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Post by phoenixferret on Feb 2, 2008 0:08:33 GMT -5
But America so wants to buy those pretty red shoes. They're so cute! OMG, can't live without them! America's best friend already has them, the BITCH! Maybe America can "borrow" them. It worked with grumpy old man Iraq and his oil. I dunno wtf you're talking about, but this made me L-O-L. ;D
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Post by HybridMoment on Mar 16, 2008 1:13:03 GMT -5
Not that anybody cares, except me, but I withdraw my support for Ron Paul. Well he may have been supported by Nazi's and conspiracy theorists, but Ron Paul was right on the money about "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke... as my savings continue to dwindle in value.
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Post by Naptaq on Mar 16, 2008 5:43:13 GMT -5
Not that anybody cares, except me, but I withdraw my support for Ron Paul. Well he may have been supported by Nazi's and conspiracy theorists, but Ron Paul was right on the money about "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke... as my savings continue to dwindle in value. oh cheer up and buy euros
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Post by HybridMoment on Mar 16, 2008 15:15:38 GMT -5
Well my sister is currently attending college in Europe (France), before she left I told her to hook me up with some foreign currency and she said she would.
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Post by k151 on Mar 19, 2008 2:01:45 GMT -5
the economy is breaking apart america imports everything and produces nothing it can't go on forever this is even more gloomy though www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/I don't know about that link, because they will probably develop something by the time oil runs out.. This Tesla Roadster looks cool. If they can make an electric sports car why not an electric ship? Or at least a hybrid, for starters. time will tell.. www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCs.keWwNdiY&refer=home"the dollar lost 34 percent since 2001" sounds about right. That means the guy who didn't put his $10.000 in the bank in 2001 basicly got robbed of $3.400 since the dollar is worth less. It's been a few months, but being an engineer, I must answer. The issue with electric transportation (be it rail, car, ship or space shuttle) is one of energy storage. The lithium ion battery in the Tesla Roadster is incredibly expensive. To make a battery of practical size for a ship would drain the bank account of most of the world's countries. Perhaps that is an exaggeration. It would definitely be more expensive than the rest of the ship. The same issue does not come up for petroleum (or nuclear) driven ships. If you need more energy storage, just make a bigger gas tank. Trains have been a sort of "hybrid" for decades. Diesel-electric locomotives are almost the ideal drive system for a train. To make a more general point, it's VERY expensive and (usually) inefficient to store electrical energy. Batteries work alright for some things, as we know, but doing a simple multiplication to the largest scales does not work. Something interesting that has received NO press is super capacitance. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SupercapacitorIf supercapacitors could be mass-produced for cars, then there is little reason to NOT move to all-electric vehicles. I think a supercapacitor electric car would be the ideal transportation. Zero tailpipe emissions, almost unlimited lifetime from the capacitors, almost no regular maintenance etc. The only problem would be electrical supply. Dozens or even hundreds more power stations would need to be built in the US alone. This is a subject for another discussion, but a combination of solar, wind and nuclear could easily satisfy the world's energy requirement. Idealism warning here. My picture of the world is this; 1. Electricity is generated solely by wind, water, solar and nuclear (or other renewable and non-polluting sources) 2. Transportation is nearly all done by electricity With that, we magically have pollution down to pre-industrial revolution times. Commercial jets and ships would still need to be driven with petroleum.
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Post by Sweet Pea on Mar 19, 2008 8:40:00 GMT -5
1. Electricity is generated solely by wind, water, solar and nuclear (or other renewable and non-polluting sources) 2. Transportation is nearly all done by electricity With that, we magically have pollution down to pre-industrial revolution times. i find it surprising that you consider nuclear power to be non-polluting.
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Post by Naptaq on Mar 22, 2008 7:49:34 GMT -5
I don't know about that link, because they will probably develop something by the time oil runs out.. This Tesla Roadster looks cool. If they can make an electric sports car why not an electric ship? Or at least a hybrid, for starters. time will tell.. www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCs.keWwNdiY&refer=home"the dollar lost 34 percent since 2001" sounds about right. That means the guy who didn't put his $10.000 in the bank in 2001 basicly got robbed of $3.400 since the dollar is worth less. It's been a few months, but being an engineer, I must answer. The issue with electric transportation (be it rail, car, ship or space shuttle) is one of energy storage. The lithium ion battery in the Tesla Roadster is incredibly expensive. To make a battery of practical size for a ship would drain the bank account of most of the world's countries. Perhaps that is an exaggeration. It would definitely be more expensive than the rest of the ship. The same issue does not come up for petroleum (or nuclear) driven ships. If you need more energy storage, just make a bigger gas tank. Trains have been a sort of "hybrid" for decades. Diesel-electric locomotives are almost the ideal drive system for a train. To make a more general point, it's VERY expensive and (usually) inefficient to store electrical energy. Batteries work alright for some things, as we know, but doing a simple multiplication to the largest scales does not work. Something interesting that has received NO press is super capacitance. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SupercapacitorIf supercapacitors could be mass-produced for cars, then there is little reason to NOT move to all-electric vehicles. I think a supercapacitor electric car would be the ideal transportation. Zero tailpipe emissions, almost unlimited lifetime from the capacitors, almost no regular maintenance etc. The only problem would be electrical supply. Dozens or even hundreds more power stations would need to be built in the US alone. This is a subject for another discussion, but a combination of solar, wind and nuclear could easily satisfy the world's energy requirement. Idealism warning here. My picture of the world is this; 1. Electricity is generated solely by wind, water, solar and nuclear (or other renewable and non-polluting sources) 2. Transportation is nearly all done by electricity With that, we magically have pollution down to pre-industrial revolution times. Commercial jets and ships would still need to be driven with petroleum. As an electrician I found your post very interesting. I've never heard of supercapacitorcs before, however, I've heard of a certian thing called 'flux capacitor' hehe I'm very fond of solar panels myself. The way I see it batteries will improve so much in the next years that a ship hybrid and then a battery powered ship will be doable, although I'm sure they'll start with smaller boats first, if they haven't already. There are great benefits in the fact that laptops are selling more and more, because each laptop comes with a battery and, I assumme, each year they get a little better at producing more efficent batteries. I like your idealism man. I thought about my idea, but then it occored to me that it's probably already been done so I did a little search and came up with a few useful links. Enjoy scampy.ph.unimelb.edu.au/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=72&Itemid=74www.whynot.net/ideas/1383www.humboldt.edu/~ccat/pedalpower/josephSP2004/index.html
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Post by k151 on Mar 23, 2008 2:59:21 GMT -5
1. Electricity is generated solely by wind, water, solar and nuclear (or other renewable and non-polluting sources) 2. Transportation is nearly all done by electricity With that, we magically have pollution down to pre-industrial revolution times. i find it surprising that you consider nuclear power to be non-polluting. Which pollution are you talking about? Calling the storage of nuclear fuel "pollution" is inaccurate, compared to the pollution caused by coal, oil and natural gas. I'm not sure if that's what you meant. Coal, oil and natural gas all emit billions of tons of pollution into the atmosphere every year. Used nuclear fuel must be stored, after which it poses no immediate harm. I'll admit that extracting uranium from the ground isn't an entirely clean process, but again the same criticism applies to coal, oil and natural gas. So I'll give it to you that nuclear isn't 100% clean. But compared to fossil fuels, it's far FAR cleaner.
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Post by k151 on Mar 23, 2008 3:06:54 GMT -5
It's been a few months, but being an engineer, I must answer. The issue with electric transportation (be it rail, car, ship or space shuttle) is one of energy storage. The lithium ion battery in the Tesla Roadster is incredibly expensive. To make a battery of practical size for a ship would drain the bank account of most of the world's countries. Perhaps that is an exaggeration. It would definitely be more expensive than the rest of the ship. The same issue does not come up for petroleum (or nuclear) driven ships. If you need more energy storage, just make a bigger gas tank. Trains have been a sort of "hybrid" for decades. Diesel-electric locomotives are almost the ideal drive system for a train. To make a more general point, it's VERY expensive and (usually) inefficient to store electrical energy. Batteries work alright for some things, as we know, but doing a simple multiplication to the largest scales does not work. Something interesting that has received NO press is super capacitance. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SupercapacitorIf supercapacitors could be mass-produced for cars, then there is little reason to NOT move to all-electric vehicles. I think a supercapacitor electric car would be the ideal transportation. Zero tailpipe emissions, almost unlimited lifetime from the capacitors, almost no regular maintenance etc. The only problem would be electrical supply. Dozens or even hundreds more power stations would need to be built in the US alone. This is a subject for another discussion, but a combination of solar, wind and nuclear could easily satisfy the world's energy requirement. Idealism warning here. My picture of the world is this; 1. Electricity is generated solely by wind, water, solar and nuclear (or other renewable and non-polluting sources) 2. Transportation is nearly all done by electricity With that, we magically have pollution down to pre-industrial revolution times. Commercial jets and ships would still need to be driven with petroleum. As an electrician I found your post very interesting. I've never heard of supercapacitorcs before, however, I've heard of a certian thing called 'flux capacitor' hehe I'm very fond of solar panels myself. The way I see it batteries will improve so much in the next years that a ship hybrid and then a battery powered ship will be doable, although I'm sure they'll start with smaller boats first, if they haven't already. There are great benefits in the fact that laptops are selling more and more, because each laptop comes with a battery and, I assumme, each year they get a little better at producing more efficent batteries. I like your idealism man. I thought about my idea, but then it occored to me that it's probably already been done so I did a little search and came up with a few useful links. Enjoy scampy.ph.unimelb.edu.au/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=72&Itemid=74www.whynot.net/ideas/1383www.humboldt.edu/~ccat/pedalpower/josephSP2004/index.htmlYeah, considering how far batteries have come in 10 years, I can't even guess where they will go. The Tesla, I think, uses the same lithium-ion cells that are in laptop batteries, for the very reason that they are now a mature design and relatively cheap. I checked out the one site about powering spas or exercise rooms with the humans. That's pretty cool. I'm almost tempted to build one of those to power my computer. The mechanical efficiency of bicycles is unmatched among transportation machines. It's actually rather satisfying while riding a bike.
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Post by Sweet Pea on Mar 23, 2008 9:41:23 GMT -5
i find it surprising that you consider nuclear power to be non-polluting. Which pollution are you talking about? Calling the storage of nuclear fuel "pollution" is inaccurate, compared to the pollution caused by coal, oil and natural gas. I'm not sure if that's what you meant. Coal, oil and natural gas all emit billions of tons of pollution into the atmosphere every year. Used nuclear fuel must be stored, after which it poses no immediate harm. I'll admit that extracting uranium from the ground isn't an entirely clean process, but again the same criticism applies to coal, oil and natural gas. So I'll give it to you that nuclear isn't 100% clean. But compared to fossil fuels, it's far FAR cleaner. radioactive waste? can't be broken down by nature for thousands of years? toxic to humans? danger to the genetic integrity of all species? no safe way to dispose of it? you've heard nothing about any of this?
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Post by Naptaq on Mar 23, 2008 15:56:04 GMT -5
compared to fossil fuels, it's far FAR cleaner. It seems to me that you are right when you say nuclear power is cleaner. www.thenewamerican.com/node/7008And after 100 years nuclear waste is so decayed that it's not a big problem anymore. I would choose nuclear power plants over coal powerplants anyday, twice on sunday. 'Fusion reactor' seem like a promising technology en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_reactor
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Post by Sweet Pea on Mar 24, 2008 0:31:27 GMT -5
well, i guess we can kiss the bipedal hominid goodbye.
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Post by Naptaq on Aug 22, 2009 20:28:27 GMT -5
The US National Debt Road TripAnd to think that 2 years ago, I thought the situation was pretty bad.. The current economic crisis was caused by 'bad loans', which were huge loans to people who couldn't pay them back, so what are the chances of this happening to a country? Currently it doesn't look too grim aminds reports that the world economy has stopped shrinking, but I gotta wonder if this kind of (projected) spending is sustainable. If China pulls the plug on loaning the money to the US it's over. But then again China also needs the USA for their economic growth. Co-dependency.
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Post by HybridMoment on Sept 4, 2009 20:36:01 GMT -5
I was disappointed to see that Obama nominated Bernanke for a 2nd term as Fed chief, though it's pretty much what I expected from him.
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Post by Naptaq on Sept 4, 2009 21:27:45 GMT -5
Who would you like to have?
A guy like Ron Paul would abolish it.. ;D
Which would be a good thing in the long run..
Unemployment is about to hit 10%.. maybe Dick Morris is right, and this bailout business will be a 'Catastrophe'.
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