Thread: Something to Think About

DG As always, you can look at these changes as a disaster or as an opportunity. The auto industry has an enormous opportunity ahead of it, in that lots of cars will need to be replaced with electric battery operated vehicles. They can embrace the opportunity and make billions, or they can go all woebegone and fail to make the change. When they go belly up as a result, they will get precisely zero sympathy from me!

Quote: Originally Posted by Wiglaf The US has 104 plants that produce 19.6% of our electricity. Hydro produces 5.74%. Base load is typically 35-40% of peak demand. Therefore, rounding off, hydro and nuke currently supplies 26% of capacity. We would need to increase this to about 35% or about 50 nuclear plants in the US. Canada has more hydro as a percentage of capacity; less nukes for them. For reserve demand you are left with coal or natural...

Quote: Originally Posted by Dave What you are really fighting is economics and raw capitalism. It just needs our politicians and industry leaders to be up to the task, (which I'm not sure they are.) Thats what I was trying to say. My concern, however, is that we very quickly place judgments on people who work in such and such industry without considering their needs for safety and security in life. I completely support reducing...

Quote: Originally Posted by dustinzgirl My problem is with people who think that everyone should just give up their jobs and homes and food and college funds now for a better environment 100 years from now, when they have to sleep in a car with their kids tonight and eat at the soup kitchen--if they have the gas to get there--tonight. Not 10 years from now. Not 30 days from now. Now. I see absolutely NO reason why we can't provide...

Quote: Originally Posted by Chinook "Green Types" are not trying to stifle industrial growth unless it is irresponsible about it's waste material. Even then we are not trying to stifle industrial growth. Almost 100% true; but all political/whatever persuassions have their extremists (of one sort or another). So there are - or were (and I doubt the meme has died out) - those who would call themselves green who seem to...

Quote: Dave ~There is little new here, the exact same arguments were made about cleaning up pollution from factory smoke and effluents that skeptical just observed. It's been going on for much longer than that. Folks might be surprised that little more than a hundred years ago the average American spent 35%-45% of their income on food. American agriculture was a parody of the myth, that we had the most productive farms on the planet was...

Quote: Originally Posted by dustinzgirl Thats what I was trying to say. My concern, however, is that we very quickly place judgments on people who work in such and such industry without considering their needs for safety and security in life. What if they had a war, and no one showed up? I'm certainly not judging those folks, but armies are made of volunteers. I'll admit that there are some who choose that path because it's...

The Mandelbulb: first 'true' 3D image of famous fractal - physics-math - 18 November 2009 - New Scientist Follow this link to see the Mandelbrot set in 3D, but for some stunning images follow the link on the page labelled: our gallery of how the Mandelbrot set burst out of two dimensions then 'next' through to each of the ten images, they're fascinating!

Re: Fighting Climate Change With Simple Ideas NiK: Stuff the birds, as I said they're going to have to migrate to somewhere else anyway. That's why it'll never get built. We'll all die for the want of the environmentalists who are not prepared to act to save us because some lesser spotted dork gull will die out sooner if they disturb it's 'soon to be flooded under a tide of Maldive ocean water' habitat. As...

Re: Fighting Climate Change With Simple Ideas IIRC, there's an un-adopted scheme for Severn Barrage that would retain tidal pattern, wetlands etc etc as if at average tides. The gotcha is that it requires a MASSIVE, oval, pumped-storage reservoir in mid channel. Think 'cooling tower' thrice size of 'New Wembley', tall as the London Eye... Okay, it would make a great tourist trap, and could have a zillion...