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> Being able to lounge around while others toil for your gain is absolutely economic. And being comfortable doing it via slave labor is cultural. > if you exclude the enslaved, the south had a higher GDP per capita If you exclude the murders, Ted Bundy was a really nice guy.
I wonder why existing hydro isn't utilized to it's potential. For instance, the Grand Coulee Dam has the highest capacity of any power station in the US of almost 7 MW but usually puts out about a third of that.
Niagra falls doesn't run at full capacity because it takes away from the attraction of the falls themselves, and tourism is important there. They turn up capacity after hours, and the falls slow down.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Control_Dam
I wonder why existing hydro isn't utilized to it's potential. For instance, the Grand Coulee Dam has the highest capacity of any power station in the US of almost 7 MW but usually puts out about a third of that.
My overlay of the data: https://eia.languagelatte.com/
Raw data: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/topic/0
Related: Alec Watson’s recent, and excellent, Technology Connections YouTube piece on renewable energy. “You are being misled about renewable energy technology” https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM?si=CJ_Tt9DnWSKH8eGC
That entire talk didn't once mention the phrase "energy density" which is the real reason we rely so heavily on hydrocarbons. Additionally this talk makes the usual mistake of conflating "electricity" with "energy". While the US does have fairly high percentage of energy in the form of electricity it's still only around 33% of the US energy needs. And still we see that "green energy" only supplements not replaces our…
That doesn't leave much left when you look at the energy flow once you remove domestic, commercial and transportation usage and replace it with electricity. A tiny amount left for plane s(and reducing per flight as planes get more efficent and battery planes start coming to market), and industrial gas usage.
https://www.energyvanguard.com/attachment/llnl-us-energy-flo...
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> if you exclude the enslaved, the south had a higher GDP per capita than the north. That doesn't tell the whole story though. If you own 100 slaves, you need to spend nonzero resources maintaining them, or else they will starve and then you have zero slaves. So the owner has less wealth than the equivalent person in the North that has the same income but zero slaves. You can't directly compare GDP per capita excludi…
I really dislike this idea that slavery was just a cultural aberration and not economic. For one thing, that lightens the moral stain of slavery adjacent activity, most notably colonialism and the exploitation of the colonies. This never went away. Economic colonialism exists to this day. We just call it “outsourcing”, “offshoring” and “subcontracting”.
I wonder why existing hydro isn't utilized to it's potential. For instance, the Grand Coulee Dam has the highest capacity of any power station in the US of almost 7 MW but usually puts out about a third of that.
Given the current state of the Upper Colorado River basin snow pack, there is a not-insignificant chance that Lake Powell will recede below a minimum power generating level by the end of this year for the first time ever.
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That entire talk didn't once mention the phrase "energy density" which is the real reason we rely so heavily on hydrocarbons. Additionally this talk makes the usual mistake of conflating "electricity" with "energy". While the US does have fairly high percentage of energy in the form of electricity it's still only around 33% of the US energy needs. And still we see that "green energy" only supplements not replaces our…
He has a whole video[0] on the difference between energy and electricity, so he understands it. Maybe there's some disconnect between the video and your interpretation. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOK5xkFijPc
I am reminded by the perhaps revisionist history but still applicable belief that slavery was really ended by industrialization making abolition economically advantageous and not actually a socially driven movement. (In reality it was certainly a convoluted mixture of the two I'm sure.) I hope we are in a similar era with regards to climate change. Surely there's a lot of money to be made in harnessing effectively un…
> I am reminded by the perhaps revisionist history but still applicable belief that slavery was really ended by industrialization making abolition economically advantageous and not actually a socially driven movement. (In reality it was certainly a convoluted mixture of the two I'm sure.) I also never found the economic argument entirely convincing. If slavery were so economically disadvantageous in an industrialized…
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> Democracy has unfortunate failure scenarios, make a note for history books and system design lessons. Vote better next time. Major problems with the US system have been known for a long time. It's been regarded as basically obsolete for over a century now, by the kind of people who study this stuff.
What is considered the best* system of government? Which country comes closest to the ideal model? *best is funny to define