billdietrich1

billdietrich1 t1_je99asr wrote

They mean that encryption/decryption takes place on the source and destination devices, so in theory the servers and attackers in the middle can't read the traffic.

In practice, whoever holds and applies the keys can read the traffic. So if your end device is using code from the server to do this, potentially the server could give you malicious code and read your traffic. The solution is to have the encryption and the storage/transport done by different companies or projects. Use an encryption package such as PGP or Mailvelope, and then a service such as normal email.

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billdietrich1 t1_ja9203c wrote

We have or will have N types of renewable generation (hydro, solar PV, solar-thermal, solar-hydrogen, wind, wave, tidal, geothermal, maybe biomass, maybe some kind of engineered plant things generating electricity, who knows) and M types of storage (pumped-hydro, thermal, P forms of chemical battery, hydrogen, gravity, flywheel, bio-fuel, compressed-air, who knows). Fairly soon they will give us costs lower than nuclear, and far less climate damage than fossil. We won't be "constraining" ourselves much by using a mix of the best choices, instead of trying to keep an also-ran tech such as nuclear on life-support.

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billdietrich1 t1_ja8tvv7 wrote

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates#Barakah_nuclear_power_plant , it looks like the first reactor was scheduled to produce in 2017, but didn't start producing until mid-2020. That's 8 years after start of construction. Price tag for 4 reactors is somewhere from $20 to $30 billion. I wouldn't call that either quickly or cheaply.

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billdietrich1 t1_ja8p28k wrote

Nuclear is costly even in countries that are very much in favor of it.

We can have diversity while only using renewables and storage; we have a wide range of types of them, with more being developed.

I wouldn't bet against another few decades of cost decreases in renewables and storage. Graphene, organics, new catalysts, bio-fuels (not corn ethanol), flow batteries, all show a lot of promise.

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billdietrich1 t1_ja2nm21 wrote

We're going to end up paying trillions to remediate climate change damage. We can afford to deploy renewable energy. It will be more at a neighborhood level than in one huge installation for the whole world. We can deploy solar PV on frameworks above parking lots and roads and flood basins etc, for example.

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billdietrich1 t1_ja2n89p wrote

Nuclear is losing the cost competition, and every trend line says the gap will get worse. And expecting some new nuclear tech to arrive in some reasonable time and hit its cost targets is unrealistic. The industry has a long history of schedule slips and cost overruns, sometimes by big factors.

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billdietrich1 t1_ja2mg9o wrote

> we need a better battery chemistry... and we need it quick.

Multiple are being developed, some have been deployed (e.g. https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/03/sodium-sulfur-battery-in-abu-dhabi-is-worlds-largest-storage-device/). But we don't need them "quick"; we have plenty of room for more renewables in existing grids before we absolutely must have storage.

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billdietrich1 t1_j9o7e93 wrote

No, don't give up. At least say "I disagree with you because of fact X" and then stop there. It's worthwhile to let them know you disagree, give them a fact that they may chew on, and let anyone else listening hear the same.

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billdietrich1 t1_j6o3dzy wrote

Even the "neutral" components of vape liquid can be bad when coated onto the insides of your lungs:

> Vaping-related lipoid pneumonia is the result of inhaling oily substances found in e-liquid

from https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/what-does-vaping-do-to-your-lungs

See same article for various other bad effects of vaping.

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