WSJournal Says "Start Stockpiling Food!" 700 Club Says "Ditch the Dollar Now!"

[RiversideGator]

what do you say to boone pickens announcement of 150 barrels upcoming River?

We are in for a radical readjustment of the economy.

Could be true.  He is certainly a knowledgeable commentator.  I do not think that such a development would result however in a "radical readjustment of the economy".

[Midway ®]

What did you think about the weather today?

[Midway ®]

Bile..  vitriol..  vitriol..  bile..  Ad hominem attack..

Crybaby.

[RiversideGator]

The point is if one coal fired plant generates 10 times more energy than a solar panel field of 640 acres (paraphrasing from memory the info above) then it isnt exactly an efficient land use or practice in general.

A coal fired power plant (or any power plant for that matter) does not create energy, it converts from another energy source to electricity. if you are going to consider the spatial efficiency of a power plant, then you should also include the infrastructure needed to obtain the fuel for that plant. But, Kwh/Sq.ft would be a meaningless rating for a power plant so there are no specs on that. The closest you can come to that is watts per sq ft for a PV cell. And besides, there's plenty of land thats not good for anything else out west. I don't think Stephen was saying that there should be solar farms everywhere, just where they make economic sense. The extension to everywhere was your contribution. In a country this big, the spatial efficiency of a power plant is a meaningless number.

By the way, the thermodynamic efficiency of a coal fired power plant is about 39%. The rest is waste heat. So about 60% of the coal burned produces no electricity, just pollution and waste heat.

I never said coal fired plants are the best source of energy ever imagined.  But they are apparently the cheapest and easiest way to generate power at present or the experts at the power generating companies (they are commonly known as power generators, hence my use of the word "generate") would not be advocating their construction.  Or, do you know more than them too?

So which forests in Florida would you like to clearcut to build these massive solar panel stations?  Environmentalists complain if a postage stamp piece of land in Alaska is used for oil drilling but you can cover hundreds of acres with such a monstrosity without any problems??  Talk about misplaced priorities.

Once the phosphate runs out, put them over those strip mines. How about in the California, Arizona and Utah deserts? And to compare oil drilling with the placement of PV cells is foolishness and you know it. They are two totally different kinds of activities. Oil drilling is an active endeavour in a delicate ecosystem, and placing PV cells is a passive activity in a desert.

If there is a way to efficiently and cheaply do this, I am for it.  If you would drop the bitter, angry liberal routine you would have read above where I posted that I was not opposed to solar energy but was concerned that it was not feasible at present.  Get it?

The point is you cannot transport large quantities of electricity (using current technologies) without a huge loss of said power. 

Oh, really? You know those big tower looking thingys with the wires on them? Those are called electric transmission lines. In this modern age they have actually figured out how to make them work with about a 96% efficiency!

Ok Mr. Scientist.  Now tell us much energy is lost (as a percentage of the total originally generated) by transmitting x amount of energy from Arizona to Florida.

Also, you have to acquire massive tracts of land and clearcut them for the solar panels.  So what is the answer to my earlier question?

Solar electric farms are not appropriate everywhere, but you are trying to make the case that they are not appropriate anywhere.

Actually, no I wasnt. 

Posting pictures of the victims of Chernobyl, the one nuclear power plant accident which caused such problems and which occurred in the famously incompetent Soviet Union, is totally uncalled for and unnecessary.  This is hardly representative of nuclear power today either.  Ask the French, who get almost all their power from clean nuclear power, how it is working out for them.

Yes nuclear power is wonderful, and it is a mature and reasonably safe technology. Just one small problem.... nobody knows what to do with the waste plutonium that the fissile reactors produce. It has a half life of 24,000 years. Thats a long time to store something safely. Look up Yucca mountain.  I am all for nuclear power, if you can devise a strategy for disposing of the spent fuel. Could you please work on that, because to date, no one else has been able to crack that nut, and being that you are so smart, I'm sure that you could figure this out during your lunch break, probably with the mere wave of your hand, just like everything else.

Perhaps you should look up Yucca Mountain and read a little more about it.  This was a near perfect solution to the problem of where to store spent fuel.  It was perfect that is until libs like you decided that there should be no such space for safe storage of spent fuels because their ulterior motive was to discourage nuclear power.

In addition, spent fuel can be reprocessed.  From the hated wikipedia:

Nuclear energy use in the EU creates problems with disposal of nuclear waste. On average, the EU creates about 40,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste per year. Eighty percent of that is short-lived low-level radioactive waste.[5] France and the United Kingdom are currently the only EU countries that recycle its waste into new fuel. However, the reprocessing of spent fuel in the UK is being phased out but is expected to continue in France. The countries that currently use this reprocessed fuel (MOX) include Germany, Belgium, France and Switzerland.[6] Recycling spent fuel significantly decreases the amount and it produces the by-product plutonium. Although plutonium is regularly related to nuclear weapons, the plutonium created from these reprocessing facilities has too much of the isotope Pu-240, making them inefficient for nuclear weapon use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_energy_in_the_European_Union

Technology is a constant compromise between the desired result and the immutable realities of physics.

Did I ever say that this was not so?   

BTW, perhaps you should remind yourself of this rule when you are speaking of your pie in the sky solutions to our present problems.

[RiversideGator]

Still have not seen any responses from you on this either, big boy:

My response is above.  And, I am quite certain that you would not be so bold if you were not hiding behind your computer screen.   

[RiversideGator]

It is hard for the average person to understand that an "Educated' person could have such primitive and devolved views related to the sciences.

Anyone who does not agree with you = primitive.  Interesting world view.  Well, I guess this is an effective psychological defense mechanism to convince yourself of your own imagined superiority. 

But, in my field, I have encountered an astonishingly large number of highly educated Neanderthals. At first blush, it would seem counterintuitive, but there are an amazingly large number of behaviours related to humans that are counterintuitive, but nonetheless, true.

And what is your "field" again?

Of course there is one eminently logical explanation for his posts: agent provocateur.

Yes, this is a sting operation to provoke you into acting unhinged.   

[RiversideGator]

Bile..  vitriol..  vitriol..  bile..  Ad hominem attack..

Crybaby.

More personal attacks.  This really proves your point, little fellow.   

[RiversideGator]

Overall though, I do find River to be intelligent and insightful, and definitely the master of Devil's Advocacy.  I feel privileged to have argued with him these past two years.

I have enjoyed it also.  You can disagree without being disagreeable.  This is a lesson about which we all should be reminded.

[Midway ®]

Overall though, I do find River to be intelligent and insightful, and definitely the master of Devil's Advocacy.  I feel privileged to have argued with him these past two years.

I have enjoyed it also.  You can disagree without being disagreeable.  This is a lesson about which we all should be reminded.

Stephen, You must either be reading a different set of posts than me, or grading him on a curve.

When did we ever discuss transmitting power from Arizona to Florida? I suppose that there's nothing in between those two points.

Your responses are a bunch of sanctimonious crap.

Why don't you reprint a few pages from Wikipedia and go out to Yucca Mountain and straighten the whole project out. To portray the myriad problems out there as being caused by liberal politicians and environmental do gooders belies your ignorance of the subject. But again, your great passion is the oversimplification of everything.

And while you're at the printer pick off a few pages about reprocessing spent fuel rods so you can take care of that too. Do you honestly think that if it were possible and feasible, they would not be doing it now? Why go through all of the trouble to build a site to store the stuff for thousands of years? Just make new reactor fuel out of it and make electricity for free forever. Put up breeder reactors all over so that we have more.

Your one line answers are not only misinformed, they are technically incorrect and dismissive. These are complex problems whose answers cannot be found in Wikipedia. You think you're a nuclear physicist because you read Wikipedia? You might as well have stayed in a Holiday Inn express, your chances would have been just as good.

And actually, if you are this ridiculous when you are not behind your little computer, consider yourself fortunate to not have met me in person. Remember, I don't push papers, I flip burgers all day long and have quite a bit of strength from that, and using riversideGator logic, since a burger is about 100 times heavier than a piece of paper, I'm probably about 100 times bigger and stronger than you. The only thing is, please don't head butt me with your giant inflated head, ok?

[Jason]

I think you guys need to take a break from this tread.  Do some browsing elsewhere and cool down a bit.  We're all here to learn from and interact with others interested in the same things, but the personal attacks are getting the debate nowhere.

[Midway ®]

They're not personal insults. It's just good clean American fun.

And, you won't learn anything here as long as all of the arguments are based upon misinterpretations of Wikipedia clips.

And jump out of your box, already.

[RiversideGator]

They're not personal insults. It's just good clean American fun.

And, you won't learn anything here as long as all of the arguments are based upon misinterpretations of Wikipedia clips.

And jump out of your box, already.

it is kind of refreshing, after 2 years of hearing anyone who disagrees that the world is flat and that CO2 is our friend, or that conservative doesnt and shouldnt mean 'fascist' being called names, harrassed and ridiculed to see the same treatment meted out in kind.

socialist, liberal, idiot, fool, moron, easily taken in, lemming, fatuous, fraud, fake, messianic complex etc, etc......   If I happen to be the one disagreeing, then because I don't use a screen name, private details from my life are then ridiculed and challenged as though switching the subject were as effective as actually winning the debate.  It has taken a fairly thick skin and iron discipline not to return the same extremely rude treatment over the years, but its nice to see the shoe on the other foot for a change.

Well then, I take back all the nice things I said about you, Stephen.   

[Midway ®]

And once again, I must reiterate,

As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

Now I did post this once before, and it seemed to just fly over river & company's  head. please let me know if y'all require further explanation, which I will be happy to provide.

[RiversideGator]

They're not personal insults. It's just good clean American fun.

And, you won't learn anything here as long as all of the arguments are based upon misinterpretations of Wikipedia clips.

And jump out of your box, already.

1) I am always ready to learn.
2) My arguments are not wikipedia based.  I mainly post links to wikipedia for your benefit.   
3) You consistently have been personally obnoxious with me and anyone else with whom you disagree.  I have been guilty of some of this too.  Going forward, I will attempt to end this on my part.

[Midway ®]

OK, thats fine.

Reasonable debate is good.

But there many aspects of your postings that are specious, technically inaccurate, and / or deliberately misleading.

Now, I'm not saying that you are or are not any of those things, just that the posts are such. You are not open to correction of those posts, and usually respond by putting up pictures, or moving on to another subject, but seldom, if ever address the issues raised.

If thats the style that you wish to pursue, that's fine. I am capable of responding in kind to any style of post, and find none of it personally offensive.

But, if your wish is to have an interchange of ideas, and feel that you are sufficiently well versed in the subject to do so, I would also be interested in doing that. The key is, to be sufficiently well versed in the subject, not just to think that you are. For instance, when the Civil war came up, I did not participate, because I am not as well versed in that subject as Ock is, and had nothing to add. I recognize that fact.

On the other hand, with regard to the subjects that I do engage in, I am well versed, and can speak on the basis of real knowledge. That's my purpose here. However you should wish to respond to that is your business.

With regard to our respective identities, professions and education, I don't think that has relevance here. What has relevance is putting up items that make sense, and if they don't make sense, it does not matter if you are a lawyer of if I am a McDonald's counter person. Both of of would be just as unqualified to speak to global warming issues by virtue of our training and education or lack thereof, therefore the posts have to make scientific and logical sense. This is not Fox news. And it doesn't need to be either, because if that's what someone wants, they can turn on their TV and get a full motion version of that for free.

So, being the main catalyst and prime mover on these types of posts, the choice regarding the texture and tone of them is solely up to you. I merely respond in kind. I will always parse for factual errors and inconsistencies, and I will point them out, but the rest is up to you.