That's wholesale price. Consumers never see that.

It's not exactly a free market then, is it? How would you like to walk into a store for product X - and be told that you can't buy Brand A at $y, because you're required to buy Brand B at 10x $y? Because B is green. Let's say that $y > $100

Natural gas production, you mean. The amount of oil burned for electricity is insignificant for the cost of electricity. Meanwhile cheap NG generators burning cheap NG producing electricity is keeping the cost of utility electricity low, increasing your ROI.

Citation? Which state? My Anecdote: I walked into the solar place in my town and the first thing they proposed when I laid out my situation was that I do the install myself. About the only labor I couldn't do myself would be the final hookup. They'd provide the plans and instructions.

I'm not seeing any requirements to use a licensed installer here. It might be a state/city requirement.

100 panels? How much electricity do you use? 25 would cover the average household in the USA(10,837 kWh/year, each panel producing 437 kWh/year, even in the middle of the country). Standard panels today are 250-300 watts each. Even the cheapest pallet of 20 300 watt modules will run you $5,270, or $26,350 in panels alone, without racking or inverters(~$4.5k). Checking other online sites shows similar pricing.

As such, wanting it done for $30k means the workers would be doing it for free. The $70k worth of 'labor' does seem inappropriate.

Nope, just oversimplified. That's why I said 'essentially'. You're not getting energy on average burning the other stuff. Even natural gas isn't 100% CH4.

I was simply trying to explain why you have less CO2 emissions when you burn gas instead of coal.

Couldn't one say the same about solar in Germany? After all, Germany is paying 36.25 cents per kWh, the USA is paying 8-17.

Actually they've shown that you can reach 50% during a sunny national holiday when most of the industrial equipment is turned off. Going by annual energy production they're more at 5%.

Hawaii would actually be a bit better, but they have their own problems relating to having so much solar installed it's a threat to grid stability.

And I say this as a guy who was seriously looking at putting panels on my roof. In Alaska.

An energy source doesn't need to be 'carbon free' to reduce CO2 emissions. Coal is essentially pure carbon, while natural gas is a carbon fixed to four hydrogens. Burning Coal yields pure CO2(in theory), burning CH4 gives you CO2 and H2O
Burning coal:
C + O2 -> CO2. Approximately 2,249 lbs per MWh.
CH4 + 2 O2 -> CO2 + 2 H2O Approximately 1,135 lbs of CO2 per MWh, or half that of Coal.

I'm not so sure about this part. I still constantly see 'save energy'! reminders that assume I still run incandescents, set the AC to 60F and the heat to 80F, have single pane windows and no insulation while running a HVAC system from the '70s.

While there are still those types out there, I think they're in a distinct minority at this point. At least in my area so many of the appliances in the store are energy star rated that I think NOT having the rating is a kiss of death. Instead, I think the big energy wasters now are more institutional. I still see people who don't have to pay for the electricity using their own money attempting to light the sky, for example.

But I definitely agree with you on the nuclear power. Especially if we can get our heads out of our asses and put in co-generation systems - 6pm on a cold December is also a good point for great demand for heat.

Probably has to do with the form Germany's subsidies takes.

Yeah, like we'd ever use more than 640k of memory... If the power is there we'll use it. To make aluminum, power our new EVs, etc...

Still, we have a pretty good example in Hawaii. Due to most of their electricity being oil generated and predominately sunny(but not too hot) weather relatively close to the equator they've actually managed to get to the point where they could have a day where they bust 100% at this point. It's reached the point that you need permission from the electricity company to get a hookup.

Still, let's do some figuring. Leaving Business and Industrial customers out of it for now.
The average US household uses 10,837 kWh a year, or 903 kWh/month.
A 300 watt solar panel takes up about 21 square feet and costs $263, though final install cost will be $1.50-$2/watt.

Each panel can be expected to produce about 789 kWh/year, ideally placed. Competing against 10 cent electricity, payoff would be about 8 years. Note: I'm using average cases here. I almost bought solar panels for my house, given that I have a nice south-facing roof. On the other hand, I live in Alaska. Even with our relatively expensive electricity I couldn't make it make sense due to substantially LOWER power production than I'm figuring and higher costs(even doing most of the work myself).

Anyways, getting back on topic, that means that each homeowner would need to install 14 panels, on average, to cover their energy needs, assuming they have a retired Model-S battery or something to provide stability.

Some interesting calculations I've made in the past:

1. A retired Tesla Model S battery with 70% capacity remaining repurposed as a giant UPS will provide the average household 2 days worth of electricity
2. The average household would use ~50% more electricity if they replaced their vehicles with EVs(note: 2 days of electricity in an outage from your old battery doesn't include charging your current EV)
3. Start busting 20% of your total energy(and Germany is only at 5%) from solar power and it makes more sense to charge EVs during the day
4. It would take approximately 200 1GW nuclear plants to make the USA carbon neutral for electricity. Again, lots of batteries would be handy...

Your ratio is poor. I prefer more like 4:1, even when I was mean I supported 2:1 - This results in a gradual weaning off of benefits, which actually encourages people to work.

If I get $10k in benefits a year, and get a part time job making $10k, reducing my benefits to $7500 means that the government is still $2.5k ahead, but I'm now $7.5k ahead, which makes it so I want to work as I see the benefits.

I get a 'decent' job making $40k* and the benefits finally go away, but at that point I'm not only above the poverty line I'm paying taxes. Whatever, somewhere between 4:1 and 2:1 should work well. You might need to make it progressive - IE the first $1000 is free, etc...

*Let's be nice and say that the $40k includes benefits so it's more like $30k/year, and the $10k included stuff like medical

I think India still has a few 'last gasps' for cheap labor, after that it's down to really small countries. But I agree, and consider this people:
China: 1.35B people
India: 1.24B
Africa: 1.07B

The ENTIRE continent, short of a population boom that puts any previous baby booms to shame, isn't going to be able to take on the demand for 'cheap labor' when China and India start looking to outsource for cheaper labor like the rest of the world did. And that's without addressing the stability issues Africa has. China at least had predictability and businesses didn't have to worry about gunmen holding the factories/supplies/finished product hostage.

As such, I figure 'insourcing' is going to be the 'next big thing' for a while. Domestic appliance manufacturers are already discovering that by outsourcing production they also outsourced their production knowledge, and while they were fine for a generation, they lost the ability to design appliances that could be manufactured effectively. By bringing stuff back in house and really nailing the automation they're actually making higher quality appliances using less labor at lower cost.

In other words, pay to play. It's still not more efficient.

It's their land, their parking spots. They get to set the terms of usage for them. That they should really jack the rates up and introduce alternatives and policies to encourage effective alternatives* is only a related issue.

*I'm picturing things like elevated slideways between buildings, subways and such that increase the effective distance a walker can cover.

I think that it's the FAA sees a potential end-run around it's traditional domain- after all if you allow drones for disaster reconnaissance, how long before UPS and Fedex are campaigning for unmanned transport jets, followed by even traditional airliners wanting to get rid of their pilots? Without pilots, there go the air traffic controllers.

Meanwhile they lack the ability under the law to do much more than just push a blanket ban on drones, many of which don't even need traditional airports.

Viewing the city of SF as a sort of non-profit business/charity, I actually agree with you. Utilize the income to provide some mix of additional parking and alternatives so people don't have to drive.

IE the rental fee for your parking spot includes a subsidy for the bus/subway/train/slideway that helps to ensure that there's actually a spot available for you to find. Oh, and generous reduced-rate garages on the outskirts of the city so people are encouraged to transfer OUT of their car before the city center.

Complicated. Keep in mind that the situations varied by different locations. Still, on average I believe that they enjoy more protection simply by being explicitly political/non-monetary in nature. For that matter they probably had those locations more highly populated/used than normal.

Where I start drawing the line is where they start causing damage.

It also gives incentive to be a professional parking-keeper if the rates are high enough. Drive around looking for a spot. Take it, immediately list & sell. Move on and find another. Hell, it could probably be done on foot or scooter.

Members therein, certainly. All of them? Nope.

Otherwise you're looking at it way too narrowly -
Is he in the US (because if he's in the US we can nab him with the FBI/federal marshal's service) or an allied state(that will pick him up for us)
Would killing him threaten their own? I'd say the question was whether capturing him threaten their own. In this case YES.
do I have an excuse? Bringing up spin-doctors is unfair in this case. The dude had a whole youtube library calling for death to the USA.

In this case all three branches essentially consented to the killing. Congress by passing the authorization of force without putting a 'unless they're a US Citizen' clause in it. The Executive branch because, yes, the president became involved, the DoD is part of it, etc... The Judicial branch, while it didn't try him, certainly had their hand in the analysis memo authorizing it.

Like I've said elsewhere, I'm actually happy that terrorists in foreign locations that happen to be US Citizens weren't held to be 'more valuable' than random non-US terrorists in foreign locations. We probably disagree where the bar should be, but I think the bar should be at the same height.