Specifically, Hilary Clinton's email scandal would be a crime under SOX, as would be the recent IRS data destruction.
The problem isn't that there aren't laws that criminalize these activities, there are.
The problem is that the government will never prosecute itself, and thus the government lets the corrupt get away with it increasing corruption over time.
One example of this is that there's been no reform of voting systems despite their failure in 2001, and increasing evidence of voter fraud in every presidential election since.
The funny thing about nuclear waste is that it's not the "hottest stuff" you have to worry about. The hottest stuff has a very short half life and disappears relatively quickly. On the other side things like Carbon 14 that have a multiple millennium half life are not radioactive enough to cause much of a problem. It's the stuff that has a half life of about 10 to 1000 years that you have to worry about.
I am responding to what apparently is the author's view. I didn't say that men defined these women's lifestyle and the women didn't choose to live this way.
The fact that writers are actually having to drill down and do the math and see if Solar Power is less expensive in areas where power is cheap and available is mind blowing to me.
I find it fascinating, that, by 2017, there will be areas in Hawaii and Australia, in which you can make an argument that Solar Power is now less expensive that grid power.
What these authors seem to fail to recognize (or highlight) in their criticism - is that these lines are being crossed 10-15 years ahead of time. Nobody expected parity on these edge cases until at least 2025-2030, and we're going to see it in 2016.
And, what they also seem to fail to recognize, is that the curves for solar are going down. This is just the start.
"Deutsche Bank actually predicts that all 50 US states will be at grid parity by 2016 — that’s next year. (Note that it takes several years to build coal, natural gas, or nuclear power plants.)
Deutsche Bank also predicts that ~80% of the global electricity market will be at grid parity by 2017. This is why solar power is scaring coal companies, natural gas companies, and utilities so much, and why you see so many anti-solar myths out there being repeated over and over again… despite being several years out of date."
There isn't any reason for the author to bring up those points because they are irrelevant.
This article is about whether it makes sense to buy a tesla battery right now. It doesn't matter if solar will be half the cost in five years. If that's the case, just buy it then when the numbers make sense.
Let's say someone wrote an article reviewing a new apartment complex opening in the Tenderloin of SF. If they said that the crime there is terrible so people should look elsewhere, would you be complaining if they didn't provide in-depth projects of potential future crime rates in the same area?
It makes perfect sense to bring it up because the massive disruption this will cause to the global energy economy. Oil, coal, the structure of these are going to be altered massively. Think today how gas is used to blackmail the Ukraine and prop up autocratic political systems. There are very significant implications to all of this.
By the time it becomes 'relevant' it will be ancient news to those who appreciate what's going on here.
The interesting question for solar power is not "When will stand-alone solar power be cheaper than coal/gas?". It is "How high can we push the fraction of solar power / total power before the power distribution grid fails?". You need base power generation to augment solar/wind, there's not a serious scientist in the world denying that, and the numbers I've heard quoted say you can't average much more than 50-60% solar and wind combined.
Right now, Germany is charging ahead on solar. Their current peak record is 50.4% of total power from solar, on a sunny midsummer day with low power usage. Meanwhile, all of their neigbouring countries to the east are doing massive overhauls/reconfigurations of their power distribution grids just to be able to supply Germany with enough base power, mainly from nuclear.
The "We can't do everything with solar" was what everyone was saying (correctly) in 2005-2010. But, the entire point of the Powerwall product is that, today (not next year, today), in parts of Australia and Hawaii, it is now less expensive, and more efficient, to go 100% solar. As the prices of batteries drop, and solar becomes more efficient, the number of places where that is true will only increase.
From the perspective of watching trends back in 2005, this wasn't supposed to happen until 2025, so it's arriving 10 years early.
There's nothing that would prevent a good storage system + wind + power from supplying 100% of the power requirements reliably. You just need to scale your Storage system to handle the periods in which solar/wind aren't driving power.
Regarding the Germany Scenario - Let's see how much nuclear they are going to require after they add a few Terrawatt-Hours worth of battery storage to their grid.
Finally, commenting on your "so Serious Scientists" - there are a lot of them that have done the calculations and have come to the conclusion that only a solar solution will supply the world with the power it requires so that everyone can have an first-world lifestlye. In particular, check out Nate Lewis's introduction to Solar Energy - https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodca... ,He "provides a beginner's overview of the concepts behind solar energy generation as well as the current state of the art and its potential role in future energy production."
It's eye opening - even nuclear power plants don't stand a chance versus solar (which, to be honest, is just harvesting the output of a really, really, really big fusion generator)
The missing component has always been storage, and Elon has jumpstarted that conversation. The powerall is interesting, the gigafactory is more interesting, but the fact that he realizes Tesla is only going to be a tiny, tiny element of a much larger industrial transition, is, in my mind, the most important part of this story.
Sorry, that's just missing the mark. In northern latitudes, where most of the world's energy consumption is currently located, the seasonal variation in solar influx means a 100% solar solution needs to do energy storage for months at a time. Continuing with the Germany example, the monthly-average production of solar power in January is ~ 1/15th the production in July.
And I don't believe we will ever be able to get the whole world up to current western consumption levels. More to the point, we really shouldn't, as current consumption levels in the west are clearly unsustainable.
Not sure who downvoted you (I leveled you up) - I spent about 30 minutes researching seasonal variation of solar power in northern climates (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/16/us-column-wynn-ren...) and your numbers check out. "For example, aggregate solar power generation in the first week of January was only 7 percent of peak production in the final week of May
The northern climates, then, are a challenge for solar, even with lots of storage. Fair point, and something to think about.
But, as to your second point, about how we shouldn't get the whole world up to current western consumption levels - I don't know about you, but I like hot water in the morning, air conditioning on a hot day, clean clothes from the washing machine, baked goods at home, and and a warm house on a cold winters day. I agree that efficiency is important (all of those things can be delivered more efficiently - same value with less energy), but I certainly wouldn't suggest that everyone in the world shouldn't have access to them, and more.
(I'm not able to reply to ghshephard, so I put it here.)
My point about not getting everyone up to western consumption levels isn't mainly about the things you mention. It's more about the use-and-throw-away culture, plus the general inability of people to make stuff themselves. Imagine the impact if people started mending stuff and clothes, cooking their own food, taking the bicycle with a trailer to the local market to do the weekly shopping, etc. Not just on reducing direct and (mainly) indirect energy consumption, but on public health and general happiness levels! There's so much of our energy consumption that doesn't improve our lives in any meaningful way.
I won't argue about how we live in a terribly consumer-fixated culture - totally agree with you. Ironically, at this exact moment, I'm writing a review on Amazon, about how much I like my 15 year old Kaito KA007 hand-cranked radio. It's never seen a single battery, yet I've had it with me on camping, business trips, burning man - everywhere. 60 seconds on the crank gets me 20 minutes of radio. I hope to have it with me another 15 years.
Likewise, my Mountain Equipment Co-Op Backpack that I've had for 18 years - I've had that with me every single day for 19 years, it's my laptop case, my tool case, my document holder - In the Amazon Jungle, Luxembourg, and with Network Engineers in London, Dubai and Singapore. I've used the heck out of it - and it's still going strong.
So, I'm totally on board with having a very few things, that you take good care of, and last a long time.
But - this is a separate conversation (somewhat) from energy usage. Heat, Pumping/Processing water, cooling - they all have some physical minimum amounts of power. And even if you are living a hyper-efficient 40 gallons/day life style (Northern California, see http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/01/us/water-use-i... ) versus the rest of the world (See: http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=757) - there are some physical limits as to how little energy you can use and still maintain a comfortable lifestyle. We can only be efficient so far - eventually we're going to have to find a way to provide lots, and lots, and lots of power to everyone in the world, if they want to live a comfortable lifestyle.
Thankfully, much of that comes from having warm homes, and hot water - something that Solar does an admirable job of providing (bringing it all back to the original thread).
I agree wholeheartedly with all of this. But I think reducing consumption is probably the most significant thing a person can do to lower their CO2 footprint. My rule of thumb (which is fairly good across a surprising range of goods for ones that I've tested) is that at least 500g of CO2 is emitted for every dollar you spend, whether that's on electricity with our current typical fuel mix or on a cheeseburger or a plane journey. So if your electricity bill is say 5% of your monthly expenditures, electric energy usage is just responsible for 5% of your total CO2 emissions. This is very ballpark, but you get the idea.
"There's nothing that would prevent a good storage system + wind + power from supplying 100% of the power requirements reliably. You just need to scale your Storage system to handle the periods in which solar/wind aren't driving power."
Nothing, except for costs. Those are going down and are becoming competitive for many parts of the world, but costs will be prohibitive for some climates for quite a while. For example, if you have lots of snow and strong winds in winter, you may need to have _weeks_ of power storage to get reliable power.
Keeping a grid connection for those cases will help, but if lots of people do this, the price of power in those peak periods may surge a lot as your electricity supplier will have to recoup the costs of keeping its plant on standby year round in a few weeks.
That seems fixable by connecting solar/wind systems over large distances, but we have to work on getting a grid that is fed by thousands of suppliers and in which the direction power flows can vary more.
But yes, I think solar and wind are the future and even the near future, even in the less sunny parts of the world.
If everyone took that attitude, Solar would have never have advanced. It's a combination of first-adopters, and strong government support that's gotten us where we are today. I'm not opposed to a writer talking about the practical facts today - I encourage it. But, unless you are a paid advocate of the Koch brothers, you are somewhat obliged to balance out such an article with some context in how far we've gone and are likely to go.
Taking your example - Oakland near Lake Merrit in 17th has some significant crime, but any writer worth their salt taking about it, would compare it to when I lived there, back in 1996-1998, to discuss how far it has come in the last 20 years, and what the general trend is.
If there was massive investment in police and other anti crime initiatives, now would be the right time to buy, by not providing analysis the might be trying to hide those facts for the benefits of others.
Solar skeptics are fascinating. They've been saying the same thing since solar was $1/KWh and they'll keep saying it until solar is $0.05/KWh. However, that won't stop solar adoption from growing, maybe it will just slow it down slightly. The more solar panels (and now batteries) drop in price, the quieter those voices will become. I think in 10 years they'll all just about shut up.
Have a look at Dave Jones' EEVblog video about his solar install, it include numbers from a year on his roof. He exported around $185 worth of power at 6c/kWh. The price of buying from the grid is 25.5c/kWh. In principle with a battery system that would be a saving of $786, assuming optimal charge/discharge (it's about 80-90% efficient I believe).
If you run the numbers, the battery slightly decreases the payback time for that system to ~7 years vs 7.5 with the panels alone. However, once its paid off, it could save almost $1000 a year if you live in somewhere like Sydney. This does make the big assumption that you store the electricity and use it optimally, but it's not unreasonable.
I would argue that in this case, it's definitely worth buying.
It's all about pack life and capacity decrease over time. Those you really need to factor in otherwise the calculations make no sense. Storing and retrieving a KWh from a battery pack has a cost associated with it in terms of wear on the pack.
Even if it is worth buying, the capital costs are steep.
Chris's main allegation seems to be that you have to have a hell of a lot of cash to even hope to make it worthwhile- and considering it's $5k for the cheapest battery setup, plus anywhere from $5-30k for your panels, I think he's not wrong, no matter what your electricity prices are.
Dave's 3kW system apparently cost $5k (Australian) and that included the inverter and decent panels. So call it $10k which puts in on par with a cheap new car or a nice kitchen makeover.
You can think of it as an investment which will take 5-10 years to mature with a secondary benefit of backup power if the grid goes down. Not everyone can afford it, but that's the nature of investment.
Also in Chris' scenario, he's using America as the model. Electricity costs there are just over half those in Australia.
> Chris's main allegation seems to be that you have to have a hell of a lot of cash to even hope to make it worthwhile
Or cheap financing. Other examples of assets that are extremely useful that can be inexpensively financed would be housing or a car. Why would solar be different?
Here in the UK, you can get free solar panels installed in return for cheaper electricity bills, with most of the funding coming from pension companies.
An interesting take, and good to read some skeptical views.
But the economies break down slightly if you are not paying 10c/kWh for electricity. In Australia we pay more than double that, even taking currency exchange into account.
Also, we have to pay a 70-80c AUD "connection charge" for the privilege of paying them for electricity.
Basically, while prices are falling slightly, they won't forever.
I agree that letting others take the risk early on, and hopefully push the storage price down, is a good move though.
I've always opposed selling off NSW's state-owned electricity networks, because that will just lead to price rises in short order (well above the already-high cost of power). However, if storage plus home generation takes off, those networks are going to be worth pennies on the dollar, and we should probably sell them off as quickly as possible... then buy them back when the investors are ready to take a bath.
I appreciate that link. Currently, Solar and energy storage is at 30kwh. I'm sure within five years it will be competitive with the current grid we have in America. First gens are always expensive but at 3k usd, no one was expecting that yet. Tesla looks like they are accelerating the trends.
To add more to the energy debate, I haven't seen too many people talk about replacing ships fuel, since that accounts for ~20% of our CO2 pollution, from sources I read a few years back.
Maybe replacing our grid and all grids is a feasible goal which is why companies are tackling it now?
Trucks, ships, and rockets consume a lot of fuel and are horrible polluters. When we can replace perishables fuels with renewables we will finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
"I’ll say it another way: unless your solar-powered home is entirely disconnected from the grid, or your solar system is big enough to provide for all your electricity needs, an expensive battery backup system like Powerwall does not make economic sense.
No doubt battery technology is important for the management of the power grid of the future, but at this time the average homeowner should let the big power generation utilities take the risks and bear the costs of perfecting the technology."
The numbers in that article are/were badly wrong. Many numbers are now changed (lines drawn through the old numbers). In particular, the numbers for solar generation have been 'corrected' by factor of 6.7 - the author says he used obviously wrong numbers because the website he copied them from had them wrong.
Although the author has 'corrected' his numbers, he has not modified his conclusions. Someone who does that is not worth paying attention to.
I would like to read a sober and accurate accurate article on Tesla's powerwall, this one is not.
They currently collect sales tax in 24 states[1,2], and I'm guessing the writing is on the wall in the other 26. I don't know if there's any truth to this Radio Shack rumor, but I'd expect that avoiding tax nexus status probably isn't as big a deal for them as it used to be, because they're going to be forced to do soon, one way or another.
It might, but Amazon has been slowly losing the sales tax fight [1]. I imagine they'll do this in phases or do it in places where they're likely to have sales tax levied on them in any case.
For Amazon, getting faster and more convenient delivery might be worth the cost. It helps them in their fight against brick and mortar retailers, and if they're careful about it they could probably leverage a limited physical presence pretty well.
A hydrogen/oxygen engine emits only water. You can choose to get the hydrogen from water using from a non-carbon energy source, for a completely carbon emission free system.
IMHO, I must respectfully disagree. It is easy for non-nerds to try defining nerds in their own image.
This is true especially for journalists. They have a conflict of interest in the matter.
Their interest is to sell content online or in the newspapers. To appeal to people's self-aggrandizement is a very powerful motivation in this case.
Is that what Mr Cohen is doing? At a glance that's not certain. However with regard to this opinion piece, reviewing definition of terms and how they are used, looking for logical fallacies, reviewing the background of people being interviewed and some healthy skepticism is warranted.
Journalists talking about science and scientists is not equivalent to a thorough understanding of it.
There's a point in the posted video where they demo the V12 and you see drops of condensation forming at the ends of the exhaust pipes. Some kind of combustion is going on. Maybe it's running on propane instead of gasoline, but it's internally combusting. In the video of the guy with the model Ferrari, he mentions it is fuel-injected, and when he revs it, it sure sounds like it is an IC engine.
Condensation happens with air compressors, too. I had a small oilless compressor that when heavily used would put so much water in the air line a mist would spray out the exhaust port of the air tool I was using.
My point was about the 72YO Spaniard. One big clue was the lack of means to cool and rid waste heat. Here's another video of his V12: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YfTtGCsiD8
Search on Patelo for more.
Re. the Ferrari, that one definitely has signs of being a Otto cycle engine.... Exhaust gases, loud, etc.
How a guy was charged with violating it seems odd.
Too bad SOX doesn't apply to government.