Tesla Master Plan, Part Deux

[The Grand Nudger]

Solar is dirty, unfortunately.  Not only did the industry slide backwards on green benchmarks in recent years, it stopped reporting data to monitoring organizations after having done so. I don't think they're getting cleaner and refusing to tell us about it.

[Excited Penguin]

Solar is dirty, unfortunately.  Not only did the industry slide backwards on green benchmarks in recent years, it stopped reporting data to monitoring organizations after having done so.  I don't think they're getting cleaner and refusing to tell us about it.

If you explained yourself better maybe I'd agree with you.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think they're doing something about it too...but, assuming that they can eliminate transportation emissions entirely...which they can't, we'd still be sitting around waiting for the world to end, in effect.  We'd just be doing it in our nice new electric cars - like we're doing it now in our nice new fuel efficient cars.  There's nothing more insidious than the sort of complacency incubated by genuinely thinking that we can do more than is possible, and that what we can do or have done is enough...when we can't, and it isn't.  

As to elaborating on why solar is dirty:

The production of pv panels can incur an incredibly steep environmental cost.  In general, the cost is higher when the panels are cheaper, or produced en mass.  Both of those things are -required- for any widespread deployment plan.  There was, initially, a hidden environmental subsidy (if you will) in their manufacture when the industry was small and the panels were expensive.  They used a waste flow from electronics manufacturing as a raw material.  Even so, it was possible to both produce a panel that had a greater environmental cost than it's use could justify...in addition to producing less energy than it took to manufacture it, while reducing fewer emissions than that manufacturing process produced.  It's worth noting that the industry has -always- leaned on the exploitation of  shitty third world mines, labor, smelting, and refining..... a situation not particularly well known to reduce environmental costs or emissions.  

Because of these known factors, independent monitoring agencies sprung up to provide a roadmap to the future...to a greener pv industry.  Benchmarks for performance, emissions, environmental and human cost.  This being an industry built atop the premise of sustainable energy, manufacturers cooperated both in the process of creating these benchmarks and self reporting data on their manufacturing process.  As the industry picked up steam, and more competitors entered the market...they could no longer rely on the waste products from electronics manufacturing..for example...or the then current output of those mines, smelteries, and refineries.  Compounding this, was the industry being heavily subsidized or incentivized globally...which did push the price of a pv panel down and create a glut of manufacturers.  However, in the process of this many smaller, cleaner firms were driven entirely out of business, leaving the larger, dirtier firms to compete with each other on price as innovation stagnated, a solar plateau.  

Predictably, the manner in which those firms competed was by cutting corners in their manufacturing process.  Initially, nearly all pv firms self reported to a variety of monitoring agencies.  The more firms entered the market the smaller the ratio of reporting firms became.  The realities of global competition couldn't be ignored, and firms with a demonstrable history of integrity and progress towards meeting those benchmarks were squeezed, both by their need to remain solvent and the rising environmental cost of the industries which supported their process.  The industry began a backwards slide -away- from the benchmarks.  The further they slipped, the fewer self reported the data.  The companies which produced the cheapest, dirtiest panels (and those materials required to produce them) began to dominate the market on price point, and many stopped reporting entirely.  

Now maybe, those companies have had a breakthrough, or they;ve stopped slipping, or they;re moving forward toward the benchmarks again.....and they just don't feel like shouting about it at the rooftops or reporting as such.  I doubt it. This is the danger of the hype machine (and I hope that puts my comments regarding electric cars in perspective). We find ourselves unaware of the reality of an industry and it's impacts, parroting the ad copy of it's slimiest operators.

[Excited Penguin]

While I appreciate the post, I don't think your attitude is helpful. I'm talking about your attitude, notice, not the facts.

If the world is going to shit, it's better to try and stop it however you can rather than throw up your hands and do nothing about it.

[The Grand Nudger]

My attitude?  My attitude is that the facts of the matter are unacceptable.  We need to do better, but there's currently no incentive to do so, and the people who would be most motivated to realizing those incentives are content to ignore those facts, "focus on the positive" and push out anyone who points to facts by saying "what positive?".

Let's put this into perspective. An industry which would be required to realize the impossible reductions of the electric car industry has become dirtier, not cleaner...and even if it had been cleaner, and those reductions were possible...it wouldn't be close to enough. "Stopping it however you can" isn't applicable when you can't...you know...stop it, in the manner suggested.

[Excited Penguin]

My attitude?  My attitude is that the facts of the matter are unacceptable.  We need to do better, but there's currently no incentive to do so, and the people who would be most motivated to realizing those incentives are content to ignore those facts, "focus on the positive" and push out anyone who..you know...points to facts.

I'm not saying that, but I'm glad you cleared that up for me.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, I've been a plumper for sustainable this and that's for a long time.  They got me early, back in grade school, lol.  When it wasn't trendy I'd get shit for being a hippie or a luddite, despite being neither of those things.  Now that the whole thing has been coopted by the lowest common denominator, I'm getting shit from the same people as though I'm somehow against sustainable solutions.  

Watching the green revolution get bought out and packaged as a commodity turned me into a zealot.  I did a little career tourism in solar, sustainable building, etc.  It only deepened my disillusionment.  At this point I have no faith in business or government..or..really, any top down solution.  I see that as waiting for a hero to bring a holy relic down from the mountain.  Well, if it was going to happen...I don;t know that we have the time to wait for whomever that is to finish their labors or slay the gorgon or what have you.  I think it has to come from the bottom up.  A luxury car, electric or not, solar or not...isn't going to get us to the finish line.  We have to rethink the way we source our food, our energy, the way we build our houses, the way we organize our communities, how we allocate our money, the ends to which we manufacture -anything-, and how we use those things once we've made them. More than just rethinking, we have to deploy those solutions that actually are solutions on a global scale, and that sets more constraints on what is or is not a good idea.

Succeed or fail, either way, how we respond to our current situation is going to be a defining moment for humanity.