>The reality is that we're not just trying to keep nukes out of the hands of the Iranians, we're trying to make sure that the rest of the ME doesn't enter an arms race which puts nukes in the hands of other countries.

And who exactly appointed you to do that ? Americans elect an American government to govern America. It has no jurisdiction anywhere else and "protecting your interests" should have been unconstitutional. Unless somebody actively asks for your help, stay the hell out of everybody else's business and America would be a lot less hated.
Do I like the government of Iran ? Hell no, I live in a free country and I despise autocracies, but I also don't believe I have a right to interfere in Iran's business unless Iranian people ask my help.

Seriously - the US should watch a lot of Star Trek and simply replace their ENTIRE foreign relations doctrine with the prime directive and not only would the rest of the world be a lot happier, the US would be too.
You fear chaos ? I am quite confident that there will be a lot less suffering around the world for which you are (rightfully) blamed, and thus a lot less people who want to kill you. If you believe the Iranian style theocratic autocracy is primitive, fine, believe that, but stop interfering in their natural development - they won't thank you for it, nobody has EVER thanked you for it.

America has more than enough problems to solve at home - like when you're going to do SOMETHING about Puerto Rico - either give them statehood or given them back their independence but right now you're conquering overlords there - no better than Iran's government.

Let me put it very simply: because I have no power to vote for or against American politicians, they should have NO power to influence my life.

You are still thinking wrong. Sure a line from Australia to the Sahara wouldn't work... but a line to Japan would who could add tidal energy or even nuclear in exhale for what they use, then a line from there to India which adds wind. Each country adding what their resources can provided for their neighbours and taking what they need. Some will have net negatives and some will add surpluses. It doesn't matter because it's not a trade. It's goal is to get power to everyone.

Most environmentalists already support nuclear at least as a bridge technology. It has issues: fuel mining for it is terrible, it causes localised oceanic heating that massively disrupts the ecology (when you cool a reactor the heat has to go somewhere ) and more. But it's far better than coal. Environmentalists are rarely misanthropes and the vast majority are far more rational than the caricature you imply. Actually the greatest problem for nuclear has never been environmentalist opposition but rather it is nimbyism. That said it's got another huge problem. My country just signed a deal for a dozen new reactors... and I'm against it. Not because we don't need the power or I oppose nuclear (hell I lived in sight of a nuclear plant) but because it won't help us. It will take 15 years to get the first plant online (in the impossible best case scenario where it's finished on time)... we have brownouts now. We don't have time for nuclear. On the other hand we have among the most sun of any country in the world. Solar plants of the same output as that first nuclear can be online in two years for a quarter of the cost. Ironically we already have an entirely privately funded (in fact non-profit-making funded) molten salt plant about to come online with about a quarter of the power the nuclear plants can put out. Completed ahead of schedule and under budget. Solar is simply more economical and it's available fast.

If I could buy a Tesla for the price of my Audi A3 - I wouldn't be driving the A3.
The thing is - new - their cost difference is neglible and over the lifetime of the car, the Tesla is actually a LOT cheaper... but I don't want to make the kind of debts that can buy a NEW A3, so mine is a 2006 model which will be 10 years old next year.

In 3 years or so when I retire it, I probably WILL buy a Model-S which by then, should be available second hand for the money I can get back on the A3 plus not much more than I spent on it initially.

The problem with cars is that buying new is always an idiotic thing to do. REALLY idiotic, making a debt to buy something that loses 25% of it's value as soon as you take possession and depreciates continuously there-after is insane.
So, like most smart consumers I let suckers with more money and ego than brains take that hit and buy my cars used. Price matters - a lot. More than driving the most awesome car that exists does, which is why I don't- but I will, when I can get it second hand.

There is actually a valid point there. If you took a cooperative rather than competitive approach solar could become a lot more economical and viable a lot faster.

I read a PHD disertation that calculated that a solar farm a mere hundred hectares in size in the Sahara could supply the energy needs for the entirety of the E.U.

The problem is- it would under current thinking have to be sold - expensively to countries that would much prefer not to pay for imports. But what if it wasn't.... what if instead of selling it, it just went into a global grid which everybody has access to, and when the sun sets in the Sahara the one in the Australian Outback is just about hitting peak production, with a Nevada one coming on as it starts to go down, and for the dips in between where no large plant has good sun - you can fill those in with supplies of other types from the rest of the countries (in return for sharing in this global grid).
Whatever your country has, you contribute, in return you get all the energy you need. Since no two timezones peak at the same time - staggered production is feasible if you spread it globally- because that gives you staggered consumption to go with it.

Sure this is blue-sky dreaming and it rather depends on politicians being able to think beyond the ends of their noses and Americans being able to figure out that sometimes things that look vaguely like socialism (to use their definition of "not trying to maximize individual profit for somebody") can actually be the best solution. Something they generally only accept when they've had the socialist idea for so long that they don't think about it anymore (in which case they will happily tolerate and even cheer for even genuine socialism - like they do with public libraries).

  It would be expensive to build (not hugely - there is already a global grid - but restructuring the entire principle on which we switch the power around won't be cheap) and it would require international agreements on a scale we have very rarely seen - and investment of a lot of tax dollars, but it could be worth it, the challenges are not technical.
It's a space elevator - except that we actually DO have the technology to build it, today.

While I agree with you - there is one major difference.
When a coal plant blows up - it doesn't render a city uninhabitable for thousands of years.

Not even potentially.

Of course the answer to that difference is better reactors with better designs - already breeder reactors greatly reduce that risk and their waste is a lot easier to manage because it has a half-life of decades rather than milenia.

> Is it more efficient than just using the electricity to charge up batteries in an electric car for example?

No. Laws of thermodynamics at play - any conversion process has losses, by adding an additional conversion it has to be less efficient over-all.

Now that's the short answer. The truth MAY potentially be slightly different - the process of manufacturing cars and batteries also cost energy, it's conceivable that those are SO inefficient and the process of building and operating the plant and equipment ot make this stuff so incredibly efficient that in nett numbers this ends up very slightly more effient. That is extremely unlikely but since I don't have hard figures I can't actually discount it off the bat. That would be extremely unlikely because it would have to be measured over the life-time of the battery - which is a LOT of time for "fewer conversions" to make up exponential savings (however small the saving per mile may be).

This is basically a process for storing electrical energy as a fuel. It's actual major advantage is that it doesn't require a long recharge like electrical does and could conceivably fill in the niches where electrical is less suitable - like long-distance travel or freight trucking and the like.

It could also be a slightly easier sell to the public because you can just fill it up at a pump into any diesel car and it doesn't require an expensive new vehicle, you can instantly use it in your currently existing diesel car. That said, it's important to note that although this is made from CO2 it would not reduce atmospheric CO2 at all, it puts back exactly as much to be used as was taken out to make it, so that makes it exactly carbon-neutral.

Regarding the McDonald's coffee case. I'll tell you what wasn't reported in the media. You can find interviews with the lady online that back it up. The coffee machine at the store had a broken thermostat. They knew it and didn't fix it. What they handed her wasn't hot coffee. It was superheated liquid which when she moved it did what superheated liquids tend to do when shaken: exploded in a massive cloud of superheated steam that left her with third degree burns over large areas of her body. She had serious injuries and still have terrible scars from that. It was a highly legitimate injury with a perfectly reasonable outcome considering the degree of her injuries and the factors that their negligence caused those injuries. The whole "coffee may be hot" printed on cups thing was never a resolution of the case nor would it have had any impact on her. It was part of McDonald's PR stunts to paint her as a stupid person who filed a frivolous suit rather than be known to the public as the restaurant that burns people's faces off with exploding coffee.

Yet another version that exists in some Dutch-Roman court systems: both parties always lose. Sort of. The way it works is the judge in a civil case assumes fault on both sides. But of varying degrees. The court determines amount of damages and degree of guilt of each party. They then each pay the other that percentage of the damages. If the judge finds they are equally guilty nobody gets any money. But say it's a million dollar damages and the judge finds one party 75% guilty and the other 25% guilty. The nett result is that the latter party gets 250k richer. It seriously cuts down on frivolous lawsuits because you may well find that the judge decides you are 99% guilty in your own case and make you pay 99% of the damages you claimed to the defendant (if it's a frivolous case there is very little responsibility you can prove for the defendant ). On the other hand if the case has merit you are likely to walk away with a solid profit. Costs are awarded but only in cases where the judge deems the suit particularly frivolous - when a plaintiff is found to have the vast majority of that shared responsibility pool the judge may well add costs on top of paying the bulk to the defendant.

And I'll add, if it's your idea to create an anonymous but secure connection using PKI to send your biometric identity, that's no better than a password. Infact, it's worse than a password, because (as was the original point), all it takes is your super secret biometric identity to be compromised once, at which point your screwed.

Yes, but how do you validate that the public key I send you is actually my public key? You have to already have it or it has to be stores somewhere that the other party trusts, bringing us right back to our original problem.

PKI lets two parties communicate securely without having ever spoken, and it lets one party validate that something was actually sent by another party _if they have the other parties public key and can trust it_.

Biometrics doesn't add anything useful to this equation that I see. Sure you can use some biometric information as a private key and generate a public key, but what does that give you over using some random number to generate a public key. It still comes down to the party at the other end having that public key and being reasonably sure it's yours.

Sure, but how do they apply to confirming an identity and not a capability.

Maybe I'm too thick to get it, but I can't see how say, a bank, can validate that you are who you say you are without at least knowing _something_ about you that you can than verify through whatever means.

Right, but there has to be a public key involved at some point.

As with DRM, if the thing that decides if you are valid can be in your hands (so to speak), you may as well assume it will be compromised.

There's no way I can think of to pass on a piece of information describing yourself to another party without that party having to know that information already to validate it, and if they do, it can be stolen and replayed.