npts2020

To throw a wrench into the explanation, it depends on whether the steam is saturated or superheated. I can state with 100% certainty that you cannot see the steam from a 1200 psi boiler on a US Navy ship because it is superheated. When the main steam line gets a break in it, the safest way of finding it is by running a broom along the line until it either bursts into flame or is sheared off. You will not see the leak by looking with your eyes.

That temperature gap is what causes wind. There are many schemes for using wind to power something. Having said that, it is likely possible to use the temperature differences between say the Arctic and a tropical region but it would almost certainly be cost prohibitive because it would require some means of moving air on a global scale. Something like a wind tunnel could work but you are talking about building one a couple of thousand miles long (outrageously expensive) and not having a great deal of energy to extract when it is all said and done. There are probably other ways of doing such a thing but I can't imagine one that is going to give enough energy to make it worth the cost of construction when there are so many other ways of going about getting power.

I realize this thread has probably been abandoned by Wxman but if not, I would like to ask if there is EVER any level of human activity that could affect the climate? If so, where is that level of activity?

Sensei; Swansont beat me to it but would add that lasers are also used for tiny amounts of a substance so that one of the recent big breakthroughs has been cooling something the size of a microchip. Also, I get the impression that it is not a particularly efficient method of cooling but I couldn't find any stats about it from doing a cursory search.

In my opinion, peer review is still the best tool science has for vetting papers for factual content and arriving at the proper conclusions. The problem isn't peer review, it's applying it in a rigorous and unbiased enough fashion, like it wasn't in the above example. For now, at least, there is no substitute.

Trees don't grow fast enough, toxic waste doesn't break down fast enough, resources are too hard to get........etc. On the other hand it seems way better than any proven alternative.

Sure. How else are you going to get your RDA of all those good things? I wonder what the RDA for FD&C red #28 or titanium dioxide is?

Try this site for pretty current news. Realize that they are generating incredible amounts of data that will take time to sift through.

Two Voyager missions passed the outermost planets 20 years ago and are currently in the boundary layer between the solar system and "deep space".

They are delaying the 7 TeV collisions as I write this but are supposed to begin them within the hour. Done!!! Let the analysis begin.

How are you keeping the sodium from causing an explosion when reacting with the water? It seems to me it would be easier and safer to produce the hydrogen with your windmill sitting in one place and filling a tank in the vehicle with it.

Except that once you send it through a "pressure-decrease" valve, it takes energy to repressurize, in fact, more energy than you got out of the fluid to begin with.

lazygamer; Have you ever tried to cool something down to the temperatures required to have liquid nitrogen? It requires a *lot* of energy, way more than an air conditioner uses and if you understood how an air conditioner worked, you would see why it takes so much energy to cool something. I have never seen a process that will cool anything to the temperatures you are talking about that did not require major expenditures of energy, despite the "simple" process of only having to lose internal molecular energy. The system you are describing will require more energy to operate than you will ever get out of it.

So far I have only slogged through about half of the bill but it is my understanding that no future legislation is precluded by any of this bill. In fact, if I am not mistaken, a public option is one of the things that was to possibly be addressed at some future time.

Does that mean we ought to do away with the National Institutes of Health?

I am not exactly sure what you are asking but will try to give an answer. Photosynthesis is a biological process that seems to be pretty efficient, especially when compared to artificial photosynthesis.

Ibuprofen is definitely processed by the liver. Google "effect of ibuprofen on the liver" and you will find literally thousands of articles and studies about the negative effects of the drug on your liver.

Sometimes state records aren't even that good. The hospital I was born in burned to the ground about a decade later and there is no "official" record of the people born in that hospital. What is funny is that I have the original birth certificate (the one with the baby foot prints) but it is not considered to be a valid form of id.

I don't think we should change the calendar until we make contact with an alien sentient species. Until then we are living BC (before contact).

Well, it really would not cost much if any more than high speed rail (the most expensive form of transit to build) to automate the highways and power the vehicles with wind and solar energy. I would like to give a reference for this but it is a compilation of literally hundreds of things from my research of the topic over the past 2 years (it is easy enough to find that high speed rails are the most expensive to build though). It would be nice to see an efficient train system in America but I think that we are fast approaching the point where we cannot afford both a high quality highway and rail system. It seems to me that getting Americans to give up the convenience and privacy of a personal vehicle for a train is a losing proposition, so I have been proposing that we combine the two and automate them. I believe that I have solved most of the problems associated with automation that people bring up, other than the obvious political one of bringing about a major change.

Few things are cheaper than boiling water. Not only that but water is particularly well suited for this use and a fairly safe substance to work with. Any possible alternative I can think of will be toxic, volatile, less efficient, and/or more expensive.

I think it should be a fundamental right to have access to the internet. If there is not universal access you are creating/perpetuating a rich get richer system where all but the poorest, who may need it the most, will be able to use it. Until the past century most people did not consider health care to be a fundamental right but most countries, besides the U.S., now consider it to be one and provide universal care because it has been deemed to be in the best interest of society to do so. I believe a case can be made that would show society as a whole would be better off by not having significant numbers of people with no access to the internet as well.

I think the money would be better spent automating the highways but then what do I know?

Who disproved this theory and how? There may be spontaneous generation happening all over the universe right now but how would we know it?

A buffer solution is this.