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Aside from the fact that they are listening to propaganda, it’s also a matter of framing. They think of solar as green weenie shit, the ineffectual limp dick replacement for tried and true all American machine power.
It all starts sounding different when you frame it as a security issue. Large scale solar will keep working through almost anything, even if parts of it are damaged. Most other forms of power need constant maintenance and can suffer catastrophic failure that renders the whole thing inoperable and costing a fortune to replace.
More importantly, it adds flexibility since it can be rapidly deployed and remains effective at smaller scales. The military wants solar because the alternative is often a gas generator that needs fuel shipped in by truck, a common target for attack. If your house has a solar roof and battery backup, a blackout isn’t going to effect you. Power can be out for weeks and you’ll barely notice, while previously the only option was a gas generator that only powers a few circuits in your house and is inevitably going to run out of fuel.
The more widespread solar and battery gets, the more secure we are as a civilization against large scale catastrophes that disrupt the grid, whether that’s war, sabotage or natural disasters.
That’s a great way of putting it.
We’ve had fewer power outages at our new offgrid house (0) than we had living anywhere else
Best way I’ve seen to explain solar power and EVs to a right winger is tell them I don’t have to fill my car with expensive Saudi oil, I make good clean American electricity when the sun hits my roof and I use it to drive around. If oil was worthless because we have better forms of power, we could stop caring what some Arab princes think we should be paying to drive to work.
You can appeal to self-sustaing types or prepper logic as well. Way easier to make your own electricity then it is to extract and refine your own oil. EVs will remain operational much longer after societal collapse then gas powered vehicles will.
Electric motors also require far less maintenance and have far fewer ways they can break down. Oh, and if you live in a cold climate, you can warm it up in the garage without killing yourself.
And actually, if we reach a point where a solar roof and battery are the norm, and basically every vehicle on the road is an EV, civilization collapse becomes that much more unlikely. There’s no longer a domino effect of the grid going down, pumps and refineries stopping, supply chains collapsing, and technology ceasing to function. Disruptions would be far more localized and their impact would be drastically reduced.
Isn’t that one of the things many Americans want? To be self-sustaining and to not rely on others for their energy? Or am I getting this wrong? (silly european here)
A good friend of mine uses very little energy (just a smol fridge, a router, a smol TV and a phone charger) and he can actually get by easily with his solar panels up top and some batteries he got.
He barely has to purchase any energy anymore, sometimes even in winter.
Which is another security thing, I just didn’t include it because I was typing on my phone and running out of time. But yes, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, and all the other OPEC countries that your conservative uncle likely has a long history of not liking will lose influence if their oil revenues plummet.
Also, gas goes bad and it can easily become contaminated by something as simple as moisture building up, after which it will damage engines if used. Not to mention that dangers of fire or leaks. The sun won’t hit its expiration date for a few billion years, and for the most part the worst thing that can happen with solar is that efficiency goes down slightly if the panel needs cleaning.
the ineffectual limp dick replacement for tried and true all American machine power.
the fossil lobby has done a fantastic job of deceiving people about the superiority renewables bring to the generation problem. the fact that they still roll out bullshit like “you won’t be able to watch TV at night” tells you everything.
Meanwhile, in REALITY, the US has installed record amounts of renewables and battery storage.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/us-battery-energy-storage-deployments-jump/729248/
The real tragedy here is that the educational standards have been allowed to drop so far that “can’t watch TV at night” is a legitimate issue with solar to some people.
While you’re not wrong in the educational standards, I think a lot of this, in 2024, is obvious, no shit sherlock ‘revelations’, and the FUD should be combatted on every front - eliminating foreign oil influence, superior quality of life all over, rebuilding the grid, doing FUCKING ANYTHING about realistically reacting to climate change etc…
In 2024 USA, there is no such thing as,
no shit sherlock ‘revelations’
There is no common sense anymore.
oh nooo no trash TV past 8 PM? What am I gonna do? Do something interesting? pfffff! Yeah right, as if
I’m fucking tired of treating these idiots with kid gloves. They have no curiosity and refuse to understand how it works? Good luck fixing that.
Oh the subject, EVs… Now you have a mobile energy bank that you can take with you and store/use that energy in emergencies.
Don’t forget that big turbines can provide inertia into the power network, allowing large power spikes to occur without forcing equipment offline, that can be solved with hydro, flywheel batteries, windmills etc
Don’t forget that big batteries can react in fractions of a second to large power demand spikes or dips, stabilising the grid far better than spinning steel can
I honestly think it’s egotistical dipshits who can’t admit to being wrong about “there’s no such thing as climate change” they’ve been going on and on about, for decades.
Only now they really can’t deny it, so it’s this little nit-picking of everything that still lets them say “see, I’m still so smart about this stuff, and smart me thinks we still shouldn’t do anything about climate change”.
Gonna get us all killed.
nit-picking of everything that still lets them say “see, I’m still so smart about this stuff"
Ah, the famous Jordan Peterson gambit:
- Present a problem in great detail.
- Explain how this problem is just how things must be, and obviously the only way forward is to roll over and maintain status quo.
- If anyone proposes a solution they’re a silly liberal who doesn’t understand the complexity of the problem.
Lol, that’s bang on! Well done.
If anyone proposes a solution they’re a silly liberal who doesn’t understand the complexity of the problem.
I find it hilarious that there’s a debate going on about climate scientists’ objectivity when the other side IS LITERALLY THE PETROL LOBBY, and we have decades of data showing how their industry has destroyed the ecosystem.
And I’d suggest people consider: when shit gets really bad, there’s going to be backlash - people crying out “why didn’t the scientists save us, why didn’t they stop things if they’re so smart” and all science will have is decades of warnings going back to the 80s.
meanwhile - the fucks on the right side of OP’s image will be the ones leading the torch wielding mobs, probably saying it’s a conspiracy by the scientists to profit off the world’s end. which is what the petrol lobby has done.
Farmers’ protests against the European Green Deal has to be one of the most mind-boggling movements I’ve witnessed. It’s exactly as you say: by 2050 farmers will be asking for even bigger handouts because their crops failed, while also crying about how EU didn’t stop global warming. Literal children protesting because EU put greens on their plate.
Oh they cans till deny it. I have a co-worker who isn’t really a conspiracy theorist, but last year when it snowed ONCE, he went: pff, where is that climate change now?
Mfer do you think burnt coal or a coal powerplant can be recycled?
Coal is made of carbon which is 6 proton, 6 neutrons, 6 elections. They are literally spreading hell mass that to no surprise is heating the world to be like hell. We need more trees to cast carbon back to the earth! We need to use the power from the pure light given to us by our God. Praise the Sun!
The sad thing is that arguments like this are actually more likely to get through to these people than actual, logical and/or scientific arguments.
This is the kind rhetoric I’m considering for my future political career. F@#ing sad it’s come to this. Same energy as when I tell wife beaters “they are keying their own car”. I don’t feel women are objects but for the kind of men that do, I think it reaches them.
I always think the same when people say that wind turbines need maintenance and sometimes break down. Cool, a coal powerplant you only have to build and feed with coal forever.
they’ll start building environmentally friendly coal mines soon, I can feel it.
(as in, the materials are well sourced but the mines are as usual)
Or “yeah but we’re burning fuel to make energy” without understanding that a large powerplant burning fuel at 60% efficiency (or whatever percent) is better than 1000 small ones (cars) at the same efficiency
Internal combustion cars are about half as efficient as big fossil fuel powerplants. The big ones waste a third of the energy as low grade heat; cars waste two thirds of the energy as low grade heat
I feel like this is missing “Prime Farmland”
We could be massively subsidizing corn instead of generating electricity
if i could reasonably grow vegetables on my roof i absolutely would
I keep quoting this article but there are lots of others. Grazing & solar go together quite well.
That’s a great point. We had a local private solar project that was fenced off and used to graze sheep. The sheep kept the field tidy and had built-in shelter from the sun and rain in warmer months.
It was also part of a farm-to-table project. Unfortunately, that aspect drew the outrage of a neighbor who had ties to PETA. The sheep are gone now and I don’t know the details aside from the local media blowup. There may have been more to the story.
I would love it if they used it to graze goats and rented them out to local property owners. My backyard has some weird terrain that makes it a PITA to mow. Goats will even take out poison ivy with no ill effects. I’d pay for that service.
Point being - that land doesn’t need to be dedicated to a single use.
that’s a real good one, thanks for sharing! I guess solar panels really are just roofs but with cool energy features
That is the #1 excuse right now
Why is it the uncle that’s the one who’s generally portrayed as being the crazy conspiracy theorist? I’m an uncle, I’m not that bad
Because usually the guy that can’t get laid an start a family is the one that fills their time with weird nonsense, and if he has normal siblings then he becomes an uncle eventually.
This is different from the phenomena wherein intentionally child free uncles get into much more reasonable weird nonsense like magic the gathering or cabinet making.
Me, a child free by choice uncle, slowly closing the door so you cant see my woodworking space… And also deleting my YouTube history.
it’s not all uncles but when it is someone it’s usually an uncle.
One of my uncles was a huge nazi until he got married and now he’s chill.
My uncle is married, but he’s married to a crazy and they’re both like this.
My father is a mild crazy and knows I can argue longer then he can, so he doesn’t start shit.
It’ll be interesting when the pendulum swings towards EVs in america. Car companies will have to convince those coal and gas chuds to go back on all the rhetoric they’ve been fed in order to stay relevent in an evolving market.
Luckily these fucking morons have the memory of a goldfish.
True, I’m excited to see the flavor next month.
It is weird how “coal country” seems to hate EVs when they could run them on coal (not that they should, of course). Their natural enemy is clearly oil!
This is the kind of conversations we need to be having around all the social and political issues. - the comments in here are nice to see.
