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Comment Re:Mark this one for the history books, folks. (Score 1) 183

by emo65170 (#35672374) Attached to: US To Send Radiation-Hardened Robots To Japan

Because the energy required to spin up the main generator(s) is by itself huge. A large power plant (of any sort, not just nuclear) requires a substantial fraction of their own output power to run cooling pumps, control systems, and the like. Also, there's the issue of spooling up whatever generator is used, which is generally done by feeding power from the grid back into the station. In a so called black start situation, some generating stations on the grid have diesel generators that can be started by a big bank of batteries or compressed air. Those are used to bootstrap that plant, which is in turn used to start other plants, and so on. Since this station tripped during the earthquake, it's only source of power was from the generators on site.

Interesting.
Thanks for clearly describing the issues in a well thought out and lucid response.
Nicely done.

Comment Observations (Score 1) 466

by emo65170 (#35669940) Attached to: FBI Wants You To Solve Encrypted Notes From Murder
Looking at the 2 letters, it seems to me that these letters use some kind of phonetic shorthand emphasizing consonants.
  • Letters SE may relate to a word with a "sss" or "sz" sound
  • U may be short for "You"
  • R may be short for "Are" or "Or"
  • LSE may be short for "Else", "Lease", "Lies"
  • WLD may be short for "Would", "Wild", "Weld", "Walled", "Willed"
  • RLSE may be short for "Release", "Realize", "Rails"
  • NE may be short for "Any"
  • NCU may be short for "And see you"
  • PLSE may be short for "Please" or "Place"

Line 7 in P1 seems to be something about someone demanding something, "Or Else" (money?)with instructions to follow in three parts.
The "Notes" page seems to be directions to somewhere. Perhaps for the dropoff? 36 miles on 74 S, or S Parkway, or SE, 29 (Is that an exit?) I 73

Comment What about Compressed Natural Gas? (Score 2) 183

by emo65170 (#34567246) Attached to: US Offers $30M For High-Risk Biofuel Research
It makes sense to me that we should be developing technology to exploit the vast natural gas reserves we have here in the U.S. We're already familiar with CNG tech for automobiles plus its cleaner burning. Perhaps the government could subsidize CNG conversions for older automobiles and for gas stations.

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