Not to mention, it's a dramatically better option than dirty biofuels or liquid coal.
Trick of course being, it's not really possible to have enough biomass anyways. So it's really a question of temporarily using coal, and moving to cleaner electricity. Or liquefying coal, shale and tar sands, using that till it kills us.
You know, coming from slashdot, I would have thought you'd have an understanding of thermodynamics. Or at least try to make a look into things before making a kneejerk response.
As for batteries, both Nickel and Lithium are nontoxic, and easily recyclable. (Not to mention, Nickel is the 5th most common element on earth. So it's not that "rare".) _
What's more, if we are going to solve anything with global warming, we would need to upgrade our grid anyways. And it takes about 20 years to shift over to a new car fleet. So we best get started ASAP.
Well one problem with Appigo Todo, is that it's essentially Mac Only for the Desktop
Although Toodledo's website works well enough. Especially since I have a shortcut like this: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe --app="http://www.toodledo.com/views/index.php"
And I use the official Toodledo app on my ipod touch.
As for NoteSpark, I'll look into that one. But recently ToodleDo added the ability to put Notes into it's syncing. Before I also tried using GoogleDocs with MightDocs. But that wasn't editable on the ipod.
Generally writing important stuff on the right side pages Less important stuff on the left side of pages Lists in the back pages of the notepad
And when less important/urgent stuff accumulates I either * Fold the top right corner of the page, so I can quickly flip to the current page. * Transfer all the important stuff to a current page, rip the page out, fold it in half, and put it into my wallet.
And whenever convinient, I process those less important/urgent items reference. 1) Type it up in notepad 2) Copy that to Excel 3) In the second column of excel, I type in on of these folders:
OntTheGo, SpeakWith, HouseWork, Computer, Reference 4) Copy that back to Notepad, and save it as a TXT file 5) Import that TXT file to http://toodledo.com/connect_text.php 6) Go through each folder, and then "Star" whatever looks important/urgent
Whats better than a hybrid? Building a better hybrid.
In particular a plugin hybrid electric vehicle. Or in this case a prius with a bigger battery. (Although a fully electric car, with the bare minimum for a gasoline generator is more ideal)
This study found that in regions where electricity comes primarily from natural gas, a plugin hybrid puts up 3x less CO2 emmisions. And in the least green region of the United States powered almost entirely by coal. They found that the CO2 emmisions per mile were practically idential to a normal hybrid. http://www.aceee.org/pubs/t061.htm
Best part about this from an environmental perspective, is that combines two big problems into one. So all you have to do is green the grid, to green everything.
If the biggest problem for solar is PRICE. Then why are they suggesting we use nanotubes, which cost thousands of dollars per teaspoon?
Might be great for spacecraft, but absolutely worthless for conventional use.
The four big technologies for PV solar are: 1. Thinfilm CIGS semiconductor panels 2. Quantum Dots (Which allow for up to 7 electrons to be created from 1 photon) 3. Concentrating PV Solar (Using Mirrors) 4. Titanium Dioxide Organic Dyes
If you are just looking at Initial Capital Investment, Operations&Maintence, and Fuel. Nuclear actually does look rather inexpensive.
Catch is the cost of the waste and decommisioning is assumed to be neglible. When infact, it's typically the same if not more than the cost of the Initial Capital Investment.
If we're doing this much digging. And 6mile deep geothermal has the potential to provide 10x the grid's demand for electricity.
Why do nuclear at all?
_
Certainly it's not because of the cost issue. Since nuclear facilities have a nasty habit of costing far more than their initial claims. On average 2-4x the amount. Which is why nearly all the big "successful" nuclear nations have the governments own the nuclear plants. (Socialism?) Since economically they aren't that viable.
Furthermore, currently nuclear is getting more federal subsidies per year than all renewables combined. (And that's just from the DOE, if you include the DOD proliferation expenses, it gets quite a bit higher)
The real cost of nuclear obviously isn't the fuel.
However all the capital investments are done on a scale which involves near clairvoyant knowledge of the future Discounting Weak taxation (i.e. Any money put towards decommissioning a plant is not taxed for 60+ years) High subsidy Assumption of no significant externality costs (Like proliferation security)
_
The real issue is if nuclear were to become our main source of energy. "Is it safe enough for Iran? And every other country like Iran?"
Since if we scale up our nukes, We'll have no political leg to stand on to bark orders at another sovereign nation.
And considering nuclear winter can screw us over without even getting hit Micromanaging thousands of facilities around the world And building a robust anti-nuclear defense system for every nation
Doesn't sound like an inexpensive venture. Certainly not cheaper than coal or renewables.
Well there's also a large arguement that regardless of cost, waste, and weapons security
That even if we did shift all the way over to nuclear, we'd run out of Uranium in just a few years. 60% of the known Uranium deposits would also emit more net CO2 than natural gas power plants.
Not to mention, nuclear enrichment facilities are the #1 largest emitters of Ozone depleting gases in the US.
_
Back onto the cost issue. Energy effeciency is a far better, cheaper, and more effective route than building nuke plants.
California power companies choose energy effecieny over building new power plants. Hell, our utilities are paid not by how much electricity they sell, but on how effectively they institute energy effeciency programs.
_
Perhaps the most ideal soltution rather than a coal fired power plant, or a nuke plant.
Would be a combination of renewables, and algae biomass driven "Air Blown Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle" power plants.
Note, Coal is both the largest source of mercury pollution, and the largest source of US power.
Given the ammount of coal CFLs offset, I'd say it's a fair tradeoff. Especially since Coal emmisions go into the air we breath.
_
As for the HEI, they say "eventually" get as effecient as CFLs But they aren't there yet. I'd also wonder if these HEI's can offer the long lifespan of CFLs.
It's really a question of which infrastructure makes the most sence.
Liquid BioFuels from Algae: BioButanol (Near identical to gasoline, with none of the downsides of ethanol) BioJetFuel (Centia jetfuel is gearing up to replace military JP-8 jetfuel) BioDiesel (Treated with Centia to remove all of it's downsides)
Or Electricity: (Ideally created from Air blown IGCC power plants running on BioMass, or GeoThermal, or Ocean Current Energy) Theoretically using EESTOR like ultracapacitors, or expensive batteries like A123's
_
As compared to: Fuel Cells, Ethanol, and Hybrids Batteries, Butanol, and Clean Diesel makes a lot more sence.
I really just question which one makes the most sence.
And each new plant would cost a 4 billion to 2 billion dollars to build. Which is many times less than all US solar research funding for an entire year.
Besides which enriching uranium in the US is the biggest emmitter of CFCs in the nation. CFCs are banned by the Montreal Protocol. Only reason our existing enrichment locations exist is because they were grandfathered.
And thats probably being generous on the Prius side of things. And thats using Soy as the feedstock. When Soy is one of the worst feedstocks. Use Algae and you could blow the doors off of hybrids and ethanol.
It's stupid if you plan to stop global warming.
According to a new study by the Federal Berkley Livermore Labs,
RainForests, and Trees at lower latitudes are the only trees worth planting.
http://www.llnl.gov/pao/news/news_releases/2006/NR -06-12-02p.html
Planting SugarCane in the Tropics,
Either you force the cutting down of rainforests.
Or eat up all the farmland not in the rainforests,
Which then forces the local food crops out.
Who are then,
forced to cut down rainforests.
Thats just pulling us out of the frying pan,
And driving us into the fire.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to mention, it's a dramatically better option than dirty biofuels or liquid coal.
Trick of course being, it's not really possible to have enough biomass anyways.
So it's really a question of temporarily using coal, and moving to cleaner electricity.
Or liquefying coal, shale and tar sands, using that till it kills us.
Khosla obviously though thinks biofuels are wonderful.
http://www.grist.org/article/vinod-khosla-blows-his-credibility-dissing-plug-ins#comments
You know, coming from slashdot, I would have thought you'd have an understanding of thermodynamics.
Or at least try to make a look into things before making a kneejerk response.
Even if it's powered by the dirtiest Coal plants available, it'd still be cleaner than conventional cars.
http://imgur.com/ODyoB.png
http://www.grist.org/article/new-study-finds-that-plug-in-hybrids-rule-in-all-possible-futures/
As for batteries, both Nickel and Lithium are nontoxic, and easily recyclable.
(Not to mention, Nickel is the 5th most common element on earth. So it's not that "rare".)
_
What's more, if we are going to solve anything with global warming, we would need to upgrade our grid anyways.
And it takes about 20 years to shift over to a new car fleet. So we best get started ASAP.
Luckily, we have options:
http://greyfalcon.net/solarenergy.png
http://greyfalcon.net/geoenergy.png
http://www.esolar.com/our_solution
http://greyfalcon.net/egs
Well one problem with Appigo Todo, is that it's essentially Mac Only for the Desktop
Although Toodledo's website works well enough.
Especially since I have a shortcut like this:
C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe --app="http://www.toodledo.com/views/index.php"
And I use the official Toodledo app on my ipod touch.
As for Calendar, I'd suggest maybe giving this app a try:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sched-sync-google-calendar/id331446738?mt=8
Pretty handy to be able to edit calendar items when on the go.
As for NoteSpark, I'll look into that one. But recently ToodleDo added the ability to put Notes into it's syncing.
Before I also tried using GoogleDocs with MightDocs. But that wasn't editable on the ipod.
A suggestion for this notebook method.
Fold the top corner of each previous day's page.
That way you can open directly to your current day.
I tried index cards.
Heck, even was using the Mead half-sized index cards. Since they fit well into wallets.
http://www.google.com/images?q=mead+half+sized+index
But so far I've found officemax notepads work best. - http://i.imgur.com/yZwyL.jpg
Or was that a Big Bang reference ;D
Hard to tell if I'm being too OCD/geeky on Slashdot.
Although you can and should store password hints there.
However make the hints rather cryptic, to the extent that you know what they mean.
Which should give you an idea about the shape of the password and login. But not it's contents.
Nope. I've David.
But if Sheldon does this too, then he's got good taste.
Never could understand why someone would buy expensive notepads, for a system which theoretically should be burning through these pages like crazy.
Even with 600 pages per pack, I still buy atleast two of these per year.
Hrmm in addition, I use Google Calendar
With this rather rare but awesome Calendar app on my iPod Touch
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sched-sync-google-calendar/id331446738?mt=8
Good interface, and it works flawlessly offline
I write everything down
Primarily I use this pen/notebook setup I got from OfficeMax
Stack of Pocket Notebooks OM96732 for $8.29 - http://imgur.com/yZwyL.jpg
Divoga Tribute Pen Set for $9.99 - http://i.imgur.com/WW8jg.jpg
Then put the two together, leaving the pen twisted open. - http://imgur.com/IqMCx.jpg
Generally writing important stuff on the right side pages
Less important stuff on the left side of pages
Lists in the back pages of the notepad
And when less important/urgent stuff accumulates I either
* Fold the top right corner of the page, so I can quickly flip to the current page.
* Transfer all the important stuff to a current page, rip the page out, fold it in half, and put it into my wallet.
And whenever convinient, I process those less important/urgent items reference.
1) Type it up in notepad
2) Copy that to Excel
3) In the second column of excel, I type in on of these folders:
OntTheGo, SpeakWith, HouseWork, Computer, Reference
4) Copy that back to Notepad, and save it as a TXT file
5) Import that TXT file to http://toodledo.com/connect_text.php
6) Go through each folder, and then "Star" whatever looks important/urgent
And then either carry that around in my iPod Touch $149 refurbished
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/ipod
Or pay $15 a year to Toodledo, for the ability to print out formatted folded booklets.
http://www.toodledo.com/booklet.php
Whats better than a hybrid?
u gin_nation_g.html
o _wheels.html
Building a better hybrid.
In particular a plugin hybrid electric vehicle.
Or in this case a prius with a bigger battery.
(Although a fully electric car, with the bare minimum for a gasoline generator is more ideal)
This study found that in regions where electricity comes primarily from natural gas, a plugin hybrid puts up 3x less CO2 emmisions.
And in the least green region of the United States powered almost entirely by coal.
They found that the CO2 emmisions per mile were practically idential to a normal hybrid.
http://www.aceee.org/pubs/t061.htm
Whats more, we could replace 84% of the US fleet of cars with electric, and not need to build even 1 new power plant by leveraging downtime grid usage. (More fuel use, but no new infrastructure needed)
http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/2006/12/pl
Whats more, by having the distributed battery network stabalize the grid capacity.
We could actually make the grid far more reliable than it is today.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17930/
http://news.com.com/2100-11392_3-6174672.html
And there's some pretty sexy electric cars on the way.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/electriccars.png
_
Cool part about all this?
You can get electricity from the grid at a cost similar to 50 cents a gallon.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/plugins
And it's the perfect, "flexible fuel", since electricity can come from practically anything.
Unlike Ethanol for instance, which might be even worse than gasoline in pollution.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/ethanol2
http://www.greyfalcon.net/ethanol3
And biodiesel, which could potentially make Indonesia/Malaysia put up more CO2 than China.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/biofuel
Best part about this from an environmental perspective, is that combines two big problems into one.
So all you have to do is green the grid, to green everything.
And that can readily be provided by printable solar panels
http://www.greyfalcon.net/pv
And geothermal using inexpensive super powered electric drilling motors
http://jcwinnie.biz/wordpress/?p=1206
http://www.rasertech.com/media/movies/html/well_t
http://www.insidegreentech.com/node/1088
If the biggest problem for solar is PRICE.
Then why are they suggesting we use nanotubes, which cost thousands of dollars per teaspoon?
Might be great for spacecraft, but absolutely worthless for conventional use.
The four big technologies for PV solar are:
1. Thinfilm CIGS semiconductor panels
2. Quantum Dots (Which allow for up to 7 electrons to be created from 1 photon)
3. Concentrating PV Solar (Using Mirrors)
4. Titanium Dioxide Organic Dyes
If you are just looking at Initial Capital Investment, Operations&Maintence, and Fuel.
Nuclear actually does look rather inexpensive.
Catch is the cost of the waste and decommisioning is assumed to be neglible.
When infact, it's typically the same if not more than the cost of the Initial Capital Investment.
Question I have,
If we're doing this much digging.
And 6mile deep geothermal has the potential to provide 10x the grid's demand for electricity.
Why do nuclear at all?
_
Certainly it's not because of the cost issue.
Since nuclear facilities have a nasty habit of costing far more than their initial claims.
On average 2-4x the amount.
Which is why nearly all the big "successful" nuclear nations have the governments own the nuclear plants. (Socialism?)
Since economically they aren't that viable.
Furthermore, currently nuclear is getting more federal subsidies per year than all renewables combined.
(And that's just from the DOE, if you include the DOD proliferation expenses, it gets quite a bit higher)
The real cost of nuclear obviously isn't the fuel.
However all the capital investments are done on a scale which involves near clairvoyant knowledge of the future
Discounting
Weak taxation (i.e. Any money put towards decommissioning a plant is not taxed for 60+ years)
High subsidy
Assumption of no significant externality costs (Like proliferation security)
_
The real issue is if nuclear were to become our main source of energy.
"Is it safe enough for Iran? And every other country like Iran?"
Since if we scale up our nukes,
We'll have no political leg to stand on to bark orders at another sovereign nation.
And considering nuclear winter can screw us over without even getting hit
Micromanaging thousands of facilities around the world
And building a robust anti-nuclear defense system for every nation
Doesn't sound like an inexpensive venture.
Certainly not cheaper than coal or renewables.
Well there's also a large arguement that regardless of cost, waste, and weapons security
That even if we did shift all the way over to nuclear, we'd run out of Uranium in just a few years. 60% of the known Uranium deposits would also emit more net CO2 than natural gas power plants.
Not to mention, nuclear enrichment facilities are the #1 largest emitters of Ozone depleting gases in the US.
_
Back onto the cost issue.
Energy effeciency is a far better, cheaper, and more effective route than building nuke plants.
California power companies choose energy effecieny over building new power plants.
Hell, our utilities are paid not by how much electricity they sell, but on how effectively they institute energy effeciency programs.
_
Perhaps the most ideal soltution rather than a coal fired power plant, or a nuke plant.
Would be a combination of renewables, and algae biomass driven "Air Blown Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle" power plants.
Note, Coal is both the largest source of mercury pollution,
and the largest source of US power.
Given the ammount of coal CFLs offset, I'd say it's a fair tradeoff.
Especially since Coal emmisions go into the air we breath.
_
As for the HEI, they say "eventually" get as effecient as CFLs
But they aren't there yet. I'd also wonder if these HEI's can offer the long lifespan of CFLs.
You're all fired
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVM5amHJ_94
BioEthanol is rather silly when compared with BioButanol.
P G
BioButanol works almost perfectly in existing cars and pump infrastructure.
And it performs much better too, offering comprable mileage to gasoline.
Rather than Ethanol which offers about 30% less mileage.
Overall it shares all of it's benefits, and almost none of it's weaknesses.
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Butanol
http://butanol.com//images/Bubbles%20with%20gas.J
So far DuPont and BP are big backers of the tech.
http://www2.dupont.com/Biofuels/en_US/FAQ.html
It's really a question of which infrastructure makes the most sence.
Liquid BioFuels from Algae:
BioButanol (Near identical to gasoline, with none of the downsides of ethanol)
BioJetFuel (Centia jetfuel is gearing up to replace military JP-8 jetfuel)
BioDiesel (Treated with Centia to remove all of it's downsides)
Or Electricity:
(Ideally created from Air blown IGCC power plants running on BioMass, or GeoThermal, or Ocean Current Energy)
Theoretically using EESTOR like ultracapacitors, or expensive batteries like A123's
_
As compared to:
Fuel Cells, Ethanol, and Hybrids
Batteries, Butanol, and Clean Diesel makes a lot more sence.
I really just question which one makes the most sence.
Thats a blatent lie.
s /briefings/energyfactsheet4_fullreport_2006.pdf
k _mary_un_050306.htm
6 .pdf
2 005/08/07/ING95E1VQ71.DTL
6 .pdf
No successful Fast Breeder Reactor exists.
Assuming we switched the entire grid over to Light Water Reactors.
We'd only have 6 years worth of uranium supply.
Assuming no new reactors are built, we'd only have 50-65 years.
http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publication
And then you get into the issue that the lifecycle carbon emmisions of 3/5ths the uranium releases more carbon than a natural gas firepower powerplant.
http://www.nirs.org/climate/background/climatetal
And if we had enough Light Water Reactors for the entire world grid, we'd need a Yucca Mountain worth of waste disposal every 4 years.
http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/nukesclimatefact60
And each new plant would cost a 4 billion to 2 billion dollars to build.
Which is many times less than all US solar research funding for an entire year.
Nuclear looks rather foolish to me.
Especially when we could spend far less on renewables and achieve the same ends.
As is, energy effeciency costs 7 less than Nuclear.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/
_
Besides which enriching uranium in the US is the biggest emmitter of CFCs in the nation.
CFCs are banned by the Montreal Protocol.
Only reason our existing enrichment locations exist is because they were grandfathered.
Fat chance of expanding enrichment without flaunting the Montreal protocol.
http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/nukesclimatefact60
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_response
This is already being done at many high level companies.
Google, for instance, spends half their energy costs on "on peak" power.
If they can do this effectively with refrigerated warehouses, by all means.
Depends on where the tree is planted.
R -06-12-02.html
If you plant it too far north, you could actually be hurting global warming by planting trees.
http://www.llnl.gov/pao/news/news_releases/2006/N
You want green?
o mpare.html
A Hummer using Soy BioDiesel would have less fossil energy input per mile than a Prius
Hummer weighs 3x more than a Prius
8600, 2932
BioDiesel has 3.82x less impact than a Hybrid
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_vehicle_c
And thats probably being generous on the Prius side of things.
And thats using Soy as the feedstock. When Soy is one of the worst feedstocks.
Use Algae and you could blow the doors off of hybrids and ethanol.
It's stupid if you plan to stop global warming. According to a new study by the Federal Berkley Livermore Labs, RainForests, and Trees at lower latitudes are the only trees worth planting. http://www.llnl.gov/pao/news/news_releases/2006/NR -06-12-02p.html
Planting SugarCane in the Tropics,
Either you force the cutting down of rainforests.
Or eat up all the farmland not in the rainforests,
Which then forces the local food crops out.
Who are then,
forced to cut down rainforests.
Thats just pulling us out of the frying pan,
And driving us into the fire.
Use a fuel source that doesn't get used as food?
Like Algae?
The world's fastest growing plant.
That can grow in the desert off of brackish recycled water.