Comments smoothsilk has made

  • "nano phosphate lithium ion"

    Firstly, that is a super bike.  Accolades!

    In regard to the new-generation of products that are using nano technology, however, I do have a work of caution.  

    I hope the recycling process somehow is able to prevent the spread of the nano-sized particles into the atmosphere. Take a look at this brief news-brief from NRDC at http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/06sum/asknrdc.asp:

    Laboratory and animal studies suggest that nanoparticles, partly by virtue of their size, can damage brain cells and cause precancerous lesions and inflammation of the lungs, for example. NRDC is working with federal agencies and other public interest groups to expand safety testing for nanoengineered products; in the meantime, it may not be a bad idea to avoid products labeled as containing microfine or ultrafine ingredients, including alumina, titanium dioxide, or zinc oxide

    Of course, the article was in reference to a question about sunscreens that use nano particles of zinc oxide, and thus isn't dealing with batteries, which are enclosed systems {and thus whose contents are not applied to the skin(!) in normal situations :-)}.  

    Of course, since nano-technology is already in our world, I am not about to eschew it when dealing with items like batteries.  But as was the case of lead, or polyvinyl choloride monomer etc. etc., the public was misled for decades about the need for caution. I hope that we're not being misled about nano-particles as being "perfectly benign." And I hope we don't start having problems down the road with these new substances as more of it gets into our environment over time.

    While the batteries themselves are recylable, we might end up with yet another bizarre pandora's box if the recycling process isn't able to prevent these minute substances from spreading everywhere.On Ultimate Seattle hybrid plug-in posted 2 years, 6 months ago 25 Responses

  • Europe: so far ahead of us

    Here is a link to an excellent film about
    some areas in Europe that are doubling the efficiency of their current power plants (among other things):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klooRS-Jjyo

    From the film, Kees den Blanken of Cogen, Netherlands:


    "The combined generation of heat and electricity is great stuff, because there you find true efficiencies . . . because electricity generation automatically cogenerates a lot of heat . . . and if you use that  . . . to heat homes or industrial processes . . . you double the efficiency that you have in using [just] the fuel."

    It really blows my mind how idiotic our entire energy -generation/consumption model is here is the USA. Unlike Holland (and most of Europe), our power-generating stations are far bigger and centralized, and thus far removed from most of the homes and businesses that could use the normal "waste" heat from the generating process.    

    Even in the sixties, before I had quite reached my teen years, I often read in car magazines like Motor Trend and Car & Driver and Road & Track about the "grossly" more efficient internal combustion engines of the Europeans, who started using things like fuel-injection and overhead camshaft technologies long before we did.  We considered such things "exotic" and prohibitively "costly," not because they were, but because we were spoiled (rotten) by the endless glut of cheap gasoline.

    I always marveled that here were folks that (usually) liked to drive faster than Americans, and yet -- at the same time -- had so much more finesse and rigor in their approach to automobile transportation (and this was before I knew much about their trains, trams, bicycles etc.).

    I recall in particular an interview with the Mercedes-Benz engineer, Rudolf Ulenhaut (not sure of the spelling there) in Motor Trend. He laughed at the way his most famous project, the 300 SEL 6.3, got around 16-18  miles per gallon, and yet was the fastest production sedan in the world at the time, while a far slower Caddilac, Buick, Lincoln etc. often averaged in the 10-14 mpg.

    And of course there was the famous French Citroen SM (a Citroen with a Masserati engine), as well as so many others, including the much smaller, cheaper cars.

    It is nice to know that our Euro-cousins have broadened their efficiency to other areas, and done so with such success.  Too bad, though, that Daimler-Benz and most of the other auto manufacturers haven't kept up with the Japanese very well.On Good stuff posted 2 years, 7 months ago 1 Response

  • Interesting

    The link to the Energy Information Administration was very interesting and informative.  

    However,  the Dilbert cartoon (from the other link) implies that people who buy fuel-efficient cars do so only because they want to reduce "the nation's dependence on foreign oil," and not for other reasons, like reducing their own dependence on oil(and perhaps waste and pollution too).  

    What is missing from that cartoon is the fact that many people (such as myself) love efficiency in cars, appliances etc. simply because it is inherently beautiful (to us, anyway), just as any great feat of engineering is beautiful.  

    It is important to understand that while embracing "alternative" energy sources, or buying more efficient appliances and vehicles etc. etc., might reduce the amount of money to terroists (or what not), that isn't the primary reason many of us do it.  We do it because we love doing things the best way we can, and owning a great product, rather than one designed and slapped together by drooling idiots (-: .  (If I was a genius engineer -- which I'm not -- I think I could do a lot better than what manufacturers usually produce).

    As any fan of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead knows (though you hardly have to be a fan of her or her novels -- in fact you can be a vehement socialist to see this), you must primarily "love the doing" to really be successful -- not how that "doing" may benefit others, or the environment, or "world peace" etc. etc. (and not that you don't want those things -- of course you do!)

    This principle is also in places like the Bhagavad Gita, such as when Krishna admonishes Arjuna not to "think of the fruit" of action when he acts.  Likewise, the Zen are said to focus on the archer's form in their archery lessons, and not on hitting the target (though that is part of the ultimate goal, obviously).

    The problem I find with most capitalists these days is that they seem to think that people love "green" items (like hybrid cars) purely because they "help" others --  out of some outrageous, self-abnegative, do-gooding altruism (or from some sinister plot to appear altruist, when their secret agenda is actually power over others, like Rand's infamous Ellsworth Tooey did), when most of us do it because such products take more intelligence to produce.  The fact that the ultimate effect is very positive (in my opinion) is simply the result of that greater intelligence that is put into such products.

    In short, I find the Dilbert cartoon rather irrelevant and insulting! (laugh)On Oil diplomat or man of the people? posted 2 years, 7 months ago 14 Responses

  • From AP, April 15th

    Just wanted to post a short update from AP on the Chavez/ethanol/de Silva situation:


    By NATALIE OBIKO PEARSON,  AP Business Writer

    However, even if all arable land on Earth were turned over to biofuel production, it still would not meet world demand for oil, so Chavez is joined by many experts who caution that promoting ethanol as a substitute for gasoline is environmentally misguided.

    Venezuela still plans to expand its own ethanol production for use as a fuel additive -- and reduce dependence on Brazilian imports. Venezuela's $900 million plan envisions becoming self-sufficient in ethanol by 2012 by planting 300,000 hectares of sugar cane, manioc and rice and building up to 17 processing plants.

    Other Chavez ethanol projects include a January agreement with Ecuador to study jointly commercializing ethanol, and a February deal with Cuba to jointly build 11 ethanol plants.

    Chavez denies any conflict with Silva, and Garcia in turn said the Brazilian leader is coming to the summit on Margarita Island "in peace and love," to promote ethanol "not as an ideological fuel, but simply a fuel."

    Chavez and Silva plan to meet before the summit Monday to praise the construction of a petrochemical complex involving the Brazilian company Braskem and Pequiven, a division of Venezuela's state oil company.

    For the complete article:
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070415/ap_on_bi_ge/venezuela ...On Oil diplomat or man of the people? posted 2 years, 7 months ago 14 Responses

  • Nuclear Power Plants

    Nucbuddy wrote:

    ..I count 47 U.S. commercial electric power reactor units that are more than 30 years old

    As I stated in my post, I relied a lot on Mark Zepezauer's 1996 book, Get the Rich off Welfare. Since that was published over 10 years ago, that should help explain the discrepency. In addition, one of your links is to  nuclear power plants across the entire globe.  Mr. Zepezauer's book only was dealing with US power plants, and the rules of licensing as they existed in this country when he wrote that book.  Evidently, some of these licenses have been extended beyond their original duration.

    What is obvious to me is that nuclear power isn't cheap, as if often claimed (citing the cost of uranium alone, without factoring in the tens -- if not hundreds -- of other factors, is very misleading).  For brevity, I left out some other major economic considerations, such as the fact that the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods is very expensive (and paid for by the taxpayer). Another: every year we spend millions on just studying the feasibility of the Yucca Mountain storage facility, and this is money that could easily have been used more productively.

    Nor has the MSNBC story garnered any comments:
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11996239/

    Nor the Department of Defense study cited at http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Out/Ote7_5.htm

    For that matter, the History Channel program, titled, "Alternative Energy" also mentions that the entire electrical needs of the USA could be met with solar thermal technology by filling a 100 square mile area of the Nevada desert with solar trough collectors.

    The problem with the "alternative naysayers" is that they refuse to even examine the immense potential of other methods, and their relative cost compared to nuclear.On Roughnecks have it really rough posted 2 years, 7 months ago 23 Responses

  • economics & nuclear

    GRLCowan, you stated:

    US$100 worth of fossil fuel, on which some tens of additional dollars go to the tax man and from him to the publically funded, is typically replaced with less than $5 worth of uranium. (The recent dramatic 18-dollar-a-pound uptick in the uranium price is, in oil-equivalent units, about equal to a dollar a barrel.)

    What arguments like this ignore is the large government investments in nuclear that keep it going.  Here are few examples (some of which come from Mark Zepezauer's 1996 book, Get the Rich off Welfare):

       1.  Nuclear power plants are licensed to operate for 40 years, but only one has made it  past 30.
       2. In 1996, the owner of the Yankee Rowe plant in Massachusetts (the first commercial nuclear power plant in the US) estimated that cost of decommissioning the plant would be $375 million, ten times what it cost to build the plant.  Other estimates went as high as $500 million.
       3. Although the utilities maintain trust funds to cover the cost of closing their old plants, there are invariably huge shortfalls.  Chicago's Commonwealth Edison had a %73 shortfall to close six old nukes.  What the utilities can't cover, the public has to.  To help the industry, Congress lowered the income tax on these trust funds from 34 to 20 percent, further putting the burden on the taxpayers.
       4. Most nuclear plants are near large bodies of water for coolng purposes.  With rising sea levels likely, the possibility of contamination becomes even more likely, especially if more plants are built in such areas.  Large scale contamination is inevitable if an accident occurs, even without any rising sea levels.
       5. The area in Nevada near Yucca mountain has 33 known earthquake faults, the highest known number in the US.  Why was Nevada chosen, then?  Because they have the lowest population density, and thus the lowest Congressional clout to vote against being the dumping ground of everyone's nuclear waste.  While it is true that the "majority rule" in a democracy, there is the correlate of "minority rights" being preserved at the same time -- which are not being observed at all for the people of Nevada.
       6. Quote from the book, "Yucca mountain is supposed to be financed by the Nuclear Waste Fund, which is generated by charging utility customers a fee of 1/10 cent per kilowatt hour for nuclear generated power.  But in the thirteen years [in 1996] of [its] existence, the fund has never been adjusted for inflation, which has cut its purchasing power by %45."
       7. Since its inception, nuclear power plants were granted a limit on any financial liability an accident would cause.  In 1959, this limit was $560 million per accident, later raised to $7 billion.  

    So -- based on these, and many other observations -- I don't see nuclear as a "cheaper" alternative to fossil fuels, which themselves are, as you rightly point out, heavily subsidized.  

    A study in the 1991 by the Dept. of Energy concluded that we could get all our electricity from wind by just using the wind resources in three states (Kansas, North Dakota, and Texas). See http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Out/Ote7_5.htm

    (A recent "Alternative Energy" program on the History Channel states that only two states would be needed to provide the electricity of the US -- and this trend will probably continue as wind turbines get even more efficient).On Roughnecks have it really rough posted 2 years, 7 months ago 23 Responses

  • Materials: good and bad

    I have to agree with Sarah van Schagen's comments about recycled paper, as well as materials in general (though I do agree with JMG that he has a good point).

    The same issue has struck me in regard to other "green" ideas and industries.  One example would be those neat micro-hydro power machines, one of which graced the cover of Home Power Magazine recently.  In the picture, the machine is being held by someone (I think the manufacturer or owner), and the use of PVC pipe as the material of choice in funneling the H20 to the impeller blades is obvious.

    So what's wrong with PVC pipe?  The manufacturing process is the primary gripe -- there is a lot of evidence, and court cases have been fought over this, to show that it causes rare forms of cancer in those who live near the PVC plants, as well as those who have suffered a type of bone degeneration who work with the stuff (in the factories).  B. F. Goodrich, back in the early seventies, announced that four of their workers at one PVC plant had developed a rare liver sarcoma, and that it was directly related to their workplace exposure -- and this disease averages only about twenty people in the entire United States a year.  (So one fifth of all cases were from this one plant).  Likewise, in the early seventies, PVC bottles to house liquor were banned, because of chemical leaching into the party liquids, and the use of PVC related compounds as aerosol propellants was discontinued.

    So should we be advocating usage of other materials, even other (safer) petro-chemical based
    plastics?  Yes.

    I've got a Sunfrost refrigerator (one of the most efficient available worldwide), and although I love it, yes -- it too uses PVC pipe to channel its non-ozone depleting coolant.  Likewise I have a wood-powered water stove from which I get all my heat and hot water, and some of the plumbing that channels the hot water into my house is PVC pipe.  So yes -- the stuff is ubiquitous in our lives -- I'm not being hypocritical.  But since I've found out about PVC's harmful manufacturing process, I have avoided using it almost completely. But I feel kind of silly knowing that we have so far to go to be a truly non (or less) toxic society.

    Bill Moyers had a good PBS documentary that dealt (in part) with the PVC issue. And a good book to consult would be Deceit and Denial, which
    Mr. Moyers plugs on the back cover.  

    And yes, there are many, many more examples of materials that are harmful -- or which the manufacturering process results in harm to the workers and surrounding communities -- and there needs to be more attention on this issue if we are ever to get past toxins.  Greenpeace(for example) has attacked Apple computers for being so
    laggard in graduating away from their use of harmful plastics in their products, compared to Dell and Acer.

    So . . . we all need to push for new (or old) materials.  A lot of PVC pipe used for water transfer could be replaced perhaps by vitrified clay pipe, which is stronger, albeit harder to work with (or, for that matter, find anywhere!).  With more public attention, though, the availablity of clay pipe, and more user-friendly methods of connecting and using it, could easily become the new standard, and perhaps even completely replace PVC pipe.

    Then there's bamboo, which the ancient Chinese used to channel natural gas (at apparently a high pressure) in intricate networks (according to a History Channel documentary . . . . On In which Knut gets even cuter posted 2 years, 7 months ago 8 Responses

  • hybrids vs. hydrogen

    Thanks, amazngdrx, for that info.  I totally agree with you on the hybrid-is-better-than hydrogen argument.  In fact, I mentioned the fact that hydrogen is slightly less explosive than gasoline just as a trival comment, and not because I am all that excited about hydrogen fuel cells.

    I've always wondered a bit about the hydrogen fuel-cell hype since it first appeared (though I was quite excited by Billings Energy back in late 70's, and the use of hydrogen to replace gasoline in internal combusion engines). Likewise, there have been some good articles in the alternative energy press saying pretty much what you said comparing electric or hybrid vechicles to hydrogen.

    As these articles point out, there are just too many steps -- each one causing a major loss of efficiency -- in the hydrogen fuel-cell process to compete with eletric/hybrid technology. It makes it too expensive, too unwieldly compared to the "off-the-shelf" nature of wind and solar generated electricity going straight to batteries or the grid.

    What most agree on is that hydrogen is (in some situations) a potential good source of energy storage (usually in stationary -- rather than ambulatory -- situations), but that is about it (at least at our current level of progress).
    On Our prez nearly made a slip of the plug posted 2 years, 7 months ago 21 Responses

  • re: how did you come to that conclusion?

    By giving a link to a Google collection of Tooth Fairy Project link, you kind of answer your own question, because many of the links you provided contain articles by top researchers in the field,  and support the thesis that living near nuke plants increases thyroid and other cancers. Unless you're an extreme skeptic about anything that contradicts the nuclear industry's standard response to every study, every criticism, then it would appear you have unwittingly helped drive home the idea the nuclear is not safe.

    I sometimes wonder how anyone could support something as expensive, and as dangerous as nuclear power.  But then I remember how little information we get from the major media outlets.  (The media, however, still do some good investigation sometimes, however as this report shows: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11996239/ )
    Likewise, about a year ago, National Geographic had a an excellent documentary on the 3-mile island accident that really went into detail about the whole mess.

    Here is another link, (http://www.ccnr.org/browns_ferry.html#ca) regarding the fire at the Browns-Ferry nuclear plant in Alabama in 1975.  The story is actually comic, if you can ignore the potential lethality of what this fire almost resulted in, because it stands in such stark contradiction of the endless "nuclear is safe" propoganda that emanates out of the nuclear industry lobby.

    They apparently successfully suppressed this story in the media, for although a resident of Alabama for most of my life (including 1975), I didn't know about it for years (and no, I wasn't living in an isolated cave without newspapers, radio and tv). This conspicuous failure to mention the fire continues to this day. At most, one only hears about 3-mile island and Chernobyl in the media, not Browns-Ferry, or the many others that have occurred thorugh nuclear power's history.On Roughnecks have it really rough posted 2 years, 7 months ago 23 Responses

  • Nuclear safety

    A good rebuttal to the "nuclear safety" argument can be found here:

    http://www.lutins.org/nukes.htmlOn Roughnecks have it really rough posted 2 years, 7 months ago 23 Responses

  • Hydrogen like gasoline

    Actually, hydrogen gas is no more explosive than gasoline (which isn't to say it isn't explosive or extremely dangerous).

    Tests have been conducted with the same energy-content of both hydrogen and gasoline which demonstrated thatgasoline actually has slightly more deadly force in an explosion than hydrogen.

    This was made clear back in the late 1970's when Billings Energy Corp. of Montana were pushing for hydrogen as a fuel for interntal combusion engines (not to be confused with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles).  They had many working prototypes, and the prez of the company regularly mowed his lawn with a riding mower that he filled with hydrogen gas.  

    Their solution was to store the hydrogen gas in certain metals that absorb hydrogen, and which release it when gently heated.

    In any case, the publicity of their cause resulted in some good reporting, which documented on video the slighty more deadly power of gasoline (in a closed container) than hydrogen.

    Still, hydrogen explosiveness is nothing to sneeze  about!On Our prez nearly made a slip of the plug posted 2 years, 7 months ago 21 Responses

  • Understanding

    I find the links to the HRW interesting and important -- but the reason Chavez and his party are "the way they are" is rather obvious.  Venezuela  has been under the thumb of "corporate feudalism" (thanks for that term) for decade after decade after decade after decade -- and it is still deeply entrenched in Venezuela (and Latin America as a whole). These forces are fighting Chavez tooth and nail on everything, even obvious boons to the poor like having school lunches or basic medical care.  Thus, the "Chavezistas" feel a strong need to consolidate their power and thus protect their revolution. They wouldn't be like that if the opposition wasn't so insane.

    Of course, there are those who will see this populist uprising as another manifestion of the All the Kings Men phenomina, and certainly there is some justification for this. But to say, as some have, that he is a "tin pot" dictator is absurd, and ignores all the hurdles that he and the Venezuelan people have gone through to get to the point they're at now, which has been a long struggle.  

    Was there this same concern for human rights when Chavez himself was briefly ousted in a coup -- and this was widely mis-reported in our country as a "resignation"? No.  

    Likewise, when Chavez himself -- years before -- attempted a coup, was the reason for this (that IMF imposed policies were causing starvation in Venezuela, and protestors were being shot and killed by the police) reported?  No. (Nor has this been reported since, except in the alternative press).

    And when Chavez suspended the training of Venezuelan troops at the infamous "School of Assassians" (known for its endless murders, disappearances, and other human rights abuses), was this act applauded in our press  -- or in the so-called libertarian press -- as a major blow against our imperialist and cruel empire? For the most part, No.

    In order to understand Chavez, one must also understand what he is up against.  I'm glad that there are those who monitor his acts and express concern -- it is absolutely necessary.  But would these actions of his that cast a less glorious light on his tenure, have received public support in Venezuela (or at least, are been condoned) if the opposition itself wasn't so much worse?  Has anyone noticed that the talk is always only about Chavez -- and not what went on before he came to power?  Does anyone even know the names of the previous five (or ten!) presidents of Veneuzula, and what political parties they belonged to, and what their policies were?  Are not our social studies abnormally deficient? Is the mainstream media ever concerned about our lack of knowledge and try to fill this void? No, of course not.

    As Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" stated in Magnum Force, he would happily have joined the renegade, vigalante policeman if they had something better to offer than the compromised, medicore system that these rebel policemen claimed to be fighting, but they didn't. And neither do those who so glibly attack Chavez.

    Thus, unless some more effective solution presents itself (like maybe Buddha and Christ coming out of the sky and miraculously granting the majority of Venezuelan people their share of rights, land, and wealth that they so richly deserve), then I think Chavez is about as good as it can get.  Though not perfect, he's an incredible boon to Venezuela and Latin America compared to everything else currently -- or previously -- extant.  Absolutists will chafe at his reforms and point out his faults, but since they can't produce any other alternatives, they shouldn't be taken seriously.  

    To remove Chavez would be to return to a status quo that kept 80% of its people in poverty for the past 50+ years, despite its vast oil wealth (and concentrated in a such a relatively small country!).

    But if he and his party stay in power, a larger, more educated, healthier middle class will emerge and expand, and that can only bolster the living quality of everyone there.On Oil diplomat or man of the people? posted 2 years, 7 months ago 14 Responses

  • military use for interstate HWY system?

    Sam wells stated, "By the 1970's the Interstate Highway System was put together - and for an interesting reason, mainly for the military (e.g., 1 mile in 5 had to the straight enough to land a jet).  "

    Actually, most folks now feel that the military pretext for the interstate highway system was just that -- a pretext. (You've never really seen a military plane land on an interstate, have you? -- except maybe a rare emergency!)  The real intent was to subsidize the petroleum and auto industries with the infrastructure they wanted to sell more of their stuff.

    As an aside: huge investments into infrastracture that "private" companies and corporations use is often completely ignored by most of the free-market advocates, who mysteriously insist that every firm from General Motors to Exxon to Boeing to Wal-Mart etc. (just look up the Fortune 500) somehow made their mark through pure, self-reliant, "rugged individualism," when in reality they're the biggest welfare receipients in all of human history!On Trains are the forgotten mode of transport, at least in the U.S. posted 2 years, 7 months ago 52 Responses

  • Chavez & biofuels etc.

    I think Chavez has made a somewhat intelligent choice in stating that the purpose of his revolution wasn't to use land to fuel "rich peoples' cars" -- but in doing so he also makes a    mistake: Citgo petroleum is already fueling "rich peoples' cars" (if you consider the relative richness of the USA driver), no?

    Of course, his attempt to turn around the decades of abuse that the poor have suffered in Venezuela is something I am 1000% FOR. In addition, his comment strikes a good chord in spite of what I said above: rich people's cars usually guzzle fuel -- no matter what it is or where it comes from -- and if that doesn't change for the better, then no amount of biofuels is going to help the environment, or anyone or anything else. Using land for fuel isn't as compelling a need if the fuel is used wisely, and using fuel wisely allows more land for food, and for habitat, and thus requires less for fuel.

    Lastly, the only reason Venezuela would be in the dumps after 5 more years of Chavez would be because of interference from both/either the US government -- and Venezuela's own short-sighted, old-school elite.

    (I am not a Marxist -- or even a socialist myself --  but I am certainly against what has almost always claimed to be "capitalist," but is -- in reality -- anything but a true free-market system.  To confuse "modern" capitalism with real capitalism would be to confuse the Spanish Inquisition with the teachings of Christ.)On Oil diplomat or man of the people? posted 2 years, 7 months ago 14 Responses