I replied to another post in this thread with stats on solid waste and water usage. New York does very well on those measures, too. IMO cities have a fundamental economy of scale which gives environmental benefits across the board.

I just wish I could find environmental stats that were broken by urbanization level rather than by state...

Point taken: Texas is a special case. Maybe a fairer comparison is New Jersey or Connecticut: both have similar climates and similar amounts of industrial activity, but New York emits significantly less per capita than either, both overall and specifically for transportation.

I think you're trying to bait me on the "should EPA regulate CO2 as a pollutant" news item, but the relevant point is that fuel usage (and CO2 emissions) was one of the submitter's complaints, about New York, along with solid waste, which New York state produces the least of of any state, and domestic water use, in which it's merely below average.

New York is only the most wasteful global megacity because it's full of Americans. The more important point is that New York City is the most environmentally friendly place in the United States, when measured by pollution emitted per capita. (See this list of CO2 emissions by state: New York State, whose population is tightly focused in NYC, has twice the CO2 emissions per capita as the more sprawling development in Florida, and one New Yorker is worth *four* Texans.

To improve its environmental standing, America needs *more* dense urbanized areas like NYC, not less.

You're missing the point. I'm not trying to defend what the US has done here, nor am I trying to equate German political scandals with American ones -- and the fact that I can't find an equivalent German scandal says a lot of good things about Germany. But celebrating the failures of somebody else's country is pretty close to what the Germans call schaedenfreude, and what Americans call "a dick move". Let Americans put up their own Snowden statues.

Dear Germany: you get no points for putting up statues to controversial dissidents from other peoples' countries. You're clearly trying to make a bold political statement here, but to do that you need to take a stand against members of your own nation. Put up a statue to the folks who prosecuted the Christian Democratic Union's campaign donations scandal in 1999, or Kathrin Oertel, the leader of an anti-islamic nationalist group who recently resigned and recanted, and *then* you can pat yourselves on the back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Dear Armenian folks: while I sympathize with the history of your people, picking a fight with an algorithm is probably not a good use of your time. Everyone knows that Google's search content reflects the views of the wider Internet, and their sponsored links reflect the views of the people who pay them. You might be better off buying your own sponsored link on Google to combat the offensive one.

The liberal arts college I teach at is a little further along in this process. What matters most is community. You need to focus less on physical hardware, and more on finding faculty (and don't forget staff!) with hands-on skills, getting them committed to the space, and sucking in a critical mass of students to make it self-sustaining.

The fact that you were asked to do this by the administration is not a good sign.

And re putting it in your library: talk to your HVAC guys. Ventilation and noise are serious issues.

The nitrogen is not needed

No, but it's incredibly expensive to remove it, so mostly nobody bothers. Also diesel fuel plus pure oxygen burns hot enough to turn your engine into a puddle of molten steel.

Oh, and despite our differences on the viability of synthetic hydrocarbons versus batteries, we can at least agree that hydrogen is bullshit, right?

Almost everyone on the planet would be driving an EV at today's energy densities if one factor was significantly improved, but that factor isn't energy density. It's cost per kilowatt hour.

Fair point, but now do the energy density math for an electric powered passenger jet. Because I want to live in a renewable-powered world where I can fly to Europe if I have to. (I don't expect it to be cheap...)

Audi's statement is correct in every way that matters. Hydrocarbon synthesis is also going to create a complicated blend of molecules of various lengths, which would be distilled and cracked to create a substance with properties as similar to ordinary diesel as possible, to ensure compatibility with existing engines.

It might not be exactly the same mix of dodecane to naphthalene to whatever, but it'd be close enough.

You're right that we don't have enough renewable energy yet to make this a useful technology. But hopefully that day is coming.

Re synthetic diesel, it's like I've always said: screw the "hydrogen economy", hydrogen is cryogenic, low-density, and difficult to work with. You'd be better off joining those hydrogens to some nice stable carbon atoms to create a storable, pumpable, relatively safe room-temperature liquid fuel.

Is it more efficient than just using the electricity to charge up batteries in an electric car for example?

Maybe, maybe not, but I guarantee you it has a higher energy density than batteries, which is super important for vehicle applications.

Just for future reference, if you find yourself in a position of authority and someone comes to you with a solution to your pressing problem, and he doesn't know exactly what the solution is or how to make it happen, but he knows exactly how much it costs? You throw that guy out on the street, because that guy is at best a con artist, at worst utterly clueless. (Yes, in that order.)

Yes. I actually feel a little bit better about America knowing that this guy lived to tell the tale.