In The News Today...

Quote: Dalex64

It isn't about the money.

I thought everything was about money. That is why I stole a lamp from some old geezer who was abroad at night looking for an honest man: I wanted to pawn his lamp for money.

But it isn't. People aren't selecting solar and wind power because it costs less dollars.

Quote: Dalex64

But it isn't. People aren't selecting solar and wind power because it costs less dollars.

Of course it is about the money. They are both highly subsidized by the goverment. If it wasn't for the subsidies none of the major installations would be built. Even with subsidies several wind farm companies have gone broke.

Quote: kenarman

Of course it is about the money. They are both highly subsidized by the goverment. If it wasn't for the subsidies none of the major installations would be built. Even with subsidies several wind farm companies have gone broke.

Yes it is being subsidized. It costs more. That isn't disputed.

Again, that kind of energy isn't being selected because it is less expensive. That's the part that isn't about the money.

It isn't like this is unusual - different industries are being subsidized by the government - our money - every day.

There are just to many articles that point in both directions about benefits of solar. But the fact of the environmental disaster from mining rare earths in the Congo to make the panels is indisputable.

Each president has had to give these solar farms an environmental pass for the amount of wildlife they displace, and the amount of raptors and other flying creatures that they kill.

Eventually the used up panels are tossed in landfills as trying to recycle any usable materials in them costs more than the materials are worth.

If the point is to create energy without coal or oil, nuclear or geothermal are the best choices [after hydro] . Wind and solar are a farce for commercial power, as is the claim that they are environmentally friendly.

Solar has a place certainly. It's great for remote locations or for RV use, but not to power industry. I almost hate to complain, my trade makes a fortune off of alternative energy. Build some more electric trains, kaching. Although I do think electric trains are the way to go for mass transit.

Quote: petroglyph

I almost hate to complain, my trade makes a fortune off of alternative energy.

Then it's not about the money with you. Or are you the only human exception to that rule?

Quote: rxwine

Then it's not about the money with you. Or are you the only human exception to that rule?

I've worked on what I considered some pretty silly projects for my pay in the past.

I'm not in charge of what gets built with any excess capital that is available to provide for the common good. We're printing ourselves in to extinction building perpetual motion devices, that inevitably aren't.

I read it takes 1.1 gallons of gasoline equivalent to make one gallon of ethanol for motor fuel from corn. We don't even use the most efficient feedstock for biofuel.

Our country is martingaling on the come line, building these "green" energy making devices. Twenty one trillion in hock and we are still using 1.1 gallons of gas to produce one gallon.

California wants to claim being the greenest energy producer, but that only works if you can ignore the environmental disaster from mining for rare earths in far away places .

I guess, if it was all about the money, it also applies to the petroleum industry. Why would they be exempt from that axiom?

What things have they done that don't make them just as suspect as any other industry?

If you care about the death of birds, you must know about this

Quote:

On a short flight over oil fields in the Bighorn Basin, the two retired agents spot dozens of these pits. During their careers they collected the remains of hundreds of birds at oil and gas production pits across the West. Dead birds decompose or sink quickly, so the numbers discovered are only a tiny fraction of the half million to 1 million birds killed every year at oil pits, according to a Fish and Wildlife Service estimate.

https://www.revealnews.org/article/these-pits-are-deadly-to-birds-but-feds-wont-penalize-oil-companies/

Pretty cool boulder

Yep, rare earth metals are mined. And there is no such thing as clean coal. And we will run out of coal before we run out of sunlight.