Same reason a lot of third world countries have better cell systems than we do...they never had to compete with existing hard wire systems and the phones they were selling were peoples first phone.
US cell phone companies bet on lock-em-up/capture proprietary protocols, aka "free market bull " while the govts around the world agreed GSM make sense.
US high-speed internet sucks, slow and $$$, because BigNetworkCorp refuses to invest, being a monopoly or at best a non-compete duopoly, in all the major regions.
Maybe you can design us a system that overcomes the differences in population density, line lengths, and bandwidth.
even in big cities, fiber is rare and very expensive.
Based on population density, it's 10 times more material and labor in the USA vs. Japan.
Will you ever stop talking out your ass?
the sooner the west move to renewable energy instead of relying on goat ers for energy, who then use that money to buy govt assets to own our asses....
Is English a second language for you?
was posting in a rush...what i meant to say is, west continue to buy goat ers , who then spends that money diversifying their investments into govt privatized assets to own our asses when their oil runs out...
dont u hate it when govt stops funding or investing into renewable energy to stop the emergence of a new industry that creates jobs and , they shut that down to protect govt pension plans who are heavily invested into energy companies nothing to see here.... and then they go re-open that industry talking out of their asses they just created x amount of jobs.....
Why should the government be finding it at all?
Apparently you think our Uncle Sam is required to take care of us cradle to grave. I think such en lement mentality is appalling, and anti-USA.
Winds of Change
Scare-mongering claims about Texas' electric grid capacity haven't yet played out, despite record-setting winds.
Last month as Texans were enjoying warm, spring-like weather, the statesmashed wind energy records. Over the course of a day, a strong southerly flow of wind swept across West Texas, sending turbines into a spinning frenzy. For about 20 hours, wind energy produced more than a third of the electricity for most of Texas.
At its peak, it was providing 45 percent.
Yet, the electric grid held up, contrary to some scaremongering claims.
In the last two years, conservative activists and politicians have claimed that the Clean Power Plan — the Obama administration’s new carbon regulations — might cause problems with the electric grid that “could quickly escalate into a regional blackout.”
Ted Cruz, for example, called the policy a “lawless and radical attempt to destabilize the nation’s energy system.”
In Texas, those trends have led to the shutdown of coal plants and the construction of new natural gas, wind and solar facilities. The electric grid has so far weathered the changes remarkably well. The February wind record, however, goes one step further in challenging the sky-is-falling rhetoric from those opposed to the Clean Power Plan. It demonstrates that
the grid is not only capable of absorbing a lot of wind energy, but that it can do so for sustained periods of time.
http://www.texasobserver.org/wind-energy-records/
That's now to say the Texas grid doesn't need investments and improvements, but only to say, at least, that Kray Lying Mother er Kruz is a bag.
Sure, when the primary power is fossil fuel, and it has a quick ramp-up from idle.
Wind is a poor solution for the Northwest where hydro power cannot be so easily throttled. We have plenty of wind here, but no where to ship the electricity to with the current infrastructure. The hydro power is plenty and with wind also, the reservoirs overflow since there is no place to send the extra power. Now BPA (Bonneville Power Administration) is upgrading it's direct HVDC system to Los Angeles so they can send more electricity there, but until then, new wind projects are on hold.
I think we are now finding that a lot of the arguments put forth by "conservatives" on renewables are really just vacuous bull made up by people who, unsurprisingly, are paid to make up by fossil fuel companies.
Cruz, for all his "free-market" cred has been offering just those kinds of arguments.
Because that is the government's job, i.e. to do investing for the greater good.
The problem is that you have entrenched interests fighting to retain their market share, despite the fact that the economy would be provably better off in the long run for everybody else.
When that happens, nursing new advantageous technologies and sectors into life doesn't happen. The average person who would be a little bit better off for having cheap renewables, isn't going to be funding huge lobbying efforts.
Governments can and should, provide incubators for companies and sectors. Let them develop a bit, take the training wheels off, and then let the free-market make the ultimate call.
We all have a common interest in that, and governments are supposed to advance that.
That is why.
No, the arguments by conservatives are based on reality, of not wanting more tax dollars needed to support someone's pet agenda.
Let a technology stand on it's own merits, without subsidies.
That can be done with tax breaks. Just don't use subsidies. If tax breaks aren't enough, then the technology isn't ready.
not ready for prime time:
http://www.theguardian.com/environme...e-energy-alonePortugal kept its lights on with renewable energy alone for four consecutive days last week in a clean energy milestone revealed by data analysis of national energy network figures.
Electricity consumption in the country was fully covered by solar, wind and hydro power in an extraordinary 107-hour run that lasted from 6.45am on Saturday 7 May until 5.45pm the following Wednesday, the analysis says.
News of the zero emissions landmark comes just days after Germany announced that clean energy had powered almost all its electricity needs on Sunday 15 May, with power prices turning negative at several times in the day – effectively paying consumers to use it.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce joins anti-solar crusade
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the latest conservative group to start spreading anti-solar messages. In an email sent to supporters on Wednesday, the chamber attacks net metering, a policy in place in many states that pays people with solar panels on their roofs for the electricity they feed into the grid. The group also posted a video on YouTube last week making its anti–net metering case. This is fairly new territory for the chamber, according to energy regulation experts.
In its email, the group warns: “While your neighbor is receiving a credit (in the form of a reduced electricity bill) for putting excess energy back on the electricity grid, these outdated net metering policies overlook the costs to use, maintain, and update the grid. So, who is actually paying those costs? You — and everyone else!”
There is actually some truth to this. But the problem with the chamber’s analysis is that it ignores the positive effects of rooftop solar — most importantly, that it reduces the need for dirty, fossil fuel–based energy that causes air pollution and worsens climate change.
Here’s a more fair way to paint the situation: Electric utilities are using outdated technologies that poison our air and destabilize our climate. Who is actually paying for those costs? You — and everyone else!
We reported on Tuesday about the utilities’ trade association, the Edison Electric Ins ute, feigning concern for consumers who could be ripped off by unscrupulous solar companies.
The Chamber of Commerce’s new campaign takes a different approach by heaping blame on solar consumers. But it’s all part of the same big effort by conservative groups and dirty energy companies to kneecap the solar industry, any way they can.
http://grist.org/climate-energy/u-s-...solar-crusade/
There all s paid by BigCarbon
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...apest-resourceThe amount of electricity generated using solar panels stands to expand as much as sixfold by 2030 as the cost of production falls below competing natural gas and coal-fired plants, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
Solar plants using photovoltaic technology could account for 8 percent to 13 percent of global electricity produced in 2030, compared with 1.2 percent at the end of last year, the Abu Dhabi-based industry group said in a report Wednesday. The average cost of electricity from a photovoltaic system is forecast to plunge as much as 59 percent by 2025, making solar the cheapest form of power generation “in an increasing number of cases,” it said.
Renewables are replacing nuclear energy and curbing electricity production from gas and coal in developed areas such as Europe and the U.S., according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. California’s PG&E Corp. is proposing to close two nuclear reactors as wind and solar costs decline. Even as supply gluts depress coal and gas prices, solar and wind technologies will be the cheapest ways to produce electricity in most parts of the world in the 2030s, New Energy Finance said in a report this month.
Fossil fuels are subsidised 6:1 over renewables. Fossil fuels pay nothing for the destructive externalities they impose on others and the environment. And fossil fuels have the massive advantage of market en bency with amortised assets. Guess what - fossil fuels were subsidised heavily in the nascent stages. Your argument holds not one drop of water.
And even with all that, wind today is roughly the same installation cost as gas, and PPAs are being signed for solar farms at 4c/kWh, cheaper than anything.
Renewables are the future of the global economy. Anyone who can't see that is a ing idiot.
PS I'm not rejoining the political forum. I actually just came to see if any of you were going to vote for Trump. I'm not surprised that some of you are, but it does surprise me that you would be comfortable with handing over command of your military to him. I can tell you that most of the rest of the world is very uncomfortable with that idea.
Also, a strange thank you to boutons, Cowboy, and Cobra (in no particular order): debating you on topics like climate change and renewable energy back in the early 2000s forced me to properly research these subject (and many more). I eventually went back to school to study human ecology and found my true calling as a sustainability educator and consultant. We probably still disagree on most things, but you helped me to define the realities. I've gone on to educate thousands of people at tech and university about sustainability, and done thousands of home and small business energy audits to boot. You played a small but significant part in making that happen - thanks again.
Oh, and check your heads.
You need to stop talking out your ass. A complete lie.
Fossil fuels are subsidised 6:1 over renewables.
http://www.ibtimes.com/us-fossil-fue...pledge-2180918According to the report -- compiled by Oil Change International and U.K.-based think tank Overseas Development Ins ute -- national subsidies to oil, gas and coal producers amount to $20.5 billion annually in the U.S., with almost all of those being received in the form of tax or royalty breaks. Federal subsidies amount to $17.2 billion annually, while subsidies in a number of oil-, gas- and coal-producing states average $3.3 billion annually.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...urt-renewablesFossil fuels are reaping $550 billion a year in subsidies and holding back investment in cleaner forms of energy, the International Energy Agency said.
Oil, coal and gas received more than four times the $120 billion paid out in incentives for renewables including wind, solar and biofuels, the Paris-based ins ution said today in its annual World Energy Outlook.
WC once again wishcasting for his oilco overlords.
Thanks Fuzzy. There are also reports from the IEA on this topic. Fossil fuels are massively subsidised. Cobra talking out arse due to cognitive dissonance as usual. Bye bye.
US Wind Energy Prices At “Rock-Bottom Levels,” Says Berkeley Lab
Wind energy prices in the United States “are at rock-bottom levels” and continue to remain attractive to utility and commercial purchasers, according to a new US-centric wind energy report.
Prime among these conclusions is confirmation that wind prices are at an all time low, with
newly built wind projects in the US averaging around 2¢/kWh
thanks to technology advancements and cost reductions across the wind industry.
What’s interesting is the role that bigger turbines are having on wind project performance, with the average capacity of wind turbines installed in the US growing 180% to 2.0 MW, and an average hub height increasing by 47%.
Technology advancements as a whole have increased the industry’s overall performance, as structures become taller and more economically efficient, blades become more efficient, and the mechanics of a turbine similarly increase project performance. Increased rotor diameters are a particular technological improvement which is having a dramatic impact on wind project capacity.
All this technological advancement has been paralleled by increases in the manufacturing process of the self-same technologies, which has helped drop wind turbine pricing by 20% to 40%. Wind projects built in 2015 had an average installed cost of $1,690/kilowatt(kW), down $640/kW from the temporary peak in 2009 and 2010.
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/08/18/...eanTechnica%29
While the USA is essentially empty (compared to Europe with its much greater offshore wind production) and available for wind turbines, there is still the huge, shallow continental shelf off the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.
You need to get out more Boo. Texas has thousands of them.
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