"The greater our knowledge increases, the more our ignorance unfolds."

-John F. Kennedy

 

Don't Believe the Doom & Gloom

The BEA reported today that real consumer spending increased in July to $9.428 trillion (2005 dollars), setting a new monthly record (see chart above).  Consumer spending in July increased by 0.46% from June, and by 2.3% from a year ago.  That was the highest monthly increase in consumer spending since December 2009, 19 months ago.  By major product type, the largest increase in July was the 2% jump in spending by consumers on durable goods.

In comparison to the cyclical peak in December 2007 when the recession started, real consumer spending in July was 1.1% and $100.4 billion above that pre-recession level.  Despite low readings for consumer confidence based on survey data, the spending data tell a different story: consumer spending is coming back strong to new record levels almost every month.  

Next Gen Nukes

Safety Plan The Generation III+ reactors at the Vogtle facility in Georgia will feature a passive safety system to safeguard the plant in the absence of power. Kevin Hand

In the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in March, the appetite for new nuclear power plants slipped to post-Chernobyl lows. Regulators from Italy to Switzerland to Texas moved to stop pending nuclear-power projects, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) began to reevaluate the safety of all domestic plants. Yet nuclear power still provides 20 percent of America’s total electric power and 70 percent of its emissions-free energy, in large part because no alternative energy source can match its efficiency.

One nuclear plant with a footprint of one square mile provides the energy equivalent of 20 square miles of solar panels, 1,200 windmills or the entire Hoover Dam. If the country wants to significantly reduce its dependence on carbon-based energy, it will need to build more nuclear power plants. The question is how to do so safely.

In the 30 years since regulators last approved the construction of a new nuclear plant in the U.S., engineers have improved reactor safety considerably. (You can see some of the older, not-so-safe ones in this sweet gallery.) The newest designs, called Generation III+, are just beginning to come online. (Generation I plants were early prototypes; Generation IIs were built from the 1960s to the 1990s and include the facility at Fukushima; and Generation IIIs began operating in the late 1990s, though primarily in Japan, France and Russia.)

Unlike their predecessors, most Generation III+ reactors have layers of passive safety elements designed to stave off a meltdown, even in the event of power loss. Construction of the first Generation III+ reactors is well under way in Europe. China is also in the midst of building at least 30 new plants. In the U.S., the Southern Company recently broke ground on the nation’s first Generation III+ reactors at the Vogtle nuclear plant near Augusta, Georgia. The first of two reactors is due to come online in 2016.

(Click the above image for more details.)

For full article, click here.

Crusty :o)

Source

Sunday Silliness - Destiny :o)

Luck?

"Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get."

- Ray Arthur Kroc

Space Golf

What will it be like to do ordinary things on the extraordinary alien worlds of our solar system? For instance, will we still play our favorite games? In 1971, during the Apollo 14 mission, astronaut Alan Shepard hit a few golf balls on Earth's moon, where the gravity is six times weaker than on Earth. But what if you took a swing on Hyperion, where the gravity is 500 times weaker than on Earth? How gently would you have to swing to prevent the ball from going into orbit?


Click here to investigate/play.  Some great pictures!

Energy Star

The Energy Star program has been working on making its qualifications stricter, but across all the appliances there are still many bearing the label that aren't really that much of an improvement over other models.  To make it clearer which appliances are really the best of the best, Energy Star will now identify the top tier appliances with a "Most Efficient" label.

The new label will apply to just 5 percent of Energy Star washing machines, heating and cooling equipment, televisions and refrigerators/freezers.  The EPA may add more categories of appliances later this year.

To give you an idea of what the new label means, for refrigerators/freezers to earn the "Most Efficient" title, they have to be 30 percent more efficient than standard models, while TVs will have to be about 80 percent more efficient that standard models.  Out of the existing 1,800 refrigerators and freezers that are Energy Star certified, only 15 qualify for the new label, while only 18 out of the 1,400 Energy Star TVs qualify.

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The King Is Dead!

I always found these "King" commercials a little more than creepy.

This is the only time I will say I am glad the "King" is dead.

At least I know the difference between a Birthday and a Death :o)