Well, those shingles are a goodly idea but they are only part of the solution.
If you don't have a large battery array (which I do have, that's because I'm 100% off grid) then you're drawing power once the sun goes down. That means you need a baseline load from somewhere--coal most likely, hydro or nuclear, there are a some gas plants there too.
If they want to have a battery stack that also requires some wiring work and at least one inverter (to convert from DC power to AC power). In my case I had to have two inverters because it's a "leggy" house, and two microwaves at different ends of the house plus a well kicking on wasn't going do it. There are a different strategies to wire up the shingles to feed into the power grid (if without battery) or to battery (or if that's the option). Either way that's copper and wiring and all the fun with that
I think anybody who can be off grid should if they can--not because of silly global warming, just because it gives you independence.
The Electoral College was one of the finest tweaks the Founders made to our Republic.
The only real problem with it nowadays is that it's now limited to 538 Electors. It was originally supposed to field one Elector per Senator and Representative from each state, but Congress capped the number of reps at 438 several decades back. That means that over time we should have more Reps and more Electors to better represent the people.
I'd restore the original intent though it would take a Constitutional amendment to do so.
Um...your definition of a "reasonable, intelligent discussion" seems to assume the person you're talking with agrees with the Alarmism. That's pretty blindered of you.
That's just a form of waiving the hands and saying "we'll figure it out as we go". You're probably right that if the United States were to do this it would likely be something along those lines (gradually introduced, income cutoff, etc.) but those will inevitably get hammered as "unjust". Look at it this way -- under what doctrine of the Constitution is it fair for the federal government to treat people differently? Right now we make it work by saying these are welfare programs intended to help the less fortunate, but you'd lose much of that argument if you wanted to replace it with just flat $$$ for "some" people.
If anything my 20% is an underestimate -- most likely the number of UBI recipients will go up if this is implemented, and the GDP will probably go down.
Nope, I hit it pretty much on the head -- and you don't have to be borderline asshole.
My statement is 100% correct. The UBI would eat up about 20% of the GDP, but that's eventually likely to decline as people drop out completely and decide their government dole is "enough". I haven't even touched on the inflation that is likely.
You sound like somebody very invested in the idea...why?
If there are 150M American adults eligible for this, and you pay them each $2000/month, that's $300B per month. Over a year, that's $3.6T.
The US GDP in 2014 was $17.4T.
So a UBI would eat up ~20% of the US GDP, assuming that implementing it doesn't itself institutes changes (many people would likely drop out of the economy all-together, reducing the GDP part).
Just don't see it without a massive (and arguable) philosophical change.
Thought I might toss my two penny's worth in here.
I am 100% off-grid, have been for coming up on 5 years. I have 8.8kw/hr of solar panels installed (that's 36 of them) and have never had a problem with the panels themselves. The one annoyance (which Al Gore never seems to mention) is the royal Pain in the Ass it is to clean snow off of them. Mine are a ground mount so it's not terribly difficult, but one is quite exhausted by the time one is done with it.
My biggest problems with the system have been two other components -- energy storage (batteries) and energy usage (the house). A lesser problem has been backup energy generation (a generator) for when snow/clouds prevent the system from harvesting much from the sun.
On the usage side I've been on a crusade to replace all of my many incandescent and CFL lights with LEDs and am now on the downhill side of that struggle. There's a lot more work than I thought there would be to swap out some types of bulbs (such as tube CFLs) but it's doable with a bit of electrical knowledge. Certainly my mother wouldn't be able to manage it, but I'm relatively handy with such things so other than being annoying working over one's head it hasn't been too bad. I expect to have all 225 bulbs in the house (big house) replaced by year's end.
Backup generators have been a bit of a mixed bag for me. My first generator got sold out from under me (I didn't own it....long story) and my second worked great for about a year before its stupid oil filter fell off its holder and it seized up. Grrrr. My third worked for about 6 months and then began throwing bizarre errors; the techs had to nearly completely disassemble it to discover that the rotor was in slightly crooked and had damaged the stator windings. I'm now on my FOURTH generator in five years and genuinely hoping I won't have to deal with any more for a long, long time. I can't blame this on the system overall, though it is indicative of the fragile nature of the hardware.
The truly big problem has been the batteries. They 100% absolutely have been nothing but a massive PITA since about 6 months in. The first problem was I didn't really have enough amp-hour capacity (675AH) -- a mistake my solar guy made -- so I quickly bought another set to up my capacity to 1350 AH. The problem then was that these were Gel batteries, and Gel batteries are both charging sensitive and don't like being drawn down to 50% or so every night as I was doing. As a result they quickly began to degrade, and despite some efforts to rejuvenate them, rotate them around, etc. they got so bad that by last October I literally only had three actually holding power into the night. I temporarily replaced them all with 8 L-16 lead acids which are honestly doing a very fine job and got me through the winter, but I decided the only way to solve this problem was to go for gross overkill -- and so I've ordered a 2300AH battery stack. It arrives in a couple of weeks, and I anticipate that once it's operational that 4th generator won't get a lot of use. Fingers crossed!
Honestly if I wasn't a tech guy and willing to work at it my wife and mother would have been hosed about a year after we moved in. I've finally gotten tired of spending all my spare time up there which is why I bought the big-ass battery stack, and at expected usage levels that should be good for 25-30 years.
Solar is a great technology but if you're doing anything at all besides just putting them on your roof to feed power into the grid during the day and pull power from the grid during the night it'll be a lot more work than you probably think. My older neighbors down below me are already complaining about how much their generator has been running and there are a couple of obvious reasons for that -- their panels are on their roof (so they can't get the snow off) and their batteries are lead acid (which means they need to be inspected and refilled with distilled water so often, which I'm wondering how much they are doing). Joe Sixpack would have similar problems -- it would work great for a year or so and then Stuff Would Happen.
Venus also happens to receive just under twice as much sunlight as Earth (http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q2476.html), has an atmosphere that is about 96% CO2 vs Earth's.04% (http://sci.esa.int/venus-express/34067-venus-vs-earth/), and its atmospheric pressure is 90 times ours here on our little blue marble (http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Venus_Express/Venus_compared_to_Earth).
Suspect those all together have rather more of an influence.....
Slashdot Mirror
No, I'd say he about nailed it.
You on the other hand.....
Ferret
Well, those shingles are a goodly idea but they are only part of the solution.
If you don't have a large battery array (which I do have, that's because I'm 100% off grid) then you're drawing power once the sun goes down. That means you need a baseline load from somewhere--coal most likely, hydro or nuclear, there are a some gas plants there too.
If they want to have a battery stack that also requires some wiring work and at least one inverter (to convert from DC power to AC power). In my case I had to have two inverters because it's a "leggy" house, and two microwaves at different ends of the house plus a well kicking on wasn't going do it. There are a different strategies to wire up the shingles to feed into the power grid (if without battery) or to battery (or if that's the option). Either way that's copper and wiring and all the fun with that
I think anybody who can be off grid should if they can--not because of silly global warming, just because it gives you independence.
Ferret
Yeah....no, you're just wrong:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/20...
Ferret
...that's stupid.
I'd throw it out for lack of standing....there are other reasons, but that's the most obvious.
Ferret
The Electoral College was one of the finest tweaks the Founders made to our Republic.
The only real problem with it nowadays is that it's now limited to 538 Electors. It was originally supposed to field one Elector per Senator and Representative from each state, but Congress capped the number of reps at 438 several decades back. That means that over time we should have more Reps and more Electors to better represent the people.
I'd restore the original intent though it would take a Constitutional amendment to do so.
Ferret
Comey has lost all credibility now
Vote for Trump, it's the only way to punish her now.
Ferret
You really don't know how a greenhouse works, do you?
Ferret
Um...your definition of a "reasonable, intelligent discussion" seems to assume the person you're talking with agrees with the Alarmism. That's pretty blindered of you.
Many of us don't.
Ferret
Plants will do better and it'll be a greener world.
Win win.
Ferret
Bet we catch more drug users testing the poor than the rich, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.
Ferret
That's just a form of waiving the hands and saying "we'll figure it out as we go". You're probably right that if the United States were to do this it would likely be something along those lines (gradually introduced, income cutoff, etc.) but those will inevitably get hammered as "unjust". Look at it this way -- under what doctrine of the Constitution is it fair for the federal government to treat people differently? Right now we make it work by saying these are welfare programs intended to help the less fortunate, but you'd lose much of that argument if you wanted to replace it with just flat $$$ for "some" people.
If anything my 20% is an underestimate -- most likely the number of UBI recipients will go up if this is implemented, and the GDP will probably go down.
Ferret
Nope, I hit it pretty much on the head -- and you don't have to be borderline asshole.
My statement is 100% correct. The UBI would eat up about 20% of the GDP, but that's eventually likely to decline as people drop out completely and decide their government dole is "enough". I haven't even touched on the inflation that is likely.
You sound like somebody very invested in the idea...why?
Ferret
If there are 150M American adults eligible for this, and you pay them each $2000/month, that's $300B per month. Over a year, that's $3.6T.
The US GDP in 2014 was $17.4T.
So a UBI would eat up ~20% of the US GDP, assuming that implementing it doesn't itself institutes changes (many people would likely drop out of the economy all-together, reducing the GDP part).
Just don't see it without a massive (and arguable) philosophical change.
Ferret
Yes, this!
Batteries are the most expensive and least reliable part of the whole mess.
Ferret
....will this be ABOUT?!?!?!
Ferret
What a stupid thing to say.
Ferret
Thought I might toss my two penny's worth in here.
I am 100% off-grid, have been for coming up on 5 years. I have 8.8kw/hr of solar panels installed (that's 36 of them) and have never had a problem with the panels themselves. The one annoyance (which Al Gore never seems to mention) is the royal Pain in the Ass it is to clean snow off of them. Mine are a ground mount so it's not terribly difficult, but one is quite exhausted by the time one is done with it.
My biggest problems with the system have been two other components -- energy storage (batteries) and energy usage (the house). A lesser problem has been backup energy generation (a generator) for when snow/clouds prevent the system from harvesting much from the sun.
On the usage side I've been on a crusade to replace all of my many incandescent and CFL lights with LEDs and am now on the downhill side of that struggle. There's a lot more work than I thought there would be to swap out some types of bulbs (such as tube CFLs) but it's doable with a bit of electrical knowledge. Certainly my mother wouldn't be able to manage it, but I'm relatively handy with such things so other than being annoying working over one's head it hasn't been too bad. I expect to have all 225 bulbs in the house (big house) replaced by year's end.
Backup generators have been a bit of a mixed bag for me. My first generator got sold out from under me (I didn't own it....long story) and my second worked great for about a year before its stupid oil filter fell off its holder and it seized up. Grrrr. My third worked for about 6 months and then began throwing bizarre errors; the techs had to nearly completely disassemble it to discover that the rotor was in slightly crooked and had damaged the stator windings. I'm now on my FOURTH generator in five years and genuinely hoping I won't have to deal with any more for a long, long time. I can't blame this on the system overall, though it is indicative of the fragile nature of the hardware.
The truly big problem has been the batteries. They 100% absolutely have been nothing but a massive PITA since about 6 months in. The first problem was I didn't really have enough amp-hour capacity (675AH) -- a mistake my solar guy made -- so I quickly bought another set to up my capacity to 1350 AH. The problem then was that these were Gel batteries, and Gel batteries are both charging sensitive and don't like being drawn down to 50% or so every night as I was doing. As a result they quickly began to degrade, and despite some efforts to rejuvenate them, rotate them around, etc. they got so bad that by last October I literally only had three actually holding power into the night. I temporarily replaced them all with 8 L-16 lead acids which are honestly doing a very fine job and got me through the winter, but I decided the only way to solve this problem was to go for gross overkill -- and so I've ordered a 2300AH battery stack. It arrives in a couple of weeks, and I anticipate that once it's operational that 4th generator won't get a lot of use. Fingers crossed!
Honestly if I wasn't a tech guy and willing to work at it my wife and mother would have been hosed about a year after we moved in. I've finally gotten tired of spending all my spare time up there which is why I bought the big-ass battery stack, and at expected usage levels that should be good for 25-30 years.
Solar is a great technology but if you're doing anything at all besides just putting them on your roof to feed power into the grid during the day and pull power from the grid during the night it'll be a lot more work than you probably think. My older neighbors down below me are already complaining about how much their generator has been running and there are a couple of obvious reasons for that -- their panels are on their roof (so they can't get the snow off) and their batteries are lead acid (which means they need to be inspected and refilled with distilled water so often, which I'm wondering how much they are doing). Joe Sixpack would have similar problems -- it would work great for a year or so and then Stuff Would Happen.
So there ya go. My experience anyway.
Ferret
Had two suicide on my windows just the other day....scared the snot out of me!
Ferret
You do that, Elon.
In the meantime I'll just keep driving my Trailblazer.
Ferret
....you really *would* think somebody like Gates would understand how the economy works.
But I guess not.
Ferret
If I were him with his skills I'm sure I would have too.
Ferret
Ummm....
.04% (http://sci.esa.int/venus-express/34067-venus-vs-earth/), and its atmospheric pressure is 90 times ours here on our little blue marble (http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Venus_Express/Venus_compared_to_Earth).
Venus also happens to receive just under twice as much sunlight as Earth (http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q2476.html), has an atmosphere that is about 96% CO2 vs Earth's
Suspect those all together have rather more of an influence.....
Ferret
Good thing that's not happening....
Ferret
...when you're coming out of an Ice Age.
Ferret
Why the world does he get any air time at all?
Ferret