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YS

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Re: Funny Politics
« Reply #360 on: June 24, 2012, 04:42:54 PM »
@Palomine....
Problem with solar is that it's not cheap to store the energy. Unless the panel is in an area with no clouds, power output will fluctuate.
It all comes down to numbers, and there.. I'm not convinced nuclear isn't better. It provides stable, predictable output.

Cost of a system where you not only have unpredictable amounts of power, you also have to have huge energy storage facilities and more massive transmission grid.. to cope with demand. And there, you only have ~50% efficiency at best, meaning any stored energy is twice as expensive as energy from nuclear, hydro or coal.

^^so, it's very hard to compute the numbers... and people often don't want to.

BTW...someone counted the dead, and the most dangerous source of energy is coal. Between dead coal miners, their diseases and dirty air..

Doesn't matter what is better: nuclear power is not easy to understand, therefore, people fear it disproportionately. Humans are not rational, but rationalizing in general.
« Last Edit: June 24, 2012, 04:58:41 PM by YS »

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Palomine

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Re: Funny Politics
« Reply #361 on: June 24, 2012, 06:07:17 PM »
@Palomine....
Problem with solar is that it's not cheap to store the energy. Unless the panel is in an area with no clouds, power output will fluctuate.
It all comes down to numbers, and there.. I'm not convinced nuclear isn't better. It provides stable, predictable output.

Cost of a system where you not only have unpredictable amounts of power, you also have to have huge energy storage facilities and more massive transmission grid.. to cope with demand. And there, you only have ~50% efficiency at best, meaning any stored energy is twice as expensive as energy from nuclear, hydro or coal.

^^so, it's very hard to compute the numbers... and people often don't want to.

BTW...someone counted the dead, and the most dangerous source of energy is coal. Between dead coal miners, their diseases and dirty air..

Doesn't matter what is better: nuclear power is not easy to understand, therefore, people fear it disproportionately. Humans are not rational, but rationalizing in general.

I'm not anti-nuclear... heck, I'm not even an anti-fossil-fuels absolutist because I know that realistically, we'll need a variety of power sources for many decades to come. However, the regulatory hurdles associated with building new nuclear power plants along with the (justifiably high) insurance/liability concerns and costs mean that the U.S. will probably not see France or (pre-Fukishima) Japan percentages of its power coming from nuclear... at least not in our lifetimes. And then there's the matter of what to do with the nuclear waste, which remains a political problem, if not a technical one. Finally, historically the myth of nuclear providing cheap power turned out to be just that: a myth... the price per KWH doesn't undercut that of fossil fuels due to the extremely high costs of building and operating nuclear plants... so, it's not a magic bullet for a variety of reasons. Of course, it has killed far fewer people than coal-derived power as you rightly point out, so there's that. :)

Yes, solar (and wind and tidal) are not steady-state sources of power, and creating systems to store the power they generate adds cost and complexity... again, that's why we need a combination of different sources (despite my home producing far more power than I need, I remain connected to the power grid due to the burdens that a large battery system involves... when I can add a fuel cell and hydrogen storage tank for $5K, then I'll get off the grid). Conceivably, renewables could satisfy a significant portion of the American demand for electricity (whether via distributed (home) or centralized (power station) methods) particularly when demands for power are highest (summer days). And come night-time, a greater percentage of the power can then come from traditional (fossil fueled) plants. However, with less than a couple percent of U.S. power coming from renewables, and our national power grid so antiquated, no amount of good intentions or wishful thinking is going to change the fact that we're way behind Germany and other nations in terms of diversifying our energy portfolio. I won't bore anyone here with a discussion of why that lack of diversification (i.e.: our overwheming dependence on fossil fuels in general, and on imported oil in particular) is a concern when it comes to our economic development and to our national security.

Unlike most professional politicians, I spend time thinking about what the world will be like farther down the road than just the next election cycle... 10, 20 or 50 years from now. I'd like to see average Americans able to continue to enjoy a decent standard of living well into the future, despite the changing world we live in. That's why it's so irksome when people choose to ignore realities... to deny scientific fact and even simple common sense when doing so suits their personal political and/or religious beliefs. ??? >:(
 

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mcgarp

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Re: Funny Politics
« Reply #362 on: June 25, 2012, 04:50:43 AM »
Ha, I like the pond whale thing!
Sincerely,
One Ball (Pond Whale) McGarp!

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DruulEmpire

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Re: Funny Politics
« Reply #363 on: June 25, 2012, 05:05:03 PM »
Speaking of whales in ponds -- nothing clogs a place up like this uberspammer Paclatii. >:(

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pedonbio

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Re: Funny Politics
« Reply #364 on: June 25, 2012, 05:18:24 PM »


Unlike most professional politicians, I spend time thinking about what the world will be like farther down the road than just the next election cycle... 10, 20 or 50 years from now. I'd like to see average Americans able to continue to enjoy a decent standard of living well into the future, despite the changing world we live in. That's why it's so irksome when people choose to ignore realities... to deny scientific fact and even simple common sense when doing so suits their personal political and/or religious beliefs. ??? >:(
 


This is one of the reasons I tend to prefer politicians who are actively involved in raising chidren; they tend to have a 20-year timeline instead of a two-year timeline. This year's Republican presidential crop was particularly disappointing; the Dunning-Kruger Effect was much in evidence.
Someday, chi1dren, this entire fuck-up will be yours.

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TysonWarm

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Re: Funny Politics
« Reply #365 on: June 26, 2012, 10:57:54 PM »
There was an editorial in our local paper about the Keystone pipeline.  I live in the state that is most affected by the pipeline, I have no problem with it.  But the Obama adminstration has been sitting on it for years now and they still have no clue what to do.  



Getting caught up in U.S. presidential politics can be risky for any foreign government. For the government of friendly, reliable Canada, it's been an ongoing exercise in frustration.  Canada is blessed with massive oil reserves in and around its landlocked province of Alberta. To make the most of its oil-sands wealth, Canada needs to get the product to market. America, naturally, is the handiest potential customer.

The Keystone XL Pipeline would bring Canadian oil from Alberta to Nebraska, where it would continue on to U.S. refineries near the Gulf of Mexico. Keystone would go a long way toward solving the problem of what to do with all that potentially lucrative and useful oil piling up in the northern reaches of North America. The U.S. could use it, that's for sure.

In a sop to its eco-green political base, though, the administration of President Barack Obama blocked the Keystone pipeline in January. Now the project is under review again at the U.S. State Department, which has jurisdiction because the pipeline would cross our border with Canada. Last week, the diplomats announced plans to make a final decision on the project by the first quarter of 2013 — a date that not coincidentally puts off the issue until after the Nov. 6 election.

How convenient for the president and his re-election strategists!

To everyone else, though, this is ridiculous: The project has been under review for more than four years. The only remaining question involves a short stretch of what would be a large-scale, job-creating boon to the nation's energy infrastructure. The administration owes TransCanada, the company seeking to build the pipeline, a timely decision.

Consider how the latest roadblock came to be: The original route of the pipeline crossed a portion of the sparsely populated Nebraska Sandhills that sits over the massive Ogallala aquifer. Fear-mongers who opposed the project — mostly because they oppose the use of fossil fuels in general — managed to gin up concern that an important underground source of fresh water would be at risk of pollution.

It's a phony issue. More than 15,000 miles of pipeline already crisscross the aquifer in seven states, with no dire consequences to date. Keystone, engineered to the most modern standards, likely would be the safest of all.

Because of the political scrutiny the project has endured, the pipeline is being overbuilt to guard against practically any foreseeable mishap. It would be buried extra-deep in the ground, for instance, and equipped with higher-than-normal numbers of remote-controlled shut-off valves. The company has agreed to a rigorous regimen of pipeline inspections — a costly exercise that would be better aimed at older, less-advanced systems. And pipelines, remember, are by far the safest way to move oil cross-country, much more so than rail or truck transport.

The facts hardly matter, however. TransCanada agreed to sidestep the bogus water fears by rerouting roughly 90 miles of pipeline. That small section is the only part that hasn't received minute inquiry from the affected states and the federal government. It simply shouldn't take the better part of a year to make a decision. We suspect, however, that no amount of diplomacy or common sense will get the job done before the election.

For a while, we thought high gasoline prices might do the trick. Republicans were gearing up this spring to channel public anger over sticker-shock at the pump into a call for action on Keystone. The recent decline in the cost of gas has bought the president some breathing room, unfortunately.

Yet the administration might have less room to maneuver than commonly supposed.

Canadian government officials and energy companies are seeking alternatives for bringing their nation's booming oil output to market. The Keystone XL bottleneck gives them a huge financial incentive to do so. Canadian crude sells at a discount of $20 or greater per barrel compared with the same oil in more accessible parts of the world. As the U.S. dithers, Canada is accelerating three separate pipeline proposals — two traveling westbound toward the Pacific coast, the other eastbound to a tanker port in Maine.

As a practical matter, those projects could divert oil supplies away from U.S. markets. Yet for Americans they are no substitute for Keystone XL. The U.S. Gulf Coast is home to dozens of refineries eager to replace declining imports from Mexico and Venezuela. The U.S. needs this pipeline as much as Canada does.


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TheZookie007

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Re: Funny Politics
« Reply #366 on: June 27, 2012, 08:55:15 AM »
"Give Mitt Romney credit. He is a job creator -- in Singapore, in China, in India..."

-- Vice-President Joe Biden
ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

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pedonbio

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Re: Funny Politics
« Reply #367 on: June 27, 2012, 04:55:42 PM »
 8)
Someday, chi1dren, this entire fuck-up will be yours.

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TheZookie007

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Re: Funny Politics
« Reply #368 on: June 29, 2012, 12:11:51 AM »
This picture of Pelosi and Boehner was taken the day before the Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the Affordable Health Care Act, and yet...
ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.


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Palomine

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Re: Funny Politics
« Reply #370 on: June 29, 2012, 04:14:31 PM »
http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/people-moving-to-canada-because-of-obamacare

That's pretty funny! :D Only dolts who are easily fear-mongered and blindly parrot 'their views' would claim to be moving to Canada after yesterday's SCOTUS ruling... don't they know that Canada actually has a publicly funded (aka 'socialized') healthcare system? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada Jeez, 5 seconds of googling could have told any one of those sheeple that Canada is pretty much exactly the kind of society they claim to be afraid of here in the States.

Human stupidity really knows no bounds, but Faux Nooz viewers still manage to push those limits. ;)
« Last Edit: June 29, 2012, 04:16:43 PM by Palomine »

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pedonbio

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Re: Funny Politics
« Reply #371 on: June 29, 2012, 04:27:08 PM »
That's pretty funny! :D Only dolts who are easily fear-mongered and blindly parrot 'their views' would claim to be moving to Canada after yesterday's SCOTUS ruling... don't they know that Canada actually has a publicly funded (aka 'socialized') healthcare system? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada Jeez, 5 seconds of googling could have told any one of those sheeple that Canada is pretty much exactly the kind of society they claim to be afraid of here in the States.

Human stupidity really knows no bounds, but Faux Nooz viewers still manage to push those limits. ;)


It is especially funny because 1) No unlicensed firearms are allowed; 2) Anyone convicted of **92** driving (i.e., G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney) are not allowed in; and 3) Fox News is banned in Canada.
Someday, chi1dren, this entire fuck-up will be yours.

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TheZookie007

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Re: Funny Politics
« Reply #372 on: July 03, 2012, 11:40:25 AM »
That last one is reason enough to move to Canada...let's not forget Molson beer :)

As for the Buzzfeed thread, I would wager that 50% of those chaps were being facetious -- but it's the 50% who are serious that should be watched carefully :)

And courtesy of George Takei:
« Last Edit: July 03, 2012, 12:30:48 PM by TheZookie007 »
ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

Re: Funny Politics
« Reply #373 on: July 24, 2012, 02:16:06 AM »
A candidate all Americans want to see more of:

http://www.youtube.com/v/rflOhKgN6b4
be seeing you...

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pedonbio

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Re: Funny Politics
« Reply #374 on: July 24, 2012, 02:54:59 AM »
A candidate all Americans want to see more of:

http://www.youtube.com/v/rflOhKgN6b4

"I am you...but with bigger tits!"
Someday, chi1dren, this entire fuck-up will be yours.