gotta a chuckle out of this but don't have mod points to give you

They should be equally guilty for holding health information. Sort of like accepting stolen goods or perhaps owning an illegal drug. Heath information should be illegal to store.

Thanks. It is, or at least seems like a Sisyphean task, especially on the outer coast. But for the inland waters it is clearly having an impact. Much of the plastic is clearly years old, washing from one beach to another during high tide events. Also, good excuse for a walk and to explore local beach access which in Washington can be challenging.

This is not surprising with the key factor being they are limiting the finding to the content of the garbage patch and they are using weight rather than item count.

I'm currently obsessed with picking up beach plastic - 4000 lbs and counting - in Washington state. The beaches are located on the northwest shore of Puget Sound, the south shore of the strait of Juan de Fuca and the northern Pacific coast.

Each area has dramatically different composition. But in all three the general statement that fishing and aquaculture flotsam dominate is true (on a weight basis). To be sure there are more food wrappers, bags, straws, lighters, shot gun wads, sytrofoam and the like in the inland waters of puget sound but there are huge quantities of aquaculture debris and it is generally in heavier denser pieces that end up being something like 75% of the weight. On the outer coast there are nets, floats and ropes but also endless streams of plastic bottles and quite a number of shampoo, condiment and other misc. bottles. I suspect these later items are also coming from fish boats. On the Washington coast I would say 90% of the debris weight is from commercial shipping and fishing.

Another observation is the inland water trash looks like accidents rather than dumping. With so many people living around the sound there are lots of little incidents leading to stray zip lock sandwich bags, candy bar wrappers and the like. In some ways it is surprising there is not more trash on the beach.

Here, shopping bags and produce bags are rare where as the other items I've listed are pretty common. Bag bans and straw bans will not make a significant difference here. Things that would make a difference include:

- make local aquaculture pay for the debris that is found on the beaches so they have more incentive to contain their flotsam
- finding alternative materials for single serving package food wrappers or not eating or drinking them (especially water and beverage bottles)
- consider banning styrofoam take out containers. They break up into small pieces quickly and are getting more prevalent.
- getting shot gun shell manufacturers to stop using plastic wads (they are everywhere)

Surprising amount of misinformation in this thread.

A real heat pump is more than a reversing valve. Primarily there needs to be an ability to defrost. And for package terminal units there needs to be a way to collect defrosted condensate from the exterior coil and drain it to the interior where ice is not a problem.

But the main expense here is that super efficient AC and newer heat pumps utilize inverter driven multi-speed compressors rather than a single speed compressors. This leads to very high cooling efficiencies and in heating mode allows the heating capacity to be maintained to very low temperatures. It is true that in climates with temperatures below -15F there can be issues with insufficient capacity but there are plenty of units operating in cold climates and specific code climate heat pumps that deliver the design capacity down to -20F.

In most heating climates heat pumps are an extremely important technology for carbon reduction assuming grids start replacing coal fired generation with renewable energy sources. There is even a carbon reduction with gas generated electricity with a heat pump compared to a gas furnace.

R32 has a small impact on efficiency but the benefit is a much lower greenhouse gas impact if the refrigerant leaks out. This is important but generally of smaller effect than the energy savings from the inverter.

I'd rather see them expand the low income definition or offer a near low income tier. I just researched options for someone. Their income (17K/yr) came in above the Comcast threshold. Their next best option was $50/month, a pretty big bite out of 17k. The Comcast website also states existing customers do not qualify so people who shoulder the full rate who are suddenly in a reduced income situation or simply need help are out of luck.

A little hard to tell but from the web it appears a significant number of people out there are having the same problem. I had to to do a fresh install of Windows 10 to get the update to take. Amazing how many programs and copy protected documents need to get reinstalled. What a pain. I wish MS had spent more time working on handling issues in the install process.

He is more orangeish than maroon. But I otherwise agree companies have already been expanding to Vancouver to accommodate foreign workers.

This is all a bit beyond my detailed understanding but when I read that our current knowledge of horizontal gene transfer between species is quite rudimentary it is concerning. It seems like a possible worst case situation where we wipe out all mosquitoes but how completely can it be discounted. Invasive species of the past are a prime example of humans moving before understanding the ramification. https://www.upi.com/Science_Ne...

whoooshh .. "and, to convey their level of intelligence, made a face and a spastic hand motion" The insult in your statement here does not require the presence of any particular type of person. The insult is the conflation of certain physical traits with intelligence.

thanks for the laugh (and on topic post)

thanks for the laugh

In the Pacific Northwest we pay ~10 cents /kWh, of that distribution and overhead are around 7 cents/kwh and the the power cost is around 3 cents/kWH. Of the 3 cents/kWh a substantial portion is capital as opposed to fuel. So they spend very little on fuel. As just back up the rates would skyrocket.

Not sure what you mean by upstate Washington but eastern Washington has several substantial wind farm installations. While the winds are not as good as some other places, the transmission infrastructure is already built to service the dam sites so that getting the power to market is cheap. Private utilities that do not have access to cheap federal power have found wind (with the federal tax credit) to be a good investment, even before the state decided to mandate a minimum fraction of renewables. Again individual circumstances. Another issue lost in this discussion is the total cost of the technology. A home solar installation is dependent upon the grid. Depending upon the location, the solar installation may or may no reduce grid costs. In Washington, most of the grid is built to handle January mornings and PV does not reduce system cost but does reduce energy sales. With the capital infrastructure and overhead making up 80% of the cost of utilities, PV is making grid power more expensive for everyone else.

Old people are not the problem. People with long term health issues that need to be managed are. That they want the best treatment is sort of a given. Most people I know in last year of life are dropping lots of drugs because long term health issues are no longer relevant.