Recent Comments:
OnLive killed the game console star? {Engadget}
Mar 24th 2009 1:12PM This also means that light traveling through fiber optic lines goes slower than the speed of light, though it is extremely close to it.
OnLive killed the game console star? {Engadget}
Mar 24th 2009 1:08PM @ Crazyburns and anyone else who keeps claiming data travels at the speed of light:
No. It does not. I can prove it to you if necessary. Only electromagnetic energy IN FREE SPACE travels at the speed of light. Energy (light, electricity, RF, etc) traveling through ANYTHING ELSE goes slower than the speed of light. That means electricity traveling through copper wires does NOT go the speed of light. It does still go pretty fast. The actual speed is determined by many factors. The telegrapher's (transmission line) equations must be used to solve this type of problem. The geometry and material composition of the transmission line (and its dielectric), as well as the frequency of the signal, determine the propagation velocity.
Searaser floating pump will use the ocean's waves to generate power {Engadget}
Nov 20th 2008 2:13PM Johnny:
You are wrong on many points and chastise me with a point I made myself.
First, the point I made myself that you flamed about: this technology will have its uses in a few [very limited] locations. I said that too....reread.
On to the points you're wrong about: nuclear is by far the cheapest, even considering storage. Look it up! The storage "facilities" you speak of aren't like auto salvage yards. They are limestone "caves" very deep below mountains. Build it, put the stuff in it, seal it off, and forget about it. It won't budge before the radioactivity is gone, I promise (reprocessing can reduce the lifetime to 300 years). Today's nuclear technology is extremely efficient. The amount of waste actually produced is miniscule! To put it in perspective, the US has accumulated a TOTAL of about 50,000 tons of nuclear waste....that's TOTAL, and nuclear power efficiency has improved drastically since most of our current reactors went online....we could do so much better than we are now even! US annual battery waste (which includes mercury, cadmium, and lead) is about 146,000 tons. That's per year! According to a Scientific American article, coal waste is up to 100 times more radioactive than nuclear waste. The worst component is called fly ash. As of 2005, U.S. coal-fired power plants reported producing 71.1 million tons of fly ash, of which 29.1 million tons was reused in various applications. That leaves 42,000,000 tons that is put in.....wait......this gets good.........LANDFILLS.
You also have a very poor grasp of electrical transmission (I worked briefly for a power company) and energy storage technology advancement in general. First of all, there will be no advancements in electrical transmission that will "save" us as you unfortunately believe. The laws of electromagnetism (which I teach) simply do not allow it. Even if we develop microwave transmission (I do radar research too), there will be huge losses. It ain't gonna happen.....ever (not even in 1,000 years or whatever your idea of the "distant" future is). Furthermore, advancements in chemical batteries are painfully slow. On top of that, chemical batteries are nearing "perfection" and won't advance a whole heck of a lot further. You are wrong about these wonderful chemical-based storage techs of the future. If anything, supercapacitors is the only future storage tech that will improve our current efficiency appreciably, unless some completely revolutionary idea comes along (neither capacitor nor chemical battery). But what? Gravity? There aren't a whole lot of choices....chemical, electrical (capacitors), physical (gravity), um....anything else?
Searaser floating pump will use the ocean's waves to generate power {Engadget}
Nov 20th 2008 12:34AM Well for one thing, as mentioned above, proximity is a HUGE issue. These things are only good for those living near the ocean (no, lake/river waves do NOT have enough energy to do anything...it will all be lost in transmission).
The "waste" produced by the micro reactors is tiny compared to these things. As also mentioned above, they have moving parts, which means [much] more failures, and therefore more waste. The reactors last 10 years before needing to be refueled (and it's a tiny amount of fuel). Don't bring up the whole "leaky barrels" of nuclear waste bs....there have never been any leaky barrels....it's a scary story people tell you to brainwash you...I challenge anyone to prove it is true!
The cost of nuclear is FAR FAR FAR cheaper than this could ever be! The efficiency of a system like this would have to be among the lowest of any energy technologies.
The mini reactors power 10,000 homes each. The toilet plungers power 470 homes each. That's a ratio higher than 21! That means it would take 21 of these plungers to equal a single mini reactor! Remember, the mini reactors are about the size of a hot tub (much smaller than the plungers, which must reach the ocean floor). This amounts to a humungous environmental impact to achieve any useful amount of energy. Someone mentioned above the only prospect I see for this tech: small islands. In fact, it's a pretty good idea for them, as long as it doesn't destroy the beauty of the seascape or impact the coral reefs too much (big ifs there).
Mini nuclear plant is safe, affordable and purifies water (but doesn't turn lead into gold) {Engadget}
Nov 11th 2008 12:13PM Ah dammit you're right....I was in a hurry. 31 months if you charge fairly standard rates, or just over 2.5 years. In the same amount of time if you invested that $25 million at 6% annual return (this is a low estimate, standard estimate is 8%), you'd have just over $29 mil, or a profit of about $4 million. You'd see an actual return after about 3 years.
Mini nuclear plant is safe, affordable and purifies water (but doesn't turn lead into gold) {Engadget}
Nov 11th 2008 11:15AM Actually, wind and solar are much more expensive. Also, no you cannot make this power 100 homes for 1000 years. It must be refueled after 10 years, period. However, at the 10 year mark you don't have to buy an entire reactor, just pay for refueling. The reactor should last several decades (much longer than wind turbines and solar cells).
If you bought one of these and charged on average $0.08 per kWh, you'd pull in about $800k per month. It would take over 31 years to get your investment back, and that's not counting the cost of money (money in your hands now is worth more in the future). It's not a great investment unless you need to replace an aging source or need to get an initial source (developing areas).
Mini nuclear plant is safe, affordable and purifies water (but doesn't turn lead into gold) {Engadget}
Nov 11th 2008 11:07AM Umm...get the price lower??? This is by far the cheapest energy available. The average US household uses around 1000 kWh per month. This means that 10,000 homes average 10,000,000 kWh per month, and over 10 years (120 months) they use a total of 1,200,000,000 kWh on average. So at $25,000,000 per 1,200,000,000 kWh, that is equal to $0.0208333/kWh. 2.1 cents per kilowatt-hour for the customer!!! In comparison, the average US cost per kWh in April 2008 was $0.11, or more than 5 times as much as this reactor costs!
Spaceship "force field" could protect astronauts on trip to Mars {Engadget}
Nov 5th 2008 2:00AM huh? Are they going to forget their spacesuits? That's like telling a bunch of people at a scuba shop they better hope people stop needing air to breathe or they'll go out of business.
Spaceship "force field" could protect astronauts on trip to Mars {Engadget}
Nov 5th 2008 1:56AM Exactly Plothole, this protects against particles, not electromagnetic radiation. Furthermore, those particles must be charged, as you stated, for a magnetic field to do anything to them.
Metal Gear Solid rubber band gun is non-lethal overkill {Engadget}
Sep 26th 2008 10:27AM How about the fact that it's made of metal and uses a gear?
