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Author Topic: The American Constitution  (Read 118729 times)

James Clark

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #780 on: June 25, 2019, 11:29:42 am »

China, who does not have to comply with reducing carbon emissions until 2030 per Paris Accord, plans to build 850 coal-fired electric plants around the world.  While trying to reduce pollution in their own country, they think little about choking the rest of us.  The west is living in a dreamworld if they think their renewables are going to change anything on a global scale.  In addition, our higher prices for renewables make us live more poorly and make our products less competitive due to the higher cost of energy. The Chinese Communists may be bastards, but they're smart bastards.   

We need to progress beyond the Tragedy of the Conmons.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #781 on: June 25, 2019, 11:31:18 am »

China, who does not have to comply with reducing carbon emissions until 2030 per Paris Accord, [...]

Warning: Fake news (and Alan has been told so multiple times before), the facts are as follows.

China was expected to increase emissions before they would plateau in 2030. Part of the reason is that they produce a shitload of products for the rest of the world (USA no exception), and they have an expanding urbanized population. Facts of life that were part of the assumptions of the Paris agreement.

Cheers,
Bart
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RSL

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #782 on: June 25, 2019, 11:40:17 am »

Exactly, Bart. Everybody is required to be terrified of "climate change," except the Chinese and the Indians. According to the best guesses on the left, the world will become a cinder within those 30 years. :-X
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Martin Kristiansen

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #783 on: June 25, 2019, 12:06:19 pm »

I remember reading Ansel Adams had a big falling out at one point with the Sierra club over his support of nuclear power. A long running debate.
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RSL

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #784 on: June 25, 2019, 12:12:57 pm »

Ansel had a brain.
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OmerV

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #785 on: June 25, 2019, 12:19:50 pm »

ROTFL! So you believe Chernobyl wasn't?

Chernobyl was a flawed design and mistakes. Or maybe not enough red tape?  ::)


OmerV

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #786 on: June 25, 2019, 12:23:07 pm »

Ansel had a brain.

Smart enough to loathe Ronald.

Martin Kristiansen

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #787 on: June 25, 2019, 12:28:11 pm »

Smart enough to loathe Ronald.

He absolutely did. Refused to meet with him and present him with a print which had become a bit of a tradition.

Adams didn’t pick a side. He picked a moral stand point and stuck to that rather than a “team”. I admire that, it’s very rare.
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RSL

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #788 on: June 25, 2019, 12:31:48 pm »

Smart enough to loathe Ronald.

Well, as is the case with most of us his brain didn't always work well.
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Robert Roaldi

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #789 on: June 25, 2019, 12:39:49 pm »

That’s probably true, Robert, assuming we can come up with windmill farms and solar farms not much larger than a coal or oil or gas-fired power plant, and that don’t clobber or fry wildlife. And yes, wow! we may have an e-car that can go 200 km without having to be plugged in at least overnight. Golly, that’s a whole 124 miles. That can get me up to St. Augustine for a shooting trip, but it can’t get me back home again. Oh, and that kind of technology isn’t going to do much – anything -- for long-haul trucking, or even long-haul rail. It doesn't even address the question of overseas ship traffic. I guess we could build ships with wind propulsion. We used to do that with square riggers.

The point is, we need a way to store energy that’s a hell of a lot more efficient than batteries. At the moment, that way is fossil fuels. And in the case of fossil fuels the storage already has taken place. All we have to do at the moment is release it. I’m sure we’ll find an answer somewhere down the line, but it probably ain’t gonna happen soon. Oh, and if you’re depending on a doubling or tripling of the price of gasoline to drive this revolution, you’re going to have to wait a while.

Funny, that's exactly what I said. There are applications where the energy storage of fossil fuels is essential, as things now stand.

Doubling and tripling of fuel costs doesn't seem so outlandish to me. Millions of new consumers coming online all wanting cars. Not many new big oil fields have been discovered lately, have they? I haven't heard of any. So price increases will eventually work their way through the system. Will it be 20 years, 40 years, I don't know and neither do you. It takes 15-20 years to commission, design and build nuclear reactors, so the timeframes we're discussing are all in the same order of magnitude. Irrelevant in any case. It doesn't take much of an increase in gasoline, coupled with the high cost (purchasing, insuring, maintaining etc.) of automobiles means that any increase is going to have large consumption effects. The car companies are already very worried about millennials indifference to cars in general.

But one other thing is that you should stop analysing things through your own individual lens. Maybe 200 km before re-charging does not suit your purpose, so that you will continue to purchase a gasoline car even if the price of fuel did double, but why do you assume that your personal circumstances reflect how other people live, because they most assuredly do not. There are very few countries where travelling large distances are part of people's routine daily lives.
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Robert Roaldi

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #790 on: June 25, 2019, 12:42:35 pm »

The left really wants wind and solar to work, which are by their very nature, impossible to make work on a large scale.  This is a natural problem of the diluteness and intermittency of the energy, not a problem of technologies.  We have already far past the inflection point of the advances in wind and solar; future gains will be very small.  Innovation insofar as energy production is flat lining for wind and solar.  Wind and solar are doomed by their nature and every one (right or left) who takes a thorough look at them comes to this conclusion.  Even top environmentalist are preaching this.  The left keeps on pushing it down our throat even though the technology will never work.  Not really an apples to oranges comparison when talking about what the left wants versus what the right wants. 

Funning you should bring up sensor technology when talking about government investments in new technologies.  How much government investment was put into Kodak when they developed the first sensor?  How much government investment was put into Sony when they brought their technology to fruition? 

Insofar as battery powered electric cars, this is another technology that will fail.  Hydrogen fuel-cell, being heavily researched by Toyota (a private company and the number one hyrbid car manufacturer) will more then likely replace battery powered vehicles just due to pure convenience of not needing to be charged over a long period of time.  On top of this, when gas gets as expensive as you say, making bio-fuel will become profitable.  Since there is already an in ground pipe infrastructure to transport gasoline, changing over to bio-fuels will be very easy and painless.  This will be made even easier when the investment is there from private companies to come up with technologies to figure out how to extract bio-oils from algae, which can grow pretty much any where extremely fast and are very oil rich.  The price of gasoline is too low for it to be worth investing the money, but when it does, I feel this will be the next transportation technology.

Almost all high-tech advances originate from public financing of pure research (Kodak and Toyota did develop solid-state physics) either directly, via university research grants, or in the case of the US via NASA and military research funding.
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RSL

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #791 on: June 25, 2019, 01:08:17 pm »

Funny, that's exactly what I said. There are applications where the energy storage of fossil fuels is essential, as things now stand.

Doubling and tripling of fuel costs doesn't seem so outlandish to me. Millions of new consumers coming online all wanting cars. Not many new big oil fields have been discovered lately, have they? I haven't heard of any. So price increases will eventually work their way through the system. Will it be 20 years, 40 years, I don't know and neither do you. It takes 15-20 years to commission, design and build nuclear reactors, so the timeframes we're discussing are all in the same order of magnitude. Irrelevant in any case. It doesn't take much of an increase in gasoline, coupled with the high cost (purchasing, insuring, maintaining etc.) of automobiles means that any increase is going to have large consumption effects. The car companies are already very worried about millennials indifference to cars in general.

But one other thing is that you should stop analysing things through your own individual lens. Maybe 200 km before re-charging does not suit your purpose, so that you will continue to purchase a gasoline car even if the price of fuel did double, but why do you assume that your personal circumstances reflect how other people live, because they most assuredly do not. There are very few countries where travelling large distances are part of people's routine daily lives.

When you talk about the intensity of oil prospecting you always need to take into account the price of oil. Recently the price has been down – relatively. In fact it’s been low enough that companies have stopped prospecting altogether. The last thing in the world they need is more wells. There’s plenty of oil out there.

If fuel prices double or triple there’s going to be a lot of pain. It’s not just that you’ll have to spend more to drive the kids to pre-school. The cost of everything will rise because transportation is involved in almost everything we consume. It won’t take any 20 or 30 years for these costs to cause prices to rise throughout the system. The increases will track the rise in fuel prices quite closely. And that fact has nothing to do with my personal preferences, which you seem to think matter a great deal.

As far as nukes are concerned, it takes 15-20 years to bring up a nuke nowadays because of the fear that’s been generated by crap like “The China Syndrome.” Most of the delay is caused by administrative bullshit designed to make frightened people feel more comfortable. There’s no reason why, with the designs available right now, a nuke can’t be brought up in five years or less. At the moment, France derives about 75% of its power from nukes. The technology is already there. I haven’t worked in the field for decades now, but I still have my short snorter bill from the night we brought up a small nuke to power the radar site at Sundance, Wyoming. Properly handled, nuclear technology is safer than coal or oil or gas-fired power.

I’ll leave it there and bypass your editorial on my “personal circumstances.” It’s an area where you haven’t a clue. Not the only one.
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JoeKitchen

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #792 on: June 25, 2019, 01:12:12 pm »

Almost all high-tech advances originate from public financing of pure research (Kodak and Toyota did develop solid-state physics) either directly, via university research grants, or in the case of the US via NASA and military research funding.

The purpose of the government is to keep us safe, so military funding for research does not really bother me.  NASA is another anomaly; there was really no point to go the moon other then bragging rights on who got their first.  I am glad that we went, but in reality no private company would do that since the ROI would not be there. 

Now, aside from this, this does not imply certain innovations would not have been publicly discovered and funded, which was the case prior to our government giving out funding for research.  You cant blame a capitalist for using free money to do research. But the fact is, many many products never were initiated by the government. 

And I don't really think research money given to universities really fall under this.  Professors research, it's what they do.  Those are public universities get some public money to do so, while others at private universities get, perhaps, less.  If government money dried up, assume our taxes when down too, researchers would be able to find moneys elsewhere. 
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JoeKitchen

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #793 on: June 25, 2019, 01:17:57 pm »

The Japanese didn’t have a nuclear catastrophe probably because the plant was built with government regulations. The libertarian view of unregulated business always seems to conveniently omit the very real human capacity for greed and corruption.

But hey, no one will stop you and Joe from moving next door to an unregulated/self-regulated nuclear power plant. Let us know how it goes, alright?

Same old straw man argument, "you get rid of the government and suddenly everything is unsafe."

Sorry, this is just not the case.  Furthermore, nowhere did I say that I felt all red tap should be taken away.  Only that it needs to be lowered immensely; of course containment domes need to be made.  The irrational fear of nuclear is the only reason why we so much red tape. 

Furthermore, Chernobyl, the worse case scenario, a reactor without a containment dome on fire and exploding, still did not produce the deaths people imagine or believe it did.   To date, only about 120ish people have died as a result of exposure.  The only effect exposure has is an increase in thyroid cancer, which is one of the most treatable cancers and people often live for decades with it.  Now not to discount cancer, but a nuclear plant is not as dangerous as you are trying to make out.  It is the safest form of energy ever. 

More people have died in one year in USA from falling off roofs while installing solar panels than have died in the entire history of nuclear power in the entire world. 

You know what is unsafe, coal emissions.  Coal emissions have caused more health concerns than anything else.  I'd rather live next to a nuclear plant than a coal plant. 
« Last Edit: June 25, 2019, 01:25:40 pm by JoeKitchen »
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #794 on: June 25, 2019, 01:23:51 pm »

... More people have died in one year in USA from falling off roofs while installing solar panels that have died in the entire history of nuclear power in the entire world... 

 ;D ;D ;D

Alan Klein

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #795 on: June 25, 2019, 02:06:00 pm »

Warning: Fake news (and Alan has been told so multiple times before), the facts are as follows.

China was expected to increase emissions before they would plateau in 2030. Part of the reason is that they produce a shitload of products for the rest of the world (USA no exception), and they have an expanding urbanized population. Facts of life that were part of the assumptions of the Paris agreement.

Cheers,
Bart
What does that have to do with allowing China to build 850 coal-fired plants in other countries? That's just a nod to their industries make these plants in allowing them to do it. Meanwhile they're polluting the world with even more CO2. Frankly the Chinese Bamboozled the people in Paris. They were dopes for letting China get away with this. And the bottom line is that without China on board, you will have no impact on co2 production going on in the world as China is already producing 30% of it. More than double the next second country, the US at 14%. 

OmerV

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #796 on: June 25, 2019, 02:09:05 pm »

Same old straw man argument, "you get rid of the government and suddenly everything is unsafe."

Sorry, this is just not the case.  Furthermore, nowhere did I say that I felt all red tap should be taken away.  Only that it needs to be lowered immensely; of course containment domes need to be made.  The irrational fear of nuclear is the only reason why we so much red tape. 

Furthermore, Chernobyl, the worse case scenario, a reactor without a containment dome on fire and exploding, still did not produce the deaths people imagine or believe it did.   To date, only about 120ish people have died as a result of exposure.  The only effect exposure has is an increase in thyroid cancer, which is one of the most treatable cancers and people often live for decades with it.  Now not to discount cancer, but a nuclear plant is not as dangerous as you are trying to make out.  It is the safest form of energy ever. 

More people have died in one year in USA from falling off roofs while installing solar panels than have died in the entire history of nuclear power in the entire world. 

You know what is unsafe, coal emissions.  Coal emissions have caused more health concerns than anything else.  I'd rather live next to a nuclear plant than a coal plant.

You are not addressing the fact that nuclear has been safe precisely because of government oversight. And until recently most of us felt safe flying the skies. But how did Boeing get complacent without the FAA knowing?

The problem is who makes the decision of how much “red tape” is good or not? Sure, more people die by lightning than...whatever. But do you not want to transport your family in a car that is safer than those of 30yrs past?

The smog of Pittsburgh in the late ‘40s was cleaned up simply because people wanted to live better. But why did the industries allow that smog to get oppressively bad in the first place?

JoeKitchen

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #797 on: June 25, 2019, 02:32:48 pm »

You are not addressing the fact that nuclear has been safe precisely because of government oversight. And until recently most of us felt safe flying the skies. But how did Boeing get complacent without the FAA knowing?

The problem is who makes the decision of how much “red tape” is good or not? Sure, more people die by lightning than...whatever. But do you not want to transport your family in a car that is safer than those of 30yrs past?

The smog of Pittsburgh in the late ‘40s was cleaned up simply because people wanted to live better. But why did the industries allow that smog to get oppressively bad in the first place?

Nuclear is safe because it is not an inherently dangerous power source, and this is due to the fact that it is good for business to have it that way.  If a nuclear power plant melts down, it is gone, done, no further ROI.  So it is good business to make sure it does not fail.  This is exactly what companies, on their own, are doing right now, trying to make it absolutely fool proof and come up with the next generation of reactors that are more efficient and powerful.  But government has gotten in the way so much so it is impossible to get a new nuclear plant built, and even harder with newer better designs. 

Pretty funny, there are safer better designs but because of how slow government runs, the government would rather you build an older type plant instead of a new one. 

The red tape is so thick that coal plants release more radiation then what nuclear plants are allowed to.  How silly is that. 

Insofar as Boeing, what's your point.  I believe the accident was caused by a programing glitch no one realized existed until an accident occurred.  It's tragic but how do you foresee it until after the fact.  Most responses on how the government could have prevented it are filled with hindsight bias.  The government did nothing, nor would have been able to, to prevent it.  And do you really think Boeing is fixing the problem due to government?  No!.  They are fixing it because they want to continue selling planes.  If they ignored it, no one would want to fly in a Boeing plane and they would loose business.  It just make sense to fix the problem. 

It also makes sense to make planes safer and safer as time goes on.  Do you really think a company would make planes to the same safety standards of the 30s if they could?  Come one, you're being irrational. 

Cars you say, well the cars of 30 years ago were not less safe because of less red tape.  They were less safe because innovations we have today had not yet been invented.  The government did not just all of a sudden think up some safety innovations and products and force them onto the car makers.  The car makers thought of these things and implemented them before the government even had a whiff of them.  Stop kidding yourself. 

Ahhh, the smog of Pittsburgh.  Guess what, no one really knew how bad smog was for your health pre 1940s. The industries let it get that bad simply because no one, including them, knew any better.  It was not until the 1948 Donora smog crisis that people started to take it seriously, Of course, when they found out how unsafe it was, they cleaned it up.  So what is the point?  It is a great example of a local government getting together and implementing a policy that hd direct results.  Not a large federal government run amuck with regulations, some of which no one can really explain. 
« Last Edit: June 25, 2019, 02:42:05 pm by JoeKitchen »
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #798 on: June 25, 2019, 03:11:10 pm »

Joe Kitchen:


Alan Klein

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Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #799 on: June 25, 2019, 03:23:24 pm »

Almost all high-tech advances originate from public financing of pure research (Kodak and Toyota did develop solid-state physics) either directly, via university research grants, or in the case of the US via NASA and military research funding.

Research for a few millions or billions is one thing.  But what you have with renewables, are governments underwriting new industry and production, not research.  They are picking winners and losers.  They're tripling the cost of electricity (see Germany above).  And it appears solar and wind renewables are not doing anything regarding CO2 production that will make any difference in climate change, even assuming they are related.  What you don;t know is had government not underwritten wind and solar, maybe private industry would be investigating another area and spending their money developing a totally new product that will work better.  Instead, government regulations and subsidies are soaking up all the available financing that would be available to investigate other areas which is now being funneled into wind and solar.  Because of government interference with the free markets, we appear to be going down a path that will do nothing about the " CO2 problem". 
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