CaptainPanic

Do you mind sharing it with us? Others might want to solve the puzzle as well. (Something tells me that we'll never see the puzzle - a newbie with just 1 post might not come back to this forum).

The question you have to ask yourself is: If I build two sets of blades on top of the turbine, which other components do I have to build twice? Where do I save (materials / money)? Your double-rotor turbine is competing against two separate turbines. If you have to build also two gearboxes, and a stronger mast, then I don't see how that design is better than just building two turbines next to each other. (If your argument against two separate turbines is space: the turbine with two sets of blades will be less suitable for urban areas because it will be more noisy (due to the increased turbulence)).

If you want to have a tall metal structure to attract lightning, use a pipe. Something that cannot break so easily. Something that won't snap when it bends a bit. A high stack of cans will break. Apologies for being negative about your idea... I just cannot see any glue that is so strong that you can conveniently build it. A pipe has several benefits: 1. It's quite cheap (copper plumbing pipes really aren't so expensive). And per meter it's cheaper than cans (unless you already have a massive stack of cans and no pipe). 2. It's strong. 3. It will conduct easily. 4. It can be expanded using connections (standard plumbing pipes and standard connections). If you want it to stand up, bury it in the sand a bit... and also attach at least 3 ropes to the top, and fix those into the ground too (like with radio and tv masts).

There are a number of reasons why one would not put a second rotor (a set of blades) on a turbine: 1. The blades will influence each other through turbulence. As was mentioned before, the second blades are always behind the 1st one (regardless of the wind direction), which will reduce the efficiency of the second blades. 2. While you save a lot if you put 2 rotors on one mast (seems like you save a lot of money there!), the increased turbulence will cause more vibrations and you need to improve the strength of many components - especially the blades themselves. 3. The gearbox will be much more complicated with two rotors. (Obviously, the rotors will turn at a different speed - if they have the same speed, then that is in fact a single larger rotor with more blades). I'm sure that there are more reasons... there is a lot of research being done in the field of wind turbine design... the idea of more than one rotor on one mast has surely been investigated.

Which is why Cheney is clearly immoral. In a democratic government, a politician represents the people. The people, almost without exception, are in favor of human rights. Cheney goes straight against this very elementary right, and claims that it's necessary to torture people.

He's right that they require electricity to power the car (if you go with the popular idea to use hydrogen as a fuel - this clean hydrogen comes from a sustainable origin, like wind and/or solar energy. Both produce electricity.). So, the popular description of fuel cells is: sustainable electricity (wind/solar) is used to make hydrogen. Hydrogen goes into the tank of the car. Hydrogen powers the fuel cell, and is combusted, forming electricity (and heat). The electricity powers the electric engine of the car. However, you can also make hydrogen from fossil sources, as Mr Skeptic already mentioned. Today, in 2009, the "fossil hydrogen" is a lot cheaper than the "clean hydrogen". And it's exactly the same hydrogen, so everybody will go for the fossil hydrogen.

Yup. The same people who came up with the brilliant idea to ban KNO3 from stores probably also want to monitor the internet... which is a good reason to ignore the topic of explosives on this forum. Explosives are (in the minds of some people) closely related to terrorism... such people don't realize that our economy runs on explosives (think about a car engine and space flight). Also, they only see dangers, and don't realize the added value of people who self-educate themselves by experimenting at home. In short: it's the year 2009, and it's safety first - regardless of any benefits of risks being taken.And I think it's a wise decision of this forum to play it by the rules.

The ventilation is also needed if your experiment proceeds without "boom". You'll release a significant amount of CO2 into the room, and CO2 is already toxic at concentrations of >1%vol. The CO2 is (probably) in a liquid form in the gas cylinder. That means that the volume expands significantly when the CO2 is released. (And that means that the concentration is significant). If there is 227 g of CO2 in the cylinder, this will become 126 liters of pure CO2 gas when released. If you have a bigger cylinder (like most fire extinguishers), the CO2 concentrations can easily become dangerous. But I have a feeling that you know that already. Still, I've added it for other people.

Economics is in the same league as History. You can study it, get a Msc or a PhD in it, in but it will never give any guarantees for the future.

Bah, Anyone who needs things like a company name, town and country can **** off. Seems a bit too commercial to be a thesis work to me.

styrofoam is made by mixing polystyrene and a solvent in an extruder (the mixture is at high pressure/temperature inside the extruder). When it leaves the extruder, the pressure becomes atmospheric, and the solvent which is inside the polystyrene expands a lot, and the polystyrene becomes the foam (with the solvent gas in the air-pockets). then you have to leave it for a while so that air can replace the solvent in the air-pockets in the foam. But styrofoam is organic... not inorganic.

On a sidenote: In the Netherlands, some people want our meteorologists to stop giving weather-alarms altogether, because they're sometimes wrong. I can see our weather man being put to trial for predicting sun, while somebody's BBQ party got ruined by a thunderstorm *puts the thread back on topic*

Obviously, there was also the desire to simply test the Bomb (which was a new weapon) on the enemy. It saved a lot of lives on the side of the Americans, but I never heard of any general that didn't want to test new weaponry... This bomb had an impact larger than the 100,000 lives it saved on the side of the Americans. (Apologies for totally ignoring the civilians killed by the blasts - I'm trying to make a point about military stuff). The US government knew very well that the commies were strong, and it was not inconvenient to show off some military power to them.

Farmers might be off the grid, with their own aggregate for electricity for the compressors. A cooling cycle is a closed loop in which the HCFC circulates. In order to make this gas go round, you need a compressor (which is essentially just a pump for gas). That compressor runs on electricity. To make electricity, you need something like a dynamo. And to make a dynamo spin, you need some other engine, which needs a fuel. And burning that fuel is what creates the CO2. What insane_alien suggests is that it's most likely that the compressor is simply connected to the electricity grid, and the dynamo and engine are both in the powerplant (which burns coal, or gas or something like that). Solar cells will create electricity too. Therefore you need less electricity from the other source (dynamo etc.). You need to provide quite a bit more information if you want us to help you to find the amount of CO2 produced to cool the milk. You need to help us with things like: temperature of the milk after cooling, efficiency of the cooler (coefficient of performance of the cooler)...

Industry requires cooling water. Depending on the type of industry, it might need water for other purposes too. While industry might seem to use a lot of water, you can bet that the people who designed and built this factory have considered to go to a place where water is cheaper. The location of a factory is definitely part of the planning. So, now more water is being used in the desert, but you get benefits too (like less transportation). But for industry, water is just another financial factor. So, the answer to your question is: because it was the most profitable to build that industry in the desert. I bet you could have answered that yourself too The bigger question is: why are people living in the desert. Without those people, it is likely that the industry wouldn't be there either. That 2nd question I cannot answer (unless you'd accept the answer "because gambling laws are less strict in the desert" as a proper answer). That requires a tremendous amount of energy. If you can just divert fresh water, it'll be cheaper. Again, it's Ecology vs. Economy. You get 10 points if you can guess which one will win.

Sorry if I am insulting... but the "American way" is not to conserve water... it's to get more water. People only think about their bank account, and as long as the price of the water is just a few percent of the total expenses, then that's just affordable. I bet the total money spent on water for the average household in Las Vegas is less than 1% of their income. Make water 10x more expensive, and native plants will become popular (and a public outcry will also be heard). On topic again: I don't think that you can easily start exporting large amounts of water from Canadian lakes and rivers without having a large impact on the ecology. Perhaps you can remove water from rivers that have nearly arrived at the sea? I would be very cautious to remove water from an area that is all natural (without artificially maintained water levels).

Since some people decided that Pluto is not a planet, I count 8. The rocketscience is in the decision whether Pluto is a planet or not. After that's decided, the rest is about as complicated as Sesamestreet. And I think we're talking about "X" as in the letter X, not "X" as in number 10... (Since Pluto is not a planet anymore).

Planet X, if it exists is going to be only marginally larger than Pluto... it will be rocky. A large planet the size of Neptune is too easy to find, and would also gobble up a lot of the smaller debris that orbits the sun out there. Since the debris is still there, the planet probably isn't. (Disclaimer - I'm no expert, and just spam the thread with some stuff that I hope makes sense). What I find more amusing (and I kinda hope there's some truth in it), is the prediction that some small dwarf stars that are emitting nearly no light at all are in our vicinity... no inside the solar system, but relatively nearby anyway.

One clear sign that things are going to change is Lake Mead, behind the Hoover dam, which is only at 43% of its capacity... It's only logical that people in dry areas are looking around for some water. And it's only logical that they also look across the border to places where the water in lakes is (nearly) drinking quality.

I also found 6. (You have 2 equations that you can use to express one symbol in terms of the other).

That liberal country would be Argentina then?

I agree that some people say that. Some people also say that it was unavoidable that the bomb would be discovered, since many countries were working on it, and were trying to be the first. So, that's all a bit irrelevant. However, Germany was defeated before the first bomb was dropped.

I would quit my job, and start looking for something computers can't do easily... like partying and getting hangovers. It's gonna be the only niche that humans will fit in. Go computers, go computers! *cheers for AI*

I never knew that America had joined the international courts in the Netherlands... but perhaps Brooklyn isn't really a part of the USA? I'm not really sure how this works though. Politics... bah.

The bad: you finally got your car inspected today... (I know, it's more than 1 week ago by now)