nedruod’s Recent Comments

• Click here to view comment in original post

  That number needs more perspective

  I'm not sure of the answer (seems difficult to dig up), but I'd say that number is somewhat meaningless without some idea of the percentage of companies that are actually profitable.  No profits, no income tax seems fair.  And if you're looking at the number in a non-size adjusted count, I expect there are many unprofitable small businesses that either haven't made it yet, or aren't going to.

  But really, don't know, couldn't find out.  I could believe a number as low as 10% and as high as 50% (On Two-thirds of corporations operating in the U.S. pay no income tax posted 1 year, 2 months ago 2 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  What's the comparison?

  Joe, not that there isn't a certain amount of tragedy in those 100 cases, but I'd imagine an industry as large as France's electrical generation would have a large number of workers, and it's quite possible (though I've yet to check) that 100 injuries (assuming the 100 cases aren't death sentences) may be fairly low in comparison.

  To throw a little bit of a strawman up, I'd be very surprised to find that less than 100 coal mine workers die per year.  Kind of poor argument since I'm sure you're much more of an advocate of wind and solar.  But I'd expect people do get injured raising and servicing wind turbines, handling solar thermal components, or in any industrial job.

  Maybe 100 is 6 times normal, maybe it's half normal.  I wasn't able to find out how many people the French energy industry employs, but the work related "major injury rate" for Great Britian's energy industry is about 166 per year per 100,000 employees.On French independent nuclear commission reports four malfunctions in four plants in 15 days posted 1 year, 3 months ago 43 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Timing

  For the purpose of calculations it would be more appropriate to use the timeline of land recovery for coal than the expected lifetime of the solar panels.

  Some might estimate that as low as 10 years, I'd probably say 20, if the right practices are followed.  From what I read they aren't, and when they aren't it might be more like a hundred years for recovery, maybe more.On Nevada Solar one is a better and smaller neighbor than a coal mine posted 1 year, 5 months ago 80 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Thats an easy one

  Give a rebate to anyone who has fluorescent lightbulbs now or in the next 6 months.

  Give a rebate to anyone who has good quality insulation now or in the next 6 months.

  See?  Easy.  Rewarding those that came early is sometimes discounted as not being "incremental", but I disagree.  There are so many different necessary efforts that if you reward the early adopters of improvement X, especially if you make it a social pattern, it will lift up the very important early adoption of improvement Z.On Opinion writer suggests efficiency stimulus would be more effective posted 1 year, 8 months ago 8 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Two Part Answer: Work and Wealth

  There are two parts to the answer.

  One, there is definitely more short term work created by the need for efficient design, for replacement of inefficient infrastructure, and for the build up of renewable energy sources.  Efficient design also requires more ongoing long term work.

  The second part, wealth, is hard to answer because wealth itself is not well defined, especially in a long term sense.  It's relatively possible to sum out current wealth by dollar figures, but future long term wealth can only be described as a complex set of items, capabilities, responsibilities, risks, etc, and all of these have a relative value which may differ not only from generation to generation, or individual to individual, but even over a single individual's lifetime.

  Acknowledging that difficulty we can see sources of wealth that will emerge.  Efficiency and renewables represent expanded capabilities.  Renewables are the larger example because we with enough investment end up with what today would be considered limitless energy.

  Right now we have an energy deficit.  We are using more than we can sustainably use, given our current mode of production, its limited resources, and its impacts which will require a great amount of work and energy to reverse.

  This gives the impression that efficiency and renewables only cause work, which may require diversion of work on other topics.  But efficiency and renewables can, after we are no longer in a deficit, result in excess energy which used appropriately will reduce work per unit of production elsewhere.

  On the topic of work and diversion, a key element is worth remembering.  The world has a vast surplus work force which is not being allowed to participate, and anyone who thinks work on efficiency, renewables or less impactful farming requires diversion of workers should remember the untapped workforce.  There's certainly no need to grow international populations in order to grow the international workforce.On With all the upbeat talk about an environmental labor boom, is rhetoric running away from reality? posted 1 year, 10 months ago 13 Responses