Humodour

And Gromnir, I'm surprised by your implication that Europe is a backwater given it has a larger population, size, and economy than America. It also seems to have better education systems and access to services. And in many cases higher wealth per capita. Its science and technology output is also huge. The one thing I can think of where America does 'better' is military spending. Europe has only the second largest defence spending in the world.

Yeah, to be fair, this is a good point and America's debt situation is pretty ****ing alarming.

O'RLY?

Bye bye Gaddadi. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/gad...f-1226093989837 My bet is he's gone before the year is out.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-07-corn-g...-emissions.html Pretty convincing finding. And even better, what would normally be considered unproductive farmland can be used for these grass crops, reducing competition with food crops.

Yep. When your media drifts towards a duopoly and your police, politicians and journalists are not independent of each other, that's a lil more than a 'leftist witch hunt'.

No, a war usually never makes sense. It will just mean long-term that Libya will detoriate from the African country with the highest living standards into another puppet state with lots of angry people. Libya was a country with some of the worst political and civic oppression in the world in the form of the state security apparatus (up there with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria), and they were 'governed' by somebody who has performed and still actively encourages acts of terror. It most recently appears that he has ordered soldiers to use rape as a tool of suppressing the Libyan population. Wars can and often do make sense. If only from the perspective of the people fighting for freedom from oppression. America is not the leader of the Libyan mission. The Libyan mission is NOT an American idea. America was NOT the one demanding Libyan intervention. The Libyan mission involves Arab countries as well as European and English countries. The Libyan mission itself is only a support to the Libyan people themselves. If you attempt to compare this situation in any way to Iraq or Afghanistan you immediately lose a large amount of legitimacy.

I say suck it Murdoch. **** catches up to you eventually.

Morgoth, the Libyan mission makes sense, mate. You're acting a bit odd about it all.

WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN.

Oh, and Wals, have you been paying even the slightest bit of attention to the direction of energy in China?

It makes sense to the people that matter in business, science, insurance, tourism and government, Wals, and that's what matters to me. You've dug in as a cynic, I get that. I make no attempt to try and convince you any more and am more concerned with countering your misinformation and cynicism, because every Australian has seen first-hand the damage such inaction is causing in our own country. It's not a question of 'if' climate change is happening, it's a question of by how much. One day soon you'll come to realise that (because can I please put this as plainly as possible: the science was settled a long time ago). And once you've done so the question won't be "should we move to renewables", it will be "what can we do to ensure we're moving to renewables and other cleaner technologies as fast as possible". One of the (best) ways of doing that is lots of "peanuts" investment in the materials science underpinning the sector by LOTS of private companies like Google. I don't even pretend to think that Google, CitiGroup, etc are going to finance the whole world's renewable energy needs. I cite it merely as an example in the beginning of a long-term trend of huge structural change in every economy around the world which gathers pace every year. You really don't understand the pace or ability of modern materials science nor the science of our atmosphere and so I'm going to respectfully put your ignorance on the viability of renewable energy down to that and not bother searching for some more malevolent cause for your cynicism.

What risks? I think we are putting all our eggs in one basket by creating a uniform potato master race at the expense of genetic variety. With specialisation comes not only performance but vulnerability. I agree, but that is a problem that has nothing to do with genetic modification as it is a result of thousands of years of inbreeding. C.f. the banana. If anything, genetic modification should allow us an avenue to overcome this problem.

What risks?

But the point was that Google doesn't need to go all in to make a huge dent in the renewable energy sector since it has such large cash reserves. It's already one of the biggest players in the industry. And what makes you think it is long-term? Manufacturing costs fall at a steady rate just as efficiencies increase at a steady rate. This is because the underpinning advances in nanotechnology and materials science in general are occurring at such a steady rate that grid parity is now a short-term goal for techs like wind and solar. Here in Australia we're aiming for huge amounts of solar and wind. Our government is investing over $1 billion in renewables each year now. I am very keen to see what we can do with a large solar energy sector and huge amounts of insolation. Frankly I don't see the point in pumping any more money into nuclear energy unless it is thorium and not uranium.

Google has invested over $700 million into renewable energy this year: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/14/...799646120110614

For now, Malcador. But there is every indication that's about to change in a big way. Google is now one of the world's biggest investors in renewable energy. This year Google has invested over $700 million into mainly solar and wind power, and they intend to continue this behaviour for the foreseeable future. Given they have some $25 BILLION in cash reserves, I'm inclined to believe them. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/14/...799646120110614

That's pretty much correct. But in the case of an industry like aviation, it makes perfect sense to use it because energy storage is an issue. Until fuel cell or battery technology improves in a decade or two (and it will), ethanol is what we should be aiming for in planes. But extending ethanol use to all industries is a bad idea because, unless it is produced from organic waste fermentation, then when production gets large enough it starts to significantly compete with food crops. That's the worst bloody idea imaginable in an age when there are already severe poverty problems around the globe, with predictions of worse to come.

No. Fossil fuels aren't going away anytime soon. Or how do you want to lift a Boeing 747 into the air? I know you have this huge aversion to ever admitting anything might be good or be fun, but please take that cynicism elsewhere because you're just downright wrong here mate. Let's see: Solar-powered plane: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-swiss-...t-brussels.html Ethanol-powered planes (Boeing 747 to be exact!): http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/...ed-flights.html Proposed ethanol-powered space plane: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/20/...E75J01G20110620

Thanks for an irrelevent lesson in thermodynamics. Would you like a lesson on human language and jargon in return? Both of these things are off-topic. Although kudos for the reference to enthalpy. Anyway, I just want people to understand that the future is bright and things are changing. Fossil fuels and the ills associated with them are a slowly dying breed.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/0...r-in-the-us.ars Renewable energy WORKS.

Thanks! Yep, back at uni. Half-way between a Distinction and a High Distinction average, aiming for straight HD average next sem. I'm playing it by ear at the moment, but my arts major is definitely Spanish whilst my science major is leaning heavily towards materials science or chemistry. I am going to do everything I can to actually get a major in mathematics recorded on my transcript as well, but at the end of the day I may be one or two maths subjects short for that as I don't want to sacrifice subjects in mat sci. Still, I should be able to cram in a huge amount of differential equations and linear algebra. Amusingly, my main motivation to return to university early was due to a psychedelic trip.

Oh come on, mate, that is such a short-sighted comment to make.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-07-0...dal-widens.html

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