Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 18 Editor's Choice: 2
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You ask the right questions, maybe you should gone into physics
[Read the article: Take it from me. Reform feels good]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Re: There is much we do not understand -- power cords in the briefcase, for example: You set them in neatly and a few hours later they are completely entangled with each other, and who knows why? --
The subject of the entanglement theory of spaghetti, long hair, power cords, and polymers was initially developed by the very entertaining but unfortunately recently deceased Nobelist Pierre-Gilles de Gennes. One of the things he explained is just the length where hair went from comb-able to a tangled knot. See The Knot Book: An Elementary Introduction To The Mathematical Theory Of Knots by Colin Conrad Adams (I haven't read it but every other reference I found was too mathematical.)
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Everything has a price, pay attention to the numbers
[Read the article: Nuclear war on YouTube ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Particulates (mostly from coal) kill about 64000 people every year (NRDC.) Rivers in West Virginia run red from slag acids dissolving metals. About 130 million tons of coal slag are produced a year. It is poisonous in water and NEVER goes away. You don't want radiation in your water either, it also essentially never goes away, but there is a lot less of it (about 80,000 tons worldwide to date.) The cost of global warming is an unknown; the wealthy countries will be affected less but things like permanent drought in the US west would be very very expensive. Meanwhile, Bangladesh will simply drown.
While solar and wind should be emphasied, they're just isn't enough of it. Estimates say the two could maybe do 25% of what we need now. The best uses are on the buildings using the power so transmission losses are removed.
Passively stable nuclear plants are being built. (Passive means it doesn't matter what Homer Simpson does.) The US industry has done a lot to diminish it's credibility and there is currently no middle ground in the US where plants are built but inherently good designs and plant placements are mandated. The power companies want them in populated areas and running at the highest temperatures, safety says no. The move towards common designs helps here.
A huge energy savings could be attained by changing government policy to encourage efficiency- in lighting , in cars, in home insulation and heating (geothermal for instance).
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As I said check the numbers, you don't have to look far for reality based liberal
[Read the article: Nuclear war on YouTube ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/30345
"Humans currently consume energy at a rate of 13 terawatts (TW), and many experts predict that population growth and economic expansion will increase this figure to about 45 TW by 2050. Generating 20 TW of that energy with panels that are 10% efficient would, according to Crabtree and Lewis, mean installing such panels over 0.16% of the Earth's land surface. Given that only a fraction of this will be met by installing panels on people's homes, vast "farms" will have to be built in areas with significant amounts of sunshine. Attempting to build such farms in the West could, ironically, be opposed on environmental grounds." For comparison, about 1.7% of the US is paved (including parking lots). That's a lot of land. Transmission losses from a distance are between 30% and 50%.
The efficiency will maybe be tripled over time, but higher efficiency proabably means more capital costs. According to a friend who works in solar power, the highest cost is now the flat substrate the solar cell has to go on. Window glass is an existing cost, thus industrial glass boxes are a good place to do solar. Storage at night is a big problem, another loss factor of say 3x. I didn't say solar shouldn't be a major power source but it's not enough.
You can look up the wind maps, the places with wind are limited and often far from populations. Nonetheless, places like Nantucket sound (Sen Kennedy is a bit of a hypocrite on this one) make sense. Hawaii gets about 25% of it's power from wind now. You have to do AC-DC-AC conversion and storage to blend and phase the power.
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Wondering what 19 Senate Democrats For FISA means
[Read the article: FISA 101]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It seems possible that Reid knew all along that 19 Democrats would vote for immunity, making a real fillibuster impossible. This would explain the double talk, introducing the bill with immunity and all the weird dog and pony show that followed. He may have felt that an awkward and unconvincing token resistance was better than introducing the bare bill and having Democrats themselve add immunity in a highly visible and wholesale defection of the Bush-camp Democrats.
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Human nature is to double your bet
[Read the article: The ongoing exclusion of war opponents from the Iraq debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The analogy to the hedge funds is clear, other people's money/other people's lives and a willingness to hold on to an ever contracting failure and put more and more into it rather than abandoning denial and admitting a mistake, taking the hit and regaining freedom of action.