Solar power

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by freebeard

It's more of a museum than a refinery.

Such a low-output refinery could be an interesting place to perform some experiences, such as attempting to use vegetable oils and animal fats instead of oil.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Such a low-output refinery could be an interesting place to perform some experiences, such as attempting to use vegetable oils and animal fats instead of oil.

Today's producers have found some crude oil substitutes more economical, and a better starting point for some of their products.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by aerohead

Today's producers have found some crude oil substitutes more economical, and a better starting point for some of their products.

Besides eventual economical benefits, the logistics and some political aspects may also account for the viability of replacing at least partially the petroleum with some regionally-sourced vegetable oil or animal fats. Well, nowadays with so many plans to phase out the ICE, it would make much more sense to look at replacing petroleum with vegetable oils and animal fats, also considering some crops that can grow on rough environmental conditions and serve as some sort of biorremediation depending on where they're grown.

[oil pan 4]

Chinese made soar panels use slave labor.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/14...tech-strategy/
2 years ago this was a conspiracy theory....

[oil pan 4]

Nothing nothing on that one, humm?
How bout that, whole bunch of things that were conspiracy theories 2 years ago, aren't anymore.
Well if you have had a bad couple of days, well I'm here to make it worse.

Here's another lie:
As solar panels get cheaper more and more will be installed and with the more that are installed, electricity will get cheaper. Or something to that effect.
Only in the mind of a child.
Reality....
California leads the nation in renewables.
California also leads the nation in exploding electricity costs.


Maybe you think California is stupid and didn't do it hard enough.

Germany can't do it either.

The price of electricity is way up but also are service fees.

[redpoint5]

People are unsure what to believe about Chinese slavery, maybe by extent and implementation more than a binary yes/no existence of it. Worse, they don't care. Both of those conspire to make the topic uninteresting to our entertainment "news".

Only the uninformed argue that solar is THE answer. I'd argue that anyone with THE answer is wrong. There are answers, not an answer, and it depends on many variables.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

People are unsure what to believe about Chinese slavery, maybe by extent and implementation more than a binary yes/no existence of it. Worse, they don't care.

The average Joe doesn't really care about Chinese "semi-slavery" as it's often mentioned, yet industrial outsourcing from China is just some sort of modern equivalent to the so-called "coolie trade" which was used as a replacement for black slavery. Both a contemporary Chinese factory worker and the ancient Chinese, Indian and Indonesian workers sent mostly to the Caribbean and some African countries (mostly British and Dutch colonies) endured harsh working conditions and were subjected to all sort of mistreatment, yet nobody seems to care about them.

[redpoint5]

Westerners abuse themselves and those that actually suffer slavery by equating (arbitrarily defined) low wage labor with actual slavery.

As Sowell says, the real minimum wage is zero. If someone trades their time voluntarily, they have decided the benefit outweighs the alternative. That holds true for absolutely every scenario.

That said, I have long held that 1st world wages will increasingly have to compete in a global economy. Especially now that distributed work has accelerated, the global workforce is more accessible. That's great news, as competition delivers the best to the most. I might have to try harder in the future, but c'est la vie.

Oregon minimum wage is now $13.50, so we've decided jobs below that level are worthless. Automation will continue to carve away the bottom end of the labor market, increasing the number of dispossessed.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Reality....
California leads the nation in renewables.
California also leads the nation in exploding electricity costs.

3 cents a kWh equals "exploding electricity costs? That increase would cost me about $3.50 a week even an almost all-electric house and an EV.

Are we not supposed to clean up the grid to avoid such tiny cost increases?

[redpoint5]

~25% increase in 6 years is not insignificant. Electricity prices should be going down or at the very least remaining steady as economies of scale and increasing population density occur. (EDIT, forgot California's population actually decreased in recent years)

A causal relationship between renewables and price can't be determined from this information alone, but it is a data point.