That's a remarkable statement, "it doesn't matter that production is inefficient."
I guess that gets back to the concept that "sunlight is free."
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing laser drivers and controllers jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Talk about "inefficient"!
How many MILLIONS OF YEARS did the fossil fuels that you are so fond of take to produce?
If the Aussies want to Save The Earth, they can quit selling hundreds of megatons of coal per year to Asia and Europe. Given the coal exports, solar in Australia is a cynical joke.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing laser drivers and controllers jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Sounds depressing, all that sunlight.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing laser drivers and controllers jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Uranium took even longer to make!
The oil and gas and coal are there now. And I'm grateful for whatever made them. Fossil fuels make civilization and technology possible, and are the only hope for lifting billions of people out of poverty and hunger.
It would be profoundly immoral to condem billions of adults and children to misery to, on wild conjecture, hold down the temperature a couple of degrees F.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing laser drivers and controllers jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
I hear that they are now considering above ground storage in Truckee, CA.
It's a bit funny really. Those who appear to believe all the technology problems with green energy generation are impractical to solve also seem to have complete confidence that future generations will find an easy solution to the issues of dealing with nuclear waste. Lol. I guess it is a lot easier when it is your great-great-great-great-grandchildren who will be expected to solve the problem.
-- Rick
Here we are a bit more remote than most people. My mailperson doesn't deliver packages too large for the mailbox because it is more than a 0.5 mile drive to the house. So we have to drive 15 miles to the PO. However my neighbor uses a larger wheeled version of a golf cart to drive up to his mailbox. I don't know if it is electric or propane.
Everything else is much too far away to walk and the larger vehicles on the road make anything too small too unsafe.
If I could get even just 150 mile range, I wouldn't mind having an electric car. The leaf is just a city car though and most of the hybrids don't plug in. Then there is the huge price of many like the Tesla. I can't afford a $75,000 car.
-- Rick
Actually, it's delightful! Having lived in places where it "got overcast" in *October* and "cleared up" in *May* (and was dreary and wet and cold for most of that time), I like the fact that I can see the stars *every* night, meteor showers every month or three, a walk under clear skies just a few hours after a "torrential downpour", *never* having to wear a jacket or raincoat, (well, I *do* on the 5-7 *NIGHTS* per year where temps drop below 30F and I am outside misting down the trees -- a fine mist of water blowing on you at 30F is a bit chilly without an outer garment) etc.
The one time I saw *fog* (here) I mistook it for smoke from a wildfire: "Gee, but it doesn't *smell* like smoke! Oh, yeah! It's *fog*!!!"
e >most people pay for electricity is the cost of transporting it to their homes.
If solar is already cheaper, then people will use it. But as far as I can tell the only places it is already cheaper are niche applications. You are welcome to list the applications where it is cheaper.
d mean that it was the cheapest source. Germany halved the price a few year s ago by ramping up manufacturing capacity by a factor of ten, and China di d the same thing again more recently, and there's room to halve the price y et again by the same trick.
If it is possible, then someone will do it. But that is not what is avail able now. Wake me when it has happened. What could be done is not the sa me as what has been done.
- and it's already obvious enough to worry anybody less complacent than Joh n Larkin - there will be an even more significant pressure to stop boosting the CO2 level in the atmosphere by burning fossil carbon as fuel.
So let me know when that happens. I am with John Larkin. When it is feasi ble it will happen. But it is not feasible now. Meanwhile we have about 2
00 years to develop better technology.Dan
The sun wasn't created last week, either.
Yet that's *exactly* what the lefties demand. You see it over and over (DDT, anyone?). They don't care about *anyone* else, as long as they have their lattes.
The extreme greenies consider humans to be an evil parasite on Mother Earth. Some of their proposals are essentially for mass genocide.
They should set an example and drive their cars off cliffs.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
So, you're advocating only using things that can be produced *instantly*? Or, that you can get "for free" -- reaping what came before and passing the costs along to YOUR kids?
That's where your short-sightedness shows. The *only* hope? I guess you have little faith in technology. And, assume that the "billions" won't turn into BILLIONS MORE (what lifts
*them-to-be* out of poverty and hunger?)
It's "wild conjecture" to claim that a man called "Christ" was *the* "son of God", "one of The Trinity", "savior", "died and AROSE on the third day", etc. Yet a HUGE portion of the planet believes some version of this fairy tale. *AND*, (allegedly) lives their lives by that belief set.
Do we get to *vote* on what's real and what's not? All in favor of "Gravity", respond "Aye"...
The "right wing whack-jobs" (showing the same disdain for "The Right" as those present seem to enjoy showing towards "The Left") would be denying The Flood even as the waters were rising over their heads! Because it was inconvenient for their belief system ("This beachfront property is worth millions!" "Um, but there won't BE any more beach!")
[OTOH, I've been told that "lefties" are raised as wild, impolite, self-indulgent, etc. while "righties" are prim, proper, polite, etc. Makes me wonder where the REAL truth lies!]
Sleeping through the crisis isn't as productive as other ways of dealing with it. Do you WANT a carbon tax to go into force while you doze?
Restate that in a sensible way and I'll respond.
Prosperity and education demonstrably reduce birth rates.
Now you're raving.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
There's that reliable disdain for those having different opinions! Good, polite, "rightie", eh?? One minute preaching about how we have to help the "billions of (poor/hungry)"; the next minute, claiming the folks who *also* have "good intentions" should kill themselves.
Believe what is convenient for you. It's your kids who'll decide whether you were right or wrong. Maybe they'll not realize your role (or lack thereof) in their "condition" (whatever it may be).
Or, maybe they'll look back and see a "selfish" generation and lump you in with it.
[I have no kids. And, not having met yours (?), can't really concern myself with their future attitude(s) or where they lay the blame for the woes of *their* time! I just try to make *my* time "a little bit better" (hence the volunteer hours, involvement with neighbors, recycling efforts, water harvesting, etc.)]
Starting with Slowman.
There's a few thousand years of energy easily available, around. Some fuels may only have a couple of hundred years of *easy* pickings but we've done pretty well reducing the cost of picking over the last fifty years. You do know that the Sun will burn out some day?
Larkin is right. You want to kill them all. ...except you and your mommy. Maybe.
You can certainly vote on anything you please but the rest of the world doesn't give a damn about you.
You really are a moron. OK, we got it. No more need to repeat it.
It ain't on Obama's side of the line, that's for sure. Have some more, "like your doctor?" "You can keep him" and shut up.
Two places.
Exactly. Slowman is an idiot. Ignore him.
DB: [packaging energy into transportable forms -- inherently inefficient]
JL: That's a remarkable statement, "it doesn't matter that production is inefficient."
DY: [fossil fuels are inefficient:] "millions of years to produce" [yet, JL seems to think THAT is OK! But packaging energy for transport is seemingly NOT? Because it is inefficient??]
So, what are you advocating? Only things that can be done "efficiently"? (whatever that means) So, if we ignore the cost of PRODUCING the fossil fuels in the first place, then we can magically consider THEM to be "efficient"? Then, why can't we ignore the cost of packaging the energy for transport?
Ah, I see... because *we* have to bear that cost instead of just reaping the rewards from millions of years of prehistory! So, it's not "efficiency" that you're concerned with but, rather *your* out-of-pocket expenses/lifestyle impact, etc. It's not the cost of the meal that you're concerned with (lobster vs. hamburgers) but, rather, whether or not *you* have to PAY FOR IT that is important! Eh?
So, you are willing to condemn those billions to reduced family sizes? Restrict their "god given" right to reproduce?? "You can screw all you want -- but you can't conceive (because if you conceived, we'd have to ABORT it -- the goal being for you NOT to produce more than N offspring... your "quota". But, we won't call that "rationing" or bring up terms analagous to "death panels", etc.)
Perhaps now you understand how many of *your* comments and many of "the right" are regarded! :> Note that my statement actually reflects *fact*! OTOH, all of the examples below appear to be incorrect or deliberate falsehoods:
"As I understand it, the body has a way of shedding that unwanted pregnancy (from rape)..."
"We're a Christian nation..." (really? Where is "Christ" mentioned in the documents of the founding fathers?)
"There's *NO* evidence that AGW exists..." (all those scientists that claim otherwise don't count)
"Life begins at conception" (by *whose* definition?)
"Sadam Hussein sponsored/faciliated Osama bin Laden's enterprises..."
"Iran has WMD's (and they're going to destabilize the entire region)..."
etc.
-Lasse
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