Technology Connections - You are being misled about renewable energy technology.
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As someone not from the US, I can't say how much I appreciate the last part of his video. As much as I understand why YouTubers want to "keep politics out of entertainment", it's disappointing and makes me lose interest in some US content because it seems like they are ignoring what's going on around them.
And about the batteries, that's unfortunately an argument I sometimes hear from skeptics. "What are we going to do with all those batteries?" they ask. I explain that they can mostly be recycled and like to ask what are we going to do with all the CO2 in the air, but apparently it's different. Ironically one of those persons is my father, that has a cabin with a solar system that I installed for him. He originally bought a generator but since it's very noisy to run only for some lights, he prefers using the battery bank powered by a few solar panels on the roof. I'd show him this video but he doesn't speak English and it's probably a lost cause anyway.
We can only hope that at least a few people can be influenced by this video; both parts.
For what it's worth, ALL technology connections videos have manually added English closed captions, not auto generated gibberish.
It's some of the best captioning work I've ever seen. He actually takes the time to sync them to the auto/video, prevents spoiling jokes/punchlines, and adds an Easter egg at the end of most episodes (usually describing the smooth jazz outro).You might actually have decent luck using the subtitle translation feature built into YouTube, since it (machine) translates the actual words Alec is saying.
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undersells the advantage of solar over corn ethanol land use by a lot. At least 2x. Excluding high energy/equipment cost of fermenting ethanol, overstating mileage, and understating EV mileage. The point of ethanol is purely to pay farmers for useless work, but they can make far more with less work from solar. Corn farmers in US have lost money for 4 consecutive years. Excluding land costs, their costs is $650/acre/year, excluding their time/labour. Cashflow per acre $97 @ $4/bushel. At 2.5 hours/day for $30/hour, profit before rent-equivalent drops to $22/acre
In Nebraska, solar costs $1/watt to install (before recent permitting BS). China costs $0.50/w (no tariffs, cheaper construction services/equipment). An acre in Nebraska can hold 400kw of solar, and produce 630k kwh/year (edit: correction). It breaks even at 5c/kwh with 5% financing of whole installation (with system paid off in 25 years, even though it keeps producing) including $4000 O&M costs (high, because its washing dust and leaves 1-2 times per week). Every 1c/kwh revenue higher is $6300/acre profit,
Since ethanol is just a gift to farmers/rural land owners. Giving them 2%/financing rate as the gift and 4c/kwh in revenue is the same profit per acre, and at 5c/kwh, massively higher ($6300) profit. For US car drivers, instead of paying $0.12/mile (a 25mpg gasoline car will use 5.4 gallons ethanol/100 miles at $2.20/gallon). 18c/kwh charging for EV means $0.05/mile. Massive cost reduction already, but tariffs and other BS removal can provide significantly more value for farmers and drivers.
I think there's something wrong with your math did you mean 630MWh/yr?
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Ooh nice! Does he have other videos like this or is it all computers and stuff?
Lots of great stuff, lots of retro tech and common how it works stuff. His dishwasher video makes it so there is no reason to wash things by hand pretty much ever.
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Amazing video by Technology Connections. It's a long one, but don't miss his 30 minute angry rant at the end.
Oh fuck they broke Alec shit's bad
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Ooh nice! Does he have other videos like this or is it all computers and stuff?
He does more old tech stuff or explains how appliances work. Not really computers. 10/10 channel but I get that the content isn't super captivating for everyone.
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Great video. Completely breaks down the argument. You already knew this of you had been paying attention. Oil/gas for electricity generation in any form is DOA. It is insanely more expensive than solar + battery.
Not to mention destructive to the environment and politically fraught with issues.
To think if our government went all in it could provide dirt cheap limitless energy that would not cause lung disease or wars is staggering.
But the rich would be only 0.987 as wealthy
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Damn, I love his stuff anyway, but this time I'm looking forward to watching it just to see how he incorporates a call for revolution against his government into a video about solar panels, haha
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Ooh nice! Does he have other videos like this or is it all computers and stuff?
If you ever wanted to learn about latent heat of transformation, your cup runneth over.
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Lots of great stuff, lots of retro tech and common how it works stuff. His dishwasher video makes it so there is no reason to wash things by hand pretty much ever.
As someone on reddit said, "I could disappear bodies in my dishwasher."
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But the rich would be only 0.987 as wealthy
they'd probably be more wealthy from their heavy investments in renewable energy, which is more profitable than fossil fuels btw
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it still needs to be explained carefully though
like to a child you still have to explain how to read a clock or how to tie their shoes even though it's common sense. and you have to be patient while explaining it.
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they'd probably be more wealthy from their heavy investments in renewable energy, which is more profitable than fossil fuels btw
Wondering now if paradoxically accelerating global warming increases stock ROI in renewables as the perceived value of renewable energy increases with the perceived/predicted level of global warming.
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Wondering now if paradoxically accelerating global warming increases stock ROI in renewables as the perceived value of renewable energy increases with the perceived/predicted level of global warming.
No, they are just after power, not money. They have a darwinist ideology to push.
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No, they are just after power, not money. They have a darwinist ideology to push.
It's capitalism, power is wealth by definition. These are compatible concepts.
By perceived value i mean speculation.
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Wondering now if paradoxically accelerating global warming increases stock ROI in renewables as the perceived value of renewable energy increases with the perceived/predicted level of global warming.
i don't think they're that far-sighted though it's probably a neat side-effect to them
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i don't think they're that far-sighted though it's probably a neat side-effect to them
Mmm... Well i think there are enough of them that think long term to maintain their institutions. The oil industry has been suppressing concerns about climate change and disaster for well over a century now
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I think there's something wrong with your math did you mean 630MWh/yr?
ty. corrected. original said 630kwh/year
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Amazing video by Technology Connections. It's a long one, but don't miss his 30 minute angry rant at the end.
Sometimes I've been feeling like I'm the weird one for caring about other people and the shit that's been going on. It's really nice to see someone as angry as I am.
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God, fuck ethanol. Last I checked it literally took 1.5 gallons of oil/gas to produce 1 gallon of ethanol. It turns more fuel into less fuel and pisses away soil fertility doing it.
I read an article some time ago arguing the purpose of ethanol (and ag subsidies in general) is, consciously or unconsciously, manifest destiny - we have to have a "use" for all the land we stole, we have to do something with it even if that something is a complete waste, because otherwise, people might start asking why we don't give it back. Seems more likely to me all the time.
It's the power of a voting class. Origins are geopolitics of 70s oil crisis. Then vote buying of rural areas. Most of the legislative giveaways were titled "clean air something". There is a food security argument for grains (livestock is a food battery, and ethanol is surplus monetization)
There is a high oil-related cost portion of corn farming. Close to $300 of the $650/acre is fertilizer ($225), tractor fuel, pesticides. The last 4 years of corn farming losses is also during low NG price. The minimal profit before rent-equivalence can go negative at higher NG price, because ethanol is only blended into gasoline when gasoline is expensive, and then corn only bought for cheap when it is not. The US always has a high oil price policy, and geopolitical insecurity to achieve it. Weapons-oil industry is deep state establishment pushing for war and higher oil prices, and more corn helps, and politicians are rewarded with larger bribery war chests.
Energy insecurity for Americans comes from relying on geopolitical manipulated energy subscription to live/operate. Farmers need export markets, which makes it good for them for US to not be hated by all of their markets. US oligarchy is also invested in high electricity prices/profits for incumbents. Datacenter bubble is ideal oligarchism alliance with tech.
The point of my post is that farming/rural areas can be weaned from the oil oligarchy voting block. Much cleaner air argument. Genuine energy security that comes from 0 reliance on future geopolitics/supply chains. Better corn prices if some corn farmers switch to solar. Lower oil prices if less of it is wasted on farming and cars. Lower electricity prices and abundance to fund whatever skynet priority to better kill us all, but without us going broke first.
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Amazing video by Technology Connections. It's a long one, but don't miss his 30 minute angry rant at the end.
I have watched only a few minutes of this vid so far, as well as the timestamps and I must admit I don't agree with this approach because of something I learned today.
He says around 2 m something like: the strategic US reserve of oil even tho the number of barrels sounds huge, they could sustain the US only a month of our current use. From the context my understanding is that he implies that this is due to casual, everyday-people consumption.
Well, it looks like the Department of Defense is the U.S. government’s largest fossil fuel consumer, accounting for between 77% and 80% of all federal government energy consumption since 2001. So why is this huge percentage missing from this long analysis?
Anyways, if he talks about the US military petroleum consumption, please let me know. Or if I got something wrong with this new info I got about the US military, let me know too.
