[Patrick]

Originally Posted by Christ

Ok, so thinking back to high school, and the "butterfly" effect that occurs in production circles:

In order to make a gallon of fuel, you need to extract the raw material, which takes fuel.

Then, you need to move the raw material, which takes fuel.

Then, you need to refine the raw material into usable substrates, which takes yet more fuel.

Production of electricity is a lossy operation, using yet even more fuel.

All of the fuel you just used to get fuel was also, at one point, raw, and had the same requirements.

The effect isn't just singular, it's multi-generational. Each KW of energy you use had to come from a previously used KW of energy which came from a previous KW, etc.

What if someone made a solar panel factory that was powered by solar panels? Then used panels made in that factory to power another factory that made more solar panels?
Rinse, repeat.