All of which are ridiculously ephemeral. One good sized rock dropped from space and ALL of it is gone and us along with it. Not to mention that we're working pretty hard to ruin the climate here without anywhere else to go should we really mess things up.

Space is not empty - just sparse. And you can call your viewpoint whatever you want but it remains short sighted. Human survival is far more tenuous than you seem willing to acknowledge. If you care about the survival of the species then you'll find that getting humans successfully off Earth is an imperative. Otherwise sooner or later we are screwed.

I'll concede the point once we stop spending trillions on bombing other people here on earth first.

The primary thing we are studying on the ISS is the occupants. All the other experiments are just added value.

Oh is that all there is to it? We don't need to learn how to keep people alive and healthy in zero G first? What is your proposal for radiation protection outside of the Earth's magnetic field? How do you propose to manufacture useful products out of asteroids of unknown composition given that we lack even basic space worthy manufacturing technology? How do you plan to keep people's bones intact and prevent the other physical deterioration we so far haven't even been able to figure out in low earth orbit? How do you propose to feed people on this hypothetical base?

I'm not even getting into the economics of it. I think you are being rather glib with a very complicated and difficult engineering problem. Your goal is a great one but a goal without a plan is nothing more than a dream.

The point is to learn how to allow humans to not only survive but thrive in space. Whether it is worth it is something you will have to figure out for yourself but for my part the answer is yes. I think it is the greatest adventure we are currently engaged in and I think it expands human knowledge more than anything else we are doing. As for building a "real" station, you have to crawl before you can walk. We don't yet have the technology to build a station on the moon or any other planetary body. That is going to take a while and will cost a LOT more money than we are currently willing to spend.

No it is not. Even people hired for the same job vary in competence and qualifications. This is particularly true in programming - the difference in productivity between a competent programmer and a great programmer can literally be an order of magnitude apart. Should you pay two people with vastly different productivity levels the same amount merely because they share the same job title?

Probably because business is a team sport and social ability matters even in engineering. Your ability to effectively communicate and work with others is important.

That doesn't mean everyone is equally good at doing it.

None of which is unique to Google. Google does not have privileged access to more than a tiny tiny subset of the world's information and none of that is specific to energy technology.

Baloney. AT&T, IBM, Westinghouse, GE and lots of other companies have had huge bank accounts and Nobel prize winning research departments. Bell Labs alone was responsible for 8 Nobel prizes, unix, C, transistors, lasers, CCDs, radio astronomy and more.

That's only sort of half true. You can invent a technology that is fundamentally less expensive than previous alternatives at the same production scales. It's not merely a matter of more = cheaper.

For now. Furthermore a LOT of energy usage occurs exactly during that time. Let's say you have a grocery store and you need to power refrigerators. Guess when the maximum power drain from air conditioning will be? Exactly during mid day when the solar cells are at maximum efficiency. In my opinion most industrial businesses should have a rooftop covered in solar cells. It is wasted space now, it generates clean(er) energy right when it is needed, it distributes the grid, turns variable power costs into fixed costs and it should reduce costs in the long run. Rooftop solar on businesses makes a ton of sense. Doesn't solve every problem but it would be a big step in the right direction.

Just because it doesn't solve every problem doesn't mean you should dismiss the problems it does solve.

That depends very much on where and when you need the power generation. Wind is great but like solar it solves some but not all problems. It's not hard to find use cases where solar makes more sense and others where wind is the better option.

So of course your usage habits clearly apply to everyone else in the world and nobody is ever in their home during the day. [/sarcasm]

If you want to trade anecdotal evidence the bulk of our electricity usage is during the day during the summer when our AC is running. Most of the night usage could easily be stored in a battery bank that could fit inside our house.

You might have a point if fossil fuel generation actually had to pay for all the environmental damage it causes. But since they don't and the real cost of heating your home is higher than you might guess from your monthly bill.

And if you think solar cells for free would not make economic sense for a huge portion of the population then you have NO idea what you are talking about. Nothing actually costs zero but super cheap solar cells with good efficiency would massively change the world energy markets.

Please cite a single incidence of any government actually paying someone to not build a working fusion reactor.

Based on what? Something more than a hunch I hope. Or perhaps the simpler answer is that it's a really tough problem to figure out. Research doesn't care who funds it. Either the findings are useful or they aren't.

There is no single cause for such a complicated occurrence. Oil is certainly a part of the equation but there are a LOT more variables than just the price of oil.

Most of the time the answer boils down to "it seemed like a good idea at the time". We use fossil fuels because they were available and we figured out how to make the economical sooner than some of the alternatives. We didn't know about some of the environmental side effects at the time. Same with nuclear. We tried all sorts of things with radiation that we now consider insane because we didn't know any better at the time. We figured much of it out in time but we didn't magically know all the problems with a technology the moment it was invented. So we build on what we know at the time and sometimes (like with fossil fuels) find out later on that maybe what seemed like a good idea before really wasn't. That's ok. What's not ok is doing nothing once you realize there is a problem.

Umm, nothing. Google has no special expertise in energy tech. This is WAY outside their core businesses where they have a proven competence. The notion that they would to solve the economic problem of renewable energy where everyone else had (so far) failed is somewhere between well intentioned altruism and pure undiluted hubris. (not sure where on that scale though) The only thing Google has is smart people and a huge bank account. Those are nice assets to work with but just because you can throw smart people and money at a problem doesn't mean a solution will magically appear in a timely manner. Research is unpredictable and requires long term dedication. And even if you do succeed in coming up with a nifty new technology it doesn't automatically mean that the economics of it will be favorable. I'm not saying Google shouldn't try - I'm glad to see them working on and/or bankrolling research such problems. My point is that Google shouldn't be expected to be more likely to solve the problem than any number of other companies/organizations that have worked on these problems.

there, fixed it for you. I can understand the Deutsche bank analyst, he knows which way his bread is buttered, but people at the end of the line should know, or be told, that their normal electricity price includes renewable sources subsidies. until and unless consumers are told a "raw" price without subsidies, they won't know if this is economical or not.

Mind you, if anybody thinks it's worthwhile and has 5 grand burning a hole in his pocket, feel free to buy that. But he's not using his own money now, he's using other people's money, and that's a harbinger of bad decisions if I ever saw one. and believe you me, I 've been in the investment business 30 years, I've seen my share.

There is a huge difference depending on who you represent and who pays your commissions. An agent works on behalf of someone typically for a talented individual. A recruiter or headhunter typically works for a company though they are an agent of a sort but not in the usual use of the word. An agent for Lebron James represent's Lebron, is hired by Lebron, and their sole goal is to get as good a deal for Lebron (and thereby themselves) as possible. The needs of the company only matter so far as they affect the negotiation. Recruiters (usually) are hired by the company and are a middle man who is hired to find talent the company might otherwise be unable to locate. Their financial interest is to get as high a salary as possible for whoever the company hires but they have no obligation to represent the interests of any particular individual seeking employment.

That means you are NOT an agent (for the employee) because you do not represent interests of the person seeking employment. If you represented the talent the company would have no involvement whatsoever in the negotiations regarding your pay rate. That would be entirely between you and the individuals you represent. Yes it is in your interest to negotiate as high a percentage for the employee as possible but they aren't who you work for. If Person A doesn't fit with BigCorp then you can move to Person B. That means you aren't an agent for Person A or Person B.

Welcome to sales. That's the life of any salesman. And you are right that not everyone can do it well.