found, that's ridiculous. Where are we now?
No, there is a good reason to not use TAI. TAI will eventually tell us that 12:00 is at sunset
When is it going to tell us that exactly? If it's in 10 000 years like previous posts suggest I don't see it a very good reason to bash it. Who cares whether noon shifts by a few seconds in their lifetime?
They are really two sides of the energy equation (like many things with human societies probably):
The "Right Thing to Do", i.e., the optimal solution taking into account the greater good, not neglecting anybody or anything, etc...
The perceived self-interest of individuals, which most are going to push for regardless of the consequences.
My understanding or "inner feeling" of the issue is that renewable energies are the Right Thing to Do hands down: if you take into account the true price including commodities, the associated pollution, the risks and the adequacies of all possible energy sources, renewable are far ahead in any possible ways. However because of point #2, the issue is indeed very difficult to assess realistically, and as you have correctly guessed I don't know the actual price of the different energy sources, and I think nobody really does.
To know that you should take into account the huge subsidies and investements that energy lobbies are able to extract from the governements; for instance large amounts of money are spent on nuclear R&D and nuclear industry by governements for obvious reasons, much less if any on renewables. You should take into account the remote consequences of pollutions like global warming if it ever exists, which noone is able to estimate in any realistic way. You should also take into account the many oil wars which are basically the oil industry pushing its interests with the help of US tax payers money, at the expense of unimportant populations in remote places. It seems to me that these amounts of money invested into renewable energy would have solved the problem decades ago.
Eventually, i.e. sooner or later, the dust will settle down and humanity will continue with renewable energy almost solely - if it is to continue. But resistance to that is and will be great.
France reprocesses some, probably around 15%, of its nuclear waste. Most of it is just stockpiled here or was sent to Russia to be stockpiled there (Article in French). The 96% figure pushed by the French industry is the amount that could possibly be reused in hypothetical 4th generation burner reactors, supposed to be there around 2040, just like when fusion will be there too.:-(
Your claim is ridiculous. The US has more than enough sun to be totally energy self-sufficient using only solar power if they wanted. From this article:
"After the solar thermal power plants were built in California and Nevada, people lost interest in solar thermal power because fossil fuels became unbeatably cheap," says Müller-Steinhagen. Solar power was neglected even though the US was in the advantageous position, compared to the MENA region, of being a single political entity rather than a conglomerate of countries with differing interests. The US could achieve energy self-sufficiency through solar thermal power plants in the sunny south-west. But it was only recently that scientists writing in the respected magazine Scientific American unveiled a "Solar Grand Plan" for the US.
How many solar thermal gigawatts could have the US bought with an avoided Iraq war?
Please stop that bullcrap about reprocessing being the panacea for nuclear waste and French success with it. Just today Le Monde published an article (sorry, French) showing that France is processing not more than 20% of its waste, probably less. The rest was simply sent to Russia to be piled up there, up to a recent scandal. The hundreds of tons of nuclear waste produced yearly are currently only sitting there, waiting for someone to take care of the problem. Nuclear industry claims that it will eventually be used in hypothetical 4th generation reactors, which are exactly as likely to become a reality as economically viable fusion reactors are.
Nuclear waste is a real issue, the fact that some pro-nuclear nerds feel good laughing away any concern about it as illiterate idiots' fears doesn't make it less so. Parrotting French industry's lies about them having found or being close to find a magical solution about it doesn't make them more of a reality either.
Except that you can reuse nuclear fuel in theory, just like you can provide unlimited energy with fusion in theory; in practice however you can only dream (and/or babble) about it.
You've got your numbers wrong. See here for the land surface needed to power the world (total human energy consumption) with sun energy with extremely inefficient (8%) solar cells. Solar thermal is probably capable of doing much better (see here and here for interesting discussions).
Also some interesting news (sorry, in French) about the myth of nuclear waste reprocessing and the French being exemplified as what could be done if the greeny nuts/stupid Carter did not pass stupid laws against it; to summarize:
French nuclear industry claims 96% of waste can be reprocessed;
Currently reprocessing allows to conserve 12% of consumed U, expected to raise to 17%;
France has to dispose each year of 220,000 tons of depleted U, 120 tons of used fuel and 330 tons of reprocessed but unused fuel;
Nuclear industry claims this material will eventually be useable in 4th generation breeder reactors (which, like fusion reactors, are the technology of the future - currently 2040, out of their ass - and always will be).
Ok, so let's take all of that into account. Now about the point, can we do a genuine, honest price comparison? I mean, not trying to push an agenda a priori.
This is a point I find very interesting but also very rarely seriously and adequately discussed. Could somebody provide the comparative figures for a nuclear power plant and an equivalent, in terms of yearly output, thermal solar plant in the Arizona desert, taking into account each and all cost centers, including mining, fuel enrichment, building, decommisioning, etc?
Not even that. Imagine we are all walking in broad daylight with a blindfold over the eyes. When we die the blindfold is lifted and we are to see the light. Now imagine somebody comes up with a chemical that renders the blindfold transparent for a while. Does it invalidate the reality of the light, or of the experience you get when you die?
To me there are two strong arguments that side towards the reality of what people report from their NDEs:
1 - A majority of NDE experiencers from very different age and cultural groups seem to concur on a number of common features, which would probably not be the case if these were all pure subjective hallucinations;
2 - Most remember and report an awarness and lucidity better than ordinary daily awareness, let alone what you experience during dreams. So if they all say that they definitely were more conscious, aware and basically "cold-headed" than ever, and that what they experienced was definitely real, who am I to simply sweep aside their testimony and declare these were only dreams and halucinations? This looks to me as simple denial of an annoying fact that doesn't fit into someone's simplistic worldview.
From my understanding there are two worlds, matter and spirit. Spirit is clearly distinct from matter and still does exist; for instance pain does exist, we all know that, however pain can not be reduced to a change in the concentration of some chemical neuro-transmitter in a certain spot in the brain; these are only molecules, and molecules being moved from one spot to another do not "hurt", they do not feel or create pain. However pain is felt by something and exists somehow, just as vision, taste, etc, and love, sadness, and thoughts exist, onnly not in the physical world.
Matter is governed by the laws of physics, with physical dimensions, the time arrow, etc. Spirit is not governed by these laws, hence perhaps the recurring claim by NDErs that "time was non-existent during the experience"; hence also the fact that heaven is not "inside" or "outside" or "somewhere", just as a feeling is not somewhere. It's just not of the physical world. However spirit is governed by other laws of its own (karma? divine justice? You tell me.)
Spirit interfere with matter through the channel of a living organism. Spirit gives inert matter the momentum to grow, evolve and go in a meaningful direction. This is the spirit clothing the lilies that's mentioned in the scriptures. A clone of myself that I would build to the molecule with the appropriate technology would go nowhere, and feel nothing, it would only be a lukewarm soft dummy, in fact totally indiscernable from a fresh corpse. It would lack the spirit, blowed into the clay like the scriptures say (the old guys who wrote those books some times ago where perhaps not total morons you know, they - our grandfathers - may even have an interesting message towards their turbulent sons).
What I would really like is to hear the testimony of some intelligent, well-educated guy about his NDE, not more dull bullshit about GOD IS LOVE! AND LOVE IS LIFE! AND GOD IS LIFE!!111 with plenty uncalled for exclamation marks. I would love somebody with a decent mathematical background to come back from an NDE with an intelligible description of the topology of it all. I would do it if it did not require willingly smashing my head or taking hazardous drugs or generally speaking putting my life or health at risk.
I'm definitely not against nuclear as an argument, and I think lots of people are like that. When I see on youtube a presentation about thorium reactors, I'm all for that, go guys, that sounds like a very promising technology. But I know also that people in power try hard to promote nuclear energy not for its own merits (about which they probably don't know mush) but because it serves their own interests. As an infuriating example why do countries like Algeria, Lybia or Iran try to put their hands on nuclear reactors? And why do we try to sell them those? They have more oil that they'll ever be able to use and several hundred times more available solar energy than what the whole world would be able to consume even 50 years from now. The answer is obvious: political power, high-tech industry, international status, weapons in a more or less distant future, etc, etc. Of course building solar thermal power plants there would not have all those additional benefits, it would only solve once and for all the energy (and poverty) problems, but who cares about these REALLY?
But as long as we have coal burning plants because people are against nuclear, we are worse off
But we could and would already have renewable energy instead of those if people where pushing for it and investing into it like they've been doing with nuclear instead! Why are not California, Nevada, Florida, North Africa, Middle East, Austalia and whatnot blooming with solar thermal plants yet? Why have they not been for the last 40 years already? Why is not the slashdot croud yelling and marching for that? Why is it not agreed as a Very Important Thing To Do Right Now? This is why I am "against" nuclear power.
To me nuclear is neither good nor bad, not more than a hammer is good or bad. But the discourse of people around the issue is insincere. Many, most people seem not to look for "the truth" (i.e., what is indeed the best option for us all, taking into account all parameters) but rather for their perceived interest (i.e., what is good for me, or my political group, or my company, or whoever, and how to present things in a way that will advance my agenda).
This isn't about energy sources. This is disatisfaction with how the world is linked up
Well I'm definitely dissatisfied about how the world is producing the energy it needs. I've heard that there's a dedicated nuclear plant providing Las Vegas. I guess you've been there already, you know the amount of sun you get there, it borders on the unbearable. How is it possible that there's no solar thermal plant there? Specially considering that most of the electricity is needed at during the day for A/C.
Ok maybe the lack of a nice heat sink there is an impediment, but what about LA? I've lived there for two years and I remember thinking when I would spot a tiny white puf in the sky "Oh it's cloudy today". How much solar power do we get there on average? Let's say 200W/m2, taking the figures in the paper you pointed to, p. 38. What amount of ground surface do we need to cover with mirrors to gather 1GW of raw solar power? About 5M m2, so a square with a side of about 2.2km or 1.4 miles.
How much would it cost to build a plant like that? It would definitely be a lot of mirrors and a big tub of salt, but seriously, how does it compare with a nuclear power plant? How does it compare with other options, taking into account all parameters, which means also possibly air pollution (oil, coal), fuel mining and transportation (oil, coal, nuclear), required security (nuclear), waste disposal, etc. And what now if we put into the balance the Iraq war and eventually climate change?
I would really like to get the *truth* about that, not another biased speech. Just like John Lennon said, "all I want is the truth, just gimme the fucking truth".
I think I'm well educated about nuclear, and am still "against" nuclear power, and not because of a fear of catastroph. It's rather because the guys who seem to push for nuclear power, and the motivations they provide for that choice, sound biased, unsincere and basically deceiving to me.
Nuclear power by design goes in the direction of more secret governement, more corporation power, thighter police state, tighter control over citizens, and more empowering of an "elite" class who controls resources and people. Nuclear power is good for the big fat cats, the militaro-industrial complex, the weapons manufacturers, the corrupt politicians, and so on.
Basically I have the feeling that most of the people who push for nuclear power do it because it's in their own personal/corporate interest, not because of genuine advantages or necessity of it. And in the process they tend to grossly underevaluate or plainly deny costs, risks, inconveniences and also appeal of other alternatives.
Also my feeling, although I'd like to have it backed by detailed studies, tells me that nuclear energy is in fact unnecessary and that most if not all of the energy needs of humanity could be provided for through renewable energy, at an economical cost, and this could have been done for a long time. From this article about Thermal Solar Power:
But if it is all so simple, then why do countries with enough solar radiation build expensive and dangerous nuclear power plants, instead of investing in this simple technology? Are there not deserts in the US? Why are Americans not freeing themselves from their oil dependence through solar power? And why has no one really started to exploit the technology?
"After the solar thermal power plants were built in California and Nevada, people lost interest in solar thermal power because fossil fuels became unbeatably cheap," says Müller-Steinhagen. Solar power was neglected even though the US was in the advantageous position, compared to the MENA region, of being a single political entity rather than a conglomerate of countries with differing interests. The US could achieve energy self-sufficiency through solar thermal power plants in the sunny south-west. But it was only recently that scientists writing in the respected magazine Scientific American unveiled a "Solar Grand Plan" for the US.
You should give privoxy a try. Light and non-obtrusive, works beautifully on Linux and Windows alike, and by directing all traffic through it you get consistent results on all browsers.
Slashdot Mirror
An OpenVPN tunnel would be even neater (100% user space, very reliable, dead easy to configure).
Exactly, geocentric is a perfectly valid referencial, as is heliocentric. People who stupidely mock it in fact imagine an absolute frame of reference in which Earth revolves around Sun, which itself revolves around the Milky Way, etc. However the basis of relativity is that no such absolute reference exist, in fact all are equivalent. Now the equations of movement of the celestial bodies are probably expressed more simply, using the adequate approximations, in this frame, however that doesn't make it more "true" than any other one.
This is similar to when people say that this or that comet is cruising at this or that speed, this is stupid. This speed compared to what?
By the way what is the status of the FDR from 9/11 WTC aircrafts? I've heard that they have been claimed not found, that's ridiculous. Where are we now?
No, there is a good reason to not use TAI. TAI will eventually tell us that 12:00 is at sunset
When is it going to tell us that exactly? If it's in 10 000 years like previous posts suggest I don't see it a very good reason to bash it. Who cares whether noon shifts by a few seconds in their lifetime?
Daylight Savings Time has had numerous studies showing increased energy consumption, mostly due to increase in A/C use.
I should really donate to privoxy (better than adblock because works with all browsers on my machine). * beats chest *
Or black or Arabic
My understanding or "inner feeling" of the issue is that renewable energies are the Right Thing to Do hands down: if you take into account the true price including commodities, the associated pollution, the risks and the adequacies of all possible energy sources, renewable are far ahead in any possible ways. However because of point #2, the issue is indeed very difficult to assess realistically, and as you have correctly guessed I don't know the actual price of the different energy sources, and I think nobody really does.
To know that you should take into account the huge subsidies and investements that energy lobbies are able to extract from the governements; for instance large amounts of money are spent on nuclear R&D and nuclear industry by governements for obvious reasons, much less if any on renewables. You should take into account the remote consequences of pollutions like global warming if it ever exists, which noone is able to estimate in any realistic way. You should also take into account the many oil wars which are basically the oil industry pushing its interests with the help of US tax payers money, at the expense of unimportant populations in remote places. It seems to me that these amounts of money invested into renewable energy would have solved the problem decades ago.
Eventually, i.e. sooner or later, the dust will settle down and humanity will continue with renewable energy almost solely - if it is to continue. But resistance to that is and will be great.
France reprocesses some, probably around 15%, of its nuclear waste. Most of it is just stockpiled here or was sent to Russia to be stockpiled there (Article in French). The 96% figure pushed by the French industry is the amount that could possibly be reused in hypothetical 4th generation burner reactors, supposed to be there around 2040, just like when fusion will be there too. :-(
"After the solar thermal power plants were built in California and Nevada, people lost interest in solar thermal power because fossil fuels became unbeatably cheap," says Müller-Steinhagen. Solar power was neglected even though the US was in the advantageous position, compared to the MENA region, of being a single political entity rather than a conglomerate of countries with differing interests. The US could achieve energy self-sufficiency through solar thermal power plants in the sunny south-west. But it was only recently that scientists writing in the respected magazine Scientific American unveiled a "Solar Grand Plan" for the US.
How many solar thermal gigawatts could have the US bought with an avoided Iraq war?
Please stop that bullcrap about reprocessing being the panacea for nuclear waste and French success with it. Just today Le Monde published an article (sorry, French) showing that France is processing not more than 20% of its waste, probably less. The rest was simply sent to Russia to be piled up there, up to a recent scandal. The hundreds of tons of nuclear waste produced yearly are currently only sitting there, waiting for someone to take care of the problem. Nuclear industry claims that it will eventually be used in hypothetical 4th generation reactors, which are exactly as likely to become a reality as economically viable fusion reactors are.
Nuclear waste is a real issue, the fact that some pro-nuclear nerds feel good laughing away any concern about it as illiterate idiots' fears doesn't make it less so. Parrotting French industry's lies about them having found or being close to find a magical solution about it doesn't make them more of a reality either.
Except that you can reuse nuclear fuel in theory, just like you can provide unlimited energy with fusion in theory; in practice however you can only dream (and/or babble) about it.
Also some interesting news (sorry, in French) about the myth of nuclear waste reprocessing and the French being exemplified as what could be done if the greeny nuts/stupid Carter did not pass stupid laws against it; to summarize:
Did the lack of records of online conversations and identities prevent these particular attacks be stopped? Honnest question here.
I wish you were here
Why not simply disable autorun?
Ok, so let's take all of that into account. Now about the point, can we do a genuine, honest price comparison? I mean, not trying to push an agenda a priori.
You mean it's going to be the problem of the next generation so we shouldn't worry about it?
nobody has figured out how to make it cheap
This is a point I find very interesting but also very rarely seriously and adequately discussed. Could somebody provide the comparative figures for a nuclear power plant and an equivalent, in terms of yearly output, thermal solar plant in the Arizona desert, taking into account each and all cost centers, including mining, fuel enrichment, building, decommisioning, etc?
Not even that. Imagine we are all walking in broad daylight with a blindfold over the eyes. When we die the blindfold is lifted and we are to see the light. Now imagine somebody comes up with a chemical that renders the blindfold transparent for a while. Does it invalidate the reality of the light, or of the experience you get when you die?
To me there are two strong arguments that side towards the reality of what people report from their NDEs:
1 - A majority of NDE experiencers from very different age and cultural groups seem to concur on a number of common features, which would probably not be the case if these were all pure subjective hallucinations;
2 - Most remember and report an awarness and lucidity better than ordinary daily awareness, let alone what you experience during dreams. So if they all say that they definitely were more conscious, aware and basically "cold-headed" than ever, and that what they experienced was definitely real, who am I to simply sweep aside their testimony and declare these were only dreams and halucinations? This looks to me as simple denial of an annoying fact that doesn't fit into someone's simplistic worldview.
From my understanding there are two worlds, matter and spirit. Spirit is clearly distinct from matter and still does exist; for instance pain does exist, we all know that, however pain can not be reduced to a change in the concentration of some chemical neuro-transmitter in a certain spot in the brain; these are only molecules, and molecules being moved from one spot to another do not "hurt", they do not feel or create pain. However pain is felt by something and exists somehow, just as vision, taste, etc, and love, sadness, and thoughts exist, onnly not in the physical world.
Matter is governed by the laws of physics, with physical dimensions, the time arrow, etc. Spirit is not governed by these laws, hence perhaps the recurring claim by NDErs that "time was non-existent during the experience"; hence also the fact that heaven is not "inside" or "outside" or "somewhere", just as a feeling is not somewhere. It's just not of the physical world. However spirit is governed by other laws of its own (karma? divine justice? You tell me.)
Spirit interfere with matter through the channel of a living organism. Spirit gives inert matter the momentum to grow, evolve and go in a meaningful direction. This is the spirit clothing the lilies that's mentioned in the scriptures. A clone of myself that I would build to the molecule with the appropriate technology would go nowhere, and feel nothing, it would only be a lukewarm soft dummy, in fact totally indiscernable from a fresh corpse. It would lack the spirit, blowed into the clay like the scriptures say (the old guys who wrote those books some times ago where perhaps not total morons you know, they - our grandfathers - may even have an interesting message towards their turbulent sons).
What I would really like is to hear the testimony of some intelligent, well-educated guy about his NDE, not more dull bullshit about GOD IS LOVE! AND LOVE IS LIFE! AND GOD IS LIFE!!111 with plenty uncalled for exclamation marks. I would love somebody with a decent mathematical background to come back from an NDE with an intelligible description of the topology of it all. I would do it if it did not require willingly smashing my head or taking hazardous drugs or generally speaking putting my life or health at risk.
But as long as we have coal burning plants because people are against nuclear, we are worse off
But we could and would already have renewable energy instead of those if people where pushing for it and investing into it like they've been doing with nuclear instead! Why are not California, Nevada, Florida, North Africa, Middle East, Austalia and whatnot blooming with solar thermal plants yet? Why have they not been for the last 40 years already? Why is not the slashdot croud yelling and marching for that? Why is it not agreed as a Very Important Thing To Do Right Now? This is why I am "against" nuclear power.
Nuclear is bad because of the Sins of Mankind.
To me nuclear is neither good nor bad, not more than a hammer is good or bad. But the discourse of people around the issue is insincere. Many, most people seem not to look for "the truth" (i.e., what is indeed the best option for us all, taking into account all parameters) but rather for their perceived interest (i.e., what is good for me, or my political group, or my company, or whoever, and how to present things in a way that will advance my agenda).
This isn't about energy sources. This is disatisfaction with how the world is linked up
Well I'm definitely dissatisfied about how the world is producing the energy it needs. I've heard that there's a dedicated nuclear plant providing Las Vegas. I guess you've been there already, you know the amount of sun you get there, it borders on the unbearable. How is it possible that there's no solar thermal plant there? Specially considering that most of the electricity is needed at during the day for A/C.
Ok maybe the lack of a nice heat sink there is an impediment, but what about LA? I've lived there for two years and I remember thinking when I would spot a tiny white puf in the sky "Oh it's cloudy today". How much solar power do we get there on average? Let's say 200W/m2, taking the figures in the paper you pointed to, p. 38. What amount of ground surface do we need to cover with mirrors to gather 1GW of raw solar power? About 5M m2, so a square with a side of about 2.2km or 1.4 miles.
How much would it cost to build a plant like that? It would definitely be a lot of mirrors and a big tub of salt, but seriously, how does it compare with a nuclear power plant? How does it compare with other options, taking into account all parameters, which means also possibly air pollution (oil, coal), fuel mining and transportation (oil, coal, nuclear), required security (nuclear), waste disposal, etc. And what now if we put into the balance the Iraq war and eventually climate change?
I would really like to get the *truth* about that, not another biased speech. Just like John Lennon said, "all I want is the truth, just gimme the fucking truth".
Basically I have the feeling that most of the people who push for nuclear power do it because it's in their own personal/corporate interest, not because of genuine advantages or necessity of it. And in the process they tend to grossly underevaluate or plainly deny costs, risks, inconveniences and also appeal of other alternatives.
Also my feeling, although I'd like to have it backed by detailed studies, tells me that nuclear energy is in fact unnecessary and that most if not all of the energy needs of humanity could be provided for through renewable energy, at an economical cost, and this could have been done for a long time. From this article about Thermal Solar Power:
But if it is all so simple, then why do countries with enough solar radiation build expensive and dangerous nuclear power plants, instead of investing in this simple technology? Are there not deserts in the US? Why are Americans not freeing themselves from their oil dependence through solar power? And why has no one really started to exploit the technology? "After the solar thermal power plants were built in California and Nevada, people lost interest in solar thermal power because fossil fuels became unbeatably cheap," says Müller-Steinhagen. Solar power was neglected even though the US was in the advantageous position, compared to the MENA region, of being a single political entity rather than a conglomerate of countries with differing interests. The US could achieve energy self-sufficiency through solar thermal power plants in the sunny south-west. But it was only recently that scientists writing in the respected magazine Scientific American unveiled a "Solar Grand Plan" for the US.
Use privoxy for all your browsing, in all browsers, on all architectures. Problem solved once and for all.
You should give privoxy a try. Light and non-obtrusive, works beautifully on Linux and Windows alike, and by directing all traffic through it you get consistent results on all browsers.