OT: The Power Grid Will Fail within 36 Months

inches.

The contractor probably used coarse sand (or crushed granite) to aid drainage. When I was a kid in WV, we had constant water in the basement problems until we laid in drainage pipes from the hillside to the street.

Good air circulation is all that is needed for Radon problems. Back in the early '80's I did a Radon detector design (with tutelage from ASU scientists). I think they are now as easy to obtain as smoke detectors. ...Jim Thompson

Obama, or somebody, ran Obama's presidential campaign very well. It was well financed and very disciplined internally. That fooled me into thinking he could at least manage. He can't. He has surrounded himself with erratic amateurs whose actions are often not just disorganized, but bizarre. O himself seems to be distant, egotistical, and lazy.

A recent poll has W about even with O on popularity.

Two big mistakes in recent history: Electing Clinton over Bush 1, and electing O over McCain.

John

I never understood how borrowing money and giving it to people to buy Chinese crap will help the economy. Or, more generally, how we can consume our way to prosperity. If "consumer spending drives the economy" the people in Zimbabwe would become wealthy if they'd just buy more wide-screen TVs and lawn furniture.

Remember the old SNL bit, the international appeal for fondue forks for some impoverished African country?

John

"Radon is the number one cause of lung cancer among non-smokers, according to EPA estimates. Overall, radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer. Radon is responsible for about 21,000 lung cancer deaths every year. About 2,900 of these deaths occur among people who have never smoked. On January 13, 2005, Dr. Richard H. Carmona, the U.S. Surgeon General, issued a national health advisory on radon. Read a study by Dr. William Field on radon-related lung cancer in women at

Car accidents kill about 43K. Interesting how radon preferentially kills smokers.

John

They are available, but most all are from one company, and over $100. Might be your design.

In the old house up against a hill, there was always a water problem. In my new old house, 1953, my front gutter drain pipe broke loose, and water formed a small puddle in the basement. I have since sealed the cracks, and improved the drainage outside, and fixed that pipe. My house had funny things, like unsufficient main beams, cracking foundation. I saw repaired cracks on the orginal construction, from pictures. The front of the house is now filled in with dirt, since it was built.

Funny thing, someone of a relative who first bought the house gave me pictures of it before the land was filled in. They did not have water feed to the house, no gas, and had a coal furnace. I got all the good stuff now.

greg

I sent emails to the EPA groups. The people at Kansas University are forming a awareness campaign. Little is found on web searches of when to test for radon. Most people seem to care less about radon, except some get fussy when it comes time to buy a new or used home.

greg

But you still need to spend the money or effort to get the fuel to your home.

Where overall efficiency is concerned, the electric heat pump wins. The 50 % loss to make the electricity is regained with the 3-4 x COP of a heat pump.

tm

As I understand it, the lethality of radon isn't (primarily at least) from the radon itself (which is a noble gas). Rather, the radon decays through a chain of steps which involve other elements such as polonium, lead, and bismuth... all of these can form into, or attach themselves to microscopic solid particles in the air. If inhaled, these solid particles can deposit themselves in the lungs.

One of the effects of tobacco smoking, is a substantial reduction in the rate at which the body can remove particles from the lungs... the smoke tends to paralyze or kill the bronchial cilia.

As a result of smoking, the lungs are exposed to the radioactive "daughter isotopes" of the radon for a longer period of time, and the lung tissues thus receive more radioactive exposure when these daughters undergo fission.

I would assume that smokers of other substances (e.g. marijuana), and people suffering from any sort of disease which reduces the rate of particle clearance from the bronchial tubes, would also be more susceptible to the risks from radon daughter isotopes.

THAT is what is astonishing.

The problem with heat pumps is that they don't work when you need them. ...and when they do they circulate cold air ("a forced cold air system").

some get

That's easy to explain. Someone else is paying for remediation. BTDT.

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Accumulated exposure.

Can't argue with that. They're ok in the south for the chilly nights but suck north of Virginia.

tm

He passed that when he was conceived.

I'm in Alabama, and they still suck. Well, they actually blow - cold air.

ns

math/

You didn't understand it because...it doesn't work, and it doesn't make sense. Otherwise Newt would be exactly right--the Treasury could dump its money into food stamps, get 82% return in three months, etc.

It constantly surprises me how many people don't know about these common traps and why they're bogus. Like Pelosi pouncing on Newt's criticism thinking she's proving *him* wrong, when she's just putting her foot in it even deeper.

And I was disappointed in Newt for just poking fun at Pelosi, giving an example that makes her look ridiculous to those who understand, but which flies way over her pointy little head. These things need to be explained, to the People, and to Pelosi. Newt missed an opportunity to do that.

ISTM 80% of the disagreements on how to help the most Americans in America arise with people who can't do the cost-benefit calculation; they want infinite benefits, and don't understand/consider the cost. E.g. Pelosi, e.g. Obama, destroying jobs on a massive scale. That's why we're still in a recession.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

I've got a physicist pal whose job is estimating the health effects of radiation on people. He thinks the radon risk is greatly exaggerated / bogus. It's based on the idea that if dose X kills 100% of people exposed, then X/1e6 will kill 1ppm of those exposed x 50 million exposed =3D 50 excess deaths.

That's not how it works though, he says. There's a threshold to the function, below which you're not harmed, plus, very low levels of radiation (e.g. background levels) stimulate repair mechanisms, and likely even "rad harden" you.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Disagree a little. We're in a recession because our manufacturing base had been degrading for 30 years or so, and because the rest of the world has learned to make stuff and sell it to us, and because our society supports so many over-paid parasites. Part of the degradation is because of the hostility of government and unions to business, and the resulting costs. The last financial bubble just disguised the long-term downward trend... for a while.

There's no quick fix for this. The time constant for industrialization is longer than the one for de-industrialization; you can burn down a factory a lot quicker than you can build one. It would take a generation or two to fix things if (*IF*) policy were turned around now. As it is, government policy is pushing, if anything, harder in the wrong direction. Even the unions are a little smarter than the Democrats, at least the private-sector ones.

John

Nah - you just hock it all up in the morning, and the cigarette smoke residue rinses the truly toxic crap out. ;-)

Cheers! Rich