Washington, DC -- Recent announcements of new experimental results in physics have suggested that -- just perhaps -- Albert Einstein might have been wrong, and it may occasionally be possible for something to travel faster than the speed of light. It seems odd, though, that the Tea Party wing of the Republican party, which still cannot accept either Darwin's Theory of Evolution or current climate science (or even plain-vanilla toxicology on heavy metals like mercury), is apparently rushing to embrace this new (and at the moment highly speculative) result.
Einstein theorized that the faster an object moves in space, the more slowly it passes through time. At the speed of light, time stood still, and no faster movement was possible, because that would require moving into the past. But now researchers at CERN, the European Center for high-energy physics, have reported that it appears a few neutrinos might in fact have exceeded the speed of light. Other scientists subsequently challenged this finding.
But in the three weeks since the CERN announcement (although perhaps not because of it), the "forward to the past" caucus in the U.S. Congress has been beating the drum for time travel. In the view of Representative Darryl Issa and other members of the hard right, the fact that the auto industry, the Obama administration, and environmental advocates were able to agree that carbon pollution emission limits and fuel-efficiency improvements in America's passenger vehicle fleet were in the national interest is not a cause for celebration. Instead, Issa argues, it is proof of a conspiracy.
The new rules do, indeed, imply that Einstein was right -- America must move into the future. The era of cheap oil, energy dependence, and "what me worry" climate science is over. The United States must join, not just the rest of the world, but the 21st century, in embracing the idea that the cars of the 1950s, and even the SUVs of the 1990s, must pass from the scene like the horse and buggy and the Model T -- to be replaced by fundamentally new transportation options.
Issa held a hearing last week, whose sole purpose appeared to be to show that agreement between Obama and the auto industry proved the Administration is hell bent, in the word of Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, on "substituting its bureaucratic judgment for the independent judgment of the marketplace." Why leaving a carbon-emission limit at the current, 1970s number constitutes such bureaucracy, while selecting another, reflecting current oil prices, would be market-based, was not clear.
Representative Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), an auto dealer before he was elected to Congress last year, made it clear that he was determined to manage his business, as well as his congressional office, back to the 20th century. (Of course, Kelly was a Chevy dealer -- and the decades-long refusal of General Motors to embrace the future probably cost him a good deal of the value of his business. No wonder he wants to turn back the clock.) Saying that higher fuel economy for consumers was "absolutely insane," Kelly went on to lament, "Where in the heck are we going with this policy?"
It's clear where Kelly is going. He ended by telling the hearing the sad fate of one of his employees who made the mistake of ordering an electric Chevy Volt for his dealership, "That guy who ordered that Volt in my store is no longer in that job." (One more American job gone.)
This all has a certain whiff of desperation. In spite of the Tea Party, the future is indeed invading all parts and regions of America -- even Normal, Illinois, just up the road from Peoria, where Mitsubishi is making its first electric vehicle, features in a wide-ranging media campaign which proclaims "Welcome to the New Normal."
Nor are the American people signing up for the time-travel, anti-Einstein movement. A new poll by the University of Texas shows that Americans, 3 to 1, think the nation is "on the wrong track" with regard to energy issues. What is their biggest concern? Conspiracies between the Obama administration, environmentalists, and auto companies? Nope. Americans, 2-1, want government to do more to shape our energy future. The biggest concern? Consumption of foreign oil, with 84 percent ranking it as a top worry. And the least trusted entity? The U.S. Congress. Next least trusted? Oil and gas companies. Desire for energy innovation? Over the top.
This all appears lost on the Republican leadership in Congress. The sad part about this frantic effort to travel back to the past is that while the Koch brothers and the Tea Party are pretending that we don't have better options, American entrepreneurs and innovators are showing us an abundance of future choices. Two years ago, a team of engineers calling themselves Edison 2 won the Automotive X-Prize for demonstrating a "Very Light Car" that got more than 100 mpg.
Since then, Edison 2 has continued to develop its disruptive, innovative approach to automotive engineering. Its latest prototype has been certified by the EPA as having a 244-mpg rating and an all-electric range of 79 miles. (But it's a plug-in hybrid, so range doesn't matter much -- you can recharge off a tiny gasoline motor. And this car will be cheap, because it doesn't need heavy and expensive batteries to make it efficient.
Or take internal combustion innovator Scuderi's split-cycle engine. Recent lab results show that installed in a conventional small car, the Scuderi split engine gets 65 mpg. So imagine the efficiency and cost savings that could result from combining a very-light Edison 2 vehicle with a more efficient Scuderi- design internal combustion engine!
And most experts expect to see major breakthroughs in battery power/pound, so that the cost and the weight of the electric power pack of tomorrow's vehicles will be a fraction of today's. Combine all three innovations and you have the potential for cars where the cost of gasoline simply won't matter, just as today no one worries about the price of windshield-wiper fluid. (Online one brand costs $10 for 8 ounces of concentrate, or $160/gallon. Don't freak -- you use so little you can afford it. Let's make oil like that.)
Maybe it's time for the Tea Party to start betting with Einstein, with the future, and with America.
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The following video summarizes the LFTR in the first 5 minutes and goes in to detail in the next 2 hours.
http://youtu.be/P9M__yYbsZ4
Edward Tellers last paper recommended developing the LFTR. He called LFTR the best of all possible reactors. Alvin Weinberg, co-patent holder on the light water reactor, thought LFTR was a much better, safer, simpler and cheaper reactor.
If we really want to foster the development of alternative energy and even pick up some economic stimulus without increasing the tax burden on Americans, we need to impose a $100/bbl oil tax on all oil and decrease employment taxes in the same amount, thus having a revenue-neutral shift in taxation.
The number of jobs in the oil industry is relatively inelastic and does not change with demand -- a refinery running at half-capacity requires the same labor as one operating at full capacity. Therefore, garnering the taxes from this industry would not significantly decrease employment. However the process of decreasing energy consumption by individuals often requires individuals to spend more to buy more insulation, a higher mileage car or to move closer to work, resulting in increased employment.
Advocating that government bureaucrats make direct decisions to subsidize or demand specific alternatives tends to evolve into picking winners and losers based upon political connections -- crony capitalism -- rather than what the people actually want. Or on what is best for the economy.
And cleaner compared to what? Oil? Absolutely. Solar? No.
So no, we dont have to do jack. You're irrelevant.
How you get there doesn't matter provided we are all going the same direction.
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/03/18/offshore-wind-energy-cheaper-than-nuclear-energy-eu-climate-chief-says/
http://solarcellcentral.com/companies_page.html first solar 2.5$ per Wp installed.
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/06/10/solar-power-graphs-to-make-you-smile/ rooftop solar cheaper than nukes.
http://www.plancanada.com/biochar_basics.pdf
2$ per watt waste bio char energy plant. 100 GW electricity
Rooftop solar, offshore wind and waste bio char bio fuels in combination are 24/7, forever, clean, safe, ready to replace all fossil and nukes in 7-15 years, Carbon, land and fresh water negative.
We should immediately massively promote rooftop solar installations on sunny roofs, efficiency retrofits to all buildings, a green bank would be a great way to do that. This would also immediately solve the economy and jobs problem.
Cities are perfect for offshore wind and waste bio char and bio fuels. Already co generation, and waste to energy is being used in cities around the world to cut costs.
Plug in hybrids are the obvious best choice, with a 30 mile electric only range, to cover 90% of all commuter trips. This will reduce our oil use to the point where waste bio oils can take over more quickly.
Nukes are 3 cents a kwh. The cost of wind power is over 30 cents a kwh when taxpayer provided 5 times sized transmission and gas backup is included. When green storage replaces the filthy gas cost increases by a buck a kwh. Solar - add another 50 cents a kwh to that
What Gender calls waste biofuels really is compost necessary to maintain soil and recyclables. What's left can supply only a tiny amount of energy.No major Green organization has them as even a tiny part of a future energy mix.
AECL has completed 8 new Candu reactor installations over the last twenty years all on time in 4 years and on budget at $2B/Gw or less than 3 cents a kwh when the 1.5 cent a kwh fuel and O&M cost is included.The last one was completed in 2007 in Europe.
Google "cnnc.com.cn/tabid/168/Default.aspx"
Here is a real wind project PGE's latest wind farm build $15B/Gw (20 cents Kwh at PGE's discount rate)
Google "pge-to-purchase-operate-246-mw-manzana-wind-project"
Here is a real solar project just completed by expert engineers at Duke Energy.
Google "biofuelswatch.com/solar-farm-starts-operation"
$43 a watt average, 18% capacity factor, 50 cents a kwh at Dukes discount rate.
The Dark Ages
Sierra. living in the past, wants us to embrace upgraded versions of 10000 year old solar and wind technologies with costs starting at 10 and ultimately 50 times nuclear.
With a fossil to nuclear conversion over ten years well within our idle industrial capacity, rates of return of 40% per annum to the nation as a whole, and a fossil to renewable conversion utterly impossible financially, industrially, and politically, Sierra and other not so renewable advocates might start wondering if their silly opposition to a fossil to nuke conversion is worth the pollution deaths of three million folks worldwide every year the conversion is delayed and the deaths of billions more when we hit the fast approaching climate precipice.
http://www.cnnc.com.cn/tabid/168/Default.aspx
Here is Bloomberg on the actual cost $1.2B/Gw ($2007) of the recent AP-1000 builds.
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a5.20kg0SOY0
Experience in China is showing nuclear costs dropping rapidly to under 2 cents a kwh as factory module production begins.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/08/china-leverages-learning-curve-cost.html
SInce no nuke power plant has ever killed anybody, while solar has killed hundreds i'd say it was the safest form of power there is. All the world's nuke plants are doing very well selling electricity at costing them a mere 2 cents a kwh. US nuke plants have $20B in a self insurance fund, while all all other forms of power are limited to $150M liability.
Nuke annual maintenance and fuel per kwh is far cheaper than solar annual maintenance. Your fuel argument is a canard.
It wasn't Einstein who discovered the photoelectric effect it was Hertz
Nukes are built worldwide without subsidies. Are public power expenditures subsidies?
The taxpayers insure the liabilities on all American industries over %150M except nuclear which has its own paid $20B fund.
The cost of wind power is over 30 cents a kwh when taxpayer provided 5 times sized transmission and gas backup is included. When green storage replaces the filthy gas cost increases by a buck a kwh. Solar - add another 50 cents a kwh to that.
Here is a real wind project PGE's latest wind farm build $15B/Gw (20 cents Kwh at PGE's discount rate)
Google "pge-to-purchase-operate-246-mw-manzana-wind-project"
Here is a real solar project just completed by expert engineers at Duke Energy.
Google "biofuelswatch.com/solar-farm-starts-operation"
$43 a watt average, 18% capacity factor, 50 cents a kwh at Dukes discount rate.
Solar costs are now less per sq foot than a mass produced skylight from home depot. Wind costs have been rising steadily for a decade, When Chinese dumping ends for both solar and wind costs will be rising with inflation.
Uranium is only a small amount of the cost of nuke power and can easily be replaced by recyled fuel.
Pumped hydro at a buck a kwh is the only feasible form of renewable storage.
The Tribune-Democrat of Johnstown is reporting the farm shut down the windmills overnight after the Indiana bat was found Sept. 26.
The farm in question was built by Gamesa Energy USA and covers parts of Portage, Washington, and Cresson Townships in Cambria County, and part of Blair County, about 60 miles east of Pittsburgh.
When man kills plant and animal biological diversity, he kills ecosystems and his own life giving functions, cycles and systems. Ecosystems are the natural, life giving surface of Earth, and bats and all plant and animal biological diversity create and sustain this nation's and the Earth's ecosystems.
I would have thought the author in his flight to the new century would have given a brief commentary concerning this nations' most significant issue and problem, human populations devouring the Earth or Zero Population Growth now. Curbing man's mushrooming populations should be top priority in this century because most of us, only know how to kill the Earth and nothing about saving her.
Historically, improving a country's standard of living is the only reliable and moral way of reducing population growth. Increased standard of living is always associated with increased consumption of energy. As energy consumption goes up, growth rate declines. Making energy cheap, clean and reliable is the way to "save the earth", as you would say.