OT. Japanese"nukes"

[Robert Green]

Agreed. Don only chose the lighting part. (-: For that he gets the gold star. Doing both sort of cancels each other out.

Then my work is done. (-: FWIW, I only learned about it this year trying to explain to someone that very few places on earth are safe from massive earthquakes, although some are much safer than others. I find it interesting that we've decided we know the size of the universe

just because that's as far as we can see. Sounds a little like the flat-earthers in a way. "We can't see the earth's curvature, so it must be flat!"

Just where is the expanding universe expanding into? The megaverse? Poughkeepsie? My own unscientific view is that there's a reason that electron micrographs of atoms look at lot like Hubble telescopic photos of far-away galaxies. The ultimate micro and macro worlds are one in the same, but our minds can not comprehend how they could "fold in" on themselves. I saw it on the Simpsons so it must be true!

As for the word yotta, who hasn't heard the Led Zeppelin's famous song "Whole Yotta Love?" (-:

But seriously, not a lot of Americans have heard of "Tsar Bomba" because the country, as a whole, did not like to acknowledge that we weren't the biggest and best at everything. Who, though, hasn't heard of "Fat Man" and "Little Boy?"

They were the first nuclear weapons ever used in war. While the code names can be taken for joking references to the project director, stout Gen. Leslie Groves and the slim scientific director, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the original nicknames were Fat Man and Thin Man from characters in the works of Dashiell Hammett. So where are the Nick, Nora and little Asta bombs?

I've seen every stinkin' episode at least three times and cannot recall a single instance of 10^72. That doesn't mean that they didn't mention it 100 times. My memory's fading fast. Google was no help, either. I know that they worked in "Superman" references in many episodes but 10^72 is not one I recall.

Maybe that's how much he and Larry David will eventually make from syndication rights. I also recall that the rest of the cast is rather pissed at how little they received in comparison and refused to do the DVD commentaries unless they were paid in advance. In Hollywood, the producer is king and the actors merely interchangeable parts. If there's any doubt, see Charlie Sheen v. Chuck Lorre.

-- Bobby G.

[Robert Green]

Here's more "fallout" from the Japanese nuclear crisis:

BERLIN -- Gremany's governing coalition said Monday it will shut down all the country's nuclear power plants by 2022. The decision, prompted by Japan's nuclear disaster, will make Germany the first major industrialized nation to go nuclear-free in years. It also completes a remarkable about-face for Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right government, which only late last year had pushed through a plan to extend the life span of the country's 17 reactors -- with the last scheduled to go offline in 2036.

But Merkel now says industrialized, technologically advanced Japan's helplessness in the fact of the Fukushima disaster made her rethink the risks of the technology. "We want the electricity of the future to be safe, reliable and economically viable," Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters on Monday after overnight negotiations among the governing parties. "We have to follow a new path."

-- Bobby G.

[Chet]

That's simple. Hot air. That's the solution to all our energy needs and it comes from the environmental extremists. No nukes. No coal. No natural gas. They claim they are in favor of wind or solar, but when it comes time to actually build the offshore windfarm or the solar array in the desert, they show up, scream bloody murder and block that too.

There is absolutely abundant evidence that the environmentalists are for the most part a bunch of kooks. For proof you need look no further than global warming. On the one hand they tell us that we're facing the ultimate climate disaster. At the same time, they block nuclear, which could be deployed today to immediately and significantly impact carbon emissions. Yes there is some risk, but even the Fukushima accident is very small compared to what we face in climate disaster if they are even close to correct. More likely, they are just full of nonsense and unrealistic expectations. Listen to them and we'll be hoping for moon beam energy.

[dpb]

...

In that time frame, they'll be purchasing (probably from France).

Same mindset as CA and some of other US states; use the result but make sure it's somebody else doing it so they can tout their "greeness"...

[Robert Green]

It's the US philosophy when it comes to energy from batteries. We buy Chinese and let their people die of the lead poisoning. Very green. (-;

-- Bobby G.

[Robert Green]

industrialized

Germany's already made some serious strides in converting to wind and solar power. Just under a quarter of Germany's electricity was produced by nuclear power, about the same share as in the U.S. Energy from wind, solar and hydroelectric power currently produces about 17 percent of the country's electricity, but the government aims to boost its share to around 50 percent in the coming decades. They've put solar panels in along highways and are even using floating solar panels on waterways. While it's clear that solar will likely never supply all the countries needs, it certainly reduces the amount of power that needs to be generated by other, dirtier sources.

I think in 50 years a large number of houses will be solar shingled and interconnected with the grid. Advances in the power conservation for household appliances will also "lighten the load." Unfortunately, when Nixon "woke up" China, he helped create a serious competitor for the world's limited supply of fossil fuels. Unless we want to pay $10 a gallon for gas, we need to be thinking about other sources of energy.

Nuclear power looked like a winner until Japan's crisis revealed some of serious risks that come with it. It will take but one serious terrorist nuclear incident to perhaps break the camel's back. `It's only been 100 years that cars have been around and only sixty years since serious jet transportation has involved. So a lot of things can change in a historically short time frame. I'm certain that solar panel efficiency will see some serious increases in 50 years just as the power required by computers and appliances has been continually decreasing per appliance - except for set top cable boxes!

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So obviously there are a lot of areas where we just waste energy indiscriminately that need closer attention. Attacking the problem from both ends - generation and use - should have serious pay offs in the future.

-- Bobby G.