Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
I agree. Please read "Eaarth". Check it out from your local library, or buy it and pass it along to someone."Read it, please. Straight through to the end. Whatever else you were planning to do next, nothing could be more important." —Barbara Kingsolver
1. You request simply defies the conservative principal.NeilBlanchard wrote:Open your mind.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/autho ... olini.htmlBennito Musslini wrote:Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.
Environmental concern is not a monopoly of the far left, though they would like to have it that way, because the far left/green movements' environmental platform really is a front for a more perverse, sinister social agenda that is anti-family, anti-worker, anti-econonic growth, anti-national sovereignty.. They couldn't care less if the whole country went out of work and families drank tap water and ate water biscuits everyday so as long as "their environment" gets "protected" from "harm" and they get to implement their perverted policies.judge56988 wrote:Caring about the environment is not restricted to left wing anti globalisation anti capitalists. Don't stereotype all the people who are not left wing.aristide1 wrote:
1. You request simply defies the conservative principal.
Same goes for being open minded.
Sounds very expensive, complicated, and slow to implement? Whats wrong with land-based solar? We can implement storage systems, and/or overlap with wind, geothermal, methane digesters, wave power, tidal power, small scale hydro, biomass -- a varied mix for the needs and resources of various locations. One big "silver bullet" answer is not going to be possible, nor would it really be desirable.The common flaw I saw in both books is neither author even mentioned space based solar power with microwave transmission of power back to earth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power as mentioned in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_F ... s_in_Space by Gerard K. O'Neill
Have you been exposed much to US republicans? Perhaps I should have stated them, as they do not practice conservatism anymore.judge56988 wrote:Caring about the environment is not restricted to left wing anti globalisation anti capitalists. Don't stereotype all the people who are not left wing.aristide1 wrote:
1. You request simply defies the conservative principal.
Same goes for being open minded.
Land based solar is great. I hope to have it on my roof in the next few years. And variety is good. I don't want all our eggs in one basket but I do want to get off coal and all the tar sand and coal liquification type solutions that would send insane amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.NeilBlanchard wrote:Sounds very expensive, complicated, and slow to implement? Whats wrong with land-based solar? We can implement storage systems, and/or overlap with wind, geothermal, methane digesters, wave power, tidal power, small scale hydro, biomass -- a varied mix for the needs and resources of various locations. One big "silver bullet" answer is not going to be possible, nor would it really be desirable.The common flaw I saw in both books is neither author even mentioned space based solar power with microwave transmission of power back to earth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power as mentioned in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_F ... s_in_Space by Gerard K. O'Neill
8 times the solar intensity * 24/5 is about 40 times the power gross and even if half the energy is lost in transmission/conversion you still end up with 15-20 times as much energy per cell from space based solar plants....If solar cells at Earth's surface were to be used to supply all our electric power, we would have to cover about forty times as much area, or about 8 percent of the continental United States, with opaque solar arrays. [his math was done assuming efficiency of about 16% for ground based cells and 80% for space based cells. Efficiency for both would be higher now] ... The average over a year of solar energy intensity in the United States is only an eighth as much as in space.
If you are refering to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_F ... s_in_Space by Gerard K. O'Neill as fiction you are badly mistaken.Fayd wrote:people shouldn't be taking their ideas for power from science fiction books. that's just fucking retarded.
The man didn't write that book for leisure reading. He wrote it as part of a serious effort to educate and spur businesses to develop industry in space.Gerard Kitchen O'Neill (February 6, 1927 – April 27, 1992) was an American physicist and space activist. As a faculty member of Princeton University, he invented a device called the particle storage ring for high-energy physics experiments. Later, he invented a magnetic launcher called the mass driver.[1] In the 1970s, he developed a plan to build human settlements in outer space, including a space habitat design known as the O'Neill cylinder. He founded the Space Studies Institute, an organization devoted to funding research into space manufacturing and colonization.
O'Neill began researching high-energy particle physics at Princeton in 1954 after he received his doctorate from Cornell University. Two years later, he published his theory for a particle storage ring. This invention allowed particle physics experiments at much higher energies than had previously been possible. In 1965 at Stanford University, he performed the first colliding beam physics experiment.[2]
While teaching physics at Princeton, O'Neill became interested in the possibility that humans could live in outer space. He researched and proposed a futuristic idea for human settlement in space, the O'Neill cylinder, in "The Colonization of Space", his first paper on the subject. He held a conference on space manufacturing at Princeton in 1975. Many who became post-Apollo-era space activists attended. O'Neill built his first mass driver prototype with professor Henry Kolm in 1976. He considered mass drivers critical for extracting the mineral resources of the Moon and asteroids. His award-winning book The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space inspired a generation of space exploration advocates.
...
He applied to the Astronaut Corps after NASA opened it up to civilian scientists in 1966. Later, when asked why he wanted to go on the Moon missions, he said, "to be alive now and not take part in it seemed terribly myopic".[5] He was put through NASA's rigorous mental and physical examinations.
NASA studies (1975–1977)
O'Neill held a much larger conference the following May titled Princeton University Conference on Space Manufacturing.[36] At this conference more than two dozen speakers presented papers, including Keith and Carolyn Henson from Tucson, Arizona.[37][38]
After the conference Carolyn Henson arranged a meeting between O'Neill and Arizona Congressman Morris Udall. Udall wrote a letter of support, which he asked the Hensons to publicize, for O'Neill's work.[37] The Hensons included his letter in the first issue of the L-5 Society newsletter, sent to everyone on O'Neill's mailing list and those who had signed up at the conference.[37][39]
...
In June 1975, O'Neill led a ten-week study of permanent space habitats at NASA Ames. During the study he was called away to testify on July 23 to the House Subcommittee on Space Science and Applications.[40] On January 19, 1976, he also appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Aerospace Technology and National Needs. In a presentation titled Solar Power from Satellites, he laid out his case for an Apollo-style program for building power plants in space.[41] He returned to Ames in June 1976 and 1977 to lead studies on space manufacturing.[42] In these studies, NASA developed detailed plans to establish bases on the Moon where space-suited workers would mine the mineral resources needed to build space colonies and solar power satellites.[43]
...
Private funding (1977–1978)
Although NASA was supporting his work with grants of up to $500,000 per year, O'Neill became frustrated by the bureaucracy and politics inherent in government funded research.[3][22] He thought that small privately funded groups could develop space technology faster than government agencies.[2] In 1977, O'Neill and his wife Tasha founded the Space Studies Institute, a non-profit organization, at Princeton University.[6][44] SSI received initial funding of almost $100,000 from private donors, and in early 1978 began to support basic research into technologies needed for space manufacturing and settlement.[45]
I mean you'd have to be ignorant to not know that we use satellites on a daily basis that were placed just as described by a science fiction writer.most important scientific contribution may be his idea that geostationary satellites would be ideal telecommunications relays. He described this concept in a paper titled Extra-Terrestrial Relays — Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?, published in Wireless World in October 1945.[80] The geostationary orbit is now sometimes known as the Clarke Orbit or the Clarke Belt in his honour.[81][82]
three-mile island is an example of a safety system that functioned as planned when the worst happened.NeilBlanchard wrote:Three Mile Island nearly melted down -- all too real. Nuclear is way too expensive. All the plants being built now (all over the world) are way over budget. The same money spent on wind would be a lot more productive.
We need to mimic the principle of what they are already doing in Germany with renewable energy. Mixed sources, and mixed locations, some storage, and smarter grid management. It ain't rocket science and it is doable right now.
It isn't perfect, but it is a lot better than spewing carbon dioxide. Greenhouse gases are pollutants, too.
In general you are correct that past costs haven't favored wind. In the future it is expected to be cheaper than Nuclear in some areas. It all depends on where you compare wind vs nuclear.Fayd wrote:three-mile island is an example of a safety system that functioned as planned when the worst happened.NeilBlanchard wrote:Three Mile Island nearly melted down -- all too real. Nuclear is way too expensive. All the plants being built now (all over the world) are way over budget. The same money spent on wind would be a lot more productive.
We need to mimic the principle of what they are already doing in Germany with renewable energy. Mixed sources, and mixed locations, some storage, and smarter grid management. It ain't rocket science and it is doable right now.
It isn't perfect, but it is a lot better than spewing carbon dioxide. Greenhouse gases are pollutants, too.
your idea that somehow a meltdown is gonna trigger some massive explosion or breach of containment is ridiculous.
and you're absolutely batshit insane if you think wind power is cheaper than nuclear.
a poison or an asphyxiant does not make a pollutant. how dumb are you? is argon a pollutant?NeilBlanchard wrote:We are alive because of greenhouse gasses -- and ~43% percent increase of carbon dioxide (one of the main GHG) in just 150 years, when we sat at 275PPM for 10,000 years is a substantial increase.
Try breathing carbon dioxide some day and tell me that it isn't a pollutant. ANYTHING can be a pollutant if there is too much of it.
Do you have any idea how powerful the strong force is? Do you know how much matter was expended in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs?
ONE GRAM.
It incinerated entire cities with one gram of matter. A little containment dome doesn't stand a chance. It had started to melt down, and we are damn lucky it didn't.
Check out the costs of a modern nuclear plant -- they run into the many billions of dollars, and they run way over budget and take a long long time to build.
And they have yet to figure out how to get Murphy to retract his law. The risks of a nuclear power plant are great. Nobody died from a wind spill...
Be careful with your invectives sir/madam -- someone might take them personally. One might also be wondering if you are afraid of losing the argument, and start name calling/insults as a result?
Neil, why waste your time even responding to his/her posts?NeilBlanchard wrote: Be careful with your invectives sir/madam -- someone might take them personally. One might also be wondering if you are afraid of losing the argument, and start name calling/insults as a result?
if one were so inclined, they could easily figure out who i am.judge56988 wrote:Neil, why waste your time even responding to his/her posts?NeilBlanchard wrote: Be careful with your invectives sir/madam -- someone might take them personally. One might also be wondering if you are afraid of losing the argument, and start name calling/insults as a result?
If ignorant fuckwits were ignored they might just go away.
It's amazing how brave an anonymous person in a forum can be - I wonder if Fayd would have the bottle to say anything like that to your face?
It's no wonder why the green/climate change movement is more accurately called the watermelon movement.AZBrandon wrote:The easiest way to live green is to be poor. Consuming resources takes money, so the only way to truly reduce the usage of resources is to make everybody poor. The more poor, the lower the resource usage. This is proved by the UN statistics of per-capita income versus per-capita resource usage. In case anybody ever wondered why socialism and the environmentalism movement are so closely aligned, it's because socialism makes the whole country poor, and a poor country has a smaller carbon footprint than a wealthy one.
I'd never heard that expression before, but here in the states there is a small but statistically significant movement towards growing your own produce and the emergence of local farmers markets. It attracts all types though - there's some ultra-conservative types who are very big on growing your own food because it fits well with a conservative agenda? How you ask?Shamgar wrote:It's no wonder why the green/climate change movement is more accurately called the watermelon movement.
Carbon taxes, green taxes, emissions trading schemes are just statist slush funds.
I thought it was cool to be honest, when I first saw a group advertising home produce production as a conservative movement, when up to this point a lot of people associate that with leftist movements. I'm encouraged because I see it as opportunity for the country to unite and move towards common goals (healthy, affordable, locally produced food) regardless of what inspired you to do so. It's hard to go wrong with planting and harvesting your own food.Why Is a Seed Bank So Necessary?
As the world wide government agenda goes forward, one of the next things to be hit will be our food supply. The reason is simple. The government now owns our houses (by bailing out the banks), they have stopped our freedom to travel (by hiking up gas prices, and new "security" measures) and now they want to control our food, where we live, go to school, work, eat, and sleep.
more graphs and text at http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6890Gail the actuary wrote:Wind energy is the tiny dark green line that is visible only in recent years, just above the line I call "wood and ethanol" on the chart. (It is called "biomass" in the EIA report it comes from.) The "wood and ethanol" line does not rise very quickly either.
Other ways of measuring the rise in wind energy would give a little more favorable picture. For example, the percentage would be a little higher, if we looked only at electricity, or the amount of energy were measured differently from the way the EIA does it. But no matter how one measures it, it is not coming close to replacing fossil fuels.
The thick black line at the top is US energy consumption, and the difference between US consumption and US production is imports.
...
...
...
The second problem is that energy transitions take decades, or longer. We first started using coal before 1800, but use did not scale up to a high level until 1910, over 100 years later. Natural gas use began by 1890, but it was not until 1970 that it reached 2.2% of world energy supply.
Well, to be fair, more than a few people have died erecting and maintaining windmills. Here are some links:NeilBlanchard wrote:
And they have yet to figure out how to get Murphy to retract his law. The risks of a nuclear power plant are great. Nobody died from a wind spill...
