[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Recently a scientist has calculated on basis of EU statistics that the energy-saving light bulbs have zero effect regarding reducing energy consumption and lowering according emissions. In general, over all households, there also is no monetarian saving effect. That is because a psychological factor interfering. People burn more such light bulbs now, and care less for switching lights off, because they think that now it is cheaper and that they must not care. This attitude has eaten up completely the savings in energy consumption from energy-saving light bulbs.

Energy demand in general is rising. Industries and households eat more and more. Just think of computers, and server farms. And of course everybody says: Energy Saving? Nice! But not in my backyard. This constant increase will and does eat up all plans for a green energy revolution. Green projections always imply there will be at least a freeze in energy demand, most times they assume that energy will be saved. At the same time, electric cars do not get off the ground. Just some thousand drive on German roads, not tens of thousands, but single thousands. They are too expensive, and have no legs, and the supply network is too thin. The government now has internally said good-by to push the number of new cars per year being electric to 1 million in 2020 - that is totally unrealistic.

What does this lead to? You need conventional energy production. Germany has left nuclear power production - for the time being, I say, I am not certain that this will stand forever. As a result several dozen new coal powerplants are in planning. Industry complains that over this year the total number of micro-blackouts - lasting less than 3-5 seconds - has multiplied by several factors, which is a warning signal that powergrid and energy production are becoming instabile due to too high demand. Germany imports energy reserve from France, where these get produced by - nuclear powerplants. Well, there you are, Germany. More coal and oil powerplants, more emissions, climate goals not to be met anymore, non-stabile powergrid, loss of engineering competence in the long run.

On the other side: the risk from nuclear power, and the problem of toxic waste. The Germans here know what i mean when I just mention the Asse. They wanted to store nuclear waste their, but water is flooding it slowly, and the barrels with the waste corrode, experts say that they cannot be retrieved anymore, they are too unstable. I say Three Mile Island. Sellafield. Chernobyl. Forsmark. Fukushima. Saint Laurent. Cattenom. Dampierre. And so many incidents more. As a matter of fact there are several dozen incidents recorded where nuclear cores partially have molten, contaminated material was released into the environment, and people got exposed to it. There is no "residual risk". There is only risk as routine.

Solution? Less people + reducing energy demand. That is the principle formula. A formula being managable in reality - I do not have.

Frankly, I think we sit in a runaway train, and a big, thick, high and wide wall is waiting ahead. Who of us is thinking about reducing energy consummation as much as possible when he is buying a new gaming PC...?

Well according to analyses of the human DNA genome they where able to determine that twice in our history the population suddenly went from a steady amount to a very small number perhaps as few as 10,000 so we have had natural events that reduced the population by a substantial margin before.

People dont really worry about such things though and even two worlds a pandemic that killed 1% of the world population and all the other conflicts did not make a dent in our population growth.Only nature herself can have a real effect sooner or later one of the super volcanoes around the globe will erupt and do the work of nature.I suppose a nuclear war could have a similar effect.Other forms of population control would just fail I think.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...etic-diversity

@ soopaman some of the locations are way off in that video after October 10, 1963 at least they where underground blasts except for the Chinese tests they never signed the above ground ban treaty. you should look up missile tests which do not have a live warhead the last test for the minuteman was in 2012 long time ago.They plan to test one in November missile only of course.The last one was in February.They test launch them to make sure they still function but it also gives those watching an idea that we maintain as well.

Warhead maintenance was one of the jobs I qualified for but I like a roll of the dice so I went open field instead of picking a specific job and the number cruncher picked a different job for me you don't learn learn your fate until a the later weeks of basic.But I did have the marks for it and the basic level background check for it as well a Missiles guy(he had the ICBM pin) at MEPS actually pulled me aside and asked me all these questions about it and had fill out the FBI forms.I'm sure it was a basic physiological evaluation judging from the questions he was asking trying to save the shirks the time by weeding out a certain no go.Funny thing was he never specifically asked a question about nuclear warfare or how I felt about it my guess is if you talked about it with fascination they say that you where a no go.The guy really tried to convince me to sign a contract though thing is the contract says in the fine print the needs of the (insert branch here) have priority in other words they put you where they need you most no matter what.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video....45187815567966