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User: Eclipse-now

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  1. Re:Preordered a Leaf on EVs In the Spotlight At West Coast Green Conference · · Score: 1

    Is the Nissan the variety that come with battery-swap through Better Place? Any news on that front at this expo? I thought San Francisco was one of their demo cities.

  2. Re:Venus and Mars on Earth-Like Planet That Could Sustain Life Found · · Score: 1

    So could they have meant 20% to 50% extra grav's of earth?

    What would the weather on this planet be like?

  3. Re:Oh joy. *Another* photovoltaic breakthrough on Self-Assembling Photovoltaic Cells · · Score: 1

    Wake me up when battery technologies are 1000 times cheaper. Then I might actually be interested in solar PV again. Otherwise, we need reliable baseload power and no matter what the renewablists say, wind & solar can't do that yet. Not 24/7/365.

  4. Can we have transparent toilet lines? on Airbus Planning Transparent Planes · · Score: 1

    Just think of the health benefits of being able to scan your poohs as you watch your business stream down the sewer lines to containers. It might not be 'shiny', but every time you flush will be an adventure in medicine!

  5. Re:Don't target cars on Is a US High-Speed Railway Economically Feasible? · · Score: 1

    Just wait till peak oil, and then even long-haul overnight rail across the USA will compete with air travel.

  6. Re:Any Mac version? on FOSS RTS Game Glest Gets Revival — Enter Mega-Glest · · Score: 1

    I don't hack or compile or X11 or stuff... not that good. Yet.

  7. Any Mac version? on FOSS RTS Game Glest Gets Revival — Enter Mega-Glest · · Score: 1

    I'd love to play from mac to my (ugh!) PC laptop...

  8. I'll believe it when Microsoft goes down on Linux Foundation Makes Open Source Boring · · Score: 1

    I don't like Microsoft. I love the idea of open source. I just don't think the group-think is dead yet. People use microsoft because people use microsoft. People use word becauseeveryone else uses it and sends stuff around in it. Blaargh! Just imagine the world we could have.

    If I ran the world, (being the Nazi control freak that I am) I'd rule that we'd all shift to Mac, which would become open source. We'd keep the Mac creative guys in charge of brainstorming various projects, but also with input from the grassroots hacker community. These hacker ideas would filter up from the bottom. We'd arrange some means of having the best of both worlds dialogue online, vote on it, and move to the next big thing. And this would save on human capital, as mac users getting a job in PC land wouldn't have to relearn how to suck eggs every time, and vice versa. I mean, does the world really need 30 different word processors, and the end-user confusion when switching from one to another? New ways of doing stuff in this GLOBAL software would become 30 second snippets in the nightly news. Everyone would have an idea of how to navigate the basics, and what changes might be coming.

    Then it would be boring, and reliable, and universal: yet still shiny all at the same time.

  9. Re:Not even practical on Abandon Earth Or Die, Warns Hawking · · Score: 1

    True, but what is the minimum number of people we need to shoot off to Mars to maintain enough gene-pool depth to have a viable colony? 500? I submit that if we can solve peak oil and climate change fast enough with Integral Fast Reactors (and electric cars, and New Urbanism... but don't get me started!) here on earth, then surely IFR technology will become such a cheap source of energy that our civilisation blossoms in new ways none of us expect.

    Then sending 50 or so big rockets towards Mars might not seem like such a big deal. And they WILL live in large underground habitats. They might even teach us a thing or two about how to make them functional and attractive. As a species, we only tend to build these things when we HAVE to. On Mars we would HAVE to, but here? It's a beautiful day... I might go fishing. We'll just think about that expensive underground bunker habitat tomorrow hey? I've got a holiday to save for, a big fat LED TV to buy, some Cheeto's to munch on, my basement to refurbish, my grandma to yell at, some slashdot to sort out, and that other species to figure out. (Girls). So while my Star Wars Clone helmet poster will look cool on my basement wall, it does not qualify as a habitat. Or does it?

  10. Re:The concept stinks on Volkswagen Creates Sewage-Powered Beetle · · Score: 1

    Away with you, or I shall taunt you a second time you silly English Ken-nigg-it!

  11. Re:How long till 'clean'? on Chernobyl Area Survey Finds Lasting Problems For Wildlife · · Score: 2, Funny

    You're recommending leaving animals much like us around Chernobyl? I agree, because I want a new button inserted on my workstation for self-defence purposes.

    "Death by radioactive monkeys!"

    One can never have enough monkey-defences.

  12. What kind of name is that? on Scientists Discover Biggest Star · · Score: 1

    R136a1!!?? Are you kidding me? Why not Biff? Biff is a nice name.

  13. Nah, dump him on Matt Smith Leaving Doctor Who Already? · · Score: 1

    I say we approach Adam Carter to play the Doctor! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Carter

  14. This will become the norm on The Gulf's Great Turtle Relocation Project · · Score: 1

    As far as I can tell, there are 6 main ways we are systematically destroying ecosystems. (Not including global warming!) Through what I call the 6 p’s of ecosystem destruction we are systematically taking nature and paving it over, ploughing it up, polluting it, preying on predators, spreading pests, and over-populating the entire planet!

    So as well as the normal conservation programs, I'm guessing we are going to see more of these radical interventions to try and same some of the biodiversity on this planet.

  15. Hang on, I saw this movie already! on Pacific Trash Vortex To Become Habitable Island? · · Score: 1

    It starred Kevin Costner, and has jet skies that can hide underwater, and some kid with a tattoo on her back that shows the way to dry land. Now, what was it called? Crapland? Mad Max on water? Whining world? ummm....

    Love the idea, but as others have said above, the plastic needs sorting from the plankton at a microscopic level or we're just going to be hoovering up the ocean. I hope they can pull this off (without tattooing some kids back either).

  16. Nuclear waste is the SOLUTION! on Nuclear Power Could See a Revival · · Score: 1

    My understanding is Integral Fast Reactors can't breed nuclear bomb material because the plutonium is mixed in with caesium and other junk. It's not 'clean' enough, and basically there are plenty of cheaper ways to build bombs. The power / bombs link is tenuous at best. Many countries that built the bomb did so before building nuclear power, and many countries today that built nuclear power don't have bombs. Oh, and as 93% of the world's Co2 comes from countries that ALREADY have the bomb, what exactly would we gain by banning IFR's? I happen to think Fast Breeders are the answer to peak oil, global warming and nuclear waste! Besides, 10% of USA electricity comes from burning old Soviet Warheads: nuclear power is literally eating nuclear bombs.

    If you are concerned about energy security, independence from imported oil, peak oil, climate change, coal particulate pollution and lung disease, heck, IF YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT NUCLEAR WASTE then this is even MORE of a reason to build a whole generation of GenIV reactors!

    According to environmental scientist Professor Barry Brook, today's waste could run the world for 500 years if we built enough IFR's. Who knows what energy technologies we'd have by then? But for now, we owe it to our great grandchildren to solve climate change by burning today's nuclear waste. Viewed in this light, nuclear waste is not the problem but the solution!!!

    http://bravenewclimate.com/

  17. Re:Two things... on Unique ID In India Causes 'Fear of the Beast' · · Score: 1

    I thoroughly agree that the book is figurative, but my best reading of it is by Dr Paul Barnett, a Sydney Anglican reformed evangelical, whose commentary is titled "Apocalypse now and then". So while figuratively describing historical events as they were unfolding back then, the book also applies as a general warning to all Christians in all ages —I think you were basically describing this in your own terms.

    In these particulars, I thought the beast was figurative language for Nero, and that the book stands as a warning to us that any time governments set themselves against God's people anywhere throughout history, they were a 'beast'?

    "...and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name." That sounds like more than a figurative remark about our attitudes, but a particular form of persecution in a particular historical period, as an example for all Christians in all ages to be aware of mindlessly following the godless leaders of the day. It does not imply any form of body coding / chip implanting is automatically 'wrong', but does imply where our ultimate loyalties are, and how we have to be mindful of these matters.

    Basically, I think we agree on the basics, and that Revelation should not be read as a 'timetable of future history'. Movies like the Omen have done more to affect how modern Christians read that part of the bible than I think the average church-goer admits.

  18. What if you own the car, but not the battery? on High Depreciation May Slow Electric Car Acceptance · · Score: 1

    The CEO of Electric Vehicle company "Better Place" explains that he sells you the car but maintains ownership of the battery. This enables their Battery Swap station program. Most of the time these cars are charged at home, at work, and when you park at the shops. (In some countries you may even get priority parking spots as an honoured EV driver!) But when you're driving down the highway and need a 'refuel' the SatNav tells you where the closest station is, you drive in, and the battery is automatically swapped out faster than you can fill up a conventional petroleum vehicle.

    They begin rolling out around the world over the next few years, hitting Canberra Australia next year. The cost of swapping the battery out is about half what we're all paying for gasoline right now, and of course means the car doesn't 'depreciate' simply because the battery it is carrying might be aging: it can't! (Older batteries are automatically withdrawn from Better Place circulation the moment they fail testing standards). Check it out people, the future is now.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place

  19. Re:Small minds... on Europe To Import Sahara Solar Power Within 5 Years · · Score: 1
    It all sounds simple enough when you put it like that, but you are ignoring the incredible inefficiency in this, which would result in INCREDIBLE cost. Without enormous government sponsorship it just won't happen. How many cloudy days are there across the Sahara? What hours have the greatest demand, and how long does the storage have to take? It's just not going to happen, and if it does, it means less money for health and education because the taxpayer will be subsidising this. Ted Trainer says of a Solar thermal to hydrogen system:

    A system designed to deliver 1000 MW after storage would need a 1000 MW hydrogen-fuelled power station in addition to the dish system which generated the 1000 MW supply of hydrogen to run it, indicating high capital and embodied costs. The efficiencies of the various steps (e.g., .4 for hydrogen production, .8 for handling/transport, .4 for fuel cell generation) suggest an overall gross solar to wheels/use efficiency of 13%, from which the embodied and operating costs of materials-expensive hydrogen handling plant would have to be deducted. It is therefore not clear that this path would be more viable than the others considered above.

    However, 4th Gen nuclear that eats nuclear waste could do the job far cheaper AND provide abundant reliable power no matter what the season or weather. So, 4 or 5 times the price for solar power that's not guaranteed, or cheap abundant electricity that could run the world for 500 years off today's nuclear waste (even if we closed all the uranium mines -- and there's enough uranium and thorium on earth to run Gen4 reactors for hundreds of millions of years). We have the technology TODAY to solve peak oil, global warming, and nuclear waste: we just need the Australian laws against nukes to be revoked so we can actually let the marketplace decide.

  20. Nuclear getting much cheaper on Harry Reid Pushes Nevada As "Saudi Arabia of Geothermal Energy" · · Score: 1
    That article is debunking something on the basis of economist "Tuft's" study, but we don't seem to be given access to his work.

    Basically, show me the study. I mean, did you spot the error in this paragraph?

    A cold-blooded examination of the industry's numbers bears this out. Tufts economist Gilbert Metcalf concludes that the total cost of juice from a new nuclear plant today is 4.31 cents per kilowatt-hour. That's far more than electricity from a conventional coal-fired plant (3.53 cents) or "clean coal" plant (3.55 cents). When he takes away everyone's tax subsidies, however, Metcalf finds that nuclear power is even less competitive (5.94 cents per kwh versus 3.79 cents and 4.37 cents, respectively).

    Where did he get the quote for 'clean coal'... the coal industry? Show me ONE full scaled "clean coal" plant in operation today! THAT's the industry that is a myth.

    Now don't get me wrong: there have been nuclear cost blow outs on a massive scale. As the pharmaceutical companies say in their defence, "These pills might only cost 20cents each, but the first one cost us a billion!" Same with new technology nukes. However, climatologist Professor Barry Brook has been studying nuclear power avidly the past year or so, and documents his findings on the price of today's technology here.
    http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/08/23/recent-nuclear-power-cost-estimates-separating-fact-from-myth/

    let alone the enormous benefits of putting smaller, modular 300MW IFR's on the production line and then mass-producing them with world's best standards inspections, putting them on the back of a truck, and delivering them on site. If you order 4 you might even get free fries with that. ;-)

    GE have a plan for a small version that could be produce. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-PRISM

    Don't get me wrong: I love renewables. But for that portion of the grid that just HAS TO be reliable, baseload power, independent of the fickle nature of the weather or less sunlight due to the wrong SEASON, I say we use nukes that can be built cheaper than coal, actually deal with the legacy of nuclear waste left to us from the previous generation's inferior plants. Add electric cars and fast rail to the mix and these could solve global warming, peak oil and nuclear waste in one hit!

  21. China's building GenIV nukes on Harry Reid Pushes Nevada As "Saudi Arabia of Geothermal Energy" · · Score: 1

    They're building 2 BN-800's over the next few years. We know that Integral Fast Reactors eat nuclear waste. We could shut down uranium mining and still run the world for 500 years just burning today's 'waste', which is actually now a $70 trillion dollar resource. Today's nuclear power can also burn nuclear weapons. 10% of American electricity comes from old Soviet nuclear weapons.

    The final IFR waste product burns itself back to safe levels in just 300 years. GE has a plan for the S-PRISM 300 MW reactor which can be cheaply mass-produced on the production line (where one can go to town on inspection standards) and is then delivered to the site off the back of a truck! This smaller reactor is also ideal for smaller 3rd world electricity grids. Want to replace a large coal plant? Just order 5, and you might even get free fries!

    The IFR is the silver bullet that could solve peak oil, global warming, and our nuclear waste problems in one hit. It's taken me 6 years of greenie activism and reading to realise that renewables just can't cut it on their own, and that we need a new approach. This is it, my old arch-enemy, nuclear power! Who woulda thunk it?

  22. Re:Decrease, not increase on Solar Cell Inventor Wins Millennium Prize · · Score: 1

    By supplying the poorer nations of the earth with:
    * all the power they need (Integral Fast reactors that eat nuclear waste and could shut down uranium mining for 500 years while the whole world is powered on nuclear reactors eating the waste),
    * all the fresh water they need (with nuclear power running desal and powering, my favourite, the Seawater Greenhouse),
    * all the nutrition they need (biochar can replenish soils and provide some biofuel energy)
    * all the medical and health care and education and family planning they need
    ... then the populations come down as the demographic transition kicks in.

    So the truth may be the inverse of what you say. In order to decrease our babies, we need to increase our energy use.

  23. That little test tube will NEVER clean up the Gulf on Cloth Successfully Separates Oil From Gulf Water · · Score: 1

    All that oil would never fit in there! It would have to be at least 3 times larger!

  24. Re:Now a credible threat to the west. on North Korea Announces Achieving Nuclear Fusion · · Score: 1
    Whoever you're correcting sure must be a moron! To even go down the 'eugenics' pathway in objecting to discussing overpopulation seems to reveal some kind of extreme political bias and ignorance.

    To solve over-population, we should:-
    1. provide adequate security and nutrition for developing countries.
    2. provide fresh water infrastructure
    3. educate and empower women
    4. provide access to employment and stable economic systems
    5. basically, modernise developing countries with access to modern health and family planning services that we enjoy
    6. provide some basic level of economic security in retirement and old age

    These are the keys to populations stabilising. What's so sinister about that? For more, see... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition

  25. Re:Good on MIT Unveils First Solar Cells Printed On Paper · · Score: 1
    Absolutely, and not only that:-
    * WESTERN oil geologist were in Saudi Arabia surveying oil for decades prior to being kicked out
    * Saudi Arabia's 'discoveries' seem to always correlate exactly to their annual production
    * Resulting in SA having the same reserves they had decades ago, which is highly unlikely given how much they produce daily
    * AND there's the OPEC production rules limiting daily production as a ratio of how much reserves you have. So in the 1980's, when this rule came in, most OPEC countries very suspiciously just happened to 'discover' enough oil to double their reserves overnight. ;-)

    I'm with former Fusion reactor designer Robert Hirsch, when he says:

    ROBERT HIRSCH, CONSULTANT US DEPT OF ENERGY: Basically, what they're asking us to do is to trust them. And, frankly, on something that's the lifeblood of our civilisation and the way we live, to trust somebody who won't allow any audits is extremely risky. I personally don't believe the numbers that are out there.

    http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2006/s1683060.htm

    Oh, and from the same 4 Corners webpage, we learn that SA's former head of exploration says there is a problem as well.

    SADAD AL-HUSSEINI, FORMER DIRECTOR SAUDI ARAMCO: The easy oil has already been produced. The - the remaining reserves, as significant and substantial as they are, are going to be more expensive and gradually more demanding to produce. Therefore the future capacity is slower to come on stream than what it has been the traditional past.
    JONATHAN HOLMES: Sadad Al-Husseini agrees with Robert Hirsch that the time for consuming nations to start worrying is now.
    SADAD AL-HUSSEINI, FORMER DIRECTOR SAUDI ARAMCO: Well, I think in many of the major consuming countries, the leadership has been asleep on the watch. Everybody in the industry realises that oil and gas are the backbone of global economies. Somehow, I guess politicians felt that this was not going to be an issue on their watch, that it was too far into the future, and therefore didn't pay attention to it.

    Saudi Arabia does not allow us to audit them, is promoting 'paper barrels', and yet the Western world trust in them. It will be our undoing. I give us 5 years before rationing starts.