Nuclear is the most promising technology available IMO. It need to do far more than "fill the gaps". The waste issue can be addressed the same way the French and others do. Recycle the hot waste. What's left after the recycling process is very manageable. For some crazy reason it has been a policy to not recycle nuclear waste though. I'm pretty sure that policy came from the Carter administration. Kind of ironic when the hard core left is against recycling. Carter is more of a moron now than ever. He is also an anti-semitic bigot.
We are . . once again . . on the verge of having the opportunity to do some very smart things.
There are amazing opportunities just waiting for the next generations of history changing folks.
If you want to worry about the cost of batteries now . . . imagine how I felt when I bought my $3,500 fax machine or my $2,200 Motorola cell phone. That's when you had to dial the city's "cell system" . . get a local dial tone and then dial the number. I recall the IMTS folks proclaiming cellular as a waste of time. I kept my IMTS for several years and was glad to get the 100# of stuff, including the vacuum tubes, out of my trunk.
We're going to see some of the most amazing things in history.
seriously, conservation is important. So is smart co-generation systems using waste heat, Methane power from organic waste & waste water, and even solar & wind.
But solar, wind, and other methods of gathering energy previously unused by man, have the problem that the sources are diffuse, irregular, and just take up lots of room, money, and have ecological side effects. Take wind, if you absorb half a terawatt from the sea breeze in California, what happens to the downwind ecologies depending on that energy to move heat and moisture? Silly? Figure out that impact statement.
Nukes are the interim way to go, until we have more bio/algae/waste power. The recycling system was already supposed to be built. It's actually the law, they just didn't fund it. All that eeevviiiiil waste? power, riches beyond belief, and fairly easily handled & stored for future use. ( just because you don't need halfnium today, doesn't mean you won't really really want it in 5-19 years. ) The tech is either ready, off the shelf even, or experimental, like the use of neutral particle beams to burn up waste by running it through it's life cycle in minutes, not centuries. Oh, and making more power off that than it takes.
Can be done, must be done, or, following the current trends in political pseudoscience give you a dark, poor life, with people trying to manipulate you through guilt and fear.
Sure, any bozo that has a long commute is a fool. ( 15 miles one way, for me ) You want me to live in a city? You want to control lives like that? Bite me. If you want to spend 3-4 hours a day commuting, that's your CHOICE. It's worth it to me to be where they dont't kill a neighbor more than weekly. It's worth it to see stars. Cities are mass death on a platter. Very few cities are more than days away from the horseman. They are utterly dependent on power, and transport for food, waste & water. ( so am I, but I don't riot when the power goes out, and can still feed myself for a week if I can't leave the driveway. )
Also, What if, just to make my neighbors happy, & be friendly, I had a party, left on 2 tv's, all the lights, and music, while I BBQ'd for folk etc. Should I be denied occasional more than normal uses of power? Green Police bad. Just see the Audi ad.
Next you'll tell me I can't have a happy meal toy, because some busybidy a--hole says so.
The real funny thing (sad pathetic funny, not ha-ha) is that you cant truly go off the grid if you wanted to. Think about it, you cant just build a cabin on a plot of land (ownership paperwork, septic, county inspection) you can get by without power, phone, road access.
but the great American squatters homestead cabin is never more (at least in Washington state)
City... if I recall correctly the "40 acres and a mule" program is still alive and well in Alaska, the federal program is gone but the state implemented something similar. Manage to stay there five years and its all yours.
Funny how that reminds me of George Bernard Shaw, who thought people should be brought before a board and asked to justify their existence. If you weren't a contributing member of society, why should we support you? GBS also wanted a perfect painless poison gas to ease the useless from our world, humanely, without guilt on the part of the elite. ( not that he felt guilt about killing useless people )
Funny how now, that attitude of the same people who were big into Eugenics, is, the more dependent, the more votes for the givers of "entitlements".
In candid moments, if they admit to their former love of population control, by force if need be, they complain that Hitler messed up a great idea. Mostly they deny any connection with a now unpopular philosophy.
But, I'm being picky. Slaughter is right. If we conserve, and stop the useless from having children, the crisis goes away.
Do we keep enough of the lesser breeds to be our servants? Or is it wiser to eliminate them altogether, as a drain on our precious resources? Ah, the tough decisions of the ruling class. Of course, others have had these thoughts.
(from wiki )The Nazis were responsible for The Holocaust, the killing of approximately six million Jews (overwhelmingly Ashkenazim), as well as two million ethnic Poles and four million others who were deemed "unworthy of life" (including the disabled and mentally ill, Soviet POWs, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Romani) as part of a programme of deliberate extermination.
Current think seems to be to reduce the number of annoying former American Workers, and import fresh, cheap, illegal home help, that you can more easily exploit with threats. It helps if you deny any Bourgeois "ethics" and go with the "by any means neccessary" lifestyle.
What should be the penalty for an incandescent bulb? Eating fries with transfats and ( shudder ) Salt? Zyklon B?
But, I'm being picky. Slaughter is right. If we conserve, and stop the useless from having children, the crisis goes away.
If we just stopped handing out all the free food and medical care, the problem would eventually solve itself.
Natural selection. Surely the godless heathens among us can appreciate this? It's evolution, Darwinism, the little Jesus fish being eaten by the larger, stronger one with feet.
Wait, are the evolutionists and the fliberal hippies one and the same? How do they reconcile one with the other? It's ok for animals, but not for me? Wait, I thought we were all the same as animals... but animals eat each other, so perhaps we should eat each other... but eating meat is wrong... I worship the Earth Mother, but don't follow in her ways.
Liberal hippies are the most hypocritacal bigotted narrow minded sobs you ever dare meet. I know both of my parentals were worthless lumps of anti establishment miscreant bags of flesh and mostly water. some where there is a large mountain lion missing a good meal.
Think about it, you cant just build a cabin on a plot of land (ownership paperwork, septic, county inspection) you can get by without power, phone, road access.
There's not that many places you can still do that. At least not legally. Cant get an occupancy permit without power. And they damn well better not find you hording any happy meals.
But if there is no road, inspectors are to lazy to walk to the house. Hell, there are a lot of inspectors are to lazy to walk the 10 feet from the truck to the front door, let alone inspect the entire house.
The best is the septic system at my dads house. It should have 75ft of of drainage. The inspector could drive the truck to the ditch and visually estimate the distance and if was close pass the system. Well, when we finally had problems and investigated the draining size, the pipe was 26 ft long. WTF, I guess the excuse is the tape measure only goes up to 25 ft.
Every time the inspectors come around I tell them get the F off or provide me with the name of the Inspector that approved the 24" center 2x4 support wall framing of my house. The good old boy network is going to bite that guy in the A.
yes its a cesspool, and the neighborhood is crime ridden, poverty stricken; but you do have water front access And your neighbor is the one that has been handling all of your banking and customer service for years; you are already 'home' Trust a Realitor
Yeah, it's true, the Bush's had a hand in this shameless exploitation of children.
I also read in National Geo (or Smithsonian, I ferget..) that when the children get bored, and go play elsewhere, the adults run the thing. Argue about the funding to give these things away all you want. If it works, and saves lives & labor, I like it. There are critics. The Wiki article mentions some.
It looks like a Good Thing to use ones mind and use technology to solve our problems. That's what it's for, after all. I just wish I could claim it as a triumph of American society & Smarts. I can't, because the inventor is S. African.
And, as usual, feel free to have a better idea. Please.
I'll have to mention playpumps to a few summer camp admins. Build character, mind & body, eh? Not to mention the energy savings.
We'll need that to charge the cars.
( I was mocking Eugenics. It's a wonderful progressive idea that showed it's base flaws back in the 30's and 40's. Pity it is so seductive. )
Buelkowski, playpumps seem like a Mother Earth News, classical Hippie idea to me. Is that the New Conservative? Cool, I may like that. I rather like the "leave us alone to do own thing" ethic.
our local 'correctional facility' because you cant call them prisons, has human powered TVs, if you want to watch tv, you gotta pedal to make the thing work. ala Gilligans Island
and actually I wouldnt mind a merrygo round out by the cabin to get water and a life cycle inside to generate the power I need (which if I am living off grid is minimal)
I'm amazed there aren't "green" health clubs where the exercise equipment generates electricity to help run the health club. Even it the real benefit is almost zero, I would expect a lot of people would flock to use that sort of health club. If the idea really works then it would be even more successful.
I'm amazed there aren't "green" health clubs where the exercise equipment generates electricity to help run the health club.
I am not sure if this was meant to be tongue-in-cheek or not, but it could actually be a very good idea. Generators make good resistance units, and would be especially easy to adapt to treadmills, stair-climbers, and stationary bikes.
Can I get a couple people on the treadmills...I want to use the jacuzzi
Buellkowski The reason manual pumps are provided is its the only pump that is still working 3 months after installation. Lutheran World Relief has been building wells all over africa for over 100 years. LOW TECH is the best tech there engine driven and or solar battery electric pumps will not be maintained by the locals. Unless you have some one that does it for them maintainence will not be done. When larger systems are installed guards must be present 24 /7 to keep the plant from being sold for scrap or just plain stolen. As for your picture of the water front. They messed it up because they do not care about themselves. looks like any major liberal progressive run city in the U.S.
Posted on Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - 08:42 am:
Remember the recent News story where China was stopping export of their "Rare Earth" ? It's the mined raw material of these batteries used in electronics and electric vehicles. Well there's a couple deposits that are, or have been untapped here in the US, one I believe they said, in the Colorado area, and the other I believe in the four-corners area..... unimportant where, but never the less we have some 'Rare Earth' deposits too.
I think I'd be watching 'public offerings' in these areas in the stock markets, as solar and wind still need a storage facility to hold the unused power in, while the wind or sun is not available. Were all going to see these electric vehicles come into wide-scale use, after all, their talking of the recent legislation forcing big trucking to increase MPG and so on, thus making short haul electric powered trucks viable. Change is on the horizon I believe. And while this 59 year old fart is content with internal combustion, our days at some point will be numbered, same as Harleys.......
