Geoff Of Perth: Not that this has anything to actually do with the topic of the original article: But, the reason I asked is because in the equation you gave and the original description following it looks like you're saying that it is a numerical constant.

It isn't a number but a sophicated mathematical object called a Tensor. Tensor calculus allows us to summarise whole collections of equations in one nice neat equation. The equation you gave (when written correctly and accounting for symmetries) actually represents 10 equations where the G is a second order tensor (the T is also a tensor). It is defined as G= the Ricci Tensor - 1/2*the metric tensor*the scalar tensor; sometimes it is also written in terms of the Christoffel symbols but that is a long complicated expression which I can't really write here without advanced formatting.
So I was wondering if you actually know how to do this sort of maths? Cause I do but admittedly not very well (when I studied Tensors Calculus many years ago I kept confusing the sub&super indices of contravariant and covariant and kept making mistakes and consequently was turned off by the whole thing) but never-the-less I do know what this equation is/represents, and what you've said about the speed of light not being constant and assumptions regarding thermodynamics needing to be changed/updated isn't ringing true with what I know about it.

thinkabit,

I know my original post initially appears off point however, I would add the following:

"In the mid 1990s astronomers showed that exploding stars in distant galaxies had revealed that the Universe isn’t just expanding, it’s expanding at an ever-faster rate. The cause: a force even stronger than gravity, but acting in the opposite direction – and with no obvious source. This is the now-notorious Dark Energy.

Most theorists believe Dark Energy has its origins in the quantum laws of the sub-atomic world, which allow even apparently empty space to be seething with energy."

Additionally, "recent calculations by theorists in the US and Europe have shown that if General Relativity is combined with quantum theory, the resulting theory of ‘quantum gravity’ gives insights not only into the Big Bang, but also what came before it. And early results suggest that today’s Universe is just the latest in an infinite cosmic cycle of Big Bangs."

Therefore I am suggesting thermodynamics as we know it is likely not set in stone and therefore energy, including renewables, may totally change as our understanding grows and develops.

I was not suggesting anything mysterious but perhaps did not explain it well.

Perhaps not Geoff, and perhaps there was no big bang or something appearing from nothing! A logical absurdity? Or real magic?

Perhaps the real answer to creation lies in dark energy/dark matter, which could have projected part of itself into our dimension to become everything in it, via the transformation of indestructible energy? Which can be neither created or destroyed! So had to exist in some form before the big bang?

In Einstein's unified field theory, everything in the universe is reduced to its basic component parts, revealing everything in and of the expanding universe is energy, including you and I!

Although I'm not too sure about you, given you could be a figment of my over active overwrought imagination; and thinkabit probably could produce a mathematical formula to prove just that, or that maybe I'm just a figment of my own imagination?

Or perhaps part of a larger dream we all share, where we are just bit players acting out infinitely small microscopic parts for a few brief cosmological nanoseconds?

Can the universe think? Well you and I can and we are an integral part of it!
Cheers, Alan B.

A few issues here. 1. Thorium based reactors, how are you going to get the fact they use a form of Uranium passed the anti lobby? 2. Been build all around the world since 2012, yet no one is basing their back up power on them. Turning research reactors into a practical base load power supply could take twenty to thirty years.

In my mind the real issue with turbines is the ecological cost of building them. We won't do it here because of the pollution, they are not really green at all. Wave power, no successful generation as yet. Lots of expensive failed projects. Solar? Same again, we have no Solar industry because the production is so toxic and expensive. I addition can spend a fortune for an installation, and have it all destroyed in a decent hail storm.

Visited a Motel in the south of the state a couple of years ago, they called and asked us to wait a while. Their brand new solar system's inverter had exploded and nearly burnt the place down. As we waited we walked past a local authority building which proudly proclaimed their solar credentials, the unit about 5kw was producing 200watts.

We could build a thorium burning reactor in the time it will take molten salt reactors to come to market. That reactor is the AFCR variant of the CANDU heavy water reactor
http://www.thoriumenergyworld.com/candu.html
China apparently intends to have one for every four conventional light water reactors. They not only burn thorium but spent uranium fuel along with the plutonium waste product.

I think SA should get one not only for their own electricity needs but in order to take spent fuel from east coast reactors that will replace coal baseload. Note that Hazelwood could close in 2017 and Liddell in 2022 so the SA reliability problem could spread to other states.

Baseload is an artefact of demand management designed to minimise load variations so as to reduce the need to shed power into load banks. Large generation plant cannot be readily shut down and restarted, so whether there is demand or not they have to keep spinning, which means they have to keep burning fuel whether the power is being consumed by customers or just heating up resistor banks.

Real base is very small. Our generation providers give encouragement such as reduced time of use charges to large users to manage their consumption across the 24 hour cycle so as to enable a minimum of wastage.

Real base consists of loads that will exist whether they are subsidised or not. There are very few. Some hospital and other emergency services consumption; some domestic consumption; some streetlighting; some minor HVAC consumption in commercial buildings; some industrial consumption largely associated with secondary manufacturing such as metal smelting.

As renewables enter the picture more significantly and central generators are shut down, so too will time of use demand management incentives be reduced and so baseload will disappear as a concept.

In addition, advanced controls and efficient electronic technologies will reduce demand from lighting to perhaps 1% of current practise. LED lights that switch on in response to human presence already exist and they will become ubiquitous.

Seriously everyone, this is happening, it's not theoretical, and it's going to completely overturn the models that you are concerned about preserving. Move on or you'll always be half a dozen steps behind.