Re: if you were president

On 19 May 2007 14:48:10 -0700, $Zero <zero@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On May 13, 5:55 pm, Josh Hill <userepl...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 13 May 2007 11:36:26 -0700, $Zero <z...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

yeah, but the sun ALWAYS comes up the next day.

even dimmed on cloudy days, it's far more reliable than wind.

point mine.

Not really, because cloudy days are common in many parts of the
country, and on a solidly cloudy day, the cells will produce perhaps
1/4 or 1/5 of what they do on a clear one. Solar cells work best in
the desert.

"even dimmed on cloudy days, it's far more reliable than wind."

_reliable_.

point mine.

I don't see how an energy source that can lose 4/5 of output can be
considered reliable.

and it may actually be easier to tame the intermittency problem by
tying wind farms together.

same with tying solar farms together.

No, not at all, because night strikes everywhere.

"even dimmed on cloudy days, it's far more reliable than wind."

point mine.

_reliable_.


You're forgetting that all the solar farms lose output /at once/ every
night. That makes them 100% /un/reliable even when connected in a
grid. The probability that wind will fail, OTOH, diminishes as wind
farms are tied together. At some point, it approaches zero, albeit
that may be impossible to reach because of grid losses and other
economic considerations.

ideally, both.

Some synergy for reasons I already mentioned, but doesn't solve the
intermittency problem.

compare operating at a zillion solar panels at 20% power
with operating at a zillion wind turbines at 0% power.

If you have more than a handful of wind turbines, they won't ever go
to 0% power.

which would ideally be moved to the moon where waste and whatnot would
never pose an earthly problem.

We've been over this! Too dangerous and too expensive.

see also: "ideally be moved to the moon"

i'm sure that the dangers and expenses will eventually be all but
eliminated or at least minimized to a degree which makes them less
dangerous and less expensive than the alternatives.

I don't know. You'd need to add an awful lot of mass to keep the fuel
safe during reentry or an explosion. There aren't many things that can
survive either.

Right now, they're
struggling to make it cost competitive with coal.

why?

what are the variables that make coal more competitive than wind?

It's dirt cheap (it /is/ dirt); it's subsidized; the operators of wind
farms, which are capital intensive, can't get favorable utility
interest rates; the land costs something to lease; the grid costs
something to extend; the turbines themselves cost something to make
and erect. The price of wind has been declining gradually for many
years, and will presumably continue to decline as turbines become more
efficient, but it's a slow process.

(Of course, that
doesn't include externalities, as it should, but such is life.)

what types of externalities aren't included?

Didn't I make a list somewhere? Pollution damage to structures and the
environment; days lost from work and medical care due to illness from
pollution; subsidies, tax breaks, and R&D expenditures; the cost of
dealing with the effect of global warming; off the top of my head.

and we have to
move /right away/ if we're to head off global warming.

maybe. maybe not.

No maybe about it. It's already here.

see also:

we fucked it up in short order, so hopefully we can repair it in the
same way.

if it doesn't wipe us out first, that is.

It's not going to wipe us out.

it's possible, though probably unlikely.

particularly given our human nature to survive.

also, i was refering to the broader environmental changes we've caused
as well as the climate change.

And we don't know how to repair it.

reverse it.

offset it.

impede it.

adapt to it.

there are numerous ways we can do all of the above regarding climate
change, etc..

of course, we need to make sure that our solutions aren't worse than
our problems.

Adapatation isn't repair. Reversal is still a gleam in the scientific
eye. I don't know what offsetting means -- importing ice from Mars? So
impede it is what we can and must do for now.

So
in the short term, we're only talking about slowing further greenhouse
emissions to a tolerable rate. At some point, we may be able to suck
some of the carbon back out of the atmosphere.

plant more trees?

plant them high in the sky?

on a helium balloon plantation?

LOL

how's that for vivid?

Planting trees is actually already on the list. But, curiously,
planting trees in some areas does no good.

--
Josh

"The conservative movement is founded on the simple tenet
that people have the right to live life as they please,
as long as they don't hurt anyone else in the process. . . .
The radical right has nearly ruined our party. Its members
do not care about the Constitution and they are the
ones making all the noise." - Barry Goldwater
.

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