>> ^oileanach
The power source is a serious issue I agree. I can't stand it when people suggest that electricity (or similarly hydrogen) is a SOURCE of energy - it's just a means of transmission. Now in a place like France where they have more nuclear power than they can use (especially at night) charging batteries would be a good alternative to burning fossil fuels.

>> ^Kagenin
Quote from his comments:
Here in Southern California (power company: SCE), when I charge this bike, about 50% of the electricity comes from natural gas, 20% from Nuclear, 15% renewable (Geothermal, Wind, etc), and only 9% comes from coal

Nuclear energy and gas/coal are unsustainable/inefficient/old-fashioned/dangerous (esp. nuclear)/centralised (elitist) sources of energy, e.g. read this article by Jeremy Rifkin
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0929-33.htm
Conclusion of the article is that there are a lot better options available: "Instead, we should pursue an aggressive effort to bring the full range of decentralized renewable technologies online: solar, wind, geothermal, hydro and biomass. And we should establish a hydrogen storage infrastructure to ensure a steady, uninterrupted supply of power for our electricity needs and for transportation."

^ On your last point, "God bless America" isn't the same as "We are the chosen country of God", it's a request for God's blessing, not a "God commands that we smite the infidels!"

I think it's possible for us to end our dependency on foreign oil, just no time soon. Drilling for more oil isn't going to end our dependency, but switching to electric cars across the board would massively reduce how much oil we'd need, and we could use anything to charge those cars, wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, natural gas, coal, fission nuclear, and fusion nuclear when we get there.

As for Georgia, you're right about why we care about "democracy" in Georgia, but we do care about whether Georgia (and the Ukraine) generally leans towards democracy and NATO, or subservience to Putin. Though in my mind, that should be more because of our solidarity with the EU than anything else.

As far as I know, the main thing from keeping solar technology from hitting the main stream is the cost. Most would think that once the process hits main stream the cost would go down. And while that is true to an extent, there is a technilogical hurdal that still has to be passed before a significant reduction in price happens.

The problem with PV cells is the silicon crystal they have to make in order to harness the photons. The way it works is you have a peice of silica crysal. The thiker the crystal, the more power you can generate. But, like the microchip fabrication process, there is a potential for every micron of thickness you add, that the layer above could have a flaw and thus ruin all the sub-layers of silica below it. The fabrication process has to draw a line with yeild vs power output vs material costs. Right now, that still means relativly low power effeciancy (last I read, it's lower than a combustion engine). Granted, not using hydro carbon related tech, so it's greenish but it does create a lot of waste and heat waste.

The problem still lies in the fabrication process. And it's at the atomic level that the problem is. At the atomic level, there are a very few number of tools that manufacting labs have at their disposal, and even more things that we don't know why happen.

For instance, it was a resent discovery of what a gold atom looks like at the atomic level. Very important when you are wanting to build uniform crystaline units. What I am stating here is that atomic reasearch is very promising, but it is still just that, a promiss of something that is yet to arive. With that said, I think the main stream adoption of solar tech for main stream use is years, if not decades (booo) away.

As you might of guessed, you also have to consider wear and tear on the units. If they become impacted by FOD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_object_damage) then you are talking about some serious problems, like a complete or partial replacement of your potentialy 10k dollar investment. I live in texas, where we have at least one hail storm a year, CURRENT solar tech either has to add screen and shields that once again lower effectivness, or you run the risk of a total system failure...

Anyway, sorry for the rant...I enjoy tech talk

Hydro and Nuclear power are better for the environment than any kind of coal, and they're cheaper and more reliable than wind/solar. Containing a few tons of radioactive waste is easier than containing a few billion tons of CO2. Fossil fuel power plants produce around a million times more waste per kilowatt hour, and it's not even solid waste.

"Blue team wins, but they spelled [BLU] wrong." LMAO!
I really felt sorry for her in the beginning of Hydro, though, when she said happily "Oh, there's a map for this one, that's really nice!".
And if this isn't CUTE, what is??

If we burnt every last bit of fossil fuel in the earth, the atmosphere would revert to the way it was before photosynthesis existed. The reason Earth has free oxygen is biological carbon sequestration. We're gonna have to switch to nuclear, wind, solar, and hydro power. Solar power is the simplest and safest variety of nuclear power

Global consumption of oil averages around 4 quadrillion watts, which is roughly the amount of electricity that would be produced on average by a 200km * 200km square of photovoltaics.

No, I mean we're not being taxed enough for using fossil fuels. And at the same time, the USA is subsidizing energy industry directly, and giving them tax breaks, and spending billions on a defense budget that involves protecting strategically crucial oil reserves far from the USA. These subsidies probably outweigh the oil taxes.

In reply to this comment by MarineGunrock:
>> ^jwray:
The U.S. should just place a large tax on all fossil fuel consumption, effectively forcing the industry to switch to nuclear/wind/solar/hydro/tidal. A hydro plant with a large reservoir that can regulate its rate of water passage could load-balance with a solar/wind plant.
It makes perfect sense to tax all consumption of fossil fuels, to internalize the negative externalities of fossil fuel use. The regressivity of this tax could be nullified by a flat refund similar to this year's economic stimulus package.


You mean you don't think that we are already being taxed on it?

>> ^jwray:
The U.S. should just place a large tax on all fossil fuel consumption, effectively forcing the industry to switch to nuclear/wind/solar/hydro/tidal. A hydro plant with a large reservoir that can regulate its rate of water passage could load-balance with a solar/wind plant.
It makes perfect sense to tax all consumption of fossil fuels, to internalize the negative externalities of fossil fuel use. The regressivity of this tax could be nullified by a flat refund similar to this year's economic stimulus package.


You mean you don't think that we are already being taxed on it?

The U.S. should just place a large tax on all fossil fuel consumption, effectively forcing the industry to switch to nuclear/wind/solar/hydro/tidal. A hydro plant with a large reservoir that can regulate its rate of water passage could load-balance with a solar/wind plant.

It makes perfect sense to tax all consumption of fossil fuels enough internalize the negative externalities of fossil fuel use. The regressivity of this tax could be nullified by a flat refund similar to this year's economic stimulus package.

The current taxes on oil etc in the USA are far too low.

Of course, some folks just call that a sink (or tub) hit. So they tell me.

or a 'hydro'.

in this particularly godless end of New York State.
i've overheard hooligans use the term.

gorillaman, I have another word for that: Hydro-lock

"btw i would rather have one nuclear power station than seven gajillion acres of inefficient turbines. They are not made of recycled paper, you know?"...

"If you like progress, and you think a fucking windmill is progress, then you're mental."

You're comparing plastics with nuclear waste and you're calling me mental? At least plastic can be recycled. Nuclear power plants aren't made of recycled paper either, and they must continually be re-fueled every 18 months. Do you think they that fuel grows on trees? Wind turbines require no fuel, and need very little maintenance.

Progress is building more safe, renewable resources for power such as wind, hydro and solar power plants, not building more nuke plants.

I know all about Chernobyl and nuclear reactors, I used to work at one. I know the designs are different, my point is that it only takes one accident and the effects on the environment and life lasts for generations. Do you realize how many nuclear accidents there have been, besides the two major ones (TMI and Chernobyl)? There's more than just accidents at nuclear plants, accidents occur during the manufacturing, transport, storage, and disposal of the nuclear fuel. They may not be as big as Chernobyl, but the damage to the environment has been done, and the "pollution" will be around longer than you or I.

Here's a list of just some of the nuclear accidents in just the US alone:

July 1959 - Boeing-Rocketdyne Nuclear Facility in Ventura County, California, A clogged coolant channel resulted in a 30% reactor core meltdown, which led to the release of the third greatest amount of radioactive iodine-131 in nuclear history.

July 1956 - Sylvania Electric Products' Metallurgy Atomic Research Center, Bayside, Queens, New York, nine people were injured when two explosions destroyed a portion of the facility.

December 1958 - Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico. A nuclear criticality accident killed 1 operator.

1959 - Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley Hills, California. A partial sodium reactor meltdown occurred.

January 1961 - National Reactor Testing Station in Arco, Idaho. A reactor explosion, killed 3 technicians, and released radiation. The men were so heavily exposed to radiation that their hands had to be buried separately with other radioactive waste, and their bodies were buried in lead coffins.

October 1966 - Detroit Edison's Enrico Fermi I demonstration breeder reactor near Detroit, Michigan. A sodium cooling system malfunction caused a partial core meltdown.

November 1971 - Northern States Power Company's reactor in Monticello, Minnesota. The water storage space filled to capacity and spilled over, dumping about 50,000 gallons of radioactive waste water into the Mississippi River.

1972 - The West Valley, NY fuel reprocessing plant was closed after 6 years in operation, leaving 600,000 gallons of high-level wastes buried in leaking tanks. The site caused measurable contamination of Lakes Ontario and Erie.

March 1972 - A routine check in a nuclear power plant in Alaska indicated abnormal radioactivity in the building's water system. Radioactivity was confirmed in the plant drinking fountain. Apparently there was an inappropriate cross-connection between a 3,000 gallon radioactive tank and the water system.

December 1972 - A plutonium fabrication plant in Pauling, New York. An undetermined amount of radioactive plutonium was scattered inside and outside the plant, after a major fire and two explosions occurred resulting in its permanent shutdown.

May 1974 - The Atomic Energy Commission reported that 861 "abnormal events" had occurred in 1973 in the nation's 42 operative nuclear power plants. Twelve involved the release of radioactivity "above permissible levels."

March 1975 - Browns Ferry reactor, Decatur, Alabama. A fire burned out electrical controls, lowering the cooling water to dangerous levels, before the plant could be shut down.

1979 - The Critical Mass Energy Project tabulated 122 accidents involving the transport of nuclear material in 1979, 17 involving radioactive contamination.

March 1979 - Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania. After cooling water was lost, the top portion of the reactor's 150-ton core collapsed and melted. Contaminated coolant water escaped into a nearby building, releasing radioactive gasses. A study by Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass, professor of radiation physics at the University of Pittsburgh, showed that the accident led to a minimum of 430 infant deaths.

July 1979 - Church Rock, New Mexico. A dam holding radioactive uranium mill tailings broke, sending an estimated 100 million gallons of radioactive liquids and 1,100 tons of solid wastes downstream.

August 1979 - A nuclear fuel plant near Erwin, Tennessee. Highly enriched uranium was released. About 1,000 people were contaminated with up to 5 times as much radiation as would normally be received in a year. Between 1968 and 1983 the plant "lost" 234 pounds of highly enriched uranium, forcing the plant to be closed six times during that period.

January 1980 - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (where large amounts of nuclear material are kept). An earthquake caused caused a tritium leak.

September 1980 - Two canisters containing radioactive materials fell off a truck on New Jersey's Route 17. The driver, en route from Pennsylvania to Toronto, did not notice the missing cargo until he reached Albany, New York.

1981 - The Critical Mass Energy Project of Public Citizen, Inc. reported that there were 4,060 mishaps and 140 serious events at nuclear power plants in 1981.

February 11, 1981 - Tennessee Valley Authority's Sequoyah I plant in Tennessee, 110,000 gallons of radioactive coolant sprayed into the containment building, which led to the contamination of eight men.

July 1981 - Nine Mile Point's Unit 1 in New York state. A flood of radioactive wastewater in the sub-basement caused approximately 150 55-gallon drums of high-level waste to overturn, some of which released their highly radioactive contents. Some 50,000 gallons of radioactive water were subsequently dumped into Lake Ontario to make room for the cleanup.

January 25, 1982 - Rochester Gas & Electric Company's Ginna plant near Rochester, New York. Fifteen thousand gallons of radioactive coolant spilled onto the plant floor, and radioactive steam escaped into the air after a steam generator pipe broke.

January 1983 - Browns Ferry power plant, Athens, Alabama. About 208,000 gallons of water with radioactive contamination was accidentally dumped into the Tennesee River.

February 1983 - Salem 1 reactor in New Jersey. A catastrophe was averted by just 90 seconds when the plant was shut down manually, following the failure of automatic shutdown systems. The same automatic systems had failed to respond in an incident three days before. Other problems plagued this plant as well, such as a 3,000 gallon leak of radioactive water in June 1981 at the Salem 2 reactor, a 23,000 gallon leak of radioactive water (which splashed onto 16 workers) in February 1982, and radioactive gas leaks in March 1981 and September 1982 from Salem 1.

December 1984 - The Fernald Uranium Plant, a 1,050-acre uranium fuel production complex 20 miles northwest of Cincinnati, Ohio. The Department of Energy disclosed that excessive amounts of radioactive materials had been released through ventilating systems. Subsequent reports revealed that 230 tons of radioactive material had leaked into the Greater Miami River valley during the previous thirty years, 39 tons of uranium dust had been released into the atmosphere, 83 tons had been discharged into surface water, and 5,500 tons of radioactive and other hazardous substances had been released into pits and swamps where they seeped into the groundwater. In addition, 337 tons of uranium hexafluoride was found to be missing, its whereabouts completely unknown. The plant was not permanently shut down until 1989.

1986 - A truck carrying radioactive material went off a bridge on Route 84 in Idaho, and dumped part of its cargo in the Snake River. Officials reported the release of radioactivity.

6 January 1986 - The Sequoyah Fuels Corp. uranium processing factory in Gore, Oklahoma. A container of highly toxic gas exploded, causing one worker to die (when his lungs were destroyed) and 130 others to seek medical treatment.

December 1986 - Surry Unit 2 facility in Virginia. A feedwater pipe ruptured, causing 8 workers to be scalded by a release of hot water and steam. Four of the workers later died from their injuries. In addition, water from the sprinkler systems caused a malfunction of the security system, preventing personnel from entering the facility.

1988 - It was reported that there were 2,810 accidents in U.S. commercial nuclear power plants in 1987.

November 1992 - The Sequoyah Fuels Corp. uranium processing factory in Gore, Oklahoma closed after repeated citations by the Government for violations of nuclear safety and environmental rules. It's record during 22 years of operation included an accident in 1986 that killed one worker and injured dozens of others and the contamination of the Arkansas River and groundwater. The Sequoyah Fuels plant, one of two privately-owned American factories that fabricated fuel rods, had been shut down a week before by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission when an accident resulted in the release of toxic gas. Thirty-four people sought medical attention as a result of the accident. The plant had also been shut down the year before when unusually high concentrations of uranium were detected in water in a nearby construction pit. A Government investigation revealed that the company had known for years that uranium was leaking into the ground at levels 35,000 times higher than Federal law allows.

March 1994 - A nuclear research facility on Long Island, New York. A fire resulted in the nuclear contamination of three fire fighters, three reactor operators, and one technician. Measurable amounts of radioactive substances were released into the immediate environment.

February 2000 - Indian Point II power plant in New York vented radioactive steam when a an aging steam generator ruptured.

March 2002 - Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio. Workers discovered a foot-long cavity eaten into the reactor vessel head. Borated water had corroded the metal to a 3/16 inch stainless steel liner which held back over 80,000 gallons of highly pressurized radioactive water.

Do you honestly think that more of this is worth not having to look at a field of wind turbines (they're not windmills btw, yes I get the refrence )? As far as I know, wind turbines have not killed anyone or released toxic and radioactive materials into the environment.

It says "There's many small engineers. We're looking forward to when they grow up". Hydro is a norwegian oil-company, and is evidently trying to recruit engineers in a currently superheated jobmarket. Great commercial

i don't know what "hydro" is, but i want it.

Story? well, its obviously fake, its an ad for Hydro, an industry giant(by norwegian standards at least, the ad is designed to inspire young people to study and become engineers etc more info here:

http://www.hydro.com/en/press_room/news/archive/2007_06/tv_films_en.html

here are both films in the campaign , quite funny the other one too: http://www.hydro.com/framtiden/