[FRIAM] Elon Musk and Fossil Fuels

Fri Jul 11 13:50:20 EDT 2025

Your SolarPunk comment reminded me how much I love permaculture. There’s a
small permaculture farm not far from where I live, and we’ve become friends
with Kath and Ross from Numbi Valley (https://numbivalley.co.za/).

Permaculture and organic farming have a lot in common, but I prefer
permaculture. It’s not just about growing food — it’s more about living in
a way that works with nature, not against it.

Just to keep things simple, I asked ChatGPT to explain permaculture. Here's
what it said:

“Permaculture is a way of designing homes, farms, and communities that
follow nature’s patterns. It helps people grow food, save water, and live
in a more balanced and eco-friendly way. The idea is to work with the land,
not fight it — and to create systems that look after people and the planet
for the long run.”

On Fri, 11 Jul 2025 at 19:07, steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:

> 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> <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> <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.
>
>
>
> .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
> archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
>   1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
>
> .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. /
> ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
> archives:  5/2017 thru present
> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
>   1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20250711/4c720543/attachment.html>