In the security guard story: I understand the point that the author is trying to make, but it falls short as the security guard adds value to the property owner by just being phsysically there.
By being present the chance of a robbery, vandalism etc is significantly reduced. In most countries the average guard is also not expected to actually intervene with a robbery and instead call police (the US might be an exception here in some cases).
True - however if you consider the true lifecycle from start to end (including construction costs, and decomissioning) nuclear is one of the most expensive power sources.
The costs for proper decomissioning of a nuclear plant and safe storage of the used materials are excluded in most analysis, as the time and cost horizon is so large.
On Solar Panels: there are some very interesting projects by large environmental service providers underway that use high pressure water or very high temperatures, to separate the glass from metal frame.
I think a similar hurdle are carbon fibres, you can't burn or shred them (carcinogenic micro fibres).
There are some interesting projects that try to clean and reuse the fibres through some kind of chemical baths..but most of the old e.g. wind turbines are just stored at a giant wind turbine graveyard right know.
From what I understand most of the real costs in terms hazardous disposal for nuclear is that nuclear plants are designed to be dirty. They are designed to create weapons fuel, which means lots more of highly radioactive byproducts that are unavoidable if you want these refined fissionable materials.
From what I’ve seen of modern designs that can’t be used for weapons programs, there’s significantly lower costs associated with disposal and decommissioning plants.
The worst cases that I remember were usually private equity / leveraged buy outs, that usually leads to a transfer of the production to EastAsia. That practice is not exclusive to Amercan companies though.
It will be interesting to see how the new Chinese investments will fear (Kuka) and if the German goverment will adopt a stronger stance on this take overs in the future.
There was a great documentary about it on a German TV channel (Arte) years ago. One name that got stuck is Märklin, since I know people who worked there. It wasn't the worst case though and the company still lives independently, after some rough times.
Not trying to say that either practice is good, but there tends to be a bias in perception, naturally. We're always the good guys and China is the evil 60s SciFi villain who's mostly just evil because he's evil, kind of.
On the startups relating to ground based mobility / autonomous vehicles:
Zendar
Interesting concept! I recently talked to an Engineer from Hella and it seems most of the big automotive suppliers seem to develop some kind of low cost radar units that can then be combined to generate rough point clouds.
Definitely willing to test the tech, if you have some spare units @ Zendar ;-)
MayMobility
If I get the concept right isn't the business modell very similiar to Door2Door, CleverShuttle (even though they are not yet using shuttles) or a number of London competitors ?
I personally agree with the underlying assumption from many of the players in that market that one of the easiest entries for autonomous vehicles designed for urban environments with a max speed of 30 - 40 km/h that only navigate in pre mapped and pre defined areas.
I think the most interesting paragraphs is this one:
"We (US) have created a society where you can sue anybody for anything," "That's (autonomous vehicles) going to happen first in Singapore or China, most likely China I would say, for a couple of reasons," Gurley said.
Unfortunately, in Europe we are moving to a similiar state of the society / law, with strong incentives for people to initiate lawsuits for personal compensation.
On a side note: I heard rumors that skiing in the US is so expensive, due to the high insurance premiums that the skiing resorts have to pay. Given the amounts of lawsuits that they are facing.
In the security guard story: I understand the point that the author is trying to make, but it falls short as the security guard adds value to the property owner by just being phsysically there.
By being present the chance of a robbery, vandalism etc is significantly reduced. In most countries the average guard is also not expected to actually intervene with a robbery and instead call police (the US might be an exception here in some cases).