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BodyBySisyphus [he/him]

@ BodyBySisyphus @hexbear.net

Posts
69
Comments
1250
Joined
4 yr. ago

  • The financing thing is a good point, the lease model would incentivize encouraging people to trash their panels once they're paid off

  • Heating in colder climates is probably the big one (at least it is for us). Gas heat should be getting phased out and even relatively efficient heat pumps still need a decent amount of power.

  • It's fake, but it is true that Usha Vance is currently pregnant.

  • According to Google you need about 300-500 sq ft of panels to power a single family home so it might be simple to start with a 100 sq ft array and gradually build it out to compensate for losses over time and spread the cost. But I'm not a rooftop solar installer

  • Yeah, but if you're a residential solar customer with limited roof space and/or a weight limit, the old panels become a bit of a liability.

  • Depends on how much roof space you have left and how easy it would be to add panels to the array, I'd imagine.

  • If you look at the study, this is based on an n of 6 and there was significant variation across altitude, so reporting this as an average or a definitive result seems a little weird.

    Moreover, the degradation rate was highest in the low-altitude installations, which experienced up to 1.5% efficiency loss per year. Whether your system operating at 80% efficiency after 20 years is material to you depends on the original installation size and power consumption (obviously), but I imagine it would be a replacement signal for most.

    On top of all that, given changes in solar panel tech over the years, it's not like current installations really resemble the ones in the study. Apparently thin-film solar panels have a shorter service life, but modern monocrystalline panels can be rated up to 40 years with estimated 0.3-0.5% efficiency loss per year.

    It's a fun study but I'm not sure why science reporting keeps insisting on trying to generalize or why this information would be considered groundbreaking given that it seems in line with manufacturers' current understanding of how their products perform.

  • The main reason being that if they actually did the math in good faith, the outcomes wouldn't fit the preordained conclusions. A researcher recently wrote about his experiences trying to get a bad study retracted and being stonewalled.

  • If everyone votescolding the left had voted for Gloria La Riva, none of this would be happening, either

  • I was taking a class and at a laboratory where all the students stayed in a dorm on site. One day when there was snow in the forecast, the cook pulled me aside, showed me where everything was in the fridge, and was like "you can handle a stove, right?" Nobody died (we also made some soft pretzels). Sure, harder to scale on a college campus but kids just need to be able to work an oven without blowing themselves up in order to be allowed out of the house.

  • Maybe I'm not correct on definitions here, but my understanding is that profit results from valorization but rents are distinct.

  • Rents, profits, etc

  • I don't really understand the convention of excluding farmworkers, but ag is a very small fraction of the US GDP, somewhere around 1%.

  • But 21 and 15 aren't as nice and intuitive as 60 and 70

  • You have 98 different outfits depending on the temperature?

  • That's fair, but Fahrenheit is basically the same thing but for 10s and fits comfortably between 0 and 100:100 - I ain't movin'90 - too hot80 - hot70 - perfect60 - cool50 - chilly40 - brisk30 - brr20 - heavy coat10 - heavy coat + thermals0 - I ain't movin'

  • Fully clothed also works fine, Grok can just nudify it later.

  • Yeah but that's not how the number monkeys running human heuristics work. 70 degrees F = warm, I can wear a T-shirt and shorts; 60 degrees F = a little bit cooler, I would wear pants and long sleeves. 21.111 degrees C vs 15.556 degrees C =