211–220 of 222 posts
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You're not in a debt crisis, US interest payments on existing debt is about 4% - at most - of the national budget, and your government is shutdown because of a procedural issue. I strongly suggest you actually lookup the budget figures.
I'm familiar with our economy. We're in a debt crises. I didn't mention the government shutdown at all.
Seems pretty immediate to me.
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I'm familiar with our economy. We're in a debt crises. I didn't mention the government shutdown at all.
"immediate government funding issues". Seems pretty immediate to me.
"We're in a major debt crises and have issues funding our fundamental operations; beyond the immediate government funding, we have severe problems with spending "
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By the time the Manhattan Project started, we had already made signficant progress. Such as Fermi's pile. We knew how to seperate uranium. The math was all there; it was mostly a matter of decision-making and execution. I never said anything was impossible. But fusion is still solidly an unknown unknown: we have no credible path at this time to even plan a workable test reactor. I'm saying, for the amount invested, t…
That's just not true, and skirts the line of the being a deliberate lie. Fusion has occured in tokamaks, at an efficiency of 65%. ITER, as currently designed and being built, is expected to make a 10-fold return on energy input. We are precisely at the position of "the math is all there" with regard to magnetic confinement. And so is the engineering and the funding (barely). It's going to happen, hopefully not before…
ITER is a research project. It is not designed to produce electricity. It was originally projected to cost over 5 billion pounds to build and has now tripled, but is years from completion. Even if it was successful beyond its wildest dreams, the best result would be that we'd have to spend another $50B to build a plant, and since that one would be the first and only, we wouldn't get much power from it.
These are the harsh economic realities of today.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
By the time the Manhattan Project started, we had already made signficant progress. Such as Fermi's pile. We knew how to seperate uranium. The math was all there; it was mostly a matter of decision-making and execution. I never said anything was impossible. But fusion is still solidly an unknown unknown: we have no credible path at this time to even plan a workable test reactor. I'm saying, for the amount invested, t…
That's just not true, and skirts the line of the being a deliberate lie. Fusion has occured in tokamaks, at an efficiency of 65%. ITER, as currently designed and being built, is expected to make a 10-fold return on energy input. We are precisely at the position of "the math is all there" with regard to magnetic confinement. And so is the engineering and the funding (barely). It's going to happen, hopefully not before…
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"immediate government funding issues". Seems pretty immediate to me.
Are you really this pedantic? I used an 'and' and a 'semicolon'. If you parse my sentence you will see I made no such implication directly that the current issue with the House of Immature Children is the cause of, or effect of, our debt crisis. Anyway, do you disagree with Wikipedia? """"Debt crisis is the general term for a proliferation of massive public debt relative to tax revenues, especially in reference to La…
And while you say that the current issue with the House isn't the cause or the effect of the debt crisis, the only US examples of so-called "debt crisis" linked from the Wikipedia article you lean on are the current and 2011 debt ceiling debates. So, its ironic that you ask "Anyway, do you disagree with Wikipedia?"
Anyhow, the defining characteristic of a debt crisis is default risk, not debt vs. tax revenue (debt service cost vs. GDP -- not total debt vs. GDP -- is probably the best "easy" numerical measure for fundamental default risk, but the real source of default risk in the US is political games like the ones you discount from the "House of Immature Children".)
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Are you really this pedantic? I used an 'and' and a 'semicolon'. If you parse my sentence you will see I made no such implication directly that the current issue with the House of Immature Children is the cause of, or effect of, our debt crisis. Anyway, do you disagree with Wikipedia? """"Debt crisis is the general term for a proliferation of massive public debt relative to tax revenues, especially in reference to La…
Like many wikipedia articles in areas where there has been intense political propaganda efforts, the one on debt crisis [1] which you quote but do not cite engages is badly confused and influenced by propaganda -- and the four sources for the sentence you quote are an opinion piece, a blog post, an infographic, and broken link, none of which (except, perhaps, the content which once was at the broken link) directly su…
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Like many wikipedia articles in areas where there has been intense political propaganda efforts, the one on debt crisis [1] which you quote but do not cite engages is badly confused and influenced by propaganda -- and the four sources for the sentence you quote are an opinion piece, a blog post, an infographic, and broken link, none of which (except, perhaps, the content which once was at the broken link) directly su…
So, you're saying we're at a default risk not a debt crisis. OK, I used the wrong term above. Please substitute it as needed; my argument remains the same.
No, I'm saying that debt crisis is equivalent to default risk, and that the only significant way in which we are in either (the two being the same) has nothing to do with economic or fiscal fundamentals -- the resources to service the debt are readily available -- and solely to do with the present political shenanigans.
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This is not really calculable, nor is the number of people killed by coal calculable in any reasonable manner. However the impact of nuclear catastrophe is far far more insidious and lasting, particularly when caused by a global calamity that causes meltdown in many plants.
> This is not really calculable, nor is the number of people killed by coal calculable in any reasonable manner. Of course it is. 161 people are killed for each THw of coal energy. And 0.04 people for each THw of nuclear power and this INCLUDES Chernobyl! http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-so... http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/dataset... > However the impact of nuclear cata…
We are on a blob of rock hurtling through an unknown cosmos. Calamities are very possible. It is deeply irresponible to create projects that will make large parts of the earth uninhabitable should the power grid fail for a long period or human stewardship go on hiatus. Meteor strikes, emps, plagues, terrorist attacks, economic collapse,and other disasters are well within the realm of possibility
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That's just not true, and skirts the line of the being a deliberate lie. Fusion has occured in tokamaks, at an efficiency of 65%. ITER, as currently designed and being built, is expected to make a 10-fold return on energy input. We are precisely at the position of "the math is all there" with regard to magnetic confinement. And so is the engineering and the funding (barely). It's going to happen, hopefully not before…
BTW, ITER isn't even scheduled to be turned on to produce research results at scale until 2027. That's another 14 years before they even do something interesting!?
If the payoff was immediate, it wouldn't be research.
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I still don't understand why Chinooks weren't in the air toward Fukushima within 30 minutes of the tsunami with some generators sling-loaded under them (and refueling, etc.). Either from the JSDF or US Military.
As I understand it, the issue was that not just the generators but the switchgear connecting them to the plant's power grid was behind the seawall that was overcome by the tsunami. So bringing in other generators wouldn't have helped, because there was no way to plug them into the grid.
From what I've read there was a leadership vacuum for the initial crisis at tepco. I'm actually going to try to visit as close as I can get to the plant tomorrow or Saturday (in Sendai right now)