Yes, unfortunately. Especially those prisoners who become more trouble than the prison originally thought they were worth. Those cases need to be quickly put back on the market for other prisons to bid on.

there are limits on what one [can] do to influence the behavior of others.

Such as letting them go free as soon as they've rehabilitated and not a day sooner? I think that alone gets the job half done.

That reminds me of a joke. How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change.

The problem with that is that someone has to later decide that a prisoner is ready to leave, and could decide for reasons unrelated to the prisoner's rehabilitation whether or not to release them.

A prisoner probably wouldn't be kept in prison longer than necessary for rehabilitation if the prison were contracted to rehabilitate the prisoner for a one-time payment.

And a prisoner probably wouldn't be kept in prison shorter than necessary if the prison were fined each time the prisoner recidivates after release.

The way prisons are paid today, by the number of prisoners, creates the perverse incentive of keeping people locked up as long as possible and not rehabilitating them.

Similarly, because roughly half of the USA rejects the idea that fossil fuels will become too valuable to burn for personal transportation, any idea of a post-oil future without some magical energy source to replace it is completely foreign to them. So the next 20-50 years is more difficult for many to envision than the more distant future.

Unfortunately, the goal isn't to rehabilitate offenders. If it were, all prison sentences would be the same: stay in there until you've been rehabilitated. (Can you think of a better way to motivate people to change?)

No, the main goal of prisons is revenge (also called "retribution").

It's a lot more affordable for the average family if the solar is part of the mortgage than if it's a separate itemized purchase.

It would be, except for two things:

1. The homebuilder charges more to add solar panels than third parties, simply because the cost can be added into the mortgage.

2. Property taxes are normally assessed on the home's sale price, so if that price reflects the cost of solar panels, the property's tax will be higher.

The big technical problem for them is that when a cloud goes over an area, all the electricty being pumped back into the grid suddenly drops drastically and the power company has to have generation capacity to add in within seconds to avoid brown outs.

...or send a signal to their customers to cut consumption. (Remember, any shortage can be eliminated by either increasing supply, as you suggest, or reducing demand.) If I could capture this signal and the power company provided an incentive to cut my usage during that time, I would use the signal to turn off the water heater, or raise the thermostat a couple of degrees in the summer or lower it in the winter.

Of course in the summer when a cloud passes over my house, the A/C doesn't have to work so hard, so PV electrical production and A/C power consumption nicely coincide.

If freed... wouldn't a stolen bit of food here or there (as presumably it wouldn't be able to grow or buy it's own) or some public defecation get it arrested?

Where did they want to release this Chimpanzee? Times Square?

On the other hand, allowing the price of something to fluctuate empowers people to save money in a way that doesn't exist with flat rates.

I can't install Microsoft Windows on my 68k Mac.

Because DRM prevents you or because Microsoft chose not to produce a 68k version?

Making it illegal to pass on the right like on the Autobahn would separate traffic by speed with the fastest traffic always in the far left lane and the slowest traffic always in the far right lane. Separating traffic by speed makes roads safer even with a high difference in speed between the fastest cars and the slowest ones.

It would be good if the USA banned passing on the right as on the Autobahn. Then it would be safe for me to go 45 mph in the right lane, a speed that will give me 60+ mpg and reduce my fuel costs. If states are serious about reducing their carbon emissions, this should be part of their strategy.

buses are awful unless you have quite high population density

The way we run them, they're awful even with high population density, because we charge the same price if you take a bus to the next stop or to the end of the line. In other words, we overcharge for short trips and undercharge for long ones. This keeps the financing perpetually in the red, and encourages long commutes (particularly for those whose time is worth the least), which adds to traffic congestion.

Justice has always been about revenge above anything else. Otherwise there wouldn't be a death penalty because it isn't much of a deterrence, it provides no possibility of rehabilitation or repayment, it's just as effective as life in prison for societal protection, and denunciation is kind of a silly reason to punish someone.

For one, the US is big.. really big.. So it's not cost-effective to run power cables and alike underground.

You're close. It's not that the USA is big, it's that much of it is urban sprawl. Sprawl makes all infrastructure expensive on a per capita basis, which is why the suburbs are subsidized by downtown areas. "Big" only matters between cities, but intercity electric lines are high voltage wires that don't get buried.