Solar Energy Now Employs More Americans Than Oil, Coal and Gas Combined (computerworld.com)

Thanks, Obama by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 05:42 · Score: 1

This is what happens when we have a Democrat in the WH. Even with gasoline prices much lower than they were mid-2008 (when it was well over $3), people have gotten the message that fossil fuels contribute to climate change, and we need to find alternatives.

Now think of what would've happened if a bozo like Trump had been elected in 2008 (and I realize he didn't run back then, but McCain was more of a foreign policy guy so I'm not as certain what he would have done). He would've said drill, baby, drill, including all the coasts and protected wetlands, as the way out of the Great Recession.

Re:Thanks, Obama by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 06:22 · Score: 4, Informative

The US Consumes ~ 5,000 mwh of power a year; this article is talking about 500mwh or about 10% of that in renewables. Of that, Hydro and Wind power make up over 90% of those renewables mwh. Solar is nowhere near competitive with those two.
The rational discussion is this. What we are doing today is using Nuclear (20%) and Coal (33%) for baseline power generation, using renewables (wind and hydro) to reduce the consumption of those, and using natural gas wells (33%) to provide peak power load. Solar panels do not produce much more energy than they take to make.
If we wanted to reduce hydrocarbon consumption today and in a serious way, we'd do a Manhattan project to figure out how to build safe nuclear plants and spend a lot of dosh on figuring out how to transport the power over long distances efficiently; e.g. figuring out how to cool underground copper wiring to near absolute zero then moving extremely high voltages over that. We'd replace that baseline power generation entirely with nuclear, and that would remove the need to burn hydrocarbons for baseline load generation. We'd have to keep the peak load plants. We would also make investments in safely cleaning up nuclear accidents, such as building robots that are capable of operating in the most irradiated environments, and use Chernobyl as a an opportunity to learn and as a testing ground. E.G. We would build the nuke plants with a containment structure over the entire site like the Sarcophagus at Chernobyl, and if an accident occurred, we'd use the melting of graphite and nuclear material as a method of containment (e.g. we'd build the entire underside of the reactor to be a neutron absorbing material). We'd then send in the robots, remove the nuclear material, then demo the structure and bury the remains in the desert. We can put distilleries near the nuclear plant and produce hydrocarbon fuels from the plant for transport along with raw electric, pulling hydrocarbons out of the air. Quite literally china could pollute all they want, and they are doing us a favor.
Instead what we get are madmen selling a carbon tax to save the world, and a bunch of morons like you who can't do basic arithmetic, use google to find out what the real 10-4 is, or think two steps ahead of your own ego. Unbelievable.
Re: Thanks, Obama by lipto722 · 2017-01-28 06:55 · Score: 5, Informative

The point of the article was to highlight the workforce of the respective industries; wherein solar is now the leading employer in the industry. Taking your point that solar energy is still just a small fraction of energy production in our country, would you agree that continuing to ramp up solar production and investment while divesting from coal and oil is something economically benefitial? Shouldn't it be a priority for a jobs creating president?
Re: Thanks, Obama by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 07:33 · Score: 3, Interesting

How about the USA joins everybody else and stops using centralised power production and instead start to concentrate on smaller local schemes ?
If you insist on old fashioned nuke stations,why build above ground,you have plenty of old deep workings,3.000 feet of rock is a better shield than a 30 foot thick containment and any shield that could be manufactured..
If something goes horribly wrong with a deep site nuke station,it's simple,bury it,if you try to take them apart after 50 years of useful life,what do you intend to do with all the craps and rubbish ? Oh,bury it,so why not just bury the whole lot in the first place..
Re: Thanks, Obama by haruchai · 2017-01-28 07:48 · Score: 1

I've worked "lower-paying, non-benefits providing temporary construction jobs" more than once in my life, for a total of about 6 year full-time.
And I would take that any day over being a coal miner.

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Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Re: Thanks, Obama by Mr+D+from+63 · 2017-01-28 08:20 · Score: 1, Flamebait

The point of the article was to highlight the workforce of the respective industries; wherein solar is now the leading employer in the industry. Taking your point that solar energy is still just a small fraction of energy production in our country, would you agree that continuing to ramp up solar production and investment while divesting from coal and oil is something economically benefitial? Shouldn't it be a priority for a jobs creating president?
I think the key question is, why does it take so many worked to produce only about 1% of our electrical energy?

Unfortunately, the large majority of these jobs are very low paying, and the number does not distinguish part time vs full time workers. And since the source is an industry advocacy group, I'd question what they count as a job. It appears any truck driver who might deliver a solar panel is considered as a solar job, even if that person doesn't primarily deliver solar panels.
Re: Thanks, Obama by Mr+D+from+63 · 2017-01-28 08:29 · Score: 1, Insightful

The point of the article was to highlight the workforce of the respective industries;?
Also, note that they use different criteria for what counts as a solar job vs other energy job. Its complete and utter marketing bullshit, don't know why even the most avid solar advocate isn't laughing at the headline.
Re: Thanks, Obama by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 08:35 · Score: 3, Informative

http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/construction-workers-more-likely-to-die-on-the-job/
"Over their careers, construction workers have a one in 200 chance of dying on the job, five times what the government considers the “significant” risk of death at work, a new study says. Construction injury risks are also very high.
The study, by Dr. Xiuwen Sue Dong of the Center to Protect Workers Rights, looked at construction fatality, injury and illness statistics over many years, to calculate the chances of a worker being killed or injured.
“Construction workers make up 6 percent to 8 percent of all workers, but account for 20 percent of all deaths on the job every year,” Dong explained at an Oct. 31 job safety and health seminar during the American Public Health Association’s convention here."
Construction workers are much more likely to be injured, or killed on the job compared to coal miners. Also, construction workers are more likely to be exposed to asbestos and other cancer causing and respiratory harming materials than coal miners are to coal dust nowdays. Lower pay, virtually no benefits, and most construction jobs going to migrant workers who are easy to exploit means construction jobs are not a suitable replacement for miner jobs.
Re:Thanks, Obama by rbrander · 2017-01-28 08:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

very very very very expensive.
How come France can afford it for the last 40 years? Shouldn't they have gone broke by now? Instead, they're selling power.
Re:Thanks, Obama by colinrichardday · 2017-01-28 09:14 · Score: 1

The US Consumes ~ 5,000 mwh of power a year
Except that Wh are units of energy, not power, and 5,000 mwh is only 5 Wh. Geez..
Re: Thanks, Obama by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 09:17 · Score: 2

Solar panels produce, over their lifetime, several times the energy required to produce them.
Re:Thanks, Obama by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2017-01-28 10:00 · Score: 2

Serial production - something the US is paradoxically quite bad at when it comes to nuclear power, at least now, it seems. Maybe you should nationalize it?

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re: Thanks, Obama by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2017-01-28 10:03 · Score: 1

I think the key question is, why does it take so many worked to produce only about 1% of our electrical energy?
You seem to be confusing a function with its first derivative. These jobs change this figure, they don't sustain it at the quoted level.

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re: Thanks, Obama by Mr+D+from+63 · 2017-01-28 10:41 · Score: 1

You seem read things into my statement that I didn't say. You also seem to accept these numbers at face value.
Re: Thanks, Obama by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2017-01-28 10:57 · Score: 1

You asked the question I quoted, not me. Also, I don't think it's your 1% anymore anyway, so I'm not accepting that at face value either.

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re: Thanks, Obama by Mr+D+from+63 · 2017-01-28 11:20 · Score: 1

Last time I checked it was less than 1%, that was last year. Its possible its a bit higher now.
Re: Thanks, Obama by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2017-01-28 11:33 · Score: 1

Using the the NREL+EIA numbers from Wikipedia, it's residential+utility total of ~1.5% for 2016, as opposed to ~1.1% in 2015 and ~0.8% in 2014. If it goes up a few tenths of a percent every year, you'll be over 10% by 2040. (Probably earlier, though, this kind of prediction has proven overly pessimistic, especially when EIA or IEA do it.)

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re: Thanks, Obama by LynnwoodRooster · 2017-01-28 12:11 · Score: 1

It highlights the inefficiencies gained by employment in that industry. Having most of the people working on the smallest chunk of power generation seems counter-productive to me, and we'd be better off seeing if we can swing efforts towards higher efficiency. Imagine if those folks were working on nuclear plants instead; we'd have an order of magnitude more electrical output, and it would be much more stable as well. We could electrify the nation MUCH faster, much more reliably, and at a lower cost. And keep the same number of jobs.

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Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Re: Thanks, Obama by losfromla · 2017-01-28 14:44 · Score: 1

Since we're looking straight down the barrel of a jobless future due to automation, I think efficiency is not the goal. Maximum employment at very good pay should be the goal as that is the only way to have a healthy level of consumers.

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Only I can judge you.
Re: Thanks, Obama by losfromla · 2017-01-28 14:50 · Score: 1

No, but all your buggering turned him.

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Only I can judge you.
Re:Thanks, Obama by pixelpusher220 · 2017-01-28 14:57 · Score: 1

Same way they do national healthcare. careful what you wish for!

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People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
Re: Thanks, Obama by pixelpusher220 · 2017-01-28 15:16 · Score: 1

Indeed, few places in this country match the massive income of those WV miners....

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People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
Re: Thanks, Obama by PoopJuggler · 2017-01-28 21:36 · Score: 2

If you knew anything about the result of a meltdown you wouldn't be criticising the regulations.
Re: Thanks, Obama by Barsteward · 2017-01-28 22:26 · Score: 1

as it takes 5-8 years to build a nuclear power station, i don't see how it would be quicker to get power into the grid than solar or wind. Battery or power storage tech would have advanced in leaps and bounds in those 5-8 years. Here in the UK, nuclear is subsidised to give a lower cost to the consumer but as it subsidised we are paying for it anyway.

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"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Re:Thanks, Obama by Maury+Markowitz · 2017-01-29 02:08 · Score: 1

> Solar panels do not produce much more energy than they take to make.
Solar panels make somewhere between 5 and 15 times as much energy as they take to make. The large variance between those two numbers is due to methodological differences in how you count energy - the lower number includes factors like the people on the assembly line will use their pay to buy things that require energy, while the higher number considers only the actual energy of the panel itself (and things like shipping and installing). Both numbers continue to improve as the assembly lines squeeze efficiency.
This has been demonstrated repeatedly by very large studies from well-known groups like NREL and the World Energy Council, as well as, literally, hundreds of academic papers you can find online in a few seconds. Perhaps you might want to avail yourself of the miracle of Google before posting demonstrably wrong information?
> and a bunch of morons like you who can't do basic arithmetic
Pot, meet kettle.
Re: Thanks, Obama by Maury+Markowitz · 2017-01-29 02:10 · Score: 1

> I think the key question is, why does it take so many worked to produce only about 1% of our electrical energy?
Umm, that's painfully obvious no? Because we're still building new units. The nuclear industry used a lot more workers when it was 1% of the energy supply too.
Re:Thanks, Obama by Maury+Markowitz · 2017-01-29 02:44 · Score: 1

> How come France can afford it for the last 40 years
Do you mean nuclear power? They can't, it's been repeatedly bailed out with massive injections of taxpayer money, about once a decade. The most recent was just last year, when Areva was essentially bankrupt (again). The rest of the industry, in France, Germany and the UK, all bailed long ago.
Re: Thanks, Obama by Mr+D+from+63 · 2017-01-29 05:45 · Score: 1

We've been spending heavily on solar for well over a decade, and we are still only around 1%.
Re: Thanks, Obama by LinuxLuver · 2017-01-29 07:24 · Score: 1

True. The message is getting through to those who are able to think. But solar is clearly the way to go. If nothing else, a modest installation is done in a day or two and generating power almost immediately. Coal plants or gas plants take months or years to build and a nuclear power plant can take almost a decade and cost a billion dollars before producing a single kilowatt.

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Only boring people are ever bored.
Re: Thanks, Obama by LinuxLuver · 2017-01-29 07:37 · Score: 1

Yeah. That's the line the nuke industry pedals. Meanwhile, Germany and Scotland and others with much weaker sunlight then the US are able to do what you say can't be done. The US has huge potential for wind and solar. The only mixing link has been grid scale battery storage.....and Tesla is solving that problem. They recently set up the first 80MWh storage facility in California. This has been the missing link in the renewables chain. It's not missing anymore. All of this can be set up in weeks or months, faster by far then any non-EV renewable power sources and cheaper than a multi-billion dollar wishful 'clean' nuclear solution no one knows how to do right now. We can do renewables now. They are faster and cheaper to build. They have reached economy of scale and it's only going to get better. The US has sun power BEGGING to be used. Other countries running on 90% or 100% renewables would give their right arm to have sun power like the US has from end to end in the lower 48 and Hawaii. Plus all the wind that blows up in those mountains and across those ridges.

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Only boring people are ever bored.
Re: Thanks, Obama by LinuxLuver · 2017-01-29 07:39 · Score: 1

French national health care is very good by any measure, but especially good compared to the outrageously expensive health care in the US.....If you can get it at all.

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Only boring people are ever bored.
Re: Thanks, Obama by pixelpusher220 · 2017-01-29 11:21 · Score: 1

agreed, that was my point :)

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People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
Re: Thanks, Obama by LynnwoodRooster · 2017-01-29 11:28 · Score: 1

You need both a base load capability (nuclear) and, if it's reasonable, addition "as you can" resources (like wind and solar). In the US, it can take 5-8 years to get a solar or wind-farm done, but that plant does not have the uptime and sustained load capability of nuclear. If you want fast, go with natural gas turbines, you can roll that out in 2-3 years. And in the US, our wind and solar is heavily subsidized (LCOE is higher for wind and solar) as compared to other sources...

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Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Re:Thanks, Obama by Namarrgon · 2017-01-29 12:02 · Score: 1

It'll cost a further $63 billion over the next decade, just to keep the existing reactors running. Many of their reactors are quite old now, and no longer meet current safety standards.
I'm in favour of nuclear power where it makes sense, but the costs are not small. Accidents do happen, and given the potential consequences, safety standards must be strictly adhered to, which just adds to the costs. This has to be factored into any serious energy planning.

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Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Re: Thanks, Obama by mcswell · 2017-01-29 15:12 · Score: 1

That problem was solved (in theory, I don't guess it was put into practice) back in the 30s (as in 1930s). Pay one crew to dig holes, and pay another crew to fill them in. Presto, full employment.
Re: Thanks, Obama by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · 2017-01-31 06:14 · Score: 1

That sort of depends where the jobs are coming from; if they're primarily construction jobs, that's all well and good (it is, of course vital work), but they're temporary. Should we expect these employment numbers to rise, be steady, or decline over the next few years? How many people does a normal solar facility employ compared to a conventional power generating station with the same output?

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Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.

Who's the jobs creator? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 05:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

So if Trump wants to create jobs in America he'd better dump coal and support wind and solar.

Employment is not the goal by mi · 2017-01-28 05:47 · Score: 3, Insightful

The goal is energy, not employment. We don't build factories and plants to keep people busy...

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In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.

Re:Employment is not the goal by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 05:57 · Score: 1

Excellent point. And ideal energy source would employ next to no people, yet generate massive amounts of clean energy. This really shows how inefficient solar is compared to fossil fuels.
Re:Employment is not the goal by Dasher42 · 2017-01-28 06:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

Right, because an overhaul of a deteriorating, outdated grid shouldn't require hardly any labor. Sounds like a fair requirement to me. Clean energy loses again! Let's see if our tap water catches fire!
Re:Employment is not the goal by Faluzeer · 2017-01-28 06:29 · Score: 1

The goal is energy, not employment. We don't build factories and plants to keep people busy...
The goal of the Politicians is campaign contributions.
Re:Employment is not the goal by fustakrakich · 2017-01-28 06:29 · Score: 3, Insightful

The goal is profit. Energy is the means.
We don't build factories and plants to keep people busy...
Right, we create bureaucracies, public and private, for that

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“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Re:Employment is not the goal by Dasher42 · 2017-01-28 06:36 · Score: 4, Interesting

One of the biggest reasons coal mining jobs are a memory is that the management long ago figured out how much cheaper it is to just hire a handful of people to plant explosives and blow up the whole damn mountain. Who's going to make them hire people to go down into some mines instead of leaving them sitting in a rotting Appalachian cottage drinking water tainted by the slurry? That's what it would take to try to force the clock back, and then, you burn the fuel, have the coal miner's lung, the health care costs, the mercury and lead pollution, and it's going to run out anyway because it takes hundreds of millions of years in a world where fungi haven't yet evolved to consume fallen wood to make all that coal.
But of course, we can keep talking about how inefficient it is to change up a new, rapidly improving technology that's actually beating coal on purely economic costs in more and more of the world.
Damn, remember when this site loved disruptive new technologies that mess with some suit's profit margins? What's the RIAA doing these days?
Re:Employment is not the goal by Trailer+Trash · 2017-01-28 06:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

The goal is energy, not employment. We don't build factories and plants to keep people busy...
Yes.
"The majority of U.S. electrical generation continues to come from fossil fuels."
In other words, solar requires far more workers per MWH for some reason. This is hardly a reason to be joyful in and of itself.

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Do you have ESP?
Re:Employment is not the goal by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2017-01-28 06:54 · Score: 1

We don't build factories and plants to keep people busy...
But there's now a U.S. President who's promised to do exactly that, hello?

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Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Re:Employment is not the goal by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 07:09 · Score: 1

Then what's the point of this Slashdot article about the 2017 US Energy and EMPLOYMENT Report? Hmm?
Re:Employment is not the goal by gweihir · 2017-01-28 07:12 · Score: 1

If you want your society to survive, you will make damn sure that there are enough jobs. Of course, if you are just in it for the short-term profits, then you have a point.

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Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Re:Employment is not the goal by DogDude · 2017-01-28 07:13 · Score: 2

... not quite AC. You're forgetting all of the medical personnel employed to take care of all of the people sick and dying from pollution-related illnesses. That's a lot of people!

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I don't respond to AC's.
Re:Employment is not the goal by PopeRatzo · 2017-01-28 07:22 · Score: 1

The goal is energy, not employment.

How do unemployed people pay for energy?

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You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:Employment is not the goal by iMadeGhostzilla · 2017-01-28 07:24 · Score: 1

That's what China does.
Re:Employment is not the goal by PopeRatzo · 2017-01-28 07:27 · Score: 4, Interesting

If you want your society to survive, you will make damn sure that there are enough jobs.

Yes and no. If you want your society to survive, you make sure people have a basic living in order to survive. It just so happens that in our particular flavor of late-stage capitalism, jobs are required for that.
That doesn't mean jobs are the only way to go. In fact, there's a good chance that we've reached peak jobs and the number of people who need to work to provide for all goods and services will start to shrink. That's when things start to get interesting.

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You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:Employment is not the goal by angel'o'sphere · 2017-01-28 07:28 · Score: 2

In other words, solar requires far more workers per MWH for some reason.
No it does not. Why should it?
The work force growth is about workers installing new power plants.

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Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Employment is not the goal by es330td · 2017-01-28 07:29 · Score: 1

solar requires far more workers per MWH for some reason.
Solar power has a significantly lower energy return on energy invested. Solar is a very wasteful energy source up front. (Before people get upset, this increases over time as the energy investment happens only once while cells generate energy for decades. The problem is those future MWH can't be used today.)
Re:Employment is not the goal by Dasher42 · 2017-01-28 07:35 · Score: 1

Because they're comparing installation+running costs to running costs.
Re:Employment is not the goal by AmiMoJo · 2017-01-28 07:55 · Score: 1

More jobs. Cheaper. Cleaner than fossil fuels.
Lame.

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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Employment is not the goal by religionofpeas · 2017-01-28 07:58 · Score: 1

If the grid is deteriorating and outdated, it needs to be overhauled no matter what the source of electricity.
Re:Employment is not the goal by SEE · 2017-01-28 08:36 · Score: 2

If your plan for employing people is to waste their labor in inefficiency, it's trivial to invent make-work for them. So go create a Hole-Digging Administration and a Department of Hole-Filling and set both sets of workers loose with spoons.
Re:Employment is not the goal by gweihir · 2017-01-28 08:39 · Score: 1

I agree, sort of. I can find enough interesting things to do without a job. You probably can too. (I also have one of the jobs that will go away very late or never and most likely not in my lifetime.) I am not so sure about the general population. Enough people fall into a deep dark hole when they retire and that may be a problem with providing everybody with a work-independent basic income. People that are old sort-of expect this to happen and they usually do not have much ambition and drive left. But what happens when an increasing number of young adults are told "society does not need you, here is $2000 per month, just take it and get out of sight", I am not sure.
I do fully agree that the number of available jobs will shrink and that this can only be delayed or slowed down, but not prevented. The speed of the shrinkage and what happens until a basic income has been established will be critical. What happens after may or may not be a problem. And things will decidedly get interesting.

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Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Re:Employment is not the goal by Dasher42 · 2017-01-28 08:40 · Score: 1

If you want your society to survive, you will make damn sure that there are enough jobs. Of course, if you are just in it for the short-term profits, then you have a point.
Ergo, if robots took all our jobs, we'd necessarily go extinct, because if all the productivity was taken care of, people who work would be meaningless, while the lives of people who "own" the robots their human employees built for them would still be very meaningful. Right.
Re:Employment is not the goal by zifn4b · 2017-01-28 09:07 · Score: 1

We don't build factories and plants to keep people busy...
Oh but we do and it's truly a shame. Maynard Keynes vision of the future where we would only work 15 hours a day and have more leisure time than we know what to do with was inhibited by protestant work ethic. We just basically keep inventing new, pointless labor to keep up our "work quotas" when it really isn't needed. It's almost like Communism in some perverted way.

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We'll make great pets
Re:Employment is not the goal by Dasher42 · 2017-01-28 09:08 · Score: 5, Interesting

That's because you're not liquidating hundreds of million's years worth of accumulated fossil fuel in a century or two. Even leaving alone all the side effects, that was a one-time bonanza. In the meantime, the efficiency of solar has, with a R&D budget that's miniscule in comparison with all that's gone into fossil fuels, has improved by leaps and bounds. http://www.electroschematics.c...
In fact, it's the cheapest form of energy in large swathes of the world already. http://www.popularmechanics.co...
The real problem is that renewable energy does not conform to a centralized model of concentrated wealth accumulation, so wealthy special interests are blowing a lot of smoke in your ears about it.
Re:Employment is not the goal by gurps_npc · 2017-01-28 09:09 · Score: 1

While you are correct, you are ignoring the current political conversation, which often tries to claim that we need oil pipelines, tax breaks for oil companies, etc. etc. all in the name of "jobs".
More jobs should equal more political influence. The government should recognize that a) we can make a profit off of clean energy, and b) doing so takes more local jobs than using fossil fuels.
This kills the moronic crap that fossil fuel lobbies push, such as 'drill baby drill'.

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excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Re:Employment is not the goal by pipingguy · 2017-01-28 09:44 · Score: 1

Eventually, everyone will be paid by the government to "SaveThePlanet". There will be no income inequality or bad -isms or -phobias and there will be sustainabilities everywhere you look! It will be unprecedented and not at all problematic!
Re:Employment is not the goal by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2017-01-28 10:05 · Score: 2

A ridiculous point. Solar plants have total expenses heavily shifted towards manufacturing and installation. This means you suffer them early. You don't need these people to run the installed plants. The "efficient fossil fuels" will simply cost you money later, with ongoing fuel and maintenance costs.

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re:Employment is not the goal by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2017-01-28 10:11 · Score: 1

On the upside, if we outlawed coal and natural gas, and moved all of that electricity generation over to solar instead, it would require the full-time services of 40,000,000+ workers.

No, it wouldn't. Even if you froze the employment in the sector at the current level, the share of solar energy would continue increasing until the rate of newly installed/refurbished plants would equalize with the rate of dismantled old plants (of which there are very few, if any, at this point in time). This means that the current number of workers involved in installing new plants is not commensurate with the current share of electricity being generated in solar plants.
Didn't they teach you calculus at school?

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re:Employment is not the goal by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2017-01-28 10:14 · Score: 3, Interesting

That's interesting, since there's no heavy metals in mainstream silicon PV technology. (On the other hand, there's apparently plenty of mercury in coal!)

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re:Employment is not the goal by dywolf · 2017-01-28 10:31 · Score: 1

quit acting like its a mystery.
that reason is an expanding industry, especially in rooftop installations.
that's all.

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The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Re:Employment is not the goal by Geoffrey.landis · 2017-01-28 11:03 · Score: 1

No. Capitalism is simply the most effective means to an end, where the end is the best possible standard of living for the largest number.

That's an assertion. One much beloved by libertarians, but unproven.
Capitalism is locally Pareto efficient (with some assumptions), but Pareto efficiency should not be confused with a global optimum.

If it wasn't the most effective means we would try something else, but so far all the alternatives we've tried have been abject failures.
Uh, now that's a different assertion: not that capitalism is the most efficient, but that it is more efficient than other things that have been tried.
Since unregulated capitalistic systems fail very quickly, pretty much all "capitalist" economies are with regulated capitalism. When these succeed in improving the standards of living, the libertarians credit the capitalism... but economists credit the capitalism and the regulation.

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http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Re:Employment is not the goal by PopeRatzo · 2017-01-28 11:38 · Score: 1

But what happens when an increasing number of young adults are told "society does not need you, here is $2000 per month, just take it and get out of sight", I am not sure.
There are tons of things that need to be done, but nobody willing to pay for them to be done. I have a little more faith in people. While there are certainly people who will take their $2k/mo and sit in front of the TV and waste away, there are a lot more people who will fix up their house, their neighborhood and their community. Why do you think such a large portion of the folks doing the front-line work in charity are retired seniors? They ain't got to do it, but they do it nonetheless.
I retired fairly young in 2007. Due to some luck and good decisions, I didn't have to work. I started volunteering teaching martial arts in an inner-city high school and teaching tai chi to seniors. I eventually opened a martial arts school. It brings in enough to pay the rent and keep me in green tea and sneakers, and that's good enough because I have a guaranteed income (pension). I am not exceptional. People will still do useful and productive things if their basic needs are met.

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You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:Employment is not the goal by gweihir · 2017-01-28 12:01 · Score: 1

I am not worried about people "wasting away in front of their TV". Those are harmless, if tragic. I am more worried about those that become, for example, fanatics just to find some goal in life or that turn to crime for some thrills. If these are only a few, no problem. But if these start to become a lot, things look different.
Incidentally, teaching is nice. I do some academic teaching (IT Security), because they needed somebody urgently and I do not have to work full-time anyways. It sometimes is a pain (still have to prepare an exam this weekend), but it is nice helping people to learn something useful.

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Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Re:Employment is not the goal by DanielRavenNest · 2017-01-28 12:02 · Score: 1

> there's a good chance that we've reached peak jobs and the number of people who need to work to provide for all goods and services will start to shrink.
I've spent the last several years working on the concept of Seed Factories ( http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/S... ). These are starter sets of core machines (lathe, solar furnace, modular robot, etc.), which are used to make parts for *more* machines, until you have a mature factory. This is similar to the way a biological seed grows into a mature tree. The mature factory then produces things people want and need. The growth and operation of the factory is mostly automated, working from stored design files.
The starter set is less expensive to buy than a full factory, and being mostly automated, less expensive to run. Groups of people can split the cost of the starter set, and tend to the growing factory part-time, in addition to regular jobs. As the factory grows, it can produce more products, and the owner/operators can work conventional jobs less. There will still be personal service type things, and some people will work because they enjoy the work, but basic stuff like food, housing, and utilities can all be automated away to a large degree.
I'm convinced this sort of transition is not just possible, but inevitable, because it has better economics than the old way of doing things, and better security. A regular factory will lay you off to save a buck. That doesn't happen if you are part owner. It could go 100% automated, and you still get the stuff you need. During the transition period, it gives people a fall back position if they lose their main job. They just go work at "their factory" instead, while looking for another paid job.
Re:Employment is not the goal by Jeremi · 2017-01-28 15:21 · Score: 1

The goal is energy, not employment. We don't build factories and plants to keep people busy...
Correct. We build walls and overengineered military hardware to keep people busy. That way we retain our fig leaf.

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I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Re:Employment is not the goal by Jeremi · 2017-01-28 15:28 · Score: 1

And ideal energy source would employ next to no people, yet generate massive amounts of clean energy.
Hmm, that description fits solar power pretty well, once the panels have been installed. The only people you have to employ are the occasional panel-washers, and even they aren't necessary if you live in an area where the occasional rainfall will clean the panels for you.

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I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Re:Employment is not the goal by ajlowe · 2017-01-28 15:41 · Score: 1

I am not anti solar. I am pro cheap reliable safe energy. I believe right now the best energy source is hydrocarbons, but in the near future that will change to solar. that being said, I have to disagree with most of your points.

"That's because you're not liquidating hundreds of million's years worth of accumulated fossil fuel in a century or two" This is variation of the "peak oil" fallacy which has been repeated since the '70's. The reason it is a fallacy is because it ignores the effects of technological innovation on supply. The recent shale revolution in the US is a perfect example of this. We have known about these deposits for decades but lacked the ability to access them. As some have claimed that we were running out of oil the quantity of proven global reserves have steadily increased decade after decade and will probably continue to do so for the next century, far after demand for hydrocarbons plummets due to the decreasing cost of solar.

The fair comparison of R&D budgets is on a per kilowatt hour. Of course solar has huge gains to efficiency because it is a new technology relative to hydrocarbons. Of course the R&D spent on solar is much less then hydrocarbons - because solar produces much less total energy (at this point) then hydrocarbons. The difference in absolute R&D investment is not a positive or negative for either energy source. It is simply a predictable disparity resulting from the difference in maturity of the two technologies.

The argument you should be making in support of solar is that solar panels are semiconductors and therefore are subject to something similar to Moore's law. While the output of solar panels are limited by theoretical limits, the cost of production is decreasing at an exponential rate and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

"The real problem is that renewable energy does not conform to a centralized model of concentrated wealth accumulation, so wealthy special interests are blowing a lot of smoke in your ears about it." This is a crackpot straw man argument meant to deflect attention away from the real problem. There are "wealthy special interests" advocating for hydrocarbons, but the same can be said to an equal or greater degree for renewables.

The real problem with solar is the Intermittency issue coupled with the storage issue. Intermittency can not be solved for solar. The sun simply does not shine at night. It does not matter how cheap solar power is, it will never be our primary source of power until we develop a cost effective grid storage solution. The good news is that the cost of solar power is directly related to the cost effectiveness (efficiency) requirements for storage solutions. If solar power costs the same as hydrocarbon power, then the cost of storage must be 0 or the storage must be 100% efficient. If the cost of solar is half that of hydrocarbons, then the cost of storage can be up to half or the efficiency must be
I believe that the exponentially decreasing cost of solar power combined with the slow linear decrease in cost of on grid energy storage will cross the threshold of hydrocarbon parity in the next 5-10 years and continue to improve afterward resulting in a rapid transition to solar, but it will not (and should not) happen before then. This has nothing to do with "conform to a centralized model of concentrated wealth accumulation" and everything to do with you getting the best price for reliable energy.
Re:Employment is not the goal by PopeRatzo · 2017-01-28 16:52 · Score: 1

but it is nice helping people to learn something useful.
I'm with you, brother. It's one of the best feelings in the world.

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You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:Employment is not the goal by PopeRatzo · 2017-01-28 17:01 · Score: 1

I've spent the last several years working on the concept of Seed Factories

That is a terrific thing. I love the idea.

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You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:Employment is not the goal by Barsteward · 2017-01-28 22:34 · Score: 1

and businesses, federal buildings etc etc. the more the power generation is distributed the better. Once the installation of storage devices in homes and businesses (and EVs) reach a certain point, they could become part of the grid storage so the utilities could turn from generating power to just buying and selling excess power from homes etc

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"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Re:Employment is not the goal by Barsteward · 2017-01-28 22:37 · Score: 1

read up about the new thing called a battery....

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"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Re:Employment is not the goal by Ferretman · 2017-01-29 05:10 · Score: 1

Sorry, but batteries in their current form are a terrible solution.

They're expensive. They're heavy. They're finicky. They're delicate.

I know because my house is 100% off-grid and solar powered. The weakest part of the system is the batteries.

They'll get there, eventually. I think point-generation (panels on building roofs, etc.) is a fantastic supplement in most situations. Batteries, not so much.

Ferret

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Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Re:Employment is not the goal by sjames · 2017-01-29 05:55 · Score: 1

One way to ease the transition is to promote more people hired for fewer hours and a basic income that makes up the difference. That will take some pressure on employers to reverse current trends.
Remember when a workday was actually 9 to 5?
Re:Employment is not the goal by sjames · 2017-01-29 05:57 · Score: 1

Unless we change our economic system, that's exactly where it's headed. Except that would create a large group of pissed off people with weapons and nothing to lose.
Re:Employment is not the goal by Namarrgon · 2017-01-29 12:13 · Score: 1

The only unsubstantiated handwaving bullshit is in your comment. The $330-500 billion annual health costs of coal are backed by this Harvard study, among others.

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Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Re:Employment is not the goal by david_thornley · 2017-01-30 09:48 · Score: 1

Solar is growing a lot faster than fossil fuel power generation. That means more jobs by itself. Once the field is more mature, we'll see how the labor efficiency is.

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"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Re:Employment is not the goal by PJ6 · 2017-01-31 04:08 · Score: 1

The goal is energy, not employment. We don't build factories and plants to keep people busy...
Well this does seem to be the "rugged individual" ethic. We get to a point where we don't really need to work as much as we used to, so much so that some or even many people starve or just about starve because their work isn't needed.

You get some so-called conservatives who are rabidly opposed to any other way to distribute wealth, "I'll be damned if that person over there gets anything without working!". Not that I approve of make-work - it's inefficient - but that's really the only way many people are going to get fed soon if that attitude prevails.

Alternate Headline by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 05:49 · Score: 1

Labor Intensive Solar Power Still Not Price Competitive.

Re:Alternate Headline by amiga3D · 2017-01-28 06:02 · Score: 1

I was wondering why something that produces such a small slice of our power needs employs so many people compared to the primary electrical generation methods. Is it that labor intensive?
Re:Alternate Headline by Smidge204 · 2017-01-28 08:56 · Score: 1

Gas stations produce electricity?
=Smidge=
Re:Alternate Headline by BlueStrat · 2017-01-28 11:31 · Score: 2

Gas stations produce electricity?
Just as much as semi-truck drivers who happen to have, among the other unrelated items to be delivered in their trailer, a couple skids of PV cells, but are counted as 'solar energy' jobs.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Politics & ideology has muddied the waters so much that there's really no telling what is true or false anymore regarding such hot-button issues.
Strat

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Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Re:Alternate Headline by DanielRavenNest · 2017-01-28 12:08 · Score: 1

Building a power plant is labor intensive. Running it, not so much. So about 5000 people are working on building the Vogtle 3 & 4 nuclear reactors, on the GA/SC border. Once the new reactors are finished, there may only be 100 new jobs in running the two new reactors.
Same goes for a solar or wind farm today, or a hydroelectric dam in the mid-20th century. Lots of work to build it, not that many to run it.
Re:Alternate Headline by Smidge204 · 2017-01-28 15:01 · Score: 1

Except a trucker delivering a load of solar panels is, in fact, relevant to the solar power industry. You can't produce electricity until the solar panels are installed, and to install them you need to transport them from the factory to the installation site. Therefore, the process of delivery is directly relevant.
A gas station is not even remotely relevant to electricity generation. None of the materials, processes or services a gas station provides are directly necessary for the generation of power; at best it's a tertiary contributor.
=Smidge=
Re:Alternate Headline by BlueStrat · 2017-01-28 16:08 · Score: 1

Except a trucker delivering a load of solar panels is, in fact, relevant to the solar power industry. You can't produce electricity until the solar panels are installed, and to install them you need to transport them from the factory to the installation site. Therefore, the process of delivery is directly relevant.
A gas station is not even remotely relevant to electricity generation. None of the materials, processes or services a gas station provides are directly necessary for the generation of power; at best it's a tertiary contributor.
You also need to transport petroleum of any sort for any purpose as well, whether it's gasoline for cars or natural gas for electricity generation. It's all energy, just in different forms. The end use, as far as the relevance of labor/jobs, which is what TFS/TFA concerns, is meaningless.
The point being that unless one counts labor in nearly identical ways any talk of 'jobs created' is meaningless.
Strat

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Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Re:Alternate Headline by Barsteward · 2017-01-29 07:38 · Score: 1

"Politics & ideology has muddied the waters so much that there's really no telling what is true or false anymore regarding such hot-button issues." - that could just be a comprehension issue for a small number of petrolheads

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"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Re:Alternate Headline by Smidge204 · 2017-01-29 22:24 · Score: 1

The point being that unless one counts labor in nearly identical ways any talk of 'jobs created' is meaningless.
Right... and that's why gas stations are totally irrelevant, because that's inappropriately expanding the scope of the definition. If you're going to talk about jobs pertaining to a particular endeavor, you should keep your definition as narrow and relevant as possible to avoid the kind of bullshit you're digging up. If you're not careful you end up including the farmer who grows the wheat that the baker makes into bread so the guy at the deli can make the sandwich for the guy who drives the bus that transports the guy to work at the waterfront where he moors the oil tankers that supply the oil to the power plant. Fucking ridiculous.
It's fair to include things like shipping of solar panels, just as it would be fair to include things like shipping materials to construct any other type of power plant (Note: It's not actually been established, AFAIK, that the jobs numbers *actually* includes such things). Once you get into tertiary or higher abstractions of jobs it becomes meaningless.
=Smidge=

Full employment for .... by PPH · 2017-01-28 05:50 · Score: 2

.... window washers.

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Have gnu, will travel.

Re:Full employment for .... by JoeMerchant · 2017-01-28 06:06 · Score: 1

I was thinking just this: solar can use a tremendous number of low skill collector cleaners to go out and wipe the panels when they get dirty...
Re:Full employment for .... by Dasher42 · 2017-01-28 06:13 · Score: 2

And their solar panel washing platform exploded, collapsed into a fire, and spewed noxious pollution over dying wildlife and fearful fishermen as far as the eye could see *not ever*. :)
Re:Full employment for .... by JoeMerchant · 2017-01-28 06:22 · Score: 2

The solar panel ash impoundment gave way in a rainstorm and dumped millions of tons of toxic ash into the stream and river, poisoning fish all the way to the ocean... also unlikely.
Re:Full employment for .... by Dasher42 · 2017-01-28 06:23 · Score: 3, Funny

It would be a damn shame if we had to employ window washers. What about all this military we've got for fighting the next oil war? There's still some dictator ready to go rogue next to a major oilfield somewhere, right? What will Haliburton do if it can't pocket some of the trillions the government will spend to give Exxon a crack at another nation's resources? Where will Blackwater types be if not shooting up the locals? Where will we get all our refugees to blame for everything?
Shoot, if it's going to be solar panels and windmills and tidal power, how are you going to tell Johnny with a squeegee he can't have a prosthetic leg and Veteran's Health Authority healthcare?
Such a fine few people are making money off of all this, too!
Re:Full employment for .... by thegarbz · 2017-01-28 07:14 · Score: 1

Not quite but not too far off either. When you have a small energy density and a small scale instalments you lack economies of scale. A hundred people can operate a multi gigawatt nuclear reactor. How many installers / maintainers do you need to operate 100000 individual solar installations on rooftops to do the same thing?
Re:Full employment for .... by PPH · 2017-01-28 08:01 · Score: 1

Robots can clean the panels
Robots could clean windows on high rise buildings as well. But I haven't seen any. Window washing on a high rise isn't necessarily a low skill, low cost* operation either. So it would stand to reason that we'd see this function automated sooner.
*You might actually pay your washers minimum wage. But it's dangerous as f* and insurance rates alone (workers comp.) make this sort of job costly.

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Have gnu, will travel.
Re:Full employment for .... by david_bonn · 2017-01-28 09:55 · Score: 1

There are reasons to go solar that don't necessarily correlate to economies of scale. My own story is a case in point. I broke down and installed an 8kw array on my roof, mainly as backup power. Where I live we've had a few catastrophic power outages in recent years (caused by fires). When I worked out the cost on a generator, piping from the propane tank to the generator, and a shack to put the generator in, it came out within a MacBook Pro of what that 8kw array, inverter, and installation (I admit I got a deal on the panels, but not much of one) cost. Maintenance is a wash -- either hire a high school kid to shovel snow off the panels a few times each winter and wash the panels a few times each summer or pay some dude to drive out a hundred miles to service the generator once a month. This isn't even considering how much propane costs to run the generator (a lot) or the fact that I can sell surplus sun watts back to the grid.
The thing is that the costs of solar are plummeting. We've seen exactly that cost curve before, in everything from megabytes of ram to gigabytes of disk space and megaflops. But with solar it is for watts. Since there are no moving parts in PV solar (well, except for electrons and holes) the costs per watt will likely asymptotically approach zero over time. Very quickly we are approaching a situation where the dominant part of the costs to go solar are installation costs.
Re:Full employment for .... by nasch · 2017-01-28 10:46 · Score: 1

A hundred people can operate a multi gigawatt nuclear reactor. How many installers / maintainers do you need to operate 100000 individual solar installations on rooftops to do the same thing?
I don't think you need anyone to operate them.
Re:Full employment for .... by DanielRavenNest · 2017-01-28 12:13 · Score: 1

Robots already do the cleaning on solar farms. The panels are installed on long rows of support structure, and the cleaning bot runs on tracks along the top and bottom. It doesn't even need batteries, because, you know, solar panels. It just taps off a little of the power the row is producing. For the desert solar farms in the south-west, it's actually fairly necessary to clean them periodically, due to dust build-up. In rainier climates it's needed a lot less.
Re:Full employment for .... by Jeremi · 2017-01-28 15:44 · Score: 1

Robots could clean windows on high rise buildings as well. But I haven't seen any.
Well, you're in luck -- now's your chance to see one.

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I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.

Re:new industry by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 05:51 · Score: 1

Reading comprehension much? Employs more workers, not just growing faster.

Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by hey! · 2017-01-28 05:52 · Score: 2

Which specific regulation do you have in mind? And does it have a larger impact than the competition with natural gas?

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Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.

Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by PoopJuggler · 2017-01-28 05:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

If the world is laughing at us, it's because of antiques like you who think coal is the path to the future and prosperity. While every other country moves forward, we move backwards.

Very Misleading Title by utahjazz · 2017-01-28 06:03 · Score: 5, Informative

The oil industry employs far more people that solar. What this article is saying is, the number of people employed in the generation of electricity from solar is bigger than the number of people employed in the generation of electricity from oil, coal and gas. Only a tiny fraction of the oil in this country is used to generate electricity.

Re:Very Misleading Title by hey! · 2017-01-28 06:08 · Score: 2

Still pretty impressive.

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Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Re:Very Misleading Title by guises · 2017-01-28 06:39 · Score: 1

How many people are you counting as being part of the oil industry? Are you including gas station attendants? Exxon Mobile is the largest oil company in the US, and they only have 75,300 employees. (number from Wikipedia)

The thing about oil, part of the reason why it's so profitable, is that it doesn't take a lot of people. You drill a hole and wait. Exxon is also near the top in the world among companies in terms of revenue per employee.
Re:Very Misleading Title by thegarbz · 2017-01-28 07:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

No it isn't. Solar dramatically lacks economies of scale. It's like the difference between the number of people it takes to service a tuk tuk and the number of people it takes to service a Bugatti Veyron. In general the number is one and two, but in terms of people per kw of engine capacity a tuk tuk manages to employ 100 times more people per kw.
If you used these engines to generate power the figures would look very favourable for the little 6kW 2-stroke. It's a stupid metric.
Re:Very Misleading Title by pipingguy · 2017-01-28 09:47 · Score: 1

Yup, because it is only the headline that counts in order to leave a false impression in peoples' minds. Talk about FakeNews...

Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by rwven · 2017-01-28 06:04 · Score: 5, Interesting

I genuinely want to know if this is a joke comment or not. Are you really arguing in support of coal mines being allowed to dump mercury into rivers?

all this proves by prof_robinson · 2017-01-28 06:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

...is that solar energy is not only less efficient with its physical footprint, but it's allocation of human labor. Solar still provides only a small percentage of our energy output, yet uses more labor than all the other forms combined? That's called INEFFICIENCY. It's a bug, not a feature.

Re:all this proves by jopsen · 2017-01-28 10:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

Not the point, it does however also point out that when Trump says he'll fight for coal jobs, that'll likely leave more Americans unemployed.

To be fair, the employment in renewables is higher because they under construction, where as employment in oil/coal/gas is lower because it's largely just maintenance. I won't argue that coal/gas/oil isn't efficient in terms of manpower (it probably is), but that's not the point here.

The point is that a policy of pushing renewables is likely to create jobs. Sure, most of them will only exist during the construction phase.
As for efficiency, cost, etc. you can debate them however you wish, but these numbers are largely irrelevant in that matter.

Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 06:11 · Score: 1

Coal is a shitty fuel source. It's full of impurities that cause it to burn poorly, and then those same impurities cause all kinds of pollution because the coal burns poorly.

Natural gas is about a billion times better in terms of extraction, storage, ease-of-energy-release, and just about every other factor. And we have the stuff in spades. And nobody has to go into a mine to extract it.

If you're going to burn fossil fuels, natural gas is way better than coal. So either you're a coal industry shill (at some level, whether from a mining background or a managerial one), or you're a dumbshit. (There's also the possibility that you're a troll, in which case, good job!) Coal is unprofitable, not because of environmental concerns, but because coal sucks .

Re:new industry by arth1 · 2017-01-28 06:12 · Score: 3, Informative

Yeah, and a full half of them are in the employment of cold-calling marketers.

That is *terrible* news by Solandri · 2017-01-28 06:12 · Score: 4, Interesting

Of electricity generated in the U.S., solar generates just 0.6% of the total. Coal, gas, and oil generates 67% of it.

So what this stat means is that it takes 110x more people to generate each kWh of electricity with solar than with fossil fuels. If anything, this is an excellent argument for not using solar to generate electricity.

Re: That is *terrible* news by mmell · 2017-01-28 06:24 · Score: 1, Insightful

Right.
You do realize that oil and coal infrastructure won't last forever, right? Neither will our planet's ecology, for that matter.
Re:That is *terrible* news by Dasher42 · 2017-01-28 06:59 · Score: 1

On one hand, you have to add the labor of installing the power generation on one side, and calculate it like solar power is generated by continuous installation. Then you've got to ignore the costs of old technology which pollutes, leaks, spills, blows up left and right, and you've got to ignore the costs of health care from exposure to it, because it's poor people who live where that happens most, so who cares? That's how this rhetoric works. Who pays for it?
Re:That is *terrible* news by El+Cubano · 2017-01-28 07:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

So what this stat means is that it takes 110x more people to generate each kWh of electricity with solar than with fossil fuels. If anything, this is an excellent argument for not using solar to generate electricity.
I tend to be pretty dead-set against big government (I mean really, the government screws up just about everything), so I understand where you are coming from. That said, the main thought that comes to mind for me is not so much an argument against solar, but rather that isn't necessarily ready. Let me explain.
I think that if you were to look at the start of ARPAnet, you would look at that and wonder why it should be OK to have dozens or hundreds of very highly educated extremely talented engineers working on something that didn't really have a clear benefit moving forward. Sure, connecting computers together seemed like a great idea, but in the pre-ARPAnet days it wasn't really possible unless you bought all your gear from the same manufacturer. Even then it was a crap shoot in terms of how well it would suit your needs.
The government made a modest investment in an idea and some emerging technology, not to score political points but for something that would deliver a military capability. It turns out that it formed the basis of the modern information economy. But, the technology had to mature and the idea had to develop. While I know it is not a perfect parallel, I think that battery technology has followed a path more like that. I don't think it will fundamentally transform humanity, but the US government (particularly the Army) has been all about batteries for a long time (smaller, longer lasting so a soldier can wear more gear, and bigger, more powerful so they can use one to power a tank). There has been no political objective, just a legitimate "we want to see this technology improve because it helps us (in this case the military) and everybody else can benefit from the advancement in the state of the art and improvements in batteries across the board."
Sadly, solar is a political football. So, instead of focusing on the technology, people are upset about things like "loans" to companies that burn through mountains of cash only to go out of business. On top of that, there is an established energy industry that is actively trying to avoid being disrupted and one of their key strategies is to turn anything solar-related into a political issue.
I'm not sure what the solution is, but I feel like it is part government-funded research (something like ARPAnet that was focused on technology and utility, not on politics), part technology maturation, part commercial marketplace leadership (when the technology matures and it makes financial sense companies will naturally go that direction), and part policy (remove some of the barriers that utility companies have put up; for example, if you fit out your house with solar panels and become a net generator of electricity, the local utility company should be required to purchase your power at market rates before they buy from outside their service area, or something like that).
Re:That is *terrible* news by swb · 2017-01-28 07:56 · Score: 1

I didn't read TFA, but my off the cuff interpretation is that solar is still very much in the build-out phase of its life cycle. I would bet that a huge amount of the labor involved in the "solar" side of the equation is electrical construction -- actually setting up and wiring the panels.
Those are great jobs, but they aren't forever. At some point, we will have built all the major solar installations we will build, but it could be a long time -- 20-30 years, and then there will probably be a drop off to some fraction of that installation labor force for upgrades and retrofits of older installations to newer panels, which may continue for some longer period, along with perhaps some low level but near indefinite continued installation of localized rooftop or other small-scale solar.
I don't know, but I'd guess that averaged over 75 years solar may have a slightly higher "overhead" labor cost associated with panel installation, maintenance and retrofit than large-scale coal or gas plants.
It would be more interesting if they could drill down to the amount of labor involved with only ongoing operation and subtract out anything related to installation. On one hand, it may end up being lower than large-scale gas/coal plants since you dump a lot of jobs associated with fueling, steam plant maintenance and so on. On the other hand, solar may have more intensive monitoring requirements or maintenance like cleaning panels.
Re:That is *terrible* news by bongey · 2017-01-28 08:18 · Score: 2

In a similar amount of time solar still hasn't taken off like the internet. ARPAnet started in 1969 by the 1990s the internet was really taking off. Solar on was a focus since 1979 , Carter solar heating panels on the white house. In 30+ years it still hasn't taken off, primarily due to cost.
Even though I am conservative, I will be installing solar panels soon, mainly I do believe in global warming,think we should be environmentally conservative like tech, and really like to be independent as dependent on no one. The biggest issue holding back solar is the cost, once it gets the price of putting a new roof plus 2-3 years of energy savings I think it will take off, right now it isn't there.
Re:That is *terrible* news by evilviper · 2017-01-28 09:19 · Score: 1

So what this stat means is that it takes 110x more people to generate each kWh of electricity with solar than with fossil fuels. If anything, this is an excellent argument for not using solar to generate electricity.
Not at all. You're only ASSUMING that the additional jobs equates to significantly more expense. But you don't have to make that logical leap... we have actual price figures allowing direct comparison, which show that not to be the case.
So we have cheap electricity that generates many more jobs. That might mean less profit for the investors, but a net positive for society.

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Re:That is *terrible* news by Uberbah · 2017-01-28 09:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

I tend to be pretty dead-set against big government (I mean really, the government screws up just about everything)
Only when it's been bought off by capitalist interests. Government provides better services for less money, and is the only thing standing between you and abusive monopolies and products that kill you.
Re:That is *terrible* news by El+Cubano · 2017-01-28 09:29 · Score: 1

In a similar amount of time solar still hasn't taken off like the internet. ARPAnet started in 1969 by the 1990s the internet was really taking off. Solar on was a focus since 1979 , Carter solar heating panels on the white house. In 30+ years it still hasn't taken off, primarily due to cost.
I think that looking at it on a timeline is partly to blame for the current situation. The technology simply has a long way to go before it is mature enough and cheap enough to spur widespread adoption on its own based on cost-benefit, which is basically what you said:

he biggest issue holding back solar is the cost, once it gets the price of putting a new roof plus 2-3 years of energy savings I think it will take off, right now it isn't there.
Had someone come along in 1973: "hey this Internet thing is going fundamentally transform commerce, the government should start dumping billions of dollars into commercializing it." Had something like that been done it would have been a political and fiscal disaster (kind of like what has happened with solar). If instead we take the approach of maturing the technology, the rest will come on its own if the technology turns out to be a revolutionary improvement (which it seems likely to be). Sadly, there are people who will not be deterred from trying to make solar the answer regardless of whether the technology is ready. They might be helping a little bit in terms of advancing the idea, but they sure are creating lots of baggage with it.
Re:That is *terrible* news by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 09:33 · Score: 1

In a similar amount of time solar still hasn't taken off like the internet. ARPAnet started in 1969 by the 1990s the internet was really taking off.

Yes, with billions in investment, it grew. Who knew? Besides Al Gore, of course.

Solar on was a focus since 1979 , Carter solar heating panels on the white house. In 30+ years it still hasn't taken off, primarily due to cost.
Please, for 12 of the next years, Solar was ignored(Reagan pretty much shut down that kind of thing), then maybe half an ass of interest in the next 8(Clinton didn't spend as much as people think, and the GOP was in control for a lot), then ignored for 4-6 more, then a token for 2(I will grant that Bush II got into it eventually), and then maybe some slight interest more in the next 8(as much as Obama could put in with a stubborn Congress).
Like Electric Cars, it was mostly ignored, in favor of increasing other, more appealing ventures.
Really, check out of much government money has been put into Solar. It won't be as impressive as you think. They spent more energy fighting light bulbs.
Which worked out as expected.

Even though I am conservative, I will be installing solar panels soon, mainly I do believe in global warming,think we should be environmentally conservative like tech, and really like to be independent as dependent on no one. The biggest issue holding back solar is the cost, once it gets the price of putting a new roof plus 2-3 years of energy savings I think it will take off, right now it isn't there.
What are the costs? Think about how much is installation and that isn't solar-related, it's fucking construction company gouging. Materials and such, are actually the lower end of costs.
The fact is, you putting solar roof up means nothing, it's company's like Wal-Mart that need to do it. And they are.
Still, if Reagan had committed as much to Solar as he did to floating 4 effectively useless Battleships for his own vanity, we'd be better off.
Re:That is *terrible* news by guruevi · 2017-01-28 11:13 · Score: 1

The problem is that everybody thinks about direct energy generation with solar panels that are at best ~20% effective. It's far cheaper and more cost effective to generate electricity via solar thermal energy which is at least twice as effective as a solar panel to generate electricity, it's even more effective to use it as a direct heating source but a black box, some plumbing and a turbine is not nearly as 'sexy' as a magic electricity maker.
The "problem" with solar panels is they are cheap due to the export of it's pollution and manufacturing to a particular third world country and the subsidies by said country to keep manufacturing there. They are also infinitely easier to install than a solar thermal plant so although good enough for the home owner, it is neither sustainable nor cost effective for industrial installations as the panels tend to overheat and individuals cells break down very early on in their life span, driving down their true effectiveness even further.
Wind, solar and water are way better used directly than converted. It's why electric cars are so slow to take off, they're about as sustainable as oil making their expense relatively constant and if we had kept driving electrics since the early 1900's like we did with oil-based cars, we'd have run out of precious metals in the 50's instead of running low on oil suppliers. Yes, in theory a lot of it should be recyclable but the energy required to recycle stuff is way higher than we expected so precious metal mining will not be moving towards our trash heaps anytime soon.
What we need is smaller everything, smaller government, smaller vacations, smaller businesses. Keep things more localized, we spend way too much energy on moving stuff (including ourselves), sometimes unnecessarily just to save a few dollars. It has served it's purpose in the last century but I think that we need, at this point, use our ingenuity, not to send people all the way around the world, but to make it so that we all can survive locally without relying on massive imports/exports.

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Re:That is *terrible* news by DanielRavenNest · 2017-01-28 12:34 · Score: 1

> In 30+ years it still hasn't taken off, primarily due to cost.
Solar really took off in 2008. Before that, the quantities of silicon needed for solar cells was smaller than that needed for electronics. So it wasn't cost effective to build plants to make "solar grade" silicon. They just piggybacked on existing "electronics grade" production. Electronics needs very few defects in the silicon, because one defect can render a chip non-functional. A defect in a solar cell just lowers the efficiency a tiny bit. Solar-grade silicon costs 20x less per wafer. Once they started mass production of it, the cost of cells dropped like a rock, and production expanded by 75x from 2008 to this year, and still climbing.
> I will be installing solar panels soon,
Rooftop solar currently costs 3x as much as utility-scale solar, for the amount of power it produces. The panels themselves are the same, but the labor for installing a dozen panels on a roof is way higher than installing 300,000 on the ground in a solar farm. The solar farm gets them wholesale from the manufacturer, he only has to get one permit and make one power line connection instead of thousands, etc. If the numbers work for you, great, but you might get a better deal investing in a "yield co", a company that invests in solar farms for the income yield, and using that income to offset your electric bill. A new alternative is "community solar". That's where the utility builds a solar farm (like mine just did), and lets you buy the panels or the power they produce, and it gets deducted from your bill. That works for people like me. I have nice big shade trees around my house I don't want to cut down. It even works for renters, who can't put things on the roof. Just check out all the options before before you jump.
Re:That is *terrible* news by DanielRavenNest · 2017-01-28 12:44 · Score: 1

Solar panels do degrade over time, because by their nature they are constantly exposed to the Sun. The UV component degrades the electronic junctions over time, but it's in the range of 0.5-0.7%/year output decrease. The other parts of the panel (cover glass, aluminum frame, wiring) also suffer the usual effects of outdoor exposure.
So you can expect over a 30-50 year period it will make sense to replace old panels with new ones, and recycle the old ones. The average age of installed panels in the US is only 3 years, because the installation rate has been rapidly growing. So it will be a while before the replacement business will be significant.
Re:That is *terrible* news by Jeremi · 2017-01-28 15:35 · Score: 1

In 30+ years [solar energy] still hasn't taken off, primarily due to cost.
Err, hasn't it? I guess you can make that argument, but it sure seems like moving the goalposts.

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Re:That is *terrible* news by bongey · 2017-01-28 22:17 · Score: 1

Arpanet turned into the internet which is pretty much in everyone's home now in devolped countries. Solar isn't even close, but it is really really getting close to be cost effective for large swaths of the population.
Re:That is *terrible* news by swb · 2017-01-29 03:59 · Score: 1

So you can expect over a 30-50 year period it will make sense to replace old panels with new ones, and recycle the old ones. The average age of installed panels in the US is only 3 years, because the installation rate has been rapidly growing. So it will be a while before the replacement business will be significant.
But I could also see some changes in panel efficiency or other aspects of them that make replacement make sense outside of the usual 30-50 year life span, making a replacement wave happen before the natural aging out of panels.
Obviously any change would have to make economic sense. For a massive farm the economics may not work until they wear out, but for smaller installs some incremental improvement may make replacement prior to end of life make sense.
Re:That is *terrible* news by strikethree · 2017-01-30 04:17 · Score: 1

Government provides better services for less money, and is the only thing standing between you and abusive monopolies and products that kill you.
Then how do you explain Microsoft, High Fructose Corn Syrup, and the Food Pyramid?
I have news for you: You are not important. Some group or another will turn you into roadkill. "You" control governments differently than "you" control businesses differently than "you" control Churches differently than "you" control Political Action Committees different than, etc etc.
Ultimately, the only "individual" that matters is the person at the top of the organization. What they decide is what will happen. If you get poisoned, perhaps you will be executed, see the baby formula incident in China. If you get shot in the back of the head, perhaps there will be no repercussions at all, see Stalin's purges or Mao's great leap forward. Perhaps you will get nickel and dimed to death by rent seeking corporations and there will be no recourse, see Nationstar Mortgage or Comcast.
As long as groups are allowed, they will be clumsy brutes who will stomp the shit out of you without even noticing. Government is a group. Corporations are a group. Churches are a group. No group worries overmuch about an individual.

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"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Re:That is *terrible* news by Namarrgon · 2017-01-30 10:39 · Score: 1

Look at the full lifetime levelised costs per MWh - you'll find that solar thermal is nearly twice the price of solar PV, despite its greater efficiency. Thermal has its place, but since PV panels got so ridiculously cheap, PV makes more sense in a lot of cases, not least due to flexibility, wide scale, and ease of installation.

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Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Re:That is *terrible* news by Uberbah · 2017-01-31 17:27 · Score: 1

Then how do you explain Microsoft, High Fructose Corn Syrup, and the Food Pyramid?
Any particular reason you skipped the first in the post? Because it already answered all three things you brought up:

Only when it's been bought off by capitalist interests.

construction workers by jarkus4 · 2017-01-28 06:17 · Score: 4, Informative

essential fragment from the report (page 28):

Proportionally, solar employment accounts for the largest share of workers in the Electric Power Generation sector. This is largely due to the construction related to the significant buildout of new solar generation capacity.

On pages 37+ there are some graphs with employment category distribution and construction and installation accounts for over 37% of solar employment (compared to less then 5% in coal and not even on graph for oil and gas.

Re: SJW Liberal Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 06:19 · Score: 1

Could have something to with what trump is trying to do so far: send us back into a worse recession than the one we WERE in and wreck the environment while doing it.

Re: Solar by mmell · 2017-01-28 06:19 · Score: 1

A lot more than digging for black-lung.

Re: Solar by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 06:39 · Score: 1

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Coal_Mine_Worker/Hourly_Rate
Coal Mine Worker earns an average wage of $22.56 per hour

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Construction_Worker/Hourly_Rate
Construction Worker earns an average wage of $14.40 per hour.

Sounds very inefficient by John+Jorsett · 2017-01-28 06:40 · Score: 1

Given that solar accounts for 0.5% of US energy consumed, if the cited employment figures are true then each solar employee is much much less productive than his/her fossil counterpart. We could get a lot more employment in construction if we required all excavation to be done with hand tools, but would that be desirable? Likewise, saying "It employs a lot of people and is therefore good" regarding solar uses the wrong metric for its desirability.

Re:Sounds very inefficient by DogDude · 2017-01-28 07:15 · Score: 1

Nothing in this article said anything about "good" or "bad". It's just statistics.

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Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by ClickOnThis · 2017-01-28 06:42 · Score: 1

because of obscene government regulations and now that coal companies can't dump mercury in rivers

I can't tell if you're parodying right wing or are actual right wing.

Yeah, there's a name for that. Shout-out to an AC above, who already mentioned it.

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If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.

Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by MightyMartian · 2017-01-28 06:48 · Score: 1

Can't he be all of the above? I've seen some posts on financial forums that look suspiciously to me like some sort stock scam, feeding off the idea that Donald Trump has godlike powers to make coal yuge again.

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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.

Re:new industry by MightyMartian · 2017-01-28 06:49 · Score: 1

While people have been digging coal out of the ground for thousands of years, up until a few hundred years ago, I'd hardly call it an "industry". Coal didn't become a major industry until mass production of steel began to ramp up towards the end of the 18th century.

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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.

Re:SJW Liberal Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 06:50 · Score: 1

The facts. Reality has a well-known liberal bias. I thought you knew.
We need to balance bring balance to slashdot. More stories with alt-facts. Alt-reality has a well-known conservative bias.

Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2017-01-28 06:50 · Score: 1

Seven whoooooooshes in one post (and counting). I salute you, O Mega-Simian.

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Re:So labor intensive is a good thing ? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 06:51 · Score: 1

Hey dummy: "Proportionally, solar employment accounts for the largest share of workers in the Electric Power Generation sector. This is largely due to the construction related to the significant buildout of new solar generation capacity."

You know, it used to be that people on slashdot, even when their ideas were widely wrong, at least had a basic clue. For the most part. Now it's just crazy people trying to justify their position no matter what.

Re:Jobs can't hide the resources waste of solar by religionofpeas · 2017-01-28 07:08 · Score: 1

You are confusing people working in the gas production and maintenance sector with people installing solar.

Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 07:08 · Score: 1

Its a good argument for the need of a +1 Troll mod to go with the -1 Troll.

Solar is new by I75BJC · 2017-01-28 07:12 · Score: 1

Solar power is new so there is a build-out of new facilities and is labor intensive. In a few years this statistic will drop noticeably. Only going into new areas can keep the employment numbers high. Oil is an older industry with tremendous efficiencies already built in. The build-out has occurred and is not needed. The processes are very refined (pun intended) and costs have be squeezed out. The oil industry is far less labor intensive than when it began or, even, in the late 1900's. Solar may become as efficient as oil as the solar industry blossoms and matures. Until then, it is a comparison of apples and organges

Re:SJW Liberal Slashdot by DogDude · 2017-01-28 07:14 · Score: 1

I think you're confused, or you're posting to the wrong article.

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Re:Nuclear? by gweihir · 2017-01-28 07:14 · Score: 1

Nuclear takes a while. For example Japan already has had the job-growth with really good long-term perspectives for the Fuckupshima event. The US messed up Harrisburg and some others, but I predict it will get it 500 year cleanup project as well.

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Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.

Re:Jobs can't hide the resources waste of solar by DogDude · 2017-01-28 07:16 · Score: 1

How about you add in all of the health problems from natural gas mining and refining....? You can't compare the two in terms of efficiency if you're going to ignore the externalities.

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I don't respond to AC's.

Re:Jobs can't hide the resources waste of solar by MSTCrow5429 · 2017-01-28 07:18 · Score: 1

You are confusing people working in the gas production and maintenance sector with people installing solar.

What do you mean?

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Re:Who's the jobs creator? by ClickOnThis · 2017-01-28 07:24 · Score: 1, Insightful

So if Trump wants to create jobs in America he'd better dump coal and support wind and solar.

I doubt Trump will stand in the way of the solar industry, but he is not going to "dump coal." He carried most of the major coal-producing states including the electoral-college-heavy swing-states of Pennsylvania and Ohio.

He campaigned on bringing back coal-producing jobs. Clinton disappointed coal-voters by campaigning to re-train coal-workers to do other jobs. Whether Trump can deliver is still an open question. The cost of coal compared to other energy-sources, combined with automation, may prevent him from doing so.

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If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.

It's even more misleading than that by tomhath · 2017-01-28 07:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

Read the actual report and you'll see that only about 2/3's of the quoted figure actually works more than half-time in solar.

Just under 374,000 individuals work, in whole or in part, for solar firms, with more than 260,000 of those employees spending the majority of their time on solar

But it gets worse.

Also included in the employment totals are any firms engaged in facility construction, turbine and other generation equipment manufacturing, as well as wholesale parts distribution of all electric generation technologies.

So manufacturing and distributing solar panels also counts as "generation"?

Re:It's even more misleading than that by nasch · 2017-01-28 10:48 · Score: 1

As long as manufacturing and distributing parts for fossil fuel power plants is counted too, that's legitimate. But I don't know if it is.
Re:It's even more misleading than that by Jerome+from+Layton · 2017-01-29 12:21 · Score: 1

The leading contention of the article is flawed as you are observing. It gets worse. How about energy produced or converted per person hour? Using this as a challenge, it isn't even close. So, on one hand, a crew of four people installs a $20,000 solar array 5KW when the sun is in the best position and an average of maybe 2KW over an eight hour sun day. Also, the batteries haven't caught up yet; so, the owner is still stuck on the power grid. So, let's look at the competition. Another home owner elects to install a natural gas 15KW generator, automatic changeover switch, and heat recovery accessories for about$3500. Now, gas that would have been used at 80% efficiency just to provide heat is now producing electricity, heat, and possibly hot water. Unlike the solar installation, this rig works on demand 24/7 any season of the year an is unaffected by the weather. Finally, no quibbling with the power company about buying and selling power over the grid. Why are so many more people employed by "solar"? We are still in the leading toe of the Sigmund curve for this industry. All those roof top installations represent infrastructure being built. Think of Hoover or Grand Coulee Dam for an example of how this works. For five years or so, these projects employed thousands of people doing a lot of hard work. The current maintenance force is less than one tenth of that. Sooner or later, solar will be "built out" and the labor force will shrink accordingly.

Re:Jobs can't hide the resources waste of solar by MSTCrow5429 · 2017-01-28 07:26 · Score: 1

I work with the data that is presented. There are externalities with everything, solar included; I don't have the data or stats training to do my own study on that. Based on the data the OP is presenting, and the conclusions made, I proved that it was sloppy, omitted necessary information, and generally misleading. I did the calculations with the given facts, and pointed out qualifications. If someone can build on that, that's good too.

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Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by hey! · 2017-01-28 07:28 · Score: 1

Well, it's hard to tell these days when someone is being ironic without an explicit disclaimer.

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Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.

Re:SJW Liberal Slashdot by gweihir · 2017-01-28 07:30 · Score: 1

Before the stupidity-singularity was just a potential event, now we have it.

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Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.

Very efficient by tomhath · 2017-01-28 07:31 · Score: 1

Not many jobs in nuclear. They're good jobs, but they don't employ many people.

Re:Jobs can't hide the resources waste of solar by angel'o'sphere · 2017-01-28 07:36 · Score: 1

He means your post is bollocks.

What has the amount of people needed to generate 1GWh from gas to do with
the amount of people needed to install 1GW(h) solar power generation options?

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Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by ShanghaiBill · 2017-01-28 07:36 · Score: 3, Informative

That mercury will be disbursed on the ground (where it came from to begin with).

There is a big difference between mercury in a 300 million year old coal seam, and mercury in topsoil and surface water where it enters the food chain.

It is not just burning coal that is harmful, but the mining is also very filthy and destructive. If we want to help coal miners, we should give them financial assistance to move out of Appalachia and go where the jobs are. They could move to North Dakota and work on fracking rigs. They could go to Oklahoma and build wind farms. They could move to Arizona and install solar panels.

Re:SJW Liberal Slashdot by PoopJuggler · 2017-01-28 07:47 · Score: 1

Yeah we should just shut up and let Orange Hitler ruin this country.

Re:Jobs can't hide the resources waste of solar by religionofpeas · 2017-01-28 07:55 · Score: 1

Exactly. Once the solar workers are done installing the first GW, they can move to the next GW, and so on. On the other hand, the gas industry workers are stuck producing whatever they are producing, and given the declining supply of gas, will produce less and less for the same labor as time goes on.

Re:SJW Liberal Slashdot by bongey · 2017-01-28 08:02 · Score: 1

Trump campaigned keeping people employed in oil, coal and gas. Clinton did say that she would be putting coal companies out of business, as a result of moving toward renewable energy sources. The article is trying to saying there are more jobs in renewable energy already , which is not true. http://www.politifact.com/trut...
So the article is trying to say Clinton was right, Trump was wrong. Aka SJW liberal article.

Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 08:24 · Score: 1

There was a person with a plan for that.
I forgot her name though.
I heard she might be going to prison.

Re:SJW Liberal Slashdot by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2017-01-28 08:25 · Score: 1

Trying to make a little spat between yourself and reality into someone else's problem not working out for you? Cry me a river.

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Il n'y a pas de Planet B.

Re:SJW Liberal Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 08:31 · Score: 2, Informative

> Clinton did say that she would be putting coal companies out of business

No, that's what the alt-newsphere claimed she said. What she actually said was all the rich people are fucking you guys, and I'm not going to lie about that. But I will help you to get out from under their thumbs and have a better future.

You were lied to, plain and simple. Watch now as you cling to those lies in the face of hard evidence to the contrary.

In context: Hillary Clinton’s comments about coal jobs

Look, we have serious economic problems in many parts of our country. And Roland is absolutely right. Instead of dividing people the way Donald Trump does, let's reunite around policies that will bring jobs and opportunities to all these underserved poor communities.

So for example, I'm the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right?

And we're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories.

Now we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don't want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.

So whether it's coal country or Indian country or poor urban areas, there is a lot of poverty in America. We have gone backwards. We were moving in the right direction. In the '90s, more people were lifted out of poverty than any time in recent history.

Because of the terrible economic policies of the Bush administration, President Obama was left with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and people fell back into poverty because they lost jobs, they lost homes, they lost opportunities, and hope.

So I am passionate about this, which is why I have put forward specific plans about how we incentivize more jobs, more investment in poor communities, and put people to work.

Should it require fewer people? by RogueWarrior65 · 2017-01-28 09:10 · Score: 1

Once a system is up and running, shouldn't it be nearly maintenance-free other than keeping the panels clean? If it's mainly construction, then these aren't going to be permanent jobs.

Re:Should it require fewer people? by guruevi · 2017-01-28 11:22 · Score: 1

Not maintenance free. Solar panels require a lot of maintenance to keep them in their optimal conditions. They're also very expensive to produce, don't recycle well and don't last nearly as long as advertised.

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Re:Should it require fewer people? by RogueWarrior65 · 2017-01-28 12:10 · Score: 1

Robots could keep them clean 24/7/365. As to your second point, of course, which makes them seem to fit nicely with the world sinking deeper and deeper into a rental economy.
Re:Should it require fewer people? by Jeremi · 2017-01-28 15:54 · Score: 1

Solar panels require a lot of maintenance to keep them in their optimal conditions
The workaround for that problem is simple -- don't bother keeping them in their optimal conditions. It's cheaper to plan ahead and install a few additional panels to compensate for dust buildup than it is to send someone out to wash them every week. In areas that receive at least a small amount of rain, the rain will clean the panels well enough.

They're also very expensive to produce, don't recycle well and don't last nearly as long as advertised.
Those talking points would be more convincing if you were able to back them up with a citation. Raw assertions are meaningless.

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I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Re:Should it require fewer people? by Barsteward · 2017-01-29 08:08 · Score: 1

define "a lot of maintenance". i've yet to see anyone on a roof doing anything to a solar panel, even if a person gets up onto a roof once a year, its not a lot.

"They're very expensive to produce" - its a fairly new industry so its to be expected and they are getting cheaper all the time, do some research on the trials and tribulations of when fossil fuel generation started and compare.

"don't recycle well" Recycling can recover up to 90% of the photovoltaic glass and also up to 95% of the semiconductor material necessary for further production

"don't last nearly as long as advertised" https://cleantechnica.com/2015...

You are either just making stuff up or reading posts from others without checking their validity

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"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Re:Should it require fewer people? by Barsteward · 2017-01-29 08:09 · Score: 1

https://www.pilkington.com/en-...

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"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Re:Should it require fewer people? by guruevi · 2017-01-29 12:15 · Score: 1

Especially when it comes down to commercial panels, you need to clean them, clear snow in many places, clear bird poop (which can quickly erode rubber gaskets, wiring and plastics). As I said, it doesn't matter much to lose 1% in generation per year on a residential installation, on a commercial installation there are many more 'moving parts' that have to be kept in order.
They're expensive to produce, more expensive than their actual cost. The main reason we don't see that cost is because everything along the way is heavily subsidized and we have exported the pollution (companies are simply dumping toxic waste from solar panel production in nearby rivers). They're also substantially more expensive when you consider everything than other solar power generation technologies.
They don't recycle well, the stats you have are from PV promoters. In reality, Europe had to exempt them from the toxic waste list even though they are on the list of toxic waste. Many in the industry know about the looming problem of lead, cadmium and other heavy metals used in the systems. Sure you can 'technically' recycle most if not all heavy metals, yet the first set of commercial PV installations are being replaced already and we're not sure what to do with them, they are made of the same materials and substrates most computer/technological waste is made off (they are LED's after all), yet we don't see mass recycling of portable phones or computers which have been around in substantial quantities for over 50 years now because it's (still) not economical nor ecologically effective to do so.
Don't last nearly as long as advertised because a) they degrade much faster than advertised (some degrade at 3-4% per year) and b) new technology comes along necessitating replacement just to keep up with energy usage per area installed and also to lower maintenance costs. Again, nobody cares when this happens to a home which make out a very minimal contribution to the overall power system, these are commercial installations, in those cases we're talking about 10-15 years before they are replaced. The problem here is similar to SSD's, the first generation SLC SSD's lasted very long compared to these days SSD's last a lot less long. So in PV, the first generation was sturdy mono-crystalline silicon, these days very thin Cadmium-Telluride panels are very lightweight, very cheap to produce but they degrade 6 times as fast as first generation silicon.
I'm not advocating against PV for solar home installations, I just think they're a big waste of time and resources for actual solar plants which would, in the long run, be much better off with solar thermal if governments all across the world didn't just blindly subsidize "green" technology.

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Re:Who's the jobs creator? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-01-28 09:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

LOL if you think the coal jobs will ever return.

They aint coming back, ever. Due exactly to what you said, automation and alt energy sources.

Do they count this one? by slasher999 · 2017-01-28 09:20 · Score: 1

I bet they are counting the woman at Home Depot who asks me if I want solar panels literally EVERY TIME I walk by her.

Re:Who's the jobs creator? by ClickOnThis · 2017-01-28 09:50 · Score: 1

Coal is still an important component of steel-manufacturing, although competing technologies are in use and may eventually take over.

IMHO, what we can and should stop doing ASAP is burning coal to make electricity.

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If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.

Re:So labor intensive is a good thing ? by serviscope_minor · 2017-01-28 09:50 · Score: 1

So you'd get energy independence, provided by home grown industry without the pollution and environmental trashing of the current system plus high employment? This is bad how?

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SJW n. One who posts facts.

Re:Lying about Trump by dywolf · 2017-01-28 10:34 · Score: 1

he literally did.

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The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.

Energy payback time by Geoffrey.landis · 2017-01-28 10:46 · Score: 5, Informative

Solar panels do not produce much more energy than they take to make.

I don't know where you got this information, but the best I can say is that you are way out of date.
The energy payback time for solar panels is, depending on location, between 0.4 and 1.4 years. Since the lifetime of solar arrays is usually warrantied for 30 years, they produce much more energy than they take to make.
See e.g., https://cleantechnica.com/2013...

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http://www.geoffreylandis.com

Re:Energy payback time by losfromla · 2017-01-28 14:49 · Score: 4, Informative

Those guys are referring to the time to recoup the money the panels cost you by way of savings vs staying with your grid provider. The parent (Geoffrey.landis) was referring to recouping the cost of the energy required to make the panels. Two very different things. So, you guys are probably in agreement just talking past each other, mostly you arth1 since you jumped in with what you thought was a counter.

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Only I can judge you.
Re: Energy payback time by frdmfghtr · 2017-01-28 15:04 · Score: 1

You're thinking of the dollar payback. The patent was referring to the energy payback.

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Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Re:Energy payback time by arth1 · 2017-01-28 15:04 · Score: 1

Even if just counting the initial energy costs, I still find it hard to believe a worst case of 1.4 years. Does that take into account the total energy cost including transportation of raw materials and finished products, installation, cabling, batteries and meters?
And even so, 0.4-1.4 seems suspect in itself - that assumes that the worst case still get as much as 2/7 as much energy as best case. I find it hard to believe that an Alaskan installation can get 28% as much energy as a New Mexico one. I'd expect the range to be at least an order of magnitude in difference.
Re: Energy payback time by arth1 · 2017-01-28 15:23 · Score: 1

I was - my mistake. But I still find it hard to believe that you can recoup the energy cost in a worst case of 1.4 years. In Northern (and Southern) latitudes, you don't get much (or any) sun for half the year, and when you do have sun, it's filtered through a lot more atmosphere. And rain. And fog.
I think solar panels are just great for where they work. But geothermal energy seems like a better solution for much of the planet.
Re:Energy payback time by Maury+Markowitz · 2017-01-29 02:42 · Score: 1

> As late as 2016, the guys selling solar panels talked about an average national break-even
*COST* break-even, not energy break-even. Come on.
> I still find it hard to believe a worst case of 1.4 years. Does that take into account the total energy cost
> including transportation of raw materials and finished products, installation, cabling, batteries and meters?
Yes. There's this thing called "google", why don't you try it out?
> I'd expect the range to be at least an order of magnitude in difference. :rolleyes:
A 1k array in Tonopah will make about 1700 kWh per year (after all derates). The same system in Fairbanks makes just over 1030. That's less than a factor of 2, and due entirely to weather. Everyone has 12 hours a day, on average, over a year.
http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php
Re:Energy payback time by GameboyRMH · 2017-01-29 06:58 · Score: 1

I don't know where you got this information,

It comes from a study on high-end solar panels used on satellites. Unlike everday solar panels, they did indeed take more energy to build than they produce over their lifetimes. This spread across right-wing blogs like wildfire a few years ago with the assumption that the same applied to all solar panels.

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"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Re:Energy payback time by david_thornley · 2017-01-30 09:44 · Score: 1

Doesn't really matter. When you get and install solar panels, you're paying indirectly for all the energy used in making and transporting them, as well as a whole lot more. If the purchaser is making his or her money back in 1.4 years, the energy break-even point has to be a lot sooner.

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"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Re:Energy payback time by losfromla · 2017-01-30 10:37 · Score: 1

Yes, I suppose you are right about that.
Looked at another way, if you are able to install your own panels and do your own design, you cut out the final profit takers and save yourself 85% - 95% of the cost of installed panels. I appreciate you pressing on this issue, by forcing me to think about it more you've helped me understand how much better off I'll be installing my own panels.
P.S.
My math was 0.4/7.5 for the max savings and 1.4/10 for min savings, which is energy time divided by cost time but I think there is something wrong with my logic. I think that maybe because I can't believe the savings is so drastic, or maybe there is something else I'm missing but can't put my finger on it.

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Only I can judge you.

Re:Lying about Trump by mi · 2017-01-28 11:10 · Score: 1

Claims like yours are empty and meaningless without citations. But then, again, all your claims are empty and meaningless...

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In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.

Re:Jobs can't hide the resources waste of solar by guruevi · 2017-01-28 11:20 · Score: 1

How so, solar panels still need maintenance, you need snow removal, cleaning, repairs/replacements of damaged cells and the damned things are very inefficient per square foot so you need more space (and thus more people and energy waste to cover said space) to generate less power.

Gas is sustainable for the foreseeable future, solar panels not so much. Solar thermal is cheaper, more efficient and more sustainable, not as sexy and thus not subsidized though.

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Re:Who's the jobs creator? by DanielRavenNest · 2017-01-28 11:41 · Score: 4, Informative

> He campaigned on bringing back coal-producing jobs. ... The cost of coal compared to other energy-sources, combined with automation, may prevent him from doing so.

Let's put it this way. The Southern Company (big southeast utility company), just finished their first big "clean coal" plant in Mississippi. It's clean in the sense of having the latest scrubbing tech, and the CO2 it produces will be sent down a pipeline to be injected into Gulf Coast oil wells to pump out more oil, and sequester the CO2 underground. It cost *ten times* as much per kW of capacity as utility-scale solar farms in 2016, and solar farms don't need fuel to keep running.

That's why Georgia Power, one of the Southern Co's divisions, is building 2.5 GW of solar in the next few years ( http://www.prnewswire.com/news... ). The Utility's divisions (Georgia Power, Alabama Power, etc.) are divided that way because each state regulates them differently. They are also half-owner of the Vogtle nuclear plant on the GA/SC border, which is adding two new reactors with 2.2 GW capacity.

Coal is dying. Ten years ago it supplied half of the US's electricity. Now it's down to 30%. It's mainly being replaced by Natural Gas, wind, and solar. It just takes a while to replace half the nation's electric capacity. Trump got votes by telling coal-country voters he's bring back jobs, but it ain't happening. According to the Energy Department, ~15 GW of renewable power plants are scheduled to be added in 2017, and 4.7 GW of coal plants shut down. That just continues the trend of the last decade.

Re:Who's the jobs creator? by ClickOnThis · 2017-01-28 11:54 · Score: 1

Fair points. Thanks. One thing:

Trump got votes by telling coal-country voters he's bring back jobs, but it ain't happening.

You're right. I was being generous when I said it was an "open question." Really it isn't.

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If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.

Oh, how idiotic can you get? by Namarrgon · 2017-01-28 12:29 · Score: 1

Do you honestly think those people are employed to *generate* each MWh? What, are they all standing around a solar panel carefully angling a mirror at it??

Surely it should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that these people are *installing* solar panels. All those jobs are due to the boom in solar *capacity*, not generation, and their labour now will provide free power for *decades*. Even you would have thought of this, if you weren't in such a hurry to display how wilful your ignorance is.

So if you want to calculate jobs per MWh, first multiply the projected annual output by 30 (probably a lot more, considering how easy it is to replace a panel in an existing installation). Then consider that most of these jobs would be domestic installations, trading scale efficiency for personal empowerment, wide-distribution resiliency, etc.

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Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?

Re:So labor intensive is a good thing ? by Crashmarik · 2017-01-28 13:47 · Score: 1

Woosh

The point was the premise is B.S.

You must be new around here by Latent+Heat · 2017-01-28 13:48 · Score: 1

You thinking that kind of rational argument is persuasive on "News for Nerds"?

Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by losfromla · 2017-01-28 14:55 · Score: 1

wait, you suggest we do more fracking to avoid pollution due to coal production? I don't know for sure but I think you are the pot (there's a good chance you're the kettle though).

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Only I can judge you.

Jobs lost by slazzy · 2017-01-28 15:18 · Score: 2

How many doctors lost their jobs thanks to less air pollution related illness ?

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Website Just Down For Me? Find out

Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by ShanghaiBill · 2017-01-28 18:05 · Score: 1

wait, you suggest we do more fracking to avoid pollution due to coal production?

Yes. Fracking has problems, but it is way cleaner than coal mining. Furthermore, many of the problems with fracking can be fixed with better pipe seals, and better pond liners. There are no "fixes" for coal mines (other than closing them).

Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2017-01-28 19:07 · Score: 1

+1, Underrated also works.

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Il n'y a pas de Planet B.

Re:Lying about Trump by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2017-01-28 19:13 · Score: 1

I realise that wasn't quite fair of me, knowing quite well how you SO want to believe... but thanks for the chuckle in any case.

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Il n'y a pas de Planet B.

Re: Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by PoopJuggler · 2017-01-28 21:43 · Score: 1

coal companies can't dump mercury in rivers it's becoming really hard for people owning coal mines to even survive.

Oh no! The coal companies can't pollute our rivers with mercury anymore! Are you fucking seriously complaining about that?? Do you have any idea how damaging mercury is to the environment? Is there anything you won't rape to make a dollar?

Re: Who's the jobs creator? by PoopJuggler · 2017-01-28 21:50 · Score: 2

Clinton disappointed coal-voters by campaigning to re-train coal-workers to do other jobs.

Which is exactly what we should be doing. The rest of the world is moving to renewables and we're stuck in the 1950's by the baby boomers who refuse to adapt and modernize. And then there's Trump, catalyzing the whole thing. We should be retraining these people into machining jobs as we advance our robotic and energy technology. That's the future, not coal.

Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by taiwanjohn · 2017-01-29 03:33 · Score: 1

Not to mention that coal contains trace amounts of Thorium and Uranium, which escape to the atmosphere in the exhaust. Ironically, a coal-fired power plant would not pass inspection as a nuclear plant because it emits far more radioactive pollution than would ever be allowed from a nuke plant. (But the way US law is written, coal plants don't have to be tested for radiation.)

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XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC

Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by MillionthMonkey · 2017-01-29 04:13 · Score: 1

The GP is clearly sarcastic. I don't get the trigger-happy mods and the virtue-signaling replies.

I was the GP. I thought complaining about not being able to dump mercury into rivers would clearly signal that I was being sarcastic. (BTW last week Trump really did block an Obama rule keeping mercury out of rivers.)

I'm impressed the post got modded to hell as if I were being serious. (What could have happened to put everyone is in such a grouchy mood lately?)

Re:Lying about Trump by mi · 2017-01-29 05:50 · Score: 1

Still empty and meaningless without citations.

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In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.

Regression towards the mean by Tenebrousedge · 2017-01-29 08:15 · Score: 1

As I see it, the purpose of government is to correct for market inefficiencies. Presumably a hypothetical perfectly competitive market would not require any government interference, In the opposite case where the service is required to be universal, such as fire protection, postal service, and military defence, it's clear that allowing private ownership of these would amount to a private tax. And in the case of the natural monopoly, we recognize that there are inherently unequal bargaining positions, and well, I suspect most people here know all about rent-seeking behavior anyway. Point being, I think that the view that government has a balancing role to play in the economy is pretty much the definition of centrism, but I'm also pretty sure there are large parts of the United States where anything less than full-throated support for free market capitalism will be viewed as subversive behavior.

"Big government" is merely virtue signaling. I suppose it's what we're reduced to. One feels like some regression towards some mean is rapidly coming due, but what form it will take is hard to guess at.

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Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.

So, a lot of electricity comes from solar? by eric_harris_76 · 2017-01-29 08:22 · Score: 1

Does this mean that a lot of electricity comes from solar?

Or does it mean that solar pwer is a labor-intensive way to get electricity?

Sounds like the latter. Maybe someone who cares more than I do will do the math. The metric we're looking for, I think, is human hours per kilowatt-hour. Or something like that.

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There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.

Back of the envelope Energy payback time by Geoffrey.landis · 2017-01-29 10:23 · Score: 1

Even if just counting the initial energy costs, I still find it hard to believe a worst case of 1.4 years.

Let's do a back of the envelope calculation.

You can buy solar panels for $0.50/watt. If a significant part of that cost was energy cost, then you'd see panels being made primarily in places with cheap energy. But, actually, you don't-- you see them being made in places with cheap labor.

To make numbers easy, suppose 20% of solar panel cost is energy cost, $0.10 per watt, and the energy cost (at industrial prices, not home prices) is $0.10/kW-hr. So, it takes 1000 hours at 1 kW/m2 (nominal 1 sun-- the solar intensity at which the rated power is rated) to do energy return. Typical insolation maps show a global horizontal insolation of about 1500 kW-hrs annually for the middle of the temperate regions we're talking about, so energy return would be in about 2/3 of a year.

That's a back of the envelope, but I wouldn't expect it to be off by more than a factor of two or so.

Insolation link: http://www.greenrhinoenergy.co...

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http://www.geoffreylandis.com

PV uses near IR, not UV by Geoffrey.landis · 2017-01-29 10:41 · Score: 1

Most of the energy comes from UV light, not the visible spectrum.

Good thinking, but actually silicon cells (the kind used in low-cost panels) are most sensitive to red and near-IR. You don't get much energy out of the UV part of the solar spectrum-- in fact, usually you want to block most of it in the glass, since UV will tend to yellow the adhesive holding the cells to the glass.

However, the previous poster is also way off base-- geothermal is a lousy solution for most of the planet. Maybe he lives in Iceland (which has lots of geothermal). For most of the planet, geothermal is expensive to access, comes in the form of low-grade heat, and is limited by thermal conductivity of rock. Good for winter/summer thermal averaging, perhaps, but not much more.

I expect that the 0.5 to 1.4 year payback numbers are for places photovoltaic panels are actually used, and not for place like Alaska in winter. (Alaska in summer is pretty good, though, as long as you track the sun)

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http://www.geoffreylandis.com

Re:PV uses near IR, not UV by mcswell · 2017-01-29 15:22 · Score: 1

I think there is one good use for geothermal in most areas, namely heating and cooling homes (and possibly larger buildings). In most of the continental US, the temperature ten or twenty feet underground is a somewhat steady ~50 degrees F (ten C). That means that in the summer, when you need to cool the house, the ground is plenty cool, and a heat pump can transfer that heat; and in the winter, the ground is warmer than the air (for places that go around freezing or below), and again a heat pump can transfer that heat.
There are of course restrictions. IIRC, the ground has to be somewhat wet, meaning it doesn't work in Phoenix. (Dry ground doesn't transfer heat well.) And you need a large enough area of ground to run the coils in--you can't use a fan like you can if your heat pump is exchanging heat with the ambient air. And the payback is not that quick. Might also be problematic if you're in an earthquake-prone area, I'm not sure.

Re:Lying about Trump by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2017-01-29 12:22 · Score: 1

I LOL'ed.

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Il n'y a pas de Planet B.

Re:Lying about Trump by mi · 2017-01-29 13:25 · Score: 1

You drooled...

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In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.

Re:Lying about Trump by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2017-01-29 14:17 · Score: 1

After you presented me with a fish-in-barrel-and-here's-your-gun opportunity like that one? Yeah, pretty much. HAND.

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Il n'y a pas de Planet B.

Geothermal for thermal averaging by Geoffrey.landis · 2017-01-30 03:31 · Score: 1

I think there is one good use for geothermal in most areas, namely heating and cooling homes (and possibly larger buildings). In most of the continental US, the temperature ten or twenty feet underground is a somewhat steady ~50 degrees F (ten C). That means that in the summer, when you need to cool the house, the ground is plenty cool, and a heat pump can transfer that heat; and in the winter, the ground is warmer than the air (for places that go around freezing or below), and again a heat pump can transfer that heat.

Yes, that is what I was referring to when I wrote "Good for winter/summer thermal averaging, perhaps, but not much more."

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http://www.geoffreylandis.com

Need to look no further than the source by MooseMiester · 2017-01-30 04:13 · Score: 1

This is the same agency that lists "Green Jobs" as people who drive garbage trucks.

Best wait until the swamp is drained, and agencies are pushed to reporting actual facts rather than driving a political agenda.

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Murphy was an optimist

Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by rwven · 2017-01-30 09:43 · Score: 1

Haha, have you checked what year it is? People are saying all sorts of insane things on the internet and they're perfectly serious about it. Deadpan is hard to pick up via text sometimes. Thanks for the clarification. :-)

Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. by blind+biker · 2017-01-30 12:19 · Score: 1

The GP is clearly sarcastic. I don't get the trigger-happy mods and the virtue-signaling replies.

I was the GP. I thought complaining about not being able to dump mercury into rivers would clearly signal that I was being sarcastic. (BTW last week Trump really did block an Obama rule keeping mercury out of rivers.)

I'm impressed the post got modded to hell as if I were being serious. (What could have happened to put everyone is in such a grouchy mood lately?)

And now my comment has been downmodded, too. This is what happens when you combine idiocracy and internet. And things are going to get gradually worse.

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"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.

Re:Jobs can't hide the resources waste of solar by dywolf · 2017-02-04 14:42 · Score: 1

so how much do you get paid for this shilling?

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The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.

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