Bio-fuels are theory, nuclear power is fact. I was a big proponent of bio-fuels until I realized two things.

First, the resources required to create bio-fuels is enormous. Bio-fuels is a means to store solar power into chemical bonds, the biological processes are an intermediary. As an aside there are other means to store solar power in chemical bonds that does not involve biological processes but they suffer many of the same downfalls. Just the land required alone for bio-fuels is problematic. Sure, we can put the collectors on roofs and perhaps even in the roadways but that only adds to the complexity and cost. There are also limits on where these things can be placed, there must be enough sun and temperature extremes means more cost and complexity. Nuclear and fossil power on the other hand is relative compact, can be placed just about anywhere (even on ships at sea), and can tolerate all kinds of weather.

Second, bio-fuels will always compete with food for resources. Whatever it takes to grow algae, sugar beets, switch grasses, or whatever the favored bio-fuel of the day is takes the same land, water, fertilizers, etc. that food does. People need to eat and people need heat and light, bio-fuels will always have the potential to force people to choose between the two. I will admit that non-food plant life does not need to meet the same rigors of sanitation and such that plants for food does. The problem still remains that any area on this earth suitable for growing bio-fuels will also be suitable for growing food.

Wind and solar power share many of the same problems that bio-fuels do in land, sun, weather, and so on. Humans have only been able to rise above subsistence living once we've moved beyond wind, solar, and bio-fuels. I fear that even with the most advance technology we can dream up cannot over come some real limitations to wind, solar, and bio-fuels. With the promise that nuclear power holds I believe there really is no other choice, we cannot maintain our standard of living unless we move to nuclear power.

Yes, all kinds of interesting things can come from nuclear fission. Some of them very valuable precisely because of their interesting radioactive properties.

What's happening here is that the EPA is considering lifting some of the restrictions on some of the radioactive gasses that are difficult to contain and have half lives that are too short or too long to radiate humans in any statistically significant manner. They are not considering changes to the radioactive solids, the stuff that can affect human health.

Calling radiation that has been released from human activity as "natural" does not follow. That radon or other radioactive material from mining would not be in the atmosphere it it was not disturbed. It would have decayed underground where no human would have been exposed. Now that the gasses have been released by mining people have been exposed to increased radiation. But the EPA ignores it because they feel like it.

Point is that nothing exists in a vacuum, and there is no such thing as a free lunch. We can develop nuclear power and reap the rewards it offers, we can keep digging up coal, or we can revert to a nearly cave man existence of wind and solar power. Humans lived on wind, solar, and bio fuels for thousands of years. Much of that supported by slavery. I suspect if we abandon nuclear and fossil power we will revert to things like slavery. We didn't escape from such poverty until we found fossil fuels and made carbon our slave. Unless something better comes along we have a choice, nuclear power, fossil fuels, or Little House on the Prairie.

Unless that power is from a nuclear reactor the carbon footprint reduction from just burning the fossil fuels in the first place is debatable. The carbon footprint from wind and solar is not great because of the aluminum, concrete, and other carbon intensive materials needed for their use. Nuclear power gets away with it because the concrete is poured once in a century to get a gigawatt of reliable power 24/7.

When it comes to smog you may have a case. Problem then becomes how fuel cell cars compare to battery electrics, hydrogen internal combustion powered cars, or whatever else that might come along.

We've been experimenting with all kinds of different power sources for automobiles for a century. I doubt anyone is going to come up with something that competes with gasoline powered cars on price, convenience, and performance any time soon. I suspect we are going to see synthetic hydrocarbons for fuels before anything else. It solves a lot of problems of infrastructure and carbon footprint. Just use whatever power source you were using to make the hydrogen and use it to synthesize octane. Doesn't solve the smog issues directly but with modern engines it seems to me that the air out of the tail pipe is cleaner than what goes in.

While the EPA is thinking about raising limits on how much radioactive material nuclear power plants can release into the environment there are no limits on what coal plants can release. The radioactive material in coal is considered "naturally occurring" since it was dug out of the ground. However thorium is not naturally occurring radioactive material because it is... also dug out of the ground.

The federal regulations on radioactive materials and pollution have little relation to reason. This nonsense is holding up research in nuclear power. If our "carbon footprint" is an issue then it does not look to me like the government cares a whole lot. They'll toss money at coal powered "electric" cars but not allow a nuclear power plant to get built in four decades.

What happens to our carbon footprint with all those electric cars powered from coal and natural gas? Oh, we power our cars from wind and solar? That's laughable. No one has yet made a solar panel that can make a profit. Wind power might make a profit but it relies on natural gas turbines to make up for when the wind does not blow. Wind power actually increases carbon output because instead of using efficient boilers they have to use inefficient turbines.

Getting back to the radiation aspect the burning of natural gas releases radon into the air. Is there any regulations on that? No, because that is "naturally occurring", as if because it's "natural" radiation it does us no harm. What we need to do is hold up fossil fuels to the same standard as nuclear power. We'd switch over to nuclear power on that aspect alone.

All power sources release radiation into the environment. We're disturbing the earth as we dig for coal, uranium, silicon, or hydro electric basins. Even bio-fuels release radiation because we dig up the earth to plant the crops.

Nuclear power has the lowest carbon footprint of any power source we know of. Solar and wind cannot even compete because of all the concrete needed to hold up the structures. I'd suspect that if anyone did an honest assessment of the radiation released then it'd probably do better than the rest there as well.

Also, heroin is illegal while more potent opiates like oxymorphone and hydromorphone are not. Opiates that are just slightly less potent than heroin, like hydrocodone, is handed out like candy but only if mixed with enough Tylenol that it is nearly lethal. People rarely die from opiate overdose any more but Tylenol poisoning is now not uncommon. We've traded one poison for another. Good job DEA! I thought you were supposed to reduce poisoning? I guess if people die from Tylenol then it's not your problem any more.

Nice straw man you've built.

I don't like drunk driving laws because I don't care how much alcohol you've consumed so long as you keep your car in your lane and yield the right of way at intersections. As for speed limits? I've seen studies that suggest people drive more safely without posted speed limits. People drive to conditions and the pace of traffic rather than to some government contrived safe limit.

I believe that the people should be able to own any weapon the military and police are allowed to own. Mustard gas isn't a weapon as much as a tool of torture, which is why the US military does not use it any more.

Oops, I didn't see that until I started my post. If we are going to ban things then we should do so with the intent to reduce harm. Banning heroin has shown to increase harm on society. Banning things does not make them disappear, it just makes them illegal. We banned murder but it still happens. But by banning murder we've created a punishment for people that have harmed others. Banning heroin does not punish people for harming others, we punish people because... why exactly? We've created this logical loop, people get hurt because heroin is banned, therefore we must continue the ban.

Heroin is a product of opiate prohibitions. The reason dealers sell heroin is the same reason that bootleggers sold moonshine, it's easier and more profitable to move the concentrated product than the safer and more dilute equivalent. People don't use heroin because they want to, they do it because that is all they can find.

If we make things like codeine, laudanum, and other safer opiates available legally then heroin use would, by my estimation, practically disappear. Just like we don't see people sneak into a speakeasy any more to drink watered down industrial alcohol, remove the prohibition and regulate it then we can have safe substances replace the unsafe ones.

Heroin is not the problem, it is a symptom. The problem is having people unable to seek treatment for their addiction without having to admit to being a felon first. Drug prohibitions is a cure that has been shown to be worse than the disease. I'm sure some idiot will still shoot up heroin after safe opiates are made available but we should not punish the rest of society because of them. The prohibitions on some drugs has made getting effective cold medications more difficult than getting a recreational drugs. I can find someone willing to sell me marijuana more easily than cough syrup that contains just the slightest amount of codeine or pseudoephedrine. Codeine works, pseudoephedrine works, the other crap sold over the counter doesn't. Heroin and codeine are effectively the same drug, just one is more potent than the other. Heroin I can find from someone that doesn't check ID, codeine requires piles of paperwork and signatures from five different people. Heroin is the free market functioning where the government failed.

Agreed. Not so sure about Ronald Reagan not being a good representative of the people, he's highly respected. I recall a recent poll on how people felt about the Presidents we've had in the last 50 years and Reagan ranked highly if not on top.

While making a good joke takes intelligence I doubt that is what people were thinking when they voted for him. I think they voted on name recognition. The guy was a clown before his political career. He played complete idiots on TV. Reagan had his time as a clown in the movies (Bedtime for Bonzo!) but he also did serious roles.

I just don't recall Franken ever acting seriously even when not in character. I only saw him being a goofball. Steve Martin is another clown that has shown himself to be very talented and intelligent. I just cannot see him running for elected office because when I hear his name I think of the line, "I was born a poor black child."

I'm just baffled on how this guy got into office.

When I hear his name what first comes to mind is the skit I saw of him playing as a inept news reporter with a fake satellite dish on his head. I find it hard to take anything this guy says seriously regardless of the topic.

How do clowns like this get into office? In this case "clown" can be taken literally.

I think it's a great idea to have electric cars and 60% of our electricity come from nuclear power. I don't believe this because I believe AGW is real, I believe this because I think basing an economy on foreign sourced energy is a very bad idea.

Whether AGW is real or not the world needs to stop giving gobs of money to Mideastern dictators. They just use that money to build themselves palaces so they don't have to look at the people they exploit, or they build armies to wage holy wars on their neighbors. If nuclear power becomes more common then we'd stop having these resource wars over diminishing oil resources. Uranium and thorium are common enough that no one should have to fight over it.

People will still fight wars of course. They will just have to be more creative in coming up with a reason besides oil.

Plutonium has a half life somewhere between thousands and millions of years. It's too stable for use as a dirty bomb. For something to be a radiological threat it would have to have a half-life on par with a human lifespan, or much shorter.

Typically a dirty bomb is used to scare or kill people off long enough that the area is abandoned but not so long that the attacker could not take over the area for their own use. Even if the attacker did not want to make use of the bombed area, and just wanted to deny it's use to anyone, something with a long half life is still undesirable. The longer the half life the more material the bomb would have to carry to irradiate a given area. With a half life of thousands of years there would have to be 100x more material than if a material with a half life of tens of years.

A more practical dirty bomb would use something like cobalt, tritium, cesium, strontium, or polonium.

Another problem with plutonium in a dirty bomb is that it's relatively inert chemically and very dense. Cleaning up plutonium would be almost trivial since it does not collect in the body, sinks like a stone in water, and only reacts with the most caustic of chemicals. Tritium would make drinking water and plant life radioactive for decades. Strontium likes to collect in the bones and irradiate people from the inside out.

Plutonium on the other hand likes to wash off, collect at the bottom of things, isn't taken up by plant or animal life readily, and has a half life so long that even if it collects in the body is unlikely to decay within a human life span.

You know, I scare myself sometimes that I know this stuff.

If we are going to discuss the windows on an airplane, and the placement of the flight deck, then let's consider other alternatives to a windowless flight deck.

One thing that has crossed my mind before is why the pilot is on the top of the plane. Above the plane is just air, below is where the runway is always going to be. Why not place the flight deck low on the plane so the windows face down? That way when the plane is doing a nose up glide into the run way the pilot has a perfect view of the ground coming up to meet the plane.

Why have the flight deck on the front of the plane? If they pilot needs to look up then put them at the top. I mean the TOP, as in have the pilot seated on top of the tail in an all around glass bubble.

I believe there are a lot of things we could try to improve the pilots' field of view before we resort to cameras and displays. Large aircraft always have two people capable of flying the plane, do they have to sit side by side? Perhaps one could be seated near the top of the plane so the sky is in view, then the other below to optimize the view for landing. A big enough plane with a long enough route will have redundant crews, give them redundant flight decks. Put one up front and another in the back. I believe that if aircraft get big enough having two flight decks may become nearly a necessity.

Having an airplane without windows seems like an idea that may come to pass but I also think that we've got a lot of other ideas that we will and should try first.

Some day when I have enough time and money I plan on taking an airplane trip with no luggage. I'd show up at the check in counter with nothing but the clothes on my back. Why? Just so I could see what they'd do.

Think about how odd that would look. No cell phone, no key ring, not even a tooth brush. I wouldn't wear anything out of the ordinary, no "Potential Terrorist" t-shirt. I'd just wear what I normally do, running shoes, slacks, polo shirt. I normally keep a knife on my belt but I'd leave that at home, maybe even leave the belt too.

As much as people will claim otherwise you are not required to have identifying documents to board a plane when traveling domestically. International travel you do but not within the USA. I'm thinking I might leave my ID at home too.

What would this prove? I'm not sure but it would be an interesting experiment. I am just curious how the TSA would respond to someone that acts so far out of the ordinary but also fits no norm of a threatening person.

If anyone should ask me about my plans I'd probably just say I'm going shopping. I need some new clothes so I didn't see the need to pack any. I'm thinking that to make it additionally frustrating for them I'd leave not only my ID at home but any credit cards or anything else that might have my name on it besides my boarding pass. I would not lie about who I am and would not refuse to give my name or any other detail. I'm just a guy that wants to go on a shopping trip and I like to pay in cash.

I think that they would not let me on the plane.

One problem with my experiment is that I'd like to document the experiment but I'd have nothing to record with. I'd have to go by memory, or write everything down. No doubt that if I did do this that someone would say, "Photos or it didn't happen!"

The thing is that if the TSA keeps up with their security theater, and the airlines charge for every piece of luggage a person brings, then what I propose as an experiment may become the preferred way to vacation. It would remove a lot of hassle that way.

I've seen plenty of electronic devices that are difficult to identify even if they are powered up. I've seen a number of portable medical devices that have little in the means of a display, usually just a LCD readout, or inputs, just a button. A cordless mouse is just a box with a couple buttons and a light, same for my Bluetooth GPS receiver. Many of my portable electronic devices have been worn to where there aren't any readable labels any more. I know what they do, which is good enough for me, but if I gave them to someone else they might have no idea what it is. This is especially true for someone that does not have a college education, such as the typical TSA agent.

What about something that looks like it might have a battery in it but does not? I have a USB Wi-Fi adapter with a non-standard cable. It could easily be mistaken for a lot of different things, like a walky-talky. It's got an antenna, a couple lights, and some bumps on it that look like they could be buttons. So the TSA agent demands I turn on my "radio". I cannot comply because it's not what the agent believes it to be.

What happens then? I say it's a USB Wi-Fi adapter. The TSA tells me it's not, it's a radio. Will I be forced to give up my device because the TSA agent is an idiot? What if I do power it up by plugging it into a laptop? I have a box with light that turns on. Must be OK now because no terrorist would think of putting explosives in a box where an LED is wired to the power lines on a USB socket.

I think that no one has yet taken down a plane over the USA since 9/11 because no one has tried. Why would they want to? They got what they wanted. We've given them the police state they want to impose on us.

Because the TSA agents are not smart enough to figure out how to turn the devices on by themselves?