Nucbuddy’s Recent Comments

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  The need for bigotry

  Bart Anderson wrote: Numbers don't remove the need for clear thinking

  When you say clear thinking, do you mean bigotry?On A Cambridge physicist's cooling summer treat posted 1 year, 4 months ago 27 Responses

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  Recent review up at The Register

  A thorough six-page review, with interspersed interview-bits, is here:
  theregister.co.uk/2008/06/20/mackay_on_carbon_free_uk

  A topflight science brainbox at Cambridge University has weighed into the ever-louder and more unruly climate/energy debate with several things that so far have been mostly lacking: hard numbers, willingness to upset all sides, and an attempt to see whether the various agendas put forward would actually stack up.

  Professor David J C MacKay of the Cambridge University Department of Physics holds a PhD in computation from Cal Tech and a starred first in Physics, so we can take it that he knows his numbers. And, as he points out, numbers are typically lacking in current discussion around carbon emissions and energy use.

  MacKay tells The Reg that he was first drawn into this field by the constant suggestion -- from the Beeb, parts of the government etc -- that we can seriously impact our personal energy consumption by doing such things as turning our TVs off standby or unplugging our mobile-phone chargers.

  Anyone with even a slight grasp of energy units should know that this is madness.

  [...]

  On A Cambridge physicist's cooling summer treat posted 1 year, 4 months ago 27 Responses

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  Diffuse fuels never scale

  GreyFlcn wrote: 335,000 square miles of "Warm Desert" in North America. Is that enough?

  If Nevada Solar One is averaging ~10 MW/sqm, it would need to be scaled up to ~50,000 square-miles to cover the present average electrical market of the United States. As the United States electricity market expanded to 10 times its present size, the solar power plant would need to scale up to ~500,000 square-miles (but that little, only if all of those square-miles were as optimal as the first square-mile), exceeding all of the "Warm Desert" land area in North America.On Solar thermal can save us, but it needs public clamor posted 1 year, 4 months ago 35 Responses

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  n

  What would plugin-hybrids have to do with this thread, GreyFlcn?

  Please show your math.On I think Friedman is upset with Bush posted 1 year, 4 months ago 18 Responses

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  Do people believe that solar has to do with oil?

  The Tom Friedman article says that all oil use in the United States can be economically replaced "tommorrow" with "wind and solar power [...] on your roof."

  Now we have the new Bush energy plan: "Get more addicted to oil."
  [...]
  People forget, wind and solar power are here, they work, they can go on your roof tomorrow. What they need now is a big U.S. market where lots of manufacturers have an incentive to install solar panels and wind turbines -- because the more they do, the more these technologies would move down the learning curve, become cheaper and be able to compete directly with coal, oil and nuclear, without subsidies.

  
  

  Are you all (David Roberts and the previous commenters in this thread) endorsing that statement? If you are, please:
  

  1. Be explicit.
     
  2. Show your math.
  On I think Friedman is upset with Bush posted 1 year, 4 months ago 18 Responses