Put this on an insulated box, which then gets colder than its surroundings. Use the box interior as the heat sink for a heat engine with a heat source exterior to the box.

Sounds like boolsheet.

According to Wikipedia, it is an Aussie Crawfish.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energ...

No, they'll just put a wind turbine on top of the oil derrick and proclaim it to be green. My understanding is that, in spite of all the green talk, Denmark has a pretty high per capita CO2 emission rate.

Except for islands and other locations isolated from large scale energy production, oil is little used for electricity production. Citing the drop in oil prices in the context of the cost of fossil fuel for electricty generation just confuses the discussion.

Because of the notorious problems with CFL lifetime, especially the first ones sold, the "Energy Star" certification for LEDs contains a requirement for minimum life. Unfortunately, because the testing takes a long time, most LEDs are not Energy Star certified. See https://www.energystar.gov/ia/... for the technical details of what is required. As I (quickly) read it, the requirements include maintaining 70% of brightness after 25,000 hours. There is also something about cycling on and off. I would love to hear more from someone with time and understanding to read document carefully.

I agree that a carbon added tax is far superior to a carbon tax, but I seldom see it mentioned. Has anyone in the public eye pushed for it? Some economist (Krugman?) talked about a carbon tax on the ultimate consumer, which I believe is about the same as a CAT, but that is the only discussion I am aware of.

Your label "global warmers" puts non-scientist activists (e.g. McKibben, who really does push for what can reasonably be called decivilization) and the actual scientists (e.g.. Hansen, who doesn't) in the same category. I am not a close observer of the debate, so I cannot say what, if anything, other real scientists, such as Mann, propose, but a meaningful debate requires the two controversies--is there a problem vs. what to do about it if there is--be separated.

I think you are missing the essence of my question, which is "Deduct from what? From revenue to compute taxable income or from U.S. income tax?" I am not intimately familiar with natural resource accounting and taxation, but I believe that if I mine a resource, say coal, and pay a property owner a royalty, that royalty is considered a cost of the coal and is accounted for as any other cost of production. I believe the same accounting is also applied to a severance tax, which is levied in some U.S. states. In contrast, a state income tax is accounted for as a business expense, albeit a period expense rather than part of the cost of the coal.

Foreign income taxes are, I believe, treated differently for purposes of U.S. income tax. There is at least the option of treating them as a credit on an income tax return. I know this is the way the taxes levied on foreign dividends are handled on a personal tax return. Say that a Thai company paid me $1,000 in dividends. I would only get $900, with Thailand withholding $100. I would be expected to report the full $1,000 in income, which if I were in the 25% marginal U.S. tax bracket, would increase my U.S. income tax by $250. I could, however, elect to file a foreign tax credit form (1116, I believe) and claim the $100 as a credit against my U.S. tax. The net result would be that I pay the $250 in tax, with Thailand getting $100 and Uncle Sam getting $150.

Again, I want to emphasize my ignorance of the actual practices, but it is my understanding that the "Royalties that companies pay to foreign governments for the oil they extract" could be properly accounted for as a severance tax. If they are accounted for like a foreign income tax and deducted from the U.S. income tax, then I agree with your implication that that is unfair. If it is treated as a state income tax and deducted as a period expense, than that is also unfair, but it shouldn't amount to much money compared to the theoretically correct accounting, which treats it as a cost of goods sold.

My question is, which method is used?

It is refreshing to see someone actually list the tax breaks and compare them to those given to other industries.

I would, however, appreciate a clarification as I have no time to look it up:

In your last paragraph, you discuss the treatment of royalties paid to foreign governments. The way you expressed it--they are usually not deductible but they usually are--makes no sense. Are you trying to say that they are not deductible from income in computing taxes, but they are allowed as a credit (i.e. a deduction from taxes as opposed to a deduction from taxable income) against U.S. taxes? If that is the case, that does appear to be preferential treatment.

Also, is treating oil company profits as manufacturing profits the same treatment as for other extractive industries, e.g. copper mining?

Actually, I believe that Doosan(sp?) in Korea made the Vogtle reactor vessel.

The Bloomberg article has somewhat confused terminology. The forged item they seem to mean is the reactor PRESSURE vessel, which during operation contains the core surrounded by water at approx. 100atm.
The bottom head belongs to the CONTAINMENT vessel, which in normal operation contains air at near atmospheric pressure, along with the pressure vessel and other components. During an accident, the pressure would rise, but to a much lower pressure than the pressure vessel routinely holds. The idea is that the outside of the containment vessel would be kept cool in the advent of an accident by having water flow by gravity over it from a large tank above it. The cooling would condense enough steam inside the containment vessel to keep pressure within the design limit--seems like around 80psi, but I'm not sure.
The containment vessel is itself surrounded by the shield building, which supports the water tank and allows air to flow over the containment vessel.

One milli-sievert = 100 millirem. Chest X-ray = 10 millirem=.1 milli-sievert.