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The polar vortex is hitting the brakes
341–349 of 349 posts
Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
0°F was the outside temperature with 40 mph winds (60mph gusts) the time I had to venture to the middle of an empty field to break the ice on water tank with a hatchet so cows could get water.
I thought at 0°F you're supposed to bring the cows inside! Also at 100°F I guess it depends on the cows
This was in the Texas Panhandle, temps this low are abnormal. Cows can survive this temps as long as they have adequate feed and water. They can endure high temps pretty well, again as long as they have water.
Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
There seems to be a delusional part of the Internet that is convinced that nuclear is the only future, and solar and wind aren’t. To settle this, you basically need to look at what China is doing —- which is to build a lot of nuclear and then exponentially more solar and wind. We’re a huge percentage of the way down the slide to a mostly renewable world with storage, and some nuclear at the edges. But it isn’t a comp…
I don't get all that either, though I don't mind if nuclear is the future we'd just need to let go of the brakes on it. The other thing to look at is overall growth of each type - China is going ham on wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear yet they've still had to increase the total amount of power generated by coal, oil, and gas anyways. Graphs always predict something like https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2017.09…
I'm not sure what you're arguing that's different than what I'm arguing. What I'm arguing is that renewables are being deployed on an exponential (S-)curve and nuclear is not. Given the relatively short time frame we have to solve this issue, any viable solution must exhibit this exponential deployment increase.
(This does not mean we'll succeed. Maybe we're all doomed anyway. But any approach that doesn't have this shape is a disaster.)
If you actually care about this problem, the actual question is: how do we get nuclear onto that same exponential pathway that renewables are on? Fiddling around with our existing legacy nuclear plants is so inadequate to our emissions pathways right now that it's equivalent to surrender.
Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even considering the capacity factor solar and wind still grows by 60x compared to nuclear. And storage is no longer an „unsolved problem“. You could manage the current grid with current chemical battery technology, levelized cost of electricity of that solution is cheaper than nuclear. And foreseeable technical advances will improve that while no comparable development is on the horizon for nuclear. The real tricky…
> And storage is no longer an „unsolved problem“. Yes, it is an unsolved problem. Even adding 8h backup battery puts solar on par with nuclear: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf (nuclear's capital costs are around $4000/kW). And seasonal storage (enough energy to last for 2-3 weeks without sun/wind) does not even have a price tag, because it simply doesn't exist. > And foreseeable technical advances will i…
BESS and solar are not on par with nuclear for several reasons: (1) there is a much faster construction pathway for solar+BESS than nuclear, (2) costs of both PV solar and BESS continue to go down every year, while nuclear doesn't have the same cost curve, (3) manufacturing capacity for solar and BESS continue to rise on the exponential piece of an S-curve (meaning, a consistent multiplicative increase every year) while nuclear construction rates don't look anything like that.
There is a root cause for this: both solar PV and battery storage can be mass-produced in factories, and current nuclear tech can't. If nuclear can get onto a similar growth trajectory, we'll be cooking.
Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes
#345Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but I do know that the United States is heading for a financial apocalypse unless drastic measures are taken now. Do you have proof of this? Otherwise you are spreading propaganda and lies. “We need to cut stuff because the party I support says so” isn’t proof of a financial apocalypse and is only fear, uncertainty, and doubt. It’s the very hysteria lying in which you refer.
Do they have proof that 33+ trillion dollars in debt will begin snowballing larger than any country can actually service? Do we need specific evidence about how debt interest works? Sorry for how snarky this sounds but your response sounds like you don’t believe that the interest on over 33 trillion dollars is a big deal (and it’s growing…) Please educate me if that’s not how interest or debt works (again I am dead s…
Big scary number does not mean system is broken. That is hysteria. I am not the one making generalized statements about financial apocalypse without some sort of notion of proof. Studies, links, evidence if you’re going to cry apocalypse and be taken seriously.
Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
30 is hot. 20 is nice. 10 is cold. 0 is ice. Not hard to remember for converting Celsius to how humans typically perceive temperature.
My problem isn't remembering the scale, it's that Fahrenheit offers me double the effective resolution and descriptive accuracy without awkward decimal points in the numbers used. I like my room at 73F, not 72F or 74F, and I can feel the difference. That's 22.77C. :-/
> I like my room at 73F, not 72F or 74F, and I can feel the difference.
I suspect you wouldn't notice if it changed by a degree.
Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
My problem isn't remembering the scale, it's that Fahrenheit offers me double the effective resolution and descriptive accuracy without awkward decimal points in the numbers used. I like my room at 73F, not 72F or 74F, and I can feel the difference. That's 22.77C. :-/
> I like my room at 73F, not 72F or 74F, and I can feel the difference. I suspect you wouldn't notice if it changed by a degree.
You'd be wrong. Happens.
Re: The polar vortex is hitting the brakes
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I like my room at 73F, not 72F or 74F, and I can feel the difference. I suspect you wouldn't notice if it changed by a degree.
You'd be wrong. Happens.
I might be, but I don't think so. It certainly happens less often than something like people making ridiculous easily disprovable claims.