[FRIAM] Elon Musk and Fossil Fuels

[glen]

A tech bro wet dream, that is. Maybe there's something wrong with me. But what I see when looking at those pictures is something like one of those post-apocalyptic movie scenes where a city is being retaken by the biosphere ... or maybe a hermit crab using a can as its shell.

It's easy to abstract away and think about the humans who manufacture and repair those panel manifolds like so many molecules maintaining a cell or so many glands growing a new shell or exoskeleton. But that analogy's pretty fraught. And it's not merely the life cycles of the panels (and wind mills) that pokes at me. I also wonder about the bioengineering of the various ecosystems, including deserts, and how that will turn out.

None of that's an argument for not paving the earth with panels or continuing to drain the fossil fuel battery. But it's just what I think when I look at those pictures. It just feels so centrally planned ... so ... inorganic. I can't help think about what it will look like within a lifetime of the kids around me:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004225005930


On 7/11/25 6:31 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Every so often I need to post an Atlantic article, and that time has arrived again.
> 
> https://www.theatlantic.com/photography/archive/2025/07/photos-china-solar-power-energy/683488/?gift=IwTom6kf_sPDx8WzuZ66aeDqXjixawasB22Cb-q9aVA&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen
> Sent: Friday, July 11, 2025 6:19 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Elon Musk and Fossil Fuels
> 
> I don't use Grok. But this reads like it's straight out of an LLM. And since Grok is the ultimate Elno fanboi, that would be my first guess.
> 
> On 7/11/25 12:09 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
>> Alright, let’s not beat around the bush — fossil fuels kinda suck. Like, seriously.
>>
>> When it comes to moving the world toward clean energy, there are two big pieces of the puzzle: how we power everything (electricity), and how we move around (vehicles). Both are super important. There are other parts too, but for today, let’s just chat about cars.
>>
>> Now, let’s be honest — this whole clean energy thing? It's messy. It’s complicated. There’s no neat, sparkly-clean way to swap out millions of gas-guzzling cars without some bumps and bruises along the way. And yeah, some parts of the process can look... well, not great.
>>
>> I actually want people to point out the flaws. Go for it. It’s good to talk about the not-so-pretty stuff too. As much as I'd love to only focus on the shiny positives (it’s my natural instinct!), I get that the whole picture matters.
>>
>> Still, if we sat down with a pros and cons list and gave it a fair shot, I think we'd see that Elon Musk has done the planet a pretty big favor in pushing us away from combustion engines and toward electric ones.
>>
>> Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you can come up with a solid list of “negatives” — and honestly, I welcome it. I might even be completely wrong about all this. And you know what? That’s okay. Lucky for me (and the rest of the planet), if I am wrong, it’s just my opinion. No harm done.
>>
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