Norway ran on 100% renewables for like 80 years, but no one cares.
Only reason we’re not at 100% anymore is because politicians don’t find it a priority to be self-sufficient and it’s much better to sell Norwegian renewable electricity to Europe for a profit, then buy back dirty electricity and let the consumers in Norway pay a cable transit tax to the government.
See, now you get to sell the energy twice, and both times at a higher rate.
Plenty of known loopholes for tax avoidance.
Used to work for a company that made killer profit, but 85-90% of it was funneled to the parent company to pay for the leverage of the PE investors who bought the company for 10x their EBITDA. Say we made 100 million EBITDA, the official result was around 10-15 million, and was the basis for our taxation.
All this money was paid as various fees and licenses and was calculated into the budget the year before. We had specific goals that we needed to hit and, and bonus payment was based on these goals. Our collective bonuses was a drop in the ocean compared to the result of the company.
The parent company in Germany then had at least three levels of holding companies, all incorporated in Luxembourg, between them and the owners.
Was a fun place to work when we got sold as suddenly there were som extra rounds of bonuses to go around as carrots for us to stay on during the sale, and even more stay-on bonuses for those who staid on after the sale.
According to my boss at the time - the perk of being in a PE backed company.
Wouldn’t be surprised if they’re up for sales again next year.
No law against playing poker without looking at your cards. Chances are you’ll loose.
Your choice. Same with assuming what a topic is and arguing straw men.
Who would you elect after being displaced into the world’s largest prison by someone who took over your home 60 years ago?
Not defending the actions of Hamas, but such an outcome was more or less inevitable. Hate breeds hate.
Same MO as always. If you’re not with Israel (the country) you are anti-Semitic, have forgotten about the Holocaust (which you should feel ashamed of letting happen), and support terrorism.
Principally agree. If we want to make a dent we need to be going into carbon capture mode - as most likely we’re already seeing cascading effects from the emissions already caused. Permafrost melting and releasing methane, the ocean warming up and holding less CO2.
But the numbers you use are horrid.
The average EV weighs maybe around 300 kg more than a comparable fossil car. Sure, the Hummer EV weighs a fuckton, but a regular Hummer ICE isn’t exactly a Lotus either.
The other negative trend in weight is the SUV-ification of society, and if you swap a Civic for an iX you get double padding.
Lifetime emissions cast a much bigger shadow than production emissions and most EV’s are climate positive one year in (average driving length, average electricity mix).
All of that said; don’t buy an EV to save the planet. Buy an EV because it’s a better car and better for your wallet. Depending on a multitude of factors these may not hold true for you yet, and you should probably just keep driving what you drive.
People focus way too much on the downsides of EV’s like charging infrastructure issues or waiting to charge.
All vehicles have tradeoffs and just because you’re used to filling petrol doesn’t mean it’s a pleasant activity. I’ve spent way too much time freezing at the petrol pump in the winter.
I actually did the math and found I’ve been spending way too much time at the petrol pumps. Driving electric I plug in at home. Takes a few seconds just like plugging in your phone.
Going out for petrol takes ten minutes. Driving on trips my bladder is still the weakest link, but every now and then charging adds a few minutes here and there, sometimes more.
Estimated net average time savings per year over the last four years is about 3-4 hours driving electric instead of ICE. That includes an hour less filling in freezing conditions.
But I digress.
TLDR; Climate is fucked, but EV’s can be good fun. Don’t feel obliged to buy one just yet, wait until it makes sense.
Welcome to modern CV-padding.
Write a blog post about something (basic) you did.
Never mind that you just did it to have something to write about.
Go to conferences to talk about the blog post.
And the next time you change jobs you can pad your resume with all this stuff as if it makes you special.
A lot of companies actively encourage this behavior to market themselves as to better attract candidates.
And then a lot of companies indirectly encourage it through both their hiring process and possibly even their job ads.
Now, don’t take this the wrong way; there’s plenty of good talks at most conferences. There are people blogging about worthwhile software projects too, but there is a high volume of low effort content which really doesn’t add anything.
I’ve even been on both sides of the argument I’m making. Stuck listening to someone who doesn’t really know the topic, and stuck giving a talk about something I don’t really know enough about.
Carrot or stick?
Now, you see - that’s a completely different argument.
And also validates my point, all speed limits are tradeoffs.
Don’t get me wrong though, 20mph/30kph limits are commonplace where I live and honestly surprised to hear that it wasn’t everywhere.
For improved safety in the future we’ll need better driving assistance systems in the cars, and finally to replace humans altogether.
If you follow that logic to its conclusion - 0 is the safest speed limit.
(Not trying to argue about the topic, just pointing out the obvious - all speed limits are a tradeoff)
My thoughts exactly.
Followed by that moment from the Sonic movie (or trailer at least) - “how are you still alive?”
I have no idea
Possibly an interesting catch-22 with regards to certain contracts’ requirements.
Ideas usually aren’t the problem.
Executing on an idea is though, and executing successfully on an idea is even harder.
As such it stands to reason that people with real business experience, connections and network are more likely to have success in executing an idea.
Chance of success is low. I think it was somewhere around 13% of startups that “make it” long enough to be deemed successful.
But it doesn’t mean they have better ideas, or as the headline suggests - “are more radical”.
“Mobile home dragged away” isn’t exactly an interesting part of this.
Yeah, uhm. The devastation is a bit worse than that…
A hydro power plant dam burst today (https://www.nrk.no/video/b946703e-6681-4520-8ca4-a0d0377d7a66), houses taken by mudslide or flood slides, houses and cars flooded, all major roads between the big cities, except one, is blocked or closed somewhere along the route.
Train tracks and a train bridge taken out. Roads wiped out.
They said in the beginning it was a “one in 25 years” flood, now it’s one in 500.
And it’s not really winds that are problematic, just the sheer amount of rain.
Change is hard, much better to keep doing something that doesn’t work.
Have to pave the road as we go. No turning back.
Plus the lawyers defending Trump must seriously be bottom feeders. It’s not the kind of lawyers that is good for society.
This is a horrible form of protest because it is likely to cause property damage as most people are completely blind and oblivious and will drive on their now deflated tires for a bit before realizing something is wrong.
That will likely ruin the tire and possibly also damage the rim.
Second, you have no idea who you hurt and the repercussions of it.
There’s no immediate “big car = bad person” logic that’s valid.
If you want to protest in a meaningful manner you should support politicians who want to increase taxes for fossil fuels.
There’s a reason the average engine size (and thus vehicle size) is lower in Europe, and it’s not small streets and parking spaces.
Obviously since giant cars never took off here we didn’t scale things to fit, but that’s a chicken and egg thing.
Reminds me of a joke from back in the day, can’t bother to update it:
President George W. and Colin Powell are drinking in a pub close Old Town Square in Prague. A guy walks in and asks the bartender,“Isn’t that Bush and Powell sitting over there?” The barman says, “Yep, that’s them.”
So the guy walks over and says, “Wow,this is a real honor. What are you guys doing in here?”
Bush says, “We’re planning WW III,” and the guy says, “Really? What’s going to happen?”
Bush says, “Well, we’re going to kill 40 million Iraqis this time and one blonde with big breasts.”
A little perplexed the guy exclaimed, “A blonde with big breasts? Why kill a blonde with big breasts?”
Bush turns to Powell, punches him on the shoulder and says, "See, smart ass?! I told you no one would worry about the 40 million Iraqis.
Something something “not supposed to join them”.