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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: ZenWarrior who wrote (134619)4/2/2001 11:38:13 AM
From: Thomas A Watson  Respond to of 769667
 
Dear Zen, I wonder if you have a clue as what technology it takes to have 24x7 electric power at 99.999% reliability.

It is an interesting problem especially if one want to use sources of energy with variable output from 0 to 100% almost every day. In the case of solar well we can scratch half the day on average. In the case of wind, well if there is no wind or if the wind exceeds some limit we have no power.
When we have wind power it can vary from second to second.

So we need an integrator. Ah the calculus of integration which cares not of white and black but only the convolution of the sum.

So the solution is to have batteries. Hundreds of Tons of batteries, Mountains of batteries. Of course the Tons are distributed and distributed. Never fear tens of thousands of smart conscientious folks can be paid to monitor and maintain all these batteries. None to save a buck will dump them or burry them secretly. And of course these batteries are nasty nasty hazardous waste of a chemical soup that loves to react with the biology of the environment.

Holy lead Batman, I can no longer be poisoned by arsenic as I am already lead dead.

So zen I don't know if you are one of those vacant liberal MINDS hell bent on poisoning the environment for future generations with the chemistry of alternative energy storage but to me the only safely containable non environmental polluting source of energy is nuclear power. Cubic yards of very bad stuff in few location is a problem I can get my hands around. One can put the stuff in a geologic formation that has not changed in millions of years. Cubic Mountain of poison in tens of thousands of places maintained by thousand of who knows who is a problem way to complex for me to figure how to do safely.

Until the majority see the truth of what I have said above there will continue to be rolling blackouts forever. The above is how an engineer thinks about a long term problem.

Does the solution keep is simple stupid??

tom watson tosiwmee