"Solar panels rely on the waste silicon wafers from chip manufacturing (so tack in all the chip manufacturing waste-costs)."
That was true at one time, and silicon was expensive when it was only used for chips, and had zero impact on the product cost. Today, PV is the largest user of silicon, and prices for silicon have dropped to almost zero.
You say:
"Sunlight is free, and unlimited, as is wind."
True. AND, wind is just a mere second-order by-product of the sun … but on the other-other hand, it is concentrated in certain areas making wind power viable in certain areas. The ultimate solution is of course solar.
One could say that industrial pollution is also a scam, based on how we've dealt with the problem.
The battle is already lost and, frankly, tiresome to discuss. The schematic is simple: we rely on fossil fuels of which we have limited supply but nonetheless drain in ever faster/larger amounts.
Everything else is senseless distraction.
That said, we *are* fucking with the weather. The fact that the weather is fucking with us even more doesn't change that fact. Our fucking with the weather may actually be forestalling the nearly inevitable ice age return, and in the process deceiving us as to the main direction we should take in response to an obviously wacko contemporary climate. Today, it looks like Siberia is poised to become the new grain belt. But in 30 years it could be one giant rapidly growing glacier.
Climate matters. How to deal with climate really matters. The fact that reigning power-brokers use this to breed evil scams is a separate issue: our power-brokers do this with EVERYTHING from the food we eat to the air we breathe to, increasingly, the thoughts that we think. They'd tax nocturnal emissions if they could.
Want to make something nonsensical and impossible to remedy? Treat it as a political issue. The climate, for all that our politicians claim, is not a political issue. It's a physical issue, and a currently very daunting physical problem. Daunting problems want wisdom and true loyalty, yea, even friendship, that mytho-legendary concept. They don't want political perspective. That's like asking one's girlfriend to put on a Your Mother skin suit to make one horny.
P.S. The S.Korean poop energy generator is itself a smart move, never mind the mandatorily nonsensical sociopolitical overlays.
P.P.S. As for Al Gore beachfront: a rich old man has to enjoy the world his wealth is devastating while he can, jah?
P.P.S.S. Meanwhile, we rush like Disney lemmings (*real* lemmings are not suicidal cliff-march zombies) to submit to bogus toxic vaccinations and economic hari-kari. Compassion is a bitch, and I weep for all life on Terra the Fair, but logically, I see absolutely no empirical reason for humanity not to off itself in large numbers per its preferred m.o.: cuz pharaoh said so.
Those who survive will be sadder but wiser, i.e., far more sane than their recently exterminated fellow specie members.
Solar is unlimited? No, it may be in the time dimension but it has a finite density (power density). Averaged over the year and day it is c. 340 W/msq, so not "infinite". This means you need a LOT of land to concentrate solar power infrastructure to achieve comparable power delivery to fossil fuel infrastructure - see Vaclav Smil who has written a lot about this. It;s a fundamental difference between fossil fuels and renewables that only the former can be used at a pace of our choosing, the latter we get at the pace that natural processes dictate. A stock flow, versus a fund flow, as the ecological economists put it.
I appreciate the work you have done on COVID vaccines, but sorry but this is nonsense. Global warming was predicted more than a century ago by scientist Svente Arrhenius, who thought it was a good thing because it would counteract the next ice age. Oil companies have been actively funding efforts to assert that global warming is not happening as well doccumented by Naomi Oreskes (Merchants of Doubt). How could increasing atmospheric Co2 content from 280ppmv to over 400 in a geological instant NOT result in warming? Because Co2 (et al) is not an insulating gas?! how then can temperatures of different planets be accounted for, which are not a linear function of distance from the sun?
Very good article. A few comments.
You say:
"Solar panels rely on the waste silicon wafers from chip manufacturing (so tack in all the chip manufacturing waste-costs)."
That was true at one time, and silicon was expensive when it was only used for chips, and had zero impact on the product cost. Today, PV is the largest user of silicon, and prices for silicon have dropped to almost zero.
You say:
"Sunlight is free, and unlimited, as is wind."
True. AND, wind is just a mere second-order by-product of the sun … but on the other-other hand, it is concentrated in certain areas making wind power viable in certain areas. The ultimate solution is of course solar.
I also wrote a solar summary article:
https://timellison.substack.com/p/solar-energy-in-a-nutshell
Best wishes.
One could say that industrial pollution is also a scam, based on how we've dealt with the problem.
The battle is already lost and, frankly, tiresome to discuss. The schematic is simple: we rely on fossil fuels of which we have limited supply but nonetheless drain in ever faster/larger amounts.
Everything else is senseless distraction.
That said, we *are* fucking with the weather. The fact that the weather is fucking with us even more doesn't change that fact. Our fucking with the weather may actually be forestalling the nearly inevitable ice age return, and in the process deceiving us as to the main direction we should take in response to an obviously wacko contemporary climate. Today, it looks like Siberia is poised to become the new grain belt. But in 30 years it could be one giant rapidly growing glacier.
Climate matters. How to deal with climate really matters. The fact that reigning power-brokers use this to breed evil scams is a separate issue: our power-brokers do this with EVERYTHING from the food we eat to the air we breathe to, increasingly, the thoughts that we think. They'd tax nocturnal emissions if they could.
Want to make something nonsensical and impossible to remedy? Treat it as a political issue. The climate, for all that our politicians claim, is not a political issue. It's a physical issue, and a currently very daunting physical problem. Daunting problems want wisdom and true loyalty, yea, even friendship, that mytho-legendary concept. They don't want political perspective. That's like asking one's girlfriend to put on a Your Mother skin suit to make one horny.
P.S. The S.Korean poop energy generator is itself a smart move, never mind the mandatorily nonsensical sociopolitical overlays.
P.P.S. As for Al Gore beachfront: a rich old man has to enjoy the world his wealth is devastating while he can, jah?
P.P.S.S. Meanwhile, we rush like Disney lemmings (*real* lemmings are not suicidal cliff-march zombies) to submit to bogus toxic vaccinations and economic hari-kari. Compassion is a bitch, and I weep for all life on Terra the Fair, but logically, I see absolutely no empirical reason for humanity not to off itself in large numbers per its preferred m.o.: cuz pharaoh said so.
Those who survive will be sadder but wiser, i.e., far more sane than their recently exterminated fellow specie members.
Solar is unlimited? No, it may be in the time dimension but it has a finite density (power density). Averaged over the year and day it is c. 340 W/msq, so not "infinite". This means you need a LOT of land to concentrate solar power infrastructure to achieve comparable power delivery to fossil fuel infrastructure - see Vaclav Smil who has written a lot about this. It;s a fundamental difference between fossil fuels and renewables that only the former can be used at a pace of our choosing, the latter we get at the pace that natural processes dictate. A stock flow, versus a fund flow, as the ecological economists put it.
I appreciate the work you have done on COVID vaccines, but sorry but this is nonsense. Global warming was predicted more than a century ago by scientist Svente Arrhenius, who thought it was a good thing because it would counteract the next ice age. Oil companies have been actively funding efforts to assert that global warming is not happening as well doccumented by Naomi Oreskes (Merchants of Doubt). How could increasing atmospheric Co2 content from 280ppmv to over 400 in a geological instant NOT result in warming? Because Co2 (et al) is not an insulating gas?! how then can temperatures of different planets be accounted for, which are not a linear function of distance from the sun?