Harold Squared

I am interested more in the phenomenon of consensus generally, in the political sense, why are you trying to turn this into another AGW specific thread? Thank you. I wish I had read all the way to your post before replying.At various times the consensus view favored burning witches, heretics, etc. Dueling died out relatively recently, a holdover from trial by combat, a most traditional and nasty sort of jurisprudence. It was generally supported by the consensus of the day. Custom and culture often carry more weight than formal law. Often it seems to me that custom dictates whether the law is enforced or not and to what degree. Neither consensus nor law are under any obligation to be consistent, and when the pressure is on, both bow to expedience in practice. At the root of all are certain beliefs considered as axiomatic. And considering our limitations there is much we do not yet and indeed may never know with certainty. Science seeks to change this, of course. The gold standard of science is reproducible results, of course, but this is not always feasible.

So droll and yet so true! Touché!

Carter shut down the United States capacity for nuclear fuel reprocessing, which the French have been doing for decades and making good money at it, recovering many a spent fuel rod's remaining uranium and plutonium to generate additional power and disposing of the remaining "waste" safely and responsibly. Said fuel rods come from all over the developed world, as far away as Japan. France has been largely(70% or better) nuclear for quite some time and commonly sells electricity to its more backward neighbors in Europe. Why? Because they have not been shackled to "renewables" by legislative fiat, and were free to pursue a policy based upon security and reliability. Nuclear power is another goddam case of emotion and well(or otherwise)-meaning dumbasses, e.g., celebrities overruling the science involved. That a supposedly well educated person could make such a contractual remark regarding nuclear waste is troubling in the extreme. As I somewhat profanely remarked above, there has been no sunshine hereabouts for in excess of 48 hours. Molten salt heat storage is at best 12 to 15 hours. Not much help. Good night gentlemen, and ladies, if any are watching, my apologies for the irritable verbiage above.

Yah, watching the episode again I noticed this climate variation was attributed to the "highly elliptical" orbit of the planet at such times. I admitted at the outset it sounded plausible, but that alone is not proof, agreed? What other effects did these periods exhibit, I wonder? How did other species respond?

Where I live it has been raining for two goddam days like a cow pissing on a flat rock. I am an old fart and have been listening to renewable energy types singing the same song since the fucking OPEC embargo and Three Mile Island. Well, guess what? All those assholes were wrong, they are still wrong, and nothing they have produced yet has the reliability or output of fucking TMI. A fact California dingbats like Gov. Brown seem to be blind to. The lame Solar One(late and unlamented), the infamous Solyndra, SEGS, they are all losers, look at the data. "Geek candy"? Really? One does not have to be much of a scientist to note the rate of demand and that sooner or later humanity will HAVE to exploit extraterrestrial resources. I happen to think that sooner is better and if you are sincere about the impending menace of AGW you will agree. One more thing, goddammit, Chelyabinsk. Excuse me while I watch Hacking the Universe again, our future in space. BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE IT IS. Thank you all for your comments, even though I disagree with a few here and there. Funny guy. Obviously there is less roof area per capita in heavily urbanized areas, skyscrapers and all, and for the same reasons, a good few of those roofs are shaded by neighboring buildings, even on sunny days. This is true even at Texas latitudes. Any dumbasses who falls off his roof installing PV panels deserves what he gets, and this is doubly true for any idiot clearing snow off the stupid things.

Thank you for your most helpful clarification and to all participants for their gratifying interest. Does Harold compare himself to Boltzmann or the great Einstein? No. The quote supplied merely points out that upsetting the consensus is typical of great advancements in our understanding of the facts presented to us by observations. No more, no less. The good doctor is unaware of Harold and unless I am mistaken intends to suggest exactly what he said. Other examples of complete unanimity being incorrect based on the best available evidence and considerably higher stakes, e.g., exculpatory DNA evidence clearing the names of convicted murderers. Last I noticed, there were over one hundred such cases on record. It would behoove us to weigh ALL AVAILABLE evidence, most carefully, and without prior prejudice to the degree we are able.

Last objection first, therminol is no problem for photovoltaic whatsoever, though I am surprised to find that the majority of installed capacity fits the description. As you are perhaps aware, the problem with photovoltaic applications is low voltage, more suited to charging batteries than direct input to the grid. Therminol is demonstrated to be a fire hazard and there is a certain NIMBY mentality based on this. In a sense, remote location is both an advantage and a disadvantage. So you have solar photovoltaic on your roof, let me know how many watts per square meter, how many square meters we are talking about, and we can compare the figure to demand of that same building. How much is left over? AC or DC? What voltage and frequency(if AC)? What time of day and what season of the year? The shade of the collectors provides a perfect location for radiator area and the support structure for the former could easily serve for both. As previously mentioned, the equivalent of many suns as seen from the Earth and the vast cold void of interstellar space can be in close proximity. Ideal location for a heat engine, wouldn't you say? What about superconducting technology for the generators? Admittedly, all this hardware will take up a lot of room, but space is amply supplied with, well, SPACE. Say you are needing a lot of room for your project in geosynchronous orbit. Send up a couple of reels of cable and pay them out at equal rates, tidal forces will pull them into alignment, one pointing towards the planet, one pointing away. Eventually the planet end touches down in Bogota or Singapore and microwave transmission becomes obsolete. You now have a space elevator and room for all sorts of goodies, all stationary with respect to the city below. Of course the spaceward end of the gadget will be moving at greater than escape velocity, but we can manage that as long as the masses balance at GEO where the titanic stresses cancel out. Oh, and I beg to differ about "regulation" as stated above, given the well established antinuclear stance of the government of California I am inclined to believe it is more a matter of availability rather than anything else. I could be mistaken, however. As for the claim that one thing is necessarily "more expensive than another" we should watch our assumptions, agreed? AGW states severe storms are coming our way thick and fast and likely to trash terrestrial infrastructure, including ground based solar and wind. Space based solar would be invulnerable to such disturbances except for rectenna arrays.

Honorable mention to the truly impressive Chudnovsky brothers, formally trained and justly renowned as mathematicians, part of their legacy is in art restoration and preservation, documented in a NOVA PBS program.

If the planet becomes less habitable at some point evacuation will become necessary. All the the more reason to develop infrastructure in space.

And so we know nothing definite of whether the ice is growing or not. No big loss, since a.) Any report is anecdotal, and b.) It could change overnight, as whacking great chunks of ice have been known to break off into the polar sea.

Off topic, but which "Republican Party"? The Spanish Civil War Republicans were Communists. In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. Returning to the topic, wind power can be turned into hot water directly by agitating said water, maybe some vertical axis arrangement with Savonius rotors would do it.

At no time have I alleged that Einstein was a "layman" or any of the others on the list. To get on the list a person need only have to be principally remembered for things other than the jobs they did to pay the bills. And they are just "famous people", some philosophical or literary figures. Reportedly Einstein found the work at the patent office both inspiring, as many of the patents involved clocks and timekeeping, and sufficiently undemanding that he had considerable time to devote to hand waving, er, theorizing. Thank you and best wishes for your success in all things. I am most pleased to be of service. If you want to design more realistic space games I suggest W. Chung's Project Rho website. Again, my thanks for the feedback.

Then you might be surprised at how I learned of the good doctor and where I found his words. In any case, neither the doctor nor dear old Uncle Harold would be idiot enough to insist consensus is always wrong, any more than it is always based on sufficient and correct evidence, e.g. witch hunts and the like. Another example if you prefer: Executive Order 9066. Unchallenged at the time, roundly condemned as an egregious and racist violation of American civil rights today.

I suppose the White Man's Burden is as heavy as ever. Bloody ungrateful wogs and all, wot? Returning to the topic, the year 1816 affected nations the world around with no regard for socioeconomic distinctions. It is thought to be a consequence of volcanic activity.

Oops, John not Richard. My mistake. Anyway, I am having no damned luck at all finding out more about this hypothesis. Used to be a big fan of that bit of anthropology, Australopithecus africanus, A. robustus, Leaky and all. A bit rusty now I confess. Harry Turtledove wrote "A Different Flesh", brilliant fiction on what might have happened if modern Europeans had met a more primitive species in the New World instead of other H. sapiens. Anyway it would be nice to know more.

So you don't know anything about that report? I have a personal interest in Antarctica. Unique among the continents and all. It was a topical inquiry, polite and all that. Didn't cite the source on account of that was what I was as looking for. Thanks for the compliment, they're rare enough around here.

I confess, a tough but to crack. Thanks for the comment on Venus. Working on a plausible scheme. Outside of "Fantastic Voyage" and similar fictional exploits I confess I have not seen much as far as "miniaturizing ourselves", is there any such technology in development at present? Returning to the topic, according to the cited reference in the original post, the abundance of the Sun is most impressive. It is also not limited to this planet, i.e. a similar amount of power pours through an area with our planet's cross section continuously. Just taking the long view. Expanding into space is inevitable considering ever expanding demand. Out there there is a lot of room for expansion.

Heard a rumor that Australia has an Antarctic station getting too far from resupply due to all the ice, may have to be relocated or abandoned. Any comments?

I am listening and being polite about it, if you will notice. Naturally I have investigated terrestrial solar applications so I am somewhat familiar with the points being raised, "superiority" doesn't enter into it. I am confident that your investigations will confirm my own and if they differ I am most willing to learn as I think my responses on this thread may indicate. Thank you all for your interest and the time expended on your responses, I am honored. Perhaps a blog would be a good idea too, in time, this is the second time I recall one has been suggested. You are most welcome. I hope the clarification will suffice.

The performance of terrestrial solar is abysmal and highly dependent upon subsidies, not that space exploration to date has not been a highly subsidized endeavors. I am most willing to grant as much. Better in terms of capacity factor, mostly. And in the potential for expansion, which is unlimited, relatively speaking. There is a definite limit to suitable terrestrial sites and has dimreaper has pointed out, the available sites are often located far from areas of maximum demand, e.g. Australian Outback, Sahara, etc. The American southwest should be an ideal colocation of supply and demand for terrestrial solar, but no. In practice sunny Arizona sells NUCLEAR electricity to sunny California. It has been suggested that a power generation station requires around 15 years to recoup the initial investment but I am not entirely certain. What does seem certain is that higher capacity factors will result in quicker payback, all other things being equal, though admittedly all other things are rarely so. Terrestrial solar installations mainly serve at present to illustrate the drawbacks of such, e.g. pitiable capacity factors, use of supplementary natural gas, therminol fires, local opposition, etc.

"Night time" is negligible at geostationary orbit but does occur upon occasion, even out to lunar orbit, you are perhaps familiar with the term "eclipse"? This is why I suggest developing the statite concept, basically a spacecraft which uses solar sail technology to counterbalance gravitational attraction in order to maintain its position. Moving out of the plane of the ecliptic avails us of sunshine which would otherwise be wasted and provide convenient relay points for power beamed from collectors at L4 and L5 when such become necessary. Another benefit of these polar locations is reduced radiation hazard compared to geostationary orbit. Thank you for your participation in the conversation. If a frog had wings,he wouldn't bump his ass so much. In space storage is a non issue, as described immediately above. In practice Saharan locations are as remote as orbit if not more so from current locations of peak demand for electricity. Plus lovely and abrasive sandstorms can be expected to scratch up your equipment in short order. Of course if you can figure out a way around the objections my metaphorical hat will be off to you, as well as Swanson's metaphorical sweater, I imagine. Thank you for the topical comment.

Quite right, the collectors regardless of location would have to track the Sun, and any in geosynchronous orbit would also be subject to brief interruptions at eclipse, so what would work best would be to have the majority of the collectors at polar locations, the statite platforms discussed earlier, and either direct transmission from such platforms to less equatorial ground stations or relay through geosynchronous stations as indicated to minimize atmospheric losses, although not transmission losses, as I am sure we can agree. The relay system would economize on space since collector area would be elsewhere and there is no reason communications could not be added to the platforms in geosynchronous orbit. 25% photovoltaic? I think solar thermal would work better in space since there would be no consideration of band gap and a greater portion of the available spectrum could be harnessed, plus mirrors are inherently less expensive, easier to patch, etc. Plus, the thermal efficiency of a heat engine is directly proportional to the difference in temperature between the "hot" and "cold" portions of the engine. That is around the melting point of tungsten and nearly zero Kelvin in space.

I have heard of pioneers keeping silver or copper coins in water and even milk barrels, supposedly the ions of metal kept bacterial growth down. Might be something to it since vessels have used copper bottom sheathing to inhibit marine growth.

Do you intend to imply said species are similarly affected by climate change, Richard? Are there any members of this online community fitting your description or are you simply making some random unrelated and unilluminating insult?

Your point is perfectly valid and to be fair, the "statite" has yet to be demonstrated. The best we can say for it is that, like fusion, the principles are understood and worthy of further development. Maintenance in space is an issue but the practice of same, at least in low Earth orbit, was famously demonstrated by the Hubble Space Telescope mission. Obviously the radiation hazard is much greater at geosynchronous orbit. By definition objects located there are in a fixed position relative to the planetary surface, not an option with the Sun, to say the least. Given the radiation hazard it is likely that powersats will be of robust construction and remotely inspected and maintained. Nothing prevents large orbital stations from transmitting power to multiple ground stations in line of sight. By contrast, the number of ground sites for both solar and wind are limited, and exposed to the climate extremes forecast by AGW advocates to become more common. Ground based thermal solar is commonly augmented by natural gas to build up a head of steam in the morning, which sort of defeats the carbon abatement angle, and are completely useless at night. I hope you see fit to respond again and your participation has given me great insight into the implications of my proposition.