>> ^radx:

Here's my translation of "environmental protection":
"Piss off, America! We're not some third world country that you can bully into handing over all its resources for a pittance."


What, but they even got Canada to do that ⇩... The bully wants what he wants

This is one big reason:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=afghanistan-holds-enormous-bounty-of-rare-earths

rare earth.

>> ^zor:

We could mine these ourselves but it is a filthy business. China should tell the US to fuck off and do it themselves.


We could, but all our stuff is usually mixed in with Thorium, and thanks to the EPA you have to treat it like toxic waste. Even though you could eat thorium and be totally fine, it only just barely radioactive.

>> ^Spacedog79:

It's funny that we actually have loads of easily accessible rare earth minerals in Monozite sands, but we don't use it because there is so much Thorium in it. A Thorium reactor also produces a significant amount of rare earths as a byproduct. Problem solved QED.


Except it's not about what makes sense for the nation or even the world. It's about what makes bankers more MONEY.

Nb. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/mar/14/goldman-sachs-director-quits-morally-bankrupt

It's funny that we actually have loads of easily accessible rare earth minerals in Monozite sands, but we don't use it because there is so much Thorium in it. A Thorium reactor also produces a significant amount of rare earths as a byproduct. Problem solved QED.

>> ^radx:

Here's my translation of "environmental protection":
"Piss off, America! We're not some third world country that you can bully into handing over all its resources for a pittance."


Indeed, but trade wars over really rare things can be pretty crazy destabilizing. Rare earths form the entire backbone of advanced industry, a drastic interruption can easily in this day in age be called an act of war...much like when we embargoed oil from japan in WW2. I ain't saying they aren't justified, just this could get ugly, more ugly than one might consider for rocks. Hopefully, this is just 2 large powers flexing, and nothing more comes of it.

>> ^A10anis:

>> ^criticalthud:
@A10anis
WWII was an economic and resource war. As was every war the US has been in.
"Just" is a matter of perspective.
Vast sums were made by war profiteering during the war, but that paled in comparison to the influx of wealth following WWII and american global domination.

For you to say; "WWII was an economic and resource war. As was every war the US has been in." leaves you in the unenviable position of being an utterly ignorant commentator on issues you don't understand. Shush.


really? you think WWI started simply because franz ferdinand was shot, ...or WWII had nothing to do with Hitler's push into the middle east and western russian oilfields? or that vietnam and korea had nothing to do with the collision of economic systems (communist totalitarianism and capitalism). or Iraq has nothing to do with oil and Afghanistan has nothing to do with rare earth deposits? good vs. evil is just fine for star wars and the lord of the rings, but on planet earth, it's about competing economic interests.
"Just" war is another term for wrapping brutality in red white and blue and selling it to the masses.

>> ^criticalthud:

@bmcs27 no i would call that a terrible waste of time. go ahead and look up the politics of landmines and you may be surprised at which country is both adamant about the production and continued use of them. and yeah, i've been to cambodia. another country we had absolutely no business sticking our nose into.
@NetRunner. "Al Queda" is a term created by the US government for a loose collection of groups who do not admire US foreign policy.
why are we there? well, before we hated the taliban, we loved em. but either way they are still sitting on trillions in minerals and rare earth deposits.
but hey, lets pretend little johnny is over there ensuring our safety from further crotch-bombers.


Your dead right on Cambodia, after all the horrific things Kissinger's lackeys did to there they followed it up by supporting the Khmer Rouge.

On Al-Qaida, you are just flat wrong. Bin Laden came up with the name for his particular cult of international islamic jihadists.

You are also wrong on the Taliban. During the push to remove the Soviets from Afghanistan, the American's backed Pakistan and it's training of Afghan and imported mujahideen warriors. Those mujahideen warriors were NOT the Taliban, they were a disparate collection of all manner of different local and imported fighters. The Taliban were not the only group to come from this Pakistan and American backed crowd, so where the Northern Alliance fighters whom the Taliban sought to destroy. It's fun to make cheap comments like yours, but that doesn't make them accurate or true.

@bmcs27 no i would call that a terrible waste of time. go ahead and look up the politics of landmines and you may be surprised at which country is both adamant about the production and continued use of them. and yeah, i've been to cambodia. another country we had absolutely no business sticking our nose into.

@NetRunner. "Al Queda" is a term created by the US government for a loose collection of groups who do not admire US foreign policy.

why are we there? well, before we hated the taliban, we loved em. but either way they are still sitting on trillions in minerals and rare earth deposits.

but hey, lets pretend little johnny is over there ensuring our safety from further crotch-bombers.

efficiency in heating water is no more or less efficient then current natural gas and nuclear tech

Solar is inefficient in the sense that it costs more money to produce per watt of energy. It takes 25 years for a solar facility to break even. That's 25 years of citizens paying bigger power bills to subsidize a questionable technology.

you would have seen they has solved the day night cycle problem by storing the heat

Molten salt heat storage has existed at least since the early 1980s. I remember watching an episode of NOVA as a kid talking about this. The Spain plant is the first one in the world to use salt thermal storage tanks to run the plant for between 6 to 8 hours without sunlight.

Even in ideal locations, sunlight is interrupted by weather, cloud cover, and normal day/night cycles. These all reduce power generation capacity. Heat storage is not enough to make up the gap unless you live in close proximity to a few very specific geographic locations. Solar plant in "non ideal" locations require a fossil fuel backup for 75% of their total capacity. Essentially, the solar plant you see is just a coal-fired plant that burns 25% less coal.

Of course that fact that there are no fuel cost or waste by products mean that solar towers and the like will have no harmful impacts on the future like every other method of providing electricity out there.

Well, I'd debate your language a bit on this. There are fuel costs in the sense that you have to buy solar cells, and so forth. They require rare earth metals and other materials. There is waste also because you have to replace those things every few years. Modern nuclear plants are just fine, as are most modern US coal plants (if they would just let them be built).

Work PC, will do it later at home as well. Which has much more music.

SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
Confessions of a knife.

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Kooler then Jesus

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
A diasy chain 4 satan

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Feel

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Hear my dear

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Music to commute to

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Troubles

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
Open Your Eyes/Breathe Here/Chicken Bone Charm Bracelet

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Sometimes you just can't win

WHAT IS 2+2?
All about the prophets

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Unknown

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Triple Chromed Dipped

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Rare Earth

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Good 2 Go/Rock That House Music

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
I was born in the 90s

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Rumors and revelations

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Rumble rumble

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Natty Dub

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Triptych (wow)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Dominator

WHATS THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Better off as two

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Feral kid (roflmao)

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Lay it down

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
Michelangelo

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Cremona, Main Title The Red Violin

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
The same parents

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Melodie

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Mirage (ouch lol)

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Moonlight Sonata

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Ride the mindway

>> ^Lucidium:
Charliem: You can turn off electro magnets. And even then certain types will remain magnetic. You can't turn off a magnet.


Simply not true.
The only electo-magnets that "retain" their fields after being switched off, are super-conductive rare-earth elements that have been super-cooled to very low kelvin temperatures.

When the material is bought back up past its super-conductive threshold, it loses its magnetic field.

Every electro magnet that can be switched off, loses its magnetic properties.

MRI's rarely use permanent magnets, as the resolution of a perm magnet is so low, and the materials required to produce a field strong enough for a clear picture, are immensely expensive, and heavy.

Theres a pretty decent chance this is an EM MRI, all they needed to do was let the thing warm up a bit after using it (generally by turning the cooling pumps off).

It is a new form of electrolysis, pupportedly a lot more efficient and using nowhere near the same ammounts of rare-earth elements that existing tech uses to extract hydrogen from water.

It is not over unity / perpetual motion etc...it takes energy to get it going, and needs water to keep it going, just the same as a conventional car. Water is consumed in the process.

Yeah I tought about taking all the hard drives I have stacked around and trying my hand at the array speaker. I haven't really looked into it, but already love grabbing the rare earth magnets out of them so another use would be nice. This guy sure put some great work in not only on the setup, but the filming too. Love it.

Yes, I researched it in some length. It was the non-intuitive part that compelled investigation. I seriously doubt, personally, that it will find it's way into bulk commercial refrigeration though.

They use exceptionally pure, rare earth materials, very expensive, highly tuned lasers, and are only cooling infinitesimal amounts of material. The lasers only cool the atoms directly exposed to the beam which is why the Feshbach resonance method of fliping the spin of the more energetic atoms in the center of the material and ejecting them out of the system with magnets is necessary. As far as the laser cooling is concerned it was the ingenious use of the Dopler effect that really impressed me. Both the magnetic and laser methods are seriously cool...pun intended.