rakman

Who's going to apologize when a major tropical storm surge, combined with high tides, flood vast sectors of Bkk to a meter or more? This could happen b4 2 long. And with the cumulative affects of rising sea levels combined with a sinking land mass, the water may not abate for days or weeks, or.....?

Perhaps this topic should be combined with the 26 page T.Visa thread "Gulf Of Thailand Won't Rise With Global Warming, Expert Claims" ....in order to further show the folly of the expert's claim.

Even a giant levy around Bkk won't make much difference. Levies can hold water in as well as keep water out .....for awhile. The epic flooding of Bkk, sometime in the near future, will make New Orleans look like a prequel.

Start building that ark. I have 230 long lengths of bamboo for sale - 25 baht each.

If the oceans were rising, wouldn't they be rising everywhere? Sinking land mass is more likely the cause.

As for levies, put big pumps on the living side (but make them so they'll run when the water is deep unlike New Orleans). Sometimes people build in what seems today the dumbest places, but a river, bay and commerce looked good way back when.

Producing energy with nuclear power is relatively environmental friendly way when compared to coal, oil or wind (for wind - huge space needed, ineffective, low-quality), but we have to ask is it really sustainable and how the price rises will affect in the future.

Modern nuclear plants are incredibly safe, and with proper care (yea yea Thai care isn't gonna blow it up) the risks can be minimized to a level where this is no longer a factor.

However, solar energy will soon enough be a cheaper and there's a clear trend suggesting the technology will improve to a point where it will be the best option (assuming they cannot commercialize fusion energy production in the next 10-20 years).

We are now about to finish the construction work of the latest reactor (yes, 5 million people but there are 5 reactors) in Finland and I do not think everyone are satisfied with the said 50 % increase in the construction costs.

I hope all options are carefully considered before making any hasty decisions and I do really hope no politics (or corruption) are involved with this. Has anyone seen any estimates and calculations about the alternative options?

The Sun provides ~1kW/sqm on the earth's surface The usual photovoltaic panels are ~11% efficient, giving about 100W/sqm. Unless the collectors track the sun, their most efficient collection time is about 4 hours, with reduced output for another 4 - 6 hours. Then, if no means of storing excess power (assuming there is) the lights go out at night. PV panels have a payback of about 20 years, they might last 30 years if nothing (bad weather) destroys them. Plus, they need to be cleaned periodically to keep them at max efficiency. Do the math to figure out how much land would be needed to generate a decent amount of power. What happens to the land under the collectors?

Solar is an expensive novelty when and where standard power isn't available.

Wind is not as viable as advertised:

From http://www.aweo.org/windEon2004.html

For technical reasons, the intensive use of wind power in Germany [one of the largest, most advanced users of wind power; my comment] is associated with significant operational challenges:

• 
  
• Only limited wind power is available. In order to cover electricity demands, traditional power station capacities must be maintained as so-called "shadow power stations" at a total level of more than 80% of the installed wind energy capacity, so that the electricity consumption is also covered during economically difficult periods.
  

Unless one enjoys brownouts and outages, good luck on wind or solar power.

These technologies are not mature enough to be practical, except as an expensive government supported boondoggle.

will pattaya, phuklet be affected at of this latter part of month?

Only if global warming keeps heating up and the oceans keep rising mate.

Thats interesting as global warming is just another scam to get everyone to pay carbon taxes. What happened to the acid rain which was going to destroy everything around us, do you really fall for this nonsense?

The coming iceage touted in the 1970's.

The whole in the ozone layer.

Acid rain.

Genetic engineered crops.

The environmentalists are always predicting imminent global calamity from something. The scary thing is people keep buying into their crap whether the science is there or not.

I am all for protecting the environment and doing things that make sense to avoid future problems but this knee jerk feel good mentality of trying to save the planet from the cause dejour is ridiculous.

BTW: This year was one of the coldest on record for large parts of the US. That is why the term global warming has now been forsaken in favor of climate change. Global warming doesn't fly when you are freezing your a55 off but if you call it climate change, well yeah, the climate changes every day and if the experts say it is bad it must be.

The annual temperatures reported by NASA which showed 1998 as the hottest year on record was flawed by a Y2K error. 1934 is still the hottest year. The IPCC "Hockey Stick" graph is a fraud. It misses the "Little Ice Age" and the "Medieval Warming Period". CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, it's a fertilizer for plants. Water vapor is a bigger green house gas. Look to the Sun for a sign.

will pattaya, phuklet be affected at of this latter part of month?

Only if global warming keeps heating up and the oceans keep rising mate.

Considering the earth has been cooling for the last decade, we should see the oceans recede.

Our doctor did not offer us, or schedule our 1st ultrasound until 6 1/2 months and the 2nd one (3D) at 8 months. The 3D ultrasound is very cool. We have a DVD of it. They even have 4D now which we were offered but it was very expensive. The 3D was 2500 Baht while the 4D was around 4000 Baht.

Wow, you get to see the baby grow old before your eyes?

I have a Chevy Optra, (didnt buy it was part of a deal) that is manual transmission, I was wondering if anyone could reccomend someone in Pattaya that would be able to carry out a conversion to Auto for me.

Hard to resell a manual or part exchange so I'm sure its worth the effort.

Thanks in advance for any help

I wouldn't recommend

a) a Chevy Optra

changing it to auto or

c) Pattaya.

My Grandad came from just a little bit east of the Pennines (ie God's own county), and when autos began sneaking into the UK market in the very early 50's, I asked him what he thought of them. He replied:

"What do you think the Lord gave you a left hand for, if not to change gear?"

I'm sure you could give me alternative ideas, even though the Wars of the Roses are long since o'er......

As the saying goes, "Only true sports cars are right hand drive."

Worst so far this year ?

Brilliant Pictures, 'johng' - because the light would have been fairly suspect at that time. Please let us know what kind of camera you used: I shall rush-out and purchase one right away ! (seriously !)

The camera is a Canon Powershot A590 IS I set it to auto but forced the flash off.

Some of the pics where blurred ( didn't upload those ones ) because the auto focus had a hard time.

The flood subsided after about 3 hours,this morning its raining again

Thank you for sharing the pics. The color contrast and lighting are really remarkable.

Somewhat surprised not to see a jet ski..

Diesel and gas engines can run with their exhust under water, just depends on how far under the size of the motor etc. As long as the pressure from the water is not high enough to stop the exhaust you are ok, what you really need to worry about is you intake, if you suck up some water in the intake it goes into the engine and can cause allot of problems. (bent rod, head gasket etc)

I told my wife 100 times not to drive into water, but of course in one ear out the other, ended up having the complete engine overhauled (this was in the USA $3200 to fix it)

be careful in the water!!!

Some cars have the air intake very low to the ground and can suck up water into the intake. Hydrolock is a bad thing. At low engine rpm, you might get lucky not to damage the engine and fix it by pulling the spark plugs, turning over the engine and changing the oil.

Exhaust is fine, but if you do drive in deep water, be sure to apply a bit of brake pressure to dry your brakes after moving out of the water.

If you can, within a few days, drive long enough to heat up the axle bearings to drive out any water that might get into them or sucked into the differential (rear or front or both on 4wd) due to the cooling of the differential oil. Some vehicles are designed for running in deep water, the differential vents are plumbed higher up the chassis, most are small vents on top of the differential housing or transmission on front wheel drive vehicles. Rust can form quickly and compromise the lubricants or internal parts.

Hi heres a pic of our street at 9am this mornig.....................I will try to get out and look at the surrounding area on my bike later.

Looks better than parts of Atlanta, GA. An unexpected 100 year class of rain, slow moving, dumped around 45 cm rain on the west side. Half of the houses in Austell, GA were flooded, 10 deaths from people driving into flooded roads at night.

Be careful out there and hope that this storm breaks up quickly.

It's expected to hit the NorthEast and the North, but everything people in this thread are talking about (incl. 95% of the article) is Bangkok. Somebody around here a little selfcentered maybe?

The shower bands extend down across BKK and the Thailand Gulf. It is a very slow moving storm, which means lots of rain. At least the winds are dying quickly. I hope anyone down stream from the mountains and hills has a safe place to go.

Been asking some of my IT geeky people about upgrading RAM on this new HP, from 4GB to 16GB. Turns out it'll be bonkers money. But after asking what I needed it for 'really fast PC, can do lot's of multi-tasking without waiting, stalling etc' they came up with this!

Don't know how much it would cost to build, but there's instructions at the end of the vid with a parts list if you're quick with the pause button.

24 drives at US$ 650.00-700.00 each, plus CPUs, Motherboard, RAM, Raid Controllers, power supplies, etc, etc, etc.

A lot of money.

Are you a masochist? Keep reading then, there are sure to be some sadistic members here who'll enjoy teasing you to despair.

Reminds me of the joke: What did the sadist do to the masochist?

NOTHING!!!

(think about it)

I like this one:

"Why do you hang around that sadist?"

Beats me!

Cheers!

Congratulations! I am all for it. Legalize it and tax it to increase services for all.

Too bad this couldn't be done in the U.S.A., along with legalizing cannabis, as ways to lower the current record deficit. Otherwise, future

generations of workers will be over burdened in providing Social Security, etc. to retirees, etc.

Legal in most of Nevada via brothels, legal in Rhode Island (sex for money o.k. but no brothels allowed).

Cheers!!