I don't get why everyone keeps talking about the planets aligning. All the planets are pretty much in the same plane. So if you are on one of the planets, all of the others will always be in a line.
edit: to those downvoting me, can you explain why?
The special occasion is that their phase angles are all of a similar value so they are aligned next to each other. The phase angle describes the position in their respective orbit. If you imagine to look "down" upon the solar system, it would be the angle towards 12 o'clock.
It is rare because the further the planets are from the sun, the longer their orbit periods are. While Earth completes the circle in just a bit above 365 days, Neptune for example takes nearly 165 years to do a round trip. So it would take some time for the slower planets to meet again in the same region in the sky.
No, by being in a plane, the seven planets form a polygon.
If you are in a planet, there is a line to any other planet. Two planets form a line. Three planets form a triangle. Four planets form some irregular polygon of four sides. And so on.
In this case, the area of the polygon formed by the seven planets is minimal, for a period of several years, and they are effectively, almost in a line.
I believe the person you're responding to was observing that the planets will appear to be in a line to an observer on the surface of one of those planets.
I think you're missing the part that from the surface of the Earth, we can never see that whole plane at once. So the special part here is that all the planets are simultaneously in one half of a partition of the plane by a line going through Earth.
At anyone time due to the different radius of their orbits, some planets might be positioned so they would be visible during the day (making them not actually visible). These “alignmnets” mean that they are visible at the same time in the night sky. Them all being on the same plane just means they are located in different spots on the same line in the sky
You are of course right. But for an observer on Earth, planets can be below the horizon. The difference this time is that their orbits are aligning in the other dimension as well, meaning they will be all above horizon when your observation point spins into place.
Methane derived from co2 and h2o with solar energy is not a fossil fuel. Methane from the ground is a fossil fuel. Casey is going after industry that has a lot of inertia behind methane with a non fossil derived methane.
Yes, and many of those markets are not good fits for methane of any kind as electricity becomes cheaper e.g heating.
It is disappointing, but understandable, that he feels the need to make methane in general seem more irreplaceable and vital to human happiness than it really is.
A typical example is cooking fire in Africa. This is a major cause of deforestation. The introduction of cheap e-methane is the best solution in sight. When off-grid, cooking with electricity does not make sense.
Methane doesn't make sense off grid, either. It's a gas and requires pipes to distribute efficiently. If you want to go off grid best to go up the chain a bit to propane or kerosene.
The 3rd world is much better off switching to solar. With an induction hob you can probably get away with 1000 Wh / day. A 200W panel, a 1000Wh battery, a 1500W inverter and a 1500W hob would cost around $500 and last 20 years. It can also keep a cell phone charged or used for refigeration instead or ...
OTOH, a propane burner might cost $20, but then you'll be spending $10/month on propane, and are super vulnerable to being cut off from your source.
Shouldn’t a higher priority still be expanding coverage of the grid? I’m sure there will always be some market for off-grid use cases but those should be a tiny niche.
Expanding the grid faces a totally different set of roadblocks than expanding individual household's capacity to generate power.
Much of the extant Third World is in its Third World-ey condition because of abysmal governance. That is usually accompanied by infestation of power and grid companies by grandnephews of top politicians etc.; those companies handle a lot of money, are highly centralized, and are thus a prime target for graft.
The bizarre story of South African ESKOM and poisoning of the director who was asked to reduce corruption comes to mind. [0]
That's gonna require you to jump through a lot of hoops and it might not even make economical sense at this point in time to build out the grid. It might not ever. You want to cook now, fuel solves that problem.
It's a complicated solution. On top of deployment of renewable energy production, it requires building efuel manufacturing and distribution network. Even if that's doable, it's not something that can be built immediately. And even if built, I don't see how it can compete in impoverished areas with just cutting down whatever is around.
And in the end, it only solves cooking. Electrification solves many more problems at once, and notably refrigeration.
I see they are going for the high-end market. Seems the right path to me, for now, since they can charge high prices for foie gras without the guilt.
We eat beef, chicken, pork, and lamb, because they taste good, and are cheap to make because we can domesticate the animals.
What if exotic meats taste better, but we can't eat them because the animals are endangered, or dangerous, or undomesticable. Maybe lion, rhino, elephant, koala, meats etc taste really good. Growing these meats in the lab eliminates* these ethical problems.
Or what if they taste good, but they are too tough? Again, cultured meat process can interleave layers of fats to break up the muscle. Another win.
Just look at the nuance between the difference in taste between lamb and beef. There's so much difference, and I see so much potential here to explore different flavors.
* or maybe just exacerbates poaching, if it's cheaper to poach than grown in lab :/
But the "I am your father" wasn't in the shooting script anyway. The script said "Obi-Wan killed your father", and it was changed to "I am your father when James Earl Jones" said the line for the voice of Vader. Maybe it is that way in subsequent published scripts but not the original.
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