billvon

No. Electrons never "meet." Electrons move from atom to atom both during chemical reactions and conduction of electricity in metals. They cannot fuse because there is no analogy to the nuclear force between electrons. You have posted nothing that would be of benefit for clean electrical power.

As is yours: "The environmental movement won't be happy until we all return to a pre 1800's primitive state. That is why they are against not only nuclear power, but any power generation."

Telling someone that their post is incorrect is not a personal attack, but telling someone they are ignorant (or an idiot, or a fool, or clueless etc) is. Imagine your reaction to a post where you made an inadvertent mistake and, as a result, someone told you you were an ignorant tool. The discussion after that point would probably be less useful.

People have been saying that for at least 150 years. There are always problems in the US - but compared to our historical problems, our problems today are relatively minor. We are not currently trying to split the country in two (and kill everyone in the other half) or keep minorities enslaved, or imprison people of a certain race. People who grew up during the Kent State shootings, or the race riots of the 1960's, or the Vietnam War, or even the Cold War, would disagree that America is in more peril than ever.

I didn't call them "non-reality-based" regardless of position. It depends a great deal on their position. As I mentioned, some right wing extremists are non-reality-based - just as some far left wing political types are. Both use the same sort of labels to close off discussion and prevent understanding - because to political extremists, understanding poses a risk. To take two examples, a right wing extremist is not going to want anyone to understand the amount of taxes that illegal immigrants pay, because that eats into their argument that they are universally a burden on the US. So they label anyone who supports them a "crime supporter" which serves to derail the conversation and avoid the more messy facts. Likewise, a left wing extremist might want only solar and wind used for electrical power. This is currently not possible because we rely on other methods of generation to supply baseline power, and will for decades to come. When this is brought up, often the extremist will ask something like "so you want coal power pollution to kill people?" Again, this serves to derail the discussion and avoid the underlying issues.

And that's a feature of political extremism, not a specific ideology. Consider this oft-heard refrain: LIBERAL: We should spend less on the military. REPUBLICAN: Why do you hate our men and women in uniform? In general while political conservatism (or liberalism) is _not_ a form of insanity, right wing extremism is often associated with non-reality-based approaches to issues. (Same is true of left-wing extremism.)

Because you would have to pump the steam back in under pressure to the boiler. It would take more energy than you get out of the turbine to do that. Condensing the water back to a liquid allows you to pump it back in with much less energy used, resulting in a net gain in energy.

We have, fortunately, gotten over the panic. But for a few weeks Ebola led every newscast, newspaper and news website. There were calls for quarantine and travel bans. People were isolated because they were ten miles from a suspected Ebola patient. A good overview from CBS (who ironically was one of the culprits) - ======================== The threat of Ebola is generating a considerable amount of fear and misinformation across the country, not to mention a growing number of false alarms. Fears about Ebola have reached a fever pitch in recent days. Hazmat crews boarded a plane in Boston. Traffic was halted near the Pentagon when a woman fell ill on a bus. And at Cleveland's airport -- several days after infected nurse Amber Vinson had passed through -- passenger Tamika Freeman was still worried. "It was a huge scare," said Freeman. "You know, I'm pregnant. A lot of people touch each other." Vinson was in Ohio to plan for her wedding. Now the bridal shop she visited is temporarily closed, the workers on voluntary quarantine. Public health professor Andrew Noymer studies infectious diseases at University of California, Irvine. He says people do not need to be afraid of Ebola in the U.S. "I would say the panic is harder to contain than the spread of the disease itself," he said. "People are focusing on that it's a scary disease from far away, and they see scary images of people caring for sick people with protective gear, and it looks frightening." So frightening that even a schoolteacher's trip to Dallas was enough to cause a panic in Maine. She was placed on medical leave after attending a conference 10 miles from the hospital where Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan was treated. An overreaction, says parent Megan Starbird. "You want to keep the kids safe," she said. "But I think it's a little ridiculous." So far, the scares are all false alarms. "It's obviously a scary disease if you have it," said Noymer. "But it's just not highly transmittable. I can't say that enough." Asked if he would get on a plane with someone who had Ebola, Noymer said: "I would not be scared." To this point, no one outside the Dallas hospital has tested positive. "Everyone needs to take a step back," said Noymer. "Just take a look at the situation for a minute, take a breath. If we look at the family of Mr. Duncan, none have come down with the disease." ===================

The claims that "nuclear power is safe" and "GMO's are safe" are also unscientific (and provably wrong.) Both have risks. Fortunately science does not seek to prove either one, nor should it. Science instead quantifies the risk. A nuclear power plant might have a loss-of-coolant accident, on average, once every 600 years, and a GMO might increase your odds of dying of an allergic reaction by .003%. Such responses are, in general, scientifically supportable. Both sides have certainly taken good science and used it for their own ends. Unfortunately, we are also seeing the rise of well-funded bad science that seeks purely to support a political agenda.

If Ebola gets a thousand times worse in the US, it will still cause fewer deaths than the flu does every year. That's not to say that we shouldn't be working on vaccines and cures - we should, both for our sake and the sake of the people of Africa. But the panic over it is very disproportionate to the risk.

Golden rice (beta-carotene enhanced rice) has been around for quite some time, and there have been several trials I've heard of. Have there been any reports/updates on its success or failure?