I did the calculations and it is around 1200 square feet per household that this project is powering. I'm not sure this type of land use could really scale.

They can sell it to California! I don't think they are building a lot of power plants here, and we'll definitely need some clean environmentally friendly energy to power the high speed train they are going to build. Besides PG&E and SCE get away with charging >.30/kWh to customers, so there is plenty of potential for profit there even at a wholesale cost of .14/kWh.

If you doubt they would do this, consider that California once imported (and may still be importing) clean hydroelectric power from Canada (B.C. IIRC) which in turn proceeded to burn coal to meet local power requirements.

Does it even "work" as a supplement? This article indicates at least one utility is thinking of relocating because their gas and coal plants are now/becoming unprofitable.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2013/08/19/german-utility-revolts-against-renewable-energy-threatens-to-relocate-in-turkey/?ss=business:energy

This article just appeared in the NYT about German "energy poverty":

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/world/europe/germanys-effort-at-clean-energy-proves-complex.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Or it might be an inadequate spec.

So what does the law say? I looked up Section 2701(a)(1)(A) where the two ratios are specified. 1.5:1 for tobacco use vs. non-tabacco use, and a maximum 3:1 ratio for adults. This section doesn't say anything about whether the age rating limit should be applied after or before the tobacco rating limit is applied. Someone should have thought of this when drafting the law.

You might be able to make an argument that it should work either way. Did HHS ever issue guidance on how to apply this section of the law or was it intentionally or unintentionally left vague?

This is just the way the rules are written. The ratios between prices for policies for younger people and older people are checked after the smoking penalty is added on. The ratio cannot exceed 3x. So it is not possible to charge a much smaller penalty to younger smokers than for older smokers without breaking that rule.

It may be more of a case of unintended consequences, or legislators and bill writers that can't do math. The article says a fix will take a year, but doesn't say why. I suspect it is because either a legislative fix will be required or HHS will just rewrite the rule on it's own and has to go through the regular proposed rule-making/comment period/final rule-making rig-amoral.

Even better, there's a bronze plan too. And a catastrophic plan (tin?) that is even cheaper, although there is an age cutoff for that plan.

Well, businesses now have to decide whether or not they continue with plans to provide health insurance to their employees or cancel plans if they have already signed up. The mandate is still there, it is just that without any reporting requirement in place, the government has no way of determining the penalties that apply.

Imagine you are a business owner in a highly competitive industry where payroll overhead costs are one of the major factors in the prices you charge your customers. Do you provide coverage, jacking up your prices, and risk being undercut by competitors who don't provide coverage to their employees?

One of the first things I've wondered is would it be possible for employees to file suit against their employers for not providing health insurance coverage as per the law requires. The initial report from Bloomberg indicated that the law provides flexibility for the government to determine when to start enforcing provisions in section 1513. A quick skimming of the section though indicates it goes into effect for all months after Dec. 31, 2013. I couldn't find any such flexibility. By law the mandate remains--can employers be held liable for not complying with it even though the government is not enforcing penalties? This needs to be clarified.

At the individual level: employees up until now may have been able to assume that their employer would provide coverage. Now that is up in the air, and many people who don't have coverage and might have been planning on signing up for coverage through their employer have to assume that they will either not get insurance and have to pay a penalty, or they will have to sign up for coverage through an exchange. For the later option, will they get a subsidy to help pay for coverage? No one can tell a this point.

Well that, and I looked at the store snack section last night, and the Hostess products are twice the price of other options available. So, if you want a Twinkie fix and the store brand is just as good (I don't know if that's the case, I don't eat Twinkies) why pay more especially with the economy being so bad right now? Same with the fruit pies, Ho-Ho's et al.

We just talked to a sales rep from Verango, they do just this type of system. Sunrun buys the panels and maintains them. Quoted us 27.5 cents/kwh to start in the first year to replace the 131%+ tier power that we are charged higher rates in California on.

I created a spreadsheet to calculate our average cost/kwh over the last year in the upper tiers, and it worked out to 32.5 cents. So we could save 5 cents/kwh, or $31 per month if our usage stayed the same the last year. Not enough for me to bite, even if it costs us nothing. I'd rather find ways to reduce usage and cut our bill by more than that. We'd planned on doing that, which means the savings would be even smaller because our usage in the top tiers would be going down anyway.

Incidentally, part of his pitch is that energy costs increase 6.9% per year. The 20 year solar contract locks in increases of 2.9%. So part of the argument is that over time, solar costs will go up at a much slower pace than electricity costs from PG&E. The only thing is, there has apparently been so much outrage over electricity costs in California that last year they got the highest tier rates lowered from around 40.4 cents/kwh to 34.2 cents/kwh, and the next highest tier also had a decrease from around 33 cents/kwh to around 31 cents/kwh. (Baseline and 101-130% tier rates went up a little) Which kind of negates the argument that energy costs go up every year, and reinforces the fact that energy companies are regulated by the government, so there are ultimately some political factors involved (aside from market forces, etc) in determining rates that are charged.

Our high school had a small computer lab (a small room between classrooms probably originally meant as a teacher office/work area) with 4-5 C64s and an Apple II, IIRC. A couple of times I remember it made a great place for students to meet up and exchange pirated software.

"On The Edge" explains the problem. The plan was to use the serial shifter in the CIA chip. But the lines from the CIA chip to the serial port that was in the final schematic was cut by the production layout guys in California, and hundreds of thousands of PCBs were already in production. So it had to be solved in software.