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Earlier quoted context omitted.
One should expect monstrous amounts of FUD about anything that replaces fossil fuels.
On HN I find it precisely the opposite - if you point out flaws with solar, electric cars, wind, self driving cars, etc. you take a lot of downvotes
It’s a story similar to nuclear power, where people found it wasn’t that hard to extend the life of nuclear reactors a lot longer than originally planned.
One should expect monstrous amounts of FUD about anything that replaces fossil fuels.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One should expect monstrous amounts of FUD about anything that replaces fossil fuels.
On HN I find it precisely the opposite - if you point out flaws with solar, electric cars, wind, self driving cars, etc. you take a lot of downvotes
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One should expect monstrous amounts of FUD about anything that replaces fossil fuels.
On HN I find it precisely the opposite - if you point out flaws with solar, electric cars, wind, self driving cars, etc. you take a lot of downvotes
For some examples:
- electric cars are still burning fossil fuels cause powerplants burn fossil fuels (yeah, but electric cars go ~2 times further on 1 liter of fuel even if all our power came from fossil fuels which it doesn't)
- rare earth minerals are limited which means we can't have everybody drive electric cars (rare earth minerals aren't THAT rare, for example lithium is more common than lead on Earth, the current availability is a function of past investment which is based on past demand - when demand grows quickly the infrastructure lags and you get temporary price hikes, also there are alternatives)
- batteries/solar cells can't be recycled (they can, there's just not enough demand right now because we're at the exponential growth phase so the used batteries/solar panels are very small percentage of the currently-in-use batteries/solar panels)
- you cannot have 100% renewable power grid because unpredictable production (you can, some countries do - for example Costarica and many countries are very close - for example Portugal and Norway - but it creates different problems than the traditional powerplants - but there are ways to solve this which are getting ever more economically viable - citing data from 10 years ago is about as sensible as citing CPU transitor counts from 1990s when talking about designing a new graphic card)
>The report projected that the United States would have a cumulative total of 7.5 to 10 million metric tons of solar panel waste in 2050. This compares to 292 million tons of total landfill waste in 2018 alone [1], putting solar panel waste on the order of 0.1% of total waste produced in the US between now and 2050. [1] https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One should expect monstrous amounts of FUD about anything that replaces fossil fuels.
On HN I find it precisely the opposite - if you point out flaws with solar, electric cars, wind, self driving cars, etc. you take a lot of downvotes
Civility and mutual respect tend to go a lot farther than "just facts".
>If solar panels can last 40 to 50 years, which is roughly double what used to be the rule of thumb for their life span Presumably, these panels face ever diminishing efficiencies. What is the threshold where it makes sense to replace a working, but low efficiency panel with a new one? That is, if a field of ancient generation-1 panels is operating at 5% efficiency, is it worth the expense to tear them out and replac…
The replacement installation should be cheaper since initial permitting and electrical hookup is in place, and the roof mount might be reusable.
Tax incentives to modernize old solar installations will factor significantly.
Put another way: how high did your electric bill have to be to justify installing panels in the first place?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On HN I find it precisely the opposite - if you point out flaws with solar, electric cars, wind, self driving cars, etc. you take a lot of downvotes
One of the reasons is that a lot of these downsides are overplayed, based on long-obsolete data or false altogether. For some examples: - electric cars are still burning fossil fuels cause powerplants burn fossil fuels (yeah, but electric cars go ~2 times further on 1 liter of fuel even if all our power came from fossil fuels which it doesn't) - rare earth minerals are limited which means we can't have everybody driv…
Lithium isn't a rare earth mineral.