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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (62626)	4/3/2002 2:20:57 PM
From: michael97123	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

OT, Jacob Have not seen any comments here on MidEast war. World has been pretty one sided in its anti-Israeli stance. Only the US seems to understand that no country would abdicate its responsibility to defend itself. I cant get over the moral equivalence arguments being bandied about. Collateral damage is bad. Direct purposeful attacks on civilians is evil. Notice the way North Koreans today started the process of disassociating themselvers form the axis. Notice how syria is reigning in Hizbolla. Arafat should have used the shredder. Israelis are finding documents that directly link him to terror. I find it impossible to believe that the Pals didnt see the end game would be a vicious Israeli reaction. It boggles. mike

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (62626)	4/3/2002 2:29:41 PM
From: willcousa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

OT - There is global warming. The world has been a lot warmer before and it has been a lot colder before. Regardless of the existence of humankind the world will be a lot warmer again and a lot colder again. While the short-term trend is warming there has been significant concern in the past that the slightly longer term trend is toward cooling. Lately, it is being argued that the trend is to warmer. No one knows and there does not seem to be any way to readily find out. All I know is that warmer is better than colder. We almost lost humanity once due to cooling. Humanity has thrived in periods of warming. That is all we know.

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (62626)	4/3/2002 2:48:39 PM
From: mitch-c	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

OT - Oil, renewable/recoverable energy strategies Jacob, you have several good points. One of them that I think we've lagged on is making our energy usage more efficient. If Bob's folks can design an SUV-class vehicle powered by a hybrid engine (similar to Honda's Insight, or the Diesel-electric locomotives we've had for half a century), we can cut down fuel consumption. Regenerative braking is an additional benefit (easily designed in) to an electric-drive vehicle. The first company to that market wins. Big. Unfortunately, no US companies seem interested. '70's crisis rerun. I'll replace my 1/2-ton pickup (which I love) in an instant when a comparable hybrid drivetrain comes available at a comparable lifecycle cost. Design the things to use ethanol, H2 fuel cells, or LNG, and we cut out a bunch of mideast oil dependence. (I can buy an H2 fuel cell for my CELL PHONE now, dammit! It ain't hard to scale up!) Unfortunately, the fuel production and distribution infrastructure would have to retool, and that's no overnight job. Furthermore, doing so has a built-in resistance to adoption from the current oil industry. Giants today; dinosaurs tomorrow. The basic (vehicular) limitation on hybrids right now is the mass and/or size of batteries. Improved energy storage technology (mechanical, chemical, electrical) that can safely hold more energy per unit mass is essential. (Blue-sky AMAT-related thought - we've spent a lot of effort miniaturizing circuits on IC chips. How 'bout banks of parallel capacitors on a chip wafer? Can that improve the storage ratio? It's gotta be more efficient/responsive than chemical batteries ...) Storage and conversion efficiency is also the key to other "renewable" forms of energy - wind, tides, vegetable, solar, whatever. They all start with sunlight hitting something on the Earth. However, sunlight (and its dependent forms) are irregular, and demand is irregular in a different pattern. So, you need something to store/buffer/smooth the spikes in supply and demand. However, consider that as we become more efficient at capturing sun/cyclical energy, global warming continues. Instead of the Earth throwing off "wasted" energy (infrared, UV, etc), we will be capturing it and using it within the atmosphere. I'm personally extremely skeptical that such warming is either of the magnitude claimed or something other than a natural (non-human) cycle, but over a sufficient timescale, it could become a problem. (Tidal friction will eventually deorbit the Moon - but "eventually" is a VERY long time.) Enough rambling - that's my two pennies, FWIW. - Mitch