This doesn't reduce value or "make people poorer."

CO2, above what is consumed in the natural cycle, is PURE garbage. Right now, companies are dumping their trash inside your lungs and doing so for FREE.

This is already making people poorer, it is just hidden because, traditionally, it wasn't accounted for. The UK tariff is simply accounting for the value these companies are taking from everyone, quantifying it and requiring the manufacturers to actually pay it.

Seems pretty reasonable to me. I think everyone should be required to pay all their bills.

I recall reading a theory that suggested that plank scale black holes could never actually completely evaporate. Heisenberg uncertainty with quantum gravity theories or something. I am not a physicist so don't ask me to explain...

But, if true, there could be a swarm of plank scale black holes through out the universe, concentrated by the existing normal matter (i.e. galaxies). They are so small that they can't actually absorb matter and the direct gravitational effects of a single one are below detection levels but the combined mass is significant leading to an apparent "extra" mass, also know as dark matter.

It doesn't matter if you have a gun or not. Human beings are the most dangerous animals ever to walk/fly/swim on earth.

It is EASY to create very lethal weapons with minimal resource. There is also a principle in security, if someone is willing to die just to kill you, then they are almost certainly going to succeed.

Regardless of how armed the society is, government ONLY ever stays in power if the general populous allows them to by not revolting.

Look at history. Britain was famous for disarming colonies and territories from Scotland though the American colonies. Yet they FREQUENTLY had revolts and lost ALL their territories and colonies.

Putin, Kim Jung Un, Ali Khamenei, etc are all in power because the population of their countries allow them. Kim won;t last a week if the general people decided to remove him and it doesn't matter that the country is unarmed AND has the worlds largest standing army.

I have my towel ready...

Just a quick clarification.

Yes, they MUST be breeder reactors, but they can be set up to breed only what they need and not require any external neutron source after the initial startup.

In addition, you can breed a small excess of U-232 then use that to start a second reactor, rinse and repeat.

Just thinking out loud here but aren't there subduction zone in the ocean right now? If my high school earth science class (or Nature https://www.nature.com/article...) is to be believed, plate tectonics already eats a large volume of the oceans every year. This is replaced through volcanic out-gassing and comets.

We could pump all the earths oceans into the mantle and it wouldn't make much of a difference... other than killing all of us through dehydration that is.

"Aktchewally..."

The major issues with fracking are the high pressure fracking fluid which breaks up the rocks to allow the oil / gas to escape to the surface.

After you are done, you have changed a solid or nearly solid rock formation into a cavity with only fracking fluid for support. Then you move on to a few feet to a few miles away and do it again, then again then again then...

With geothermal, you are drilling a single tube and using it for decades. I am sure there will be underground structures that are carved to make the thermal transfer better but the critical piece is that you only have to do it one, not over and over again.

Quoting from a comment on a "denier" Web site
 

Fossil fuels are not some magical panacea. They provided a cheap energy source. Every new cheap energy source from better foods to wood power to water power to coal power and others have seen similar expansions in quality of life.

It is true that fossil fuels use has seen the longest and most substantial growth in history. HOWEVER, it isn't because it was "fossil fuels" it was because it was cheap energy.

Unlike 150 years ago, we now know that fossil fuels aren't nearly as cheap as we though due to environmental and health damages (plus eventually running out). If we look at the actual TOTAL costs of different energy sources then fossil fuels come up significantly wanting.

Given that energy MUST be available and continue to grow to maintain our billions of people, we should all insist that the CHEAPEST overall energy source be the primary source.

Renewables are now often times cheaper than fossil fuels (even when environmental and health costs are ignored). EVs have buzz because they are now ALMOST a drop in replacement for ICE vehicles. This means fossil fuels are not REQUIRED to be the cheap energy source any more.

Religiously defending fossil fuels makes no more sense then religiously attacking them.

The point of the article is that the cost of labor in Asia is going up.

Therefore: Labor (combined with shipping costs) in the west becomes cheaper compared to Asia.

And they might just skip Africa because the countries there are not particularly stable. If you spend a billion to build a factory then you want it to stay in good shape for a few years...

and, Right back act you, Moron...

Wages in the west have stagnated BECAUSE of cheap labor in Asia...

I am looking forward to manufacturing moving back to the West as Asian labor market get more expensive and transport costs increase due to fuel and security costs which remove all the financial benefits of manufacturing in Asia evaporate.

This will leave the Asian labor markets demanding better conditions and manufacturing balanced between East and West. This all strikes me as a good thing.

And they made novel engineering implementations of existing science.

Steve and Woz did not create any new SCIENCE in their garage (or bedroom)

8-15% is huge. In most large industries, fortunes have been made (and lost) because of fractions of a percent improvements in efficiencies.

Also, think about all the secondary impacts. 8-15% of industrial scale power all comes out as heat. Large transformers have active cooling so they don't melt. This cooling takes energy to run. The cooling forces spacing in the coils which reduces efficiency.

Actual power over power lines is not always consistent. Therefore, the heat generated by losses is not consistent. Different heating rates will change the temperature of the wire which will cause thermal stresses over time. This leads to more maintenance.

Then think of non-industrial scale power uses. EV charging comes to mind. One of the major limiting factors in DC fast charging is a compromise between the size of the cable and heat generation. A large cable is difficult to manipulate. A small cable is easy to move around but generates a lot of heat. Current DC fast charges use active cooling in the cable to push more power through a smaller wire but this still puts an upper limit on the Amps you can push. A superconductor like this can allow for dramatically higher currents (not just 8-15%) through a similar sized cable.

Other electrical superconductors have also shown the property of thermal superconductivity. Basically, a change in temperature at one point is reflected in the whole mass at the speed of light. This would allow for VERY efficient cooling in a wide range of systems. You have one chiller and drop fine wires into different areas to draw out the heat.

I am reserving judgment on the merits of this specific paper but the benefits of a high temperature super conductor that is relatively cheap to make are hard to UNDER estimate.

Where does it say the houses have to have batteries?

The article is implying all the houses are grid-tie so no batteries to repair. Solar panels frequently have around 80% of the original capacity after 25 years. I know of several firms that buy up old panels to create arrays from them as a cheaper options to new panels.

Your argument is exactly the same as requiring electrical wiring or even a roof on a house. All things require maintenance. That doesn't mean it isn't an appropriate requirement to put on homes.

Research the Fairness Doctrine.

Up until the mid 80's, any broadcast communication crossing a state border were required to present the opposing position for important issues. (I am paraphrasing here, read up on it for details)

Rush Limbaugh started his show the very same year that Reagan eliminated the Fairness Doctrine. Fox news was started the following year. It is fairly safe to say that the conspiracy news that became the basis of Rush, Fox, and other mostly (but not exclusively) right wing media is only possible because the fairness doctrine is gone.

Personally, I think the best modern approach would be to require any search results that are provided without subscription should include at least 10-25% of the results that are alternate results (opposing views). It seems to me that even if the results include notes saying "required by law" this sort of thing will help limit the echo chambers that creates the danger to society and specifically to civil servants doing their jobs.

"You keep using [those words], I do not think it means what you think it means" ....