Not necessarily, it depends on your usage profile. If you're talking about power suddenly dropping out for half an hour then coming back, you're absolutely right. But if you're talking about it suddenly dropping out when a certain weather pattern moves in and staying out until it moves on, then of course it'd be useful.
Did you know that police work isn't even in the top ten jobs with the most risk of death? Check it out, starting with most dangerous and ending with the least:
Furthermore, most police officer deaths occur in traffic accidents. Not in conflict with an aggressor.
(Source: National census of fatal occupational injuries, 2012)
Personally, I see no reason for a beat/patrolcar cop to carry a weapon at all. Particularly as the evidence shows they're far too willing to use them in non-life threatening situations -- just like this one.
Furthermore, with tasers readily available, many situations that might call for submission of a more powerful (or skilled) individual are still controllable without resorting to the extremes of discharging a firearm.
There's also something to be said for the idea of criminals knowing the cop isn't going to kill them, so it isn't nearly as attractive to kill the cop to prevent that. The fact is, if you think the cop is going to kill you, there's absolutely no downside to killing them first. It is a situation set up in the way most likely to fail.
It's going to get worse, too, as the trend is to more heavily arm the cops -- don't think for a moment that the response won't be more heavily armed criminals. It's as inevitable as the next sunrise.
But you're right. The odds of anything changing are very low. The American Couch Potato League likes armed cops, and they like it when cops do whatever they like -- they absolutely lap up movies and television shows where cops step outside the boundaries of the law, as well as vigilante scenarios. Until, of course, they are the victims. But by that time, they're embroiled with the system, and it's far too late. No one pays known criminals any mind. They're subhuman, after all. And they must have done something to deserve it, even if they "get off" or "plead out."
There is a grand jury who disagrees with the version of events that you have imagined.
The grand jury is just as likely to be corrupt, and/or incompetent, and/or prejudiced, as the rest of the people involved with, and directed by, the systemically flawed justice system we have today. In addition, even assuming 100% competence on their part, the data that reached them can be (and often is) washed to provide a particular desired outcome.
The only takeaway I get from all this noise is that we'd be somewhat better off if police officers wore tamper-resistant AV recording gear when on duty (and in any jurisdiction that assigns them 24/7 authority, on duty or not, they should be wearing those cameras 24/7 as well. Personally, I think 24/7 authority is also a Very Bad Idea.)
There is no question that some individual police officers, and some groups of police, are corrupt. Given the seriousness of the authority and responsibility assigned to them, and their ability to ruin lives and families in a heartbeat, letting them run loose without any independent oversight seems like a very serious mistake to me, particularly now that monitoring their activities is well within the bounds of technical feasibility.
A bad cop is a horrible thing. It's also long past time for the blue wall of silence to creep its slimy ass into the black hole of history to join with some of humanity's other bottom-feeder behaviors.
Many good men are [racist]
No, they aren't. If you're racist, it's more than a "sin", it's an abject failure of humanity. Just the kind of thing that gets people hurt badly, often in large numbers. Your sin here is failing to recognize evil when it's right in your face.
Others are liars, or thieves, or adulterers.
There's no worthy point in this. None of these actions can serve to exonerate racism, or racists. The only cure for racism is to abandon it as a failed mode of thought. Every thinking being is an individual. When someone loses (or never gains) sight of that and lumps them into classes, regardless of what you call the process, it's a very, very bad thing.
All men have their sins.
No, they don't. Some people are intrinsically good; and some issues are not sins, for many varied reasons, not the least of which is an overly simplistic viewpoint of the person making the judgment. The idea that all are born with/into sin is a superstitious notion with absolutely no root in reality.
Yours is self-righteousness.
Pot, meet kettle.
why have we started covering the crazy end of the tech spectrum?
What do you mean? We've always covered the GPL.
And IIIIII will love you again! I will love you! Like I uuuuuuussssed tooooooo!
Again, if a person is willing to pay the costs, they should be allowed to. Secondly, there's a difference between the car having to drive 10 minutes to a parking garage and circling endlessly for hours. Third, when you're talking fully automated roadways, you get greatly increased throughput. Fourth, your "there's only so much road space in downtown areas" claim makes no sense, we're talking about how automated vehicles can free up space downtown by preventing the need for "convenient parking", allowing parking to be clustered into dense and/or less convenient locations, depending on the situation.
Moving parts != motor oil. Electric motors most commonly have a small amount of grease that's designed to never need replacement. There's also some that use hydraulic or air bearings.
Motor oil that's designed to wear out with time is part of the consequences of having to work in the harsh environment of internal combustion engines. It's not a fundamental requirement of moving parts.
People would spend their time engaged in their preferred hobbies. Tinkerers would tinker. Musicians would make music. Writers would write. Programmers would program. Gardeners would garden. And on and on. I see nothing wrong with such a world.
Now, whether people's needs (let alone wants) could be met when you're having such a big global GDP cut, I think THAT's a more serious concern...
In reality, nukes are terrible as backup power. Just assuming you have a plant that can ramp up and down quickly (most can't), nuclear plants are almost all capital cost. Hence they need to run at a high capacity factor to pay back the investment; it doesn't pay to idle them. But if you're wanting to use them as gap filling in low wind/solar times, then that's exactly what you're suggesting be done - sit idle until more power is needed. It's a terrible use of a nuclear plant.
Pumped hydro isn't that expensive. It's currently the cheapest option out there by a good margin (except for uprating already-existing conventional hydro). But other techs are trying to beat it. Probably the best thing you can do is simply have a powerful HVDC grid so you can move power between different geographic regions and to use different types of renewables techs. The randomness goes way down when you do this. NG is commonly used as a peaking fuel, and I see no problem continuing to do this (instead of doing energy storage) if you can keep it down to an average of under 10% or so of the total generation mix. It's low carbon to begin with and modern NG peakers can hit upwards of 60% efficiency once warmed up. So 90% renewables, 10% efficiently-used NG, you're talking near total elimination of electricity-related CO2 emissions.
It's not the engineers' fault; It's rare that I've seen as big of a misrepresentation of an article outside of say Russian state propaganda that I've seen with this Register article. Starting with the title.
The original article absolutely, positively does not say in any way, shape or form, "Renewable energy 'simply WON'T WORK'" or "Whatever the future holds, it is not a renewables-powered civilisation: such a thing is impossible."
The actual article says something very, very different. The engineers went into the project hoping that if we make the incremental improvements to make renewables as cheap as coal, then there will be a mass-switchover to renewables and CO2 levels will be held down. Except that that doesn't work. Why? Because of lead times. People who have existing coal power plants for example aren't just going to take them down because new renewables projects are cheaper than new coal plants. You need to get the price down well below that of coal to where it justifies them throwing their already-invested capital costs out the window. Without doing that, your switchover rate is limited by how fast power plants go offline, which is a very long time. So in their "as cheap as coal" scenario, they only get to a 55% emissions cut by 2050. They were hoping that'd keep the world under 350 ppm. But not only does the world still hit 350 ppm in that scenario, but it continues to rise. Hence, the hypothesis that getting renewables as cheap as coal is sufficient to prevent major climate change is suggested to be wrong.
What that DOESN'T say in any way, shape or form:
1) Renewables "WON'T WORK"
2) Renewables "don't help prevent climate change"
3) There's no scenario in which renewables can prevent climate change
What they call for are several changes.
1) They feel that focusing on preventing emissions with renewables isn't enough, that you need active CO2 scrubbing as well.
2) They call for renewables investment to adopt the "Google Model": 70% core business, 20% related new business, 10% risky disruptive new technology. This is versus conventional investment which is 90% core business (aka incremental improvements), 9,9% related, and 0,1% disruptive. They think this provides better odds for renewables or other technologies to stop climate change because incrementally improving down to the price of coal - while it'd have a big impact on CO2 emissions rates - still won't keep levels down below 350 ppm.
Does this even resemble the Register article? Nope. Not even a little bit.
One, if a person is willing to pay for parking, they should be allowed to. Secondly, not everyone lives in or anywhere near any place that will ever be some sort of supercity, regardless of whether you do or not. Third, even today's biggest megacities don't generally ban cars - why would the new ones of tomorrow? Fourth, if you're talking self-driving cars, you don't need parking everywhere, they can pick you up and drop you off, and they can head out to the boonies or to some inconveniently-located but space-efficient parking garage in the meantime. You just tell it with your cell phone app when you want it to arrive to get you.
Here's the parts of your post that make no sense.
"city (or licensed companies) will maintain"
Why on earth would individuals not be allowed to also own personal self-driving cars? Why can a car not have two modes of operation, self-driving in self-driving areas and manual in other areas, if the user so wants? Why would everyone be just fine with not being allowed to have a personal vehicle that they can leave their stuff in between rides, meets their personal style preferences and transportation requirements, and wasn't beat up or graffitied or left smelling like a dumpster from the last unknown occupant? What's the logic in *making* everyone use shared vehicles if many individuals logically still want to own them and they meet all of the transportation requirements? None, that's what. It's a pointless exclusion and one which would render your system unacceptable to a large portion of the population.
you'd never use it living minutes from downtown anyway.
Right, so a guy with a degenerative muscle disease or a grandma who can barely walk to the mailbox are just going to walk? Sorry, but this "it works for me so it must work for everyone" attitude is ridiculous. And even for people who are in perfect shape it's not always a good option. I live in Reykjavík where we sometimes get surprise blizzards and hurricane-force winds happen usually a couple times a year. Am I supposed to walk to work every day?
Or if you mean "everyone's supposed to use these shared city-only cars": again, maybe that suits your life, but here in the real world, a large chunk of the population isn't so city-bound. I head out to the countryside about 5 times a week or so. Am I supposed to take a taxi every time?
Yes, an effective automated-driving system opens up great new beneficial opportunities for ride sharing and would be used by many people. But your "all cars in town must be city-owned public transportation" concept is ridiculous and would never be accepted by the general population. There's not even a point to your proposal, as privately-owned self-driving cars fit just as well into your scenario, it's simply a capricious exclusion on your part.
People use vehicles for all sorts of things. A number of times in the past several weeks I've used my car and my truck as a flashlight. I don't have good outdoor lighting at home and on my land in the countryside I don't have power yet, and daylight is in short supply this time of year, and so to work outside, it's the most logical solution.
My car is a 2-seat first-gen Honda Insight. Why? Because I don't like today's higher-drag trends and it's more than is needed for my daily commuting needs. A lot of people however would find my choice hideous and not want to be seen in it, and it doesn't even begin to met many needs that exist. I would be uncomfortable having to take a high-drag car to work every day however in order to meet these peoples' preferences and needs. There are so many thousands of types of cars in order to meet the general populations' many preferences and usage needs. That's not going to suddenly change. In many cases, people are indifferent. Good, automated rides from shared cars are perfect for them! In many cases they're anything but indifferent.
I use my truck to haul supplies around my without-roads land. And let me tell you, unless the algorithm is smarter than me, it *cannot* do that better, because it taxes experience to know where the ground is unstable or so marshy that it'd sink in. A mistake could require a thousand-USD crane rental or worse leave me crushed dead at the bottom of my canyon. I wouldn't even trust it on my driveway on my land, as it hasn't been fully built out yet and the bottom can scrape the undercarriage in places and is unstable in others. These sort of things aren't just simple decision making based on distance measures ultrasound sensors and transponders. They take image recognition, understanding, and complex reasoning.
My insight's engine is dying. I'm fine and used to it, but many people would be really ticked off if it just randomly showed up to give them a ride and struggled to get up a hill.
My pickup is loaded with stuff in its backseat. A lot of people would say, loaded with junk, and be really annoyed if it just showed up. But when I need various tools or parts, I have them. I can't simply do that with a shared vehicle.
I could go on, but you get the picture. There are perfectly rational reasons to still want to own private cars, even in a world where cars can drive themselves. Such a world makes it easier for people who don't want to to not have to own a car, but it absolutely doesn't mean people shouldn't be allowed to.
Oh, come now, you act like today's gas engines are pointlessly overcomplicated in comparison to an electric motor....
The sad thing is, EV motors are still more expensive than equivalent-power gasoline engines today, simply due to volume. Even with the much greater complexitiy (and usually more sensitive tolerances and harsher operating environments), the huge volumes and long-refined production processes mean they're churned out amazingly cheaply in comparison to the challenge at hand.
But that IS the car of the future. Fully automated, but due to bugs it never shows up to give you a ride.
"The fundamental principle of science, the definition almost, is this: the sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment." -- Richard P. Feynman
