exchemist

Well it's nice to have a right wing party that espouses democracy, I suppose. Though as it has neonazi roots, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. For a long while, it seems the Scandinavian countries were largely insulated from immigration by their languages, and by their relative lack of a colonial past. But now for some reason they are getting their share, and seeing some disturbance to their traditional social cohesion. This is the reaction. A similar story is playing out in many countries.

This poster is Theorist, or Pbob or countless sock puppets, back again to waste everybody’s time. He’s using the usual method: make a garbled sciency-sounding assertion to start the ball rolling, and then lob in further chunks on other topics at intervals, to keep respondents dancing and struggling to keep up with the deluge of errors and misconceptions. He has no interest in learning, so you are wasting your time. The sole object is to make the scientists dance and exploit their goodwill for his amusement.

Ah, Theorist, a.k.a. Pbob. 😁 I don't suppose you will be with us for long.

I think you are a deliberate waster of our time.

In science, a hypothesis has value only if it can at least in principle be tested by an observation that could be made. Can you conceive of an observation that could test your hypothesis? If not, it probably isn’t scientific.

For a moment I misread that as womble:-

Galaxies would be a lot brighter.

You mean a neutron activation process in which the nucleus re-emits only a neutron, thereby returning to its former state, a bit like an atom absorbing and re-emitting a photon? I'd have thought there might be such a process, but I must admit I have not found any examples.

I'm not sure how that idea can work. Fossil fuels, on which we will continue to have some need for decades, are by nature internationally traded commodities, exploitation and supply of which is controlled already by national governments. There's no way any nation can control the price of stuff they get from other countries, and no prospect at all of any global agreement among them all. Where I suppose you raise an interesting question is if, as we move progressively to renewables, those at least can be state-controlled, and if they were, would that be a good thing. My inclination is to think not. Experience seems to show the best route normally is to allow commercial enterprise a role but under a controlling framework set by government. That's what I think the current crisis has exposed in the UK: a free-for all in the electricity market may not be good for the country or - I was very interested to read - for the electricity producers, who are exposed to wild swings in profitability and can't formulate a robust business plan without building in massive risk premia - for which consumers, in the end, have to pay.

Now you're just talking crap. I'm out.

There have been attempts, for instance the "tired light" hypothesis, but nothing that fits all the observations.

I was interested to read today that Goldman Sachs believes the spot price of gas may halve by the end of this N hemisphere winter, as a result of the alternative supply and stockbuilding measures being implemented by the EU. Appears the EU is ahead of their stockbuild target, floating LNG gasification plants are already in place in the Netherlands with more to follow in Germany, and there has been some success in curtailing gas demand. So this may be a fairly short-lived spike, in which case government borrowing to tide us over may not be quite as foolhardy as it first seemed. And then Russia will be screwed, as not only will the price come down dramatically, but nearly all their gas pipelines are West-facing and nobody in Europe will ever rely on them again. But a very hard winter could change the calculation.......

According to the currently dominant model of cosmology, there was a beginning to time and space.

Where do you get that idea from? It's quite wrong. For most Christians, baptism simply brings you into the Christian community. What is needed for an individual to get to heaven starts from there.

I'm afraid I don't know much about the "born-again" sects. They are a minority in Christianity.

Haha, yes indeed. Now that’s a really evil scam, preying on the hopes of the poor to impoverish them further.

Indeed. Nor do they teach you how to become a millionaire, or how to fly. Scandalous, isn’t it?

I think I would expect the new Albanese government to remove obstacles to renewable electricity generation. Of all countries on Earth, Australia has good reason to take climate change very seriously indeed. Seems like a no-brainer. But I'm intrigued. 15kW is quite a bit. What area of solar panels do you need for that?

My chief thought is you could look this up, if you really wanted to know. A subsidiary one is that you don't seem to be very good at expressing yourself clearly. Making a big deal out of the "born again" thing is only done by certain Protestant sects within Christianity, largely in the USA. For the rest, baptism is a ritualised symbol of joining the community of Christianity, by metaphorically washing away the "original sin" of humanity with which everyone is said to be born. That's why infant baptism (christening) is the general practice in most denominations. Christ's resurrection concerns a different piece of doctrine: that of the Atonement. It does again relate to the original sin idea, however.

Why don't we start by you engaging your brain and thinking about the fact that (i) there are numerous different types of fabric, (ii) there are these things called dyes and (iii) there are just one or two mechanical processes to convert raw materials into fabric and then fabric into clothes? After you've done that and can formulate a sensible question instead of a silly one, maybe it will be worth going to the trouble of answering it.

That's crazy. The whole world needs Li for EVs, never mind storage for a renewable-based power grid, where batteries are just one (partial) solution.

Yes, I think the UK would do better to target the help at lower income groups and use a windfall tax of wider scope to help fund it. At present it is not only the fossil fuel companies that are making money way in excess of what their investment plans were based on, but also the electricity generators that do not use fossil fuel (renewables, nuclear), because the market price for electricity is set by the gas-based generators. I have read in the FT that some of the renewable operators would actually welcome moving to a different pricing system that gave them more predictable revenues, even if they would make less money at a time of shortage like the present. A more constant revenue stream removes risk, and risk always costs a premium when it comes to business investment, as well as reducing the number of interested participants. Truss is trying to be a papier mâché Thatcher wannabe, to follow the papier mâché Churchill wannabe that we have just got rid of. But that's decades out of date. I think fuel prices and electricity bills are already high enough to make everyone want to economise and think about alternatives. Going even higher would for some people mean dying of cold or starving. So targeted government help, at least, seems unavoidable to me.

Yes, I read an article in the Financial Times this week by Fatih Birol, the (very experienced) head of the International Energy Agency, in which he described the notion that the renewables push is responsible for high energy prices as "absurd". The high prices are of course due to the war in Ukraine, and both Russia and the EU's reaction to that. Also, OPEC has refused to fill the gap in fossil fuel supply, no doubt realising that the world is moving away from fossil fuel and they might as well get as much for it as they can, while they can. High energy prices should be accelerating the move to renewables. Anyone who thinks the answer is to carry on relying on fossil fuel at these prices, which OPEC shows every sign of wanting to maintain, is an idiot. Regarding Australia, it is sitting on much of the world's supply of lithium, which is vital for batteries and hence will be a strategically critical resource in years to come. I should have thought Australia's mining industry should be transitioning to that, away from coal, at top speed, to secure export revenues for the coming decades. At the moment, China does all the processing of Li. Not great, strategically : they could be the next Russia. Maybe Australia should take a look at Li processing, i.e. a spot of vertical integration. They'd have plenty of support for that from the rest of the world, I'm sure. Could probably charge a premium for the added security of supply.

But that is fainting, not headaches.

Ballocks. Participles belong to verbs. There is no verb to intricate, or to be intricated.