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Comment Re:Idiots (Score 1) 622

Fracking is actually a GOOD thing overall...

Who told you that?

We've been doing it for decades in various areas without much of an issue

False.

It increases production with very low cost and low risk.

To the corporation. for the rest of us, it equals increased seismicity and water contamination. As well, the "fracking fluids" are just refinery wastes. they have no business injecting that into the ground anywhere.

Comment Re:ostensibly for sorting purposes (Score 1) 66

They dont need to "hand it over" to the feds... they are the feds.

The USPS gets a tax break and preferential treatment, like a monopoly on your mailbox and increased penalties for harassment of their agents vs. a slightly more private carrier like UPS or FedEx, but they are not themselves "the feds". They're just a business with protected status which is dressed up to look patriotic, and they're hardly the only one. I know that when I was a kid, I thought Federal Express was affiliated with the postal service. Given what I see around me on a regular basis, it's probable that many adults still believe that. And like any large corporation, FedEx has to some extent grafted itself onto the federal government, e.g. (FTFL) "In 2001, FedEx sealed a $9 billion deal with the USPS to transport all of the post office's overnight and express deliveries".

Comment Re:and... (Score -1, Flamebait) 299

Bullshit

Who the fuck are you, coward? You're only capable of bullshit.

Not all ideas are viable.

Irrelevant. This is an idea already proven viable.

Deny it all you want, but Lithium ion based batteries are reaching the limits of their energy density.

Irrelevant. Not the only technology.

There are not any breakthroughs on the horizon that are going to make lithium ion batteries cost

More irrelevancy.

Perhaps its YOUR cognitive dissonance that is preventing you from recognizing that the technology is not viable.

Already proven viable.

People like you are quick to turn to conspiracy theories

Not a conspiracy theory, this was a deliberate attempt on your part to paint me with that brush. Also, conspiracies are the norm, not the exception. If two people team up to defraud a third in a way that breaks the law, that's a criminal conspiracy.

and pop psychology

Cognitive dissonance is not pop psychology, and you also don't get to suggest that I'm suffering from it while also insulting the concept.

as to why alternative energy is not mainstream when it is simple economics.

Yes, very simple economics: The entrenched interests have lots of money, and have been using it to manipulate the situation so as to remain in a position of power, as our corporatist system is designed to enable. No spooky invisible hands are needed to explain what is happening.

Comment Re:The study was flawed (Score 1) 104

Farmers want the best yields possible. They assume that the products advertised to them are acceptable,

because being so irresponsible is easier than being responsible enough to do the research to determine whether the products are safe. But don't fool yourself; this is still irresponsible behavior. Society encourages it by taking away your farm and throwing you into the street where it's illegal for you to live if you have a bad season or two, which is just another reason we need MGI. Then people can better afford scruples.

Comment Re:sort of like Antifreeze and pets/wildlife (Score 1) 104

Toss a few gallons of water in your trunk before you head to remote locations -- while the propylene glycol in the antifreeze may not kill you, the corrosion inhibitors and other ingredients

The glycol is the corrosion inhibitor. That's its job as much as anti-freezing. That's why we use it even in climates without freezes, and not just a smaller package of corrosion inhibitors. You have to substantially change the properties of the water to retard corrosion.

You wouldn't drink the water in your engine even if it didn't have anything added to it, because with or without a corrosion inhibitor you will still have corrosion, and you don't want to be drinking heavy metals. Iron is not too bad, but Aluminum is fairly horrible. Many engines are still made of both, and the ones that aren't are generally all-Al. Regardless, you can check coolant condition with a voltmeter. If your coolant is making more than about 0.1v, then it's doing damage through corrosion and you need to change it. If it's making more than 0.2v, then you're definitely suffering ongoing damage.

Comment Re:clickbait headline.... (Score 1) 31

There's no way for a data service to be cheap

Of course there is. There's a way for data service to be free. It's called mesh networking, and all it takes is for enough of us to care at the same time to spend a few bucks (okay, maybe a couple hundred) on a fancy WAP and maybe build some decent antennas if we live in the sticks. Problem is, even here on Slashdot people will bitch and whine about how the uplink bandwidth has to come from somewhere and refuse to get involved. Well yes, no kidding. But we also have to start somewhere. Forget Internet2, we need Internet3. For me, since I do live in an area of low population density, there's no point in messing with it since I have no one to mesh network with, hence my endless campaigning.

The only thing that's ever going to solve this problem is open mesh networking. That brings a whole new set of problems, but we need to tackle them sooner rather than later because centralization is getting stronger rather than weaker.

Comment Re:A first step (Score 1) 299

Not really. This is a step closer to having a more useful grid. Right now, the grid isn't much of a grid, it's more like a loose net with lots of big holes in.

What would get more houses completely off the grid would be batteries that last forever and are relatively inexpensive. They don't need to be space-efficient, they just need to last effectively eternally, a human lifetime at least.

Comment Re:Fixed vs mobile longevity? (Score 1) 299

I wonder if they'll last any better as a fixed battery vs a car mounted battery,

Probably, since the job they will be doing is easier. More sustained charge and discharge cycles, less start-and-stop.

If the pack only lasts 10 years then I highly doubt this will be economical

There's no reason to believe it will last only 10 years. The 10 years number has to do with suitability for automotive use.

Comment Re:and... (Score 5, Insightful) 299

Are you really this stupid?

This isn't stupidity, exactly, it's obstinacy. And actually, it's cognitive dissonance. Typically, when you see someone passionately arguing against their own best interests, that is what at fault. In this case, one of the people ranting against solar and storage is arguing that if this were a good idea, it would have been done already, because they want to believe that they are more intelligent than Elon Musk, every PG&E employee, and the majority of slashdotters who have woken up and recognized that batteries have gotten immensely better within our lifetimes — and will likely improve just as much in the next thirty or forty years.

People want to believe that they are smart and moral, and therefore they justify their poor decisions and the FUD they've spread by continuing to attack ideas long after they have been proven viable.

Comment Re:and... (Score 3, Insightful) 299

Cue Slashdotters claiming it is either impossible or a really bad thing in 3..2..1..

Impossible? No. Economical? I don't see how, if it were why isn't the power company doing this centrally? Then they could average it out across everyone on the grid, instead of just you as the problem is usually production not transmission capacity. I guess it might make sense if you're producing your own power with solar panels and don't have to transfer power into the grid when it's sunny and out of the grid when it's dark, but the price seems steep for what you're getting. I mean this tech already exists but only for solar powered cabins off the grid, it's really expensive per kWh and usually just to power light bulbs and such.

Power

Tesla To Announce Battery-Based Energy Storage For Homes 299

Okian Warrior writes: Billionaire Elon Musk will announce next week that Tesla will begin offering battery-based energy storage for residential and commercial customers. The batteries power up overnight when energy companies typically charge less for electricity, then are used during the day to power a home. In a pilot project, Tesla has already begun offering home batteries to SolarCity (SCTY) customers, a solar power company for which Musk serves as chairman. Currently 330 U.S. households are running on Tesla's batteries in California. The batteries start at about $13,000, though California's Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PCG) offers customers a 50% rebate. The batteries are three-feet high by 2.5-feet wide, and need to be installed at least a foot and a half off the ground. They can be controlled with a Web app and a smartphone app.

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