nuclear power is relatively safe now, but it is more expensive in the long run now than even natural gas electric

@newtboy
gonna have to disagree with ya there mate.

not so much on the speculation in regards to trump involvement,or some kind of capitulation with russia.there quite possibly be some co-ordination between the kremlin and the trump administration.trumps alleged ties with putin may all be true,but until i see some actual evidence,that is all it will ever be;speculation.

and i think chomsky's criticism is a valid one.
the "russia russia russia" drum beating is reminiscent of the republicans and their meth-induced media barrage of "benghazi benghazi benghazi",and even after their precious political whipping tool had been debunked,they STILL beat that drum.

and of course it is hypocritical of the US government to cry about political election interference! america has been interfering with other,sovereign countries democratic elections for decades!

because here in murica' we like our allies to be either be run by despotic leaders,or rigid theocracies,because democracies are hard to manipulate and control.can't be bribing an entire citizenry now can we? we like our foreign allies like we like our meat,juicy and tender and easy pickings.

now i am not here to defend putin.the man is a brutal authoritarian,who may appear to some as a russian patriot,but i just see a ruthless and saavy political player who appeases the only constituency that matters to him.the russian oligarchs,and they OWN that fucking joint.

but it was NATO who began to encroach on russian borders,not the other way around.in fact,as early as the 80's we began that encroachment.we lied to gorbachev,who was removed as president in shame,to be replaced by yeltsin.who was america's pick for their own little tool of the kremlin.

russia's military build-up has been a direct response to our ever-increasing wars of aggression in the middle east.putin has stated so publicly.

russia's biggest export is oil and natural gas,and russia pretty much is the sole provider for all of europe.with our wars in the middle east,and now qatar aggressively seeking to push through their own oil and gas pipeline to sell to europe.(what?you thought yemen and syria were about civil wars and terrorists?).

what did you THINK russia was going to do?
sit back and let their only major export be challenged?

and now that trump,like the buffoon he is,publicly stated that if the baltic states are not willing to pay their fair share towards NATO,then they will be removed.opening the door for putin.

poor latvia...

but lets waste all this time on "russia russia russia",while ignoring the larger implications of a fucking world war.

did russia manipulate US elections?
possibly..probably..
was the trump administration complicit?
possibly..probably..

is their any evidence beside speculation,and coincidence?
nope.

chomsky makes a valid point.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-shifrinson-russia-us-nato-deal--20160530-snap-story.html

"The grid" means connected services, like grid electricity, city water, city sewer, piped in natural gas, wired phone, and wired internet.
Living off the grid means living where these services aren't available (or just not using them). It does not mean living like the Hamish or living as if you lived in the pre-industrial revolution era.

I can't fathom why that annoys you. He didn't claim to be living primitively, that's a different guy (and he's awesome).

I find it... grotesque, that many of the "disenfranchised" men voted for Trump, even though he is only going to line the pockets of the few. That is what Trump does, he is only in this for himself and/or people like him; he is a cult of personality & a greedy businessman completely disconnected from reality. How he actually connected with such a vast ocean of morons is mind-blowing - 1) Fuck the two party system 2) Fuck the Electoral College.

I like that Chomsky points out that these people don't like being talked down to. But, if they would have opened their fucking ears - they would have heard Sanders talking about the MIDDLE CLASS, over and over and over again. Sanders actually wanted to do something for the majority ---- along with these IDIOTS --- that voted in Trump. Whom, yes, is going to get them temporary coal jobs and natural gas jobs...

Is that what they really want? Some shitty job that will ruin the environment so badly that their children will be living in a glass bubble with Amazon teleporting breakfast, lunch & dinner as they look out across black skies, thinking the images of the world they see on Google are a fantasy?

Truck runs on natural gas. http://6abc.com/news/video-garbage-truck-explodes-in-mercer-county/1175238/

Your video, Massive Methane Leak-Ecological Disaster In California, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

It's sounding like this is a 'storage facility' where natural gas, methane, and other gasses are pumped to 'storage tanks' over 8000 ft below ground (and I'm fairly certain the term 'storage tank' means 'a gas pocket we sucked dry 45 years ago', not an actual tank. This means this is not the only 'tank' at the facility, and blowing one up isn't a good idea, blowing them ALL up would be pretty disastrous, and probably release far more gas than the current disaster.

BS A natural gas leak.

ITS NATURAL...............................made by mother fucking earth. It happens to be stored by man and now its leaking out into the air. Like a fucking earthquake couldn't do this ?

Sorry to jump the thread here; not sure if dubious is the word either, but pretty amateur and more fear mongering with no supporting data.

First, the suggestion that no more reactors should be built because people use them to aid in production of nuclear weapons. Well kids, that ship has already sailed: In June 2014, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported that nine nations (United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea) possessed approx. 16,300 nuclear weapons in total. So someone builds one or 10 more? Yeah, that will matter. Someone needs to read up on the concept of deterrence.

When talking about waste: "Germany has literally tons of the stuff just laying around" - well, that's just horseshit.

Regarding accidents and number of deaths due to nuclear reactors: "devastating disasters every 30 years" - devastating? Come on, people died, but compared to other sources of energy, according to the WHO, it is by far the safest. Consider:

Energy Source Mortality Rates; Deaths/yr/TWh

Coal - world average, 161
Coal - China, 278
Coal - USA, 15
Oil - 36
Natural Gas - 4
Biofuel/Biomass - 12
Peat - 12
Solar/rooftop - 0.44-0.83
Wind - 0.15
Hydro - world, 0.10
Hydro - world*, 1.4
Nuclear - 0.04

* Includes the 170,000 deaths from the failure of the Banquao Reservoir Dam in China in 1975

So, if not dubious, certainly cheap and pedantic.

Japan was supposed to buy us out too at one point, don't get your hopes up.

I am not saying that the US is a great place vs the rest of the world, I am just saying that you don't get the 'utopia' that people claim Norway to be without huge sacrifices by the people and also being a net exporter of natural resources.

Norway has one of the highest tax rates and one of the highest VAT rates in the world. They are net exporters of Oil, Natural Gas, and Seafood, almost all profits of which are nationalized by the government and rerouted into pension funds.

They are one of the highest cost of living places in the world and that is not factoring the taxes, but goods and services. If you take your family out to eat and spend 100 dollars, you are going to pay an additional 25 in just taxes.

The society is conditioned to believe in Jante's Law, so this suits them because everyone is 'equal'. However, with the immigration rates rising from poorer EU countries, there are cracks appearing in the laissez faire attitude. Protests and even a mass atttack have happened once people realized that they are now supporting people that are lower than them.

The point is, you can't simply point to the nordic socialist countries and say "Oh, what a wonderful place, if only everyone was so enlightened!" because it won't work without a specific set of circumstances. Most countries don't have those circumstances and must forge ahead in their own path. Additionally, almost no other country has the unique set of challenges that the US faces due to our position as the supposed world leader. Personally, I've long wished we would back off and let the rest of you all figure out stuff on your own. I think, however, that it wouldn't be long before one or more countries would come bitching to us to fix something.

"The letter to the Environmental Protection Agency from Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma carried a blunt accusation: Federal regulators were grossly overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in his state.

But Mr. Pruitt left out one critical point. The three-page letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered to him by Devon’s chief of lobbying."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/us/politics/energy-firms-in-secretive-alliance-with-attorneys-general.html

Yet the word "corruption" makes no appearance within the article...

Gas leak. Before reading the BBC News article I thought it might have been natural gas leaking into the drains, but they suggested it was a propylene gas pipeline from a nearby petrochemical complex.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28619502

For me, it was Bugs Bunny where one episode had someone vacuuming and they went over the heat vent and sucked burning coals from the basement furnace into the vacuum and basically set the house on fire. I never went near the heat vents with the vacuum until much later in my life. Never mind that we had natural gas heating and not coal.

Lets not forget that currently the nation spends a great deal of money on simple yearly road repair, and that is only short term as most roads need to be entirely re-milled and replaced once or twice a decade.

I think this technology may well begin to seep into more liberal states, as others have said with parking lots (especially electric vehicle recharging stations) or perhaps with big and wealthy businesses like fast food chains. If the tiles can stay relatively undamaged over decades, eventually it would become very cost effective.

Yes melting snow would be improbable until perhaps there were enough roads connected to say the national grid. But everything else is not only probably but plausible.

I really hope this technology is implemented, slowly but surely. But I fear things like this won't become a viable alternative until the world is so tapped for oil and natural gas that there IS no alternative but to go with solar and wind technologies as a primary resource. Sadly America is woefully behind much of Europe. Some nations in Eur-Asia plan to be oil free within 100 years. The US will be mired in wars over the last scraps of the limited resources by then if something doesn't change.