Is solar green?

[copymepls]

I feel the anachronism in me, like I have old values of defending the planet from the cyborg wannabe monkeys we act like. Alot of times I think I should just be happy and go to college to help build spaceships.

I get depressed thinking about what will happen first, monkeys take over everything breed out of control overpopulate and make each other uncomfortable, or we figure space travel out.

I get very offended by everyone driving around outside and rather just tell everyone were ****ed and we should all stop trying and just have steak and beer and get in fistfights, instead of me seriously trying to figure out what gravity is or how to bend space by going to college and evolving.

If I help build spaceships they will first be used by pioneers, but then the billionaires will want to have sex and drink champagne on them so they can feel really good above everyone else.

Is this the results from your careers in engineering? Or am I blind and making things up in my head?

[J.P.M.]

I feel the anachronism in me, like I have old values of defending the planet from the cyborg wannabe monkeys we act like. Alot of times I think I should just be happy and go to college to help build spaceships.

I get depressed thinking about what will happen first, monkeys take over everything breed out of control overpopulate and make each other uncomfortable, or we figure space travel out.

I get very offended by everyone driving around outside and rather just tell everyone were ****ed and we should all stop trying and just have steak and beer and get in fistfights, instead of me seriously trying to figure out what gravity is or how to bend space by going to college and evolving.

If I help build spaceships they will first be used by pioneers, but then the billionaires will want to have sex and drink champagne on them so they can feel really good above everyone else.

Is this the results from your careers in engineering? Or am I blind and making things up in my head?

I think you may need to take a deep breath and have your meds adjusted.

[copymepls]

That's just the thing I'm not on meds, just local grown food, and I'm just a serial killer in peoples opinions, for telling them to ride bicycles for health and responsibility of our home planet.

Is your career satisfying or do you feel like you are just giving party wagons to the democrat yuppie hippie monkey rockstars?

Convince me to stop trying to save the world and tell me I should just go to college and build weapons, I just need to stop thinking of all tech as weapons and just see it as evolution.

Fancy carbon fiber bicycles are not weapons, they give you nice legs.

[Sunking]

That's just the thing I'm not on meds, just local grown food,

I bet some local grown Maui Wowie in the mix too huh?

[copymepls]

I had a friend that grew alot of weed, I built him a solar system with 2 GC2 batteries intronics MPPT75HV and a 250watt 30.4v mpp monocrystalline and he just seems to want to use it to power lights to grow his weed so he could make money to pay for more parts for his van. And grow coca plants.

I won't put thrill substances in me, only sensible foods I can pick off a plant and eat so I can cycle and see how many joules I can put out with my muscles.

[copymepls]

Sounds like you guys are getting offended like I'm ragging on your careers. Now I'm asking how is it, how did training in a college for a professional career go for you, how do you feel about it?

[J.P.M.]

Sounds like you guys are getting offended like I'm ragging on your careers. Now I'm asking how is it, how did training in a college for a professional career go for you, how do you feel about it?

Speaking only for myself, I'm not the least bit offended. I believe I've been through a similar mind set and phase you seem to be in. I remember it fondly, and smile. Thank you for the trip in the way back machine.

A copy of an epitaph I once saw comes to mind: " Once I was were you are. Soon you'll be where I am."

Or, from a poster I had on my wall when I was about 25 or so: "Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence."

A respectful suggestion: Keep in mind that neither you, I, nor anyone else have the market cornered on concern for the planet or its occupants.

Good luck. I hope you find peace.

[bridaus]

The greenest possible action any one person can take by definition is suicide, but let's be real. We all breath the earth's precious air and drink it's water and pollute it, no choice in that. For me, I'm pretty damn interested in living, so I'm going to do the best I can to live clean"ish", while enjoying the only thing I know I have... life. My solar panels power my electric car which brings me to my engineering job which I use to try and make the world better. I feel very good about my career. Yet it can't possibly have been good for the earth to have produced that car. I can only do so much, I'm human. I do the best I can, but I could always do better. We are all hypocrites in some way, just on a spectrum.

That's way too much philosophy for one day, I'm heading back to some good old arguments about parallel vs serial...

[J.P.M.]

The greenest possible action any one person can take by definition is suicide, but let's be real. We all breath the earth's precious air and drink it's water and pollute it, no choice in that. For me, I'm pretty damn interested in living, so I'm going to do the best I can to live clean"ish", while enjoying the only thing I know I have... life. My solar panels power my electric car which brings me to my engineering job which I use to try and make the world better. I feel very good about my career. Yet it can't possibly have been good for the earth to have produced that car. I can only do so much, I'm human. I do the best I can, but I could always do better. We are all hypocrites in some way, just on a spectrum.

That's way too much philosophy for one day, I'm heading back to some good old arguments about parallel vs serial...

Pretty much +1. It dawned on me some time ago when overcome with a blinding flash of the obvious that entropy governs everything one way or another - energy, evolution, even time's arrow and societies. I enjoy the ride and try to remember the rules I learned in grammar school to get along.

[solarix]

"Green" comes in a lot of shades. Yes, people are fundamentally selfish - very few of us are going to achieve sustainability where they are a greater benefit to the world than what they consume. I've tried going minimalist and found that while I had a very small "footprint", I wasn't much good for anything either. On the other hand you have those (I have tried this too) that drive Hummers, eat Big Macs, travel all over, have superbowl parties, etc, etc. Somewhere in the middle, I try to find a net productive balance and being solar "pusher" is the best somewhere I've found.
While we've installed solar systems for the mega consumer type (for all I know they invented sliced bread) and sometimes shake my head, we also do a lot of installs for people that are amazingly conservative in their lifestyle - they all find solar to be "green". Even for the "greenwashers", they are doing a good thing to help promote solar as being part of a more ecological energy solution, than just burning the low hanging, dirty, non-renewable fruit.
On the whole, I think we're past the tipping point already - there will be a day of reckoning for our modern consumer era. No matter how green you or I or all of us try to be, it won't be enough.

[J.P.M.]

"Green" comes in a lot of shades. Yes, people are fundamentally selfish - very few of us are going to achieve sustainability where they are a greater benefit to the world than what they consume. I've tried going minimalist and found that while I had a very small "footprint", I wasn't much good for anything either. On the other hand you have those (I have tried this too) that drive Hummers, eat Big Macs, travel all over, have superbowl parties, etc, etc. Somewhere in the middle, I try to find a net productive balance and being solar "pusher" is the best somewhere I've found.
While we've installed solar systems for the mega consumer type (for all I know they invented sliced bread) and sometimes shake my head, we also do a lot of installs for people that are amazingly conservative in their lifestyle - they all find solar to be "green". Even for the "greenwashers", they are doing a good thing to help promote solar as being part of a more ecological energy solution, than just burning the low hanging, dirty, non-renewable fruit.
On the whole, I think we're past the tipping point already - there will be a day of reckoning for our modern consumer era. No matter how green you or I or all of us try to be, it won't be enough.

Yea, IMO, we're pretty much screwed. I mostly minimize contact to minimize deterioration, bloviate around here, watch entropy govern all and watch the show. Not my money/house/life/business/whatever.

Have a nice day.

[requir]

I think that maybe it's not 100% green, it's more ecological way to produce energy, thus it can be one more step to have our world going back to wild nature side.

[albert436]

[PNjunction]

I feel the anachronism in me, like I have old values of defending the planet from the cyborg wannabe monkeys we act like. Alot of times I think I should just be happy and go to college to help build spaceships.

To bring things back to earth, just remember that "green" can be nothing more than a sales demographic, unless you do it for other reasons or *combine* it with the desire to be green.

Being solely green on it's own right means doing some homework for the long-term considering the *entire life cycle* of manufacturing, distribution, usage, replacement, and of course recycling at the end.

The simplest thing is recognizing that one designs a solar system to replace the batteries when they eventually wear out multiple times. Many green newcomers don't realize this.

Are the green solutions merely *moving* the problem from one area to another? Lead-acid based EV'ers from decades ago recognized this early on - will the local charging infrastructure just move the pollution to the coal-generating plant in another state from which the energy now comes from?

Are the manufacturer's eating their own dog-food? That is, say for example in the battery arena, are they using a local solar system to charge local batteries to deliver the initialization or "first charge" to their customer?

Do the manufacturers of panels, batteries, solar setups and the like actually utilize solar themselves in their factories?

Do all the engineers that work at such places drive an Expedition with only one person in it to work each day?

It is questions like these where YOU can make a difference in business and the world, if you consider the total life-cycle of the product to the very end, and not just the initial sales-target figures.

[SunEagle]

To bring things back to earth, just remember that "green" can be nothing more than a sales demographic, unless you do it for other reasons or *combine* it with the desire to be green.

Being solely green on it's own right means doing some homework for the long-term considering the *entire life cycle* of manufacturing, distribution, usage, replacement, and of course recycling at the end.

The simplest thing is recognizing that one designs a solar system to replace the batteries when they eventually wear out multiple times. Many green newcomers don't realize this.

Are the green solutions merely *moving* the problem from one area to another? Lead-acid based EV'ers from decades ago recognized this early on - will the local charging infrastructure just move the pollution to the coal-generating plant in another state from which the energy now comes from?

Are the manufacturer's eating their own dog-food? That is, say for example in the battery arena, are they using a local solar system to charge local batteries to deliver the initialization or "first charge" to their customer?

Do the manufacturers of panels, batteries, solar setups and the like actually utilize solar themselves in their factories?

Do all the engineers that work at such places drive an Expedition with only one person in it to work each day?

It is questions like these where YOU can make a difference in business and the world, if you consider the total life-cycle of the product to the very end, and not just the initial sales-target figures.

+1. Great analogy on how much being "green" is.