On 09/04/14 14:18, Huge wrote:
On 2014-04-09, Tim Lamb wrote:
In message , Nightjar
writes
If they can make petrol, converting that into other hydrocarbons is
trivial and altering hydrocarbon chain length has already been done for
many decades. All that's needed is cheap energy, which nuclear is
capable of supplying, as long as the FUD and NIMBYism stops.

All that's needed is for the price of nuclear electricity to drop, and
the political will to persuade people to do it.

Can I sell you shares in a company that will be building fusion
reactors in the near future?

No. But I would happily vote for a government that encouraged increased
contributions to international fusion development projects that are
currently unlikely to bear fruit in my lifetime.

+1

Hear, hear.


In principle I would say yes to that, but in practice I fear that its
not quite as easy as that.

To get a new technology up and running there is a period where you know
what you want to do, but you don't know how to do it. And until you have
a methodology that works, refining it and developing it is pointless.

My point being that even if Leonardo da Vinci had unlimited resources he
simply didn't have access at that time to a suitable power plant and the
understanding of that would have wasted years and cost millions and
still not actually arrived at a viable aeroplane.

The problem of fusion is simple: we now how to get it going, but we
don't know how to contain it for more than a few microseconds.


so one group experiments with the torus, which sort of half does for
several microseconds, but stabilising it is vicious, whilst other groups
are looking at say pulse firing, if you like a lot of little H bomb
explosions that would actually in the end generate more power than they
took to start.

I often dream of reciprocatng pistons to compress deuterium and fire it
with laser spark plugs, or a plasma turbine that compresses deuterium
and fires it wit a laser or some such, to make a jet engine..


These are probably totally impractical but the point is that throwing
money at one way of doing it hasn't worked: we need tp literally dream
up another, and a bloke in a garden sipping a cup of tea is as likely to
do that as 1000 scientists and engineers in a research lab.

Once you HAVE a viable methodology, well then yes, DEVELOPING it is
worth spending billions on

And THAT technology is nuclear fission: we know HOW to build reactors
that work. WE want better safer cheaper and cleaner reactors.

So I say spend millions on a few scientist to dream up a way to make
fusion work, but spend the billions on new fission reactor design and
big engineering teams to handle it, because that WILL produce results.




--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 09/04/14 15:12, Nightjar wrote:
On 09/04/2014 14:59, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/04/14 13:50, Nightjar wrote:
On 09/04/2014 08:31, harryagain wrote:
...
Tars sands have been exploited for years.

I think we knew that.

Very costly and polluting.

Not so costly that it is not a viable oil source when prices start to
rise a bit above average.

Shale oil and tar sands are not the same thing.

I can assure you that oil shale is, in fact coal. I know this as it is
the condition of an endowment to the university at which I studied that
there is a lecture every year to make the point that oil shale is coal.
Of course, the fact that the person making the endowment had, in 19th
century America, a licence to extract coal, but found oil shale instead
may have affected his decision to insist on the lecture.


well no, it isn't coal. It maybe half WAY to coal, but it ain't there
yet!...

I know that, you know that and I suspect that the chap who made the
endowment also knew it. However, his licence only allowed him to extract
coal, not oil shale. AIUI, he spent a small fortune on litigation to try
to get oil shale recognised as being coal, thus allowing him to extract
it. Having failed in that, he decided upon the endowment and the annual
lecture.


;-=)

those who canm do: those who cant,teach or give lectures.,

Colin Bignell



--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes

snip
These are probably totally impractical but the point is that throwing
money at one way of doing it hasn't worked: we need tp literally dream
up another, and a bloke in a garden sipping a cup of tea is as likely
to do that as 1000 scientists and engineers in a research lab.

You mean di-lithium crystals are not just around the corner?

Once you HAVE a viable methodology, well then yes, DEVELOPING it is
worth spending billions on

And THAT technology is nuclear fission: we know HOW to build reactors
that work. WE want better safer cheaper and cleaner reactors.

OK. I thought we had spent all we needed there. The problem seemed to be
in persuading commercial generators to invest their shareholders money.
Maybe we should build our own and undercut coal and gas?

So I say spend millions on a few scientist to dream up a way to make
fusion work, but spend the billions on new fission reactor design and
big engineering teams to handle it, because that WILL produce results.

Is there a better way of doing it? I note your comments about excessive
safety regulation but what could realistically be changed to save
significant sums without Joe public running for the horizon?

--
Tim Lamb

On 09/04/14 17:57, Tim Lamb wrote:
In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes

snip
These are probably totally impractical but the point is that throwing
money at one way of doing it hasn't worked: we need tp literally dream
up another, and a bloke in a garden sipping a cup of tea is as likely
to do that as 1000 scientists and engineers in a research lab.

You mean di-lithium crystals are not just around the corner?

Once you HAVE a viable methodology, well then yes, DEVELOPING it is
worth spending billions on

And THAT technology is nuclear fission: we know HOW to build reactors
that work. WE want better safer cheaper and cleaner reactors.

OK. I thought we had spent all we needed there. The problem seemed to be
in persuading commercial generators to invest their shareholders money.
Maybe we should build our own and undercut coal and gas?

There are two things making current reactors effin expensive

1/. they are virtually all; one offs to a not totally common design
2/. No nuclear regulation has ever been revoked because it was
superseded or shown to be irrelevant.


The way out of this nightmare given that joe public still thinks he will
glow in the dark and give birth to william hague lookalikes if there is
one within a thousand miles of him, is to go for a more expensive
technology, but one that can be pre-assembled in a factory and get TYPE
approval.

he theory is then that you can lay down a basic concrete shell and ship
in te reactor pressure vessels, most of the pipewpork and the
containment and just drop them in place and then install standard fuel
rod handling gantries to service and refuel them. All the 'hot' stuff is
then preassembled and tested.
The target would be 'cheaper than coal' at high capacity factors (over 60%).





So I say spend millions on a few scientist to dream up a way to make
fusion work, but spend the billions on new fission reactor design and
big engineering teams to handle it, because that WILL produce results.

Is there a better way of doing it? I note your comments about excessive
safety regulation but what could realistically be changed to save
significant sums without Joe public running for the horizon?



--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

well no, it isn't coal. It maybe half WAY to coal, but it ain't there
yet!...

I know that, you know that and I suspect that the chap who made the
endowment also knew it. However, his licence only allowed him to extract
coal, not oil shale. AIUI, he spent a small fortune on litigation to try
to get oil shale recognised as being coal, thus allowing him to extract
it. Having failed in that, he decided upon the endowment and the annual
lecture.


;-=)

those who canm do: those who cant,teach or give lectures.,

Nope .. worse still, they get into government;(...

Colin Bignell




--
Tony Sayer

On 09/04/2014 23:00, Tim Streater wrote:
....
In 1952 aged about 6 I read my brother's school prize (he was 16). It
was a book with a series of interesting essays or stories for boys. One
was about the Norwich Heat Pump, about which I've never since seen a
reference....

Installed in 1945 by the city electrical engineer, John Sumner, as the
heating system for the Norwich City Council Electrical Department Duke
Street premises. He later built a dozen heat pumps for Lord Nuffield and
one to heat the Royal Festival Hall, using two-stage compressors based
upon Merlin engines and the Thames as the ground source. Unfortunately,
the RFH system produced too much heat and hot water came out of the taps
at 82C.

Colin Bignell

On 09/04/2014 23:07, Nightjar wrote:
On 09/04/2014 23:00, Tim Streater wrote:
...
In 1952 aged about 6 I read my brother's school prize (he was 16). It
was a book with a series of interesting essays or stories for boys. One
was about the Norwich Heat Pump, about which I've never since seen a
reference....

Installed in 1945 by the city electrical engineer, John Sumner, as the
heating system for the Norwich City Council Electrical Department Duke
Street premises. He later built a dozen heat pumps for Lord Nuffield and
one to heat the Royal Festival Hall, using two-stage compressors based
upon Merlin engines and the Thames as the ground source. Unfortunately,
the RFH system produced too much heat and hot water came out of the taps
at 82C.

Colin Bignell

If I wished to follow that plan of extracting heat from a river, would I
need to seek permission? I am assuming that I own the land through which
the river (I guess more likely a tiny stream if I am lucky!) flows so no
issues of access.

--
Rod

On 09/04/2014 23:13, polygonum wrote:
On 09/04/2014 23:07, Nightjar wrote:
On 09/04/2014 23:00, Tim Streater wrote:
...
In 1952 aged about 6 I read my brother's school prize (he was 16). It
was a book with a series of interesting essays or stories for boys. One
was about the Norwich Heat Pump, about which I've never since seen a
reference....

Installed in 1945 by the city electrical engineer, John Sumner, as the
heating system for the Norwich City Council Electrical Department Duke
Street premises. He later built a dozen heat pumps for Lord Nuffield and
one to heat the Royal Festival Hall, using two-stage compressors based
upon Merlin engines and the Thames as the ground source. Unfortunately,
the RFH system produced too much heat and hot water came out of the taps
at 82C.


If I wished to follow that plan of extracting heat from a river, would I
need to seek permission? I am assuming that I own the land through which
the river (I guess more likely a tiny stream if I am lucky!) flows so no
issues of access.


That would depend upon whether or not the Environment Agency decides
that your use affects the rights of others on the same river to the
water in its natural quantity and quality. I suspect they would.

Colin Bignell

On Wed, 09 Apr 2014 20:24:09 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On 09/04/14 17:57, Tim Lamb wrote:
In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes

snip
These are probably totally impractical but the point is that throwing
money at one way of doing it hasn't worked: we need tp literally dream
up another, and a bloke in a garden sipping a cup of tea is as likely
to do that as 1000 scientists and engineers in a research lab.

You mean di-lithium crystals are not just around the corner?

Once you HAVE a viable methodology, well then yes, DEVELOPING it is
worth spending billions on

And THAT technology is nuclear fission: we know HOW to build reactors
that work. WE want better safer cheaper and cleaner reactors.

OK. I thought we had spent all we needed there. The problem seemed to be
in persuading commercial generators to invest their shareholders money.
Maybe we should build our own and undercut coal and gas?

There are two things making current reactors effin expensive

1/. they are virtually all; one offs to a not totally common design
2/. No nuclear regulation has ever been revoked because it was
superseded or shown to be irrelevant.


The way out of this nightmare given that joe public still thinks he will
glow in the dark and give birth to william hague lookalikes if there is
one within a thousand miles of him, is to go for a more expensive
technology, but one that can be pre-assembled in a factory and get TYPE
approval.

he theory is then that you can lay down a basic concrete shell and ship
in te reactor pressure vessels, most of the pipewpork and the
containment and just drop them in place and then install standard fuel
rod handling gantries to service and refuel them. All the 'hot' stuff is
then preassembled and tested.
The target would be 'cheaper than coal' at high capacity factors (over 60%).


You seem to be fixated on antique reactor technology. Even safer and
cheaper to build would be a modern LFTR design. The technology has
already been tested over 40 years ago because it looked like it might
allow nuclear powered bombers to stay aloft for weeks at a time.

As soon as the ICBM was developed, the military, who were the only
government department with a big enough budget for this sort of R&D
lost interest and 'pulled the plug'.

With LFTR, you lose the rather quaint need to shut down in order to
replace expensively manufactured/reprocessed fuel rods (continuous
fuelling) and the need for a massively expensive containment building
also disappears since the nuclear fuel stays liquid at the 5 or 6
hundred deg C working temperature at normal atmospheric pressure (no
radioactively contaminated boiling water hydrogen generation risk to
worry about) A simple plug that melts in the event of the cooling fans
stopping due to loss of power generation makes an effective failsafe
to drain the fuel into a sink where it will reduce heat output to safe
levels automatically.

A modern LFTR will be a damn sight safer than any of the current cold
war driven designs that are currently in productive service. It burns
Thorium which is estimated to be four times more abundent than Uranium
and it can usefully extract in excess of 90% of the nuclear energy
contained in the fuel unlike uranium burning reactors which only
manage about 1% without expensive fuel rod reprocessing.

You've got the right idea about developing fission reactor technology
over fusion. The only odd thing seems to be your assumption that it'll
be based on cold war designs rather than the 'No Brainer' choice of
LFTR which will give us the required breathing space to finally
achieve the Holy Grail of safe nuclear fusion power some time over the
next century or three.
--
Regards, J B Good

On 07/04/2014 21:08, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 07/04/14 18:21, RJH wrote:
On 07/04/2014 10:47, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 06/04/14 17:49, RJH wrote:
On 06/04/2014 16:38, The Natural Philosopher wrote:


I've seen more genuinely unwanted kids that I care to cry over amongst
the 'unterclass'

If the weren't a source of unearned income, no one would have em.


I hear this a lot. Any evidence?


Only the ones I have actually MET.


I'd guess that you've met a reasonable sample (say a few hundred
families?) to draw such a hard/fast conclusion - about the same as me.

And while I hear this notion that they had children to claim benefits a
lot, never once from the families themselves.


well maybe they didnt trust you enough to say ot.

snip

Maybe. Mine was often a working relationship.

I see how you see things, and I think you make some good points/valid
observations. However:

I think you downplay the notion that a child comes along for reasons of
insecurity and a longing for reciprocal love - the most common reason I
felt I saw.

I think you overplay the 'burden' you seem to think benefit recipients
'impose' on people like yourself. I'd guess you understand the system of
direct and indirect taxation. Equally, I'd guess that you have a pretty
good idea of the proportion of tax income that goes to benefit
recipients. yet the deploy some pretty nasty language in their
direction. Language I'd bet you do not use when talking about
stockbrokers, tax dodgers and so on.

I dread what you think about teachers ;-)


AS one UKIP candidate said the other night 'Labour and Socialism applied
wrongly have created the non-working class' and he should know. He comes
from that sort of place himself.


Nonsense, of course. Hateful ill-informed nonsense. That's what he was
told from the likes of what he has become.

This whole things is all about an insane system, that penalises work
with taxes, that encourages victim hood with benefits, and doesn't
reward individual efforts to get out of it, but punishes you as a
worker, by taxing you and punishes employers by making people have to be
on minimum wage, have to be on sick leave, maternity benefit, holiday
entitlement, makes them impossible to sack without a lengthy legal case
'he touched my bum and then when I wouldn't he fired me' ...


The system is not just broken, it is incapable of repair. I suspect our
differences might be there - you I feel have an idea how to fix it. I don't.

if the government wants people to have these benefits let the government
pay for them, not the employer.


Agreed - one of many ideas that could make things better. Progressive
taxation (inc 100% inheritance tax) and 100% employment coupled with
pro-union legislation might help too. But there's still a fundamental
problem with our system centred on ownership - it's just wrong IMO.

OK we all pay for them but the burden falls mainly on the middle rate
taxpayer, and the small employer who cannot afford to employ people on
that basis and compete with the big boys.


Ironically the poor and not-quite-so-poor pay the bulk through indirect tax.

And why should we subsidise a workforce we cant employ, because they
have not been looked after and encouraged to work, and get brought up on
the basis of being helpless? Should we rather not discourage them from
being born at all, and if they do, look after them better than their
biological parents can?


OK ... moves slowly towards the door


--
Cheers, Rob

In message , Nightjar
writes
On 09/04/2014 23:13, polygonum wrote:
On 09/04/2014 23:07, Nightjar wrote:
On 09/04/2014 23:00, Tim Streater wrote:
...
In 1952 aged about 6 I read my brother's school prize (he was 16). It
was a book with a series of interesting essays or stories for boys. One
was about the Norwich Heat Pump, about which I've never since seen a
reference....

Installed in 1945 by the city electrical engineer, John Sumner, as the
heating system for the Norwich City Council Electrical Department Duke
Street premises. He later built a dozen heat pumps for Lord Nuffield and
one to heat the Royal Festival Hall, using two-stage compressors based
upon Merlin engines and the Thames as the ground source. Unfortunately,
the RFH system produced too much heat and hot water came out of the taps
at 82C.


If I wished to follow that plan of extracting heat from a river, would I
need to seek permission? I am assuming that I own the land through which
the river (I guess more likely a tiny stream if I am lucky!) flows so no
issues of access.


That would depend upon whether or not the Environment Agency decides
that your use affects the rights of others on the same river to the
water in its natural quantity and quality. I suspect they would.

Just so. You would do better with a bigger stream such that your impact
on water temperature is within their limits. Of course burying the old
domestic radiator in the stream bed may well go unnoticed:-)

Taking water out and returning does not really work as beyond 20 cu.m
extract and 10cu.m return they want money!

--
Tim Lamb

On 10/04/14 03:30, Johny B Good wrote:


You seem to be fixated on antique reactor technology.

Nio, fixted on what works

Even safer and
cheaper to build would be a modern LFTR design.

You seem to be fixated on LFTR reactors

There are no modern LFTR designs.

LFTR reactors that were builtm were built decades ago to entirely
different safety standards.

There are more unkowns in building a new LFTR reactor than a new
conventional type reactor.

Ergo its going to e a lot MORE expensive to build at first.


The technology has
already been tested over 40 years ago because it looked like it might
allow nuclear powered bombers to stay aloft for weeks at a time.


No, that wasnt the reason for it.

As soon as the ICBM was developed, the military, who were the only
government department with a big enough budget for this sort of R&D
lost interest and 'pulled the plug'.

With LFTR, you lose the rather quaint need to shut down in order to
replace expensively manufactured/reprocessed fuel rods (continuous
fuelling)

AT least two more modern reactors - the CANDU and the pebble bed, also
have that feature...

and the need for a massively expensive containment building
also disappears since the nuclear fuel stays liquid at the 5 or 6
hundred deg C working temperature at normal atmospheric pressure (no
radioactively contaminated boiling water hydrogen generation risk to
worry about)

No, in fact its even trickier to handle an probably more dangerous.


A simple plug that melts in the event of the cooling fans
stopping due to loss of power generation makes an effective failsafe
to drain the fuel into a sink where it will reduce heat output to safe
levels automatically.


Provided that's where the fault occurs. It its in the heat exchanger to
the steam plant, you get 600C molten salt, full of radioactive
contaminants mixing with water. BANG and a lot of radioactive release.


And those contaminants are whilst short lived and great for long term
waste disposal, viciously hot and dangerous before they decay.

Yu have read the fanbois 'reasons why throrium LFTR is better' sheet.

Try looking for the 'reasons why thorium LFTR is more dangerous and
expensive' arguments as well.



A modern LFTR will be a damn sight safer than any of the current cold
war driven designs that are currently in productive service.

IN some ways yes, in oitherwsays a resounding NO.


It burns
Thorium which is estimated to be four times more abundent than Uranium
and it can usefully extract in excess of 90% of the nuclear energy
contained in the fuel unlike uranium burning reactors which only
manage about 1% without expensive fuel rod reprocessing.


Ther is no shortage of dirt cheap uranium and actually plutonium. In
fact we have a problem getting RID of the plutonium.

You've got the right idea about developing fission reactor technology
over fusion. The only odd thing seems to be your assumption that it'll
be based on cold war designs rather than the 'No Brainer' choice of
LFTR which will give us the required breathing space to finally
achieve the Holy Grail of safe nuclear fusion power some time over the
next century or three.


You have failed to understand the engineering and commercial realities
of teh whole nuclear development cycle.

What we need right now is not 'pie in the sky ' stuff that may work one
day at unknown cost. What we need now is stuff we know exactly how to
build that does work, FIRST.


And a program to unlock other possible technologies in the future, but
we can't afford and shouldn't attempt to put all our eggs in one basket
like the Germans are doing with renewable energy. Total disaster.

Right now what we need is any nuclear power that can be built on time,
on budget and at a price less than around £3bn/GW capacity.

Some years ago CANDU were stating (well of course they would, wouldn't
they) that they were in CANADA delivering plant at a capex of around
$2.5bn per GW, and a levelised unit cost below coal gas or hydro
provided the plants got to run better than 60% capacity factor.

AS baseload they were achieving better than 90%.

The WALKED AWAY from the UK, because they are not a large company and
they were not interested in wasting years trying to meet insane red tape
requirements when they could sell their reactors to countries that
definitely wanted them.

In other words what matters MOST right now is not this reactor design or
that reactor design, but getting the cost of building ANY reactor AT ALL
down from the insane levels they are now, to what they ought to be given
the actual complexity of construction.

And the SMR of whatever type may be able to do that. It's not an ideal
engineering approach, but it's an ideal POLITICAL approach.


If you can build a reactor on a production line and get it type
approved, and ship it as more or less a flat-pack of parts, the chances
of governments interfering in the build process with a regulation change
halfway through construction are minimal, because the actual on-site
work is much less.

what causes cost and time overruns is simply that any issue no matter
how small on a reactor build causes in the worst case, a total halt on
construction and what amounts to a complete redesign and re-approvals
process having to be undertaken. And during that interest must be paid
on the money borrowed to build the thing.


Getting the approval in the first place may take years.

What is clear is that getting costs down is NOT a mater of different
technologies at all. It is a matter of politics.

Ergo there is no point in throwing huge sums of money at a technology
that wouldn't modify the political landscape.

Which is why money is being spent on the SMR approach.

So get educated to the realities of nuclear power. It is not at the
fission level, a technical challenge. Nor a waste disposal challenge or
anything else that can be addressed by some radically different
technology. It is a political will challenge.

And bear in mind, if the EU decided 'there will never ever be another
reactor built in Europe' they could easily pass such a regulation or
directive, or make it so onerous to build one that no one ever would, as
they are trying to do with coal.






--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 10/04/14 03:56, RJH wrote:

And why should we subsidise a workforce we cant employ, because they
have not been looked after and encouraged to work, and get brought up on
the basis of being helpless? Should we rather not discourage them from
being born at all, and if they do, look after them better than their
biological parents can?


OK ... moves slowly towards the door

At some point you cant shrug off the deeply unpleasant choices that we
have to face up to.

I know the Left is all about shrugging off the deeply unpleasant, so it
happens 10 times worse, by dint of never having been addressed.


If we start from the basic premise that aroud this point in history, we
have changed from a nation, and an economy that is bounded by our human
capacity to explot repources exponentially, to one which is reaching
the ECONOMIC limit of those resources, and therefore cannot sustain a
rising population and a rising material standard of living together.
then you are in a position of something approaching a zero sum game.

You can have more people, bit it will be more poverty as well. Or less
people but individually they will be richer.


Those are the stark and only possibilities IF you accept that we are
resource limited economics wise. That energy and food cannot be
increased by 'adding more people'.


So the first thing to agree or disagree on is whether you are a
Malthusian or a Cornucopian, whether you think that unlimited population
expansion is possible forever, and there are unlimited resources in the
world to support them.

If you are in anyway a Malthusian, you are either in the camp of
'laissez faire and let disease, starvation, internecine violence and
poverty take its course (think Rwanda, Somalia, etc etc)' or 'get people
not to have so many kids'.

IF you are in the 'get people not to have so many kids' bracket, you are
merely now talking about ways to achieve that.

And all I am advocating is that financial disincentives to children are
the softest least draconian approach possible. Or at least removing the
financial incentives to *have* them.

And clamp down on uncontrolled immigrations as well.

You have to understand in the end that what egalitarianism of the most
lofty and idealistic sort that you seem to advocate, irrevocably leads
to is a world where everyone is uniformly poor miserable and has a
limited life expectancy. You are not levelling up, you are levelling down.

The problem of 'why should the west enjoy a lifestyle 100 times better
than the average Sahel pot bellied starving kid' is simply solved by
importng all the things that make them stay that way into Europe and
giving them incentives to continue in that way.

I used to be like you, till I lived in Africa for a while. Why should
the Whites, they asked, have nice houses, swimming pools and clean
water, and cars and stuff when they had nothing?

A very good question, and one it took a little research to answer.

In S Africa there were at that time 5 million 'whites ("Europeans") ' 25
million 'blacks' and a few million of people 'caught in the middle' that
the systme broadly classified as 'coloured'(included 'cape coloured,
East Asian Tamil and other people who had arrived there as workers, or
on ships form various other parts of the world other than Africa or
Europe). Never mind the stupidity of basing policy on arbitrary ethnic
origin, lets say you have 5 million haves, 25 million have nots, and
about 4 million 'have a littles'.

You do the sums, and realise that the total economy of te country is
utterly incapable of sustaining more than about 7 million people in a
'white lifestyle'. It only has so much agricultural land, it only has so
much mineral wealth and it only has so much water.

And it only has so many teachers.

The stupid egalitarian approach would have you removing all property,
and all wealth from the 5-7 million reasonably affluent, and giving it
to the poor, who would because that is in the culture, simply have more
babies. Nothing would be solved. Worse still, the nature of the
egalitarian process is that instead of a few people getting a good
enough education, and by dint of the fact their parents did NOT pay 100%
death duties, be able to preserve some sort of elite that was actually
capable of being educated and literate enough to run and develop the
infrastructure that enabled the whole populations to support itself as
well as it did - and trust me, in comparison to Zimbabwe, Angola and
Botswana, South Africa at that time despite apartheid was a HOLIDAY
DESTINATION for people from those countries.

And that is when the scales finally fell from my eyes and I realsied
that if you area real socialist, and you really DO care for the
greatest good for the greatest number, the worst thing you can do is
take from the rich and GIVE to the poor. Because it is the rich who are
the ONLY people who are in a position to deploy capital intelligently
because they have it, and ar eused to its deployment, into projects -
especially education - that mean that in the end the WHOLE standard of a
country is raised.

IT is FAR better to have a few well educated people than the whole mass
of the population educated a little bit, but no one well educated at all.

It is FAR better to have a few rich families that can do philanthropic
things, deploy capital to start business, than it is to evenly divide
all the capital amongst the people where there is never enough at ANY
point to make any difference at all.

You can, in short take a hammer and beat it into iron foil and spread it
thinly around the place, but it's at the expense of ever having any hope
of being able to drive a nail into anything.

Inshort you need to concentrate capital, and you need to have an elite,
not because its a morally good thing, but because you simply cannot
afford to make EVERYONE elite and neither can you afford not to have an
elite.

The bollox te Left then spouts is that yes, you need an elite, but its
going to be a Party, a State, that is 'democratically elected' and will
take ALL the capital to itself and then BE the NEW elite dispoensing it
as it sees fit.


And in Africa, that means Mugabe.

"Mugabe was raised as a Roman Catholic, studying in Marist Brothers and
Jesuit schools, including the exclusive Kutama College, headed by an
Irish priest, Father Jerome O'Hea, who took him under his wing. Through
his youth, Mugabe was never socially popular nor physically active and
spent most of his time with the priests or his mother when he was not
reading in the school's libraries. He was described as never playing
with other children but enjoying his own company.[14] According to his
brother Donato his only friends were his books.[16]

He qualified as a teacher, but left to study at Fort Hare in South
Africa graduating in 1951, while meeting contemporaries such as Julius
Nyerere, Herbert Chitepo, Robert Sobukwe and Kenneth Kaunda. He then
studied at Salisbury (1953), Gwelo (1954), and Tanzania (1955€“1957).
Originally graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University
of Fort Hare in 1951, Mugabe subsequently earned six further degrees
through distance learning including a Bachelor of Administration and
Bachelor of Education from the University of South Africa and a Bachelor
of Science, Bachelor of Laws, Master of Science, and Master of Laws, all
from the University of London External Programme.[17] The two Law
degrees were earned while he was in prison, the Master of Science degree
earned during his premiership of Zimbabwe"

Guess what. He is an educated elite himself, AND the state. And probably
a psycopath.

Again this is the uncomfortable truth that demolishes the Left's case
for 'egalitarianism' Its as stupid to have a one size fits all education
and reward system as it would be for all the cells in your body to be
brain cells. You would simply die without teeth. Or without a brain and
just teeth.,

Marxism and Marxist theory takes the principle of 'all men equal under
God' and turns it into a vicious attack against the establishment of
'the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate' and purports to
represent liberation of those born without access to capital education
or privilege.

But it never ever achieves it. ALL it does is replace one elite with
quite another, and the new elite is in general not concerned with
anything but the maintenance of its own position, and rewards come not
from wealth creation, but from political affiliation.

When the State owns everything, the only means to better ones lot is to
become part of the state, and have enough influence within it to grab
the biggest portion of it you can.

Never ever to attempt to make the states lot bigger.

And that is exactly what you see around you, the erosion of an elite
based on inheritance, and the further erosion of an elite based on
ability to add to national wealth, by allowing those who do to keep
large chunks of it, towards a society in which the only thing that
counts is what amounts to a one party european superstate.

You are a fool if you think that Clegg or Miliband or Blair are not the
toffs they claim to be against. They are the new toffs. The party
apparatchiks who drive down the Zil lanes of society, getting away with
anything they damned well please without a murmur because they have
convinced you they are on your side., and cut the media in for a huge
slice of the cake. Idiot. They are on no one's side but their own.


You may by now have realised that my objection to them is not that they
ARE an elite, but that they are the WRONG SORT of elite.

You need people running things who CAN run things. And one of the better
ways to do that is to remove restrictions on what people are allowed to
do, and let them keep as much of the results of so doing as you can so a
self forming elite is created out of people who actually have proven
track record in achieving success at SOMETHING.

And neither do I care about inheritance. All that happens with
inheritance is that rich spoilt brats end up losing the money that their
parents left them, and that's fine by me. It isn't destroyed, it just
becomes available fr smart people whose business it is to part fools
from money, and put it back in the food chain. Contrariwise IF they
prove good at keeping the family fortune they prove themselves exactly
the sort of people worthy of having it.

Look at where I live, near Newmarket, center of the horse racing world.
What cold be more socially irrelevant than horse racing. Billions of
pounds of Arab oil money pour into Newmarket, thousands of not very well
educated stable lads and lasses tender to million pound price ticket
horseflesh, that may or many not achieve 15 mnutes of fame and prize
money at a race lasting less than a couple of minutes, cheered on (for
no good reason that I can see) by an audience of tens of thousands.

And yet when you look at it, it represents one of the few ways in which
all the money we spend on petrol, comes back into this country, and
provides a way for people in this country to benefit from it, because we
have something that they want, and we have. Horses and places to train
and exercise them. And it is when all is said and done a relatively
harmless pursuit. And provides cheap entertainment and a colourful
experience for those with little else to get enthusiastic about.

Without personal and private and corporate capital accumulation, there
would be no horse racing. No formula one, no football leagues, no yacht
sailing, probably no films or theatre that people wanted - just state
propaganda instead.


Popular culture exists because the average pleb has a little money to
spend on what he or she wants to enjoy, and that's why it exists.

State sponsored culture is ghastly. I mean how many people actually
attend the opera or the ballet? so few that it HAS to be state sponsored.

How many people watch the Beeb compared to watch all the commercial
channels?


No mate, get over this lefty stupidity. The world works best when people
have the power to decide what they want, and lefty states don't give
them that, they take away their money and distribute it as they, the new
selfish elite, think fit. Mainly into their own pockets.

They dictate policy that's good for them, not for you or me.

It suits a lot of people in government and the energy business to deny
us nuclear power, maintain the fiction of its danger and create the
reality of its expense.

It also suits their book to pretend that more and more people is good
for everyone, when it is inevitably bound to create a non-working class
that owes the state its very existence, and thereby generate a new
generation of people who must vote Big State/Left, because they are
educated deliberately to know no better.

And its suits their book to have more pverty, because thats another
excuse to give them more money and more power to 'fix' it. But they
never do do they?

And it suits their book to attack anyone who threatens them with the
charge of 'elitism' when they themselves are the elite they are talking
about.

Stop wishing the world was other than it is, and look at why it is the
way it is, and what practically you can do about it.

Or you will get fooled, again, and again, and again.


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 09/04/2014 23:00, Tim Streater wrote:
One
was about the Norwich Heat Pump, about which I've never since seen a
reference.

http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/5th-march-1948/11/the-heat-pump

Interesting read - but mostly because it was so long ago.

Andy

"Tim Streater" wrote in message
.. .
In article , The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On 10/04/14 03:56, RJH wrote:

And why should we subsidise a workforce we cant employ, because they
have not been looked after and encouraged to work, and get brought up
on
the basis of being helpless? Should we rather not discourage them from
being born at all, and if they do, look after them better than their
biological parents can?

OK ... moves slowly towards the door

At some point you cant shrug off the deeply unpleasant choices that we
have to face up to.

I know the Left is all about shrugging off the deeply unpleasant, so it
happens 10 times worse, by dint of never having been addressed.

There's none as wilfully blind as a leftie. As people queue up for
*hours* in Venezuela just to buy the basics, there are plenty of twerps
in the queues who still think its the capitalist hoarders, etc etc, who
are causing the shortages - even though the socialists are running
things.


Just watched a further example on the box.
Some teacher whinging on.
If there is a school trip, donations are requested from parents.
If there is not enough money, (ie some don't pay up) trip is cancelled.
It wouldn't do for just the children of the parents that did pay up to go.
This is apparently official govt. policy.

More socialist ****, sponging money of people that work.
Lot of people out there have children they can't afford it seems.
Of course it's he ones with our or five kids are the main culprits.
And the single/whore/scarpered father mothers.

"Nightjar" wrote in message
...
On 09/04/2014 08:16, harryagain wrote:
"Nightjar" wrote in message
...
On 07/04/2014 08:43, harryagain wrote:
"Nightjar" wrote in message
...
On 05/04/2014 11:17, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
...
A couple of bicycle mechanics got one to fly for one reason alone:
they
had a petrol engine in it....

Hiram Maxim was doing quite well before that with steam engines, until
his
aircraft, with an estimated 10,000lbs of lift, broke free of its test
retaining rails and crashed.

Colin Bignell

Drivel.
It never flew, nor would it have been able to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiram_M...lying_machines...

As I have said before Harry, you need to improve your research skills.
That has to be the worst synopsis of the Maxim aircraft No 1 on the web.
The real problem was that it flew far too well. Maxim knew that, despite
having invented an autopilot, he had not really got the matter of
control
once airborne properly sorted. Therefore, he planned to test it in
tethered flight until he had solved the problem of control. The aircraft
didn't agree; on the third run, at around 40mph, it broke free of its
tethering rails and flew over 200 feet before crashing, thereby
achieving
powered, manned and sustained flight, but not controlled. After that,
the
cost of continuing was more than his business partners were willing to
accept.

Its design was years ahead of its time - 2 x 180hp engines, a wingspan
greater than the WW1 Handley-Page bomber and almost as much lift. But
for
the crash, Maxim might well have beaten the Wright Brothers and possibly
even Gustave Whitehead, into the air with a powered, manned, controlled
and sustained flight.


It was just another failure.

It was a brilliant piece of engineering, years ahead of its time, that got
strangled by narrow minded money men.

You might as well attribute flight to Leonardo da Vinci.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard...and_inventions

He didn't manage to put a 4 ton machine with three men aboard into the air
for nearly twice as far as the Wright Brothers' first flight.

Flight is a controlled thing.
This was as much like flight as throwing a rock.

"Tim Lamb" wrote in message
...
In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes

snip
These are probably totally impractical but the point is that throwing
money at one way of doing it hasn't worked: we need tp literally dream up
another, and a bloke in a garden sipping a cup of tea is as likely to do
that as 1000 scientists and engineers in a research lab.

You mean di-lithium crystals are not just around the corner?

Once you HAVE a viable methodology, well then yes, DEVELOPING it is worth
spending billions on

And THAT technology is nuclear fission: we know HOW to build reactors
that work. WE want better safer cheaper and cleaner reactors.

OK. I thought we had spent all we needed there. The problem seemed to be
in persuading commercial generators to invest their shareholders money.
Maybe we should build our own and undercut coal and gas?

So I say spend millions on a few scientist to dream up a way to make
fusion work, but spend the billions on new fission reactor design and big
engineering teams to handle it, because that WILL produce results.

Is there a better way of doing it? I note your comments about excessive
safety regulation but what could realistically be changed to save
significant sums without Joe public running for the horizon?

Absolute drivel.
Nuclear power always was and always will be expensive.
The nuclear indusry has always hidden the true costs.
Right from day one when electricity was going to be too cheap to be worth
metering.
Even now they can't build a commercial reactor, it need vast taxpayer
subsidy.
We still have to pay out for decommissioning and waste disposal for all the
**** they generated in the past.
With no guarantee it will work.

It was all about lies and nuclear weapons in the past.
Now it's just lies.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...sidy-deal.html

And BTW, "Joe Public" has usually been right in the past.

"Vir Campestris" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 09/04/2014 23:00, Tim Streater wrote:
One
was about the Norwich Heat Pump, about which I've never since seen a
reference.

http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/5th-march-1948/11/the-heat-pump

Interesting read - but mostly because it was so long ago.

Andy

Amazing it never caught on back then.
More expensive than a coal fired boiler I expect.

On Sat, 12 Apr 2014 08:52:35 +0100, "harryagain"
wrote:


"Vir Campestris" wrote in message
news:7bednd9RLthdmNrOnZ2dnUVZ8kSdnZ2d@brightview. co.uk...
On 09/04/2014 23:00, Tim Streater wrote:
One
was about the Norwich Heat Pump, about which I've never since seen a
reference.

http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/5th-march-1948/11/the-heat-pump

Interesting read - but mostly because it was so long ago.

Andy

Amazing it never caught on back then.
More expensive than a coal fired boiler I expect.


If this ancient tech (counting in "PC Years") had taken off way back
then, just imagine the size of the hole in the Ozone Layer when it was
finally spotted from the satellite data!
--
Regards, J B Good

"Johny B Good" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 12 Apr 2014 08:52:35 +0100, "harryagain"
wrote:


"Vir Campestris" wrote in message
news:7bednd9RLthdmNrOnZ2dnUVZ8kSdnZ2d@brightview .co.uk...
On 09/04/2014 23:00, Tim Streater wrote:
One
was about the Norwich Heat Pump, about which I've never since seen a
reference.

http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/5th-march-1948/11/the-heat-pump

Interesting read - but mostly because it was so long ago.

Andy

Amazing it never caught on back then.
More expensive than a coal fired boiler I expect.


If this ancient tech (counting in "PC Years") had taken off way back
then, just imagine the size of the hole in the Ozone Layer when it was
finally spotted from the satellite data!

They were probably using sulphur dioxode or ammonia as a refrigerant gas
back then.
It was in the late 19th century commercial refrigeration came in.
Then it was used on ships for transporting meat.

On 13/04/2014 08:55, harryagain wrote:
"Johny B Good" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 12 Apr 2014 08:52:35 +0100, "harryagain"
wrote:


"Vir Campestris" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 09/04/2014 23:00, Tim Streater wrote:
One
was about the Norwich Heat Pump, about which I've never since seen a
reference.

http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/5th-march-1948/11/the-heat-pump

Interesting read - but mostly because it was so long ago.

Andy

Amazing it never caught on back then.
More expensive than a coal fired boiler I expect.


If this ancient tech (counting in "PC Years") had taken off way back
then, just imagine the size of the hole in the Ozone Layer when it was
finally spotted from the satellite data!

They were probably using sulphur dioxode or ammonia as a refrigerant gas
back then.

Sumner used SO2.

It was in the late 19th century commercial refrigeration came in.

However, it was not until the 1940s that heat pumps were used for major
heating projects.

Then it was used on ships for transporting meat.

Plus dairy produce. Britain had the world's largest fleet of reefers
between the wars, bringing frozen lamb, butter and cheese from
Australasia and chilled beef from South America. Chilled beef was
carried in a 10% CO2 atmosphere, which gave the best quality of beef,
but WW2 made volume more important than quality, so they changed to
freezing even beef.

Colin Bignell