[FRIAM] Elon Musk and Fossil Fuels

Fri Jul 11 13:06:12 EDT 2025

I have an online shopping cart with SanTan (AZ) Solar to buy a pallet of 
25 used 250W deprecated PV Panels for $17/ea.  Waiting for their next 
"free shipping" offer.   Or a trip down that way in a vehicle capable... 
turns out the panels are 4" too long to fit behind the seats in my 
ChevyVolt with the hatch closed. (I tried, I suppose I should have 
measured (twice) first?)   I can't find anyone else closer brokering 
these at-scale (Denver?).  wonder when the new arrays Kit Carson Coop 
put in up north will be end-of-life for them.  mean-time-to-replacement 
is 10yr?

I'll be paving my postage-stamped sized portion of the planet with 
someone else's trash so they can rush forward and do some more planet 
paving?  See Jevon's paradox 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox>.  Let the next phase of 
data centers be under 400W-class PV Panel roofs which double as 
night-time solar radiators with a geo-coupled tap-roots deep enough to 
recharge the 50-60F deep earth temp with waste energy from their cubic 
miles of "computronium" (surely someone has trademarked that term?)

In a decade or so when someone has to deal with my "good ideas gone 
bad"  they will likely have to pay much more than $17/panel to properly 
"recycle" them.   The hardened "gorilla glass" and aluminum frames alone 
if properly repurposed (greenhouse/sunroom) glazing should be worth that 
to someone?  Three sided homeless pup-tents with minimal PV power to 
recharge a phone or even power the discarded EV bicycle wheels used to 
make it into a portable shelter?

Meanwhile my (now vintage?) PHEV and water well and personal demands for 
electricity from the grid could trickle in through order $400 worth of 
entirely waterproof-shade-making panels? With Chinese Tarriffs, 
Inverters are getting pricier but a Pi or Arduino with a handful of 
MOSFETs and capacitors and diodes and resistors and *viola* a DIY 
inverter.  Or just swap out or augment the 240V downhole well pump with 
a 12/24V DC version that has the built-in circuitry to handle the 
variable power from PV?    Or so says GPT... I used to be "just smart 
enough to get in trouble"... now I have LLMs encouraging me.   
Fortunately it is easier to spin the power-turbines with my idle 
speculations than it is to go out and do these projects.  GPT "keeps me 
off the streets and on the drawing boards".

Or maybe just hand-dig a well and hang a bucket over the side? Good 
complement to splitting my own firewood?   Put some real-life into the 
"chop wood, carry water" mantra?  Under the shade of deprecated PV 
panels?  full circle, like a hermit crab in a tin can.  Ever see one 
sans-shell?  Ugly little buggers!

Apocalypto!

Following glen's reference to post apocalyptic biospheric recovery in 
urban environments, I am a fan (when I can find it) of the 
Cyber/Steam/Diesel Punk movement known as SolarPunk 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk>.... very old-hippy 
vibe/bohemian of course.

  I'm not an earthship kinda guy, our local timber and adobe-soil and 
pumice resources don't need other's industrial waste stream (tires and 
glass bottles) sequestered into them for houses... unless of course they 
are YOUR tire and glass bottle castoffs... that I can get behind.

On 7/11/25 8:53 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

> Installation, tear down, recycling, and re-fabrication all need to be automated.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam<friam-bounces at redfish.com>  On Behalf Of glen
> Sent: Friday, July 11, 2025 7:38 AM
> To:friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Elon Musk and Fossil Fuels
>
> 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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