Slashdot Mirror

California is still largely powered by coal and/or natural gas.

California gets much more of its electricity from nuclear and hydroelectric sources than coal (source). Gas is #1 at 116.7 TWh, followed by nuclear (31.5 TWh), and hydroelectric (29.2 TWh). Coal only accounts for 17.3 TWh (in-state + imports).

Yes, the original intent behind carpool lanes is to reduce congestion. But California used them as an incentive for people to get fuel-efficient cars. And I have zero problem with that. California capped the number of clean-air vehicle stickers it gave out. According to the DMV site, the 85,000 stickers alloted have all been given out. No more will be issued.

This isn't more detailed, it's just more strict, but unlike the recent pollution spat in California, there is no proof that radiation from a cell phone is harmful (as opposed to auto emissions). There is a reason that the FCC has jurisdiction here. It would make things nearly impossible for a company to sell a product at a national level if every state had different standards. Imagine if USB devices had different standards for 50 states. It would be an absolute nightmare, and not only for the vendor.

If the radiation level is far below the 'dangerous' level, then how is it even relevant unless they are measuring every bit of EM they are receiving from every electronic device they are exposed to? If the science behind a municipal decision isn't sound, but it gives the impression that it is, it can create FUD just by it's existence. In some cases, it is necessary to have standards at a federal level.

http://gov.ca.gov/press-release/8047/

In the case of auto/pollution standards stink (no pun intended) raised in California, there is an obvious public benefit to stricter standards, which California felt wasn't being met at the federal level. There are obvious health risks to exposure to those emissions, and countless studies proving that. Cell phones, on the contrary, have zero proof that they are dangerous to the public health.

As a residential electrician, I can't wait for all electric cars to show up. :)

I make a pretty penny installing 240V outlets (like what your dryer/oven run off of) and upgrading service panels to 240-320V.

However, it would be interesting to see what the impact of say a street with the equivalent of a dozen new clothes dryers, which will take about 700W per car to charge.

Study/.pdf by PG&E

Power Grid can't handle it. Here's the math ...

The load of one plug-in recharging about 2 kilowatts.

The average household in the United States uses about 8,900 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year.

The article doesn't state the time frame of the 2Kw draw, is it hour, day, week, month or per year. Let us ASSUME for the moment that it is over the year, the increase draw is 22.5% increase over current load.

That energy usage of that size has got to come from HydroElectric, Nuclear, Oil or Coal. Which of these are all those Prius Owners willing to build more of?

THAT is just based on guessing it is 2Kw per year, rather than some shorter period (which is more likely). Lets do a little more research ...

According to this PDF the average draw per mile is slighly less than about half a kilowatt-hour per mile.

Let us assume for the moment, that the average car goes 12K Miles/yr. Let us be "generous" with the "slightly less" figure and say 40%. That works out to be about 4.8 Kw/yr, or roughly 1/2 again as much (50% more) as the average house currently uses.

Granted, that is replacing ALL vehicles with Electric ones. AND such a process will take decades (if ever) to complete. AND generation capabilities will increase over that span. AND renewables will become more economically feasible.

There are dozens of other variables as well (smart roads, traffic shaping, smart cars etc) which will help offset the increase.

However, the final, and only reasonable conclusion is, the power grid will need to be vastly bigger/better/smarter than it currently is.

http://2007-08.archives.ebudget.ca.gov/BudgetSummary/SUM/1249561.html

California spends 10,000,000,000 dollars or so a year for prisons

http://nicic.gov/Library/021777

Says 20% of males are in prison for drug related offences, 30% of females but as im rounding the hell outta some numbers im not going to include them as women only account for 7% of the overall population in prison

20% of 10 billion? 2 billion

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1884956,00.html

Says California's Pot Crop is worth around 14 billion
The estimate the tax will bring in another 1.3 billion per year

3.3 billion

The current budget deficit in california is 19.1 billion

So legalizing weed could see an impact as much as 1/6 of the deficit.

That doesnt take into account that all of those prisoners will be consuming, working, and paying taxes.
Or it could help with the litigation expenses for the prison overcrowding lawsuits that the state is paying for.. all the way to the supreme court

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0614/Supreme-Court-to-hear-California-prison-overcrowding-case

People sitting in jail are a BIG reason that California is having difficulty.. I mean 150,000 people sitting in facilites designed for 80,000 people costs alot of money.. guards.. food.. clothing.. electricity.. medical.. mental health.. dental.. courts.. parole boards.. probation officers.. electronic monitoring.. they all cost money..

There are 170,000 prisoners in California.
it costs $47,102 per prisoner to keep them in jail. http://www.lao.ca.gov/laoapp/laomenus/sections/crim_justice/6_cj_inmatecost.aspx?catid=3
Total cost: $8 billion

California Budget deficit: $19 Billion

so no, just halving the number of prisoners alone would not solve the budget crisis - but some percentage of them would be paying taxes, and generally participating in the economy of the state which would further increase revenues, instead of each of them being a $47,000 a year money pit.

Additionally, the guards etc. that are needed to guard them would be engaged in some other part of the economy which would also increase growth.
Having a guard watching over a prisoner is the economic equivalent of having the state employ people to dig holes and fill them in again - it keeps people busy but does not help with the growth of the economy. If the prisoners really need to be in jail then it's worth while, but if they are there because of laws that tend to be "jail happy" ( like trigger happy) then it is a waste of resources to keep them there and a waste of their potential contribution to society. Leep jail for the really bad crooks - not the idiots that decided to smoke the wrong substance - those guys need education/rehabilitation, not jail.

The state animal will be changed from the Grizzly Bear to the newt over bear attack concerns.

The state dance will be changed from West-Coast Swing dancing to the Drunk Uncle Shuffle over swing dance accident concerns.

Srsly. Are there any geologists here who can suggest a rock that isn't dangerous to breathe? Oh, and is this the same state that has just reduced state-workers pay to minimum wage? Did you guys not learn from the last time you elected an actor to public office? Hell in a handbasket.

The state animal will be changed from the Grizzly Bear to the newt over bear attack concerns.

The state dance will be changed from West-Coast Swing dancing to the Drunk Uncle Shuffle over swing dance accident concerns.

Srsly. Are there any geologists here who can suggest a rock that isn't dangerous to breathe? Oh, and is this the same state that has just reduced state-workers pay to minimum wage? Did you guys not learn from the last time you elected an actor to public office? Hell in a handbasket.

The Environmental Working Group cites 2,509 deaths from mesothelioma per year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration cites, in 2008 alone, 34,107 fatal crashes, which sent 26,689 people to their own funeral.

According to the California Office of Traffic Safety there were 3,995 fatalities from car crashes in 2008 alone. More people die in car accidents in one year in California than nationally from mesothelioma.

Do these pesky politicians actually think they're doing good with laws like these? How do people like Sen. Gloria Romero prioritize risk and public safety?

Apologies for the assumption. The post you replied to by Locke2005 specifically stated California regarding charges of "disturbing the peace" and "obstructing a police officer". So my replies did continue to imply the case of modern USA.

My problem is with statements such as "random authority figures" and "Police are most definitely not better than the average population", which are terribly insulting and seem to me unjustifiable. This is certainly the case in the US when you consider they not only have far more training than the average pre-college worker. And regardless of training volunteer into a position where they have a significant risk of dying in the line of duty.

If you want to criticize Chinese authorities, premise your statements to specify what kind of officer you're accusing of being worse than useless.

I confess to not having read TFA all the way to the end (where this tidbit appears). But though the senate may be part of the legislature, that's still not "what the legislature wants" (or "what california wants" as it says in the headline), especially when only 25 out of 40 senators were present for the vote.

CA calls it a vehicle license fee but it's basically a property tax on vehicles.

If I was King of California, I'd know what I'd do solve the budget problems of California. I'd raise taxes.

Except California already has the highest sales tax (when local taxes are added). Not to mention one of the highest costs of living in the country. I would say that's a pretty good indication that our problem is related more to our spending than our taxing.

Driving up the cost of living and the cost of doing business can cause plenty of negative side effects, so just raising taxes isn't a fix-all for California's budget problems.

taxes haven't been able to be raised in California for since the 1970s

That's just outright wrong. For the past year we've been paying an extra 1% sales tax and local taxes have certainly gone up. LA county went up half a percent at the same time.

And if you're talking about property taxes not going up the value of the property is still assessed when the property changes ownership. Even if the percentage of the property value paid doesn't change it's still a lot more for the state government than it was in the 70s since home prices have gone up quite a bit faster than inflation.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: geothermal power is a total failure on all levels.

Oh really? So geothermal doesn't really supply Iceland with approximately 24% of it's electricity? It didn't supply California with 13,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity in 2007? Geothermal in Hawaii doesn't provide 20% or 30 MW of the Big Island's electricity? And it doesn't provide the Philippines with 27% electricity? Oh, and MIT scientists are lying when they say GeoThermal to Supply 10% of Energy Demands?

Falcon

See page 13 of this document [PDF warning.]

I disagree.

Foxconn doesn't let their workers take breaks, whereas in the US most states require a break every 2 hours as well as other labor protections (1.5 time for overtime).

God are you naive. Ever heard of Wal-Mart? http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2005-11-02-walmart-employees_x.htm

Too long ago? http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1870&, http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1658&, http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1517&

I disagree.

Foxconn doesn't let their workers take breaks, whereas in the US most states require a break every 2 hours as well as other labor protections (1.5 time for overtime).

God are you naive. Ever heard of Wal-Mart? http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2005-11-02-walmart-employees_x.htm

Too long ago? http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1870&, http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1658&, http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1517&

I disagree.

Foxconn doesn't let their workers take breaks, whereas in the US most states require a break every 2 hours as well as other labor protections (1.5 time for overtime).

God are you naive. Ever heard of Wal-Mart? http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2005-11-02-walmart-employees_x.htm

Too long ago? http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1870&, http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1658&, http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1517&

Full law shows lots of wiggle room - go figure:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=puc&group=02001-03000&file=2871-2876 (parent link is blank)

Jurisdiction opening:

"2872. (a) The connection of automatic dialing-announcing devices to a telephone line is subject to this article and to the jurisdiction, control, and regulation of the commission."

Allowance for calling an organization's members (political parties?):

"2872. (d) This article does not prohibit the use of an automatic dialing-announcing device by any person exclusively on behalf of any of the following: (2) An exempt organization under the Bank and Corporation Tax Law (Part 11 (commencing with Section 23001) of Division 2 of the Revenue and Taxation Code) for purposes of contacting its members."

This looks like the biggest exception:

"2872. (f) This article does not apply to any automatic dialing-announcing device that is not used to randomly or sequentially dial telephone numbers but that is used solely to transmit a message to an established business associate, customer, or other person having an established relationship with the person using the automatic dialing-announcing device to transmit the message, or to any call generated at the request of the recipient."

The use of such a device by any person, either individually or acting as an officer, agent, or employee of a person or corporation operating automatic dialing-announcing devices, is subject to this article.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=85394713794+1+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve

2872(d) lists exemptions.. I don't see anything regarding political messages

So sorry, communism may sound nice on paper but it has never worked in the real world on a large scale.

Maybe you should check in on REI? Bunch of communists and their outdoor equipment. How about Employee Owned Companies? Dirty communist organizations fail all the time. (SAIC anyone?)
How about **many** organized religions. Many Budhists, Christian organizations practice communist living.
How about Farm Cooperatives? Those crazy farmers have ruined us all with their shared processing/sales facilities...

US people can move up and down depending on what they do in their life.
Maybe after WW2, but not anymore. How would they do this?

Access to higher education has been cut off by shifting the cost of tuition onto the students. Public education is universally derided in the U.S. and therefore resource starved.

Innovation has been constrained by intellectual property law.

Real wages have only gone down for the bottom 50% over the last generation.

Another difference is that there is not a "rich/poor" divide.
Distribution of wages and assets is fundamental to a stable economy and social system. Pretending it doesn't exist harms the political and social fabric of a country.

Our poor are not, by the standards of much of the world and history.
Lack of basic medical care? check.
Lack of food? check http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FoodSecurity/food_frequency.htm
Lack of housing? check http://www.misd.net/homeless/statistics.htm http://www.hcd.ca.gov/hpd/homeless0508.pdf I won't bore you with other states, but all 50 have the same issues.

Wait, I know, these are damned lies and statistics designed to steal your Tax dollars right?

You have no awareness of the consequences of your views. None. Please, just accept you are horribly misguided and go volunteer at a homeless shelter or a children's hospital.

People walk on busy highways without sidewalks and think they're going to be perfectly safe?

If they walk predictably, why wouldn't they be safe from motorists who obey the Basic Speed Law?

IANAL, but In almost all -- if not all states if a company is in small claims court they must send one of the following:

The owner (if a sole proprietorship)
A general partner (if a partnership)
An officer of the company (If a corporation or a form of partnership that has officers)
or a regular employee of the company.

The last one means that a company cannot hire an attorney to go to court, but if they have an attorney on staff that employee can go to court for the company. Here is a basic overview from the California courts:

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp/smallclaims/scbasics.htm#whogoes

But now, the economy is terrible. Prop 13 caused CA to get most of it's tax revenue from income taxes (they're the easiest to raise). Incomes are down so taxes are down. And thus, there's a crisis.

Come on man, this shouldn't have gotten past your basic BS sensor. Have you seen housing prices in the last two years? In some places they've dropped 66%. Taxes are just going to fluctuate when the economy does, there's not really a good way around that.

To explain to the non-Californians, CA's budget woes come from Proposition 13

This is what a lot of democrats believe. I think they might just be upset still about Ronald Reagan. They are wrong, and would do better sticking to the facts, as we shall see:

The idea was to make it so hard to raise taxes that the citizens of CA would all live in a low-tax paradise.

Whether or not this was the idea, it hasn't worked that way. California raised taxes last year, and extracts a higher percentage of income from its citizens than 38 other states. So it is not a low tax paradise, nor has it failed to raise taxes.

Incomes are down so taxes are down. And thus, there's a crisis.

It's more complicated than that, spending is definitely up as well: as you can see from this chart. Spending even last year was significantly higher than at the top of the .com days. It isn't just a problem of lowered tax revenue, spending has gone up a lot, too. Spending has gone up for several reasons, because of prisons (three strikes you're out puts a lot of people in jail! Not to mention prisons aren't well run), and because of unfunded pensions. Back in the .com days CA passed a nice fat retirement plan for state employees, which is fine, but they built it on assumptions that were so false they would have landed a CEO of a private company in jail if he tried it. Basically they invested the money in the stock market, and were hoping for 8% return or so on average. This would have brought the DOW up to 25,000 by now, which obviously didn't happen. Now California has a $500 billion unfunded liability which taxpayers will have to cover. So the spending has increased. You are right though, taxpayers want to have low taxes and high spending.

Their plans seem to be to screw up the budget so badly that someone else has to actually do the cutting, and thus take the blame for the pain they cause.

Ah, now you are onto something that is true, but you are only seeing half of it. The other half is people who want to spend have the strategy of increasing spending, even if they can't raise taxes to match it. Each side wants to blame the other on the pain that happens. Until now it hasn't been a problem because revenues have been increasing to cover the problems and delay the pain, but in the near future the pain looks like it is coming. It will be interesting to see how the balance of taxes and spending ends up. It could be wild.

For one, I don't know if you've noticed but Schwarzenegger has proposed some drastic cuts to the budget. Hard to say how it will end up, but the showdown at the state level will be a preview of the dilemma at the federal level, which may come upon us as early as next year.

Actually you are not allowed any CO2 from a ZEV either. Zero CO2, CO, HC, particulates, and CO2. At least that is the common use of the term. This allows plugin hybrids WHEN IN ELECTRIC ONLY MODE, mostly straight electrics, and at least in theory, hydrogen (only) fuel cells. The whole point of the recent CO2 regulatory rulings is that CO2 _IS_ now to be regarded as a pollutant.

A PZEV on the other hand is so watered down that it can just be a clean conventional vehicle with an extra good emissions warranty. PZEV is basically horse shit. What the hell is "partial zero," anyway? However, the term is at least well defined.

Updated The Zero Emission Vehicle Regulation - Frequently Asked Questions - warning PDF

EPA Sets Thresholds for Greenhouse Gas Permitting Requirements

Except you're missing an important point. Neither New York nor California passed laws telling history book writers what version of history they were allowed to include nor what religious or political slants were required by the state. [...] Textbook publishers were not required by law to have a bias prior to the Texan law. You can claim they did, but you need to support that hypothesis with real evidence. We know textbooks are being forced to have a slant now, because a law was passed requiring specific things determined by politicians, not historians.

I agree with you that what Texas is doing here is ridiculous, but... wow. If you don't think textbook publishers have yielded to state biases for decades, you're hopelessly naive. Each state generally has a state board of education, sometimes elected and sometimes appointed. Regardless, these people generally have a political slant of some sort. The way the curriculum for the state is accepted varies -- sometimes aspects of it are part of state law, sometimes they are just policies created by the board of education, but there are political fights on these boards over controversial issues in many states.

The curricula of small states doesn't really matter to textbook publishers, but the biggest markets (California, Texas, and New York) generally determine the major versions of textbooks that are created.

If you don't think these boards of education set rather specific standards for the exact materials to be covered in curricula, think again. Check out the detailed standards given for New York and California curricula:

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/

http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/standards.html

Take some time reading though the thousands of pages on these (and similar sites), and you'll quickly discover some of the "standards" that seem to have a political slant one way or another. Other standards seem to be completely arbitrary choices about what gets emphasized.

And when it comes time for textbook adoption, you can bet the states will check to see which textbooks line up most closely with their specified "standards."

We absolutely MUST replace coal fired electricity generation with low CO2 methods. Coal is the worst CO2 emitter.

I didn't say anything about replacing coal in the post you replied to. All I said was that nuclear power appeals to state planners not businesses.

I very much doubt that current renewable technologies are sufficient. The only stuff that is immediately deployable is wind and solar.

They are sufficient now. Those who build off the grid do so every day. And yea, solar and wind is employable today unlike nuclear power. According to Infoplease the Palo Verde 2, Ariz. is the largest reactor in the US, at 1,335 MWs. According to Wiki construction started in 1976 with it's first year of commercial operation in 1988, 12 years later. Now take wind turbines, erect and connect 10 5 megawatt turbines a month, and there are larger turbines, and in 1 year you've added 600 MWs or in 2 years 1,200 MWs. That's almost as much as Palo Verde 2 provides, in 1/6 the tyme. SciAm's A Solar Grand Plan says solar power "could supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050." The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the Unites States, created by the National Renewable Energy Lab of the Department of Energy, details the wind potential of various regions of the US. The Rocky Mountains along contain enough potential energy to electrify the US, but that's not the only region with large wind potential. On the East Coast from Massachusetts to North Carolina offshore wind farms could "supply all the energy needs of much of the East Coast and then some". From British Columbia to Southern California on the Pacific Coast could provide a lot as well. Actually hook a hard left in S Ca through AZ and NM to western Texas and the wind potential grows.

For baseloads geothermal is good though not for all of the baseload. Until large scale storage is available currently used power plants could provide the baseload.

Enhanced geothermal is very promising but there is still no commercial size power station.

Ah but there is commercial scale geothermal right now. In CA geothermal provided 13,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity in 2007. It provides 20 percent of Hawaii's Big Island electricity. Geothermal provides 27% of Philippine's energy. Geothermal is even available and used in New York City.

If it comes to raising the planet's temperature by 5C or nuclear power, I'd have to say nuclear is the clear choice.

Fine, let businesses pay for it not taxpayers. No loan guaranties, limited liability, or other subsidies. However left to their own devices corporations will not build nuclear power plants.

When all is said and done, I think that the carbon pollution problem will only be solved by inexpensive clean electricity. Some hard choices will have to be made.

Unfortunately there is no inexpensive clean electricity. Well, except for the Negawatt, the energy not produced due to energy efficiency or simply cutting the energy used. Therein lies the hard choice, people don't want to give up what they have even if they will s

Legal at least in California, thanks to 30 seconds on Google:

http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060720210018AAWfCCp

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/vr/liensale.htm

Lien sale of vehicle valued at less than $4k in California - total time is less than 2 months. http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/brochures/howto/htvr7.htm

Over $4k - 90 to 120 days http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/brochures/howto/htvr8.htm

You get title, and you can plate it just like any other vehicle after it's inspected.

These lien sales include where you have not been paid for storing the vehicle, so all you have to do to initiate the process is send the owner a demand for parking fees of $x per day.

So, park your car in my spot - I send you the notice to either remove it immediately or start paying $50/day storage. You ignore it, I apply for a lien sale, send out the notices as required, you either pay all amounts due at that point or it goes to auction. If nobody else bids, I get it. I plate it. I have it inspected. I drive it. Total time is 2 to 4 months total, not 2 years, and I can drive it on the street.

Lien sale of vehicle valued at less than $4k in California - total time is less than 2 months. http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/brochures/howto/htvr7.htm

Over $4k - 90 to 120 days http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/brochures/howto/htvr8.htm

You get title, and you can plate it just like any other vehicle after it's inspected.

These lien sales include where you have not been paid for storing the vehicle, so all you have to do to initiate the process is send the owner a demand for parking fees of $x per day.

So, park your car in my spot - I send you the notice to either remove it immediately or start paying $50/day storage. You ignore it, I apply for a lien sale, send out the notices as required, you either pay all amounts due at that point or it goes to auction. If nobody else bids, I get it. I plate it. I have it inspected. I drive it. Total time is 2 to 4 months total, not 2 years, and I can drive it on the street.

Sample (from the last link):

A vehicle is considered abandoned if it has been in the same public location for at least three consecutive days. Most often, it will be damaged or missing critical components, such as the engine, wheels, tires or plates.

You may be able identify a vehicle as abandoned if:

• It has been in the same location for at least three consecutive days
• Is missing the engine, wheels, tires or any other part of the vehicle that make it inoperable
• Has a broken window or windshield that limits visibility
• Has one or more flat tires
• Does not have valid license plates
• Is not registered
• Note: This doesn't include any vehicle kept within a building when it is not in use

How to report an abandoned vehicle
To report an abandoned vehicle, call your local police department with the location and description of the vehicle.

How to obtain to title an abandoned vehicle
If you want to claim ownership and title an abandoned vehicle, you must request an application packet from the Special Title Section at an MVC Agency. You must state whether the vehicle was found on public or private property.

In order to operate an abandoned vehicle on New Jersey roads, it must first pass a state inspection process.

If you own a repair facility and a vehicle was abandoned on your property, you may have it removed and stored or you may sell it at a public or private sale.

So, leave it on someone's property for 3 days without their okay, and they can get title to it.

Note what the guy said: he wrote the original code before they hired him. At least under California law the situation is clear: his employer does not own the code (the fact that he signed an agreement saying otherwise is irrelevant, see 2870(b)). His employer does own any code written after they hired him, but they only get a license to the preexisting code.

If he's not in California the situation's less clear, his state may or may not address the issue explicitly. At that point you want a qualified attorney before you proceed.

Lighten up, Francis....

I wasn't challenging the laws of thermodynamics, I was challenging the parent comment "It is currently illegal to resell electricity that you generate using waste".

As for my resume', I'll spare you the details, but my background is in energy and energy transmission contracts- more specifically, natural gas sourced co-generation.

Besides the "illegal" comment from the parent post, the statement "You don't have much incentive to install a way to reprocess that heat", is BS. There are thousands of facilities here in California selling electricity produced from 'waste' heat as a bi-product of their primary business. There are incentives for doing this- specifically, decreased natural gas transmission costs for BTUs put back on to the grid in the form of electricity (electricity that they market themselves or sell through marketers). Check out http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/ and search 'cogeneration'. It's a huge industry here in CA and is heavily 'incentive-ised' and subsidized as an alternative to building power plants.

Hi. Welcome to Slashdot. We don't believe in Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, good Republicans, or a rational argument.

Lighten up, Francis....

I wasn't challenging the laws of thermodynamics, I was challenging the parent comment "It is currently illegal to resell electricity that you generate using waste".

As for my resume', I'll spare you the details, but my background is in energy and energy transmission contracts- more specifically, natural gas sourced co-generation.

Besides the "illegal" comment from the parent post, the statement "You don't have much incentive to install a way to reprocess that heat", is BS. There are thousands of facilities here in California selling electricity produced from 'waste' heat as a bi-product of their primary business. There are incentives for doing this- specifically, decreased natural gas transmission costs for BTUs put back on to the grid in the form of electricity (electricity that they market themselves or sell through marketers). Check out http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/ and search 'cogeneration'. It's a huge industry here in CA and is heavily 'incentive-ised' and subsidized as an alternative to building power plants.

First off, people keep saying...

Under California Law, finding lost property grants you the equivalent of depositary-for-hire status. Which means you need to take care of the item you found until it is returned to its owner, or failing that, turned over to the police. The civil statutes are very clear on this. As the depositary, if you don't trust the bar staff, you shouldn't leave the item with them - you should turn it over to the police, as the law requires.

Second, I don't think it really matters what part of Apple the guy says he tried to contact.

Third, what about an Apple store?! Do you have any idea....

You're right. He felt that Apple was the owner, and he attempted to contact them to return the item. So far, he's run afoul of no law. He could have attempted to contact Apple more aggressively by bringing it to a store, or bringing it to corporate headquarters. But assuming that calling tech support was a "reasonable" effort to return the item to the owner, the law is very clear that if you are unable to return it to the owner, you must then bring it to the police if it's worth more than $100. He didn't do that - he began shopping it around to web sites trying to make a few bucks off it. This is where his defense falters.

Fourth, giving it to the police?! Another foolish idea.

Only if you consider "following the law" to be a foolish idea. California's civil code (section 2080) is very clear that this is exactly the step that should be taken if the item is worth more than $100 and the finder cannot contact the owner.

I'm not saying what he did, trying to SELL the phone, was completely ethical -- but this is far from being a clear-cut "criminal" case either. He didn't pick-pocket the phone from the engineer in the bar. He found it after it was LOST. And neither Apple corporate nor the engineer made a huge rush to get the phone back either.

Clear-cut? No, but California Penal code section 485 also have some things to say about whether or not this could be considered a criminal matter.

I'm not even sure exactly what I would do, if I was the one who found this thing.... Knowing what I know about Apple and their paranoia about leaks of info, I'd be sort of afraid to drop by their HQ with it - for fear I'd get blamed for stealing it or something. I'd also realize the value it would have to the tech-geeks and Mac fans out there, and think I'd rather see them "win one" for a change, vs. helping Apple protect trade secrets they weren't able to sufficiently protect themselves this time around.

So you're saying that you're okay with violating the law, as long as Apple gets screwed. That's fine, and we appreciate your input.

How this was marked insightful, I don't know.

If you are unable to contact the owner, under California law, you are obligated to turn the item in to the local police if the item is valued at more than $100.

California Civil Code, section 2080. Please familiarize yourself with it if you wish to issue an informed opinion on the legality of selling property which is - under the terms of this section - stolen property.

Not entirely. Under California law (Section 2080, specifically), if you find an item, and you have knowledge of who the owner is, you are obligated to attempt to return it to them. If you have no knowledge of who the owner is, or are unable to contact them, you are then obligated to turn the found item in to the police who have jurisdiction over the location where you found the item, if the item is worth more than $100. The police will then attempt to find / contact the owner; If they are unable to do so, the found item may then be turned over to the finder.

If you see 50 cents in change drop from someone's pocket, you are obligated to return that to them. If you find 50 cents on the sidewalk with no indication as to who the owner is, you are not obligated to turn that in to the police, since it falls below the minimum value of $100 set by Section 2080.1.

The California civil code is very clear on this issue, and in violating the procedure outlined in the law, it does appear as if the finder of the iPhone is in violation of that law. Now if the finder is guilty of theft, it would then appear that Gizmodo is in the unenviable position of receiving stolen property; furthermore, they may be open to prosecution under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, because they absolutely profited from the publication of this "trade secret" information. I'm sure there will be a lot of very smart lawyers arguing a lot of nuance, precedent, and case law. But you cannot look at the details of this case as published by Gizmodo and conclude that "nobody did anything wrong."

California has only a few good sites for land wind farms - Altamont Pass, Pacheco Pass, Mojave, and Solano County are the big ones. All four now have big wind farms. Other than Altamont Pass, which is a big migratory bird corridor and has row after row of windmills, there have been few complaints. There aren't many remaining on-shore sites in California; we're about done with onshore wind. The Cape Cod people have been whining about their wind farm for a decade. Tough.

Offshore of Calfornia looks promising. Take a look at that high-wind area close to shore, west of Humbolt County. There's also a huge high wind zone south of Santa Barbara, and most of it is still on the continental shelf, so the water isn't too deep. I doubt there will be objections; Santa Barbara has already had off-shore oil wells.

>>nuclear power plants that create so much pollution.

Nuclear power plants don't produce any pollution. At all - unless you're talking about the exhaust of the employees driving to the plant or something. Nuclear waste isn't pollution (it doesn't get into the environment), and is really just another form of fuel.

I'm not sure why so many people believe in such counter-factual things. When listening to Pacifica Communist Radio a year or two ago, I was listening to a reporter for the Worker's News Network (or whatever it's called) unironically talking about a group of global warming protesters chaining themselves to a gate of a nuclear power plant, trying to shut it down. Said this with a straight face, with absolutely no clue that what she was talking about made no sense whatsoever.

>>So while this is good news, we really need to start working more on forms of renewable power creation where we can get a minimum load of them on demand or renewable energy will stay on the fringes.

You don't understand how it works then. You just need power "backstops" that can quickly come online to provide power when it gets cloudy or the wind dies or something. These are usually natural gas plants, but they don't have to be. And if they're only running a small fraction of the time, the CO2 they produce is acceptably low.

Really, there's only two obstacles in switching to green energy:
1) Cost. Unsubsidized costs of most sources of green power is many times more expensive than coal. Only nuclear is cost competitive. (Best cost estimate I've found - http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007publications/CEC-200-2007-011/CEC-200-2007-011-SD.PDF)

2) Greens. Ironic, is it not? As the article mentions, the primary opposition to this green power plant came from Greens themselves. And this happens everywhere, with greens blowing up dams, shutting down solar plants, and otherwise trying to block any progress being made whatsoever. The Green movement is like an alcoholic, schizophrenic stepfather.

(Well, and 3) the Native American groups, which seems kind of dubious to me - they have offshore burial grounds? Really? In a very specific spot? I suppose it's vaguely possible, but it seems like they're more looking for a payoff to go away.)

As the Hooked on Subsidies article the pro freemarket CATO Institute republished, originally published by "Forbes", said it is state actors not the market that decides what nuclear power plants are built.

I've read it. Not a good article. It looks like they base their price per KWH on a single analyst's report, instead of going after primary sources themselves. By comparison, when assembling my table of c/KWH of different energy sources for my lecture, I used four different comprehensive reports on energy costs, including the CA DOE and the federal DOE's cost estimates, as well as from two hippie sources (Energy Progress.org and a Tidal Power, Inc., cost estimate). It was also very illuminating to the students to see how cost estimates fluctuate greatly by the person doing the reporting.

Nuclear is actually cost competitive with coal, and is the only green energy source that is. The CATO institute gives the very misleading figure of +0.02c/KWH increase for "clean coal". Well, fair enough - but if you're talking about actually "green" coal power plants (i.e. with carbon capture systems), it triples the price of coal power, give or take.

It's a very bad article, actually. Read the very bottom. They say that if CO2 is a problem, you should just implement a tax on CO2 emissions. Guess what this does? It makes nuclear the most cost effective energy solution out there.

It's also wrong that nuclear plants need to be these massive, expensive things. We've had portable nuclear generators since the '60s, and you can build out plants of various sizes from there all the way up to the mega installations.

I'm glad I don't donate to the Sierra Club. They're not the only hypocrites though. On the Atlantic Coast there are those who oppose offshore wind farms. Even Ted Kennedy opposed a wind farm, in Cape Cod. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States" lays out the wind potential of various regions of the US. The Rocky Mountains alone has enough potential to supply all of the US with energy. Meanwhile SciAm published the article A Solar Grand Plan lays out how solar power can "supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050." Then there are other potential energy sources as well. Geothermal energy supplied California with 13 terawatts or 4.5% of the electricity used in CA in 2007. One geothermal project in Hawaii is the Puna Geothermal Venture and it supplies the big island of 20% of it's electricity. The SciAm article Hawaii Says Aloha (Greetings) to Clean, Renewable Energy says geothermal energy can be expanded to supply more electricity:

Yeah, this sort of hypocrisy is exactly what I'm talking about. If there's any sort of negative, a plant will get opposed, regardless of the benefits. I'll address the other green power sources in order:

Solar is currently 3x - 10x more expensive than coal. The only reason it can be cost effective is because the government very very heavily subsidizes solar installations. The CA DOE report actually does a very good job showing the costs of power sources with and without subsidies. http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007publications/CEC-200-2007-011/CEC-200-2007-011-SD.PDF

Geothermal will never amount to more than a couple percentage points of our energy needs. We may have already reached the point of diminishing returns with it.

Biofuels are traps. Ethanol is a bad joke imposed on us by a political system that lets corn farmers vote first in the presidential primaries.

MSW is reasonable enough. Burning trash is better than burying it, if you can trap the byproducts. But again, it's unlikely to account for a very large fraction of our energy needs.

>>It proposes to increase fuel taxes but, and here's the "net-zero tax part", reduce income tax.

We already have this, as long as you're not a commuter. The more you drive, the more you pay in taxes and the less you pay in income tax.

is that they're stupid. ... This has led to:
1) A ban on nuclear power here in California

Except environmentalists or greenies didn't stop nuclear power. As the Hooked on Subsidies article the pro freemarket CATO Institute republished, originally published by "Forbes", said it is state actors not the market that decides what nuclear power plants are built. Even in France and other nations, here's the relevant paragraph:
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

The "Hooked on Subsidies article brings up the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant being built in Finland. The French government owned business Areva and Siemans were building it, however Siemens sold it's interest to Areva. As of this tyme last year cost overruns have caused it's "3 billion euro price tag, about $4.2 billion", to climb at least 50 percent. Market Watch published a story about a study that warns of steep cost overruns at new reactors.

2) The Sierra Club successfully shutting down a massive solar plant. (What? Solar is a green energy? But think of all the DESERT that would be covered by those panels! 25 tortoises live there!) Good luck getting more companies to put money into proposing green power generators, assholes. Similar stories exist for wind and tidal projects across the country.

I'm glad I don't donate to the Sierra Club. They're not the only hypocrites though. On the Atlantic Coast there are those who oppose offshore wind farms. Even Ted Kennedy opposed a wind farm, in Cape Cod. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States" lays out the wind potential of various regions of the US. The Rocky Mountains alone has enough potential to supply all of the US with energy. Meanwhile SciAm published the article A Solar Grand Plan lays out how solar power can "supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050." Then there are other potential energy sources as well. Geothermal energy supplied California with 13 terawatts or 4.5% of the electricity used in CA in 2007. One geothermal project in Hawaii is the Puna Geothermal Venture and it supplies the big island of 20% of it's electricity. The SciAm article Hawaii Says Aloha (Greetings) to Clean, Renewable Energy says geothermal energy can be expanded to supply more electricity:

"Last January, Hawaii signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) that would make the Aloha State the country's most aggressive in pursuing renewable energy. By 2030, it plans to obtain 70 percent of its power from clean energy (40 percent from renewables and 30 percent from energy efficiency). Outstripping California's goal of 33 percent by 2020, the Hawaii initiative is a green light for clean-tech experts and enthusiasts to set up shop in the heart of the Pacific and may become a blueprint (or greenprint) for the rest of the country."

Geothermal isn't only available in the west either. It is being used now in

Even accepting the claim of his repeated attempts to contact Apple about the phone, once he asked for $5000 the whole good samaritan argument falls apart. Worse even after selling it, he was greedy and tried to convince another news oulet to pay more for it. Maybe initially he was trying to do the right thing, but in the end he saw dollar signs.

He could have saved himself a lot of problems by just contacting the police, or telling his sad story to a news agency becase he lacked the resources to find the real owner. Now he potentially faces charges for dealing stolen goods, conspiracy, state unauthorized computer access, and federal computer fraud (shouldn't have looked at Facebook), theft of trade secrets, and I'm sure a half-dozen more electronics and telecommunications charges because it's a computer/phone, a few more wire fraud related ones because he communicated with Gizmodo and Engadget, and I'm sure some banking ones for receiving $5k from the former. Just hope he didn't mail it and commit mail fraud too.

The un-named finder of the lost iPhone can't count on the Gawker folks to keep his name hidden, because once they took possession of the stolen phone and became a party to the criminal activity, they lost their Shield Law protections. There's no whistleblower or other similar protections either, because the story was about a gadget, there was no compelling public interest -- unless it had a memo of Steve Jobs talking about child labor or how he expected 1/10,000 to explode or something. Gawker should have paid for the "story." Interview the guy, have him bring over the phone for inspection and verify his claims. Just don't take possession of the damn thing, and everybody would have been better off.

According to section 496 of the California Penal Code, knowingly buying property that was obtained by theft (defined by GP) is also a felony, and the punishment is prison and 3x actual damages.

(I am not) The Law

496. (a) Every person who buys or receives any property that has
been stolen or that has been obtained in any manner constituting
theft or extortion, knowing the property to be so stolen or obtained,
or who conceals, sells, withholds, or aids in concealing, selling,
or withholding any property from the owner, knowing the property to
be so stolen or obtained, shall be punished by imprisonment in a
state prison, or in a county jail for not more than one year.
However, if the district attorney or the grand jury determines that
this action would be in the interests of justice, the district
attorney or the grand jury, as the case may be, may, if the value of
the property does not exceed nine hundred fifty dollars ($950),
specify in the accusatory pleading that the offense shall be a
misdemeanor, punishable only by imprisonment in a county jail not
exceeding one year.
A principal in the actual theft of the property may be convicted
pursuant to this section. However, no person may be convicted both
pursuant to this section and of the theft of the same property.
(b) Every swap meet vendor, as defined in Section 21661 of the
Business and Professions Code, and every person whose principal
business is dealing in, or collecting, merchandise or personal
property, and every agent, employee, or representative of that
person, who buys or receives any property of a value in excess of
nine hundred fifty dollars ($950) that has been stolen or obtained in
any manner constituting theft or extortion, under circumstances that
should cause the person, agent, employee, or representative to make
reasonable inquiry to ascertain that the person from whom the
property was bought or received had the legal right to sell or
deliver it, without making a reasonable inquiry, shall be punished by
imprisonment in a state prison, or in a county jail for not more
than one year.
Every swap meet vendor, as defined in Section 21661 of the
Business and Professions Code, and every person whose principal
business is dealing in, or collecting, merchandise or personal
property, and every agent, employee, or representative of that
person, who buys or receives any property of a value of nine hundred
fifty dollars ($950) or less that has been stolen or obtained in any
manner constituting theft or extortion, under circumstances that
should cause the person, agent, employee, or representative to make
reasonable inquiry to ascertain that the person from whom the
property was bought or received had the legal right to sell or
deliver it, without making a reasonable inquiry, shall be guilty of a
misdemeanor.
(c) Any person who has been injured by a violation of subdivision
(a) or (b) may bring an action for three times the amount of actual
damages, if any, sustained by the plaintiff, costs of suit, and
reasonable attorney's fees.
(d) Notwithstanding Section 664, any attempt to commit any act
prohibited by this section, except an offense specified in the
accusatory pleading as a misdemeanor, is punishable by imprisonment
in the state prison, or in a county jail for not more than one year.

496a. (a) Every person who, being a dealer in or collector of junk,
metals or secondhand materials, or the agent, employee, or
representative of such dealer or collector, buys or receives any
wire, cable, copper, lead, solder, mercury, iron or brass which he
knows or reasonably should know is ordinarily used by or ordinarily
belongs to a railroad or other transportation, telephone, telegraph,
gas, water or electric light company or county, city, city and county
or other political subdivision of this state engaged in furnishing
public utility service without using due dil

I spent some time looking over the California Vehicle code and couldn't find any references to NOS at all. Neither apparently could an attorney who wrote this blog post (page 3).

It's probably illegal to actually use nitrous on a street in CA - reckless driving, speeding, racing, etc. But I can find no evidence that it's illegal to have such a system. There's a lot of misinformation on what exactly it means for a car to be street legal and I wouldn't take a cop's word for it that he knows in casual conversation either, he'd probably struggle to figure out what to actually cite you for - and on that note IANAL.

But now my interest is piqued - I haven't been able to locate any authoritative sources one way or another - if you have one, I'd be interested in seeing it.

I can recall a quickly hushed up proposal by Lawrence Livermore to link all the http://www.video.dot.ca.gov/ CALTRANS cameras to a software system that would effectively allow CHP to track every single car on all of California's freeways, simultaneously. You don't need "GPS" if you actually know where all of your cameras are located on the WGS earth model. Plate recognition, parallax, framerate... all data points that will give you plate number, time, direction, speed. Everything you need to know to automatically hand out tickets to everyone in California.

Yo- Arnie ! Want to solve your budget crisis ? If you ticketed every single driver for a $200 fine once a week, that would be some serious bucks.

I hope Gizmodo knows how to read the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act, because they are about to get backhanded with it. I'm particularly fond of the part where Apple can recover damages due to "unjust enrichment." Basically, every penny Gizmodo made from their egregious violation of the act and illegal disclosure of trade secrets can be awarded to Apple.

I'm not an Apple fanboi by any means, in fact I usually strongly dislike them. However, in this case, I hope they mop the floor with both the journalist and his employer who collectively didn't think the law applied to them.

What you are linking to is *NOT* the law.

Moron. I gave you 4 links. The first link was to the online dmv handbook. The next 3 links were to the actual vehicle code. Its that simple. It really is. Read the fucking posts.

The law is the vehicle code.

Duh. That is why I provided both.

That is not in the handbook you dumb lump.

3rd and last time. I know. You're the only one that even suggested such.

What you are linking to is *NOT* law

Wrong. Again. The first link I provided:
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/hdbk/traff_lgts_sgns.htm
Is to the DMV Handbook (which, again, is not the law).
After you said "but the courts go by the law", I provided the next three links:
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc21452.htm
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc21453.htm
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc22526.htm
And You can confirm all of this by just reading the entire thread, which I already summarized and linked for you in my last response.

Notice how they are *NOT* the same?

My god you're dumb. Your mom help you figure that one out?

They may *SOUND* similar, but one is backed by the legislation and courts of California (with the associated court ruling precedents and the other is simple laymans language.

Think so? Huh, oh ya, I said the same thing in my 2nd post.

What a stupid, dense, obtuse, witless fuck! You may THINK "A = a" because, well... they SOUND alike, but they ARE different.

I'll just ignore your morning mirror pep talk. You must have accidentally posted it.

Go back and read *MY* first post, nimrod. Tell me how I'm wrong. Show me where the *LAW* appears in the handbook.

I never said your first post was wrong. Never. I simply corroborated my original statement that the AC is wrong and that CA law is the same as Florida's as posted by NormalVisual. I did so by providing links to the actual CA vehicle code, which was summarized in my original link to the DMV handbook.

It doesnt.

Round the mulberry bush we go.

But I could be wrong.

You are. Again. Read the entire fucking vehicle code if you like. Please quote the section that says "If you are in an intersection when it turns red, you have violated the law."

You won't find it, it's not there.

What you are linking to is *NOT* the law.

Moron. I gave you 4 links. The first link was to the online dmv handbook. The next 3 links were to the actual vehicle code. Its that simple. It really is. Read the fucking posts.

The law is the vehicle code.

Duh. That is why I provided both.

That is not in the handbook you dumb lump.

3rd and last time. I know. You're the only one that even suggested such.

What you are linking to is *NOT* law

Wrong. Again. The first link I provided:
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/hdbk/traff_lgts_sgns.htm
Is to the DMV Handbook (which, again, is not the law).
After you said "but the courts go by the law", I provided the next three links:
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc21452.htm
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc21453.htm
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc22526.htm
And You can confirm all of this by just reading the entire thread, which I already summarized and linked for you in my last response.

Notice how they are *NOT* the same?

My god you're dumb. Your mom help you figure that one out?

They may *SOUND* similar, but one is backed by the legislation and courts of California (with the associated court ruling precedents and the other is simple laymans language.

Think so? Huh, oh ya, I said the same thing in my 2nd post.

What a stupid, dense, obtuse, witless fuck! You may THINK "A = a" because, well... they SOUND alike, but they ARE different.

I'll just ignore your morning mirror pep talk. You must have accidentally posted it.

Go back and read *MY* first post, nimrod. Tell me how I'm wrong. Show me where the *LAW* appears in the handbook.

I never said your first post was wrong. Never. I simply corroborated my original statement that the AC is wrong and that CA law is the same as Florida's as posted by NormalVisual. I did so by providing links to the actual CA vehicle code, which was summarized in my original link to the DMV handbook.

It doesnt.

Round the mulberry bush we go.

But I could be wrong.

You are. Again. Read the entire fucking vehicle code if you like. Please quote the section that says "If you are in an intersection when it turns red, you have violated the law."

You won't find it, it's not there.