What are you talking about? The republicans offered up a bill to simply delay the implementation of Obamacare for 1 year and the democrats soundly rejected it. Obama and Harry Reid can be heard on the news vowing "WE WILL NOT NEGOTIATE", comparing the republicans to Islamic terrorists! And you blame the republicans for not negotiating? You sir, have the situation ass backwards.
You simplify to much.
Meanwhile a nice placed solar plant would be cost effective even without the granted feed in tariffs.
This is due to the fact that you can sell your energy at the spot market and the price for energy peaks there regularly far above the feed in tariffs.
Only because government regulations mandate renewable power always be purchased, often times leading to negative electricity prices (i.e. power company pays you to waste electricity - nice perverse incentive!). This is basically the same as a tariff - a law meant to protect a particular industry even though its consequences on the whole are a net loss.
Capacity factors
No one in the energy business uses that term, it is completely useless.
I hope that was sarcasm, otherwise you're an idiot.
But Democrats don't sell themselves as wanting completely free and unregulated markets. That's not to say they are hypocrites about other things but in this case it is more about Republicans.
Uh, neither do republicans, except for a scant few like Ron/Rand Paul.
The whole point of libertarianism is that there is no right person with power to bribe in the first place.
Pretty much it's always been that way.
For an example of how corrupt the public school system is, just take Richard Feynman's experience in reviewing school textbooks:
Because we're all sure that Al Qaeda couldn't possibly find any rail lines in Europe without leaks and whistle blowers.
Seriously, unless you believe that the US has an impervious border (at which point you have issues that can't be solved simply by education) then it should be obvious that al Qaeda isn't what we're being told it is for the simple reason that WE'RE NOT BEING ATTACKED. A dozen guys armed with second hand deer rifles, working as landscapers and dishwashers, driving old beater cars, could take down the entire US electrical grid. No suicide attack necessary. If they work at the Tyson plant they could poison thousands or tens of thousands with biological agents that can be grown in home beer fermentation kits. They can make iron oxide and aluminum powder and burn out railroad bridges with simple thermite. And yet none of these things are happening. Instead we have a Shoe Bomber who forgets to bring matches with him, and the Underwear Bomber.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Maybe so but when you read stories like this, it makes you worry...7 Pakistani muslim chemical engineers arrested for trespassing at Boston area municipal water supply at midnight
both became greater than the mother country because of tremendous "available" tracts of land and natural resources
Really? Than explain why Africa and South America, regions with the richest natural resources in the world, are also the continually poorest? Or why Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan, islands almost completely devoid of any natural resources, are some of the richest places in the world?
The source of all wealth is human productivity, not raw materials in the ground. Human productivity is only unleashed when property rights guaranteed by rule of law and an absence of burdening government allow for unrestricted capitalism.
Don't forget increasing the chance of asteroid impacts, that wasn't on the list.
Is this one of those cases where the state allowed them to put a surcharge on customers' bills for years before they even built the plant?
I don't suppose we'll ever see that money back, will we?
No, in fact the reason why they cancelled the plant was precisely because the state's government told them they could not raise their rates to pay for the construction of the plant, and they didn't have $25 billion just sitting around to pay for the whole thing in advance. I'm sure in 10 years when Floridians are paying three times as much for electricity that they wish they took the 5% increase when they had the chance. That's short-term thinking politicians for you though, they couldn't care less what happens in 10-20 years, all they care about is keeping their constituents happy for their next election.
The reason why the plant was cancelled was because the price tag is $25 billion. The price tag is $25 billion because of government regulation overcomplicating and slowing down construction, causing interest on capital costs to balloon to the point of unprofitability.
To be fair, with zero regulation, oversight, and no delays as well as only minimal safety procedures, nuclear would be the cheapest (but most dangerous) of all our energy options.
No. Even in the Soviet Union, with extreme lack luster safety standards, the number of people whom died due to nuclear power in the entire history of nuclear power is fewer than the number of coal miners whom die every month.
You have a pretty poor perspective on things here. The reactors produced 1100 MWe for 28 years with an average capacity factor around 80%. That's ~50 GWe-years or ~1,200,000 megatons TNT (thermal). I'm pretty keeping the lights on in the building for a few decades is a bit less than a million megatons of TNT.
No.
a) by law, the nuclear plant owners pay into a fund for the storage of waste.
b) nuclear waste becomes contact-safe after about 200 years (half life of Cs-137, the longest lived gamma emitter, is 30 years). Pu-239 is not waste, it is fuel. The only dangerous long-lived fission by-product is Tc-99, which can be separated and vitrified easily (although not done in the US currently, the technology has been proven for decades).
Murder is inherently wrong. Owning a gun is not.
"Luke, I'm yer father, eh. Come over to the dark side, you hoser." -- Dave Thomas, "Strange Brew"
