History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


Somewhat understand. While I did not seen that ERINT missiles planned to be shipped under a current contract, it can be provided by NATO channels at any time, as well as interoperating THAAD launchers to complement the system (it was promised to complete integration of THAAD in 2 years). Located close to Belarussian border, it will become a threat to almost anything, launched from western part of Russia.

History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


AFAIK, there is a de-facto ban for new nuclear power plants in EC? Poland have some plans to change this?

I ask it because there is little chance to buy a perpetuum mobile, and fracking tech used to release shale gas can end up with purchasing bottled drinking water from Russia for the same money that Poland previously spent for siberian natural gas.

History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


$5bn worth of anti-tank missiles with mobile launchers and battlefield anti-air systems would be much better purchase, if you plan to purchase something to protect Poland as well, not solely United States.

History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


You are either stupid, either paid troll.

Russian military doctrine includes use of nuclear weapons in response to nuclear attack or in response to a massive attack with conventional weapons, that endangers existence of state. Nothing more, but no less.

"Perimeter" system, known as "dead hand" on the West is one more thing that make someone ill by their existence. If someone will succeed to vaporize Kremlin and major command centers, missiles will be launched automagically.

So, neutral country that does not try to attack Russia is most likely not in danger. Country that present their territory for a third party weapons turned against Russia - deserves to have their military bases and strategic targets programmed to missile flight plans.

Purchase of "Patriots" by Poland is one of the most stupid things I can imagine (if I would be polish taxpayer). $5bn for not the best anti-missile system, plus yearly maintenance expenses - and there is no russian missiles potentially targeted against Poland that really can be shot down by this "Patriots". Quasi-ballistic missiles like "Iskander" is not the target for current "Patriots". But "Patriots" WILL be targets for "Iskanders", and in case of attack from NATO side, "Patriots" will be destroyed by a first strike, just before start of ICBMs for a response strike to a targets in NA.

In fact, purchase of "Patriots" is a sort of "danegeld", paid to US - because in fact this systems will protect US from older ICBMs that will never be targeted to Poland. And control a polish-owned "Patriots" from NATO is not the much worse than owning of the same "Patriots" by US itself, just $5bn will be taken from Poland to put them on their territory and become a first victims in case of a big war.

News / Polish diplomat Zbigniew Brzezinski has died [53]


Yes, you must have copper balls to sentence uncounted millions to die just because you are "playing geopolitical chess game".

I hope, Europe and US will pay for supporting that sort of "players". Already starting to pay, of course.

News / Polish diplomat Zbigniew Brzezinski has died [53]

As I can see from comments on various forums - reaction mostly ranges from neutral to something written by Hilaire Belloc:

Here richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician's corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.

And many, many people tell that Brzezinski is far not the last in the list of people responsible in burning Middle East and millions of civilian' deaths.

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1050]

Can someone help to find a correct Polish name of a car with a one or two person lift for workers, that used often to work with electrical wires on poles? "Cherry picker" is pretty common name in UK, but unable to find correct Polish translation.

News / CO2 emissions in Poland. Should Poland go nuclear or stick with clean coal technologies? [93]

Nuclear power plant was still efficient in Germany without subsidies even after almost 2 billion euro per year nuclear fuel tax (that used mainly to subsidize solar and wind energy producers). And wind farm owners continuously screaming that solar "eats" about 60% of subsidies while produces just 10% of "green" energy.

Concerning waste from nuclear plants and from producing aluminium for wind farms - it's another story. Nuclear waste is MUCH more dangerous, but it is INCOMPARABLY more compact. All active waste from all US nuclear programs since the beginning can be put on a single football field and it will be just about 1 meter thick layer on it. Compare with millions of tons of red mud that is left over after Bayer process each year.

News / CO2 emissions in Poland. Should Poland go nuclear or stick with clean coal technologies? [93]

Cost is only one side of a coin. ;)

To make a solar panel (modern one, and starting from abundant natural minerals) you should spend almost the same energy as this panel will produce during their life cycle.

Wind turbine looks better, it will produce about 20 times more energy than will be spent for its production during complete life cycle, and there is more materials to recycle (with losses, though) compared to solar panels.

But anyway you must have powerful energy source to make such panels or turbines. If it is coal plants in China, your "clean" solar panel already produced the same CO2 emissions as it would be produced if same amount of energy was produced in coal/gas power plant. The primary difference is that you cannot produce energy when you need it with solar panel, you will have it in a sunny days. So, you have to install battery banks that again take some energy to produce and must be recycled as toxic waste in 3-5 years.

Life / Installing a solar panel in Poland [14]

aluminum is infinity recyclable

Yes... With 9-12% metal loss in each cycle. And it almost always require adding of primary aluminium to get correct alloy composition in recycled ingots. And, even after this, use of secondary aluminium is usually avoided in critical constructions with large alternating loads (like wind generator rotors).

Concerning thin film silicon cells - maybe, somewhere in future, it will become widespread. But all that I see now in real products is mono- or polycrystalline wafers, 0.5mm (in small cells) or thicker.

Last time I looked into papers, concerning energy efficiency of "green energy" was about a year ago. Latest data showed that modern solar cells return 80-120% of energy spent to their production, and large wind turbines return about 20 times more energy during their life cycle than was spent to produce them.

Life / Installing a solar panel in Poland [14]

Over 20 years a 200watt solar panel will produce say 200*1000*365*20=1,460,000 Kwhr

If you have a full sun over some part of Poland 24 hours a day for 20 years, 200W panel would produce 0.2 kW * 24 h * 365 days* 20 years* 0.9 = 35040 kWh

(0.9 is average based on 80% promised output in the end of 20 year life).

In a real world with average to 2.5 hours of full sun each day over the year it becomes 3650 kWh during full life cycle.

3650 * $0.05 = $182.5, compare to your $72k.

Right now we will not take conversion losses into account, but you are lucky if you'll get more than 80% of this amount into more useful form of 220V AC.

Now I look to older 100W Siemens Solar panel that is in my room now, It was removed to reinstall to another location later. Good, robust panel with 20 year warranty. There is about 2.5 kg of extruded aluminium in their frame and base.

If memory serves me correctly, producing of one ton of primary aluminium require (world's average) 15.6 Mw*h. Around 11 MW*h per ton is used to break chemical bonds in oxide, and rest is losses to heat the mixture.

So, 2.5 kg of aluminium takes around 39 kW*h just to convert oxide into metal (not counting energy expenses to mine the ore, enrich, etc).

For 100W panel will produce (based on calculations above) around 1825 kwh of energy during their 20 years life (in Poland). 91.25 kWh per year. About half year of operation just to "return" energy spent in smelters to produce raw aluminium that was used to make its frame.

With monocrystalline silicon that was used in solar cells things is even worse...

Just to note, most widely used Siemens process take about 250 kWh per kg of pure silicon that can be used for solar cells or further purified for use in electronics.

There is another, more energy-efficient processes in use, but they use rare ultra-pure minerals as feedstock.

Life / Installing a solar panel in Poland [14]

Ignorant rubbish. Solar cells have a 25 year guaranteed life to 80% output. Thats a hell of lot of energy

10 to 25 years, depending of manufacturer. We had some 40W chinese panels (on a off-grid low power telemetry equipment, of course) that survived only 2-3 years.

And try to figure out how much energy is consumed to produce typical panel starting from sand and bauxite. And compare with typical output of such panel during its complete life cycle. You'll be surprised.

Life / Installing a solar panel in Poland [14]

First of all, do you understand, WHY you need solar panel on your house?

Do you have regular blackouts in your area and need backup power source for low-power electronics? Are you totally "off grid"? Do you prepare for war or natural disaster?

Most likely, kw*h of energy, produced by solar panels will cost you 5-10 times more than regular grid power. And you will need to install and support battery bank (3-5 years life before replacement) and power inverter to get usable power while you really need it.

If you just thinking about saving on electricity - replace your regular light bulbs with energy saving ones, like luminiscent or LED lamps.

And remember, that current solar panels will generate about the same energy during their life as used initially to produce it. So, it will not help you to lower your "carbon footprint". The only difference that CO2 and other contamination will be created somwehere in China.

History / Whom do the people in Poland hate more: Germans or Russians? [871]


You mean that it is the only possible life style tor anyone residing between two superpowers? ;)

News / Tragedy in Russia - shouldn`t Poland declare national mourning? [41]


One of ships was loaded oil tanker, large and with just a few people in a crew. I doubt they was able to do very much in rescue effort but would cause additional dangers trying to maneuver near area of river with survivors.

It will be investigated anyway...

News / Tragedy in Russia - shouldn`t Poland declare national mourning? [41]


In reality, it was initially designed for 253 passengers. Later, during renovation, number of passengers onboard was decreased (it was made more spacious and comfortable for a smaller number of passengers). So, 200 persons was not overload for this ship.

News / Poland reveals its new super car. [56]


YES! Are you surprised?

Even best heat pumps that I know, ones that use sea water (around +2C at winter there) as source of heat energy can provide equivalent of 4 kWh of heat per every 1 kWh spent. And sea water circulate constantly, so you have little risk to get a large blob of super-cold ice around your outside pipes and nearly zero efficiency of your heat pump. The ones who plan to pump heat out of underground water and soil is not so lucky. Cold air as source of heat is even worse than soil - there is plenty of air, but you need constant flow of air to get heat from, you need whole hurricane to extract enough to heat multi-storey building at -30C.


For sure... ;) In germany, companies that have wind generator farms complain that solar energy producers consume 40% of total state subsidies amount producing only 10% of "green" electricity. ;)

But where you'll get energy to produce solar panels? For now, the best solar panels during whole lifetime produce just a bit less energy total, compared to energy that was spent to produce solar panel itself. So, for now solar panels is energy-wasting and pollution-creating devices.

Even if efficiency will be increased tenfold (litle chances), it will be problematic to produce new panels to replace aging ones and to expand generating farms and spend some energy for other industry with photovoltatic generation only.

News / Poland reveals its new super car. [56]


I have experience with installation and servicing solar-powered telemetry units in climate of central Russia. So, I'm not enthusiastic at all about PV (except in african deserts).


But where you'll get energy to power heat pumps? Even if new developments will make heat pumps reasonably cheap, reliable and not containing either poisonous, ozone depleting or highly flammable/explosive liquids.

News / Poland reveals its new super car. [56]


Especially useful for Norway or northern Russia. ;)

BTW: Maybe heating at winter in all northern countries also will be solar powered? ;)

News / Poland reveals its new super car. [56]


It will. Sometime. But not very soon.
Sooner if investments to nuclear/thermonuclear power technologies will be increased.

News / Poland reveals its new super car. [56]


For now - pure toys. Until someone invent rechargeable batteries with similar energy/volume and energy/weight properties as gasoline tank.


What will be your electric train do on a track without contact wires?

I seen large Belaz and Caterpillar trucks at work. There is electric transmission but still diesel engine.

News / Poland reveals its new super car. [56]


Photos only. I think it will be toy for guys that don't know where to spend few more of that boring millions.. ;)

News / Poland reveals its new super car. [56]


Hm...
Why vast majority of people prefer real sex to any adult toys money can buy? ;)
Why believers believe in God/Allah/You_Name_It while there is lots of things that is much easier to believe in? ;)

News / CO2 emissions in Poland. Should Poland go nuclear or stick with clean coal technologies? [93]


Yes, it is possible. But backup systems that does not require electricity must exist anyway - otherwise severe snowstorm or ice rain (like the one that almost paralyzed some cities around Moscow and Domodedovo airport this winter) may cause real disaster. Combined heater that can automatically switch to LPG in emergency situations looks like adequate solution.

News / CO2 emissions in Poland. Should Poland go nuclear or stick with clean coal technologies? [93]


It is equal to negative result, and you know it. ;) Even if you'll put obvious and really vital question to referendum, there will be a lot of people that will vote against. For a number of irrational reasons...

Vote of brainwashed drug addict is equal to vote world class scientist that may know correct solution for sure... This is greatest "acheivment" of democracy in their present form. Very convenient for someone who control mass media.

History / Tuchola in Poland - roots of Katyn? [220]


This is not only russian problem. There is lots of cases when same mistake was done without russians ever been close.

History / Tuchola in Poland - roots of Katyn? [220]


That was one of main problems of SU. Great looking ideas, but practical implementation....

May be my translation of following quote is not perfect, but... "Revolutions is planned by geniuses, performed by enthusiasts, and bastards use their fruits".

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]

Three dead as of 8pm, Jan 1.

itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=15833506&PageNum=0

_Very_ strange explosion. I will not be surprised if they will find proofs of sabotage .

History / Poland in a Slavic Union/Alliance/Federation? [335]


One version of what happens if we mix Germans and Slavs is well known - Russian Empire. ;) Ruled by royal family of mostly German descent. ;) Looks like Poles wasn't so happy about it. ;)

BTW: Catherine II the Great, Empress and Autocrat of all Russians (formerly Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg) was quite critical about Germans in general... ;)

By the way, there IS chances for Slavic Alliance, and even Slavic-German Alliance. But, historically, Poles never ever thinked to agree on something less that domination. I'd say, Poles is quite hard to agree on anything at all. ;) If you take together three poles, you'll have 4 opposing points of view on almost any question.. ;)

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [686]


Yeah... Slavs is major force anyway. If they united, they is geopolitical force. If they separated -- they are workforce. Cheap workforce. ;)