They aren't less toxic. The contribution from mining and the PM2.5 which results are on-par if not in excess of what coal mining and burning creates. Windmills are even worse, mostly due to the fiberglass dust that gets generated by manufacturing.
PM2.5 is far more dangerous than any other atmospheric emissions allowed, but of course we ignore it because the mining is 'exportable' to places where the general public doesn't see or feel it. Yay for 3rd worlds.
Hooray for 3rd worlds indeed. If they'd push this eco agenda on the third world, we might see meaningful change. But then we have to pay for it and if you can't shove it off on them, what's the point?
I paid out of pocket 40 grand for mine, I dont thbink you helped me pay for it!!
That's appreciated, and I'm sure that you know far more than most the
true cost of this. Take away the subsidies and the tax breaks and the financial smoke n' mirrors, and all of a sudden the green starts to....turn brown. That's my big issue; the people that want a greener world don't have a clue what's really involved.
Much respect to someone that was willing to shoulder the FULL cost of this. If the people fighting for it had to pay for it themselves...they'd find something else to fight over.
Part of the problem is that some have boiled the question down to only carbon. But when it comes to 'harm reduction', carbon isn't the only factor. Even if the solar panel offset the same amount of carbon (it probably does in some places, and solar can also go where we've already going to rip out the environment), the dust and other pollutants released are non-zero, and in some cases are alarmingly large.
Part of the problem is that eggheads simply want everything to BE electric and try to kill all markets for fossil fuels, because harm reduction isn't really the goal. The goal, for better or worse, to eliminate the use of oil/coal/tar because the assumption is that those materials are considered 'new' inputs into the complex equation that is the energy balance of our world. The reason they glom onto solar and wind is because extracting energy from those systems balances that equation when it comes to human contribution. But that's also a massive over-simplification.
The reality is that the world, at and above population densities from ~100 years ago, relies on massive additional power inputs. Manging the knock-on effects of such a thing is also going to be a thing we need to deal with, and humanity has a decent track record when it comes to dealing with slow-moving disasters. Electrification is known among all the eggheads to be a knee-jerk stopgap that won't actually have much effect, but they're banking on the hope that it opens other technological advancements or helps 'ease' us off of 'fossil fuels' so that newer tech will be more readily adopted because they're all already electric. This isn't explained in public for the same reason medical decisions have never been fully fleshed out in public either (lets ignore the obvious exception, please). No sane person thinks that there's enough 'rare earth' minerals for everyone to own and consume and dispose of a significant mass of annually, indefinitely. Recyling those materials often requires a significant amount of the energy they were used to extract previously. As a result, the amount of energy consumption per-capita needs to decrease substantially, which is probably for the better, but no one likes watching politicians rove around in luxo-barges while we're told to drive our radio-flyers to work either.
As with all things, it's a balance, and people need to know a lot more about the system they choose to participate in if they're going to argue their decision is somehow 'better'. In the end, the vast majority are doing it as a result of poor analysis - environmental, financial, or otherwise - and then rationalizing it after the fact.
Damn straight. This is NOT a '100% electric by 2023!' problem. Not by a damn sight.
Solar and wind energy makes sense because it’s renewable energy plus it takes the strain off the already over worked power grid. Meaning less people would be using less power from the grid hence less strain on it.
If people would take a little time and use their computer or what ever they use before they start whining ,they might learn about the advancements that have and are being made to these systems since the first ones.
As far as taxes go look out the window at the roads we drive on.How are they going get repaired so we can drive our precious rides on and the rest of the infrastructure? Or clean up the messes after tornadoes ,mudslides or floods. The cost for these goes up just like car parts and other thing.
I don't think you mean power grid the way it's really applied. Solar and wind are still moving that power from source to sink, and that happens through the grid. ALL of this, EV's and 'clean' sources both, require VAST improvements to the power grid. Coal, gas, and even wood all
reduce the load on the grid. Any electrical, either draw or input, increases that load.
Remember, a car being charged is something like the power equivalent to
sixteen homes. That's all power going from somewhere, to somewhere else. Imagine if each house in a subdivision has to add that kind of load for just one car....that's a lot of infrastructure increase.
I saw a news article today that said there's a new 'solar' (ahem....solar-powered?) car....that goes 500 miles between charges. If it's being charged, what's the solar for?
That's the problem with all this greenwashing...it's all hype and people....buy hype.
