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Why does the EU always seem to come down on US-based companies that control a large portion of specific markets?

Because

• US media, including /., rarely report on cartels involving no US-based companies: for example, for some reason people in the US don't seem to be well-informed about the beer, paper, banana, gas switchgear, and rubber cartels (from just the first two Google pages on 'european commission cartel').
• US-based companies sell lots of stuff in Europe, and therefore have plenty of opportunity to do illegal or suspect things: there is a reason North-Korean companies are rarely sued.

I think you'll find Italy as a whole has a much higher level of road deaths than some of the more "safety concious" EU nations. Have a look at page 2 of http://epp.eurostat.cec.eu.int/pls/portal/docs/PAG E/PGP_PRD_CAT_PREREL/PGE_CAT_PREREL_YEAR_2006/PGE_ CAT_PREREL_YEAR_2006_MONTH_09/7-19092006-EN-AP.PDF

Italy has 97 road deaths per million people, the UK has 56, Germany 71, Sweeden 53.

I spent a couple of years in Naples and saw a fair number of road accidents, although was always surprised there wasn't more given the standard of driving, quality of the roads and some of the vehicles on them. Somebody I knew, knew a doctor working in an emergency room and said they saw a lot of kids with head trauma because they'd not been wearing seatbelts.

I can understand the basis for this experiment, it kind of links back to basic chaos theory and the idea that order will emerge from chaos. However that order may well involve killing a few people, making roads impossible to cross, causing more accidents etc along the way but the result may be better flowing traffic and more relaxed drivers.

They're listed to the right of the article. In other words, move your eyeballs approx. 1 cm (or 1/2 inch) to the right of the article and part way down the page where it says stuff like EU standby initiative. Not hard, eh?

what you should do, imho, is take a couple of weeks off and travel around a bit. we have cheap airlines that will let you get around on a low budget. we also have an excellent railway system, you'd see more that way.

it's not just the working hours (and cheap bandwidth, although it's important, of course) that make for quality of living, but also the food and the people. those are highly individual factors, so going there first before you decide to begin a new life would be a smart investment of the little time and money it would cost you, imho.

Nope... EUROSTAT, the statistics arm of the EU publishes comparisons of its own economies unemployment rates to the US. Why would EUROSTAT intentionally make Europe look inferior?

See for yourself at EUROSTAT:

http://epp.eurostat.cec.eu.int/pls/portal/docs/PAG E/PGP_PRD_CAT_PREREL/PGE_CAT_PREREL_YEAR_2005/PGE_ CAT_PREREL_YEAR_2005_MONTH_06/3-01062005-EN-AP.PDF

I think those figures have to be considered alongside this information.

Firstly the 450M people is for the entire EU at end 2004, 75M joined the eurozone in May 2004 as part of the EU enlargement programme - Poland Czech Republic, etc.

The 5 largest markets are United Kingdom, Germany,
France, Italy & Spain. Roughly population of those markets is 300M. Placing them on a par with USA

The USA has a higher disposal income, GDP per head and PPP than europe (generally)

Combine those factors and I would tend to agree with the other replies above, market saturation levels are different between the USA and Europe.

Data from Eurostat - a European Union Agency
http://epp.eurostat.cec.eu.int/portal/page?_pageid =1334,47410048,1334_47410071&_dad=portal&_schema=P ORTAL

Just an addition. There is a database maintained by the EU in regard to unfair consumer contracts as far as cases that has been decided goes (it seems to also have cases that was NOT unafair). One of the search criteria is to look for unfair cases related to liability. Very interesting reading:

https://adns.cec.eu.int/CLAB/SilverStream/Pages/pg EntryClabAnonymous.html

Sorry if I don't believe you. First, 964kWh/m^2/year means that you are extracting 110 W/m^2, when in Kansas the total amount there is about 140 W/m^2 - which means you are getting 80% efficiency.

So here it is:
Kansas City = 6.6 kWh/m^2/day average for a 2-axis tracker.
x 365 days/year
= 2409 kWh/m^2/year

x 40% concentrator module efficiency @ 500 suns (NREL, Entech, Sharp)
= 963 kWh/m^2/year. GOT IT?

US Energy consumption = 2.88E13 kWh/year
/ 963 kWh/m^2/year
= 3E10 m^2 OR 11544 mi^2 (a 107 mile square)

/ Texas 267,277 square miles
---------
= .043 OR 4.3% of the Texas land area.

Which part of this isn't clear?

Even if it were a third that efficiency, the land area is minuscule.

averages 170 W/m^2 when it reaches the ground.

Yikes! Here the first problem with your calculations! Solar insolation is 1300 W/m^2 outside the atmosphere, 1000 W/m^2 on the ground in peak sun conditions. NOT 170! (look it up yourself you'll find tens of thousands of refs on Google)

expect to use intermittently depending on weather and time of year.

insolation FOR A FIXED panel at an angle equal to latitude provides an average of 6 hours of peak sun per day in the average US location. (of course the solar insolation is changing based on time of day. However this is how it is specified in the industry: pre-integrated to an equal number of peak hours). That equals 2190 kWh/m^2/year. Some locations a little more, some a little less. With trackers this goes up 25-50%. See the National Renewable energy laboratory insolation database and mapservers for more data.

inefficiency of incorrect angles in capturing the energy

Already considered see above numbers are already based on tilted fixed panels. Trackers of course improve the angle and thus the energy, but I'm giving a simple case, not best case.

storage costs, maintenance costs, spacing inefficiencies

Spacing is accounted for, 17% is total edge to edge module efficiency not cell efficiency. Maintenance costs, essentially are none (solid state revolution man) no moving parts, no dusting, no snow removal required (the benefits of dusting/cleaning has been proven to be of small benefit. less than 4%). Storage is an issue. There are many storage technologies and they do cost money (some solar technologies, not PV, are self storing such as Solar 2's phase change salt storage). However, energy profile on the grid tracks the solar cycle closely. 40%-60% of our energy could be replaced without substantial storage added to the system. (another 20-30% could come from wind, as the Dutch have shown, and the base load could be largely provided with geothermal, biomass, and wave. Thought I do think storage is an important piece of the puzzle.)

I don't know where you got your 'roof space' figure (2.43e11) but it seems high

From the 2000 census data for households and the DOE for commercial buildings

From the CIA factbook we use 3.602 * 10^13 kwH.

The number you show is ENERGY consumption NOT ELECTRICITY consumption, and its a little too high (I guess the are spooks not energy experts). From the Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration total energy consumption is 2.88E13 kWh. The total US ELECRICITY consumption is 3.4E12 kWh - which is what we are talking about.

Don't get me wrong, I really *want* to believe that solar is our best bet.

Today is your lucky day. The numbers are very much right (as you can now see). And we didn't have to even invoke any extra land consumption OR higher efficiency cells OR Dye-sensitized solar cells which can be used as windows on high rise buildings, etc. PV is amazing stuff with incredible potential, 40% annual market growth, prices are nearing $1/peak watt (33

Tell that to France. They have a GREAT nuclear program, AND lower energy costs. The generate over 75% of their electricity from nuclear power.

1. Did you even read your own link? It says "France has been one of the slowest countries in the EU to open its electricity and natural gas sectors to competition in line with EU regulations." Why? Because they are not competitive. In fact "In France, the nation that made the biggest investment in nuclear energy, the national utility, Electricite de France, is carrying a $30 billion debt, mostly because of its nuclear investments"

"And while French nuclear advocates like to praise the nation's cheap domestic power prices, in reality, when compared to 10 other European Union nations, France ranks fifth in domestic power prices. In fact, since 1985, France's electricity prices have seen the smallest decrease in the EU. And while four new reactors are under construction there, none have been initiated since 1996."

Your link also says: "French government organized a national energy policy debate, which focused on determining France's energy mix for the next 30 years, particularly the status of nuclear power and the future role of renewables...Key of the aspects of the white paper included: increasing the use of renewables..."

Smart engineers are able to solve problems....they leave that to management.

2. You read too much Dilbert. Engineering is finding the best solution to a constellation of problems. Those problems include cost, schedule, profit, economics, safety, nuclear proliferation, waste disposal, operational reliability, etc. etc. etc. If you think you can develop a 100% perfect system (not 6 nines, or 9 nines, or whatever, but perfect) you are naive and potentially dangerous to those who use your products. You have two technological design options, one where the stakes are VERY high no matter how unlikely, but has NO advantages over the other path, which tromps it on almost every measure. Would you pick the first one? Just cause its technologically wizbang geeky?

Nuclear proliferation...Pretty much a non-issue,

3. Don't you even read the news? How did North Korea build their nuclear weapons? With a breeder reactor built for power generation. Many other countries have followed this same formula, A nuclear power plant is the fast track to nuclear weapons. Read, learn. (Try "Nuclear Choices", MIT press for a nonbiased technical but down to earth read).

For example, solar power is definitely NOT cheaper than nuclear power on any meaningful scale.

4. Wrong. On capital costs alone solar is competitive with nuclear, and after you consider operational costs, security cost, waste disposal costs, decommissioning costs, and etc - solar tromps it. Nuclear cost $2/W in capital cost alone. New photovoltaic technologies are being produced for $1/W, and wind hydro and geothermal even less, never mind all the other "hidden" external costs of nuclear. In fact, nuclear After a trillion-dollar taxpayer investment, it delivers little more U.S. energy than wood. Globally, it produces less energy than renewables."

That's a policy issue not a technical one. Let the gov't build the plants then

5. Of course its not a technical issue. Technically Nuclear power works just fine. But outside of science experiments, just because something is cool doesn't mean it should be done. It would be cool to freeze your arm in liquid nitrogen, hit it with a hammer and watch it shatter to

I know they've made major improvements in fission reactors. Unfortunately some of the improvements were due to be brought forth about the time the Three Mile Island fiasco happened, which pretty much killed nulear energy in the US.

The ironic part is that TMI worked exactly as it was supposed to. It shut down, and that was that. When talking about high energy densities like nuclear, there's no such thing as too safe. But to penalize a system for working right? That's just wrong.

As for the other stuff you claim about a small amount of waste, you either know more about it than I do or you're pulling it out of your ass. I'll give you the benefit of doubt and assume the former :-)

Why thank you. :-) I'm too tired to pull up a bunch of links, but here's bunch of stuff for you to research:

- "Breeder" reactors are used in Europe. They reprocess the "waste" into hotter radioisotopes that can be reused. They were outlawed in the US for fear that they would make it easier for terrorists to obtain fissionable materials.

- Uranium is one of the most common substances on Earth.

- Coal burning throws out tons of uranium into the atmosphere every year.

- Coal burning kills thousands every year. In 1952, 3500 London residents were killed by a coal plant in one week.

Did I forget anything? Oh yeah, Plutonium is an alpha emitter. For the most part, the radiation can't penetrate your skin. Still, Ralph Nader is a pansy ass when it comes to the stuff.

I think in this day and age where everyone is worried (justly or not) about terrorism and dirty bombs, vastly increasing the amount of fissionable material circulating "out in the wild" to power these reactors isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Dirty bombs are a dud. Nearly all the radiation from the blast would be shielded by the common building materials used today. It might increase the death rate near the blast, but it certainly wouldn't do much to make a city uninhabitable.

Speaking of fissionable material, I remember hearing once that there is only about a 10 or 20 year supply of fissionable uranium available if we were to start using it as a primary energy source.

Bah. Probably existing energy companies trying to scare people. Uranium is tremendously common and has been dropping in price. Most Uranium used today is coming from mines in Canada. As I said, I'm pretty tired so you'll have to do some digging for yourself. Check Wikipedia for a good overview.

For that matter, I remember all those environmental doomsday things they used to make us read in school in the 70's said we were supposed to be out of oil sometime in the 90's (and New York City was supposed to be 10 feet under water because of the melted ice caps), so I sort of doubt those kinds of long term predictions anyway.

Good lad. Don't believe everything you hear. Yes, fossil fuels are a problem. But they aren't quite exhausted yet. When they are, they'll be supplanted by a new technology. Nuclear seems to be the best way to build the necessary infrastructure for a chemical energy storage technology.

The EU commision on competition

Here - there is even an e-mail address:

The public at large and all interested circles may direct their comments to the Directorate General for the Internal Market, either by mail to the following address: European Commission, DG Internal Market (MARKT/E/2), Rue de la Loi, 200 (C100 5/13), B - 1049 Brussels, or by e- mail to be directed to MARKT-SOFTPAT@cec.eu.int . Any comments should be received on or before 15 December 2000.

I recommend all EU slashdotters to comment. It is more important than voting! Get on with it.