batpangolin

The claim that 'one can be subtracted from the other' is a straw man. The words 'Equivalent of 97%' are right there in the headline.

Are you suggesting that fusion is a close-to-viable technology which has been held back because it hasn't had enough research resources spent on it?

Yes, in fact the 'jobs split' between Scotland and England is probably more in Scotland's favor than any putative split of the oilfields after Scottish independence would be.

There is a concentration of oil infrastructure in Scotland and oilfields which would be in English territorial waters are serviced from Scotland.

I don't see the problem with this number. Scotland (seen as a separate energy economy) sometimes exports energy to England and Wales, sometimes imports it. Scotland's production of renewable energy, considered in total MWh, represents 97% of its consumption of all electrical energy. Clearly, in dollar value, the number is smaller since they usually export at times of low prices and import at times of higher prices. That isn't the comparison that's being made.

But these applications will appear.

Lots of things that we currently do were designed on the basis that power supply and demand were predictable and slowly-changing. Now we will see technologies evolve on the basis that unpredictable power supply is very cheap and predictable power supply can be quite expensive. That's fine.

For a mathematician the suggestion that 1 might be a prime is on a par with a suggestion that a circle is technically a type of triangle.

I think there were two fears. One is that you might want to stay in your house for a long time without having to go and get groceries. Either because you are quarantining, or because you're very afraid of catching a dangerous virus if you go out. Having plenty of food in the house could be the difference between having to take a risk and avoiding that risk.

Secondly I think a lot of people worried, rationally or not, about a 'breakdown of society'. If there is enough death and disease then maybe everything stops working. People don't go to work, transport and food production break down, there is looting and widespread lawlessness, and so on. Perhaps it's very hard to get food, or impossible to get some foods, or some form of government rationing starts. In that case having a stockpile could be very valuable.

This sounds more like a fantasy based on questionable ideas of karma or natural justice than an actual business consideration for Google.

If the government wants to default on its debts it can generally just do so. People lend money to the government because they choose to trust it for various reasons.

If the government decided to say tomorrow that $100 bills with serial numbers AB1234567000-AB12334567999 were counterfeit and should not be accepted, what do you think would stop them?

It's not eerily prescient at all. It has been known a long time and the subject of much research that viruses jumping from bats to humans is one of the most likely, and most dangerous sources of new infectious diseases in humans.