strainer

If someone introduced microplastics to your house while you had no part in it - so you find yourself eating and breathing little bits of hydrocarbon chemicals which none of your ancestors in natural history have ever ingested. No mites can digest it, no moulds can compost it, nothing has ever lived with it, its just a new mysterious stuff that you and your children are going to be surrounded by, and get in your lungs and blood and live within from now on ... And you feel fine about it until convinced by science that you shouldnt. Against the advertisements and persuasions of a big industry, how long did it take to establish that cigarette smoke was dangerous? Leaded petrol? AGW? Ay but its probably fine! We can only imagine, chick skeletons full of plastic beads, certain species of sea creatures and microbiota due to perish because they mistake plastic for food, ecologicaly distruptively novel microbiota evolving which may capable of digesting the different kinds of plastic and additives which are alien to life - after billions of years, an alien substance everywhere. No probs, no 'credible evidence' of probs. Carry on then.

I like your point about moving upwind, but think it rather relies on conservation of momentum as that insists the wheels must result in thrust in the opposite direction to the props thrust in order to change the momentum of the earth as much as the momentum of the atmosphere is changed. They must each be reduced, in order to transduce energy. If you have stored energy you can propel mass from rest, but forces can only be applied equal and opposite.

It is extremely enigmatic and curious that the engine can work to synergistically blow air into the atmosphere in one direction and resist the inertia of the earth in the other direction with the same force, without expending any energy reserves in the engine. Ive not seen a model or comment or article which fully illuminates the situation, although it is well demonstrated. Perhaps there is not language or a familiar concept which yet suffices. A sane and experienced physicist lost 10k bet on its plausibility.

You make no direct connections with the article, open with an absolute statement "100% bullshit" which can almost never be justified, and shortly describe yourself cursing at the author.

The links you added do not amount any sort of representative sample or review of the cancer treatments concerned. Of relevance to your own small selection of improved treatments (some of them decades old) the Oncologist interviewed in the article states:

> Trials have yielded improved treatments for childhood cancers and specific cancers of the blood, bone-marrow and lymph systems, Raza notes. But these successes, which involve uncommon cancers, are exceptions among a “litany of failures.”

Your comment is an exceedingly emotional and basic attack towards the articles subject and none of its content.

I'm not suggesting they could be expected to last beyond their design. Just when this is the state of blades being built in unprecedented number today, a twelve year old review of much smaller ones made 35 years ago could easily be largely outdated.

That seems like a relatively old study now. I think blade design and manufacture has developed rapidly. Here is a short piece on the testing of much larger modern blades designed to last at least 25 years offshore [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m-jwwM3qRs

Here you complained that farmers were not paying for certification, because you had not checked the facts. Your gov is involved because it has authority to enforce accuracy of labeling. Organic standards are "safety-related", not in everyone's "theory" but to those who believe much stricter pesticide regulation than government standards is better for health and environment. We are all entitled to accurate labeling.

That acceleration graph starts at 1G and goes up to 4.5 Freefall is 0G. The G force we feel is the difference between gravitational acceleration and our motion towards the center of gravity, so most of our lives we experience 1G. The complication is that gravitational acceleration doesn't feel like acceleration so remaining stationary in gravity does.

I don't believe its a big problem to either professional or amateur astronomy, but rather a publicity controversy acting on fears that night skies will be visibly tainted. The satellites are not visible to naked eyes, 240 have already been launched and no number of them can degrade dark skies as 'scare articles' suggest. Amateur astronomers may find they will appear rather too commonly in views and they may leave bothersome trails on non-digitally corrected exposures, but a very tiny percentage of people are in any position to be impacted by that (purely aesthetically).

Most of our skies both audibly and visibly feature large aircraft and contrail clouds - invisible satellites and the aesthetics of a few astronomers are of zero concern to most people. The frank reality is astronomers don't actually have any right to telescopically 'clear skies' - not even the masses have audibly and optically clear skies.

Its a quite small influence, about 50 milliWatts per square meter iirc. Overall we are well insulated from heat circulating inside the Earth (by miles of rock) while hundreds of watts per square meter enters the atmosphere from solar radiation.

Here is an atmospheric treatment of the subject by indie history buff channel: History Time - "How Doggerland Sank Beneath The Waves (500,000-4000 BC)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DECwfQQqRzo

The investment analysis firm Lazards publishes detailed reports on LCOE every year. These are current costs per MWh without subsidies [1]:

  Nuclear            : $118 to 192
  Solar with storage : $102 - 139  
  Gas                : $44 - 68
  Wind               : $28 - 54
  Solar PV           : $32 - 42
  

They don't include carbon pricing which will increase solars price a bit, it should also push its carbon output from manufacture down as it will be more economical to optimize it.

[1] https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019

My prophecy that solar and renewables will continue to scale is based on their performance to date which is not so much prophecy as standard extrapolation. Your proclaimed "serious environmental, regulatory, or economic challenges" are so far entirely mysterious which are just somehow or other likely to "show up". Wouldn't you be more comfortable suggesting things will continue until they level out at some point? (like they did with nuclear) than hoping something huge will "show up" for renewables so that somehow nuclear can catch up. Any time that nuclear might catch up - constant output wont be needed or purchasable at constant price. It will compete with storage and carbon neutral fuels for the high prices and with renewables for the low. Its going to need a massive economic breakthrough, which its already had decades to try and develope.

Its not some people not liking nuclear that is its problem, its few people are willing to pay for nuclear. Nuclears land, water, staffing and security costs are not low impact and not cheap which is why its not winning investments now, despite the powerful politics which likes to spend big money on near permanent assignments, and plenty of PR, nobody can justify it.

EROI of renewables is fine and continuing to improve. Nuclear's calculations always assume the plants will stay competitive and be run for 40+ years at full capacity (hello renewable competition again). Renewables assume the equipment will not be extended after 20 or cheaply upgraded, but they don't need to fiddle benchmarks they are already far quicker and cheaper to build and run. Fwiw good luck with something showing up.

The nuclear fleets peak was decades ago when environmental and safety regulation was more permissive than it was today, and the long term problems and threats were not as well known.

Even a handful of articles about planning applications being declined is not evidence of your prophecy of significant price increases for solar and wind bound to show up, or just "big challenges" as you put it as indistinctly as it is unlikely.

Renewables are competing against nuclear power for finance and resources and nuclear is competing against renewables. Nuclear is never economically dispatchable, it does not compete for demand only while renewables are low, and renewables do not want to split supply with nuclear. They are competitors. So taking about astronomicals shouldn't fool anyone otherwise, but at this time its all the idea of cheap clean safe nuclear future has to run on.

Nuclear plants need sited away from population centers and on top of significant water sources and in regions where their local heat output will not excarbate problems of heat waves. They also require permanent protection in periods of national unrest since the costs of accident and sabotage can be astronomical

Solar panels and windpower will continue to get cheaper to buy and install, batteries too. Oceanic wind, solar and syn-gas rigs are a far more desirable and attainable long term development goal than a further generation of hundreds or thousands of water boiling top security nuclear plants for the fuel and power needs of the developing world.

This term "astronomical" applies no more to the scale of renewables needing built than it would nuclear. The existence of a somewhat related pdf doesn't make the prophecy realistic, that big challenges are more likely to show up for future renewable builds than for nuclear builds. The actual situation is nuclear can hardly get built currently due to "economic, regulatory, or environmental challenges" while renewables can and already have big fleet sizes.

Even without CCS fossil can be switched to carbon neutral biomass and syn-gas for that occasional demand which is not economic to meet with oversupplied renewables, hydro and battery storage.

Nuclear promotion desperately ignores that there will be plenty of energy generated most of the time by far more economic solar, wind, hydro and storage. There will be no point to staff and run nuclear's thermal plants most of the time, its simply not a solution for occasional supply deficits.

They do. It is not wise to infer controversial information from ambiguous journalistic language. I typed "us organic certification cost" into google, and it helpfully quoted this at the top of the page [1] :

> Certification costs vary depending on the size of your production operation and on the accredited agency you choose to use. In general, organic certification costs run between $200 – $1500. Your costs will include an application fee, site inspection fee, and an annual certification fee.

I humbly suggest you might have taken a moment to check if your hunch was correct rather than leaving that to others.

Also its not possible for tests to confirm if produce is organic, but it possible to confirm it is not - if it contains traces of prohibited pesticides which are routine in non-organic produce then its not organic.[2]

[1] https://blog.quicklabel.com/2010/10/how-to-get-a-certified-o...

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/organic_food_health

Its not bullshit in the UK at least. Here is a mainstream article which cites government testing [1] Quote : "A Maximum Residue Level (MRL) for pesticides in foods is set by law and is below the safety level. In the most recent study, 3 percent of conventionally farmed food samples contained over the MRL for an individual pesticide compared with 0.4 percent of organic, while 44 percent contained residues at or below the MRL compared with 3 percent of organic."

Do you have any decent sources for your declamations ?

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/organic_food_health

A very valid comment but I think it should be seen in addition to the issue of PFAs from manufacture and mil/industrial uses which are polluting the wider environment and drinking water to a significant but unclear extent. I think it is fair to expect that PFCs most commonly employed in everyday materials are better researched for safety than those polluting the wider environment, at least it is not fair to assume equivalence just because they are PFCs. The following conversation on useful materials which I also found diverting rather focuses the issue on risk and utility to self, while persistent pollution has the potential to affect all for a very long time regardless of whether they are users, children, even human or animal.

Well, in the 90s before they had lots of grades, the instructions where to never put anything on it, just wash and tumble dry. It has a slightly coarse texture like it has microhairs. It can bead water but can also get wet, but when it is wet the water flows off it quickly, not into it. Ive never expected wet gear to be incapable of getting wet, just to resist it, drain quickly and not let water in. But i've never used repellent sprays.

Unless you really saturate cotton in wax/oil so it has no breath-ability, it only holds up against showers. It becomes sodden and little use in persistent rain. PU coated polyester rainwear can perform on a different level in persistent rain. I've not found natural materials which perform as well, although some expensive tweeds are reportedly exceptionally good.

Gore-tex (at least the heavy 'classic' kind) doesn't have any refreshable coating. Its an inner layer of moisture wicking mesh, stuck to a thin rubbery ptfe membrane of some sort and an outer very abrasion resistant layer which is hydrophobic when clean. It can be boil washed and special treatments are advised against. It is very waterproof while surprisingly breathable.

Here is more detailed report on this problem in Europe [1] They seem to indicate levels many times higher are present in Europe than the EPAs suggested limited of 70 PPT. Although that limit also seems to be commonly exceeded in US. It is concerning that technical discussion over regulation is occurring while the picture of actual contamination levels is very incomplete [2]

[1] https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/human/chemicals/emerging-ch...

[2] https://greensciencepolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/An...

I'm not convinced by the long term benefit of nitrogen fertiliser synthesis. A significant boom in food production is attributable to it but also long term degradation of agricultural soils, pollution from fertiliser run off and repression of more sustainable agriculture and food distribution options. Perhaps if it had been used to buy time for more ecological and equitable policies it would be more impressive, but it seems only to have advanced the alternative.

However the reception of brand names is surely often self fulfilling like that, they don't succeed through robotic reason but through fuzzy associations. The murderers connection to the product is very direct so it seems it wont be forgotten soon. An unconnected product might use the name without being tainted.

There is no good reason to expect the ¨last 5%¨ of demand will be more economically met by the next generation of nuclear plants - than by the generation of renewable tech which will be developed by the time it is already supplying the other 95% ;)

> Ground based mirrors are very large, in the 10s of meters, and those mirrors are extremely heavy, like tons.

Seemingly fantastically - SpaceX is currently constructing a system designed to launch 100 tons to LEO, for as low as $35/kg [1]. Musk says this capability is what the Starlink business is to pay for. It appears lately, more realistic than it has sounded.

[1] https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/10/29/the-spacex-sta... ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21397285 )

I didnt vote that down since I can explain - base load is a theoretical fraction of electricity demand, not a separate physical entity. Renewable supply competes for whatever anyone wishes to categorize as "base load" the same as it competes for "peak loads" and "moderate loads" - renewables sell when they make power for any load.

You have no "base load" once such competitors are involved because half the time they are bidding for all of the load. Separating off a base load deal is then an artificial arrangement. Your supplier who can only economically supply a certain level is no help when your renewables fall short, and they are an expense when your renewables surge and offer cheaper power. Once renewables are in the mix you want economical dispatch-able supply. That means batteries for frequent sub-daily power deficits, and existing fossil moving to carbon neutral fuels for less frequent deficits.

There is no effective nuclear construction industry today that can stop renewables getting big in the mix, and the bigger renewables get into it, the less attractive "base load" power purchasing contracts become for buyers. There is talk about making nuclear competitively dispatchable with molten salt reserviors - that's just a nuclear plant and molten salt battery. The battery is the economical part. Nuclear will continue to be an expensive side project for many governments which can afford it, sometimes completing a project, sometimes giving up as they do after multiple cost increases and delays, but it is practically finished in competitive industry by the arrival of advanced solar and wind.

I'm certain that in general you are a very coherent thinker, but in this discussion I cant make coherent sense of your criticisms :

> it wouldn't be too hard to just ban fossil fuels tomorrow

That sounded a "super green" idea to me - with no idea myself how you thought that could be done. Nuclear ?! How can I tell to what degree your writing is to be understood as exaggeration - affordable nuclear supply by tomorrow? by next year? by next decade? When you have a rational case, you should be able to promote it with accurate rational language. Sorry but I cant tell what you are really intending or concerned about, because your case has not been coherent. Perhaps examine whether you have a prejudice towards the idea of "green" policy (sounds like an insult?) and prejudice allows one to be hyper critical while inattentive to the coherence of ones own convictions.

The green movement has harbored some prejudice towards nuclear power, but nuclear power is not more expensive now than renewable options because of green prejudice. Its just an excessively complex, resource and high level human attention demanding industrial process to safely generate large amounts of heat from radioactive materials, besides the normal expense of cooling and extracting power from concentrated heat. Sure nuclear might have not been the monster which many greens have pictured it as, also consider whether it is the affordable suppressed magic which nuclear has promoted itself as in the preceding decades while spending many billions on undercosted projects which where delayed to the point of never producing any power. That doesnt happen with wind and solar so even if they foist "misregulation" and fear on nuclear - at least they have shown that they deliver !

> the green party spoke person repeats the argument of being net exporter of green energy in response.

I think its a valid argument or caveat to the undesirable coal burning. That's a spoken debate, open to interpretation and misunderstanding, not evidence of carbon trading actually being gamed.

> where we plant tree and don't cut them down has a name: nature sanctuary. Sure, or let the trees seed themselves but I said cut the tree and leave the roots (they have considerable mass and hard to harvest) Then you got a partial natural habitat, carbon sink and fuel source, you've got a mix - that's an option. Plant more trees than you need - never sure how many you'll need anyhow, call it headroom. The object is to reduce net carbon emissions as fast as possible and improve habitats as much as possible, the objectives conflict a bit and can compliment a bit, ecology is complex like that.

> Counting tree planting initiatives as carbon sinks when there is no planning for what happens afterward is simply wishful thinking (quote from the study).

So get planning - because it can work, and it could be done to some extent if you want to decarbonise -according to the IPCC at least. Whatever renewable power your country is generating, if its traded and used then it is cutting carbon, either within your country or another destination - thats not imaginative accounting, its situational awareness.

You are talking like this is all a sham, like your greens are saying they don't need to do anything more about carbon reduction because they're exporting some renewable generation - I dont believe that and expect they're actually just arguing their progress so they can make more progress. Then you say it wouldn't be too hard to just ban fossil fuels tomorrow, so are you annoyed with greens holding things up then ? That sounds like a "super green" policy, do many people believe in it? Because it wont be able to happen till then. Maybe you've got low quality green politicians carrying the banner, that can sure happen.

In the first quote yes, but who is really doing that talking and double counting? I suspect some strawpersons.

In the second quote the op is clearly complaining that schemes growing trees and burning them for fuel cant be carbon neutral, which is plainly false.