So economically viable if the government subsidizes the construction. I would be happy for my tax money to go to a project that gets 70% of electricity generation off of carbon.
If the economics are impossible, how is it that France currently runs 70% of its grid on nuclear and has electricity costs substantially lower than the EU average?
> The rise of variable renewable sources means that there is an increasing need for electricity grid flexibility, the IEA notes. “Robust electricity networks, dispatchable power plants, storage technologies and demand response measures all play vital roles in meeting this,” it says.
Which is why it's not really the cheapest. Fossil fuel and nuclear power don't have these associated costs.
I would agree that such a situation would be a problem, but I don't agree that it applies. Trump violated Twitter's TOS plenty before he was president, and Twitter didn't ban him then, so I don't think they were doing this in fear of retribution.
This would be an issue, but I dispute point 1 because the leaders of the tech industry would very much like to wash their hands of politics and be seen as neutral platforms so they can save money on moderation. Most of these same platforms pretty much had an anything goes unless it's illegal attitude from the time they were started until a few years ago when they started getting a lot of political blowback and blame for "helping Trump" by not moderating more.
1. Democratic party threatens tech industry with heavy regulation because they don't censor to the degree that the Democrats want.
2. Democratic party takes over control of the government.
3. Major companies in the tech industry work together to boot a competitor, and political opponent of the Democratic party off the internet.
At what point is this a legit first amendment issue? The government can't just pressure private companies to do things the government can't do and then hide behind the fact that they are private entities, right?
Yes it is legal with the caveat that it has to be in favor of black, hispanic, or native americans. And that racial discrimination is allowed to extend to much more tangible things like hiring/promotions and university admissions. However, I don't think targeted investment like this is discrimination, though. In this case it is legitimately an undeserved market and potentially a gain for Apple to go after it.
Prosecutions aren't something that should be done by mob demand. In the case of Breona Taylor the police were returning fire. You can question whether they should have served that warrant, but you will never in a million years convict someone of murder when they were returning fire.
At the time the constitution was written "everyone" in any given industry was thousands of small businesses each of which was only subject to the public pressure of the people in the town in which they were based. So it was literally unthinkable that a whole industry could deny service to one person. I bet if the founders had envisioned an entity as powerful as Amazon, they would have written in constraints for private entities too.
When the government is threatening regulation against the private-sector because these companies don't censor, then I think this could potentially be considered a 1st amendment issue.
But since this action appears coordinated across major platforms and likely in response to political pressure from the now in power Democratic party (Amazon is being paid for hosting, so no advertisers fleeing issue), I think there now may be a real first amendment issue.