[I] Paging Paul Jameson
Nigel Stapley
I could have just e-mailed you this, but others may like to see it as well:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/10/12/funny-pictures-valentines-day-say-it-with-ferrets/
--
Regards
Nigel Stapley
<reply-to will bounce>
Arthur Hagen
> Paul,
>
> I could have just e-mailed you this, but others may like to see it as well:
>
> http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/10/12/funny-pictures-valentines-day-say-it-with-ferrets/
That you want Paul to be your valentine is fair enough, but really,
October is just TOO early.
Regards,
--
*Art
Jeff Howell
> On Mon, 2008-10-13 at 23:45 +0100, Nigel Stapley wrote:
>> Paul,
>>
>> I could have just e-mailed you this, but others may like to see it as well:
>>
>> http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/10/12/funny-pictures-valentines-day-say-it-with-ferrets/
:)
> That you want Paul to be your valentine is fair enough, but really,
> October is just TOO early.
It's too early for Christmas stuff too, but that does not seem to have
stopped the stores from setting up their displays. Bah.
--
Jeff
Carol Hague
> It's too early for Christmas stuff too, but that does not seem to have
> stopped the stores from setting up their displays. Bah.
Despite which, when I wanted some Christmas paper last week, there was
nowhere in the village selling any (for once I managed to get my
sister's present nice and early and we were going to visit last week -
she lives a couple of hundred miles away)
--
Carol
"This might as well say "bing tiddle tiddle bong".
It's complete gibberish," - Rodney McKay, Stargate: Atlantis
Elliott Grasett
That's what I like about the North American celebration of Halloween.
It gives us a buffer between Labour Day and Xmas.
--
Cheers,
Elliott
Arthur Hagen
> Jeff Howell wrote:
> >
> > It's too early for Christmas stuff too, but that does not seem to have
> > stopped the stores from setting up their displays. Bah.
>
> That's what I like about the North American celebration of Halloween.
> It gives us a buffer between Labour Day and Xmas.
1: Labour Day is May 1, world wide. Perhaps you meant Labor Day?
2: What about Thunksgiving?
Regards,
--
*Art
Lesley Weston
friends-and-relations.
Lesley.
Elliott Grasett
Maybe that's when Labour celebrates labour Day; Gummints don't.
--
Cheers,
Elliott
raymond larsson
a...@broomstick.com says...
> 1: Labour Day is May 1, world wide.
Proof positive *Art and I live in different worlds.
--
rgl "I like to know what I'm doin' when I do it and I do what I'm
doing 'cause I don't know what to do when I'm not doin' it..."
Stan Ridgeway/Wall of Voodoo
Rocky Frisco
> Paul,
>
> I could have just e-mailed you this, but others may like to see it as well:
>
> http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/10/12/funny-pictures-valentines-day-say-it-with-ferrets/
Got that one this morning! Really charming!
-Rock
--
Catja Pafort
It's completely mad, because people are looking for Halloween stuff and
can't find it for all the Christmas things...
Catja
--
writing blog @ http://beyond-elechan.livejournal.com
Jeff Howell
Ah. Well, see... they should have got their Halloween stuff in
September when it was all on display.
And no, I'm not joking. Sadly.
--
Jeff
Carol Hague
> In article <1224020206.1...@fairy.broomstick.com>,
> a...@broomstick.com says...
>
> > 1: Labour Day is May 1, world wide.
>
> Proof positive *Art and I live in different worlds.
I think Art might have been pointing out that the US summer holiday is
"Labor Day" (on account of the dreadful shortage of vowels in that part
of the world :-)).
Brian Howlett
Don't worry. You'll be able to buy Easter Eggs in a week or two...
--
Brian Howlett - Email to From: address deleted unseen
--------------------------------------------------------------
Windows has detected that the mouse has been moved.
You must restart Windows for the new setting to take effect...
Jeff Howell
> raymond larsson <ragl...@sasktel.net> wrote:
>
>> In article <1224020206.1...@fairy.broomstick.com>,
>> a...@broomstick.com says...
>>
>>> 1: Labour Day is May 1, world wide.
>> Proof positive *Art and I live in different worlds.
>
> I think Art might have been pointing out that the US summer holiday is
> "Labor Day" (on account of the dreadful shortage of vowels in that part
> of the world :-)).
Not exactly. There's a "Labour Day" which is celebrated most places in
the world on May 1.
There's also a "Labor Day" celebrated on the first Monday of September.
The one thing Art has either missed or ignored for the sake of amusement
is that there is also a "Labour Day" celebrated on the first Monday of
September in Canada.
--
Jeff
Lesley Weston
> raymond larsson <ragl...@sasktel.net> wrote:
>
>> In article <1224020206.1...@fairy.broomstick.com>,
>> a...@broomstick.com says...
>>
>>> 1: Labour Day is May 1, world wide.
>> Proof positive *Art and I live in different worlds.
>
> I think Art might have been pointing out that the US summer holiday is
> "Labor Day" (on account of the dreadful shortage of vowels in that part
> of the world :-)).
>
working person. I imagine it's called different things in different
languages, though, and I haven't heard it called Labour (or Labor) Day
in any of the English-speaking countries I know.
Lesley.
Rocky Frisco
> raymond larsson <ragl...@sasktel.net> wrote:
>
>> In article <1224020206.1...@fairy.broomstick.com>,
>> a...@broomstick.com says...
>>
>>> 1: Labour Day is May 1, world wide.
>> Proof positive *Art and I live in different worlds.
>
> I think Art might have been pointing out that the US summer holiday is
> "Labor Day" (on account of the dreadful shortage of vowels in that part
> of the world :-)).
Usually the first weekend in September.
-Rock
--
Rocky Frisco
The Canuckians are even faster to copy USAnian insanity than the
UKians are.
-Rock
--
Elliott Grasett
We're much closer, Rock. Takes less time for the infection to reach us.
--
Cheers,
Elliott
Rocky Frisco
Makez Senze to meh.
-LOLRocky
--
Free Lunch
<egra...@wightman.ca> wrote in alt.fan.pratchett:
Are your election returns sui generis or is it an omen for the USA?
Elliott Grasett
<snip>
>
> Are your election returns sui generis or is it an omen for the USA?
Egad! I hope not!
I suspect that many of my fellow citizens are confused because there
is no longer a federal Progressive Conservative party. There are no
longer any Red Tories to vote for. The federal Conservative party is
both fiscally and socially reactionary.
I have no objection to a minority government; to the contrary, I think
we are governed better by minorities than majorities.
I am, of course, disappointed that we have a Conservative, rather
than a Liberal minority.
--
Cheers,
Elliott
Free Lunch
<egra...@wightman.ca> wrote in alt.fan.pratchett:
>Free Lunch gently inquired:
Any chance this will allow the Liberals to get their act together?
Lesley Weston
Plus ca change, you mean? What a waste of time, effort and money!
Lesley.
Lesley Weston
Well, Dion's on his way out, if that means anything. Canada is always
run by parties as close to centre as they can get, called by various
names. Sometimes the government is very slightly right of centre and
sometimes very slightly left, but the difference is so minimal that it
really doesn't matter.
The current, past and probably future VSR lot were formed by the
far-right Alliance (ne Reform) Party and the slightly-right Conservative
Party merging, and then moving markedly left so that they could get
elected. There is talk of the VSL Liberal Party and the
very-slightly-further-left NDP merging now, but they won't have to move
that far right to be elected next time.
I like living in a stable country, though it would be nice if there
were a real left to vote for.
Lesley.
Elliott Grasett
I suppose what I was thinking of was an old science fiction story
called "Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus."
The first sentence reads: "It was the Labor Day weekend, and the
Season was in full swing."
--
Cheers,
Elliott
April Goodwin-Smith
> Free Lunch gently inquired:
> <snip>
>> Are your election returns sui generis or is it an omen
>> for the USA?
> Egad! I hope not!
>
Me too, but I think the USA is safe - we didn't have anyone
with even a sniff of charisma in opposition. There was Chinless,
and Belligerent, and Na-Na-Boo-Boo-I'm-Quebequois-&-Don't-
Have-To-Worry-About-Being-PM, and No-Girls-Allowed-In-
The-Clubhouse.
Sadly, Mr. NNBBIQ&DHTABPM was the most charismatic
of the whole bunch, including the incumbent Stodger[1].
The USA's Obama has bags of charisma. Bags of it.
April.
[1] - perhaps one should say, *especially* in comparison
to Stodger.
Free Lunch
<agoodw...@shaw.ca> wrote in alt.fan.pratchett:
Thank you.
Geoff Field
[snip]
> I think Art might have been pointing out that the US summer holiday is
> "Labor Day" (on account of the dreadful shortage of vowels in that
> part of the world :-)).
I've found all those missing vowels! And the ones missing from the
Eastern European languages, too!
I've just spent 18 days in New Zealand and then another two weeks
in Fiji. The South Pacific languages have collected all the vowels left
over from the Eastern European languages. They've obviously picked
up a few more from the Merkin form of "English", too.
Just my theory...
Geoff
--
Geoff Field
Professional Geek,
Amateur Stage-Levelling Gauge
John Wilkins
> Carol Hague wrote:
> [snip]
> > I think Art might have been pointing out that the US summer holiday is
> > "Labor Day" (on account of the dreadful shortage of vowels in that
> > part of the world :-)).
>
> I've found all those missing vowels! And the ones missing from the
> Eastern European languages, too!
>
> I've just spent 18 days in New Zealand and then another two weeks
> in Fiji. The South Pacific languages have collected all the vowels left
> over from the Eastern European languages. They've obviously picked
> up a few more from the Merkin form of "English", too.
>
> Just my theory...
>
That explains the Great Vowel Shortage in Kiwisia as well.
--
John S. Wilkins, Philosophy, University of Queensland
scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre
Lesley Weston
> "Elliott Grasett" wrote ...
>> Free Lunch gently inquired:
>> <snip>
>>> Are your election returns sui generis or is it an omen
>>> for the USA?
>> Egad! I hope not!
>>
>
> Me too, but I think the USA is safe - we didn't have anyone
> with even a sniff of charisma in opposition. There was Chinless,
> and Belligerent, and Na-Na-Boo-Boo-I'm-Quebequois-&-Don't-
> Have-To-Worry-About-Being-PM, and No-Girls-Allowed-In-
> The-Clubhouse.
>
> Sadly, Mr. NNBBIQ&DHTABPM was the most charismatic
> of the whole bunch, including the incumbent Stodger[1].
>
> The USA's Obama has bags of charisma. Bags of it.
Wherever he was born.
>
> April.
>
> [1] - perhaps one should say, *especially* in comparison
> to Stodger.
>
>
Oh come on, *anyone* is charismatic in comparison to him! Except Dion,
of course. But it's a shame about Elizabeth May; I would really like for
her to lead the NDP to victory, after revamping it completely to remove
all traces of Layton, particularly his mustache.
Lesley.
Elliott Grasett
<snip>
> Oh come on, *anyone* is charismatic in comparison to him! Except Dion,
> of course. But it's a shame about Elizabeth May; I would really like for
> her to lead the NDP to victory, after revamping it completely to remove
> all traces of Layton, particularly his mustache.
>
Elizabeth May needs to pawn her lance, her shield, her helmet, her
armour, and, quite possibly, her destrier, and spend the borrowings
on a tutor in winning elections.
--
Cheers,
Elliott
Larry Moore
Aren't windmills considered to be green-friendly?
--
'That's right,' he said. 'We're philosophers. We think, therefore we
am.' - 'Small Gods' by Terry Pratchett
GaryN
news:gaWdnYsBZ4KL12LV...@wightman.ca:
> On 2008-10-19, Elliott Grasett <egra...@wightman.ca> wrote:
>> Lesley Weston wrote:
>>
>><snip>
>>
>>> Oh come on, *anyone* is charismatic in comparison to him! Except
>>> Dion, of course. But it's a shame about Elizabeth May; I would
>>> really like for her to lead the NDP to victory, after revamping it
>>> completely to remove all traces of Layton, particularly his
>>> mustache.
>>>
>>
>> Elizabeth May needs to pawn her lance, her shield, her helmet, her
>> armour, and, quite possibly, her destrier, and spend the borrowings
>> on a tutor in winning elections.
>>
>
> Aren't windmills considered to be green-friendly?
>
Wind farms?
Yup - they chop migrating birds into convenient bits of fertiliser
whilst generating electricity.
How "Green" is that?
gary
--
Ain't too young to admit it,
And I'm not too old to lie
I'm just another empty head.
AC/DC - "Ride On"
Bonzai Kitten
> Larry Moore <ljmo...@tworightman.ca.INVALID> wrote innews:gaWdnYsBZ4KL12LV...@wightman.ca:
>
>
>
> > On 2008-10-19, Elliott Grasett <egras...@wightman.ca> wrote:
> >> Lesley Weston wrote:
>
> >><snip>
>
> >>> Oh come on, *anyone* is charismatic in comparison to him! Except
> >>> Dion, of course. But it's a shame about Elizabeth May; I would
> >>> really like for her to lead the NDP to victory, after revamping it
> >>> completely to remove all traces of Layton, particularly his
> >>> mustache.
>
> >> Elizabeth May needs to pawn her lance, her shield, her helmet, her
> >> armour, and, quite possibly, her destrier, and spend the borrowings
> >> on a tutor in winning elections.
>
> > Aren't windmills considered to be green-friendly?
>
> Wind farms?
>
> Yup - they chop migrating birds into convenient bits of fertiliser
> whilst generating electricity.
>
> How "Green" is that?
Birds aren't that stupid, luckily. They fly around them.
Esmeraldus
> Wind farms?
>
> Yup - they chop migrating birds into convenient bits of fertiliser
> whilst generating electricity.
>
> How "Green" is that?
Depends on how big the green wobbly bit is in each bird, I reckon.
Arthur Hagen
> On Nov 12, 1:28 am, GaryN <g...@scaryriders.com> wrote:
>> Larry Moore <ljmo...@tworightman.ca.INVALID> wrote
>>
>>
>> Wind farms?
>>
>> Yup - they chop migrating birds into convenient bits of fertiliser
>> whilst generating electricity.
>>
>> How "Green" is that?
>
> Birds aren't that stupid, luckily. They fly around them.
http://www.modbee.com/1642/story/400870.html
True, cats are a greater risk to birds in general, but the problem is that
wind turbines are generally placed NIMBY, which means they will be in the
few remaining habitats for endangered species, where every death counts.
Unless those in power (npi) start to put up windmills in cities and where
people actually live and work, they're not all that "green". They intrude
on the last few remaining spots of wilderness we have, where they scare some
birds and kill others.
Regards,
--
*Art
Larry Moore
> Larry Moore <ljm...@tworightman.ca.INVALID> wrote in
> news:gaWdnYsBZ4KL12LV...@wightman.ca:
>
>>
>
>
> Wind farms?
>
> Yup - they chop migrating birds into convenient bits of fertiliser
> whilst generating electricity.
>
> How "Green" is that?
>
> gary
>
The birdstrikes aren't that unmanageable but the vortices off
the wingtips can cause internal injuries in bats, which is more
of a concern.
--
Each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by
answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being
responsible.
Viktor E. Frankl
Arthur Hagen
> On 2008-11-11, GaryN <ga...@scaryriders.com> wrote:
>> Larry Moore <ljm...@tworightman.ca.INVALID> wrote in
>> news:gaWdnYsBZ4KL12LV...@wightman.ca:
>>
>>> Aren't windmills considered to be green-friendly?
>>
>> Wind farms?
>>
>> Yup - they chop migrating birds into convenient bits of fertiliser
>> whilst generating electricity.
>>
>> How "Green" is that?
>
> the wingtips can cause internal injuries in bats, which is more
> of a concern.
Not to the birds.
Regards,
--
*Art
Lesley Weston
I was reading recently an article about the possibility of building
high-rise farms in the middle of cities:
and plenty more; Google on "vertical farms" if you're interested. An
excellent idea that may well be realised. So putting windmills in cities
as well is no great stretch.
--
Lesley Weston
The addy above is real, but I won't see anything posted to it for a long
time. To reach me, use leswes att shaw dott ca, adjusting as necessary.
Larry Moore
If one has to turn the sindmills off during the various bird
migratins and also, to protect bat populations, from dusk
to sunrise every day - is windpower still viable?
,
--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
The Stainless Steel Cat
Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>I was reading recently an article about the possibility of building
>high-rise farms in the middle of cities:
>
>http://www.verticalfarm.com/
>
>and plenty more; Google on "vertical farms" if you're interested. An
>excellent idea that may well be realised. So putting windmills in cities
>as well is no great stretch.
A very good idea. Another one is making it far more difficult to object to
planning consent for little wind-turbines on householders' roofs.
Micro-generation has to be the way forward. It'll be tough on the early
adopters since it will take a while for mass production of these things to
bring the initial cost down, but that's what early adopters are for, isn't
it?
It's certainly difficult to see how anyone can rationally complain about a
propellor on a roof if that same roof has both a TV aerial and a satellite
dish. (And often in winter glowing santas and snowmen... banning those
vulgar displays would do wonders for cutting the *need* for so much energy,
but that's another rant.)
Cat.
--
Jazz-Loving Soul Mate and Tolerable Frog to CCA
"At last... we can retire and give up this life of crime."
GaryN
> On 2008-11-12, Arthur Hagen <a...@broomstick.com> wrote:
>> Larry Moore <ljm...@tworightman.ca.INVALID> wrote:
>>> On 2008-11-11, GaryN <ga...@scaryriders.com> wrote:
>>>> Larry Moore <ljm...@tworightman.ca.INVALID> wrote in
>>>> news:gaWdnYsBZ4KL12LV...@wightman.ca:
>>>>
>>>>> Aren't windmills considered to be green-friendly?
>>>>
>>>> Wind farms?
>>>>
>>>> Yup - they chop migrating birds into convenient bits of fertiliser
>>>> whilst generating electricity.
>>>>
>>>> How "Green" is that?
>>>
>>> The birdstrikes aren't that unmanageable but the vortices off
>>> the wingtips can cause internal injuries in bats, which is more
>>> of a concern.
>>
>> Not to the birds.
>>
>> Regards,
>
> If one has to turn the sindmills off during the various bird
> migratins and also, to protect bat populations, from dusk
> to sunrise every day - is windpower still viable?
Wave power might be a more effective option - the wind doesn't blow
every day but the tide, reliably, goes in and out twice a day!
Of course most people don't either see or realise that so huge wind
turbines are a *visible* object to show that "Da Guvmint" is doing it's
bit for sustainable energy.
Now try building a 300foot wind turbine in Hackney or Brixton, better
still at some point along the Thames, and see how far you get.
On third thoughts - why did they not build a wave power generator into
The London Barrage?
The Stainless Steel Cat
John Ewing <jo...@gelsalba.co.uk> wrote:
>On Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:32:35 +0000, catof...@mac.com (The Stainless
>Steel Cat) wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>A very good idea. Another one is making it far more difficult to object to
>>planning consent for little wind-turbines on householders' roofs.
>>Micro-generation has to be the way forward. It'll be tough on the early
>>adopters since it will take a while for mass production of these things to
>>bring the initial cost down, but that's what early adopters are for, isn't
>>it?
>
>I agree that a lot of the red-tape for planning consent should be cut,
>but a structural survey should be required for mounting turbines on
>roofs or gable ends, due to the stresses and vibrations that these
>turbines can produce.
>
>I reckon it would be more efficient to spend the money on better
>insulation.
Good point.
Step 1: Better insulation & double (triple) glazing for all existing
houses.
Step 2: All new builds to have the above as standard, along with
wiring/structural fittings for solar heating/solar panels/wind turbines
wherever applicable.
Step 3: Make appliances more energy efficient. Standby options that draw
*much* less power than they do now. Standby only used on devices that
*really* need it - recorders but not TVs for example.
Step 4: A national (global) push to micro-generation.
None of the above requires new technology such as hydrogen fuel cells, only
cheaper or more efficient versions of what we have.
Step 5: Large "wave farms" (cue complaints of "Oh, but our beautiful
coastline!") - much more reliable or at least more constant than windfarms.
Needs a lot of work to improve current technology though.
Step 6: More hydro-electric systems ("Oh, our beautiful mountains, and the
flooded valleys/glens!") These soak up excess power when the wind's blowing
but few are using the power by pumping water back up to the reservoir,
where it can be used to generate more on demand.
Step 7: Nuclear. ("Gasp!") Probably, anyway. It's difficult to tell because
the arguments about more nuclear power is completely polarised. All we hear
is either, "Nuclear is evil! And so are people who want it!" or "We need
nuclear! Either that or burn the treehuggers for fuel!". Nothing about
whether the next generation of plants are safer, cheaper, more efficient
etc than the old ones. Common sense says they will be, but the lack of that
argument from the nuclear lobby does suggest a bunch of fatcats sitting
around grunting, "Improvements? They cost money dear boy. In fact we've
outsourced all of our safety and engineering systems to Capita. They've no
experience in safety critical systems, but they offer a jolly good ROI..."
The last three steps require either a lot of political will to push through
or a lot of investment in technology. Probably both. The first four would
be a good start though.
Cat.
--
Jazz-Loving Soul Mate and Tolerable Frog to CCA
"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can
solve them." - Isaac Asimov
Eric Jarvis
ga...@scaryriders.com says...
>
> Now try building a 300foot wind turbine in Hackney or Brixton, better
> still at some point along the Thames, and see how far you get.
>
Here in Brixton we have quite a few houses with solar panels on the roof
and plans for many more. There have been discussions about the
feasibility of wind turbines on roofs at the top of Brixton Hill but I'm
not sure how far they have got. Hackney would be a waste of time because
it doesn't make sense to build wind turbines on low lying land surrounded
by buildings.
--
eric
The show's not over until
the brass section reach the bar.
Carol Hague
> In article <gff4bv$2tn5$1...@mud.stack.nl>,
> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >I was reading recently an article about the possibility of building
> >high-rise farms in the middle of cities:
> >
> >http://www.verticalfarm.com/
> >
> >and plenty more; Google on "vertical farms" if you're interested. An
> >excellent idea that may well be realised. So putting windmills in cities
> >as well is no great stretch.
>
> A very good idea. Another one is making it far more difficult to object to
> planning consent for little wind-turbines on householders' roofs.
> Micro-generation has to be the way forward. It'll be tough on the early
> adopters since it will take a while for mass production of these things to
> bring the initial cost down, but that's what early adopters are for, isn't
> it?
This message hasn't got through to South Derbyshire District Council who
refused us planning permission for a wind turbine on our roof on the
grounds of potential noise.
Granted this was partly because the manufacturers weren't able to
complete a noise test to the council's deadline (not enough wind at the
test site...), but it still seems bloody stupid to me.
Especially when we can frequently hear pop music at enormous volume
being played by people in the next *street*.
Bah. Humbug.
--
Carol
"This might as well say "bing tiddle tiddle bong".
It's complete gibberish," - Rodney McKay, Stargate: Atlantis
GaryN
news:MPG.2388eb203...@news.aqxs.net:
> In article <Xns9B577CE3B4CBAg...@212.23.3.119>,
> ga...@scaryriders.com says...
>>
>> Now try building a 300foot wind turbine in Hackney or Brixton, better
>> still at some point along the Thames, and see how far you get.
>>
>
> Here in Brixton we have quite a few houses with solar panels on the
> roof and plans for many more. There have been discussions about the
> feasibility of wind turbines on roofs at the top of Brixton Hill but
> I'm not sure how far they have got.
Probably nowhere because futile debate is about the only thing this
government, and councils acting under it, is good for.
> Hackney would be a waste of time
> because it doesn't make sense to build wind turbines on low lying land
> surrounded by buildings.
>
If I remember the words I was taught 30 years ago correctly...
"Wiv a ladder and some glasses you could see the 'ackney Marshes if it
wasn't for the 'ouses inbetween"
My rendition of a Sarf Lundin accent to text may be a little poor but
it's the best I have.
Lesley Weston
> In article <gff4bv$2tn5$1...@mud.stack.nl>,
> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> I was reading recently an article about the possibility of building
>> high-rise farms in the middle of cities:
>>
>> http://www.verticalfarm.com/
>>
>> and plenty more; Google on "vertical farms" if you're interested. An
>> excellent idea that may well be realised. So putting windmills in cities
>> as well is no great stretch.
>
> A very good idea. Another one is making it far more difficult to object to
> planning consent for little wind-turbines on householders' roofs.
You have to be a bit careful about this, though. We checked, and our
roof isn't nearly strong enough to take the forces that strong
wind-gusts would generate on even a small windmill. We asked an
architect friend about the possibility of converting our roof to a
veggie-plot too (it's a flat roof), but she said we'd have to build a
sort of false shell outside the walls to support the weight.
Still, new buildings of all types could be legislated about so that
they have to generate at least some of their own power and also have no
footprint.
> Micro-generation has to be the way forward. It'll be tough on the early
> adopters since it will take a while for mass production of these things to
> bring the initial cost down, but that's what early adopters are for, isn't
> it?
We could certainly put solar panels on the roof and walls, when the
price comes down out of the stratosphere; they're not very heavy.
Lesley Weston
> On Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:32:35 +0000, catof...@mac.com (The Stainless
> Steel Cat) wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> planning consent for little wind-turbines on householders' roofs.
>> Micro-generation has to be the way forward. It'll be tough on the early
>> adopters since it will take a while for mass production of these things to
>> bring the initial cost down, but that's what early adopters are for, isn't
>> it?
>
> but a structural survey should be required for mounting turbines on
> roofs or gable ends, due to the stresses and vibrations that these
> turbines can produce.
>
> I reckon it would be more efficient to spend the money on better
> insulation.
Both would be good. I did the BBC survey a while ago about how
electricity should be generated in the UK. You could say what proportion
should come from which source, so I said that the maximum amount of
points should go to conserving and to improving insulation. Apparently,
that won't do since the initial costs are high - the future benefits are
not considered.
Joe
Because a turbine in a town needs to be at least ten metres above
surrounding rooftops?
Mr Cameron apparently didn't realise that, though even the companies
that sell them will grudgingly admit they need to be actually in the
prevailing wind stream before there's a hope of generating anything
useful. Something at chimney-height is no more than a status symbol.
Joe
>
> Now try building a 300foot wind turbine in Hackney or Brixton, better
> still at some point along the Thames, and see how far you get.
>
you'll see one of Ford's two turbines at Dagenham. Zoom out a bit and
you'll see this one is less than the width of the Thames from the river.
They are visible from any high ground within twenty miles or so.
http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/projects/Ford/plan_ford.html
> On third thoughts - why did they not build a wave power generator into
> The London Barrage?
The Thames isn't particularly tidal there. It is a bit, but most of the
energy has rubbed off on the shores and bottom on the way up from
Southend. The barrier is here:
and if you zoom out you can see how squiggly it gets before reaching
the North Sea.
--
Joe
Joe
Joe wrote:
> GaryN wrote:
>>
>> Now try building a 300foot wind turbine in Hackney or Brixton, better
>> still at some point along the Thames, and see how far you get.
>>
> If you look here:
>
> http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=51.516,0.16517&spn=0.004467,0.010546&t=h&z=17&lci=lmc:panoramio
>
>
> you'll see one of Ford's two turbines at Dagenham. Zoom out a bit and
> you'll see this one is less than the width of the Thames from the river.
> They are visible from any high ground within twenty miles or so.
>
> http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/projects/Ford/plan_ford.html
>
>
>> On third thoughts - why did they not build a wave power generator into
>> The London Barrage?
>
> The Thames isn't particularly tidal there. It is a bit, but most of the
> energy has rubbed off on the shores and bottom on the way up from
> Southend. The barrier is here:
>
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=51.497322,0.037358&spn=0.008937,0.021093&t=h&z=16
Geoff Field
> We could certainly put solar panels on the roof and walls, when the
> price comes down out of the stratosphere; they're not very heavy.
There's a new estate near us that boasts solar hot water panels on
each roof. Only one problem: We're in the Southern Hemisphere,
where the sun goes past to the North, but many of the houses
have their panels on the East, West or (for about 6 of them) the
South sides of the roof. They're pitched, tiled rooves and the
panels are mounted flat on the rooves. That says "status symbol"
to me - actually it says "purely nominal adherence to energy
efficiency standards."
With solar electricity panels, you have to consider the energy
used to produce them and their useful life. The energy pay-
back period is often not much different to their useful life.
Lesley Weston
> Lesley Weston wrote:
>> We could certainly put solar panels on the roof and walls, when the
>> price comes down out of the stratosphere; they're not very heavy.
>
> There's a new estate near us that boasts solar hot water panels on
> each roof. Only one problem: We're in the Southern Hemisphere,
> where the sun goes past to the North, but many of the houses
> have their panels on the East, West or (for about 6 of them) the
> South sides of the roof. They're pitched, tiled rooves and the
> panels are mounted flat on the rooves. That says "status symbol"
> to me - actually it says "purely nominal adherence to energy
> efficiency standards."
I don't really see the point of solar water panels, except as just one
of the energy sources for a place.
>
> With solar electricity panels, you have to consider the energy
> used to produce them and their useful life. The energy pay-
> back period is often not much different to their useful life.
But there are new forms already developed that will be much cheaper to
produce and will be lighter as well. It's just a matter of getting them
into production, and that's just a matter of finance. This may not be
the best time for new ventures, but if we don't do /something/ soon
we're all going to be huddling in the cold and dark.
Arthur Hagen
> Geoff Field wrote:
>> Lesley Weston wrote:
>>> We could certainly put solar panels on the roof and walls, when the
>>> price comes down out of the stratosphere; they're not very heavy.
>>
>> There's a new estate near us that boasts solar hot water panels on
>> each roof. Only one problem: We're in the Southern Hemisphere,
>> where the sun goes past to the North, but many of the houses
>> have their panels on the East, West or (for about 6 of them) the
>> South sides of the roof. They're pitched, tiled rooves and the
>> panels are mounted flat on the rooves. That says "status symbol"
>> to me - actually it says "purely nominal adherence to energy
>> efficiency standards."
>
> I don't really see the point of solar water panels, except as just one
> of the energy sources for a place.
In addition to saving energy, they also have the benefit of quicker heat-up
times for the boiler when it's fed with pre-warmed water, and thus less
frequently running out of hot water.
Just something as simple as a heat exchanger for the water, where incoming
cold water destined for the water heater gets pre-luked by outgoing sewer
water, can save on the bills, and costs very little to implement and
maintain.
But then again, many here are from a country where house builders think it's
smart to place the plumbing on the /outside/.
Regards,
--
*Art
"@lec ©awley"
>
> Now try building a 300foot wind turbine in Hackney or Brixton, better
> still at some point along the Thames, and see how far you get.
There is one in Reading, right alongside the M4.
> On third thoughts - why did they not build a wave power generator into
> The London Barrage?
Becasue the Londin Barrage is well up river away from the main waves,
and spends 98% of its time in the "open, this is a main transport
corridor" mode. A generator which functioned only at those odd moments
when sprigntides put London at risk would not be much use.
My hope is in Deep Ocean Thermal - use the biggest solar catcher on
earth, the Pacific Ocean.
Geoff Field
> Geoff Field wrote:
>> Lesley Weston wrote:
>>> We could certainly put solar panels on the roof and walls, when the
>>> price comes down out of the stratosphere; they're not very heavy.
>>
>> There's a new estate near us that boasts solar hot water panels on
>> each roof. Only one problem: We're in the Southern Hemisphere,
>> where the sun goes past to the North, but many of the houses
>> have their panels on the East, West or (for about 6 of them) the
>> South sides of the roof. They're pitched, tiled rooves and the
>> panels are mounted flat on the rooves. That says "status symbol"
>> to me - actually it says "purely nominal adherence to energy
>> efficiency standards."
>
> I don't really see the point of solar water panels, except as just one
> of the energy sources for a place.
Actually, even here way down in southern .au, we basically turn
our gas hot water system off for a good four or five months. Right
now, the water coming out of our taps is dangerously hot, for
basically nill expenditure of energy. And the temperatures lately
have only been around the low 20's. When the *hot* weather
comes on, we'll have to put shade cloth over our solar system to
keep the water from boiling. We're nearly 38 degrees from the
equator, so more northerly places would get even more benefit.
>> With solar electricity panels, you have to consider the energy
>> used to produce them and their useful life. The energy pay-
>> back period is often not much different to their useful life.
>
> But there are new forms already developed that will be much cheaper to
> produce and will be lighter as well.
*Will* be. That's the problem with current systems. When the new
systems come out that have a positive benefit over their lifefimes, I'll
be an adopter.
> It's just a matter of getting
> them into production, and that's just a matter of finance.
In the long run, the adoption of a lot of new technologies comes
down to finance. After all, *somebody* has to pay for the thing
to be produced. If they don't have at least some chance of a
return, it's going to be hard to convince anybody to fund it.
> This may
> not be the best time for new ventures, but if we don't do /something/
> soon we're all going to be huddling in the cold and dark.
True. At least, for the next few months here, we'll be huddling in
the *hot* dark. But if we don't start doing something, our floor
height of 1.85m above sea level may well start to become _below_
sea level.
Lesley Weston
> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> Geoff Field wrote:
>>> Lesley Weston wrote:
>>>> We could certainly put solar panels on the roof and walls, when the
>>>> price comes down out of the stratosphere; they're not very heavy.
>>>
>>> There's a new estate near us that boasts solar hot water panels on
>>> each roof. Only one problem: We're in the Southern Hemisphere,
>>> where the sun goes past to the North, but many of the houses
>>> have their panels on the East, West or (for about 6 of them) the
>>> South sides of the roof. They're pitched, tiled rooves and the
>>> panels are mounted flat on the rooves. That says "status symbol"
>>> to me - actually it says "purely nominal adherence to energy
>>> efficiency standards."
>>
>> I don't really see the point of solar water panels, except as just one
>> of the energy sources for a place.
>
> In addition to saving energy, they also have the benefit of quicker
> heat-up times for the boiler when it's fed with pre-warmed water, and
> thus less frequently running out of hot water.
That's true.
>
> Just something as simple as a heat exchanger for the water, where
> incoming cold water destined for the water heater gets pre-luked by
> outgoing sewer water, can save on the bills, and costs very little to
> implement and maintain.
Heat exchangers are a very good idea in all contexts. Odd that they're
not used more often.
>
> But then again, many here are from a country where house builders think
> it's smart to place the plumbing on the /outside/.
At least they bury the electrical cables. I'm still not used to seeing
every urban landscape spoiled by wires strung everywhere, or to
power-outages every winter because storms have brought down trees onto
the power lines. But it is fun to watch squirrels rushing everywhere
using the lines and thus safe from predators and traffic.
ingenious paradox
>"Wiv a ladder and some glasses you could see the 'ackney Marshes if it
>wasn't for the 'ouses inbetween"
>
>My rendition of a Sarf Lundin accent to text may be a little poor but
>it's the best I have.
Would have been improved by "glarsses" (or possibly "glahsses", to
placate our rhotic members): when I first read it, quite quickly, I
didn't make it rhyme. That is, I didn't make it even semi-rhyme.
Julie
oop the danelaw!
Richard Bos
> John Ewing <jo...@gelsalba.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >I agree that a lot of the red-tape for planning consent should be cut,
> >but a structural survey should be required for mounting turbines on
> >roofs or gable ends, due to the stresses and vibrations that these
> >turbines can produce.
> >
> >I reckon it would be more efficient to spend the money on better
> >insulation.
>
> Good point.
>
> Step 1: Better insulation & double (triple) glazing for all existing
> houses.
Even monuments? There are houses in which it would be hard to install
wall insulation without ripping out the skirting boards, and putting
double glass in stained glass windows is not simple.
On the other hand, for many buildings you'd mostly need to insulate the
roof and the lower floors - there's just no need to put double glazing
in bathrooms, shop storerooms, or cathedrals, and bedrooms should not be
fully heated anyway. Installing new double glass in such places would
just be a waste of the energy needed to make it.
> Step 2: All new builds to have the above as standard,
AFAIAA this is already the case in the Netherlands, if not by law then
at least in practice.
> along with wiring/structural fittings for solar heating/solar panels/
> wind turbines wherever applicable.
Not a good idea - those industries are rapidly evolving, and what would
be a good fitting this year might only have to be ripped out next year.
For example, there are solar panels that heat water and ones that
produce electricity. For one, you'd need to put a water pipe through the
roof, for the other, an electrical cable. But we don't know today which
of those will be most effective in five years.
> Step 3: Make appliances more energy efficient. Standby options that draw
> *much* less power than they do now. Standby only used on devices that
> *really* need it - recorders but not TVs for example.
Or educate people to just turn them off. No, make that "_And_...".
> Step 4: A national (global) push to micro-generation.
I'm not at all sure that micro-generation will, in the end, turn out to
be a good idea. On the one hand, right now, it can generate clean energy
where none is generated. On the other, that's mostly because little
clean energy is generated at all. And micro-anything is almost always a
lot less efficient than macro-; if we all micro-generate heat from our
compost heaps, would we not have been much better off if we'd built a
large composting generator instead?
> None of the above requires new technology such as hydrogen fuel cells, only
> cheaper or more efficient versions of what we have.
You say that as if that's a simple matter of implementation.
> Step 5: Large "wave farms" (cue complaints of "Oh, but our beautiful
> coastline!")
More like "Oh, but our beautiful and unique wildlife". You're welcome to
put wave farms in every single river on the Caledonian coast, but only
if you swear not only not to whine about Scottish salmon dying out, but
to stop PETA whining about it as well.
> - much more reliable or at least more constant than windfarms.
> Needs a lot of work to improve current technology though.
>
> Step 6: More hydro-electric systems ("Oh, our beautiful mountains, and the
> flooded valleys/glens!")
Now this one is different. It can be built _inside_ the mountains, where
it won't disturb anyone. Expensive, though.
> Step 7: Nuclear. ("Gasp!") Probably, anyway. It's difficult to tell because
> the arguments about more nuclear power is completely polarised. All we hear
> is either, "Nuclear is evil! And so are people who want it!" or "We need
> nuclear! Either that or burn the treehuggers for fuel!".
I'm all for the last suggestion anyway. Hey, it _is_ bio-energy, they
can't complain.
> Nothing about whether the next generation of plants are safer, cheaper,
> more efficient etc than the old ones.
There's nothing even about the current generation being safer than, say,
Chernobyl, which was outdated even back then.
The biggest problem, of course, is what to do with the waste, but nobody
has ever been able to explain to me what the problem is with putting it
back where the uranium originally came from - properly packaged in the
original surrounding rock, of course.
Step 7a: Don't stop developing fusion power. It's still some time away
from working, and it will take longer than predicted by the industry,
but it _is_ getting closer.
So, what are we going to do about the real problem: the raw materials
crunch?
Richard
Richard Bos
> ga...@scaryriders.com says...
> >
> > Now try building a 300foot wind turbine in Hackney or Brixton, better
> > still at some point along the Thames, and see how far you get.
>
> Here in Brixton we have quite a few houses with solar panels on the roof
> and plans for many more. There have been discussions about the
> feasibility of wind turbines on roofs at the top of Brixton Hill but I'm
> not sure how far they have got. Hackney would be a waste of time because
> it doesn't make sense to build wind turbines on low lying land surrounded
> by buildings.
<Insert predictable joke about Westminster>
Richard
"@lec ©awley"
> Chernobyl, which was outdated even back then.
> The biggest problem, of course, is what to do with the waste, but nobody
> has ever been able to explain to me what the problem is with putting it
> back where the uranium originally came from - properly packaged in the
> original surrounding rock, of course.
Becaue it is a lot more noxious, and a lot more chemically varied and
mobile than the original uranium - by several orders of magnitude.
> Step 7a: Don't stop developing fusion power. It's still some time away
> from working, and it will take longer than predicted by the industry,
> but it _is_ getting closer.
Not sure about that. It has always been "thirty years away", and when I
went round JET at Culham a year or so ago, they said that if they got a
blank cheque to start building a power station today, it would come on
line in twenty seven years three months. Which is not much closer.
SteveD
wrote:
>when I
>went round JET at Culham a year or so ago, they said that if they got a
>blank cheque to start building a power station today, it would come on
>line in twenty seven years three months.
Conincidentally, how far away was the speaker's retirement date?
-SteveD
Catja Pafort
> Step 1: Better insulation & double (triple) glazing for all existing
> houses.
Only if you make it mandatory.
I'm renting. I'm not paying for double glazing.
My landlord isn't living in it or paying the heating bills. He's not
paying for double glazing, either.
Catja
--
writing blog @ http://beyond-elechan.livejournal.com
Arthur Hagen
> The Stainless Steel Cat wrote:
>
>> houses.
>
>
>
> I'm renting. I'm not paying for double glazing.
>
> My landlord isn't living in it or paying the heating bills. He's not
> paying for double glazing, either.
Some places, landlords are required to disclose beforehand how much the
average or estimated utilities bills are.
When the renter gets a choice between place A, at 600 zorkmids a month plus
~400 in heating, and place B at 700 zorkmids a month plus ~200 in heating,
the landlord at place A suddenly has an incentive to install better
insulation.
Regards,
--
*Art
Lesley Weston
> Richard Bos wrote:
>
>> Chernobyl, which was outdated even back then.
>> The biggest problem, of course, is what to do with the waste, but nobody
>> has ever been able to explain to me what the problem is with putting it
>> back where the uranium originally came from - properly packaged in the
>> original surrounding rock, of course.
>
> Becaue it is a lot more noxious, and a lot more chemically varied and
> mobile than the original uranium - by several orders of magnitude.
Even after it's been re-mixed with the tailings from the original mining
activities? Thus disposing of both the dangerous waste and the great
piles of spoil heaps in one go.
"@lec ©awley"
The speaker's retirement data was probably only a few years - he was
their PR man, and very nice for a PR man. The estimators would have been
other people skilled with GANTT charts and other such atrocities, from
which they had made their estimates.
"@lec ©awley"
> @lec Šawley wrote:
>> Richard Bos wrote:
>>
>>> Chernobyl, which was outdated even back then.
>>> The biggest problem, of course, is what to do with the waste, but nobody
>>> has ever been able to explain to me what the problem is with putting it
>>> back where the uranium originally came from - properly packaged in the
>>> original surrounding rock, of course.
>>
>> Becaue it is a lot more noxious, and a lot more chemically varied and
>> mobile than the original uranium - by several orders of magnitude.
>
> Even after it's been re-mixed with the tailings from the original mining
> activities? Thus disposing of both the dangerous waste and the great
> piles of spoil heaps in one go.
Definitely. Plutonioum, for example, is far more soluble than uranium
and selectively migrates to the bones in the human body, where it
destroys the marrow. I meant litereally orders of magnitude more
radioactive - four or five orders of magnitudes. Even ordinary uranium
ore is not nice stuff to live with - they have had to abandon houses
built on the "depleted" spoil heaps from which the uraniul was
extracted. Even mixed up, and thus having increased many times in
volume, it would be too dangerous not to guard.
"@lec ©awley"
>>
>>> Chernobyl, which was outdated even back then.
>>> The biggest problem, of course, is what to do with the waste, but nobody
>>> has ever been able to explain to me what the problem is with putting it
>>> back where the uranium originally came from - properly packaged in the
>>> original surrounding rock, of course.
>> Becaue it is a lot more noxious, and a lot more chemically varied and
>> mobile than the original uranium - by several orders of magnitude.
>
> into one of the locations where plate subduction is active. Let
> Mama take care of it - the forces she has at her disposal are
> sufficient for sure.
My favoured form of disposal - provided you can find just the right
place. Need research, though.
Lesley Weston
> Lesley Weston wrote:
>> @lec Šawley wrote:
>>> Richard Bos wrote:
>>>
>>>> Chernobyl, which was outdated even back then.
>>>> The biggest problem, of course, is what to do with the waste, but
>>>> nobody
>>>> has ever been able to explain to me what the problem is with putting it
>>>> back where the uranium originally came from - properly packaged in the
>>>> original surrounding rock, of course.
>>>
>>> Becaue it is a lot more noxious, and a lot more chemically varied and
>>> mobile than the original uranium - by several orders of magnitude.
>>
>> Even after it's been re-mixed with the tailings from the original
>> mining activities? Thus disposing of both the dangerous waste and the
>> great piles of spoil heaps in one go.
>
> Definitely. Plutonioum, for example, is far more soluble than uranium
> and selectively migrates to the bones in the human body, where it
> destroys the marrow.
Assuming that it comes into contact with the human body. If it were
diluted enormously with all the tailings from which the uranium was
originally extracted and then buried deep in the mines from which the
whole lot came in the first place, the radioactivity and solubility
would not be a problem since it would be well-shielded by the
surrounding rock and it wouldn't be anywhere near the biosphere.
> I meant litereally orders of magnitude more
> radioactive - four or five orders of magnitudes.
Indeed. Odd that it can't be used to generate power.
> Even ordinary uranium
> ore is not nice stuff to live with - they have had to abandon houses
> built on the "depleted" spoil heaps from which the uraniul was
> extracted. Even mixed up, and thus having increased many times in
> volume, it would be too dangerous not to guard.
Of course. Which is why it should be put back into the mines from which
it came, rather than building houses on top of it (whose bright idea was
that?)
"@lec ©awley"
Rexent research has shown that water leaches worringly far through what,
to the eye, is solid rock - let alone rock that has been tunneled
through. That is one of the things holding up proposed repositories: the
reasonable fear that on timescales of 10,000 years water could leach
through and carry soluble pollitants into aquifers. The propbelm is that
on such long timescales, physics is different from what appears to be
the case on short timescales.
>
>> I meant litereally orders of magnitude more radioactive - four or five
>> orders of magnitudes.
>
> Indeed. Odd that it can't be used to generate power.
To a limited extent it is - plutonium piles in probes to the outer
planets. But you are getting lost in orders of magnitude of energy. The
amount of energy needed to harm your DNA from microns away is tens of
orders of magnitude less than the energy needed to light up a light
bulb. The energy of radioactive waste is released over hundereds of
thousands of years and is only enough, in real time, to keep the tanks
of water it is stored in a few degrees above ambient (though even that
is a problem - cannisters of waste have boiled and exploded). If that
was all it did, no problem. But it is such a chemical mish-mash that
no-one cans say where it will get to. And if it snuccles up to your DNA,
you are in deep trouble.
Think of the difference bertween a knife in the heart and the equivalent
mass of iron scattered, with the same force, in powder across the
countryside.
>
>> Even ordinary uranium ore is not nice stuff to live with - they have
>> had to abandon houses built on the "depleted" spoil heaps from which
>> the uraniul was extracted. Even mixed up, and thus having increased
>> many times in volume, it would be too dangerous not to guard.
>
> Of course. Which is why it should be put back into the mines from which
> it came, rather than building houses on top of it (whose bright idea was
> that?)
The mines are open-cast: uranium is not very concentrated: usually less
than 0.5% by weight - and it is heavy, so less by volume. So some
enrichment is performed on site, and more than 90% of the rock is put
back into the hole it came from. Then you look at the site and say here
you have a nice site with access roads, power, water etc. that you have
taken most of the nasty radioactive stuff out. Why not build houses,
rather than spoiling fresh countryside?
So to mix the waste in with the ore it came from, you would have to
effectively mine it all up again, and reverse the extraction [process,
to put into now broken up ore waste that is hundreds of times more
dangerous than what came out. And uranium mines are notorious for
polluting rivers many miles downstream. Ask the inhabitants of Colorado,
who are split between the mining group who say "a little" pollution
doesn't matter and the farming group who say that mining in the Rockies,
driven by recent commodity price rises and a national govenment on the
miners side, will destroy the beauty they value.
Richard Bos
> Richard Bos wrote:
>
> > Chernobyl, which was outdated even back then.
> > The biggest problem, of course, is what to do with the waste, but nobody
> > has ever been able to explain to me what the problem is with putting it
> > back where the uranium originally came from - properly packaged in the
> > original surrounding rock, of course.
>
> Becaue it is a lot more noxious, and a lot more chemically varied and
> mobile than the original uranium - by several orders of magnitude.
Of course you wouldn't put the raw waste in. Much of it can and should
be used further. The plutonium, for example, can itself be put in
reactors.
> > Step 7a: Don't stop developing fusion power. It's still some time away
> > from working, and it will take longer than predicted by the industry,
> > but it _is_ getting closer.
>
> Not sure about that. It has always been "thirty years away", and when I
> went round JET at Culham a year or so ago, they said that if they got a
> blank cheque to start building a power station today, it would come on
> line in twenty seven years three months. Which is not much closer.
My impression was that it was thirty years away twenty years ago, and
twenty years away today. That would mean that the expected arrival comes
closer by a year every two years - we should have fusion power about
forty years from now.
More to the point, though, if we stop developing fusion because it is
too hard, too late, and Nukular Therefore Scary, we will never have it.
Not even when we need it because even our uranium has run out and solar
power just isn't enough any more.
Richard
Richard Bos
> A.Reader wrote:
> > Even better than sticking it back in the mine: drop it overboard
> > into one of the locations where plate subduction is active. Let
> > Mama take care of it - the forces she has at her disposal are
> > sufficient for sure.
>
> My favoured form of disposal - provided you can find just the right
> place. Need research, though.
Much research. We think we know about plate tectonics and seismology,
and on a large scale we do, but who knows what happens down inside the
earth and how fast? It would be rather embarrassing to pop a load of
nasties in a trough off the California coast only to have it all come up
again in the San Andreas fault, just twenty years later.
Richard
Lesley Weston
The original uranium salts have also traveled through rock if that's the
case - by returning the unused portion of the ore to from where it came,
we would be leaving the risk of undesirable things being transmitted to
other places just as it was before the mining began, not increasing it.
My chemistry memories are a little hazy, but it should be possible to
convert the waste into whatever compounds are least soluble in water
before returning it. There's something about embedding it in resin (or
something) too before burying it, so that it would be much less mobile -
unlike the original uranium salts.
>>
>>> I meant litereally orders of magnitude more radioactive - four or
>>> five orders of magnitudes.
>>
>> Indeed. Odd that it can't be used to generate power.
>
> To a limited extent it is - plutonium piles in probes to the outer
> planets. But you are getting lost in orders of magnitude of energy. The
> amount of energy needed to harm your DNA from microns away is tens of
> orders of magnitude less than the energy needed to light up a light
> bulb. The energy of radioactive waste is released over hundereds of
> thousands of years and is only enough, in real time, to keep the tanks
> of water it is stored in a few degrees above ambient (though even that
> is a problem - cannisters of waste have boiled and exploded). If that
> was all it did, no problem. But it is such a chemical mish-mash that
> no-one cans say where it will get to. And if it snuccles up to your DNA,
> you are in deep trouble.
All of which is true, I know. I used isotopes quite a bit throughout my
working life, and did all the various courses required to be allowed to
use them. However, the undoubted dangers of a little plutonium loose in
the environment have very little connection with the potential
carefully-controlled use of plutonium as a power source, and even less
with the use of uranium (equally carefully controlled) as a power source.
>
> Think of the difference bertween a knife in the heart and the equivalent
> mass of iron scattered, with the same force, in powder across the
> countryside.
Which is why radioactive waste should be diluted with tailings,
returning it to the original level of danger before humans got involved.
>
>
>>
>>> Even ordinary uranium ore is not nice stuff to live with - they have
>>> had to abandon houses built on the "depleted" spoil heaps from which
>>> the uraniul was extracted. Even mixed up, and thus having increased
>>> many times in volume, it would be too dangerous not to guard.
>>
>> Of course. Which is why it should be put back into the mines from
>> which it came, rather than building houses on top of it (whose bright
>> idea was that?)
>
> The mines are open-cast:
It doesn't have to be. OK, open cast is cheaper, but if safety
considerations are given greater weight, the mining could be done
differently.
> uranium is not very concentrated: usually less
> than 0.5% by weight - and it is heavy, so less by volume. So some
> enrichment is performed on site, and more than 90% of the rock is put
> back into the hole it came from. Then you look at the site and say here
> you have a nice site with access roads, power, water etc. that you have
> taken most of the nasty radioactive stuff out. Why not build houses,
> rather than spoiling fresh countryside?
That's crazy. When I think of the draconian regulations governing the
disposal of lab-waste that might contain tritium or depleted uranium
salts in tiny amounts, the above seems even more irresponsible.
>
> So to mix the waste in with the ore it came from, you would have to
> effectively mine it all up again,
Why? Surely it could be done bit by bit as the ore is extracted.
> and reverse the extraction [process,
> to put into now broken up ore waste that is hundreds of times more
> dangerous than what came out. And uranium mines are notorious for
> polluting rivers many miles downstream. Ask the inhabitants of Colorado,
> who are split between the mining group who say "a little" pollution
> doesn't matter and the farming group who say that mining in the Rockies,
> driven by recent commodity price rises and a national govenment on the
> miners side, will destroy the beauty they value.
There are uranium mines all over Canada, some of them not too far away
from here. They've been disused for some time, but are now gradually
being reopened. If they're operated responsibly, there's no reason why
there should be any pollution. The problems, if there are any, are with
administration, not with nuclear power.
"@lec ©awley"
As I keep saying, the nuclear reactor acts as an enormous radiation
multipier. The radioactive danger of the output of the reactor is
literally millions of times that of the input. Stable nuclei, or nuclei
with half-lives of billions of years, have been transm,uted into nuclei
with half lives from minutes (not too dangerous - just wait) to
millennia. What you are saying is similar to treating the botulinium
toxin as no more dangerous than the nutrients the bacteria was fed on,
or a whiff of chlorine as no more danger than the salt the chorine was
electrolysed from. If it was as easy as that, don't you think they would
have tried it already?
If, as we now know, the original site was too danerous to live on, the
mixed site will be as million times more dangerous. And insoluble
substances which were locked in solid rock, through which water takes
millennia to percolate, will have been replaced by soluble substances in
pulverised dust through which water takes hours to percolate.
>>
>>
>>>
>>>> Even ordinary uranium ore is not nice stuff to live with - they have
>>>> had to abandon houses built on the "depleted" spoil heaps from which
>>>> the uraniul was extracted. Even mixed up, and thus having increased
>>>> many times in volume, it would be too dangerous not to guard.
>>>
>>> Of course. Which is why it should be put back into the mines from
>>> which it came, rather than building houses on top of it (whose bright
>>> idea was that?)
>>
>> The mines are open-cast:
>
> It doesn't have to be. OK, open cast is cheaper, but if safety
> considerations are given greater weight, the mining could be done
> differently.
Deep mines cost about 10 times as much as open cast. Given the
mind-boggling size of these mines (these are the ones they build those
over-scale lorries and hotel-sized diggers for), I really think that is
not possible - or certainly not commercially possible.
>
>> uranium is not very concentrated: usually less than 0.5% by weight -
>> and it is heavy, so less by volume. So some enrichment is performed on
>> site, and more than 90% of the rock is put back into the hole it came
>> from. Then you look at the site and say here you have a nice site with
>> access roads, power, water etc. that you have taken most of the nasty
>> radioactive stuff out. Why not build houses, rather than spoiling
>> fresh countryside?
>
> That's crazy. When I think of the draconian regulations governing the
> disposal of lab-waste that might contain tritium or depleted uranium
> salts in tiny amounts, the above seems even more irresponsible.
When they thought that the mine site was radioactive-free, becasue they
had take it out? They were wrong, but they thought this was both
commercially an environmentally a Good Thing,
>>
>> So to mix the waste in with the ore it came from, you would have to
>> effectively mine it all up again,
>
> Why? Surely it could be done bit by bit as the ore is extracted.
No - there is a fifty year time lapse from the ore being mined,
purified, put into fuel rods, used, extracted, separated, left while the
sorh half-life radioactives burn themselve out, before you can consider
burying is
>> and reverse the extraction [process, to put into now broken up ore
>> waste that is hundreds of times more dangerous than what came out. And
>> uranium mines are notorious for polluting rivers many miles
>> downstream. Ask the inhabitants of Colorado, who are split between the
>> mining group who say "a little" pollution doesn't matter and the
>> farming group who say that mining in the Rockies, driven by recent
>> commodity price rises and a national govenment on the miners side,
>> will destroy the beauty they value.
>
> There are uranium mines all over Canada, some of them not too far away
> from here. They've been disused for some time, but are now gradually
> being reopened. If they're operated responsibly, there's no reason why
> there should be any pollution. The problems, if there are any, are with
> administration, not with nuclear power.
And the price which nuclear power is willing to pay for uranium in order
to compete with even current fossil fuel prices.
I have to say that, as far as I can see, there is no such thing as an
ethical miner. They is such large scale ugliness within their mines that
they take their destruction of other bits of the environment as
negligible. Of course goivenment *can* control them - but they have huge
funds for lobbying. Given your previous remarks about politians, you
cannot believer that all, or any, are suddenly going to come over all
perfect when it is mining they are going to deal with.
"@lec ©awley"
Exactly what I was thinking. We do not yet know nearly enough about the
sub-mantle flows. If right, disposal for long enough to be not a
nuisance. If wrong, a good way of achieving maximum dispersal into the
environment.
Lesley Weston
> Lesley Weston wrote:
> @lec Šawley wrote:
<several times each>
>>> Think of the difference bertween a knife in the heart and the
>>> equivalent mass of iron scattered, with the same force, in powder
>>> across the countryside.
>>
>> Which is why radioactive waste should be diluted with tailings,
>> returning it to the original level of danger before humans got involved.
>
> As I keep saying, the nuclear reactor acts as an enormous radiation
> multipier. The radioactive danger of the output of the reactor is
> literally millions of times that of the input. Stable nuclei, or nuclei
> with half-lives of billions of years, have been transm,uted into nuclei
> with half lives from minutes (not too dangerous - just wait) to
> millennia.
Yes, I'm not disputing that. It can still be contained by converting it
to insoluble salts, casting it in something insoluble like resins,
diluting it with enough other material, and placing it deep into solid
rock that will provide sufficient shielding. Even better would be to use
it for power before doing all these things to the residue. Though
converting from a half-life of billions of years to one of millenia
seems like an improvement, in terms of worrying about waste.
> What you are saying is similar to treating the botulinium
> toxin as no more dangerous than the nutrients the bacteria was fed on,
> or a whiff of chlorine as no more danger than the salt the chorine was
> electrolysed from.
That's not what I meant, of course, though I can see from re-reading
what I wrote why you thought it was.
> If it was as easy as that, don't you think they would
> have tried it already?
It's probably more expensive than the present measures, so no, not
really. It's only recently that people have started worrying about the
long-term disposal of nuclear waste.
>
>
> If, as we now know, the original site was too danerous to live on,
No it wasn't. The spoil heap was too dangerous. People live above
undisturbed deposits of uranium ore all over the world without ill-effects.
> the
> mixed site will be as million times more dangerous.
Unless it's handled properly.
<snip>
>>> The mines are open-cast:
>>
>> It doesn't have to be. OK, open cast is cheaper, but if safety
>> considerations are given greater weight, the mining could be done
>> differently.
>
> Deep mines cost about 10 times as much as open cast.
And having enough food costs ten times as much as having a tenth of the
food you need. Needs must...
<snip>
>>> So to mix the waste in with the ore it came from, you would have to
>>> effectively mine it all up again,
>>
>> Why? Surely it could be done bit by bit as the ore is extracted.
>
> No - there is a fifty year time lapse from the ore being mined,
> purified, put into fuel rods, used, extracted, separated, left while the
> sorh half-life radioactives burn themselve out, before you can consider
> burying is
OK, so you have to arrange some kind of temporary storage that is still
safe. Surely they're doing that now?
<snip>
> I have to say that, as far as I can see, there is no such thing as an
> ethical miner.
My great-grandfather would disagree with you. He stood on his principles
no matter what, which eventually cost him his job in the mine.
> They is such large scale ugliness within their mines that
> they take their destruction of other bits of the environment as
> negligible. Of course goivenment *can* control them - but they have huge
> funds for lobbying. Given your previous remarks about politians, you
> cannot believer that all, or any, are suddenly going to come over all
> perfect when it is mining they are going to deal with.
I do know what you mean, of course, and I agree with you. This is just
one more argument for nationalisation of essential services, so that
they will be run by the civil service. So long as the civil servants
have decent salaries and working conditions they'll do a good job, and
since nobody can make a profit greed becomes irrelevant.
Richard Bos
> On Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:55:21 GMT, ral...@xs4all.nl (Richard Bos)
> >More like "Oh, but our beautiful and unique wildlife". You're welcome to
> >put wave farms in every single river on the Caledonian coast, but only
> >if you swear not only not to whine about Scottish salmon dying out, but
> >to stop PETA whining about it as well.
>
> The wavefarms wouldn't be in the rivers, they would be some distance
> offshore, e.g. to the west of Lewis, where they could generate more
> than enough power for the islands without any problems to fish or any
> other wildlife.
>
> Richard - do we have a different understanding of the meaning of
> 'wavefarm'? What you talk about seems more like a tidal barrage
> scheme.
Yes, then I do have a different thing in mind. I was picturing something
like, say, those "ducks" some Briton invented a couple of decades ago,
which always seem to be demonstrated either in a lake[1] or an estuary.
But maybe that's only because it's too much trouble to haul them all the
way out to sea just for a telly program.
> >> Step 6: More hydro-electric systems ("Oh, our beautiful mountains, and the
> >> flooded valleys/glens!")
> >
> >Now this one is different. It can be built _inside_ the mountains, where
> >it won't disturb anyone. Expensive, though.
>
> Ben Cruachan power station is worth a visit:
Yes, that's the kind of thing I had in mind.
Richard
[1] which seems pointless, too, but nemmindat.
Esra Sdrawkcab
> John Ewing <jo...@gelsalba.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:55:21 GMT, ral...@xs4all.nl (Richard Bos)
>
>> >More like "Oh, but our beautiful and unique wildlife". You're welcome
>> to
>> >put wave farms in every single river on the Caledonian coast, but only
>> >if you swear not only not to whine about Scottish salmon dying out, but
>> >to stop PETA whining about it as well.
>>
>> The wavefarms wouldn't be in the rivers, they would be some distance
>> offshore, e.g. to the west of Lewis, where they could generate more
>> than enough power for the islands without any problems to fish or any
>> other wildlife.
>>
>> Richard - do we have a different understanding of the meaning of
>> 'wavefarm'? What you talk about seems more like a tidal barrage
>> scheme.
>
> Yes, then I do have a different thing in mind. I was picturing something
> like, say, those "ducks" some Briton invented a couple of decades ago,
> which always seem to be demonstrated either in a lake[1] or an estuary.
> But maybe that's only because it's too much trouble to haul them all the
> way out to sea just for a telly program.
Salter
http://www.technologystudent.com/energy1/tidal7.htm
requires waves, not rivers.
>
>> >> Step 6: More hydro-electric systems ("Oh, our beautiful mountains,
>> and the
>> >> flooded valleys/glens!")
>> >
>> >Now this one is different. It can be built _inside_ the mountains,
>> where
>> >it won't disturb anyone. Expensive, though.
>>
>> Ben Cruachan power station is worth a visit:
>
> Yes, that's the kind of thing I had in mind.
>
> Richard
>
> [1] which seems pointless, too, but nemmindat.
--
"Nuns ! NUNS ! REVERSE ! REVERSE !"
Alec Cawley
>>
>> Richard - do we have a different understanding of the meaning of
>> 'wavefarm'? What you talk about seems more like a tidal barrage
>> scheme.
>
> Yes, then I do have a different thing in mind. I was picturing something
> like, say, those "ducks" some Briton invented a couple of decades ago,
> which always seem to be demonstrated either in a lake[1] or an estuary.
> But maybe that's only because it's too much trouble to haul them all the
> way out to sea just for a telly program.
Salter. And those were about quarter scale demo machines: if you want to
test out the system and try to calibrate it, it is easier if it is
nearby rather than in the open ocean.
So they built the full size machine end put it out at sea, in the
Pentland Firth IIRC, where it worked quite well until the first real
winter storm shredded it with ease, thus demonstrating the fundamental
problem that all wave-power machines have to solve.
SteveD
<brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>converting from a half-life of billions of years to one of millenia
>seems like an improvement, in terms of worrying about waste.
The opposite. Something which atomically decays from one state to another
puts out a finite amount of energy in doing so, no matter how long it
takes to complete the process.
A billion years of decay compressed into a thousand years means that the
power output (the radiation level) is increased a millionfold for those
first ten centuries.
It's the difference between having a pingpong ball dropped on you once a
second for 24 hours, or having a car fall on you from five floors up.
We really do need to find ways to control atomic conversions better, at
least to the point where we can render radioactive substances inert.
-SteveD
Arthur Hagen
> On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 11:41:58 -0800, Lesley Weston
> <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> converting from a half-life of billions of years to one of millenia
>> seems like an improvement, in terms of worrying about waste.
>
> The opposite. Something which atomically decays from one state to
> another puts out a finite amount of energy in doing so, no matter how
> long it takes to complete the process.
>
> A billion years of decay compressed into a thousand years means that
> the power output (the radiation level) is increased a millionfold for
> those first ten centuries.
So the end result is that you make the first thousand years much worse than
now, but the following nine hundred and ninety million nine hundred and
ninety thousand years much better than now. That seems like a very sensible
thing to me -- all you have to do is avoid that area for 1000 years and in
exchange you get a radiation-free area for 999999000 years after that.
Of course, I realise that most people don't give a shit about their
descendants more than a thousand years from now; they are too far removed to
be real to them.
> It's the difference between having a pingpong ball dropped on you
> once a second for 24 hours, or having a car fall on you from five
> floors up.
Thing is, you can dodge the car, while it's very hard to avoid the randomly
falling ping pong balls.
> We really do need to find ways to control atomic conversions better,
> at least to the point where we can render radioactive substances
> inert.
We can. The way is called "patience".
Time will ensure that we will end up in a universe with lots of inert iron.
Regards,
--
*Art
Jeff Howell
> SteveD <use...@vo.id.au> wrote:
<snip>
>> We really do need to find ways to control atomic conversions better,
>> at least to the point where we can render radioactive substances
>> inert.
>
> We can. The way is called "patience".
> Time will ensure that we will end up in a universe with lots of inert iron.
Well. Time will ensure that the universe ends up that way... whether
there will be a 'we' to end up in it is a different matter entirely.
--
Jeff Howell
Thomas Zahr
Build the space elevator *NOW*!!11!
Put it *ALL* into the sun111!1
--
Cheers,
Thomas =:-)
<who ain't dead>
Chris Zakes
Maybe. There was a recent article saying that coriolis forces would
cause too much instability to make such an elevator viable.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16223-space-elevator-trips-could-be-agonisingly-slow.html
Not to mention the minor detail that we don't *have* the technology or
materials to build a space elevator yet. Yes, buckytubes look
promising, but I don't think they've ever managed to make one that's
more than a few millimeters long.
-Chris Zakes
Texas
But we who feel the weight of the wheel, when winter falls over our world
Can hope for tomorrow and raise our eyes to a silver moon in the open skies
And a single flag unfurled… For the Eagle has landed…
-"Hope Eyrie" by Leslie Fish
Thomas Zahr
...
> Not to mention the minor detail that we don't *have* the technology or
> materials to build a space elevator yet. Yes, buckytubes look promising,
> but I don't think they've ever managed to make one that's more than a
> few millimeters long.
Details, dear Chris, mere details ;-)
--
Cheers,
Thomas=:-)
<sigless for the moment>
Alec Cawley
Easier said than done. Even at the top of the elevator, you need a lot
of energy to get it out of Earth orbit, and then a lot more energy to
slow it enough to plummet into the sun. Otherwise you have just
introduced a radioactive asteroid whose orbit, by definition, intersects
the earth's and may be expected to come plummeting back in sooner or later.
Larry Moore
> Thomas Zahr wrote:
>>
>>> Richard Bos wrote:
>> Put it *ALL* into the sun111!1
>
> Easier said than done. Even at the top of the elevator, you need a lot
> of energy to get it out of Earth orbit, and then a lot more energy to
> slow it enough to plummet into the sun. Otherwise you have just
> introduced a radioactive asteroid whose orbit, by definition, intersects
> the earth's and may be expected to come plummeting back in sooner or later.
The other suggestion I've read is to *place* it on the moon
and then, if in a generation or two, it can be a raw material for some
as-yet-undeveloped purpose, it's safe and available.
The delivery costs would be much lower, too.
--
(If anyone has found my memory, can they please look after it and give
it some TLC. It's evidently been neglected by its former owner...)
Ross a.f.p
Chris Zakes
caused Larry Moore <ljm...@tworightman.ca.INVALID> to write:
>On 2008-12-16, Alec Cawley <al...@spamspam.co.uk> wrote:
>> Thomas Zahr wrote:
>>>
>>>> Richard Bos wrote:
>>> Put it *ALL* into the sun111!1
>>
>> Easier said than done. Even at the top of the elevator, you need a lot
>> of energy to get it out of Earth orbit, and then a lot more energy to
>> slow it enough to plummet into the sun. Otherwise you have just
>> introduced a radioactive asteroid whose orbit, by definition, intersects
>> the earth's and may be expected to come plummeting back in sooner or later.
>
>The other suggestion I've read is to *place* it on the moon
>and then, if in a generation or two, it can be a raw material for some
>as-yet-undeveloped purpose, it's safe and available.
>The delivery costs would be much lower, too.
But... that would be disastrous. The radioactive dump would, at some
point, inevitably explode, blasting the moon out of its orbit and
completely out of the solar system in a matter of ten minutes or so,
while not subjecting the people *on* the moon to more than about 2 Gs
of acceleration, and still allowing them to maintain direct radio
contact with earth--no speed-of-light lag while they're leaving the
solar system (amazing stuff, that radioactive waste.)
There was a documentary about this very possibility back in the
mid-70s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_1999
-Chris Zakes
Texas
But we who feel the weight of the wheel, when winter falls over our world
Can hope for tomorrow and raise our eyes to a silver moon in the open skies
And a single flag unfurledů For the Eagle has landedů
SteveD
<ljm...@tworightman.ca.INVALID> wrote:
>On 2008-12-16, Alec Cawley <al...@spamspam.co.uk> wrote:
>> Thomas Zahr wrote:
>>>
>>>> Richard Bos wrote:
>>> Put it *ALL* into the sun111!1
>>
>> Easier said than done. Even at the top of the elevator, you need a lot
>> of energy to get it out of Earth orbit, and then a lot more energy to
>> slow it enough to plummet into the sun. Otherwise you have just
>> introduced a radioactive asteroid whose orbit, by definition, intersects
>> the earth's and may be expected to come plummeting back in sooner or later.
>
>The other suggestion I've read is to *place* it on the moon
>and then, if in a generation or two, it can be a raw material for some
>as-yet-undeveloped purpose, it's safe and available.
>The delivery costs would be much lower, too.
I don't suppose that anyone's realised it would be cheaper, safer, and
less energy-intensive to simply build a secure Earth-based facility for
the same purpose?
The Moon is a *really* long way away.
-SteveD
Arthur Hagen
Distance is pretty irrelevant in space, as other than a time vector.
There's no significant friction slowing you and requiring you to constantly
expend energy to continue the journey. If you're not in a hurry, whether it
takes an hour or five years to send something somewhere doesn't matter much.
Jupiter is a more obvious choice than the moon, I would think. It's used to
having all kinds of stuff dumped into it -- it's the vacuum cleaner of the
solar system. If we dumped the entire earth into it, it wouldn't make much
of a difference. On the receiving end, that is.
Regards,
--
*Art
SteveD
wrote:
>SteveD <use...@vo.id.au> wrote:
>> On Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:37:55 -0600, Larry Moore
>> <ljm...@tworightman.ca.INVALID> wrote:
>>
>>> The other suggestion I've read is to *place* it on the moon
>>> and then, if in a generation or two, it can be a raw material for
>>> some as-yet-undeveloped purpose, it's safe and available.
>>> The delivery costs would be much lower, too.
>>
>> I don't suppose that anyone's realised it would be cheaper, safer, and
>> less energy-intensive to simply build a secure Earth-based facility
>> for the same purpose?
>>
>> The Moon is a *really* long way away.
>
>Distance is pretty irrelevant in space, as other than a time vector.
It's not so much the distance as the problems involved in getting the
nasty payloads consistently safely off the ground and then into a course
that won't take them back to Earth or pose a hazard to future
space-shipping. Plus there's presumably landing them equally safely on the
Moon, unless you want to go for a Del Ray Crater scenario.
What spaceflight tech do we have which hasn't blown up at least once on
launch or had significant technical problems? What would it cost to get
the required mass of undesirable product, _plus its shielding_, _plus
protection against launch disasters_, all the way to the moon?
-SteveD
Chris Zakes
True, but if we did that, one worthwhile spinoff is that we'd actually
get a decent space travel system.
Arthur Hagen
> On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:13:15 +0900, an orbital mind-control laser
> caused SteveD <use...@vo.id.au> to write:
>
>> The Moon is a *really* long way away.
>
> get a decent space travel system.
Don't keep your hopes up. It's now 36 years since the last time a human
being was outside earth's gravity well, or outside the thermosphere for that
matter. And no concrete plans for doing it again. With this country now
being de facto bankrupt, expect space budgets to be slashed or even removed.
> But we who feel the weight of the wheel, when winter falls over our
> world Can hope for tomorrow and raise our eyes to a silver moon in
> the open skies And a single flag unfurled. For the Eagle has landed.
Unlike Martin Landau, we've run out of eagles to land.
Regards,
--
*Art
Lesley Weston
Maybe we could put the reactors themselves into orbit. Then only the
relatively-harmless uranium would have to take the dangerous journey
from Earth, and the waste could be sent to the Moon or Jupiter or
wherever quite safely. The energy would have to be beamed back down to
Earth, though, which could create its own set of problems.