And they can damn well shrink their ego-inflated pilot corps.
First, whether the person is in a chair at 30,000 feet and going 0.9 mach, or in a chair on the ground going nowhere fast, if they are flying a plane then they are a pilot.
Second, I don't care how fancy of a communications infrastructure you have, the speed of light will dictate the response time of the pilot. If you want rapid response between neurons firing and weapons firing then you need the pilot inside the air frame. I want pilots in the air and I'm not going to blame the USAF for wanting them too.
Unmanned aircraft have their place but a very limited one. If something goes wrong with the "intelligence" on those aircraft then I want someone on board to be able to pull it's circuit breaker and fly it home. That's doubly and triply so with armed aircraft.
A lot of people commenting on these stories don't realize that F-35 is already in use. Last month when some F-35s, B-1s, and an F-22s flew near to North Korea, there was no response at all; until the US announced that it had happened so that the North Koreans could freak out. They hadn't even seen them! Try that with an F-16.;)
An F-16 might not be able to do that but a modern variant of the F-15 and F-18 might, and they are newer than the F-16 by only a couple years. The F-117 and B-2 were contemporary with the F-16 and are considered "stealth" aircraft. If you mean to compare these aircraft by age then this is not much to crow about. If you mean by something as inexpensive as the F-16 then you might have something. It seems to me that the expense of a lot of these stealth aircraft was in large part to many non-stealth aspects, such as size, and non-recurring costs not made up in volume of production.
I suspect that the US military could do quite well with some updated (and currently proposed BTW) F-18 and F-15 air frames with some of the electronics, new stealth technology proven on the F-22 and F-35, and whatever else we learned in the last 40 years since these air frames first came off the production line. Something is keeping these stealth variants of current air frames from being deployed, and I'm curious to know what that is.
I suspect that there would be a lot of people in the US military that would be overjoyed with updated stealth versions of currently operational air frames. Offer a new F-15 "Silent Eagle", F/A-18 "Shielded Hornet", and F-16 "Black Viper", and I suspect a lot of generals and admirals would jump at the chance to get them. There is already lot of investment in these older air frames and updating them would be, as far as I can tell, a much cheaper way to obtain stealthy and deadly aircraft than experimenting with an all new air frame. Granted, we only have this technology now because of the investment in the F-22 program, so we can't do without new air frame development completely.
You can believe that the generals are all a bunch of buffoons out of a bad movie, but history says they're pretty good at understanding and using the technologies involved.
I'm not going to call them buffoons. I'm reluctant to call them all geniuses either. I will say that the vast majority of them will do the best they can with what they have. I will, and have, trust them with my life. I would like to see more updating of existing technology to go along with the acquisition of the new and shiny... or is it new and stealthy now?
I heard quite the opposite, that the Air Force tried to give the A-10 to the Army but the Army refused.
I suppose both can have some truth to it, the Army and Air Force are big organizations with little factions fighting with each other on doctrine and assets needed to meet that doctrine. I'm quite certain that the Army soldiers on the ground don't much care who is flying the A-10 over their heads so long as they have an American flag on the shoulder of their uniform.
There's been a long held doctrine that the Army is not to fly anything, that's for the Air Force. The Army obviously has aircraft but those are limited to rotary wing fighters and non-combat support fixed wing craft. The Marines and Navy also, obviously, have a lot of aircraft but those are launched from ships at sea. That was a compromise struck long ago when the Air Force was created after WWII. If the Air Force is truly willing to hand over fixed wing assets to the Army then I can see the Army being very reluctant, much like anyone might be in accepting a gift from a part time ally and part time (mostly friendly) adversary. This might be a real gift, like an expensive cigar to a friend, or an embarrassment, like a cheap cigar loaded to explode in one's face.
For the US Army to fly the A-10 would mean a large shift in the separation of duties among those DOD branches. I don't see that happening without some kind of reshuffling of a lot of other separation of duties. For example, the US Navy, USCG, and USAF all have air to air tankers to support their aircraft. Would not the Army also need their own air to air refueling aircraft too? What of other duties that go with this new fixed wing capability?
Honestly, the AF should get it over with and give the A10s to the fucking Marines, who actually know and could use a badass CAS airframe that's cheap, reliable, and deadly.
I recall reading somewhere that the USAF tried giving the aircraft to the Army and Marines but neither of them wanted to take on the expense of supporting such an old air frame to fill a role that the Air Force is mandated to provide. The A-10 needs to be replaced and that replacement is not the F-35. I see a few options for a resolution.
The first, and perhaps most likely, option I see is the Air Force putting the A-10 in a kind of "semi-retirement" and send the remaining air frames to Guard and reserve units. The primary tank killer role would have to be filled by the "jack of all trades, master of none" F-35 until a proper CAS air frame is developed and procured. The Air Force simply needs to realize that the A-10 cannot be replaced by the F-35 and come up with something suitable. Sadly, this realization may not come until a lot of Marines come home in coffins.
Second, the US Army and USMC need to get together and find an air frame they can agree on that will fill the CAS role and bring that to the powers that be as a proper A-10 replacement. The USMC cannot do this alone as it does not have the budget, manpower, etc. due to it's comparatively small size, compared to the other branches of the US military not compared to the marine forces of other nations. If this is going to be an air frame that Marines will fly then that means getting the US Navy involved since every USMC air craft must fit on a Navy ship. Which gets to the third option.
Third, the US Navy will have to decide that CAS aircraft fit into their doctrine of naval operations and support of Marine forces. This might not require a new air frame but instead new weapons on existing air frames and/or launching existing CAS platforms from current aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships. Even then this might not be a long lasting solution since it would involve things like trying to fit the MV-22 into a tank killer role, or returning to the experiments of launching C-130 variants from aircraft carriers.
Long term solutions means a new air frame, which might not be flown by the USAF. If the Marines, Navy, or Army fly these CAS aircraft then that means rearranging the operational doctrines of all military forces. If the Air Force wants to wash its hands of the CAS role, which it seems it does, then that needs to be picked up by someone else. Assuming that the USMC wants the A-10, and the Air Force is willing to hand them over, then there must still be agreement from the Army (as they will rely on this new Marine aviation support) and the Navy (since MARINES means "my assets ride on Navy equipment, SIR!").
It was coal powered industries that took us to the moon. Anyone that thinks we can return to the moon, or go beyond, using windmills and solar collectors is a fool.
We are reaching the physical limits of chemical rockets. We can use chemical rockets to get to the moon and back but if we expect to get people to Mars or Venus then we will need nuclear power. We tried solar power on the moon, on Mars, on comets, and so much more. It turns out that solar power gets pretty weak out at Mars orbit. We lost some very expensive missions because solar power failed. Even past lunar missions used RTGs (Radioisotope thermoelectric generator) for power as critical life systems could not rely on heavy and unreliable chemical or solar power.
We need coal, we need nuclear, we need a true "all the above" energy policy. Fuck our carbon footprint, we're going to Mars!
Ah, perfect, then we just need to engineer humans so they can no longer feel these emotions!
No, we don't need to "engineer" anything. We need people educated in how a republic operates, and some basics of economics based on reality and not "feels". I blame the public school systems for failing on that.
The purpose isn't to get rid of the 1%. The point is to tax the people who can afford the tax, and give a break to the people at the bottom so that they can see some wage growth as well. I can afford the tax - I'm not rich, but I do have disposable income.
I thought the point of taxes were to raise funds for providing services like police, courts, military, roads, bridges, and so on. I believe these powers were spelled out explicitly in the US Constitution. Show me the part where it says the government is supposed to minimize wealth inequity, I looked and I couldn't find it.
I may be mistaken but I recall Obama or some other prominent Democrat, perhaps several, had the backwards tax policy they were promoting being pointed out to them. History has proven that lowered tax rates can improve revenue. But Democrats didn't care about maximizing revenue, they cared about sticking the wealthy with more and more taxes. We see this now. A proposal for a reduced tax rate is getting resistance from the Democrats because it reduces taxes for the wealthy. Well, if we are going to see taxes reduced for the working poor then the wealthy are going to see some reduction as well, that's just how our taxes work.
That's where you seem to be, we can never reduce the tax rate for anyone because that means the wealthy will see a reduction too. If you think the people at the bottom need a tax break then that means the wealthy are going to see a reduction in taxes too, because the wealthy don't live in a different world, they live in the same world as everyone else. Lowering taxes on everyone will mean a small number of wealthy people getting even more wealth, but it also means a lot of poor people get to keep their money too.
It makes a hell of a lot more sense to tax that disposable income than it does to tax the lower class, when that means they will struggle to make a car payment, house payment, buy food, etc.
You can pick only so much from the money tree every year before you risk killing it. If you want that wealthy portion of the population to pay their "fair share" next year then this year should not have crushing taxes that drive them to poverty, drive them out of the country, or drive them to an early retirement. I believe that we don't have a tax problem, we have a spending problem.
1. Clinton got 3M+ more votes and would have won the electoral college had it not been for Comey's last minute intervention in the election.
You don't know that. Also, a political party that knows that their nominee is under investigation by the FBI should, for the sake of keeping good relations with the voters, remove that nominee from the running. This was not a new investigation at that point, it had been building for some time. This investigation, and Comey's announcement, should not have been a surprise for the campaign as the people involved were being interviewed. Even if it was too late to switch candidates then we should have seen the Clinton campaign make their own announcement BEFORE Comey said anything so that this could not have happened so soon before the election.
2. In spite of being the most investigated person in history no charges have ever been brought against her because there are no plausible charges to bring.
This is still ongoing and recent events show that Clinton is not innocent at all. Perhaps she did not break any laws but we are seeing some very improper business dealings from the Clinton family, Clinton election campaign, and Clinton Foundation.
3. There has never been a candidate that had more experience for the office than Clinton in 2016.
Bullshit. At the time there was something like 20 governors, 50 US senators, and 200 US representatives, as well as a number of experienced Democrats as ambassadors, cabinet members, judges, academics, and prominent politicians at the state/city/local level, that the Democrats could have picked from. All of them, dozens or perhaps hundreds, had just as much of a resume to run with as Clinton. There were Democrats with decades of experience being not just elected officials but also with real and actual executive experience as mayors, as governors, as commissioned officers, or in the private sector. Clinton served 8 years as a US senator, and 4 years as Secretary of State, and nothing she did in either position was all that memorable.
The Democrats deserved to lose with how they handled that election.
If you think it doesn't matter consider the fact that Trump is widely regarded as a rich guy but if his and his whole family's balance sheet were accurately reported he would probably have negative net worth. Do you think the glassy-eyed crowds would have voted for him in such big numbers if that was how he was generally known? I sure don't.
I do believe that Trump still would be POTUS today if it was widely reported he had negative net worth. Partly because a lot of people would believe this to be just another smear on his character, business sense, or whatnot, and be ignored. Mostly what got Trump elected was that Clinton and the Democrats were just that bad at creating a successful campaign. They ignored whole states because they were arrogant enough to think they "owned" them and didn't need to campaign further. They also ignored large sections of the demographic because they thought they "owned" them too. Clinton is not just bad at campaigning but she's got some serious charges of corruption against her. Only now, a year later, have many of the charges started to prove true because her protection from the media and deep state is starting to fall away. What did Clinton bring to the table that proved her suited to be POTUS? Her campaign was largely on how she'd be the first female POTUS, that she's a Democrat, and did I mention she's a woman?
In short Trump won because Clinton had to lose to someone, and that someone happened to be Trump.
Are you suggesting I buy one of those to use while I wait for my iPhone X to get fixed?
People that are willing to spend a kilobuck on a computer that will fit in a (perhaps oversized) pocket are not, in my experience, the kind that will worry too much about the cost to replace a screen. They'll likely have two phones just for situations like this, such as hang on to their "old" iPhone 8 as a backup. Quite likely they'll be willing to pay that $279 upfront on an insurance plan of some sort, Apple or third party, so that they can have their phone fixed ASAFP if it gets broken. Once the phone gets to be a year or two old then they are just waiting for it to get broken so that they can justify to their spouse spending money for getting a new one.
Once people get to the point of spending $1000 on a phone they aren't likely to go back to something that costs 1/4 of that, barring some financial difficulty. Or, in the case of some people I know, a long history of breaking and/or losing phones so they get "cheap throw away" phones for $300 instead of a much nicer $1000 one.
A moderate level of inequality is inherent to a functional economy and sometimes a consequence of economic growth - but at extreme levels, it causes unhappiness, social unrest, and poverty.
Jealousy, greed, and envy cause unhappiness and social unrest. The wealth disparity alone does not cause this. Also, how does wealth inequality breed poverty? It might bring a greater awareness of poverty. It might make poverty seem somehow worse by comparison, but that's just an aspect of being jealous of another person fortune.
You admit that inequality in wealth is inherent in a functioning economy. Good, we agree on something. Is it possible that a moderate inequality means a moderate economic growth and extreme inequality means extreme economic growth? If not then why not?
Here's just a part of the problem I see with this "raise taxes on the top 1%" idiocy, there will always be a top 1%. That's just a mathematical reality. If we tax them too much then they just leave. The USA has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world and people are just now figuring out that these taxes are driving people out. Corporate taxes don't have to be zero, but they should be low enough that it doesn't drive business away. I'd also help if the taxes have some relationship to the protections the country provides rather than the greed and envy of the voting public.
Bernie Sanders liked to complain about the top 10% of people making "too much" money, then he found out that those 10% make a large part of his voting base. He changed his tune to the "top 1%" which brought some people back until people started pointing out that Sanders himself was a member of this 1%. When people asked if he was going to pay more taxes then it became "the top 1/10th of a percent" being a problem. Well, these people have a lot of money and they don't need to live in the USA. I expect them to scatter to greener pastures and Bernie will have to find new people to be the scapegoats for creating unhappiness and social unrest.
They are just using their full name. I used to just use my first and last names when introducing myself but I found that if I use my full name that the ladies find me more interesting.
Second, why would you complain about the wealthy not being so bright? If they are not bright enough to hold on to their wealth then it's a self correcting problem, they'll invest in stupid shit and soon not be wealthy any more. Those that are bright enough to hold on to their wealth should be in charge of running the economy, as they would be good examples to follow for the rest.
Are you just jealous you didn't think of using this name for your new company?
Third, wealth inequality is a necessary side effect of a growing economy. The money cannot spread out instantaneously to everyone. If I make a better mousetrap, and people are seeing their clothes, houses, and children eaten by mice then they are going to beat a path to my door to give me what money they have that wasn't eaten by the mice to buy my new mousetraps. Once they have a mousetrap, and they can keep the wealth they have from not being eaten by vermin, they then will soon also gain in wealth. Trade doesn't mean one person gets wealthy at the cost of another person's wealth. Trade means both parties are wealthier because no one would willingly trade down, everyone trades up. After I made that pile of money from selling mousetraps then I have some cash to buy some of the excess food, clothing, and labor, that was saved from the mousetraps killing off the vermin. I might, after investing wisely in mousetraps, might later choose less wisely by investing in block chains and lose my wealth. The people at the top changes daily. Those changes reflect wise and poor investments, as well as just plain luck.
Any biomass fuel is terrible at converting sunlight into energy we can use. In comparison to what?
In comparison to anything else. Biomass fuels get at best 2 W/m^2 in the most ideal conditions, more like 0.5 W/m^2 for much of the world. Photovoltaic gets about 5-20 W/m^2 Wind is not much better than biomass at 2 W/m^2 http://withouthotair.com/c18/p...
Much of Europe consumes energy at a rate of about 1 W/m^2. This is an easy calculation, just take the national energy consumption and divide by the area. If a western nation is going to maintain it's standard of living, and get that from biomass, then it will fail. There just is not enough land per person in those nations. That's just land needed for energy, people would still need land for the growing of food.
Using wind to power most any European nation means covering half of the nation with windmills. Photovoltaic energy still means nation sized areas covered in solar collectors, taking up 5% of the area with ideal conditions but more like 20% with more realistic collection.
If you want energy that is "green", and have any kind of energy independence, then there is going to have to be some use of nuclear power. Relying on foreign oil (such as from the Middle East), or natural gas (such as from Russia), or even running electric lines under the Mediterranean Sea to collect the plentiful sun from Northern Africa means Europe will be at the whims of foreign nations for its energy.
Larger nations with lower population densities, like the USA, Russia, Canada, China, and Brazil, have enough land and diversity of geography to get sufficient wind, solar, and hydro to meet domestic needs if they must. This means avoiding biomass fuels as that is a waste of land area, and even then some reliance on more energy dense sources of energy like natural gas (not ideal but better than oil or coal) or nuclear.
Since the goal is to replace oil, such as for use as fuel for cars, then we need to account for current electrical needs, current energy use from oil, and account for any growth due to population increases. Sure, some efficiency gains can bring this down, but it's not going to get close to what biomass can provide unless a nation uses as little energy as some Third World nations.
What is the expected watts per square meter of this algae fuel process?
If you cannot answer that simple question, and that number is not larger than current photovoltaic conversion, then it's not a process we should bother with trying to use at any scale. That's not saying it should be abandoned completely, perhaps the process can be improved, but if it cannot do better than what we have now then it's not sufficiently mature to bother with.
However... losses are never zero. And that's a FUCKTON of energy. Which you'll find... where? Literally not available at the moment on the electrical networks we have, and to do so would require a massive ramping up of nuclear, coal or oil.
Did you watch the video? Yes, it'd take energy. The process can be driven by any source of electricity. If we think that electric cars are the solution to our transportation needs then we have enough electricity to drive this fuel synthesis process. If we think that we cannot get enough electricity from sun and wind to light our houses and propel our cars then we need nuclear. The great thing about nuclear is that it is a source of high temperature heat, and this heat makes the fuel synthesis more efficient.
We should invest in both synthetic fuels and electric cars. The US Navy is desperate to see this fuel synthesis process become a reality because they need fuel for their aircraft and much of their surface fleet. If they can build a nuclear powered fuel synthesis plant on board a ship then they can prove this process is viable. If it works for the Navy at sea then it's a small step to make it work for everyone everywhere.
I've seen estimates that we'd need to build one gigawatt scale nuclear power plant every month in the USA to keep up with planned nuclear and coal plant closures. That's not gaining any new capacity, that's just (barely) keeping up. We can do that because we did it before in the 1970s. That's not a "FUCKTON" of anything we haven't done before.
If we can't build a new nuclear reactor every month (at the least) in the USA then we will continue down the road of increasing use of natural gas, oil, and coal.
They likely didn't consider ethanol powered cars because ethanol is a terrible fuel. Thailand is a tropical nation and so can grow plants that are more efficient at converting sunlight into fuel. Much of the rest of the world is not so lucky. Here's some data comparing the different plants: http://withouthotair.com/c6/pa...
Any biomass fuel is terrible at converting sunlight into energy we can use. Why it's being used so much now boggles the mind. The math is not hard to figure out. We'd be better off using that land for solar panels to charge batteries. Even better is using that land to grow food and look for energy from somewhere besides the sun. Where would be a better place to go for energy? Anywhere. When food competes with energy then you'll have people needing to decide if they will have to cut down their apple tree for firewood and risk starvation in the summer, or keep the tree and risk freezing to death in the coming winter.
You can claim some future advancement in genetically engineered crops and/or better biomass conversion will change this but that's not going to happen in ten years. Go ahead and try, but I think we'll need a backup plan.
We know how to close the carbon cycle. CO2 dissolves from the air into any water exposed to the atmosphere and we know how to get it out very efficiently. Byproducts of this process on seawater is oxygen, hydrogen, and desalinated water. Take the carbon dioxide and hydrogen, run it through a process we've known about for 100 years now, and we get hydrocarbon fuels. The fuel produced not only closes the carbon cycle on transportation fuels (jet fuel, gasoline, diesel fuel) but has none of the sulfur and other nasty stuff that petroleum fuels have.
The average life of a typical car is about 10 years. A cargo ship or passenger airplane have lifespans that can exceed 30 years. Even if we were to switch to all electric cars today we'd still be burning considerable amounts of petroleum products for at least 50 years.
Switching to how we get our fuels means we can keep our vehicles, and much of our petroleum oil based infrastructure. If people still want electric cars then nothing will stop them from buying them. I'd think that new fuels, which would be just like the old fuels, would be a much easier sell to the public that want to keep their current cars.
Maybe getting the infrastructure needed to create carbon neutral fuels would also take 50 years. Since we already know how it's done the hard part is behind us, we just need to optimize the process and scale it up to industrial scale. There's no new technology involved. We can do two things at once. We can build electric cars AND research new fuels. If it works then we just cut the time to transition away from fossil fuels. If it doesn't then we still have electric vehicles to use.
It's pretty common practice to boost voltage from low to high and down to low again. The long high voltage line means lowering losses on the line, less energy lost to heat. Even small DC to DC converters will have an AC step in the middle so a transformer can step the voltage up or down.
What do you propose that would be more efficient? Step up the voltage higher? Then you'd need transformers or something to step it down for things like standard 110 VAC lights and tools. Use DC instead of AC? Then that might mean needing to rectify the voltage on the line to only have to invert it again on the end line.
We're speculating anyway. It's possible that the system runs on 90 VDC or some other arbitrary voltage.
The EPA can revoke all it's rules, fire everyone, and close it's doors forever and I don't expect air to get as bad as China. That's because each state has it's own laws on air quality. If you think that the states have to allow China levels of pollution because Trump, or some future POTUS, says they have to then let's talk about just how far federal law can go. There's 30 states giving the federal government the middle finger on marijuana laws. Sanctuary city/state laws and rules means the federal government can't enforce immigration law effectively. States will tell the federal government to fuck off if it means allowing air pollution being released uncontrolled.
The Chinese government is controlling their pollution because they are now running a risk of outright public revolt. This has gone on for far too long and much worse than people are willing to tolerate. Things got this bad because people in China didn't have much choice but more people have enough spare time and money now, due to a better economy, that they are comfortable enough to stand up to the government now. People have better access to information, even with the Great Firewall of China keeping a lot of things quiet. We're seeing a near repeat of what brought down the Berlin Wall, and the Iron Curtain it represented.
I was watching some news report on the air pollution and safety violations at an American mine, a coal mine I think. The workers being interviewed complained about being "forced" to violate procedures and falsify documents. I bought the big evil corporation gimmick until I realized that these people weren't "forced" to do anything. They could quit. They could call an enforcement agency. But being the largest employer around everyone played along because the first person to speak up would be an outcast for shutting down the mine and putting people out of work. This went on until it got so bad that people died and the enforcement came in to look around. No one could deny the problem now. China is merely seeing this same thing on a national scale now. People played along because speaking up meant getting singled out by the community and/or government for rocking the boat.
Isolated cases can still happen in America, just as I saw on that news report. China is not likely to fix everything with the pollution but it's no longer as taboo as it was to bring it up. There is an expectation now of clean air in China, and also expect this to be a sign of things to come.
As more people get packages delivered I'd expect more apartment complexes to offer this service. Much like how people in apartments used to not be able to get cable TV because the installers wanted to drill holes in the wall to run a wire. Soon enough cable TV availability was a necessity, or even provided from the start and included in the rent. The difference with a secure drop off box is that there is no need to make any significant changes to the architecture or have much for recurring maintenance costs.
To make these boxes more secure, convenient, and/or look nice, will mean having a plan for them from the start, as the complex is built. Nicer places will get them first. It won't be long for even cheap apartments to get them if people expect this as a part of the deal in renting.
6. Foreign nations tire of the air pollution blowing out of China and into their borders, as well as the obvious price fixing they've been doing to drive out competition, means Chinese imports are banned or have hefty tariffs imposed. 7. Competitive prices are restored and other nations develop manufacturing in a way that doesn't leave a dark cloud circling the globe.
Do you mean we should make America produce again? That sounds oddly familiar. Wasn't there some guy on TV all the time last year, flying all over the country, saying something like that? What ever happened to him? You know who I'm talking about. Old fat white guy wearing a red trucker hat and a cheap business suit. That guy. I hope he got his message across. We could use more people working in the USA.
So wind is cheap in USA, Australia, and India. How much does it cost in Italy? Or any neighboring nation?
I tried finding it myself but I haven't had much luck. Lots of articles on how European nations are building wind energy capacity, but that only means that there's a lot of government subsidies.
Australia, India, and the US have access to large land areas to pick from for wind. It's going to be much easier to find cheap wind in these large nations than the relatively tiny Italy.
I look at my globe here in my office and I can see that the 45th parallel goes through Italy. By comparison I see that large chunks of India and Australia are between the 15th and 30th parallel (on different hemispheres obviously). The USA is is bit further from the equator, most of the land between 45th and 30th parallels, but still has lots of what I assume is cheap land around the 30th parallel. That would imply that solar power isn't going to be all that cheap in Italy, at least not as cheap in India, Australia, and USA.
Italy has a fair amount of hydroelectric power available, which I assume they use not only as a "green" source of energy but also to manage the intermittent nature of what wind and solar they have now and may get in the future. I find it hard to believe that Italy will have all that much access to cheap wind and solar and it looks like they maxed out on hydro power 100 years ago. They might be able to improve on the hydroelectric storage by adding pumps to pump the water back up the hill when electricity is plentiful, but that costs money.
Italy will have to choose two of these three: cheap, reliable, and "green".
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And they can damn well shrink their ego-inflated pilot corps.
First, whether the person is in a chair at 30,000 feet and going 0.9 mach, or in a chair on the ground going nowhere fast, if they are flying a plane then they are a pilot.
Second, I don't care how fancy of a communications infrastructure you have, the speed of light will dictate the response time of the pilot. If you want rapid response between neurons firing and weapons firing then you need the pilot inside the air frame. I want pilots in the air and I'm not going to blame the USAF for wanting them too.
Unmanned aircraft have their place but a very limited one. If something goes wrong with the "intelligence" on those aircraft then I want someone on board to be able to pull it's circuit breaker and fly it home. That's doubly and triply so with armed aircraft.
A lot of people commenting on these stories don't realize that F-35 is already in use. Last month when some F-35s, B-1s, and an F-22s flew near to North Korea, there was no response at all; until the US announced that it had happened so that the North Koreans could freak out. They hadn't even seen them! Try that with an F-16. ;)
An F-16 might not be able to do that but a modern variant of the F-15 and F-18 might, and they are newer than the F-16 by only a couple years. The F-117 and B-2 were contemporary with the F-16 and are considered "stealth" aircraft. If you mean to compare these aircraft by age then this is not much to crow about. If you mean by something as inexpensive as the F-16 then you might have something. It seems to me that the expense of a lot of these stealth aircraft was in large part to many non-stealth aspects, such as size, and non-recurring costs not made up in volume of production.
I suspect that the US military could do quite well with some updated (and currently proposed BTW) F-18 and F-15 air frames with some of the electronics, new stealth technology proven on the F-22 and F-35, and whatever else we learned in the last 40 years since these air frames first came off the production line. Something is keeping these stealth variants of current air frames from being deployed, and I'm curious to know what that is.
I suspect that there would be a lot of people in the US military that would be overjoyed with updated stealth versions of currently operational air frames. Offer a new F-15 "Silent Eagle", F/A-18 "Shielded Hornet", and F-16 "Black Viper", and I suspect a lot of generals and admirals would jump at the chance to get them. There is already lot of investment in these older air frames and updating them would be, as far as I can tell, a much cheaper way to obtain stealthy and deadly aircraft than experimenting with an all new air frame. Granted, we only have this technology now because of the investment in the F-22 program, so we can't do without new air frame development completely.
You can believe that the generals are all a bunch of buffoons out of a bad movie, but history says they're pretty good at understanding and using the technologies involved.
I'm not going to call them buffoons. I'm reluctant to call them all geniuses either. I will say that the vast majority of them will do the best they can with what they have. I will, and have, trust them with my life. I would like to see more updating of existing technology to go along with the acquisition of the new and shiny... or is it new and stealthy now?
I heard quite the opposite, that the Air Force tried to give the A-10 to the Army but the Army refused.
I suppose both can have some truth to it, the Army and Air Force are big organizations with little factions fighting with each other on doctrine and assets needed to meet that doctrine. I'm quite certain that the Army soldiers on the ground don't much care who is flying the A-10 over their heads so long as they have an American flag on the shoulder of their uniform.
There's been a long held doctrine that the Army is not to fly anything, that's for the Air Force. The Army obviously has aircraft but those are limited to rotary wing fighters and non-combat support fixed wing craft. The Marines and Navy also, obviously, have a lot of aircraft but those are launched from ships at sea. That was a compromise struck long ago when the Air Force was created after WWII. If the Air Force is truly willing to hand over fixed wing assets to the Army then I can see the Army being very reluctant, much like anyone might be in accepting a gift from a part time ally and part time (mostly friendly) adversary. This might be a real gift, like an expensive cigar to a friend, or an embarrassment, like a cheap cigar loaded to explode in one's face.
For the US Army to fly the A-10 would mean a large shift in the separation of duties among those DOD branches. I don't see that happening without some kind of reshuffling of a lot of other separation of duties. For example, the US Navy, USCG, and USAF all have air to air tankers to support their aircraft. Would not the Army also need their own air to air refueling aircraft too? What of other duties that go with this new fixed wing capability?
Honestly, the AF should get it over with and give the A10s to the fucking Marines, who actually know and could use a badass CAS airframe that's cheap, reliable, and deadly.
I recall reading somewhere that the USAF tried giving the aircraft to the Army and Marines but neither of them wanted to take on the expense of supporting such an old air frame to fill a role that the Air Force is mandated to provide. The A-10 needs to be replaced and that replacement is not the F-35. I see a few options for a resolution.
The first, and perhaps most likely, option I see is the Air Force putting the A-10 in a kind of "semi-retirement" and send the remaining air frames to Guard and reserve units. The primary tank killer role would have to be filled by the "jack of all trades, master of none" F-35 until a proper CAS air frame is developed and procured. The Air Force simply needs to realize that the A-10 cannot be replaced by the F-35 and come up with something suitable. Sadly, this realization may not come until a lot of Marines come home in coffins.
Second, the US Army and USMC need to get together and find an air frame they can agree on that will fill the CAS role and bring that to the powers that be as a proper A-10 replacement. The USMC cannot do this alone as it does not have the budget, manpower, etc. due to it's comparatively small size, compared to the other branches of the US military not compared to the marine forces of other nations. If this is going to be an air frame that Marines will fly then that means getting the US Navy involved since every USMC air craft must fit on a Navy ship. Which gets to the third option.
Third, the US Navy will have to decide that CAS aircraft fit into their doctrine of naval operations and support of Marine forces. This might not require a new air frame but instead new weapons on existing air frames and/or launching existing CAS platforms from current aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships. Even then this might not be a long lasting solution since it would involve things like trying to fit the MV-22 into a tank killer role, or returning to the experiments of launching C-130 variants from aircraft carriers.
Long term solutions means a new air frame, which might not be flown by the USAF. If the Marines, Navy, or Army fly these CAS aircraft then that means rearranging the operational doctrines of all military forces. If the Air Force wants to wash its hands of the CAS role, which it seems it does, then that needs to be picked up by someone else. Assuming that the USMC wants the A-10, and the Air Force is willing to hand them over, then there must still be agreement from the Army (as they will rely on this new Marine aviation support) and the Navy (since MARINES means "my assets ride on Navy equipment, SIR!").
The captain goes on his head. The rest of the men go over the side, because they don't have any heads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It was coal powered industries that took us to the moon. Anyone that thinks we can return to the moon, or go beyond, using windmills and solar collectors is a fool.
We are reaching the physical limits of chemical rockets. We can use chemical rockets to get to the moon and back but if we expect to get people to Mars or Venus then we will need nuclear power. We tried solar power on the moon, on Mars, on comets, and so much more. It turns out that solar power gets pretty weak out at Mars orbit. We lost some very expensive missions because solar power failed. Even past lunar missions used RTGs (Radioisotope thermoelectric generator) for power as critical life systems could not rely on heavy and unreliable chemical or solar power.
We need coal, we need nuclear, we need a true "all the above" energy policy. Fuck our carbon footprint, we're going to Mars!
Ah, perfect, then we just need to engineer humans so they can no longer feel these emotions!
No, we don't need to "engineer" anything. We need people educated in how a republic operates, and some basics of economics based on reality and not "feels". I blame the public school systems for failing on that.
The purpose isn't to get rid of the 1%. The point is to tax the people who can afford the tax, and give a break to the people at the bottom so that they can see some wage growth as well. I can afford the tax - I'm not rich, but I do have disposable income.
I thought the point of taxes were to raise funds for providing services like police, courts, military, roads, bridges, and so on. I believe these powers were spelled out explicitly in the US Constitution. Show me the part where it says the government is supposed to minimize wealth inequity, I looked and I couldn't find it.
I may be mistaken but I recall Obama or some other prominent Democrat, perhaps several, had the backwards tax policy they were promoting being pointed out to them. History has proven that lowered tax rates can improve revenue. But Democrats didn't care about maximizing revenue, they cared about sticking the wealthy with more and more taxes. We see this now. A proposal for a reduced tax rate is getting resistance from the Democrats because it reduces taxes for the wealthy. Well, if we are going to see taxes reduced for the working poor then the wealthy are going to see some reduction as well, that's just how our taxes work.
That's where you seem to be, we can never reduce the tax rate for anyone because that means the wealthy will see a reduction too. If you think the people at the bottom need a tax break then that means the wealthy are going to see a reduction in taxes too, because the wealthy don't live in a different world, they live in the same world as everyone else. Lowering taxes on everyone will mean a small number of wealthy people getting even more wealth, but it also means a lot of poor people get to keep their money too.
It makes a hell of a lot more sense to tax that disposable income than it does to tax the lower class, when that means they will struggle to make a car payment, house payment, buy food, etc.
You can pick only so much from the money tree every year before you risk killing it. If you want that wealthy portion of the population to pay their "fair share" next year then this year should not have crushing taxes that drive them to poverty, drive them out of the country, or drive them to an early retirement. I believe that we don't have a tax problem, we have a spending problem.
1. Clinton got 3M+ more votes and would have won the electoral college had it not been for Comey's last minute intervention in the election.
You don't know that. Also, a political party that knows that their nominee is under investigation by the FBI should, for the sake of keeping good relations with the voters, remove that nominee from the running. This was not a new investigation at that point, it had been building for some time. This investigation, and Comey's announcement, should not have been a surprise for the campaign as the people involved were being interviewed. Even if it was too late to switch candidates then we should have seen the Clinton campaign make their own announcement BEFORE Comey said anything so that this could not have happened so soon before the election.
2. In spite of being the most investigated person in history no charges have ever been brought against her because there are no plausible charges to bring.
This is still ongoing and recent events show that Clinton is not innocent at all. Perhaps she did not break any laws but we are seeing some very improper business dealings from the Clinton family, Clinton election campaign, and Clinton Foundation.
3. There has never been a candidate that had more experience for the office than Clinton in 2016.
Bullshit. At the time there was something like 20 governors, 50 US senators, and 200 US representatives, as well as a number of experienced Democrats as ambassadors, cabinet members, judges, academics, and prominent politicians at the state/city/local level, that the Democrats could have picked from. All of them, dozens or perhaps hundreds, had just as much of a resume to run with as Clinton. There were Democrats with decades of experience being not just elected officials but also with real and actual executive experience as mayors, as governors, as commissioned officers, or in the private sector. Clinton served 8 years as a US senator, and 4 years as Secretary of State, and nothing she did in either position was all that memorable.
The Democrats deserved to lose with how they handled that election.
If you think it doesn't matter consider the fact that Trump is widely regarded as a rich guy but if his and his whole family's balance sheet were accurately reported he would probably have negative net worth. Do you think the glassy-eyed crowds would have voted for him in such big numbers if that was how he was generally known? I sure don't.
I do believe that Trump still would be POTUS today if it was widely reported he had negative net worth. Partly because a lot of people would believe this to be just another smear on his character, business sense, or whatnot, and be ignored. Mostly what got Trump elected was that Clinton and the Democrats were just that bad at creating a successful campaign. They ignored whole states because they were arrogant enough to think they "owned" them and didn't need to campaign further. They also ignored large sections of the demographic because they thought they "owned" them too. Clinton is not just bad at campaigning but she's got some serious charges of corruption against her. Only now, a year later, have many of the charges started to prove true because her protection from the media and deep state is starting to fall away. What did Clinton bring to the table that proved her suited to be POTUS? Her campaign was largely on how she'd be the first female POTUS, that she's a Democrat, and did I mention she's a woman?
In short Trump won because Clinton had to lose to someone, and that someone happened to be Trump.
Are you suggesting I buy one of those to use while I wait for my iPhone X to get fixed?
People that are willing to spend a kilobuck on a computer that will fit in a (perhaps oversized) pocket are not, in my experience, the kind that will worry too much about the cost to replace a screen. They'll likely have two phones just for situations like this, such as hang on to their "old" iPhone 8 as a backup. Quite likely they'll be willing to pay that $279 upfront on an insurance plan of some sort, Apple or third party, so that they can have their phone fixed ASAFP if it gets broken. Once the phone gets to be a year or two old then they are just waiting for it to get broken so that they can justify to their spouse spending money for getting a new one.
Once people get to the point of spending $1000 on a phone they aren't likely to go back to something that costs 1/4 of that, barring some financial difficulty. Or, in the case of some people I know, a long history of breaking and/or losing phones so they get "cheap throw away" phones for $300 instead of a much nicer $1000 one.
A moderate level of inequality is inherent to a functional economy and sometimes a consequence of economic growth - but at extreme levels, it causes unhappiness, social unrest, and poverty.
Jealousy, greed, and envy cause unhappiness and social unrest. The wealth disparity alone does not cause this. Also, how does wealth inequality breed poverty? It might bring a greater awareness of poverty. It might make poverty seem somehow worse by comparison, but that's just an aspect of being jealous of another person fortune.
You admit that inequality in wealth is inherent in a functioning economy. Good, we agree on something. Is it possible that a moderate inequality means a moderate economic growth and extreme inequality means extreme economic growth? If not then why not?
Here's just a part of the problem I see with this "raise taxes on the top 1%" idiocy, there will always be a top 1%. That's just a mathematical reality. If we tax them too much then they just leave. The USA has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world and people are just now figuring out that these taxes are driving people out. Corporate taxes don't have to be zero, but they should be low enough that it doesn't drive business away. I'd also help if the taxes have some relationship to the protections the country provides rather than the greed and envy of the voting public.
Bernie Sanders liked to complain about the top 10% of people making "too much" money, then he found out that those 10% make a large part of his voting base. He changed his tune to the "top 1%" which brought some people back until people started pointing out that Sanders himself was a member of this 1%. When people asked if he was going to pay more taxes then it became "the top 1/10th of a percent" being a problem. Well, these people have a lot of money and they don't need to live in the USA. I expect them to scatter to greener pastures and Bernie will have to find new people to be the scapegoats for creating unhappiness and social unrest.
They are just using their full name. I used to just use my first and last names when introducing myself but I found that if I use my full name that the ladies find me more interesting.
Regards,
Austin Danger Powers
First, it's "nip it in the bud", not "butt".
Second, why would you complain about the wealthy not being so bright? If they are not bright enough to hold on to their wealth then it's a self correcting problem, they'll invest in stupid shit and soon not be wealthy any more. Those that are bright enough to hold on to their wealth should be in charge of running the economy, as they would be good examples to follow for the rest.
Are you just jealous you didn't think of using this name for your new company?
Third, wealth inequality is a necessary side effect of a growing economy. The money cannot spread out instantaneously to everyone. If I make a better mousetrap, and people are seeing their clothes, houses, and children eaten by mice then they are going to beat a path to my door to give me what money they have that wasn't eaten by the mice to buy my new mousetraps. Once they have a mousetrap, and they can keep the wealth they have from not being eaten by vermin, they then will soon also gain in wealth. Trade doesn't mean one person gets wealthy at the cost of another person's wealth. Trade means both parties are wealthier because no one would willingly trade down, everyone trades up. After I made that pile of money from selling mousetraps then I have some cash to buy some of the excess food, clothing, and labor, that was saved from the mousetraps killing off the vermin. I might, after investing wisely in mousetraps, might later choose less wisely by investing in block chains and lose my wealth. The people at the top changes daily. Those changes reflect wise and poor investments, as well as just plain luck.
I think you have that backwards. Most legal documents have last name first, which is why I changed my name to Truck Thunders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Any biomass fuel is terrible at converting sunlight into energy we can use.
In comparison to what?
In comparison to anything else.
Biomass fuels get at best 2 W/m^2 in the most ideal conditions, more like 0.5 W/m^2 for much of the world.
Photovoltaic gets about 5-20 W/m^2
Wind is not much better than biomass at 2 W/m^2
http://withouthotair.com/c18/p...
Nuclear is about 1000 W/m^2
http://withouthotair.com/c24/p...
Much of Europe consumes energy at a rate of about 1 W/m^2. This is an easy calculation, just take the national energy consumption and divide by the area. If a western nation is going to maintain it's standard of living, and get that from biomass, then it will fail. There just is not enough land per person in those nations. That's just land needed for energy, people would still need land for the growing of food.
Using wind to power most any European nation means covering half of the nation with windmills. Photovoltaic energy still means nation sized areas covered in solar collectors, taking up 5% of the area with ideal conditions but more like 20% with more realistic collection.
If you want energy that is "green", and have any kind of energy independence, then there is going to have to be some use of nuclear power. Relying on foreign oil (such as from the Middle East), or natural gas (such as from Russia), or even running electric lines under the Mediterranean Sea to collect the plentiful sun from Northern Africa means Europe will be at the whims of foreign nations for its energy.
Larger nations with lower population densities, like the USA, Russia, Canada, China, and Brazil, have enough land and diversity of geography to get sufficient wind, solar, and hydro to meet domestic needs if they must. This means avoiding biomass fuels as that is a waste of land area, and even then some reliance on more energy dense sources of energy like natural gas (not ideal but better than oil or coal) or nuclear.
Since the goal is to replace oil, such as for use as fuel for cars, then we need to account for current electrical needs, current energy use from oil, and account for any growth due to population increases. Sure, some efficiency gains can bring this down, but it's not going to get close to what biomass can provide unless a nation uses as little energy as some Third World nations.
What is the expected watts per square meter of this algae fuel process?
If you cannot answer that simple question, and that number is not larger than current photovoltaic conversion, then it's not a process we should bother with trying to use at any scale. That's not saying it should be abandoned completely, perhaps the process can be improved, but if it cannot do better than what we have now then it's not sufficiently mature to bother with.
However... losses are never zero. And that's a FUCKTON of energy. Which you'll find... where? Literally not available at the moment on the electrical networks we have, and to do so would require a massive ramping up of nuclear, coal or oil.
Did you watch the video? Yes, it'd take energy. The process can be driven by any source of electricity. If we think that electric cars are the solution to our transportation needs then we have enough electricity to drive this fuel synthesis process. If we think that we cannot get enough electricity from sun and wind to light our houses and propel our cars then we need nuclear. The great thing about nuclear is that it is a source of high temperature heat, and this heat makes the fuel synthesis more efficient.
We should invest in both synthetic fuels and electric cars. The US Navy is desperate to see this fuel synthesis process become a reality because they need fuel for their aircraft and much of their surface fleet. If they can build a nuclear powered fuel synthesis plant on board a ship then they can prove this process is viable. If it works for the Navy at sea then it's a small step to make it work for everyone everywhere.
I've seen estimates that we'd need to build one gigawatt scale nuclear power plant every month in the USA to keep up with planned nuclear and coal plant closures. That's not gaining any new capacity, that's just (barely) keeping up. We can do that because we did it before in the 1970s. That's not a "FUCKTON" of anything we haven't done before.
If we can't build a new nuclear reactor every month (at the least) in the USA then we will continue down the road of increasing use of natural gas, oil, and coal.
They likely didn't consider ethanol powered cars because ethanol is a terrible fuel. Thailand is a tropical nation and so can grow plants that are more efficient at converting sunlight into fuel. Much of the rest of the world is not so lucky. Here's some data comparing the different plants:
http://withouthotair.com/c6/pa...
Any biomass fuel is terrible at converting sunlight into energy we can use. Why it's being used so much now boggles the mind. The math is not hard to figure out. We'd be better off using that land for solar panels to charge batteries. Even better is using that land to grow food and look for energy from somewhere besides the sun. Where would be a better place to go for energy? Anywhere. When food competes with energy then you'll have people needing to decide if they will have to cut down their apple tree for firewood and risk starvation in the summer, or keep the tree and risk freezing to death in the coming winter.
You can claim some future advancement in genetically engineered crops and/or better biomass conversion will change this but that's not going to happen in ten years. Go ahead and try, but I think we'll need a backup plan.
We know how to close the carbon cycle. CO2 dissolves from the air into any water exposed to the atmosphere and we know how to get it out very efficiently. Byproducts of this process on seawater is oxygen, hydrogen, and desalinated water. Take the carbon dioxide and hydrogen, run it through a process we've known about for 100 years now, and we get hydrocarbon fuels. The fuel produced not only closes the carbon cycle on transportation fuels (jet fuel, gasoline, diesel fuel) but has none of the sulfur and other nasty stuff that petroleum fuels have.
Here's a five minute video giving the highlights:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
We don't need new cars, we need new fuels.
The average life of a typical car is about 10 years. A cargo ship or passenger airplane have lifespans that can exceed 30 years. Even if we were to switch to all electric cars today we'd still be burning considerable amounts of petroleum products for at least 50 years.
Switching to how we get our fuels means we can keep our vehicles, and much of our petroleum oil based infrastructure. If people still want electric cars then nothing will stop them from buying them. I'd think that new fuels, which would be just like the old fuels, would be a much easier sell to the public that want to keep their current cars.
Maybe getting the infrastructure needed to create carbon neutral fuels would also take 50 years. Since we already know how it's done the hard part is behind us, we just need to optimize the process and scale it up to industrial scale. There's no new technology involved. We can do two things at once. We can build electric cars AND research new fuels. If it works then we just cut the time to transition away from fossil fuels. If it doesn't then we still have electric vehicles to use.
It's pretty common practice to boost voltage from low to high and down to low again. The long high voltage line means lowering losses on the line, less energy lost to heat. Even small DC to DC converters will have an AC step in the middle so a transformer can step the voltage up or down.
What do you propose that would be more efficient? Step up the voltage higher? Then you'd need transformers or something to step it down for things like standard 110 VAC lights and tools. Use DC instead of AC? Then that might mean needing to rectify the voltage on the line to only have to invert it again on the end line.
We're speculating anyway. It's possible that the system runs on 90 VDC or some other arbitrary voltage.
The EPA can revoke all it's rules, fire everyone, and close it's doors forever and I don't expect air to get as bad as China. That's because each state has it's own laws on air quality. If you think that the states have to allow China levels of pollution because Trump, or some future POTUS, says they have to then let's talk about just how far federal law can go. There's 30 states giving the federal government the middle finger on marijuana laws. Sanctuary city/state laws and rules means the federal government can't enforce immigration law effectively. States will tell the federal government to fuck off if it means allowing air pollution being released uncontrolled.
The Chinese government is controlling their pollution because they are now running a risk of outright public revolt. This has gone on for far too long and much worse than people are willing to tolerate. Things got this bad because people in China didn't have much choice but more people have enough spare time and money now, due to a better economy, that they are comfortable enough to stand up to the government now. People have better access to information, even with the Great Firewall of China keeping a lot of things quiet. We're seeing a near repeat of what brought down the Berlin Wall, and the Iron Curtain it represented.
I was watching some news report on the air pollution and safety violations at an American mine, a coal mine I think. The workers being interviewed complained about being "forced" to violate procedures and falsify documents. I bought the big evil corporation gimmick until I realized that these people weren't "forced" to do anything. They could quit. They could call an enforcement agency. But being the largest employer around everyone played along because the first person to speak up would be an outcast for shutting down the mine and putting people out of work. This went on until it got so bad that people died and the enforcement came in to look around. No one could deny the problem now. China is merely seeing this same thing on a national scale now. People played along because speaking up meant getting singled out by the community and/or government for rocking the boat.
Isolated cases can still happen in America, just as I saw on that news report. China is not likely to fix everything with the pollution but it's no longer as taboo as it was to bring it up. There is an expectation now of clean air in China, and also expect this to be a sign of things to come.
As more people get packages delivered I'd expect more apartment complexes to offer this service. Much like how people in apartments used to not be able to get cable TV because the installers wanted to drill holes in the wall to run a wire. Soon enough cable TV availability was a necessity, or even provided from the start and included in the rent. The difference with a secure drop off box is that there is no need to make any significant changes to the architecture or have much for recurring maintenance costs.
To make these boxes more secure, convenient, and/or look nice, will mean having a plan for them from the start, as the complex is built. Nicer places will get them first. It won't be long for even cheap apartments to get them if people expect this as a part of the deal in renting.
6. Foreign nations tire of the air pollution blowing out of China and into their borders, as well as the obvious price fixing they've been doing to drive out competition, means Chinese imports are banned or have hefty tariffs imposed.
7. Competitive prices are restored and other nations develop manufacturing in a way that doesn't leave a dark cloud circling the globe.
Do you mean we should make America produce again? That sounds oddly familiar. Wasn't there some guy on TV all the time last year, flying all over the country, saying something like that? What ever happened to him? You know who I'm talking about. Old fat white guy wearing a red trucker hat and a cheap business suit. That guy. I hope he got his message across. We could use more people working in the USA.
So wind is cheap in USA, Australia, and India. How much does it cost in Italy? Or any neighboring nation?
I tried finding it myself but I haven't had much luck. Lots of articles on how European nations are building wind energy capacity, but that only means that there's a lot of government subsidies.
Australia, India, and the US have access to large land areas to pick from for wind. It's going to be much easier to find cheap wind in these large nations than the relatively tiny Italy.
I look at my globe here in my office and I can see that the 45th parallel goes through Italy. By comparison I see that large chunks of India and Australia are between the 15th and 30th parallel (on different hemispheres obviously). The USA is is bit further from the equator, most of the land between 45th and 30th parallels, but still has lots of what I assume is cheap land around the 30th parallel. That would imply that solar power isn't going to be all that cheap in Italy, at least not as cheap in India, Australia, and USA.
Italy has a fair amount of hydroelectric power available, which I assume they use not only as a "green" source of energy but also to manage the intermittent nature of what wind and solar they have now and may get in the future. I find it hard to believe that Italy will have all that much access to cheap wind and solar and it looks like they maxed out on hydro power 100 years ago. They might be able to improve on the hydroelectric storage by adding pumps to pump the water back up the hill when electricity is plentiful, but that costs money.
Italy will have to choose two of these three: cheap, reliable, and "green".