5/15 Estimated 260 hours of CA blackouts this summer. This will be fun.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20010515/ts/utilities_summer_dc_1.html
\_ Please help conserve! (Yeah, I know demand is not the only cause of
the problem, but still.)
\_ conservation is the only thing *we* can do *now*. There's
nothing else we can do about the power crisis to help the
supply -- certainly we the consumers can't generate our own
power on a significant scale.
\_ we should all invest in solar panels and bicycle-power generators
\_ just like Gilligan's Island!
\_ 'cept we've got H07 42N CH1X!
\_ anyone know if using fresnel lenses to focus intense sunlight would
be more or less efficient than just having the equivalent area of
photovoltaics?
\_ Why would you want to be efficient? Efficiency is bad. It's a
commie liberal thing and is bad for our economy. Wasteful and
inefficient is good.
\_ Huh? This is really out of left field. Maybe you can
explain for the slow stupid people like me wtf you're trying
to say?
\_ Nice try at trolling. No one, not even VP Cheney suggests
that conservation is bad, the problem is that conservation
in not enough. Its not nearly enough to solve the problem.
The only possibilities are increase supply or drastically
reduce demand. Conservation only reduces demand by a small
amount, to drastically reduce demand we basically need to
undo the entire 20th century and all the progress of modern
civilization. Most californians are not ready for that, thus
the only reasonably long term alternative is to build more
powerplants, preferably nuclear (lower cost of maintenance
over its lifetime, more power per dollar spent on construction
and maintenance, better for the environment).
\_ he didn't say it was bad, but he didn't push it
when he easily could have. actually you know what,
i think he did say conservation was bad. lame
\_ Bullshit. People drive SUV's. we have cars which
are 3x more efficient. Same with most other things.
We can't get a factor of two, but we can get
30%, which is enough to vanish the current crisis.
\_ how does driving SUV's affect the supply of the
electric power grid? You want to argue against
cars, argue against the electric ones.
\_ It's like this. To me, imperceptibly higher risk
of dying in a nuclear accident is worth more than
shivering without heaters, fainting from lack of
AC, and going without lights. This
'convervation' bullshit sounds like Russia, where
they regularly turned off hot water, gas, and
other niceties of modern civilization. You don't
want to end up like Russia, learn from their
mistakes. Don't trust dodos like Davis to run
your economic machine for you, let businesses do
it.
\_ Uh thats what got us into this mess.
Businesses reducing supply to game the market
and drive prices up.
\_ Once again, you are full of shit.
\_ How so? Despite the very large start-up cost,
nuclear is cheap power. It's also cleaner than
coal, even if you only consider radiation
dosage per capita - unlike fossil fuels where
any radiactive material in the fuel goes out
the smokestack with the smoke, nuclear is
self-contained. If you worry about where to
dump spent fuel, there are any number of
schemes to do it cleanly. The most notable is
to just dump it in a subduction zone. Rads end
up in the earth's core. No Prob.
\_ Yeah, I am a tree hugger but I like nuclear
too. However, I disagree with the conservation
bit. You need to plan and invest in
conservation early, not when you run into
an energy crisis. I thought I read that a
report by scientists also vouched for
very significant savings from conservation.
\_ Nuclear has huge dangers because it still isn't
understood, and a single failure (at the plant,
from an earthquake, or a transport trailer
getting in a car accident... whatever) can be
totally disasterous and have long-term costs
and damage 100's of times higher than any coal
plant could even begin to have. The url below
is actually mostly pro-nuclear, but there are the
anti-nuclear sentiments as well. It shows that
issue is complicated and requires lots of
discretion, but might also be the best thing
that we've got.
\_ Are you sure? Even scientists feel that
they cannot fully predict what dire
consequences global warming may have, and coal
plants contribute to global warming.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews
\_ How about geothermal?
\_ Too few sources, and the tree-huggers think that it
wrecks the natural ecosystem or some bs like that.
\_ another problem with geothermal is this:
it can be used up much like groundwater can.
1) You pump water down
2) The rocks heat the water into steam
3) You turn turbines with the steam and
4) Dump the heat somewhere up above.
5) The rocks down below are now cooler.
6) Surrounding rocks heat the rocks next to
the water back up.
7) But eventually, thermal conductivity limits
of rock end up limiting how much power you
can extract--much like vespene gas in
starcraft.... You can get more out
but it doesn't really do much more than pay
for running the installation....
\_ What does using underground heat have to do with
trees?
\_ tree-huggers == environmentalist
\_ how come people seem to avoid calling him "Dick"?
\_ Who cares? Dick. Dick Cheney. VP Dick. VP Dick
Cheney. Dick. Dick. Dick. "he said dick! uh uh uh!"
Happy now? Grow up.
\_ Beat Dick and Lick Bush in 2004.
\_why not now?
\_ Maybe it is time, but I am not going to be
the one to say that.
\_ it's not "uh uh uh!" it's "uhuhuhuhuh!"
\_ Huh? I see businesses leaving lights on at night for no
good reason. I see people wearing jackets because the A/C
is on too high. People really don't give a shit.
\_ You leave some of the lights on at night in offices
in order to deter crime. Its much easier to spot a
prowler when the lights are on as compared to when
they are off. I don't know about A/C's, our company
turned off all the climate control about two months
ago.
\_ How about a motion sensor with an alarm?
Or, Hell, motion sensor on switches for lights!
\_ get dogs. or bees. or dogs that shoot bees out of
their mouths. |
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