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Comment Re:Didn't some call it an "AI factory"? (Score 1) 62

In my experience (admittedly limited to a handful places I have lived) rural places, which is where these are being built it, is that essentially the entire county is zoned for agriculture and everything that isn't that is a 'variance'.

This gives your local board of supervisors, town council, whoever tremendous power to 'deal' when any kind of business wants to come a long, be a data center, Amazon warehouse, housing developer, whoever.

It lets them gatekeep pretty effectively; which generally speaking is good as long as voters are selecting people that really represent their interests.

Comment Re:No. Just better mileage (Score 1) 135

You aren't factoring in all the other maintenance a fossil needs too. Brakes, fluids, belts, gearbox, exhaust, filters, all sorts of crap.

EVs and hybrids shoudln't have significantly different brake wear. Factored in oil changes, which includes the oil filter. I've never needed to add any other fluids in any car I've owned other than wiper fluid, which an EV also requires. I guess I left out the air filter, but that's such a tiny maintenance cost compared with the other stuff that it almost isn't even worth mentioning.

Belts and transmission do wear out eventually, but that's not an issue unless your car is outside of its warranty period, and an out-of-warranty EV can also have things go wrong. The only straightforward comparison is between two in-warranty cars, because it's impossible to predict the costs for an older vehicle reliably. It might go 300k miles or it might blow a head gasket 10 miles out of warranty.

Comment Re:No. Just better mileage (Score 1) 135

Add to that an oil change for $100 every 5,000 miles on oil changes

Every... 5,000... miles? Are you out of your mind? Cars didn't need oil changes that frequently even back when they used unleaded gasoline. How far are you willing to go to lie for the petroleum industry?

An oil change for $100? Are you out of your mind? Where are you getting your car serviced?

Jiffy Lube in the Bay Area. And while cars are under warranty, if you don't do an oil change at the recommended interval, it can negatively impact your ability to get engine problems covered under the warranty, so most people do so.

Comment Re:They need better ads. (Score 2) 62

Not to really disagree but my own takes would be

A) does not specify a time horizon. Over a long enough period increased supply usually does follow increased demand, and prices usually do drop. Look at the inflation adjusted cost for refined gasoline in 1912 vs today.. It would be around $5.80 a gallon national average. Will the price of electricity come down enough to help the individual in their life time as far as total savings (my bet is unlikely )

B) Lots of communities drive very large portions of their total revenues from a few large businesses. Entire states in some cases. That isn't really that uncommon. The question is again for people already there is that a savings. More people means more infrastructure, it means things like more roads, or paved roads, municipal water, sewer and gas rather than wells and oil deliveries. All these things are costs that consume those tax revenues. Now as anyone with a well knows they are cheap to put in, they are not cheap to fix when maintenance is needed (even if pretty infrequent). Ditto for septic systems of various kinds. But if you already have these things as an individual property owner, the value of the county putting them in lets new developers build more densely and new residents live more cheaply but you still have your sunk costs. Even if your taxes stay flatish, there is little good news. On the property tax front, the millage might come down but the valuation goes up, again treading water probably.

C) If this is good or bad for you depends a lot on the individual situation. Got a lot land near in to the new projects or existing downtown you can subdivide, probably looking at windfall. Got land on the far side of town but not enough for Ryan Homes to put 50 houses on, your probably a loser.

D) And this isnt actually good news for the locals either, except the construction workers themselves possibly. In a lot of rural areas trades work is VERY EXPENSIVE and tough to schedule vs larger metro areas. Gwd help you if you wanted to get a hundred yards of concrete for under a new barn its either not happening until the data center is done or your going to be paying a whole lot more for someone from much further away to come do it.

Comment Re:No. Just better mileage (Score 1) 135

That is all true except PG&E's EV2 plan has off-peak energy at 28.5 cents per kWh, which should cover most of the needs of people who charge at home. That rate makes it competitive with the Prius, even before you consider oil changes.

Of course, they also charge you more for your heat and air during the day. With a whole-home time-of-use plan, they're likely to get their money either way.

I'm pretty sure the only way you're not going to get screwed with your pants on is to have a separate meter on an EV-B rate plan. Totally worth $1.50 a month. Too bad I'm not currently eligible because of where I live (because PG&E doesn't own the meters). Then again, I have unlimited supercharging, so I guess I probably wouldn't use it anyway. :-)

Comment Re:No. Just better mileage (Score 1) 135

Well, if you can charge from solar the equation changes significantly-- closer to $0.09/kWh or $0.02/mile.

Sure, but only if you also have a Powerwall or similar. Otherwise, your car is going to be at work during the day, rather than charging at home, and you're going to be getting jack s**t for your excess solar during the day thanks to PG&E's rate structure, and then buying that power back at night at full price.

Comment Re:No. Just better mileage (Score 1) 135

PG&E residential service averages 45.33 cents average per kWh.

That's crazy? California has huge amounts of solar generation, but no cheap mid-day tariffs ?

PG&E nearly went bankrupt with lawsuits over their mishandling of gas pipe maintenance (San Bruno explosion) and high tension line maintenance (multiple wildfires). If they can't make a profit from cutting corners on maintenance, their only choice is to make a profit with extortionate rate hikes. /s

In all seriousness, the biggest mistake multiple California governors have made was not letting PG&E go bankrupt, buying up the assets, and starting over with a state-owned not-for-profit power company. For-profit essential utilities are like for-profit medicine: you pay more for less. Competition never really works when you have a natural monopoly like essential utilities or when comparison shopping is impractical, such as emergency medical care. That's why certain essential services are generally better off socialized. And anybody arguing otherwise doesn't have a solid grasp of economics.

Comment Re:No. Just better mileage (Score 2) 135

If you cannot charge at home, their cost per mile goes up to the same as a gas car's or more.

In California, even if you can charge at home, the cost per mile is more than many gasoline-powered cars:

Model 3: 3.7 to 4.2 miles per kWh. PG&E residential service averages 45.33 cents average per kWh. That's 10.79 to 12.25 cents per mile.

My usual gas station is $3.90 per gallon. A Prius hybrid gets 56 miles per gallon. That's 6.9 cents per mile. Add to that an oil change for $100 every 5,000 miles on oil changes, which is 2 cents per mile, and the Prius hybrid is still 2 to 4 cents per mile cheaper than the Model 3.

The only way you save money per mile with an EV in California is if you have free unlimited supercharging or free workplace charging. And even then, somebody is paying for your charging, just not you.

Comment Re:Just take some ivermectin (Score 1) 62

Or maybe some colloidal silver. It's certainly okay that we have cut billions of dollars to funding scientific research because there's nothing homeopathy can't cure right?

Colloidal silver is almost certainly useless when taken orally, but don't knock silver in general. It is used in wound dressings for a reason. Candida auris is one of those reasons. From the article:

The antifungal susceptibility testing of silver nanoparticles under planktonic conditions of C. auris isolates showed significant antimicrobial activity against all C. auris isolates, the MIC of AgNPs was <6.25 g/mL, and the MFC was 12.5 g/mL for all isolates, except one isolate was 6.25 g/mL.

Comment Re:This is NOT NORMAL (Score 1) 202

Every country has a population that might be valuable if living under a democratic system, as in people that work, get money and buy american products and the smarter ones get "brain drained" to america.

You don't have to take over a country to get that. The U.S. brain drains countries that aren't democratic just fine. There are a few that we arbitrarily choose not to brain drain or sell to (currently Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, I think), but very few countries are on that list. And Cuba was one of the countries that I was thinking of as a country that has nothing worth taking over, because if it did, then those gains combined with eliminating the risks associated with having a country like that so close to our borders would probably have been enough to tempt someone to overthrow its government long ago.

Then again, Republican war hawks have started thumping their chests about Cuba now, so who knows. It might still happen.

Comment Re:The UN (Score 1) 175

Meanwhile Russians are wondering where their $6 billion for Su30s, BukM2s, S300VMs and T72s for Venezuela went. An American AH1Z Viper flies in almost pointblank and meets no air defense at all.

Given how corruption usually works, they probably sold them to some even worse third-world country and deposited the resulting money in a private Swiss bank account.

Comment Re:Space dust (Score 1) 39

The headline said stopped. If you are adding "by itself" to the headline, that is your addition, not what was written.

No, that's actually the only correct interpretation of those words in English. If someone's actions caused the leaking to stop, then a native English speaker would say, "After Half a Decade, the Russian Space Station Segment Leaks Are Fixed" or "... Leaks Have Been Stopped/Fixed". (Or they would avoid passive voice and explicitly say who stopped it.)

Saying that something stopped is different from saying that something was stopped. That helping verb indicates that there is another actor other than the leak who caused the event. Without it, the only correct way to interpret that sentence is that the leak stopped on its own, and that nothing was done to make it stop.

This headline would have caused my newswriting professor's forehead veins to rupture.

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