It goes deeper than that. For many years, the air force literally told officers that UFOs were real, that there was a secret program to reverse engineer them, and that they would be arrested if they ever said a word to anyone. It was basically a hazing ritual. This article has a great discussion of it. Here's a bit of it.

Not quite as bad as that. Average power plant efficiency is now about 39%. Cogeneration can further improve it by capturing the heat and using it for useful things.

ICE cars are even worse though, sometimes as low as 20%.

This is also why the transition to renewables is so important. If your generator doesn't use fuel and doesn't produce CO2, the question of how much fuel it wasted or how much CO2 it produced is moot.

I just searched for "cost of energy sources", and it took me less than one minute to find the data. Here you go. There's a graph right at the top helpfully showing you how they compare, and how the costs have changed with time.

I bet you could have found it just as quickly if you'd bothered to look. See my signature quote.

Electricity is the wrong number to look at. Total energy is what matters.

If you replace an ICE car with an EV, you'll use less energy but more electricity. Same if you replace a gas furnace with a heat pump, or a gas stove with an electric one. Looking only at electricity makes all these things look bad, when in fact they're good.

In an accident you don't need the windshield to resist breaking. You need it to fragment into tiny bits that can't impale you. Auto glass is well designed for the purpose.

Let's stick to technologies that might actually be possible, not crazy fantasies!

There are different levels of rare. Lithium isn't platinum, but it's not sodium either. I keep a tub of salt (50% sodium) in my kitchen cupboard. It's dirt cheap. Lithium can't compete with it on price.

Sodium can't match lithium on mass, but like the article says, the bigger use is for grid storage. Weight doesn't matter much if you aren't carrying the batteries around with you. Using sodium for grid storage makes it cheaper, and frees up lithium for cars.

To realize just how insane this is, consider that we had weak La Nina conditions for much of 2025. That means it should have been a slightly cooler than average year. And it was the second hottest year ever recorded.

That tells you just how quickly the climate is changing. 2023 had a strong El Nino. A cooler than average year today is as warm as a hotter than average year two years ago, and much hotter than an average year was three years ago.

Not even close. The US is number 16, with per-capita emissions less that 1/4 of the worst country. All the worse countries are smaller, which is why the US has higher total emissions. They aren't tiny though. Russia, Canada, Australia, and Saudi Arabia all have higher per-capita emissions.

Does someone not understand what solar means?

I think if a company buys a 100 horsepower engine, they should report that they added 100 horses to their stable. It's basically the same thing, isn't it?

I guess maybe renaming the company for the metaverse wasn't such a great idea after all.

Your information is out of date. Read this if you want current information. Most EVs now have similar range to typical ICE cars, and the effect of cold on range is similar for both EVs and ICEs, usually about 15%.

At first I thought you were being sarcastic. Because obviously it's much easier to install enough chargers where the population density is high. When people are very spread out, it takes a lot more chargers to make sure you're close to one wherever you go, and then fewer people use each charger making them less profitable.

Then I realized you were being serious and had to back up and try to figure out your logic. I'm not sure I've figured it out, but maybe you aren't familiar with typical EV chargers?

A charger is just a small box at the side of the curb. It takes up almost no space at all. You don't need to sacrifice a single parking space to it. EV chargers are great in crowded cities, because they need so much less space than gas stations.

Wikipedia has a summary of the causes of desertification. The most relevant part:

The goal is to create a crust over the top that resists erosion and gives plants a place to grow. Once the plants are established, they further resist erosion.

It's a little unintuitive that heavy rain can sometimes promote desertification. When there's lots of plants, the rain soaks into the ground and helps them to grow. If the plants are removed (through overgrazing, unsustainable agriculture, drought, etc.), it washes away the top soil and makes the ground less fertile.

The goal is to fight desertification, that is, to undo the harm we're doing to the environment and put it back to the way it was before.