Basically you have to get charging time down below about 10 minutes for at least 200 miles of range.
That's only required to make electrics practical for the last 3-4% of transportation needs. Several standard deviations of our driving can be met with existing technology. Overnight charging at 6-12 kW is ideal because it's cheapest, and it happens while you do other things (like sleep), and it's when the grid is the cleanest.
The report makes it pretty clear that saving the Columbia was about as realistic as saving the Titanic.
I'm glad you weren't in charge of Apollo 13. : ) Seriously, I think your interpretation is unusual (or maybe we're talking about different documents). The CAIB pretty clearly says the scenarious were plausible. Obviously risky, with no guarantee of success, but not impossible. I can't see how you got from that to "certain doom".
The Columbia crew were dead men walking the moment the foam damaged the tiles. Columba was a wreck the moment the foam caused the damage. She would never reach earth's surface whole once she entered space.
This claim was solidly refuted in the official accident investigation report, which explores parallel scenarios--one for rescue, and another for improvised repair while on orbit.
The report is a fascinating read, by the way, and highly recommended. It manages to be satisfyingly technical without going over the head of a typical engineer or even lay person.
Winking is great, but I want the hut hut.
More is better to a point, but productivity does not scale linearly with the number of lines of code displayed simultaneously.
I'm open minded, but unconvinced that it's especially better than two (or three) modest size displays. I'd be interested to hear from others who have tried both approaches (enormous display vs. a few smaller ones).
At some point, another train collided with the derailed train
I assume the technology is for export, because line of sight in China should be good for, oh, about twenty feet or so.
other energy sources are already cheaper [than nuclear]
That depends on how you account for the strip mining, fracking, CO2 and things like radiation (from coal plants) spewing into the atmosphere (which we all share). There aren't low carbon sources that are both cheaper than nuclear and suitable for base load.
safety is still somewhat lacking (accidents, like Fukushima, still happen)
And for perspective, coal plants emit more radiation when working normally, 24x7.
Safer and cheaper nuclear reactors should be possible.
Are possible, and much safer technology (than was in place at any of the high-profile incidents) exists today.
Killing someone is cheaper than letting them rot for life in prison, feeding them, housing them, guarding them and perhaps even risking parole at some later date.
Your statement confirms that Americans care only about one thing - money.
Actually, it also confirms that the GP is wrong about the financial arguments, since it's exceedingly well documented that executing prisoners costs about an order of magnitude more than the alternative.
We basically flipped the sh#t sandwich over and are eating it from the other side now.
Alas, it was an open-faced sandwich.
While I'm all for squishing child molesters feet first using a steam roller in the lowest gear [...]
Pedophiles are mentally ill, and while it's common to equate mental illness with criminality, I don't understand it. Pedophiles find children attractive, and they need to be stopped, but this is a social problem and not a criminal one.
The rest of us who don't "molest" children don't refrain because we're simply in better control of our urges, it's that we don't find children sexually attractive.
Micro-USB, while ubiquitous, is rather fragile and has orientation.
Agreed. Mini-USB, on the other hand, is way more robust, and is not significantly larger.
What is the 30 year estimate to run an oil/coal plant? Don't forget fuel costs and negative externalities like water pollution from strip mining and fracking. You don't seem to want to talk about that
This was a discussion about the costs of solar thermal vs. solar photovoltaic, so you're correct: I'm not much interested in your oil/coal tangent. You're way off topic.
The $7/watt figure here includes storage of 6 hours at maximum output. So for a 300 watt PV panel, exactly what is the fully installed and warrantied price of each 1.8KWh battery pack, including a 30+ year warranty at 365*100% discharge cycles/yr?
The answer is "irrelevant" because we're not within a factor of 100 of having more solar energy online than we can use in real time. The only people who back their PV with battery systems are 1) fools willing to pay a fortune for the privilege of thinking they're giving the utility company "the finger", and 2) people who absolutely can't get a grid connection (and are thus paying a fortune for their battery-backed PV).
It's also "irrelevant with prejudice" because the $7/watt thermal plant in question most obviously does not come with a 30-year warranty either. In fact, no one seems to want to talk about its operating costs, which are probably staggering.
Hmm, maybe you should think before speaking next time.
I'm thinking and typing. And you're acting like an asshole in public.
Make it bigger and those costs come down.
How much and by what means? It's pretty well accepted that PV will be at $2/watt in 3-4 years. Thermal needs at least a 4x improvement in power/$ to be even worth considering unless it provides some unique benefits. (Storage is not one of them--we're not within a factor of 100 of having more solar online than we can use in real time.)
It's not big but it's big enough for a proof of concept.
And at three square miles it's not exactly small, either. PV has the advantage of being arbitrarily scalable, and not requiring dedicated land, which means it can be sited closer to the point of use.
So in other words this thing makes perfect sense and bitching about it [...]
It might make sense under some very specific criteria, but that is far from conclusively established. And using the brain for critical thinking and asking reasonable questions is not "bitching".
For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!
