You would think so, but the average user does not think that. The average user thinks "My YouTube videos of cats stream just fine, but Netflix does not. It must be Netflix's fault."
Ahh, but as a long-suffering Comcast customer (there is NO alternative in my area) they do the same sort of thing with YouTube. No internet video over 35 seconds long is watchable over my connection. Except between 3-5 am.
So I and my neighbors are all quite aware that it isn't Netflix. Or YouTube. It's Comcast.
The high voltage transmission losses may be as LOW as 7%. But what about all the other conversions? Even if each and every one of those processes is 90% efficient (they aren't), after the several steps, you have significantly less usable energy than you started with.
See e.g. the IEEE Spectrum article: "How Green is My Plug-In" at http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-grid/how-green-is-my-plugin.
Sorry to have to disagree with someone who quotes Nicolai Hel for their sig, but NO, an electric car powered by fossil-fuel generated electricity is not better than nothing. True, power plants are more efficient at making electricity than vehicles are. But after generating the electricity, you have to step-up the voltage for transmission, transmit it, step-down the voltage (maybe in the case of the rapid-charge system in TFA, step-down only partially) charge the battery, and convert battery power to torque to drive the wheels. At each of those steps, you lose 10-30% of the energy you put into the system at the beginning of that step.
Electric vehicles powered by non-renewable electric grid power will nearly always create more pollution overall than a similar payload gasoline powered vehicle with a properly operating current-tech catalytic converter. Without even worrying about what to do with the 400 lbs of extremely toxic spent batteries.
I guess that depends a bit on what you mean by "invest". All three of our kids are what the education industry calls "twice exceptional". That means they have high IQs and also some neurological issues. In other words, geekiness breeds true. But the practical impact is that we spend a lot of money on therapy and supplemental education for or kids, beyond the cost of the nanny. None of which is tax-deductible, and very little of which is covered by health insurance. In another 1-2 years, we'll be paying college expenses for the eldest. We take 15% for retirement savings off the top of our incomes, and are buying our house, but have no money to invest beyond that right now.
Lord Ender said "Don't forget: You get huge tax deductions for having children."
Uh, no. You don't. Not in the US, anyway. Trust me.
I have three children, and the maximum tax deductions and credits that were available to me (an engineer) and husband (another engineer) for them covered almost half of the money we pay our nanny. And a nanny is cheaper than either school-based after-school care or centers, when you have 3 kids to pay for. But then having two fairly-well-paid professionals (slightly over $100k each) in one tax-paying family triggered the AMT for us. AMT means you loose all those deductions for dependents, child care, state taxes, etc. So please,/.-ers, don't think that you'll be able to cover the cost of childcare out of the maximum $8000 / year (for 3 or more children) you *might* be eligible for in tax credits if you don't earn too much money.
Check out Tom Smith's wonderful song "Pygmalion 2.0" for a humorous and insightful look at humans, droids, sex and love. http://filkertom-itom.blogspot.com/2007/03/033-pygmalion-20.html
People fall in love with their cars, boats, and computers all the time.
Why would you expect them not to fall in love with a human-looking device which makes them feel fantastic?
Unfortunately, when my friend and I both tried to have our kids vaccinated for this, our (two different) health insurance companies both refused to make any contribution to vaccinating our boys, though they were perfectly happy to pay to for the shots for her daughter. But that covered shots for only one kid out of a combined 5.
The insurance companies claim it's because men are not harmed by being carriers of the virus. I might have excused the non-coverage if they rejected the claims based on the still-new, not-required nature of the vaccination. My home state (Michigan) is among those where a bill to require this vaccine for school attendance has been proposed (but voted down). I would happily support the requirement that both genders be vaccinated, if only to strongly reduce the incidence of infection for everyone. Just because men don't get cervical cancer is no reason to refuse coverage for something to prevent genital warts.
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You would think so, but the average user does not think that. The average user thinks "My YouTube videos of cats stream just fine, but Netflix does not. It must be Netflix's fault."
Ahh, but as a long-suffering Comcast customer (there is NO alternative in my area) they do the same sort of thing with YouTube. No internet video over 35 seconds long is watchable over my connection. Except between 3-5 am. So I and my neighbors are all quite aware that it isn't Netflix. Or YouTube. It's Comcast.
The high voltage transmission losses may be as LOW as 7%. But what about all the other conversions? Even if each and every one of those processes is 90% efficient (they aren't), after the several steps, you have significantly less usable energy than you started with. See e.g. the IEEE Spectrum article: "How Green is My Plug-In" at http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-grid/how-green-is-my-plugin.
Sorry to have to disagree with someone who quotes Nicolai Hel for their sig, but NO, an electric car powered by fossil-fuel generated electricity is not better than nothing. True, power plants are more efficient at making electricity than vehicles are. But after generating the electricity, you have to step-up the voltage for transmission, transmit it, step-down the voltage (maybe in the case of the rapid-charge system in TFA, step-down only partially) charge the battery, and convert battery power to torque to drive the wheels. At each of those steps, you lose 10-30% of the energy you put into the system at the beginning of that step. Electric vehicles powered by non-renewable electric grid power will nearly always create more pollution overall than a similar payload gasoline powered vehicle with a properly operating current-tech catalytic converter. Without even worrying about what to do with the 400 lbs of extremely toxic spent batteries.
I guess that depends a bit on what you mean by "invest". All three of our kids are what the education industry calls "twice exceptional". That means they have high IQs and also some neurological issues. In other words, geekiness breeds true. But the practical impact is that we spend a lot of money on therapy and supplemental education for or kids, beyond the cost of the nanny. None of which is tax-deductible, and very little of which is covered by health insurance. In another 1-2 years, we'll be paying college expenses for the eldest. We take 15% for retirement savings off the top of our incomes, and are buying our house, but have no money to invest beyond that right now.
Lord Ender said "Don't forget: You get huge tax deductions for having children." Uh, no. You don't. Not in the US, anyway. Trust me. I have three children, and the maximum tax deductions and credits that were available to me (an engineer) and husband (another engineer) for them covered almost half of the money we pay our nanny. And a nanny is cheaper than either school-based after-school care or centers, when you have 3 kids to pay for. But then having two fairly-well-paid professionals (slightly over $100k each) in one tax-paying family triggered the AMT for us. AMT means you loose all those deductions for dependents, child care, state taxes, etc. So please, /.-ers, don't think that you'll be able to cover the cost of childcare out of the maximum $8000 / year (for 3 or more children) you *might* be eligible for in tax credits if you don't earn too much money.
Check out Tom Smith's wonderful song "Pygmalion 2.0" for a humorous and insightful look at humans, droids, sex and love. http://filkertom-itom.blogspot.com/2007/03/033-pygmalion-20.html People fall in love with their cars, boats, and computers all the time. Why would you expect them not to fall in love with a human-looking device which makes them feel fantastic?
Unfortunately, when my friend and I both tried to have our kids vaccinated for this, our (two different) health insurance companies both refused to make any contribution to vaccinating our boys, though they were perfectly happy to pay to for the shots for her daughter. But that covered shots for only one kid out of a combined 5.
The insurance companies claim it's because men are not harmed by being carriers of the virus. I might have excused the non-coverage if they rejected the claims based on the still-new, not-required nature of the vaccination. My home state (Michigan) is among those where a bill to require this vaccine for school attendance has been proposed (but voted down). I would happily support the requirement that both genders be vaccinated, if only to strongly reduce the incidence of infection for everyone. Just because men don't get cervical cancer is no reason to refuse coverage for something to prevent genital warts.
Anna