I had an idea the other day of using electrolysis at the bottom of an extremely deep water filled shaft to generate gas bubbles that could be harnessed to turn turbines as they rose to the surface.
Whether that could ever be more efficient than other power generation methods I have no idea. I guess the initial construction and ongoing maintenance requirements might make it not cost efficient. It was a fun idea to think about though!
It's an interesting idea. It seems a little crazy to go through the extremely energy intensive process of electrolysis just to create a gas, but you could recapture the gas and use it for something.
There's got to be a catch though. I think it's going to be that gas is too light to effectively move a turbine so the amount generated will be really small (i.e. smaller than the electrolysis costs)
Yeah, we've got to expect the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics to come in and ruin the party.
You could power the electrolysis from solar, but then you've got transmission loss on the wires. You're right the gases are too lightweight to push more than the lightest fan turbine.
Even having the gases get separated, turn a turbine while floating up, get recombined into water, then be pulled down past another turbine by gravity, we might not get the full 1.5v back.
There was an interesting recent book that covers a lot of privacy vs technology concepts that are increasingly relevant. I'd highly recommend checking it out. It's a quick read.
The use of margin debt to trade mainland shares has climbed to all-time highs, while investors are opening stock accounts at a record pace. More than two-thirds of new investors have never attended or graduated from high school, according to a survey by China’s Southwestern University of Finance and Economics.
I strongly dislike Marvel movies. I have no respect at all for films that are released in 3D (and sometimes IMAX and IMAX 3D) when they are not filmed in 3D or using IMAX cameras. It is a pure money grab. Disney does not care about quality, they care about profits. The endless sequels and prequels and spinoffs are simply greed. They will not withstand the test of time. A decade or two from now, people will look back at Nolan's Batman series as the definitive super hero films of the day. They use real sets and stunts instead of endless poor quality CGI action scenes that move too fast for you to see what is even happening (hint: it's because what's happening is meaningless, but bright colors and fast movement stimulate your brain). Marvel exists to sell children disposable plastic action figures and made in China clothing that will fall apart before the next sequel comes out.
Children are marketed to and manipulated with cartoons and "happy meal" toys. It is insidious.
On top of that, Disney expends a tremendous amount of money on marketing to force their products into the prevailing culture. Have you noticed how many television shows have references to Marvel super heroes? Those jokes aren't because the writers are fans, Disney pays for them. Actors don't wear super hero t-shirts randomly. It's all marketing.
They are doing the same thing with Star Wars. There has been an insane amount of hype for the new movie and various spinoff products already. Quite frankly I am sick of it. I am not going to see the new Star Wars movie in theaters because this type of behavior should not be rewarded.
Disney buys up treasured parts of global culture and exploits them to death. It was heart breaking to see them do this to Pixar. Cars 2, Monsters University... just shameful cash ins.
Well, to be fair, the OP did not mention the quality or historic import of the new Disney managed Marvel properties, but only their financial and viewership success.
I happen to think CGI is the key element to make good comic book movies but despite how advanced it is now days, it's still not there yet. It's still too expensive to do it well, so it often gets half-assed and the cost also affects story lines, like less hulk, because hulk is expensive. The expense also affects greatly which characters they decide to bring into the stories at all.
The train of thought that has me leaning towards becoming vegetarian is along the lines of:
If an advanced alien species came to Earth, how would I want them to treat humans? How about in the case that they are advanced to a level that comparing their abilities and technology to humans would be the same as comparing human technology and abilities to that of birds or dogs or cows?
Would I want them to dismiss our primitive (from their perspective) nests as the work of an unintelligent beast? Would I want them to corral us into pens and feed us fattening foods before harvesting our bodies? Would I want them to feed us hormones and genetically modify our bodies to produce more milk or grow larger muscles for consumption? Would I want them to breed the outliers of our species to create extremely large and extremely small "pure-breeds" of humans as a novelty? Would I want them to dismiss our primitive verbal communication as nothing more than cheerful song and make no attempt at all to understand what we are trying to express?
With 80%+ of corn grown in the US being from Monsanto seeds, you can bet that there is going to be a lot of push back against this. Why are taxpayers subsidizing an already profitable industry? How many millions does Monsanto spend on lobbying every year?
> With 80%+ of corn grown in the US being from Monsanto seeds
As a grower of corn, I find that pretty hard to believe. Pioneer, a DuPont company, has a presence that is as large as Dekalb, Monsanto's brand. There are also several more smaller players. A quick search of my own suggests that Dekalb and Pioneer own 70% of the market together[1], which seems more realistic based on my experiences of buying corn seed.
I doubt it describes the current situation, but it is presumably sensible to subsidize a profitable agricultural industry if the cost of the subsidy is lower than the cost of occasional bust years (and any subsequent food shortages).
(The US market could be of sufficient size and sophistication where it would never actually happen, but that is hard to determine in the abstract)
In the tech world and scientific communities, no. We care about IP abuses, if anything--many, many studies have shown that the products are safe to eat, but Montanto's behavior is occasionally despicable.
The rest of the country, though? The hippie, New Age folks that make up a frighteningly large segment of the population? GMOs are "unnatural Frankenfoods" destroying our DNA and whatnot.
My friend group is definitely skewed toward the hippie spectrum, so I may me over-estimating their numbers, but only 37% of Americans say GMOs are safe to eat[1]. I don't know what percent of those know who Monsanto is, or what percent say Monsanto's business practices are unethical, but I certainly lean toward "designing better corn" being the most common qualm.
The problem with GMO's is that most people aren't equipped to have a nuanced discussion about them so the conversation devolves to massive generalities and extremes that aren't useful because both polar extremes turn out to be illogical positions to take, but they are the only two positions that are discussed.
As far as I can tell, the only reason people have issues with Monsanto specifically is because they are explicitly named in Food, Inc. If it were about GMOs or pesticides, there are many other companies, and even larger and more well known companies, that are developing similar and potentially damaging products.
Whether that could ever be more efficient than other power generation methods I have no idea. I guess the initial construction and ongoing maintenance requirements might make it not cost efficient. It was a fun idea to think about though!