Except actual studies show that grids get *more* reliable when renewables are added. Funny thing about the sun, it doesn't go out all at once the way a 500MW coal plant does when a turbine overheats. Tesla's Big Battery in South Australia has compensated for several fossil-plant shutdowns much quicker than spinning reserve can--eventually they will be able to reduce the amount of spinning reserve in favor of batteries. But you're absolutely right, we don't have anything to worry about until we actually hit that 80% mark, and by that time we're likely to have even more solutions available.

Pure FUD. The writer (in the summary) lost all credibility when he said carbon capture tech is needed because current battery prices are too high. Funny thing, though, that renewables and batteries are already cheap enough to drive fossil plants out of business. Carbon capture is important, yes, but we need it to drive our emissions *negative* in the second half of this century. To get to net zero in the first half of the century, demolishing smokestacks is the fastest way.

The flag would simply be "Microsoft" and "Non-Microsoft", and priority would be given to existing non-Microsoft drivers over all Microsoft drivers. It would fix the specific problem indicated (overwriting non-Microsoft drivers during a Windows update) without creating any new ones. The other ranking criteria would still apply when comparing existing Microsoft drivers to new third party drivers, and you would still have to manually select when the rankings failed. But it would eliminate the overloading of the date field to control Windows update behavior.

The answer was already given earlier, though, that in today's networks, the networks selectively allocate RF channels only to the logical channels being viewed. The "tuner" is an active device that must request the channel you want from the router, and thus by necessity also includes the capability to perform selection.

One could imagine an application for a universal tuner under the customer's control that used said protocol to request logical channels, and a digital selector under the cable company's control that kept up with the channel hopping and blocked any RF signal that contained a forbidden logical channel. Such a selector would be rather complex and of no benefit to the cable company, so if they even built it, they would charge an arm and a leg for it.

They do exist. They are called cable boxes.

Ignoring the grammatical errors and typos, I assume the closer was supposed to be something like, "But right now, the only organizations actually using deep learning techniques are the ones who produce the big data in the first place, and they are using it for their own purposes. We have not yet reached the point where big data or deep learning are being commercialized by third parties."

On the bright side, once we are left with only one commercial broadband provider in the entire country, there will be absolutely NO illusion of competition anywhere in the country. Maybe then someone will fight for more options. Or just take their big fat lobbyist paycheck and go home.

Even though a new solar plant would turn a modest profit, utilities have no reason to build them because adding solar to the grid hurts the profits of their existing plants by a disproportionate amount. Unlike fossil power, the sun does not get more expensive during peak times of demand, and this has been shown to drive down spot prices and cut or eliminate the profits of existing peaker plants. This is partly an effect of the fixed-price subsidized power purchase agreements that solar farms are using now, but those agreements are designed to ensure utilities will even buy the solar energy at all, rather than exploit their existing plants.

Clean energy is approaching (and in some places has already reached) grid price parity even *without* rate or tax subsidies. Remember this is competing against the fossil industry, which is subsidized directly and indirectly to the tune of $5.2 trillion per year globally. When we finally put a price on carbon to reflect the harm fossil fuels do to public health and the environment, there will be no contest and only then utilities will voluntarily replace fossil plants en masse.

A rapid transition to clean energy would result in massive stranded assets, but in the end would mean far less of our GDP going to energy, pollution, and health care, and letting us invest in things like food, water, and education. Some utilities are forward-thinking, but most will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future by regulators--and the regulators can only achieve this if they have the social and political mandate to create a clean energy future. This is why I say that *large scale change* is only possible if significant changes in the social and political landscape occur.

I heartily support the construction of all nuclear plants that have an competitive lifecycle cost. I'm sure they will a fill a niche in the market that the currently endless flood of solar, wind, and grid-storage bids at a quarter the cost cannot possibly fill.

Sarcasm aside, take a look at some of the recent studies showing how to decarbonize electricity production in the next 20 to 40 years with no new research, and coincidentally, very little new nuclear capacity. The ONLY barriers are social and political--even now the economics are so compelling that every call for projects solicits more than regulators and utilities want to accept. In another 2-5 years, battery tech will invalidate every last excuse they have been using to discourage wind and solar, and the fuel-free future will finally take off.

They'll have to wait for their parents to die before they get those cushy floor-washing jobs. It's not like just anybody can push a mop around, 10 years of experience is absolutely required.

FTFY.

How about, "They had no idea burning all the oil in the ground would make half the species on the planet go extinct in 200 years"? New information demands new choices.

You can't "invent" cheaper tech--it only gets cheaper if you invest in mass-producing it. They gave up 3 years ago, and since then market forces have actually achieved price parity for renewables in a lot of the world. It wasn't any new "magic bullet" research that did it, but incremental improvements driven by economies of scale. Yes, government played a big role, but primarily as a driver of demand and investor in manufacturing.

The climate does not have time to wait for a new technology to be developed and go through the whole sequence of commercialization and commoditization. The solar panels, wind turbines and batteries we already have can do the job--and the more we build, the cheaper they get.. This is one place I wish market purists would get on board--put a price on carbon, and solutions will come out of the woodwork and plummet in price.

It's a numbers issue. There are more minimum wage jobs in the country than there are teenagers. Under your premise, the only two solutions are to increase the number of teenagers or reduce the number of jobs paying the minimum wage. Which one of those do you suggest we try? Because the only other option is to reject your premise entirely and raise the minimum wage to a living wage.

"[M]aking sure people aren't free loading" is NOT the problem. The problem is making sure that when "automation will have made our productivity and wealth generation sufficient that we can just provide everyone the resources they need" those resources are actually GIVEN to those who need them and not concentrated in the hands of, quite frankly, freeloading billionaires. The idea that any one person can be so productive that they deserve 1000x more reward than anyone else is absurd.