I was referring to melting them down and using them for their base materials in wafer fabrication.

I’m not gonna pretend to be an expert. I can’t even find the graph I saw – much less verify its integrity. If you’re really curious, I can tell you I once saw a bar graph that had fossil fuels (or maybe it was just coal) as very negative, then solar as barely breaking even, then wind or maybe it was hydro electric as more positive, and nuclear as very very positive. I don’t really want to defend the graph because I can’t even find it to check the axes.

I will say my undergrad was in material science (actually “nanoscience” but basically material science), and there seemed a lot of semi-open corruption in wafer fabrication (or maybe it was just between Andrew Cuomo and CNSE). I was never really clear on the details, but it made me quite skeptical of anything associated with that field. Life-time is actually one of the big points as the economics teacher I had in undergrad said most solar panels are tossed well before they reach their supposed lifespans – again, I don’t know if that’s actually true.

To be honest, as I’ve gotten older the independence aspect of solar panels has been what’s appealed to me more than the environmentalism. Not to say I don’t care about the environment. Just that I don’t think green energy is going to be adopted in time to solve the problem, and carbon capture is obvious BS unless it’s biologically based (went into structural biology in grad school, so the biology is closer to my expertise).

Rules are made up, as are property rights.

♪ War isn’t murder, land is a right. / But the banks called dibs, it’s something you can’t fight. ♪

You know I’ve really come around to solarpunk as a concept.

I used to genuinely be against solar because the carbon costs barely break even, but the very simple point was made to me that solar panels are an ideal ore for making solar panels – meaning the carbon costs of solar panels goes down once we start recycling them. Add the independence solar panels give people (that punk aspect), and yeah I dig it.

They probably will, but I think the intentional violators are intending to make a spectacle out of it. I suspect California Voters will have it repealed in short order, but in the mean time the world should probably ruthlessly mock and isolate them.

Ads were always a terrible way to fund the internet.

Not to rant, but some things are so cheap or so important (or both) that it’s foolish not to operate off an endowment system. The internet, journalism, science – the information foundation of the modern world has to be independent for a stable society. Like, yeah, capitalism bad and establishing an initial investment is asking a lot of people’s finances, but surely operating independently is worth it?

It is either puppies or genocide, no in-between

puppy genocide?

I love the level of disdain the linux community has for this kinda bootlicking.