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[Darvi]

I can't eat an unemployed MA in Gender Studies.

Says you.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

-entropy-

I know what entropy is. I'm asking how its really relevant to this as it effects both fossil fuels and renewables. (Also everything in the universe.)

We could also put 500k tons of lead in Fort Knox and invest $1 trillion dollars into Philosopher Stone advances, claiming we'd profit by 28 times on the research outlay after we turn it all into gold. In the end, you have to target an achievable goal and have a scientist capable of discovering it. Government money has little effect on those things. That approach is called throwing money at a problem, and it's generally not effective. Room temperature superconductors are not readily achievable, if at all. I believe the best so far is 90 Kelvins or so, just 210 Kelvins short of what would be needed.

Alchemy is imaginary, we have made multiple advances in superconductor temperatures, including doped graphite that maintained it at 300K, which was discovered this year. Funny, that's exactly the number you were requesting.

Probably the most fruitful area for energy savings, but realistically, you'd probably cut 10% off of electricity consumption and still have a huge demand.

10% is significant.

But that is the most efficient place to put solar panel. It's 1.6 times more efficient than New York. The moderate temperatures and predictable weather also minimize wear-and-tear and replacement rates. Decentralized solar generation runs into this trouble, in particular. If every house has a solar panel array, then who cleans the solar panels? For example, cold water sprayed onto a solar panel on a hot summer day can causing cracking. Solar energy is best generated in large farms where appropriate personnel can maintain it.

Looks like we've got a new job market then. You could put a lot of people into good work by setting up a business for cleaning solar panels.

[Nadaka]

Trollheiming: what are you talking about?
The Shockley-Queisser limit is irrelevant to solar thermal. It is limited the Carnot cycle, the maximum efficiency of a heat engine. And since concentrated solar can produce temperatures limited only by the durability of the materials constituting your reservoir, unlike burning fuels, it can theoretically extract more work from a given amount of energy. Plus no ongoing fuel cost.

And the the long distance efficiency of HVDC lines is sufficient to transport power over 3000 miles with acceptable losses. No advancements in transmission are necessary, only a rebuild of the power grid. And that upgrade is already sorely needed after decades of neglect even if there is no solar power build out.

[Trollheiming]

Trollheiming: what are you talking about?
The Shockley-Queisser limit is irrelevant to solar thermal. It is limited the Carnot cycle, the maximum efficiency of a heat engine. And since concentrated solar can produce temperatures limited only by the durability of the materials constituting your reservoir, unlike burning fuels, it can theoretically extract more work from a given amount of energy. Plus no ongoing fuel cost.

I was talking photovoltaic. I don't know the efficiency of solar thermal, but the point was there are practical limits far below the theoretical energy potential that everyone salivates at harnessing. Solar thermal also experiences it, for sure. That's true in all energy sources. You can't just say simply, "Increase the efficiency!" as a panacea to energy problems.

[RedKing]

There's a university in Wyoming? There's anything in Wyoming?

Enrollment: 13,992, in Laramie. They're a I-A school, Mountain West conference.

Plus a dozen or so community colleges and The Frontier School of the Bible. Offering degrees in Bibleology, Bible Engineering, and Advanced Bibliconometrics.

Plenty of farmers and ranchers in Wyoming producing the resources for that hamburger that you like to eat, though. I can't eat an unemployed MA in Gender Studies. Commodities like these are the only non-bubbly investment in a growing world with fixed amounts of arable land, bud. 

Care to compare the unemployment rates of South Dakota and New York side-by-side? People are doing hard work in middle America and actually contributing to the economy in ways that unemployed university grads really can't understand or emotionally come to terms with as they pay off their student debt with McJobs.

Also, South Dakota has the leading school in Mining Tech. You'll make bank if you get so much as a bachelor's there.

I'm well acquainted with the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, seeing as how I have about two dozen cousins in Rapid City. Also have cousins who graduated from Montana State, another cousin who raises cattle on about 1500 acres in Montana, and my father raises horses. I grew up surrounded by dairy farms.

You can spare me the self-righteous populist outrage. I don't see where anybody denigrated someone's choice of profession or location (other than suggesting Wyoming is more or less empty. Which, with a population density roughly equal to fucking Mongolia, is more or less true.)

Now I did mock the Frontier School of the Bible. Which I stand by, because seriously....School of the Bible.

[10ebbor10]

You can spare me the self-righteous populist outrage. I don't see where anybody denigrated someone's choice of profession or location (other than suggesting Wyoming is more or less empty. Which, with a population density roughly equal to fucking Mongolia, is more or less true.)

Now I did mock the Frontier School of the Bible. Which I stand by, because seriously....School of the Bible.

What's wrong with Mongolia. Or a School about the Bible. There are plenty of interesting studies one can do about the Bible, including universitary educations.

Though this one doesn't appear to be one of them.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You can't just say simply, "Increase the efficiency!" as a panacea to energy problems.

No, but you can say it if we're operating inefficiently, which we are, and can fix that, which we can.

What's wrong with Mongolia. Or a School about the Bible. There are plenty of interesting studies one can do about the Bible, including universitary educations.

Though this one doesn't appear to be one of them.

Not really. The Bible's been interpreted up and down for centuries. It's kind of a tired thing now, and if you're going to bother with a university education you should at least do something useful. Theology is an unending rehash.

[Chaoswizkid]

Also, have an Epic Rap Battle (of History).

Prettttyyy sure people skipped this. They shouldn't, because it's amazing. Probably should have mentioned it's Romney vs. Obama.

[Nadaka]

Trollheiming: what are you talking about?
The Shockley-Queisser limit is irrelevant to solar thermal. It is limited the Carnot cycle, the maximum efficiency of a heat engine. And since concentrated solar can produce temperatures limited only by the durability of the materials constituting your reservoir, unlike burning fuels, it can theoretically extract more work from a given amount of energy. Plus no ongoing fuel cost.

I was talking photovoltaic. I don't know the efficiency of solar thermal, but the point was there are practical limits far below the theoretical energy potential that everyone salivates at harnessing. Solar thermal also experiences it, for sure. That's true in all energy sources. You can't just say simply, "Increase the efficiency!" as a panacea to energy problems.

Except that with solar thermal, you can. You can run a solar heat engine with a billion degree thermal slope (and the associated Carnot cycle efficiency) if you throw enough mirrors at it without causing the heat reservoir to under go nuclear fusion at that temperature. But this is not really relevant.

You may be talking photovoltaic, but no one who has researched solar power at all will advocate the less technology being used for bulk production. Only people trying to make it sound like a crappy alternative do that. That ~909 Gwh per square mile per year that I mentioned isn't theoretical, it has already been done with an actual solar thermal plant.

[RedKing]

You can spare me the self-righteous populist outrage. I don't see where anybody denigrated someone's choice of profession or location (other than suggesting Wyoming is more or less empty. Which, with a population density roughly equal to fucking Mongolia, is more or less true.)

Now I did mock the Frontier School of the Bible. Which I stand by, because seriously....School of the Bible.

What's wrong with Mongolia. Or a School about the Bible. There are plenty of interesting studies one can do about the Bible, including universitary educations.

Don't get me wrong, I love Mongolia. Nice folks, lots of booze, small horses. Very dusty. But it's fucking EMPTY. Outside of Ulaan Bator (which holds roughly half the Mongol population), it's really, really, really, REALLY empty. There's a reason Genghis Khan decided to go conquer the world, and I'm betting a lot of it had to do with boredom.

Likewise, there are many beautiful places in Wyoming. And nobody looking at them. 

[Mego]

Also, have an Epic Rap Battle (of History).

Prettttyyy sure people skipped this. They shouldn't, because it's amazing. Probably should have mentioned it's Romney vs. Obama.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Abe Lincoln's Corpse 2012!

[darkrider2]

Also, have an Epic Rap Battle (of History).

Prettttyyy sure people skipped this. They shouldn't, because it's amazing. Probably should have mentioned it's Romney vs. Obama.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Abe Lincoln's Corpse 2012!

Get on the Lincoln Eagle ticket this November!

[SalmonGod]

We desperately need to get away from coal.  The methods we're using to get at the stuff these days are horrendous.  They literally shatter the entire tops of mountains with explosives, filter out the coal, and push all the rest of the rubble over the side.  It's called Mountaintop Removal Mining.  This is spontaneous destruction of huge swathes of ecosystem, when habitat destruction is the #1 driving factor behind the current mass extinction and we should be doing everything possible to avoid damaging what's left.  It also poisons local waters (another increasingly precious resource) with heavy metals, causing immense damage to multiple whole communities with every mountaintop destroyed.

As for the rap battle... I only thought it was ok.  Shared because election.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

As much as I despise West Virginia for its treacherous ways, it definitely does not deserve mountaintop removal.

[SalmonGod]

Seriously... half a dozen Chernobyl incidents would be less destructive than continuing to mine coal until it's gone.