No, my point is that you can't choose three countries which work together to spy on their citizens - for example, choosing Canada, US, and UK would be self-defeating.

You need one in each region, so that the "odd man out" will be obvious when it "fails" to report a flaw the other two report.

Is the availability of solar power, and the low energy need to run basic wi-fi

But one needs long-term trials showing survivability during storms and inclement weather events, as well as impacts on aviation due to mobile wi-fi.

The main design choice is between mobile wi-fi repeater platforms that communicate with satellites for a period of time, and ones that have a fairly long lifespan (2-3 years) and are mobile to locate at a specific region. If you keep things up in the air, stuff happens to them. In the New Zealand trials in remote areas, the lifespan was a bit short, so the cost per day of service depends on the weather.

Worldwide, yes.

In the US and Canada, no.

Growth in population masks some impacts. When measuring energy use and climate change impacts, we tend to focus on per capita measures.

By those standards, India has a far lower impact due to lighting than does China. Even though some of India's electricity comes from coal, their impact per person is much lower than China's impact per person.

Different regions have different changes and different optimal energy sources. The main problem is that many people try to do a One Size Fits All approach, but in reality each region needs to move to the 2-3 most optimal energy sources and implement changes that minimize their impact. For places where coal makes sense, the most optimal changes would not be electric cars, but rather high mpg cars, and improvements in building efficiency in heating/cooling and in coal power generation processes via cogeneration uses.

In other areas, as in most of the US, solar makes the most sense.

Especially in the South of the US.

True. I for one know that Australia and China definitely do.

My point is that you need to set it up so that you have three auditors for each part, each in a different "security" region.

And give them "unsafe" code words to embed in a place where other auditors can see if they have been compromised.

Has to be done in a sealed room without electricity, of course (or at least no circuits in) when you set up the code words.

Otherwise, we had the technology in the 80s to hear it, so I can guarantee we can still hear it.

Technically they would have to disrobe and shower and scrub if you really wanted to be safe.

(thinking about this makes it sound like an episode of Get Smart ....)

Verify. Then trust.

See, that's my point.

The audit needs to occur in a place that does not utilize the backdoors the NSA and GCHQ and other agencies are.

Which rules out Canada, the UK, and the USA.

At the bare minimum.

Verify. Then trust.

Not really. Electricity use is down due to more efficient lighting, and the cooler lighting generates less heat that needs to be cooled in buildings. But the problem is half the energy use is to heat and cool buildings. You change that with better insulation and things like LEED green buildings that use little to no energy to run themselves and keep a reasonable temperature. Like we do at the UW, where half of our campus is very energy efficient and all of our energy comes from green power sources (wind, solar, hydro). It's not hard and it saves a ton on the energy bills.

But you have to do it, not just talk about it.

I remember, as a kid, flying into LA and seeing that thick brown layer over the entire valley.

Look, we had the Clean Air Act and it worked. The same goes for switching from tax-subsidized and tax-exempted Coal, Oil, and Gas to cleaner fuels. Get rid of the tax exemptions and remove the "grandfather" permits for inefficient old power plants. The market will self-correct to cheaper Solar fairly quickly, if you can provide low-cost capital in low-interest loans from part of the money we save by removing those inefficient tax subsidies for coal, oil, and gas.

Technically, if an NSA backdoor existed in the codebase, you would be prevented from reporting it by an NSA letter, subject to immeadiate imprisonment and confiscation.

So, what we can say is that it's clean, insofar as they are permitted to report.

Verify, then trust.

Look, real climate change impacts are cradle to grave for power sources.

When done that way, nuclear fission causes water to heat, the mining process is extremely impactful, and the amount of risk and capital required make it no more efficient than reducing the impact of existing coal power plants by converting them to more efficient (as in double the output per ton of coal) by cogeneration.

The problem is really one of massive subsidies for wrong-headed energy sources.

Coal, oil, and natural gas.

Get rid of the tax exemptions for those and the below-market rate leases for drilling and exploitation and shipping and the market self-corrects.

Take the money saved by removing those exemptions and put it into low-cost 1 percent capital loans to build solar, wind, and micro-hydro power sources instead. The problem with those sources is coming up with the capital to switch, not the cost to operate (solar is already cheaper than everything except coal, for example, and that's with massive coal subsidies and tax exemptions).

Face it, if you can't do it right, you might as well not do it at all.

You can accomplish the same thing by ending all Coal, Oil, and Gas tax exemptions and below market rate leases for the same on public lands and oceans.

And then use the remaining cash after the deficit is all paid (about 4 times larger than the deficit) to literally provide low cost loans to US consumers and businesses to build solar, wind, and tidal energy nationwide. The main barrier is the capital cost to build these systems, not the operational costs.

Problem solved.

What is the conviction rate for rich people compared to the conviction rate for poor people in the US?

That's the number we need to be concerned with.

Who do you think elects those officials? Ask SCOTUS - Billionaires do.

We're all peons in an Oligarchic Feudal system pretending to be a Democracy.

But $15,000 is pocket change if you're a billionaire.

Your tires probably cost more than that.

And so do your shoes.

The problem is simple.

Unlike in Sweden or Norway, where your ticket depends on your income, the fine is a small amount to a billionaire.

And that billionaire will make the arresting cop's life miserable and throw lawyers at the "case" like confetti.

It takes a brave police officer to stand up to pressure like that, high risk, low reward, no chance of promotion or contract work ever after you're blacklisted for off-duty security work on all the top tech campus and party locations.