Dear Edgar,
I checked the reference again and it works fine for me. However, if
you are having trouble try this sequence:
1 Go to the TED home page at http://www.ted.com
2 Look for a reference to Bill Gates on the main page.
3 If it's not there use the search box to find "Bill Gates on energy:
Innovating to zero".
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain
from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they
now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for
their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many
different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial
and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA.
Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,
and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com
for more metrication information, contact Pat at [email protected]
or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter
to subscribe.
On 2010/02/21, at 07:42 , Edgar Warf wrote:
Pat,
I couldn't view the video despite changing browser settings. Maybe
I fat-fingered something. I'll keep trying.
I was able to read some of the comments that followed. In doing so,
I came across a reference to a "Travelling-Wave Reactor" (TWR) that
breeds its fuel at the same time (or almost at the same time) that
it consumes it.
Was this the presentation that Bill Gates gave in the video? If so,
then this completely eliminates all arguments surrounding spent-fuel.
Regards,
Edgar
On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 9:36 PM, Pat Naughtin <[email protected]
> wrote:
Dear Stan,
I think that this talk by Bill Gates will interest you.
http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates.html
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain
from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that
they now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or
selling for their businesses. Pat provides services and resources
for many different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial,
industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and
in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google,
NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the
USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com for more metrication
information, contact Pat at [email protected] or
to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter
to subscribe.
On 2010/02/19, at 11:08 , Stanislav Jakuba wrote:
This is about the growth of the annual bills for electricity.
Electricity rate has about doubled for me in the last few years. I
though we were supposed to experience lower rates enabled by
harvesting renewable ("free") energies.
As we all know, the U.S. has been investing in the sources of
"free" electricity, mainly from the wind and direct solar
technologies, the latter meaning the photovoltaic and thermal
"power" plants. We also know that the investments have been heavily
subsidized by the state and federal governments, i.e. taxpayers who
also paid for the gov't offices and overseers. And financed also by
the clean-energy-promoting groups that collect money from various
additional sources such as the extra payments utilities were
legislated to add to our monthly bills.
You may have noticed that your utility bill GREW with the
availability of the FREE energy, not declined. Maybe it grew as
much as mine which about doubled in just 8 years. See the attached
Excel graph. The rate on the graph is simply the billed amount
divided by the consumption, and it is shown in both $/kW·h and $/
GJ. As such, the rate includes the delivery and "other" charges,
among the latter ones being the aforementioned additional fee
titled on my bill as the Combined Public Benefits Charge.
In light of this, would you like to support buying more electricity
from these FREE-energy sources? I would not. My billed rate almost
doubled as said when the proportion of electricity delivered by the
two sources grew from 0.30 % to 0.85 % of the total U.S.
electricity generation. The growth of the 0.55 % in some 7 years
cost us dearly - see the graph. Imagine what the monthly bill will
be when that portion reaches over 10 %! (Fortunately, it is
unlikely to do so; seehttp://energy.sigmaxi.org/?p=743 .)
Some think that it is okay to impoverish poor people further by
producing expensive electricity just BECAUSE it is CLEAN (low on
CO2). Beware that none of the wind and direct-solar plants will
ever save more CO2 than their manufacture, erection, maintenance
and dismantling generated, not to mention the cost of manufacture
and installation of the wiring to the remote locations. And add to
it the cost of the extra controls utilities must install.
Is there a "clean" alternative? The average nuclear plant returns
its carbon debt in 6 years and last many times longer than the
renewable competition. Their output grew also in last years. The
growth was achieved by routine improvements in the existing 3- and
4-decades old plants at essentially zero rate change. Those
improvements, negligible in cost, resulted in the increase of
electricity production TWICE as great as the increase from
installing all the additional wind and solar plants.
For reference, here are the average annual outputs for 2007 (as
finalized in 2009):
Electricity - all sources 437 GW
Electricity - wind and solar only 3.7 GW
Percentage of total electricity 0.85 %
Percentage of total U.S. energy 0.11 %
Electricity - nuclear plants only 92 GW
Percentage of total electricity 21 %
Annual growth in electricity consumption ~50 GW (compare with
the 3.7 GW above).
To adhere to the spirit of my membership in the U.S.Metric
Association, the annual output is in watts.
Stan Jakuba
PS: A pleasing coincidence: I just heard on the radio that Pres.
Obama is reverting his stance on nuclear energy and will "allow"
building new nuclear plants in the U.S.
<zzz.xls>
