[pp.int.general] Energy taxation? /was Re: Basic income - how does that fit into the pirate ideology?

[Cal.]

On 18 July 2013 10:58, Zbigniew Łukasiak <zzbbyy at gmail.com> wrote:
> This gets a bit off-topic - but it is quite interesting how raising
> energy and transportation prices seem to be a kind of political taboo
> in many countries.  I for one would welcome petrol prices high enough
> to reduce traffic, congestion is a pure waste.

Every freakin' human activity needs energy. It's very close to raising
breathable air prices.

And as of today, only means capable of sustaining our energetic needs
are: coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear. (Yeah, I hate that anti-nuclear
blabber [that. is. an. issue. here.], it spreads utter lies about
renewables having that much power capacity, it makes govts burn coal.
Which is waaaay worse.)

When making such arguments, always remember that sun irradiates ≈
1kW/(m^2), and the most powerful wind turbine maxes out at 5 MW. And a
country like italy peaks at ≈ 50 GW (Yep, 10k wind turbines, assuming
you have infinite wind. That is just not going to happen.)