1. Why should we power ourselves with outrageously expensive sources? I'm not arguing against subsidies for research and development purposes; but to convert over to solar or wind at this stage of the game would bankrupt this nation in a year. How about waiting to convert until we actually have a technological approach that makes economic sense?
2. Your energy conversion rate doesn't assume the typical losses of wind and solar conversion, as well as power (voltage) conversion. Drop the energy you get by a factor of 10. So it's a little over $30 trillion, about twice our GDP.
I think the sane thing to do is to keep researching, start moving now to lower cost/subsidized solutions (nuclear and hydro), and when solar or wind becomes commercially viable, begin larger deployments. Because right now, the wind and solar suppliers would be out of business in a matter of weeks if it wasn't for the huge subsidies they receive.
oil industry profits from preferential treatment in tax laws and government support. While the non-oil industries are taxed at a rate of 18 percent, the oil industry is taxed at a mere 11 percent.
Which is provably false. Take a look at 2007 ExxonMobil Annual Report in which (on page 38 of the report, 40 of the PDF) you'll find EXO paid $32 billion in sales taxes, $41 billion in other taxes and duties, and $30 billion in income taxes, for a tax load of $103 billion.
On that same page, you'll see total revenues of $404 billion. And a net income of $41 billion. Meaning that for every 4 dollars in revenue, EXO paid one dollar in taxes. And for every dollar in net income, they paid $2.50 in taxes.
All that adds up to a taxation rate of either 25% on revenues, or 71% of gross profit. How that report gets to 11% is - I guess - left to the reader. So if the first big claim of that report that I can find is provably false, where does that leave the rest of the claims made by the unknown article, such as canals being dredged for oil tankers only?
the massive abuse of the patent system (effectively cutting out or severely crippling many of your "thousand tiny tech start-ups you won't hear about".
As a small inventor myself (I own my own company, there are exactly 3 of us in the company), I've earned several patents and have many more pending in the highly competitive AND commoditized world of consumer electronics. And I manage to actually make a decent living licensing and building with those patented and patent-pending technologies to some of those massive corporations.
My clients include the likes of Microsoft, Harman, RODE, the top 3 computer manufacturers in the US (Cupertino, Houston, and Austin), and many more.
My experience - at one time a drone in a massive corporation, and now independently a tiny player - is that the big companies love working with small guys because we tend to be rational, easy to work with (I'm not going to demand that 7% of the cover art carry my logo, for example), and relatively low cost for what you get (no massive up-front fees, just pay me when you sell a product - you only pay when you get money).
Just a tiny little inventor looking around wondering where all the problem is with the small guy getting hammered by the 800 pound gorilla, because I work with those gorillas every day without a problem. And I for one do NOT want to see the patent system in the US changed - it's hugely beneficial to the small guy.
Can we actually take some time to read up on people and what they think, rather than rely on guilt by association?
Come one, this is Slashdot! He's from the Evil Big Media, and thus must be destroyed! He works with the Evil Rethuglicans and must be burned at the stake! Ignore the facts, paint with the widest tar brush you can find, and thump your chest and shout "I'M A FREE LIBER-ANARCHO-DEMO-OBAMAKIN!" as possible and watch your karma climb...
Never mind that most media execs and participants - actors and reporters and the like - actively support the Democrat party, yet espouse the very "restrictions on my right to copy any material I want" that is so anethema here...
Can you point to any of those canals that only carry oil tankers, and not other freighters? I'd rather the ACOE work on heavily-trafficed canals rather than lightly used ones, and concentrate on those that move the more important cargo...
Sorry but that report says no such thing. And your reasoning is wrong.
Then you're not looking at the report. Please see table 35 - page 16 of the PDF. And in fact - since it's obvious you didn't read the report - here's the paragraph describing the table:
The per-unit subsidies are calculated as the subsidies allocated to each fuel type divided by the
FY 2007 electricity generated by each fuel type (Table 35). Refined-coal-related generation
receives the largest subsidy in absolute terms, at roughly $2 billion, as well as the highest perunit
value at $29.81 per megawatthour. Renewable electricity production, in aggregate,
received subsidies totaling $1.0 billion, but the per-unit subsidy in aggregate is $2.80 per
megawatthour. On a fuel-specific basis, solar and wind subsidies receive the second-and-third
highest per unit subsidies. However, the total value of subsidies received by each of these
technologies was roughly in proportion to their relative share of net generation. As, a result,
their respective per-unit subsidies are nearly equal. In the case of solar, the per-unit subsidy
estimate of $24.34 per megawatthour is a function of the relatively high allocation of subsidies
received, $14 million, and its low share of total electricity production. Wind received $724 million
in subsidies, valued at $23.37 per megawatthour.
OK - solar and wind are the SECOND HIGHEST per-unit subsidy received. Solar is getting $24.34 per MWhr. Now look again at that table; what do you find for subsidies for nuclear and oil?
Nuclear: $1.59 per MWhr
Natural Gas and Petroleum Liquids (Big Oil): $0.25 per MWhr
And where do we find solar and wind?
Solar: $24.34 per MWhr
Wind: $23.37 per MWhr
There's a reason why all solar and wind systems have other production means for backup: the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. Baseload is the achilles heel.
In fact, did you know that all those wind turbines that power San Francisco are the MOST expensive source of energy down there? Know why? I'm good friends with one of the Boeing execs who headed up all the wind turbine research and deployment Boeing did back in the 80s and 90s...
With SF, when the wind is blowing, it tends to be cooler. When the wind stops blowing, the temperature skyrockets, and electrical demand skyrockets. And so all those 100 year old coal and gas powered electrical plants are ramped up (they're kept on a "low setting" so they can be started within a day) so the electrical demand can be met. Because windmills tend not to turn in still air.
And of course, the State of CA has mandated that alternative energy must be given priority in purchase AND be purchased at the highest rates paid. So those electrical costs of those 100 year old, inefficient plants in SF are what the city pays for the wind. And it HAS to buy the wind, even if the power is not needed.
Wind and solar exist SOLELY as a commercial industry because of subsidies, and heavy ones at that. Many people talk about the subsidies of "Big Oil" but they simply don't exist. Even if you wanted to add in the $106 billion per year ($530 billion over 5 years - your numbers are wrong) we've spent on the Iraq war for "Big Oil" (when in fact the majority of Middle East production goes to the EU, not the US, meaning we're paying to stabilize the energy sources of Europe and not us) you're still only adding another $0.11 per MWhr.
So add all that in, please! We're at $0.36 per MWhr for "Big Oil", and 67 TIMES that amount per MWhr for solar.
Bottom line: subsidies - in terms of dollars in to production out - are HEAVILY tilted towards alternative sources, and until you can get the subsidies down by an order of magnitude or more, alternatives will be an economic no-go.
Solvent refined coal is something we shouldn't be pursuing, at all... It's mainly a way of converting high-sulphur, high-ash content, low grade coal into something comparable to the normal stuff we get from North Dakota and most of the Appalacian mountains. Rather than using solvents to convert the lower grade coal into burnable coal, we should be looking at liquefaction of that type of coal.
No, we haven't reached the peak of production. Please look at excess capacity over the historical record. We've never had a negative amount. Excap is a measure of the unused pumping capacity of oil producers. In the last 5 years, OPEC alone has had at least 1 MILLION barrels a day of excess capacity, on a 60 day window. We're not at the peak of pumping.
New oil is getting more expensive, but that's because of extraction, not supply. The actual cost of pumping isn't that high, accounting for a few dollars per barrel; the cost is driven by exploration, royalties, transport, and refining. There's plenty of reserves AND pumping capacity - both are actually on the upswing. Peak oil isn't even close in terms of reserves OR pumping.
Aside: there's one thing the US Congress could do TODAY to eliminate $1 per gallon of gas: simply eliminate Federal taxation of gasoline and the oil companies. That accounts for about $1 per gallon. ""Evil Big Oil" is lucky to make $0.10 per gallon of gas, and they have to pay $3 in taxes for every $1 in profit they make. In the mean time, the Federal government not only gets that $3, but a direct $0.182 per gallon - about double what "Evil Big Oil" makes, per gallon.
I assume you mean Hubbert's peak, about peak oil? The problem is that the proven reserves keep increasing. We're not at the peak yet. The current oil bubble - and it is a bubble - will pop once output increases (which it is - look at the excap - extra capacity - growth in pumping) and additional refinery capacity is brought on-line.
Peak oil is at least a good 10 years away, if not more. Look at the proven reserves of all the big oil companies (mainly State-owned; EXO and the like are small players) and you'll see that - even in spite of all the production - proven reserves either are flat or increasing. Meaning more finds.
Researchers in Denmark have gone a step further and put a value on this effect. They believe that wind power shaved 1 billion kroner ($167m) off Danish electricity bills in 2005. On the other hand, Danish consumers also paid 1.4 billion kroner in subsidies for wind power.
If wind power was such a good payback, why are they PAYING 400 million Kroner to keep them running?
Solar and wind are a LONG way from being as economically viable as coal, natural gas, or nuclear. And solar and wind are HEAVILY subsidized compared to coal, natural gas, and nuclear. The DOE table above should have made that abundantly clear...
We seem to cavil about a few million dollars, or even a few hundred million, being spent to jump start emerging energy technology, but we have no problem spending billions on oil industry subsidies.
Maybe because most alternative energy sources are big money losers? Take a look at page 16 of this report for the actual numbers about subsidies...
I predict once you can start to get alternative energy sources like solar and wind down an order of magnitude or so in terms of cost you'll see things turn around. However, for now they're getting somewhere around 100X the subsidy per Megawatt-hour that "Big Oil" gets.
An improvement from 15% to 40% simply isn't enough - natural gas and oil get around $0.25 per MWhr, while solar and wind get 100 times that amount per MWhr. And remember, those nasty "Big Oil" companies also pay over $3 in direct federal taxes for every $1 in profit. Over $200 billion flows into the Federal government every year in terms of direct taxes and fees (that's not including the taxes you're paying on consumption of their products).
Right now, and for the last 20 years, wind and solar have been huge money-losers, and only exists BECAUSE of the massive subsidies. If we subsidized wind or solar at a level to get useful output levels, we'd spend literally trillions more per year.
But what animals realize that they are mortal? Only one that I can think of.
Ever watch a dog pack, or cats fight? If the animal does not fear death, why would it stop fighting when losing a battle? Self-preservation. Which is inherently fear of death.
LBJ started the War on Poverty back in 1964... We've spent trillions of dollars, and employed millions of "soldiers" (government employees) and by all measures it's been an abject failure.
Yet, here's people like you, making "harmless" sonic weapons, and this morally deficient company, selling them to a government whose M/O is repression of all dissent. You're designing/manufacturing weapons that deliver a payload that would be considered torture or cruel and unusual punishment in many circumstances. How do you figure that's justified?
Because sometimes blasting people with rock-concert levels (which is what the targets experience at ranges beyond 10 meters) is a lot safer for everyone involved than blasting them with bullets.
Actually, no. The changes in frequency have LESS impact on most of the body other than the ears. Once you're above ~12 Hz you're beyond any of the resonances within the body (a typical human body, that is).
Additionally, the "impulse" function of a diver off a diving board would be infinitely worse than a constant 160 dB SPL, according to your reasoning! That transition from normal 101 kPa to 20% higher than that, in the course of a few milliseconds should crush them. But that doesn't happen...
Yes, I have worked in the acoustics field for a few decades, and I have worked on sonic weapons. I have designed speaker systems that can generate over 175 dB SPL and are used for car audio competitions. And to date no one's died from sound. No one.
Well, other than a 48 hour exposure to Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On that some poor soul got exposed to back in the late 1990s...
How this got modded "informative" is anyone's guess...
160 dB CANNOT kill. It can rupture your eardrums, but not kill. See, sound is measured in dB SPL - deciBels of Sound Pressure Level. The reference is 0 dB = 20 uPa (micropascals) of pressure.
Do some math, and you'll find out that 194 dB SPL is one atmosphere of pressure. Meaning that 160 dB SPL is about 1/1000th of an atmosphere. You experience more pressure by swimming 0.5 meters under the surface of the water.
160 dB CANNOT kill. Pressures - sounds - of 194 dB cannot kill (that's the pressure level of the NASA sonic test weapons). That's 10 meters under water, one extra atmosphere, and harmlessly encountered on a daily basis by millions of divers.
And for the record, yes I am an acoustician, and yes I have worked on sonic weapons.
Slashdot Mirror
1. Why should we power ourselves with outrageously expensive sources? I'm not arguing against subsidies for research and development purposes; but to convert over to solar or wind at this stage of the game would bankrupt this nation in a year. How about waiting to convert until we actually have a technological approach that makes economic sense?
2. Your energy conversion rate doesn't assume the typical losses of wind and solar conversion, as well as power (voltage) conversion. Drop the energy you get by a factor of 10. So it's a little over $30 trillion, about twice our GDP.
I think the sane thing to do is to keep researching, start moving now to lower cost/subsidized solutions (nuclear and hydro), and when solar or wind becomes commercially viable, begin larger deployments. Because right now, the wind and solar suppliers would be out of business in a matter of weeks if it wasn't for the huge subsidies they receive.
However, I found another reference to that article which contained a few excerpts, notably:
oil industry profits from preferential treatment in tax laws and government support. While the non-oil industries are taxed at a rate of 18 percent, the oil industry is taxed at a mere 11 percent.
Which is provably false. Take a look at 2007 ExxonMobil Annual Report in which (on page 38 of the report, 40 of the PDF) you'll find EXO paid $32 billion in sales taxes, $41 billion in other taxes and duties, and $30 billion in income taxes, for a tax load of $103 billion.
On that same page, you'll see total revenues of $404 billion. And a net income of $41 billion. Meaning that for every 4 dollars in revenue, EXO paid one dollar in taxes. And for every dollar in net income, they paid $2.50 in taxes.
All that adds up to a taxation rate of either 25% on revenues, or 71% of gross profit. How that report gets to 11% is - I guess - left to the reader. So if the first big claim of that report that I can find is provably false, where does that leave the rest of the claims made by the unknown article, such as canals being dredged for oil tankers only?
As a small inventor myself (I own my own company, there are exactly 3 of us in the company), I've earned several patents and have many more pending in the highly competitive AND commoditized world of consumer electronics. And I manage to actually make a decent living licensing and building with those patented and patent-pending technologies to some of those massive corporations.
My clients include the likes of Microsoft, Harman, RODE, the top 3 computer manufacturers in the US (Cupertino, Houston, and Austin), and many more.
My experience - at one time a drone in a massive corporation, and now independently a tiny player - is that the big companies love working with small guys because we tend to be rational, easy to work with (I'm not going to demand that 7% of the cover art carry my logo, for example), and relatively low cost for what you get (no massive up-front fees, just pay me when you sell a product - you only pay when you get money).
Just a tiny little inventor looking around wondering where all the problem is with the small guy getting hammered by the 800 pound gorilla, because I work with those gorillas every day without a problem. And I for one do NOT want to see the patent system in the US changed - it's hugely beneficial to the small guy.
Come one, this is Slashdot! He's from the Evil Big Media, and thus must be destroyed! He works with the Evil Rethuglicans and must be burned at the stake! Ignore the facts, paint with the widest tar brush you can find, and thump your chest and shout "I'M A FREE LIBER-ANARCHO-DEMO-OBAMAKIN!" as possible and watch your karma climb...
Never mind that most media execs and participants - actors and reporters and the like - actively support the Democrat party, yet espouse the very "restrictions on my right to copy any material I want" that is so anethema here...
Can you point to any of those canals that only carry oil tankers, and not other freighters? I'd rather the ACOE work on heavily-trafficed canals rather than lightly used ones, and concentrate on those that move the more important cargo...
I'm more concerned about knowing there aren't 57 states in the US, or that you're not seeing dead people in the audience. Get that right first, then we can talk tech...
Then you're not looking at the report. Please see table 35 - page 16 of the PDF. And in fact - since it's obvious you didn't read the report - here's the paragraph describing the table:
The per-unit subsidies are calculated as the subsidies allocated to each fuel type divided by the FY 2007 electricity generated by each fuel type (Table 35). Refined-coal-related generation receives the largest subsidy in absolute terms, at roughly $2 billion, as well as the highest perunit value at $29.81 per megawatthour. Renewable electricity production, in aggregate, received subsidies totaling $1.0 billion, but the per-unit subsidy in aggregate is $2.80 per megawatthour. On a fuel-specific basis, solar and wind subsidies receive the second-and-third highest per unit subsidies. However, the total value of subsidies received by each of these technologies was roughly in proportion to their relative share of net generation. As, a result, their respective per-unit subsidies are nearly equal. In the case of solar, the per-unit subsidy estimate of $24.34 per megawatthour is a function of the relatively high allocation of subsidies received, $14 million, and its low share of total electricity production. Wind received $724 million in subsidies, valued at $23.37 per megawatthour.
OK - solar and wind are the SECOND HIGHEST per-unit subsidy received. Solar is getting $24.34 per MWhr. Now look again at that table; what do you find for subsidies for nuclear and oil?
Nuclear: $1.59 per MWhr
Natural Gas and Petroleum Liquids (Big Oil): $0.25 per MWhr
And where do we find solar and wind?
Solar: $24.34 per MWhr
Wind: $23.37 per MWhr
There's a reason why all solar and wind systems have other production means for backup: the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. Baseload is the achilles heel.
In fact, did you know that all those wind turbines that power San Francisco are the MOST expensive source of energy down there? Know why? I'm good friends with one of the Boeing execs who headed up all the wind turbine research and deployment Boeing did back in the 80s and 90s...
With SF, when the wind is blowing, it tends to be cooler. When the wind stops blowing, the temperature skyrockets, and electrical demand skyrockets. And so all those 100 year old coal and gas powered electrical plants are ramped up (they're kept on a "low setting" so they can be started within a day) so the electrical demand can be met. Because windmills tend not to turn in still air.
And of course, the State of CA has mandated that alternative energy must be given priority in purchase AND be purchased at the highest rates paid. So those electrical costs of those 100 year old, inefficient plants in SF are what the city pays for the wind. And it HAS to buy the wind, even if the power is not needed.
Wind and solar exist SOLELY as a commercial industry because of subsidies, and heavy ones at that. Many people talk about the subsidies of "Big Oil" but they simply don't exist. Even if you wanted to add in the $106 billion per year ($530 billion over 5 years - your numbers are wrong) we've spent on the Iraq war for "Big Oil" (when in fact the majority of Middle East production goes to the EU, not the US, meaning we're paying to stabilize the energy sources of Europe and not us) you're still only adding another $0.11 per MWhr.
So add all that in, please! We're at $0.36 per MWhr for "Big Oil", and 67 TIMES that amount per MWhr for solar.
Bottom line: subsidies - in terms of dollars in to production out - are HEAVILY tilted towards alternative sources, and until you can get the subsidies down by an order of magnitude or more, alternatives will be an economic no-go.
Just my 1/50th of a greenback...
New oil is getting more expensive, but that's because of extraction, not supply. The actual cost of pumping isn't that high, accounting for a few dollars per barrel; the cost is driven by exploration, royalties, transport, and refining. There's plenty of reserves AND pumping capacity - both are actually on the upswing. Peak oil isn't even close in terms of reserves OR pumping.
Aside: there's one thing the US Congress could do TODAY to eliminate $1 per gallon of gas: simply eliminate Federal taxation of gasoline and the oil companies. That accounts for about $1 per gallon. ""Evil Big Oil" is lucky to make $0.10 per gallon of gas, and they have to pay $3 in taxes for every $1 in profit they make. In the mean time, the Federal government not only gets that $3, but a direct $0.182 per gallon - about double what "Evil Big Oil" makes, per gallon.
Peak oil is at least a good 10 years away, if not more. Look at the proven reserves of all the big oil companies (mainly State-owned; EXO and the like are small players) and you'll see that - even in spite of all the production - proven reserves either are flat or increasing. Meaning more finds.
Maybe you should educate yourself about the economics of those Danish wind farms before you continue your misguided rants? Might I highlight:
Researchers in Denmark have gone a step further and put a value on this effect. They believe that wind power shaved 1 billion kroner ($167m) off Danish electricity bills in 2005. On the other hand, Danish consumers also paid 1.4 billion kroner in subsidies for wind power.
If wind power was such a good payback, why are they PAYING 400 million Kroner to keep them running?
Solar and wind are a LONG way from being as economically viable as coal, natural gas, or nuclear. And solar and wind are HEAVILY subsidized compared to coal, natural gas, and nuclear. The DOE table above should have made that abundantly clear...
You know it also comes in a new convenient spray can!
Maybe because most alternative energy sources are big money losers? Take a look at page 16 of this report for the actual numbers about subsidies...
I predict once you can start to get alternative energy sources like solar and wind down an order of magnitude or so in terms of cost you'll see things turn around. However, for now they're getting somewhere around 100X the subsidy per Megawatt-hour that "Big Oil" gets.
An improvement from 15% to 40% simply isn't enough - natural gas and oil get around $0.25 per MWhr, while solar and wind get 100 times that amount per MWhr. And remember, those nasty "Big Oil" companies also pay over $3 in direct federal taxes for every $1 in profit. Over $200 billion flows into the Federal government every year in terms of direct taxes and fees (that's not including the taxes you're paying on consumption of their products).
Right now, and for the last 20 years, wind and solar have been huge money-losers, and only exists BECAUSE of the massive subsidies. If we subsidized wind or solar at a level to get useful output levels, we'd spend literally trillions more per year.
And then there's that whole baseload thing...
Scientologists have copies of the movie Battlefield Earth.
My money's on the Thetan-freaks...
Munite - alternate spelling and name for a Moonie, a follower of Reverend Sun Myung Moon (Mun). After all, this IS about cults...
Ever watch a dog pack, or cats fight? If the animal does not fear death, why would it stop fighting when losing a battle? Self-preservation. Which is inherently fear of death.
I see you were a test subject...
LBJ started the War on Poverty back in 1964... We've spent trillions of dollars, and employed millions of "soldiers" (government employees) and by all measures it's been an abject failure.
Because sometimes blasting people with rock-concert levels (which is what the targets experience at ranges beyond 10 meters) is a lot safer for everyone involved than blasting them with bullets.
But that's just me... I'm kind of fond of living.
Now you've done it! Keep a lookout for his friends.
Because legally you have not entered the country until you pass through customs. Up until that point you are in international waters, so to speak.
If you're not here, you're not under the jurisdiction of our laws.
The choice was obvious! What better way to solve a cypher contest but to code in a language that is pretty much a cypher to everyone else?
Additionally, the "impulse" function of a diver off a diving board would be infinitely worse than a constant 160 dB SPL, according to your reasoning! That transition from normal 101 kPa to 20% higher than that, in the course of a few milliseconds should crush them. But that doesn't happen...
Yes, I have worked in the acoustics field for a few decades, and I have worked on sonic weapons. I have designed speaker systems that can generate over 175 dB SPL and are used for car audio competitions. And to date no one's died from sound. No one.
Well, other than a 48 hour exposure to Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On that some poor soul got exposed to back in the late 1990s...
160 dB CANNOT kill. It can rupture your eardrums, but not kill. See, sound is measured in dB SPL - deciBels of Sound Pressure Level. The reference is 0 dB = 20 uPa (micropascals) of pressure.
Do some math, and you'll find out that 194 dB SPL is one atmosphere of pressure. Meaning that 160 dB SPL is about 1/1000th of an atmosphere. You experience more pressure by swimming 0.5 meters under the surface of the water.
160 dB CANNOT kill. Pressures - sounds - of 194 dB cannot kill (that's the pressure level of the NASA sonic test weapons). That's 10 meters under water, one extra atmosphere, and harmlessly encountered on a daily basis by millions of divers.
And for the record, yes I am an acoustician, and yes I have worked on sonic weapons.
No, I'm pretty sure Detroit is still in Michigan...