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The problem with "shut up and calculate" is that sometimes you forget to take things into account. People objecting on grounds of land use elsewhere in this thr

The problem with "shut up and calculate" is that sometimes you forget to take things into account. People objecting on grounds of land use elsewhere in this thread have been worried about the size of the infrastructure and mines supporting the manufacture of the solar panels. I have no idea what the ingredients of a solar panel are, or how to calculate W/m^2 after taking area for manufacture into account, but it's plausibly "not quite so many". Then you need to start thinking about batteries for energy storage at night, and so on, and the area increases.

kragen 6y ago
It's important to take all of those things into account, and moreover to consider that we may have differing values and may need to compromise; but, in order to do that, we first need to be able to arrive at a correct understanding of the basic facts of the situation. For example, whether there is or is not enough land for solar power to replace current energy production from coal, other fossil fuels, and nuclear power (there is, with almost three orders of magnitude to spare); whether solar panels do or do not contain rare earth elements (they do not and never have); which mines produce products needed for solar-panel manufacture or nuclear power, and in what quantities, producing what quantity of environmental damage; how much lithium is available for batteries; and so on. Lacking a correct understanding of even the most basic facts of the situation, we cannot hope to reason about the consequences of possible courses of action. As you can see above and elsethread, I've spent some time and effort to try to figure out some of the basic facts of the situation. I'm certainly no expert — for example, I only found out this year that solar panels include screen-printed silver paste, which accounts for on the order of 10% of the cost of photovoltaic modules and on the order of 10% of global silver production — and so I'd appreciate some help.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  Thank you for expressing this better than I could have.
  - kragen 6y ago
    You're welcome! Overall I've found this thread extremely disappointing.

kragen 6y ago

It's important to take all of those things into account, and moreover to consider that we may have differing values and may need to compromise; but, in order to do that, we first need to be able to arrive at a correct understanding of the basic facts of the situation. For example, whether there is or is not enough land for solar power to replace current energy production from coal, other fossil fuels, and nuclear power (there is, with almost three orders of magnitude to spare); whether solar panels do or do not contain rare earth elements (they do not and never have); which mines produce products needed for solar-panel manufacture or nuclear power, and in what quantities, producing what quantity of environmental damage; how much lithium is available for batteries; and so on. Lacking a correct understanding of even the most basic facts of the situation, we cannot hope to reason about the consequences of possible courses of action. As you can see above and elsethread, I've spent some time and effort to try to figure out some of the basic facts of the situation. I'm certainly no expert — for example, I only found out this year that solar panels include screen-printed silver paste, which accounts for on the order of 10% of the cost of photovoltaic modules and on the order of 10% of global silver production — and so I'd appreciate some help.

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
Thank you for expressing this better than I could have.
- kragen 6y ago
  You're welcome! Overall I've found this thread extremely disappointing.