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Comment Re:Keystone Pipline (Score 1) 1030

As I mentioned in my original post, MOST of the value comes from legal protection and eminent domain land purchases.

For example, Bush's Energy law included a provision that prevents anyone from suing gas station owners from leaks that have contaminated local communities. This one provision is worth hundreds of billions and doesn't show up on the federal budget.

Most of the direct benefit actually comes from tax breaks which don't show in the budget.

Most of the real cost is not directly related to DIRECT subsidies. Most of the benefit comes from repairing the damage these energy sources do to health and environment. Look at how much the EPA spends to clean up oil related environmental damage.

Next, the federal government is not the ONLY source of subsidies. States provide roughly equivalent subsidies.

Finally, you say my number is crazy??? The EU countries also subsidize oil but no where near as much since they also tax the final product... The EU fuel cost is around $9 a gallon...

Comment Re:Why subsidize? (Score 1) 1030

We should be encouraging:

1. Thorium nuclear - Difficult to weaponize, readily available fuel, reduced waste, economically viable in smaller reactor sizes
2. Other Nuclear - Regional fuel access, proliferation issues
3. Solar - Can use "dead" space (like rooftops) which reduces NIMBY issues
4. Wind - more limited in location and NIMBY issues

Comment Keystone Pipline (Score 2) 1030

Umm, what about the Keystone XL Pipeline... That single project is receiving between 1 and 1.8 BILLION dollars in subsidies.

For reference ALL renewable received $5.93 billion.. over a 15 year period...

Plus the real benefit that oil, coal and natural gas receive are liability protection from spills, poisoning etc plus eminent domain lad purchases for pipelines etc.

These issues are not represented in the typical accounting of subsidies and easily doubles the value.

I remember reading that is all benefits were removed from oil than the price of gas would be between 12-15 dollars a gallon!

Comment 20 Counts (Score 1) 491

He was charged with 20 counts NOT 10,000. Prosecutors don't need to read all 10,000 they only needed to read 20.

Just because you kill someone in self defense doesn't mean that you can kill anyone you want.

Even if 9,880 documents are evidence of war crimes, he is still guilty of releasing sensitive information the SHOULD be kept secret.

Comment Read up on Histones (Score 2) 272

Not true. Histones, the proteins that keep DNA ordered, are some of the earliest proteins. They provide an extremely accurate clock for when species diverged.

While on a short term, a few million years, you are right when you say the rate of genetic drift is not predictable. However, over a longer period of time the rate SEEMS to be fairly consistent. That is the point of the article.

You seem to be confusing genetic diversity with Phylogenetic diversity. Phylogenetic diversity describes how genes change physical differences while genetic diversity talks about the complexity of the genes themselves.

You can have genetic diversification without the physical structure of the organism changing, especially if there are environmental restrictions.

Comment Re:Wht not sound? (Score 1) 128

>> Different mixes and levels for different apps

Weird... I wanted that feature, and that's exactly why I was installing PulseAudio for a year before Ubuntu picked it up as a standard. PulseAudio makes per-app mixing just work, whereas before Pulse came around I had never seen any OS do that since the BeOS.

Comment Re:North Carolina (Score 0) 108

> I live in Raleigh, NC, and for those who have a jaundiced perspective of the south I would like to say that this region is booming in terms of technology-centric business

You know, maybe it's because I've always lived to the south of you (Atlanta), but I never really applied the negative southern stereotype to North Carolina, not until you amended your constitution just a couple weeks ago.

It will be interesting to see how that decision affects the state in the medium term... stereotypes and reputation like that can have a lot of impact on whether companies choose to set up shop there.

Comment Electric Drive Train? (Score 4, Insightful) 582

You are assuming that EV will simply replace the current engine and fuel tank with an electric engine and battery... This is not what has to happen.

Currently engines are big and heavy so you only have one. You then have to transfer the rotational energy of the engine to the wheels. But Electric motors are very light and tiny. So why not have 4?

Put a small electric engine in each wheel and you eliminate the entire drive train... no more drive train losses and EV's are back up to 90%.

Your 72% efficiency only applies to ICE cars that have been converted to EV's.

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