whatever you say tree-boy

I'll wager it is in the interest of the 'shareholders'. As in coal may not be the best 'growth' industry in the coming years.

That said, the only way to be 'whole' with what they are saying is 'reducing' their endowment by 18 billion dollars. I.e. donate the stock and give it away. If they simply sell it, then they still have the benefit of having been given it. One might call it laundered money from a social conscience point of view.

None have the bandwidth impact of Netflix.

Or how about this? ISPs creating congestion

This is exactly the problem. When the ISP, i.e. Comcast/Verizon, has it's own streaming services, it's a conflict of interest for them to be 'competing' with Netflix. They can, and have, used their monopoly position as the ISP to prevent quality access to Netflix by the ISP customers.

You think that Netflix is getting 'free' internet access? They are simply responding to MY request to stream the content to me. Netflix pays they're ISP to get on the internet to provide content just as I pay my ISP to get on the internet to consume that content. Comcast/Verizon sold me a service at a certain speed/bandwidth and if they can't provide those speeds, it is their problem when people try to start using those advertized and sold speed/bandwidth.

So you point out how the conglomerates successfully bullied the most popular streaming service into paying them a bribe for good speeds...and don't see how that's going to play out with services that don't yet have Netflix's market share?

But that's the problem. They are telecommunications services and not fixing that bad decision is just lipstick on a pig.

They make their own ghettos...just sayin ;-)

Sort of the same way pensions work right? Unless you're company decides to raid the pension for short term financial issues and goes bankrupt...

Claiming that the original estimates didn't include inflation is a a minimum disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst. Do you have any evidence to support that claim?

Did new developments change the costs? I have no doubt they did, but it's better to learn from history than to repeat it...

Lets see them budget the cost of not having to build peaking plants and extra full power plants as renewables slow the need for growth.

Accounting works both ways :)

I'd guess most people run the AC all day no? I'm in DC and not running it during the day would suuuuuuuck coming home in the summer. Granted, programmable thermostats are making headway but I wouldn't think they'd even have 25% market yet. Even then, it's only a reduced usage, not off. Also related to computers firing up, TVs, ovens etc. We use LOTS more electricity than we used to :)

Solar is most efficient when the grid needs the electricity 'the least'? So when it's night time?

Solar may peak at the top of the Sun's path, but it still provides plenty of juice for hours afterwards...when the grid is specifically taxed quite hard.

Go outside at 2-3pm on a hot sunny day...it's still pretty damned strong.

'selling it back to the grid' isn't the point. Lets say I'm using 2KW (don't nit pick my numbers I'm not an electrician :) ) and I have a 1 KW array on my roof. Even if I'm only getting 50-70% of that 1KW due to being in the afternoon, I'm still drawing that much less from the grid and thus the grid is less taxed because of my solar array.

With Daylight Savings Time, much of that 'afternoon' is still plenty well lit.

The PopMech link describes exactly what you're saying. The experienced swing has a wrist twist to finish the split. This 'axe' does it for the beginner.

Still think this is a solution in search of a problem. And that it costs 2-3 times as much? ouch.