It really comes down to what you call "subsidies." Tax deductions for capital investments, which the anti-fossil-fuel crowd incorrectly call a subsidy, is not unique to the oil/gas business, and similar deductions commonly available to *all* businesses in all industries. Tax *credits*, however (without which we wouldn't see much, if any, solar installations), certainly are a subsidy, and are very generous for renewable energy. You also need to take into account the volume of production from each source. If there's 10x as much subsidies (if you want to call it that) to oil/gas as there are to solar, but there's 100x as much oil/gas production, then it stands to reason that the rate of subsidies to solar is 10x that given to oil/gas.

There's also the minor question of "are we paying for the right thing?" Subsidies/grants/investments for research into renewables is one thing--they have the potential to produce improvements in the efficiency and cost of such systems. But subsidies for production and installation of renewables (as the US gov't currently does) is absolute futility--by doing so, the government is distorting the value of those products, actually providing a disincentive for producers to make those systems more economical on their own.

Well, if you heavily subsidize (ethanol, wind) and/or mandate the use of renewables (again ethanol), and create a regulatory environment that makes nuclear more or less impossible, of course you'll see a greater use of renewables.

There's a key difference. When people post on facebook/foursquare/twitter/etc, they are willingly divulging the details of their own personal lives. When your electric company does the same thing with its customers' information, it will likely be done without their knowledge or consent, and not at the customers' initiative.

It's about who controls the information.

The linked site is down, so here it is on youtube

You suggest that cars come equipped with GPS units which report mileage. For the sake of taxation, is not a gasoline tax equivalent? Heck, it's a lot simpler and more effective than a mileage tax--and here's why: a mileage tax would also need to take into account the weight of the vehicle, since heavier vehicles cause more degradation in the roads. It just so happens, however, that those heavier vehicles also consume more gasoline, so they end up paying more tax per mile than lighter vehicles. You end up with roughly the same tax distribution as before, without having to set up (and maintain) rate schedules for different types of vehicles.

For the insurance question, however, you make a good point.

Another thing nobody likes to mention: Who's gonna pay for these electric cars? If the government has to become involved in order for them to sell, that means that people don't want them, at least at their current cost. The natural response is to institute a subsidy--but now you're forcing people to pay (via taxes) for an electric car they wouldn't buy themselves.

It's been thought of. Time and time again. "Thinking of it" is not, and never has been, the issue. The issue has been "how do we harness this in a way that is at least as economic and effective as fossil fuels?" And that's where every solution has failed so far. Because even though the sun produces a tremendous amount of energy, collection thereof is unreliable down on the ground, and the technology to do so is expensive.

Putting stuff into space resolves the reliability issue, but only multiplies the cost.

I can't speak for corporate income tax, but for personal income tax, the deal is this: you get a tax credit for taxes paid overseas. If you still owe US taxes after that, then you pay US taxes. If the foreign tax credit eliminates your US tax bill, then you don't pay any US income tax. The problem is that it effectively ensures that you get taxed at the highest rate applicable.

Sure, they have an excuse for leaving off the upstream greenhouse gas emissions, due to varying sources. That omission also makes the car seem more environmentally friendly.
Another convenient omission from the sticker is recharge time. Of all the different metrics they're using on these cars, recharge time would be the easiest to calculate and/or test. And yet it is left off.

It's really a matter of tradeoffs. Stricter regulation means higher costs, which get passed on to the rest of the economy. Sure, safety can be increased, but at what cost? And how much damage would we prevent? We're really bumping up against the law of diminishing returns.

Think of it this way: does one major disaster every thirty years (if you take Exxon Valdez plus BP Deepwater Horizon and extrapolate) outweigh thirty years of economic growth made possible by cheap energy? Considering the sheer quantity of oil/gas that is produced worldwide, the fact that so few accidents of this nature occur is really a tribute to how safe the industry (generally) operates.

Hydrates require both high pressure and low temperature to form, along with the proper composition of water and methane. Take away any of the three, and hydrates disappear. Typically the gas/water/oil is warm enough when it reaches the surface that hydrates do not form, and by the time it cools down enough, it has already been processed so that the water and methane are no longer mixed.

Actually, AIG won last year, owing to their spectacular performance on the economy, and Countrywide won in 2008. In both cases, though, Comcast was the runner-up.

Then why not put the collector somewhere offshore, and run a high-voltage cable to the onshore grid? Oil platforms already do this.

Current satellites use solar panels for power. If you beam power up from earth, you're going to need....solar panels to collect it. If the solar panels can handle more light than they currently get from direct solar radiation, you might be onto something. Considering that most of the diffraction/refraction/scattering of light happens in the first few miles of atmosphere, it seems to me that light beamed up from earth would be scattered far more than light beamed to earth from space.

And just like he did, you entirely missed the underlying meaning. The other party in that not-so-hypothetical conversation isn't a real man, precisely because that other party is female.

Mod parent up. The use of Limited User Accounts will make a huge impact, more (in my experience) than an anti-virus software package.