Things I'd like to write

I have quite a backlog...

I'd like to critique Michael Moore's plan to re-invigorate America, particularly action item 3, where he proposes a bullet train that could cross the USA in only 17 hours. A Ford trimotor crossed America that fast in the late 1920s. Oh, the 1920s! Such a wonderful time that was - the gin flowed, the stock market was up, the world was at peace...

I want to talk to the Republican plan for building 100 nuclear power plants in Obama's green energy bill, as what I wrote last year about Liberty Ships still applies. Also, I note nanosolar has been strangely silent lately.

But, first, I want to work up a spreadsheet of projected energy use, both in the US, and worldwide, first, and overlay Japan's land area over America's to serve as an example, and research the history of the Philadelphia->Atlantic City train as well as Acela. That's going to take some time, and isn't a lot of fun.

I'd like to talk more to America's perverse safety culture, which I sort of did a month ago, where people are deathly afraid of swine flu and yet unafraid to drive. People ask me about safety where I live now, and I say that nothing compares to the dangers inherent in surfing, yet, I am not going to stop anytime soon - and I counter - at least there's no nuclear weapons pointed at me...

There's been some interesting developments in global warming lately, but I would really rather talk about the state of the oceans. Actually...

I'd rather be writing a book on happier subjects. Or surfing. Or writing a book about "Everything I know (now) about business, I learned from surfing", but the high quality photographic plates required would make it non-publishable and in web format, it would be boring... maybe if I wrote it in "Johnathan Livingston Seagull" fashion it would work... I need a waterproof recorder, all the best stuff I think up vanishes by the time I get to shore....

I also recently found the text to my talk, last year, in Australiaon Living autonomously in an ever more connected world which was one of the bigger things I've written recently and I'd like to bang that into shape for publication, as I went extemporaneous in the talk with a great digression that needs to go back in the text....

I'd also like to talk to "the last great CPU war - ATOM vs ARM" which is beginning now, with arm cortex A8 or A9 processors coming in on the bottom end below Atom and moving up...

But, anyway, if I get around to it, maybe I'll write some or all of the above in the coming weeks. Maybe that last one I could get paid for....

Labels: absurdity, disease, energy, environment, futilitarianism

  ¶ 7:26 AM 9 comments

  Still waiting for cycle 24

I am still waiting for Solar Cycle 24 to kick into gear. So is everybody else. (the image on the left is a "live" image of the sun. As I write this - solar activity is minimal)

After NOAA had no consensus as to the start or magnitude of cycle 24 - I've basically placed my bet on this being another minimum cycle for no other reason than I find the thought of a natural reversal of global warming comforting. Well, this paper was influential on my thinking - it's why I continue to pay close attention to sunspots on this site.

In other news Jim Hansen is calling for oil execs to be jailed for crimes against humanity.

(Can't we start with the lawyers and politicians first? We can then work up to the CEOs and out to everyone that has ever drove faster than 65mph, and once all those people are busy building more prisons and stamping license plates, start arresting the people than ran their air conditioners too long, or insist on using a dual SLI PC. After that, criminal penalties for using hair dryers and curling irons are in order...)

I haven't, incidentally, found where he said that, but perhaps what he writes here is an indication of the Democratic policies to come.

Labels: energy, sunspots

  ¶ 4:54 PM 2 comments

  Mccain proposes 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030

As reported in the NYT, McCain just proposed that the US build 45 new nuclear power plants before 2030.

The article - and apparently McCain - failed to note that nearly all of the existing 109 nuclear power plants in the US will be past their design life by then. So - if we were a sane country and actually paid attention to what engineers and mechanics told us about hardware - we'd actually retire those 109, leaving us with a net deficit from where we stand today of 64 plants, which (stay with me here, I know that basic addition and subtraction are hard for the average politician or reporter) leaves us with more oil and coal dependence than what we have today.

I anticipate that we will run the existing plants past obsolescence until another accident inevitably occurs.

This reminds me of something of something McCain said during the debates earlier in this electoral season. he said:

"We have got to achieve energy independence, oil independence in this nation. I will make it a Manhattan Project, and we will in five years become oil independent."

This statement is not only absurd on its face, but the Manhattan project is the wrong metaphor. The Manhattan project spent billions of dollars, and labored for 5 years to produce two - count 'em - two bombs - that ultimately capped world war II. The aftermath and spin-offs from that research and development led to the first commercial nuclear power plants, but it took a very long time to ramp up, with the peak of construction in the late 60s.

I'd prefer a politician propose something more like the Liberty ship construction project, where, by constant refinement of the production techniques, Henry Kaiser and teams of engineers throughout the country cut the manufacturing time from 230 to only 42 days, over less than 3 years. That was just the time from start to finish - as ships were being laid down in parallel, by 1943 we rolled 3 new ships off the quay every day.

We need to get away from custom designs and into mass production.

Mass production used to be an American virtue. Perhaps it isn't anymore. Perhaps all we are capable of anymore is massive, wasteful, one-shot projects, full of sound and fury, accomplishing nothing. A few hundred handmade fighters here, a few dozen bombers there...

A mere 45 new nuclear power plants won't help.

About my only hope for this energy "debate" would be for Obama to propose a reasonable number of nuclear power plants, like, 1000... and to truly retain the American lifestyle, one with a high performance electric car in every garage, 10,000 might be the right number.

Some level of realism regarding our energy requirements is called for. I'm not expecting any until we are reduced to watching television by candlelight.

There are alternatives - like solar and wind - that would benefit also from a "Liberty Ship" approach. Right now, solar cell production is being impacted by chip manufacturing more than anything else. Although the silicon shortage is easing - demand outstrips supply. If the cost of supply were to drop from its present level, solar power would become far more competitive.

I note that any nation could (theoretically) get into the silicon manufacturing business. I wish more would try - after manufacturing, the biggest expense is transport - every nation, particularly those located near the equator, should have sufficient supplies of sand to start with. Creating solar cell grade silicon is less demanding than chip quality...

I do wish we could invent a machine that could be powered by a politician's promises, but more, I wish Americans still understood the advantages of mass manufacturing.

Labels: Barack Obama, election 2008, energy, John Mccain

  ¶ 8:01 AM 23 comments