I'm going to agree with Sarten-X - turning in a wide circle shouldn't get anybody dizzy.

Also, with my lawn mower I have a turning radius that I can maintain without lifting the wheels at all. So at least the first few loops I wouldn't need pressure at all.

It also depends on how you define 'most efficient'. If the extra effort of pushing down a bit is outweighed by the time saved, it may we worth it.

On trick I've used in the past is to not turn the mower around - after clearing around the fence a bit, after pushing forward you pull the mower back.

I've come to the conclusion that it's likely a scaling problem. IE once we can do continuous fusion(or at least pulse/'diesel' fusion fast enough for steady power), it'll be a matter that the energy costs will scale by the square, but power production will scale by the cube.

Going by the size of ITER, considering that many research nuclear reactors had generators hooked up to them but ITER has no provision to ever produce electricity, ITER isn't big enough.

We may be looking at needing something crazy like a 10GW facility before it makes sense.
(not an expert)

Personally, I'd almost rather put the money(and a lot of money from other sources, such as the F-35 program) to start building new fission plants - stop the majority of our CO2/power plant pollution.

Do the research necessary to develop liquid thorium to remove that restraint. Put solar panels on buildings south of the Mason-Dixon line where they'll do the most good, solar water heaters, etc...

Employing all the people it'd take to do this would help solve our employment problem for a long time, and it actually benefits the country.

You missed the point - Survival after a 100mph crash isn't really unusual(though a lot of people die in them). It's the ability to walk away after the crash with no serious injuries that's unusual.

Oh, and going by the results of the crush test(broke the test machine), it doesn't need the additional protection a roll cage would provide.

The car shipped with a shield, it's just that it turned out some events could pierce said shield so they reinforced it.

Some of this stuff is learning experience on the differences between a petrol vehicle and a battery-electric. They only gained minimal knowledge from the industry's history of protecting the gasoline tank.

Any citation on this? From what I remember they were always flex, even if sometimes you might have to manually adjust something.

Algae, of course. You use a strain that's high in lipids(fats) that converts to biodiesel through various processes, and the carbohydrates can be turned into ethanol and butanol, which is closer to gasoline than Ethanol, so has a number of advantages as a fuel(you don't have to modify the engine is a big one). You use the remaining bits as fertilizer to grow more algea or even plants/crops.

I knew that about half of them were capable of it, the actual amounts of ethanol has varied over the years depending on how the supplies worked out.

Unfortunately the capability to produce ethanol from sugar cane is limited due to the climate it needs to grow. Which is why the USA tried corn.

Personally, I hold higher long-term hopes for algae and biodiesel.

That was step 1, where antifoidulus mentioned the film and rahvin112 posted that an actress had successfully sued over it. Step 2 I replied to that mentioning(in a round-about way) that the actor(and scientists) likely could suffer damages from it(especially if they don't undertake damage control like suing).

Combine the two of 1 - act, and 2 - damages, and you have a lawsuit.

If you're going to force it to be binary that way, it's more political. I was thinking of it more as it's progressive in a 'science is good!' type way.

I get that reference! I remember reading it back in high school.

"Harrison Bergeron", by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I know that if I was the lawyer for Mulgrew I'd be pointing out the same thing. Star Trek might not be 'good science', but it's at least progressive in it's views(on science). Actors in it are expected to know at least a little.

However, areas that pay $7/gallon are typically paying most of that money in taxes, so unless the country in question is willing is to forgo at least some proportion of that revenue...

Yes. I mistyped. I've seen lots of estimates for the cost of artificial/biologically sourced fuels where the low end is competitive with current fossil fuels. I also know that the last time the Navy sourced biofuel for testing purposes it worked out to around $30/gallon, but that was for a relatively small scale test.

It's all about the economics of scale at this point - I figure that the moment a biofuel producer(or non-fossil artificial creator) can *beat* fossil fuels it'll be a gold rush to produce enough facilities.

As long as we get away from fossil fuels to something renewable or at least able to last more than a couple centuries without screwing up our environment I'm good.

This process doesn't, which is why I ended up putting 'biofuel' in there, because this wouldn't scale up short of building a few hundred nuclear plants, or a ridiculous number of solar panels/wind turbines and such.

Jet Fuel created on site to the carrier for $6/gallon would probably save the USN money.

Gasoline equivalent produced 'on site' at the gas station for $3/gallon using fresh water* would allow the station to undercut other stations in most areas.

It also depends on the price assumed for feedstocks - are they figuring on a cost for the electricity needed?

*Because nothing in the process says that it NEEDS salt water to work, just that it can use salt water. Logically speaking it should work at least as well using fresh.

Interesting. $3/gallon would be commercially viable right now.

It's just another data point that causes me to thing that our transition away from liquid fossil fuels is likely to be rather precipitous, faster than the transition away from leaded gasoline(which is barely within my memory).

All it takes is the first commercial project producing bio-fuel to start making money, then development work will drop the price of biofuel even as the cost of extracting fossil fuel will continue to rise.

You're just getting pedantic here. The only way to avoid the 14% tax is to arrange for your housing to be 'locked in' for a period in excess of 30 days.

Get a hotel to be away from the kids or because you're bug-bombing the house you're paying the tax.

On that note, in some states 'extended stay' hotels can rebate you the tax if you stay there over the set period.