Well the solar farm uses tons of water and power, causing shortages and high prices, creates a giant eyesore of a building that will be worse than a dead mall when the bubble pops, and generates a crapload of noise and pollution. …… oh wait, that’s not solar
Time is the missing value here.
And yet even in this ideal case where France built out a full country of standardized nuclear power half a century ago …… a quick online search shows me they still have double the cost/KWH compared to solar
I seriously doubt there’s any useful overlap between nuclear for space and for terrestrial power generation. Even if there were, we’ve spent close to a century proving that nuclear is expensive and time consuming to run and thorium’s theoretical advantages re mostly only in comparison to existing nuclear technology. Research is always good, but that really looks like a dead end, especially in comparison to something that is cheap and ubiquitous, and entirely ready, just needs scale out. Even that is already happening
Searching for Germany, I see many articles on grid storage - basically at its infancy but exploding in popularity. I also see huge expectations on pumped hydro storage
Seems like you’re arguing that we should stop building out these proven, low cost solutions in favor of dumping tons more money into a problematic technology that will take decades and billions of dollarseach
Unclear waste disposal is “solved” by saying “just leave it”. Thats not an answer
Because nuclear is just an expensive and time consuming distraction at this point. Itis usually brought up mostly to delay the energy transition
That is remains a cool potential technology, but why spend billions of dollars trying to develop a worse technology when solar already exists and for much cheaper? It’s just being sidetracked while letting investors enrich themselves on government research money
Plus it harkens back to the old adage about base power. No, we don’t need base power when we have large scale grid storage. Thats just coal propaganda
There are legit uses, such as bomb disposal and military scouting. At one point their ads focussed on carrying supplies
But this is not one of those
I drive past this every day and it has been going for a while. They’re sticking to it pretty well
I’m happy you fit the niche.
I don’t. I agree with them that for the price of the folding iPhone, I already have an iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, and can take calls on all three of them. I dont care if my iPad is heavy because I have two more portable devices
We tried that during the Biden administration. Investments in chips, bringing back manufacturing, working on our century of deferred infrastructure projects, beginning to invest in the future with renewable energy and starting to do something with education.
Then the pendulum swung violently the other way. We threw it all away. Then went much further back to a dark time that never existed.
One of the reasons for Chinese success is being able to stick to a plan. How can we compete if every four years a new administration takes a bulldozer to any improvements and focuses on enriching himself and his cronies?
I like that my Apple messages client can now participate in encrypted RCS chats. It’s still green boxes though. No competition, just raised the floor a little from SMS as the basic service
Thanks. I’ll take a look for it. Not listed as an e-book at my library so I might have to look for a physical copy
Satellites do have such restrictions. While you may expect the angle to be higher than for an aircraft, a satellite will not be directly overhead most of the earth. You’re still limited by angle and shadow, as well as time and frequency. Unless the target is high enough priority to reposition the satellite, it will be an oblique angle at a predictable time. While that angle will on average be higher than an aircraft, the aircraft can find different angles, at different times, with as much frequency as you like.
Perhaps some things are more visible to an aircraft from the east than a satellite from the north, or perhaps the target has camouflage procedures at the known satellite schedule but an aircraft is more likely to catch them operating
To speculate further, the stated reason for attacking Iran was nuclear weapon development. Perhaps there are sensors to track that, that can’t operate from satellite
During the Cold War, it had to overfly Russian airspace to be able to see far enough. They were within their rights to shoot at unauthorized aircraft in their airspace.
However, it could see a lot higher percentage of Iran without overflying, and Iran can’t legally shoot at something in international airspace
With trains, you don’t arrive sweaty, you can’t get run down by cars, and someone else parks it
Lucky you. I tried to get solar installed but around here it’s still ridiculously expensive. Unfortunately it’s also one of the scammiest industries. I went through a good dozen installers without finding one that didn’t make me feel ripped off, and that’s even before spending money.
Anyway, government incentives expired and the prices to consumers are still so high that there really isn’t a payback period. While I understand that the market should be able to stand on its own, we should have had a few more years to get off to a good start and build economies of scale or something.
Anyhow I was looking at $30k+ to cover half my electricity usage. Even worse, none of them wanted to actually sell me anything. Even when I made it an initial condition, they all wanted to dazzle me with word salad and sell me a lease or PPA agreement (totally not a lease, bro.)