tsjackson

6 ms·

1.
by tsjackson 3y ago
I work in the industry. While this is theoretically true, in practice it is not. First, bonds for decommissioning solar sites are required by many programs now. These usually cost 3-5% of total initial investment. Not insurmountable by a
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by tsjackson 3y ago
10k is a reasonable guess for how much tax liability is needed, and it's not a huge issue, but it is an issue. Retirees and lower-middle income folks often pay less than that each year, as do folks with even lower incomes who inherite
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by tsjackson 3y ago
Particularly if you go the hardware route, might be worth exploring this as an option for utility scale solar farm inspection. Quadcopter drones often have insufficient range for the larger farms, and solar companies are increasingly makin
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by tsjackson 3y ago
I actually 100% agree with this comment, except the "only being done to maintain appearances" part. A blunt instrument is better than no instrument. By raising interest rates, the fed is reducing average inflation by cooling th
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by tsjackson 3y ago
Let's take an extreme example. If banks offered everyone 0% interest mortgages with 100 year terms and no credit checks, how many more people would want to buy a house? A lot! It would take decades for builders to build enough houses
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by tsjackson 3y ago
Also, reducing spending is even slower than reducing taxes. The vast majority of government spending is on Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and defense spending. Politically those are untouchable, mostly for good reasons - reducing any
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by tsjackson 3y ago
Too slow. While I fully agree that taxes have gotten out of whack and should be raised, raising taxes would have an impact a year from now (way too slow of timeframe to manage inflation). Additionally, practically speaking, the government
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by tsjackson 3y ago
Lots of smoke in the comments here. The Fed is doing what needs to create relative stability. Uncomfortable, but real. Demand is outstripping supply and prices are going up. The least painful option is raising interest rates. Alternati
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by tsjackson 4y ago
I'm really curious about this. Hypothesis 1) Tik Tok believes AI/machine learning algorithms themselves are converging across fields, and the company is finding that its internal AI innovations can be applied to biology and materi
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by tsjackson 4y ago
Modules degrade in production really slowly (<1% per year) and are often used for 40 years. They're generally replaced quicly if they break due to manufacturing defects or impact damage (hail, tree branches etc.). A lot of the recyc
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by tsjackson 4y ago
Thanks for checking me on my U.S.-centrism and your comment as well! For the record, I think Australia's market is a bit younger even though it's already a bit larger as a percentage of power consumed than the U.S.'s thanks
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by tsjackson 4y ago
You're right! Thanks for the correction. Thin film modules use Cadmium Telluride, which includes two rare metals* (not rare earth* metals). I want to note that there are some similar supply concerns with each of those rare metals. Bu
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by tsjackson 4y ago
I work in the solar industry, and very few large projects are turfing solar panels anymore. There are at least three companies that will usually bid against each other to purchase used/broken solar panels for recycling/reclaiming
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by tsjackson 4y ago
There's plenty of space - deserts of the southwest for solar plus offshore wind could easily suffice to produce all of the power needed in the US by themselves. The issue is lack of grid transmission infrastructure, which is a reliabi
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by tsjackson 4y ago
There's a weird sociological phenomenon where people declare that "renewables won't get us there" without any real justification. A recently announced deal in California would build out solar for $20/MWh compared to
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by tsjackson 4y ago
The cost per kWh of solar and wind is a third of natural gas and nuclear. It's not even close. Filling the gaps left by intermittent production with storage is rapidly decreasing in costs, and will soon be low enough that Solar/
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by tsjackson 6y ago
Psilocybin (from mushrooms) and MDMA are both fast tracked for FDA approval as adjuncts to therapy. Psychedelics are poised to become the most common psychiatric treatment in the world, with ongoing trials showing huge effects for treating
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by tsjackson 9y ago
I've been undergoing a similar transition in thought, likely triggered by the same events. I'm struggling to reconcile the competing lenses. In our current political reality, anything that is not desirable to Republican elites wi
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by tsjackson 9y ago
BMAA is the neurotoxin (implicated in Alzheimers and Parkinsons). It also bioaccumulates over time, and potentially up trophic levels. So definitely not fish wonder food until there's some serious testing done.
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by tsjackson 9y ago
Attention has quickly become our scarcest and most valuable resource, and filtering out noise is one of the most valuable services that can be provided. The no limits, "let the good in with the bad" approach is just not realistic
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by tsjackson 9y ago
Techno-optimist drivel is at least as unsavory as the overly sensitive, anti-technological kneejerk reactions that this article is lamenting. It's absurd to write off real problems with technology because tech does good things as well
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by tsjackson 9y ago
There is nothing in my statement that suggests that every viewpoint that disagrees with my own should be censored. What I'm arguing is that the world has gotten a WHOLE lot more complex when it comes to mapping peoples' understan
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by tsjackson 9y ago
The main thrust of the argument seems to be that we should do our best to stop censorship. I'm arguing that we probably shouldn't. Our society is not really equipped to handle the free exchange of ideas at this point.
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by tsjackson 9y ago
I'm naturally sympathetic to the sentiment, but this post fails to acknowledge, much less address, the major societal changes that have precipitated our current situation. Censorship is a reaction to our society's increasing inabi
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by tsjackson 10y ago
People would just argue about the rules and logic embedded in the tagging algorithm.
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by tsjackson 10y ago
You're assuming that the capacity of the Powerwall is all the power available. With a solar-tied backup system, there is power coming in from the modules as well which is additive to the discharge rate of the Powerwall if wired correc
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by tsjackson 10y ago
Inverter failure is real, but the industry standard has risen to 12 years for string inverters, and 20-25 for micros. Even for string inverters, most of the residential/small commercial market has moved to using optimizers for voltage
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by tsjackson 13y ago
Leave it to a #slatepitch to explain why Snowden would choose Hong Kong: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/06/10/hong_kong_... To expand on this scenario: Snowden knows that the bureaucra