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That's what I was thinking. It's not really a good thing if it takes a huge amount more people to generate the same amount of power.

by Nition 10y ago

Gibbon1 10y ago
It's tricky to compare though. Consider. The cost of coal is mostly the cost of the raw material inputs. And coal has a significant off the books negative externalilty because of CO2 emissions and environmental destruction. vs Solar which has a high labor cost component. Noting that providing jobs for large numbers of lower skilled workers is an off the books positive externality.
- astrodust 10y ago
  If you want jobs, there's an enormous amount of potential employment in converting to solar. There's likely to be two or three rounds of build-out before the panels are "good enough" and stabilize in some roughly fixed form, so there may be generations of work ahead. At some point people will have installed capacity that only needs minor maintenance and these jobs can shift to other sectors.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  In what way is employing people in an offical capacity (you pay them, withhold income tax, holiday pay, health cover, superannuation (401k or whatever you call it) off the books? Don't these data get reported to government, and worker on academic and corporate economists? Who endeavour to account for the effects of employment in an econo-socio-politio-historic evaluation of the world.
  - Gibbon1 10y ago
    > off the books? It's counted as a 'cost' but over the big picture it's not. It's like this economics teaches us that labor is a cost to be minimized. All good and well except if workers have no money they can't buy anything.
barney54 10y ago
Yep. If we want to employ a lot of people producing power we should just have people ride exercise bikes.
- douche 10y ago
  The very premise of a great Rick and Morty episode [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/embed/l2bU_tOREos?vndel=watch&vndapp=youtube_mobile&vndclient=mv-google&vnddnc=1 https://www.youtube.com/embed/l2bU_tOREos?vndel=watch&vndapp...
  - trizinix 10y ago
    And Black Mirror [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits

That's what I was thinking. It's not really a good thing if it takes a huge amount more people to generate the same amount of power.

by Nition 10y ago

That's what I was thinking. It's not really a good thing if it takes a huge amount more people to generate the same amount of power.

Gibbon1 10y ago

It's tricky to compare though. Consider. The cost of coal is mostly the cost of the raw material inputs. And coal has a significant off the books negative externalilty because of CO2 emissions and environmental destruction. vs Solar which has a high labor cost component. Noting that providing jobs for large numbers of lower skilled workers is an off the books positive externality.

astrodust 10y ago
If you want jobs, there's an enormous amount of potential employment in converting to solar. There's likely to be two or three rounds of build-out before the panels are "good enough" and stabilize in some roughly fixed form, so there may be generations of work ahead. At some point people will have installed capacity that only needs minor maintenance and these jobs can shift to other sectors.
TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
In what way is employing people in an offical capacity (you pay them, withhold income tax, holiday pay, health cover, superannuation (401k or whatever you call it) off the books? Don't these data get reported to government, and worker on academic and corporate economists? Who endeavour to account for the effects of employment in an econo-socio-politio-historic evaluation of the world.
- Gibbon1 10y ago
  > off the books? It's counted as a 'cost' but over the big picture it's not. It's like this economics teaches us that labor is a cost to be minimized. All good and well except if workers have no money they can't buy anything.

barney54 10y ago

Yep. If we want to employ a lot of people producing power we should just have people ride exercise bikes.

douche 10y ago
The very premise of a great Rick and Morty episode [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/embed/l2bU_tOREos?vndel=watch&vndapp=youtube_mobile&vndclient=mv-google&vnddnc=1 https://www.youtube.com/embed/l2bU_tOREos?vndel=watch&vndapp...
- trizinix 10y ago
  And Black Mirror [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits