Osiris30

The drug (naltrexone) is not really a "cure" - it is part of a treatment method (used extensively in Finland) which has been termed "The Sinclair Method" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sinclair_Method.

Is the point of the article really asking government to make bets on industry (like your Japanese example)? Or is that government needs to back employment-absorbing industries like manufacturing (like China today, and Japan / Korea / Taiwan in post-WW2 period)?

"...you fail you've got to find another career"...

I think thats true in a textbook theoretical sense - but not in practice. There is very little 'hard failure' which causes a VC to lose everything. Their incentive structure is not that dis-similar to a government official. The gov't official has far less upside, for probably similar downside (short-term embarrassment).

Secondly - there are many cases where governments have picked winners - e.g. EU (or EC at the time) choice of 'GSM' as a mobile standard. Of course, we don't know what the counter-factual here is - what would have happened without GSM having being made a Europe-wide standard...

Yes, a toy.

http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html

http://www.paulgraham.com/organic.html

Very nice - has he updated?

Already discussed a year ago. See here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9755742

This follows the large profile in Bloomberg in Dec 2015 on George Hotz autonomous driving plans:

"George Hotz is taking on Google and Tesla by himself" http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-george-hotz-self-driv...

John Hempton doesn't give a reason why he feels "service quality is going down". I assume due to lack of drivers?

As to the twitter link he pointed to - am surprised, given the obvious PR and political blowback this would expose them to, why they are going down this path? Is it related to above - i.e they are having trouble attracting drivers?

Agreed. At first I thought it was an old April Fools joke. How could they have miniaturised a jet engine to that size? And what is his and the teams background?

Look up High Voltage DC. Answer - It is hard - but not insurmountable. Technology and financing is readily available. It's lack of will, vision and integrating policies across national boundaries that's the problem.

“Let’s Build a Global Power Grid - IEEE Spectrum”

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/lets-build-...

Comprehensive annual report on the state of various deployable grid storage technologies - and answer to your questions here:

http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2016_01_21_how_much_does_storage_re...

True - but it is also following the same cost reduction curve as Solar.

See this for a comprehensive annual survey by Lazard on storage technologies and costs

http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2016_01_21_how_much_does_storage_re...

And these are some solutions for the duck curve ramp up problem - how you teach he duck to fly:

https://www.raponline.org/featured-work/teach-the-duck-to-fl...

Correct. But in large enough grid there are many non-fossil ways available using existing, deployable tech to integrate a high-penetration of non-dispatchable renewables.

For example - utility scale storage (pumped hydro); distributed storage (home batteries and Vehicle-to-grid battery Ev cars); demand-side management; power-to-gas (hydrogen); and geographic grid integration.

See more at

http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/re_futures/

https://www.raponline.org/featured-work/teach-the-duck-to-fl...

http://cleantechnica.com/2016/03/02/base-load-power-is-a-myt...

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/08/08/rmi-blows-lid-baseload-p...

I keep a close look at the economic of rooftop pricing in TX - it's still not profitable switching but getting close.

Cons: - Retail cost of electricity is already v low in most of TX (Houston, Dallas) - so it's hard to compete. - not much competition in the solar rooftop installation space (due to first point above) - No net metering policies in Houston, Dallas.

Pros - High solar yield

Agreed- like a 3 seater with a bit of luggage... Like a car "pod" for city use only.

...If this works - one of the apparent benefits is scale. Water-tower, and other water-pressure based systems are hard to engineer above 1-10MW (I think).... The benefit of this system is it seems to be able to scale to 100MW+ sizes. Which is what one needs to provide effective frequency regulation, smoothing and backup to a utility-scale solar/wind park. Of course, we don't know what the costs are yet...

I think it is fully automated. See the demo video's here

https://vimeo.com/39364772

https://vimeo.com/46460725

Yeah we don't know what the actual costs will be apart from their claim that its 60% cheaper than pumped-hydro. However, having done some run-of-the-river hydro projects - even a small 1MW mini-hydro (which is basically roughly a pumped hydro in reverse) requires 2 years of civil engineering for the penstock and weir (the water channel). I would imagine that 1-10MW pumped hydro systems would cost and take a lot longer to engineer. Plus pumped hydro is very geography/topography specific.

I don't have hard data - but wouldn't engineering a rail system not be as hard, and need less civil engineering work?

There are some demo videos here http://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11524958/energy-storage-rail

It used to be about $10k/mile for the hardest routes in the US - where they would have to literally widen t-junctions, increase bridge height clearance etc.

I also got most of my info back in the day by "Jerome A Paris" thread on Eurotribune - sadly that forums is no longer active now.

I think Krugman was trying to make the case for why many smart people don't seem to understand how the theory of Comparative (as opposed to absolute) Advantage works.

I don' think he was arguing that that theory is the be all and end all of trade policy. The theory is a abstract model of the world - it is a useful guide like all abstract models but does not capture the world in all its complexity.

Both theoretically and practically, over the last 30 years, there is increasing evidence that Free Trade effects - like everything - depends on context and policies.

Krugman himself writes alot about this on his blog. Can't search for everything right now - but here is an example from a few weeks ago:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/20/101-boosterism/

He has also been consistently lukewarm on the TPP trade deal exactly because of these issues:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/this-is-not-a-tr...

"One thing that should be totally obvious, however, is that it’s off-point and insulting to offer an off-the-shelf lecture on how trade is good because of comparative advantage, and protectionists are dumb."

Well argued rebuttal and counter by John Kirk at Techpinions

https://techpinions.com/apple-shouldnt-cross-that-road-till-...

LendUp etc try and tackle this space. But I would think the issue for tech startup, is that the people and families in most need of it, will not have the data history for a big data solution?

Dubai Nov 2014 - $58.40 per MWHr. See [1]

Austin July 2015 - $57.10 per MWh. See [2]

Nevada July 2015 - $38.7 per MWh. See [3]

Mexico April 2016 - $35.44 per MWh. See [4]

[1] http://cleantechnica.com/2014/11/29/dubai-shatters-solar-tar...

[2] http://cleantechnica.com/2015/07/02/worlds-cheapest-solar-po...

[3] http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/buffett-stri...

[4] http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Solar-Stuns-in-M...

Misinformed. Please see my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11524691

and these links would be helpful

http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/re_futures/

http://cleantechnica.com/2016/03/02/base-load-power-is-a-myt...

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/08/08/rmi-blows-lid-baseload-p...

http://rameznaam.com/2016/01/31/how-far-can-renewables-go-pr...

No, not at all. see my comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11520789

Solar and wind is for the majority not subsidized in India.

What you are referring to is the Min of New and Renewable Energy offering a VGF "viability gap funding" for certain very large projects termed UMPPs (Ultra Mega Power Plants) of 1000-4000MW. These are few and take-up has been poor due to the execution complexities.

India is adding 15-20k MW of Solar and 10k MW of Wind per year - the vast majority of which is completely unsubsidized. State electricity distributors tender for plants, and private developers bid a tariff they feel will support their ROI.

Apart from the US and its PTC structure, most of the huge capacity additions happening in wind and solar in Europe, Asia, Africa, China and India are happening from pure private unsubsidized auctions for power.

Yes, all solar installations are not cheaper than all coal installations.

But conversely, all coal is not cheaper than all solar!

That applies globally and in India.

The point is that solar costs are declining every year, by 10% p.a. In many sunny places it is already at parity or below (eg Arizona, Mexico, Rajasthan and Gujarat in India, Mexico). We have already seen several bids this year at US¢ 3/Kwh ($30/MWh). $20/MWh is in sight - that would be well under the cheapest coal.

This link is useful summary http://cleantechnica.com/2016/04/15/why-energy-experts-are-s...

(And none of this accounts for the massive unpriced carbon + health externality of coal plants).

Coal is staying at best flat + whatever the fuel cost.

Every time Solar and Wind and other renewables get mentioned - people get very confused over what is 'baseload', 'intermittency', why those terms are important and the whole "oh but the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow argument.

See my comment further below https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11520789

There are very little subsidies for Wind and Solar in India. MNRCE subsidies are for specific projects. The vast majority are tenders or auctions. Developers bid a tarrif whatever they feel their Return on Assets can bear.

See here for more https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11520789

No. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11520789