There also was a long period of time where fungus and bacteria were unable to digest lignin so dead plant material would just accumulate. This is what formed most of our coal. Only later were fungus and bacteria able to evolve mechanisms to break down and use the lignin.

While it is possible to sequester plant based carbon, it would require heating it to charcoal and burying it in order to prevent it from being recycled back into the atmosphere.

http://www.scientificamerican....

All of my bookshelves are strapped to the wall. My hot water heater has three straps (only 2 are required). Emergency rations are available plus I have my camping equipment and propane for my stove. Next to my bed I have an emergency radio that charges via USB, solar or a hand crank. I'm not terribly concerned about water though I keep several gallons of bottled water. I have a water purification system for camping but the main water supply is literally two blocks away from me though it's on the other side of the Hayward Fault. They just retrofitted the water pipes crossing the fault a few months ago right near my house. In an emergency there's always 50 gallons in my hot water tank. I also have a wrench handy for turning off the water and gas. I'm more worried about gas, especially given that we're supplied by PG&E. It took many years of complaining by my parents until they fixed a rather sizeable gas leak under their property. The only thing I'm missing is a generator.

I imagine I'll have a lot of stuff falling off of my shelves making a huge mess.

My house is only a few hundred feet from the Hayward fault. The fault goes right through one of the nearby apartment buildings. Many years ago the developers would conveniently relocate the fault to suit them. Our old city hall which was built on stilts was built on top of a mound that was pushed up between two traces of the Hayward Fault.

My house is bolted to its foundation and is only a single story so it will probably be OK though I might have some damage from my chimney. I also have earthquake insurance though it's quite expensive (around $4K/year).

The superchargers are not subsidized in any way by taxes. The cost of the electricity used is factored in to the price of the car itself for the 85KWh battery or is a $2000 option for the 60KWh battery car. The actual cost of the electricity is not much. If Tesla is paying $0.10/KWh then a full charge is $8.50. $2000 would cover a lot of charges. Since most charging is done at home overnight it ends up not costing Tesla much money at all. As they build out their solar the cost of the electricity drops even further. Tesla also paid back, with interest, their government loan. The $80K cars are being used to fund their development of $30K cars.

Tesla has agreements with the property owners for installing their superchargers in their parking lots and it's often in the property owner's interest since that means that someone with an expensive car will be stopping by there for half an hour or so to charge and will likely want to use the amenities in the area. Public funds are not used in any way.

Currently there are far more superchargers than hydrogen filling stations and they are expanding very rapidly. On top of that, there are tens of thousands of public charging stations at shopping centers, parking garages and elsewhere. Electricity is everywhere. A supercharger is estimated to cost under $200K. A hydrogen filling station cost a minimum of between 2 to 4 million to build and the cost of hydrogen will never be competitive with gasoline, especially if made from cracking water water.

The cost of a battery swapping station is still far less than the cost of a hydrogen filling station. Most of the time the only thing that is needed for the battery swap is electricity and periodic restocking of batteries, which may not be all that often since the cost of swapping includes swapping again for your original battery. For one thing, the hydrogen filling station will need to be manned when it's open for safety, the battery swap does not need that since it is fully automated. Second of all, the cost of a hydrogen filling station will be far higher. If hydrogen is not made on site then a LOT of trucks will be needed to transport the hydrogen since a truck can typically only carry enough hydrogen to fill around 200 vehicles due to the heavy high pressure tanks involved. Regular pipelines cannot transport hydrogen due to embrittlement and leaks. High pressure pumps are also required. The equipment to make hydrogen on-site is also very expensive, and if it is made from water then a tremendous amount of electricity is required. Most likely it would be made from natural gas through steam reforming which also releases CO2. It takes several times as much electricity to make hydrogen to power a single hydrogen fuel cell car as it does to power an EV. In fact, 20% of hydrogen's energy content is used just to compress it.

Furthermore, you will need far more filling stations since EVs typically do most of their charging at home. With hydrogen this is not really possible. The only time I need to use a supercharger is during long trips. I have no need for most of my driving which is within the range of the battery. I spend 5 seconds plugging in at night and 5 seconds unplugging in the morning. Superchargers are typically needed along long distance routes, not in every town like gas stations or hydrogen filling stations.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/...
http://www.teslamotors.com/sup...

Tesla also uses waste heat from the inverter and electric motor. A gasoline powered car also gets less milage in very cold weather. Tesla loses 15-20% of the range in very cold climates which is not all that significant.

I see superchargers popping up all over the place. They're becoming quite common along the east and west coasts. They're not needed for in-town driving since most people charge at home. The battery swap will cost about the same as a full tank of gas and includes swapping your original fully-charged battery back on the return trip. Using the supercharger is free forever.

I've used the superchargers numerous times and they were not a major inconvenience. When I drove up to Lake Tahoe from the Bay Area I stopped at the one in Folsom. I went and grabbed a burger and by the time I was done eating and using the restroom the car was ready to go and it cost me nothing to use.

Every morning I start out with a full battery. It takes me 5 seconds to plug in at night and 5 to unplug in the morning. I spend far less time charging than I ever did waiting in line to fill up with gas at Costco. Besides, I don't have to stay with the car while it's charging. Usually there's other stuff to do within easy walking distance. In 30 minutes I get 170 miles of range. They're generally only needed on long trips, not for everyday driving since it's more convenient to charge overnight at home. Even charging at home I average over 50 miles of range per hour of charging (with a dedicated 80A 240V charger).

The chargers are popping up all over the place as can be seen on Tesla's interactive map: http://www.teslamotors.com/sup...

Better Place died because nobody wanted the EVs that they worked with. Their range was also quite limited and the Better Place setup was quite expensive. With the Tesla I have a choice. I can pay to fill up in 90 seconds or spend nothing and wait a while.

My last electricity bill for around 1500 miles of driving was $62.57 for 39 days, and I'll admit I tend to exceed the speed limit and accelerate hard, so I'm not taking it easy either. Next month I'm driving up to Seattle and it will cost me $0 in electricity.

The drive unit is a combination of the single electric motor, gear reduction, differential and inverter and axles. It's all a single unit that can be quickly replaced. As Elon stated in his last earnings call, most of the problems were due to some cables that were tucked up in there coming loose and making noise. Before finding out that that was the root cause they just replaced the drive unit because it could be done quickly. Now it turns out all they do is apply some zip ties to fix the problem. The car is fairly modular and should be fairly easy to work on, especially since there's no engine in the way of everything. Things like power steering, coolant pumps, AC, etc. are all easily accessible after removing the frunk plastic tub or the plastic panel under the front of the car.

When I have taken my Tesla in for a problem they don't fool around but try to address it as quickly as possible. All of the issues I've had with my car, an early model S, have been addressed by later versions of the car.

Here's a picture of the drive unit: http://arstechnica.com/cars/20...

Assuming that the car is plugged in to charge at night it will heat the battery to keep the temperature at an acceptable level.

I don't know about the NYC area but in Silicon Valley I'm constantly being contacted by companies even when my Linked In profile clearly says I'm not looking to move. My employer is looking for more people with those skills since we make a lot of embedded processors targeted at networking and the data center. There are a lot of companies that make hardware in the area looking for good software people. Skills like being able to work on the Linux kernel and device drivers are in demand.

While I think many of the programmers in my group could do many of these things most are not young. Also most of the positions we open are for more senior people since we need people who can do things like write compilers, kernel developers, bootloader developers, etc. who understand the details of CPU architecture. When I talk with young people getting a CS degree I tell them that there is a huge demand for people with these skills. Few software people have a good grasp of hardware.

I agree with you there. I have a Mikrotik router and while routeros is very powerful there can be a steep learning curve. I have a lot of complex QoS rules which it seems to handle well so my online backup software does not impact any other traffic. I also use a lot of its other features such as DHCP relaying between various subnets and some complex port forwarding rules and traffic shaping. Most consumer oriented routers also can't do BGP and MPLS either.

I had no problem adding a 5GHz card to mine, but the coverage wasn't very good.

Having seen plenty of code from Asia, I'll take code from the United States any day. The worst code I have ever dealt with all came from China and Taiwan. The worst code I saw came from this Chinese company: http://www.zdnet.com/hack-in-t...

I actually have a credit card through Citibank and another through Discover. I have maintained the Citibank card since around 1990 (I got it my first year in college and it was my first credit card) and the Discover card for over 15 years. The reason it's basically a free ride for me is because of the fees they collect from the sellers. The credit cards are paid off automatically through electronic fund transfer from my credit union checking account (again, no fees). I have never had a credit card canceled on me and I maintained a credit rating of around 800 with no loans and never an outstanding balance.

You need to research the different cards that are available.

By paying off a credit card every month I am not paying any fee to use my money. In this case the seller is paying the fee and I collect on the benefits. On one card I earn cash back and on the other I earn airline miles which I have used to fly all over the country with very little out of pocket for the tickets (mostly various airline fees and taxes). I don't pay one cent for the use of my credit card. I don't pay interest or fees. In my case, the sellers are paying the credit card fees, not me. I'm basically getting all of the benefits at no cost to me being paid by the companies I purchase from.

The scam is when you end up paying fees to use a credit card or when you don't pay it off and pay obscene interest rates. I could see someone doing that on a rare occasion like an emergency, but it should be paid off as soon as possible. Carrying debt for the sake of carrying debt on a credit card is stupid. I have never done this and always had a very high credit score.

All of my regular banking is through my credit union where I do not pay any fees to use my money. I don't pay ATM fees at any other credit union (and they'll reimburse me for any). The more I hear about banking through the big banks the more disgusted I am.