There's buttloads more states of matter than that dingus
Mustard
joined 1 year ago
Huh, it kind of sounds like there's this kind of... divide between certain groups of people where some can make it and some really struggle. Any ideas on what we should call these two CLASSes of people? Maybe we could figure out some kind of CLASS SYSTEM.
A miserable little pile of secrets!
There was no fence here but you built one anyway just so you could ride it.
Sure but this was meant to be a simplistic explanation, so I simplified.
All the nitpicking aside, this is the 'somebody's gotta scrub the toilets' argument right?
The simplest answer to this I can think of is, who scrubs the toilets in your home? It's you right?
Do you do it because you own the toilet? Not necessarily because people who live in rented accommodation still scrub the toilet. So why? It's because you have an interest in not living in a place with a filthy toilet. Now suppose you actually had a local community, you'd have an interest in making sure nobody was living with a filthy toilet they couldn't clean because then they might get sick and you don't want that because you're a nice person and you don't like seeing your friends hurt. So you'd probably set up a communal rota, which is basically what people here in the UK already do because elder care on the NHS doesn't exist in practice.
What do you mean by a distributed power grid? Do you mean power generation happening locally? This is already a thing and is growing in the form of Combined Heat and Power. This doesn't get rid of the need for base load, the overall grid will still need balancing and will still have a base load unless you plan to disconnect local grids from each other in which case welcome to Texas...
Money is not the point here (even though nuclear really doesn't cost much per kWh). I'm talking about the need to build a system that will produce more power over it's lifetime than it costs to make. This is still something that is surprisingly close in many cases so any extra bit of inefficiency risks making the overall system pointless.
The argument is one of efficiency and load distribution. Base load power plants are capable of greater efficiency than variable ones. This is down to optimisations made around specific output levels and the infrastructure required to support said loads. For example if you know the characteristics of your power output and that of the grid you can build a transformer or switch mode power supply to bridge that specific gap. This outperforms variable input transformers in every case.
There is an argument that low efficiency doesn't matter if the source is renewable, but this fails to take into consideration the embodied energy cost of producing renewable generators, not to mention the increased cost. An inefficient system may not produce enough energy over the course of its lifetime compared to the energy it cost to make.
Finally, most sources of renewables are intermittent and are not necessarily related to the population's power consumption. This makes the storing of energy necessary in order to regulate supply. Storage of energy is a large source of inefficiency and one of the key areas that is being focused on. Base load plant is absolutely necessary to minimise this inefficiency as much as possible.
For a good overview I recommend this site from Penn State Uni: https://www.e-education.psu.edu/eme807/node/667
It can be argued but only poorly.
It's Terf or Tothing
Incident occurred in West Virginia
""" WV Code §11-9-9 : Aiding, abetting, assisting or counseling in criminal violation.
Any person who shall knowingly aid or abet or assist or counsel another person in the commission of any act prohibited by this article, whether or not such act is with the knowledge or consent of the person required by law to do the act, is guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not less than $100 nor more than $1,000, or imprisoned in the county jail not more than six months, or both fined and imprisoned.
""" The court will determine whether or not the marketing is sufficient proof that the plaintiff knowingly aided another in the commission of this crime.