HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Electricity Efficiency
Date: 28 Jul 92 20:35:50 GMT
	<STEINLY.92Jul27163017@topaz.ucsc.edu>
	<1992Jul28.145134.1429@vexcel.com>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: dean@vexcel.com's message of 28 Jul 92 14:51:34 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.145134.1429@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (dean alaska) writes:

   The facts I have quoted indicate otherwise.  Ongoing DSM projects 
   already have the capacity to "retrieve" energy on this scale: "This
   DSM will provide a reduction of 45 GW ... in 2000, and a potential
   capital savings of up to $45 billion." from the EPRI report.  This quote

Does this refer to actual saving, or saving relative to projected
demand? Big difference.

*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			Lick Observatory      	*
* steinly@helios.ucsc.edu		"standard disclaimer"  	*
*  Some people think they're really clever			*
*  Smash your head against the wall            Specials, 1979	* 
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: ZERO Nuclear impact (was: Is car pooling for real? etc)
Date: 27 Jul 92 21:22:49 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <1992Jul27.065946.20057@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>For once you are absolutely right Victor. Government interference in
>the power market *has* been a disaster. TVA should be sold. The NRC
>scaled back. Military and civilian nuclear programs should be
>totally separated. And all lawyers should be shot. Unfortunately, it's
>not a perfect world, and we have to deal with what we've got.

I'm thrilled to have  finally reached such a height of respectability.
Perhaps, however, it is only because my point was not sufficiently clear.
Basically, the argument that nuclear energy was/is a technical success
stymied only by political opposition, is flawed at its core. The
development of nuclear energy has always been a highly politicized
process, from the days that nuclear power was a byproduct of naval submarine
development, to the day that John Sunnunu used his power in the White House
to over-ride objections of the town governments close to Seabrook.
The basic designs of US PWR/BWR reactors has been deeply influenced
by lobbying from the largest and most powerful military contractors
(GE, Westinghouse,B&W). The Atomic Energy Act itself, is a monument
to Cold War politics, with its creation of a centralized bureaucratic
authority given quasi-judicial powers and a secrecy complex. Similarly,
the economics of nuclear power is not the result of some higher "market
forces", but the result of politics and the actions of accountants and
lawyers. The notion of paying a utility profits based on its investment
equity is pretty strange in itself, but the high point of nuclear reactor
construction in the US came to an end when utilities began to be prohibited
from counting partially completed plants as "equity". The bureaucrats,
lawyers and accountants of Generic Public Utility were attracted to 
nuclear when it meant a nice big hole into which money could be thrown
while the ratepayers picked up the tab. Consider, for example,
Georgia Power company. They borrowed money from the banks which owned
big chunks of their stock (and sat on their board of directors),
invested in a gigantic nuclear construction project, paid their
holding company a fat "management fee" to manage the construction project
and began to collect profits right aways.
But, changing rate rules, so
that the ratepayers would only pay for plants actually generating power
made a big difference. So when we talk about the economics of various
power generation strategies, we should remember that all the choices
are political choices, and that there is no law of physics which determines
whether or not CWIP charges should be allowed, how solar power companies
should be taxed, or whether burning high-sulfer coal should be cheaper
than installing scrubbers.




-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Electricity Efficiency
Date: 24 Jul 92 20:35:11 GMT
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Distribution: usa
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera

In article <1992Jul24.145601.1101@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (dean alaska) writes:
>In article <1992Jul24.060439.5135@cco.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>>In article <1992Jul23.220122.13101@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (dean alaska) writes:
>
>>>Obviously we are not talking about wishful thinking, but methods that
>>>are tried and proven successsful in one of the largest urban areas in
>>>the U.S.
>>
>>No, we're talking about confusing total demand with peak demand.  See John
>>McCarthy's sig, and add to it "And those who don't pay attention to what the
>>numbers they're using for their arithmetic mean are no better off."
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>A significant issue here has been the need to build new power plants.  Peak
>demand is the crucial factor for this.  The premise in my thread with C.R. Bass
>was that neither coal nor nuclear power plant construction is needed in the
>near future due to efficiency and renewables.  Peak demand is central to
>this debate.

Peak demand has nothing to do with whether we need to build new coal or nuclear
plants.  Coal and nuclear plants are used for baseload.  They take on the order
of days for a cold start.  They take on the order of hours to shift from idling
to full output.  They have high capital costs which means that to be economic
they have to run 24 hours a day.  They just don't make sense as peak-load
plants.  For peak load, the plant of choice is combined cycle:  combustion
turbine with the waste heat used to power a steam turbine.  In fact, when
utilities reduce peak demand by shifting some of the use to off-peak hours 
indicate a need for MORE baseload capacity, not less as you've claimed.

>Please show where I have been confusing peak with base.
>Efficiency deals with both peak and base, but the peak demand component
>is of most interest to utilities.

But has nothing directly to do with coal and nuclear plants.  Peak demand is
served by plants using natural gas- or oil-fired combustion turbines.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
Xref: sparky sci.environment:9933 sci.physics:11560 sci.energy:3629
From: smith@ctron.com (Larry Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Computer controlled cars (was re: high-tech highways)
Date: 24 Jul 92 16:08:54 GMT
Article-I.D.: balrog.4585
Reply-To: smith@ctron.com
Followup-To: sci.environment
Organization: Cabletron Systems, Inc.

In article <1992Jul24.042401.23718@pta.pyramid.com.au>, bgg@pta.pyramid.com.au (Ben Golding) writes:
>But the commercial airlines are just mass transit, and a very
>successful successful transit system it is too.  The posters that
>continually assert that the American public doesn't like mass transit
>seems to forget this.

When I can hop a 757 to get to work every day, THEN you can call the airlines
mass transit.  Until then, they are not, they are merely a transit system that
carries a massive number of passengers, but it cannot do so within normal
commuting distances in a cost effective manner and it is quite out of the
questions when talking about such systems.  As a system for transporting
"business" men for "business" reasons, it works very well, but that's as far
as it goes.

Far more arguably than the anti-car fanatics would care to admit, one could
claim the airlines are a total luxury.  Aside from the weird cultural imper-
ative to deal "face-to-face" there is nothing that happens in business dealings
that cannot be handled by modern communication methods.  It wouldn't even
require major management changes as telecommuting would.

Larry Smith (smith@ctron.com) No, I don't speak for Cabletron.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Daily I'd go over to Congress - that grand old benevolent national asylum - and
report on the inmates there.  Never seen a body of men with tongues more handy,
or information more uncertain.  If one of those men had been present when the
Deity was on the point of saying "Let there be light" we never would've had it.
Xref: sparky sci.environment:9674 sci.physics:11253 sci.energy:3468
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?)
Date: 21 Jul 92 12:46:20 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <23911@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>
>I certainly could make more sense of some of the postings in this
>group if I interpreted "social engineering" to mean "forced against my
>will to my considerable disadvantage." Is that what "social
>engineering" means in US-speak? If so, what is the proper US-speak
>term for planning how to co-ordinate resources and needs by means of
>appropriate pricing?

The term we laughingly use is "the free market". In general, blatantly
"planned" social systems are viewed with alarm(tm) by most Americans.
We prefer the planning to be done indirectly  as the collective result 
of individual decisions. What? You say that isn't planning. That's right,
chaos is the natural order of things. Of course many people are making
decisions behind the scenes that indirectly influence social systems,
but they are making those decisions for their own personal reasons and
gain instead of trying to impose *their* view of optimum on the majority.
In "Field of Dreams" speak, "Build it and they will come..". If they don't,
you just lost a bundle of *your* money.

Gary
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics
From: foy@aero.org (Richard Foy)
Subject: Re: Cost of public vs. private transportation
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 20:26:03 GMT

In article <JMC.92Jul29030830@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
#
#Evidently the trouble with freeways is that they lead to excessive
#expectations.  To lose 10-15 minutes from travelling at the speed
#limit for any substantial distance suggests the freeways are working
#ok, certainly better than any large fraction of commuters are likely
#to do with the new light rail lines.  Lawyers technology.
#
#--
#John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
#*
#He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
#

I think maybe you are drawing too many conclusions from your small sample
of driving on LA freeways.

One can, and often I do, loose 10-15 minutes on a trip that would take
1/2 hour with out congestion. Thus the percentage lose can be large.

In addition if one is planning on being at a meeting on time one has to allow
for the potential of congestion and depending on the importance of being on 
time may even have to plan on the possibility of there being a major accident
caused tie up.

Your comment about high expectations is not very accurate either. Some
of my friends commute from the North San Fernando Valley to El Segundo.

There normal driveing time is more than was the normal driving time 5 or
10 years before the freeway was started.

Richard Foy           Standard Disclaimer
                                 
Xref: sparky sci.environment:9930 sci.psychology:3226
From: murphyg@Software.Mitel.COM (Gary Murphy)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Whale rights - Science and sentimen
Date: 24 Jul 92 12:31:38 GMT
	<1992Jun29.180530.11377@techbook.com>
	<1992Jul2.103818.41228@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
	<1992Jul23.092233.8083@alf.uib.no> <BruM2H.4LD@apollo.hp.com>
Organization: Applications Software II, MITEL Corporation, Kanata, Ontario,
	Canada
In-reply-to: heff@ki.ch.apollo.hp.com's message of 23 Jul 92 15:37:27 GMT

In article <BruM2H.4LD@apollo.hp.com> heff@ki.ch.apollo.hp.com (God of Thunder) writes:

   But I have no difficulty saying that the complexity of their language
   and societies are at LEAST as complex as apes or gorillas.

In 1979, National Lampoon put out a book called "The History of the
1980's" and among other things (1984 becomes a hit musical, Mohammed Ali
becomes chief the army, AT&T buys the air force) they have a section on
a breakthrough in communcations with dolphins.  In TV Guide, the listing
gives unpronounceable names of the two dolphins appearing as guests on
the Tonight Show --- unfortunately, all dolphins ever wanted to talk
about was fish.

--
Gary Lawrence Murphy - Gary.Murphy@software.mitel.COM - (613) 592-2122 x3709
                    The reality of me is just me.
From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Electricity Efficiency
Date: 27 Jul 92 23:30:17 GMT
	<STEINLY.92Jul26142710@topaz.ucsc.edu>
	<1992Jul27.151824.7138@vexcel.com>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: dean@vexcel.com's message of Mon, 27 Jul 1992 15:18:24 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.151824.7138@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (dean alaska) writes:

   In article <STEINLY.92Jul26142710@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:

   >In article <1992Jul26.072736.12153@ccu.umanitoba.ca> ens@ccu.umanitoba.ca writes:

   >   But, even though far more coal plants are being built than nuclear
   >   plants, the objection is predominantly against nuclear.
 
   >   As long as coal plants are being built, there is a strong case
   >   for nuclear. When 'efficiency and renewables' start closing
   >   down coal plants, the case for nuclear will dwindle.
 
   >There is a strong argument that in fact large old coal plants
   >should be phased out and replaced with new (nuclear) plants.
   >Between concern over greenhouse affects and sulphate emissions,
   >even new coal plants could argued to be undesireable, I'd say
   >any coal plant over 20 years old is a good candidate for shutdown.
 
   Dozens of old coal plants will be shut down due to age in the next
   decade or two.  Their capacity must be dealt with before shutting
   down other plants.  Renewable energy plants can be constructed in
   extremely short times; retrieved capacity from efficiency is
   available is a short time span, also.  Nuclear plants take ten years
   to build.  The new "inherently safe" nuclear plants are still under
   study.  As a practical matter, efficiency and renewables are the most
   pragmatic approach.
 
I do not believe order GW renewable energy plants can be constructed
on less than a decade time scale. Wind and solar still have
engineering development to do, hydro is saturated in most regions
and geothermal and wave power is still mostly at the research stage.

Nuclear plants BTW do not take a decade to build, that's how long it
takes to file the paperwork and legal appeals :-( 

I also think you underestimate the time scale for efficiency
implementation, a lot of energy intensive household and light energy
loads are "capital" items and are turned over on decade time scales
(how often do you buy a new fridge?) - heavy industry turnover
is longer, unless we conveniently blow up existing capacity ;-)
and transport efficiency is slowly improving but requires (IMHO) a
technology breakthrough to make much difference.

*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			Lick Observatory      	*
* steinly@helios.ucsc.edu		"standard disclaimer"  	*
*  Just because there's a reason          			*
*  Doesn't mean it's understood              Specials, 1979	* 
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics
From: riley@theory.TC.Cornell.EDU (Daniel S. Riley)
Subject: Re: Cost of public vs. private transportation
Organization: Cornell Theory Center
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 12:35:27 GMT

In article <1992Jul23.095805.11661@dxcern.cern.ch>,
jake@dxal13.cern.ch (Robert Jacobsen) writes:
>The fair comparison, no fancy accounting involved, is money spent on
>highways (seen as $71.2 billion in 1979 above) versus the total user
>fees EXTRACTED (not just that spent).  I have no access to 1979 data,
>unfortunately, but the 1980 number for Federal Gas Tax was $48.3
>billion, to which must be added State gas taxes, tolls, and
>registration fees. Maybe also speeding and parking tickets? I don't
>have any of those numbers, but fell quite confident that it will
>exceed the expenditures

No, that's not a fair comparison.

If you're going to include state taxes, tolls, registration fees and
tickets, you have to count as expenditures *all* federal, state and
local expenditures for any road construction or maintenance, not just
the federal expenditures on highways cited above.

Still confident?  And that doesn't include the indirect costs, like
increased injury rates or air pollution...

-- 
-Dan Riley                          Internet: dsr@lns598.tn.cornell.edu
-Wilson Lab, Cornell University     HEPNET/SPAN: lns598::dsr (44630::dsr)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Subject: Re: Cost of public vs. private transportation
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 08:06:10 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.032157.1519@s1.gov>, lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>	True, BART is subsidized. It receives a 0.5 cent/$ sales tax
>subsidy in the BART counties, which for me would run at a little less
>than $1 a week.

Now, multiply that $1/week by the number of people in those counties minus the
number of people who ride BART, and add that to the cost of your ticket, and
you'll have a better idea of how much your ticket really costs.

>	But what is the alternative to the LA subway?
>
>	A new freeway?

No.  Convert the freeways to turnpikes.  Make the tolls time-of-day dependent.
Watch the businesses switch to staggered work schedules as their employees put
pressure on them to do so.  Watch the amount of car pooling increase.  You
might even see an increase in ridership for the RTD.

>	How much would that cost?

It would actually be a revenue source.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?)
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 02:08:00 GMT

In article <1992Jul25.190947.5700@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
>     As far as the S&L bailout is concerned, it is the result of pure
>     socialist hypocracy.  It is the idea that somewhere in this world
>     there is a completely 'safe' investment to be had without paying
>     a price for the safety.  If one wants a 'safe' investment, one
>     should have to pay a premium for the safety.  In other words, 
>     no bank should be able to pay higher rates on accounts than the
>     appropriate US government instrument (i.e. the Fed discount rate
>     for non-fixed accounts) does without the account-holder suffering some
>     risk.  At one point my brother got a 25% bond for a 24 month period
>     completely insured by the US government.  This is economic 
>     insanity.

>     I'd like to see insurance reduced or eliminated entirely.  However,
>     I think that you'd hear an outcry to protect the 'little people'
>     from the efficiency of the free market.

>     Another thing, the free-market people certainly did not come up with 
>     insuring accounts in federally-insured institutions with the 'full
>     faith of the US treasury'.

True, but it was, unfortunately, in the name of the free market that an idiot
decided to relax the regulatory constraints without tying insurability to the
business practices of the S&Ls.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
From: jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond)
Subject: Re: ZERO Nuclear impact (was: Is car pooling for real? etc)
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 07:37:25 GMT
Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access.  The Mouth of the South.

yergeau@cornu.phy.ulaval.ca (Francois Yergeau) writes:

>>> [ <Return>-less paragraph deleted ]
>>I see the mutation DID remove the ability to use the <Return> key.  

>Cheap shot!  Who said "...and the Children play" lately?

Bait cast, hook set.  Time to reel.

John
-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC               |Interested in high performance mobility?  
Performance Engineering Magazine (TM) |
Marietta, Ga                         |Interested in high tech and computers? 
jgd@dixie.com                        |Write me about PE Magazine
Need Usenet public Access in Atlanta?  Write Me for info on Dixie.com.
From: dchung@efi.com (Daniel Chung)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: [transport] using fourteen-seater busses
Date: 28 Jul 92 20:36:46 GMT


     I wonder if anyone know whether it is feasible to use less
fifty-seater busses and have more small fourteen-seater minibusses
(or vans, if you will).  This will allow more lines or more frequent
busses, and a lower cost per bus.  Then we can have more feeder busses
from/to train stations, and then most people can just take bus-train-
bus to work.  Ha!

						Daniel Chung, U.S.A.