Waiting for the Great Pumpkin

Nuclear Power costs for different countries from an IEA and OECD study.  Check out the comments for some interesting info.

Costs for nuclear power generation in USA is substantially higher than in S. Korea and China. This is because of excessive red tape supposedly for reasons of safety.

High tech is supposed to be developed to deal with the so called problem of Climate Change, but technology already exists.  It is called nuclear energy and it has been around for decades.  But it is being blocked because fear has been stirred up so much that it is much more difficult and expensive to use the technology than what it should be.  We are being scammed into waiting for the new technology that will save us.  Kind of like Linus talking Sally into staying all night in the pumpkin patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear.   My point is that the technology may never appear and even if it did, it may get blocked.

More info on The Capacity Factor Blog.  Check out this post too.

The Ergosphere: Why the Integral Fast Reactor had to die

There's no energy shortage. The only shortages are the ones that are contrived.  Learn it.  Love it.  Live it.

I hate Geico commercials

Must be a slow day, eh?  Nothing much to mention except Geico commercials.  Well, I do indeed hate them.  I hate em so much I can't stand to listen to them.  So I turn down the TV whenever they come on.  But I don't even watch much TV anymore.  I just watch football on Sundays.  For some reason, Geico loves to run their ads on the only thing that I like to watch on TV anymore.  They must  be out to get me.

The ad that almost pushes me over the edge is that one with the little pig going wee all the way home.  I wonder what kind of intellect produces stuff like that?  I figure any third rate moron could produce material like that, right?  They pay people to do this?

Then I got to thinking that the stupid schtick is really successful in that it got my attention.  All they want to accomplish with their ads is to get people to remember them.  In my own case, they succeeded even beyond their wildest dreams.  Not only do I remember them, here I am WRITING about them.  If they knew this, they would be ecstatic.  If they drove the whole world insane, they would be delirious.

I can do the moron one better.  If it takes a moron to produce that ad, it takes an even greater moron to write about it.  If being a moron gets you remembered, then go for it I say.  Evidently, it worked for Geico.  Maybe I can make this work for me too.

All in: Rangers finally reach first World Series - MLB - Yahoo! Sports

All in: Rangers finally reach first World Series - MLB - Yahoo! Sports

On wealth creation and guilt tripping

Via Instapundit, we get the usual talk about wealth creation.  I agree with it, but somehow I think the entire thing is missing the point.  Of course liberals understand wealth creation.  It's almost the same mindset that liberals display towards conservatives.  Its an arrogance phenomenon.  Liberals are smarter than that.  They really don't need this rather obvious piece of common sense.  By constantly pounding on the obvious, I think the point is being lost.

I see liberalism as a type of emotional manipulation.  It is designed to get something out of people that can't be gotten otherwise.  Those who practice it are well versed in how to get stuff out of people.  

Giving lectures on wealth creation doesn't work on these people because they already know all that.  What is needed instead is how to say no to a guilt tripper.

NPR Fires Analyst Juan Williams for Saying Muslims Make Him Nervous

NPR Fires Analyst Juan Williams for Saying Muslims Make Him Nervous

Using nanotechnology to recycle a greenhouse gas for high-energy fuel

At the risk of contradicting myself, I will include a link to an interesting idea that I got from a Google search.  It is over a year old though.  The shelf life of this stuff may be rather short.

This reminded me of a lot of web searching that I did on the topic several years ago.  I scrounged up a few copies of pdf files for ideas that supported fuel cells for automobiles.  The topic interested me because I knew that prices for fuel were going to go up and they sure did.  At 150 bucks a barrel, the price of oil was ruinous.  As far as the environmental part of this is concerned, it doesn't interest me much.  But the economic and national security aspect of this problem certainly does.

Here's what I wrote about it in 2004:

My web searching back in 2004 yielded some ideas that could lead to a fuel delivery system for hydrogen fuel cells.  It would involved recycling carbon dioxide by producing hydrogen from electrolyzing methanol.  This would solve logistical problems with moving and storing hydrogen.  However, it would require advances in fuel cell technology and/or a cheap and plentiful source of rare or expensive catalysts.  Obtaining the expensive catalysts could come from mining asteroids.

A side product of this was a bit of research that I did on Al Gore.  Of course, Al Gore is big time on these issues.  One thing I thought about is why he didn't become president.  No, not because Bush "stole" the election, but what was it about the man that frustrated his ambitions?  I think that my posts on arrogance can explain it as well as anything.  I think you could write a book on the subject.  Really.