Sub's Alternative Energy Thread

[Shockm]

Another way to help while providing value.

A Startup Is Using Recycled Plastic to 3D Print Tiny $25,000 Prefabricated Homes in LA



Definitely not for everyone, but with how expensive housing (land) is in some areas, there are people who would gladly live in a smaller and cheaper home. Especially people who if they have help getting off the streets and can transition back into working and society with a little bit of stability. Mental illness is a major problem within the homeless community, but there are still a lot of people who have simply fallen on hard times and ran out of places to go and people to help them get on their feet.

Hard times? Maybe. However, we (at least I do) hear all the time how many businesses can’t find people willing to work. I’ve seen lots of signs advertising job openings, some are more skilled like teaching openings, (Managers and Workers with benefits) and others less so. I’ve recently even seen fast food ( with drive thrus) and a couple of other restaurants who are closed inside because of a lack of workers.

It eats at s at me when I see people claiming homeless who are at corner stop lights asking for handouts as people drive by ( I wonder why they’d rather do that than work for $15.00 an hour or be a Manager for $36,000 a year, many of these jobs advertising other benefits too). I’ve seen stories on how people are turning pan handling into a job, and a person who gave them money at a street corner, found them in a bank depositing money at the end of the day. I’ve seen people on North/South Broadway pan handling, I’ve seen them at 25th and Rock Road, and 21st and Maize Rd. . If they can’t afford housing, how do they get around to these outlying areas?

[SubGod22]

Leave it to you to take a story on turning recycling into potential housing for people without homes to ***** about a small minority of people who panhandle instead of work, disregarding the majority of them that couldn't get jobs if they wanted them because they don't have a permanent address, or can't afford a cell phone to be contacted or can't properly bathe which would prevent them from having any customer facing job that they might otherwise be able to get.

Living with so much disgust for others and negativity isn't healthy my friend. Save it for legit accounts and stop trying to paint so many with a broad brush that doesn't actually fit.

[pinstripers]

Recycled plastic houses made from fossil fuels

[SubGod22]

Recycled plastic houses made from fossil fuels

That is a big reason behind recycling

[Shockm]

Leave it to you to take a story on turning recycling into potential housing for people without homes to ***** about a small minority of people who panhandle instead of work, disregarding the majority of them that couldn't get jobs if they wanted them because they don't have a permanent address, or can't afford a cell phone to be contacted or can't properly bathe which would prevent them from having any customer facing job that they might otherwise be able to get.

Living with so much disgust for others and negativity isn't healthy my friend. Save it for legit accounts and stop trying to paint so many with a broad brush that doesn't actually fit.

I may not have read this thread caption as well as I should have, and placed an answer where it should not have been, but you went way over your skis on things you know nothing about.

You appear to not be educated about today’s current business climate, my friend. The federal government under Biden has given out a lot of money in rent forgiveness or people not required to pay monthly rent payments, loan forgiveness, and unrestricted and continued unemployment payments for a long time after Covid is no longer a threat. These payments have been an inducement for people to not work.

Lots of businesses have closed because people aren’t working, where prior to Covid, these same businesses were flourishing. Recently, my wife went to get her nails done, and in a shop who have had 4-6 salon workers, the owner was working by herself. The owner apologized for no employees being at work on that day, and asked her to come back in an hour. Where in the past, she had a half dozen employees, that day, she had zero.

Mental illness is a problem that is up after Covid, no doubt. But there are a lot of able bodied people not working, and welfare continues to be handed out without any end, restrictions, stipulations or accountability. Free money is a strong enticement for people not to do the right thing, and in the long run, it will lead America down a path of being economically unproductive.

[WuDrWu]

Another way to help while providing value.

A Startup Is Using Recycled Plastic to 3D Print Tiny $25,000 Prefabricated Homes in LA



Definitely not for everyone, but with how expensive housing (land) is in some areas, there are people who would gladly live in a smaller and cheaper home. Especially people who if they have help getting off the streets and can transition back into working and society with a little bit of stability. Mental illness is a major problem within the homeless community, but there are still a lot of people who have simply fallen on hard times and ran out of places to go and people to help them get on their feet.

This follow up has little if anything to do with warming, but I think the tiny house idea has legs should be furthered where possible. I'm not going to even start with what to do with the homeless but I believe (based on an admittedly small sample size) that the younger generation is thirsting for living like this. I was amazed to see how quickly really small apartments with few amenities were snatched up recently. And the tenants are thrilled. If they can be maintained with minimal skill, I believe there is a huge untapped market here. Insurance would be an issue and some kind of communal shelter would be necessary in an area like Kansas. And not everyone wants that neighborhood around, but still, I believe there is opportunity.

[Shockm]

If you look up Bjorn Lomborg who does research and works for the Hoover Institution, you will find out how crazy the liberals are on Global Warming. His research says that making the moves on Global Warming, our country and Europe is doing now (electric cars, etc) will make less than 1 degree of difference over the long term but still cost us Trillions of dollars in our economy (Europe’s too), and that China, India, and Africa will see the futility in it and won’t follow suit in the next bunch of years.

Heres one of his writings, https://www.hoover.org/research/keep...-bjorn-lomborg

American global warming activists are rich and crazy, but the youth follow their lead. He makes a lot of sense but our liberal friends don’t use common sense and listen. Look him up if Global Warning interests you.

[ShockTalk]

If you look up Bjorn Lomborg who does research and works for the Hoover Institution, you will find out how crazy the liberals are on Global Warming. His research says that making the moves on Global Warming, our country and Europe is doing now (electric cars, etc) will make less than 1 degree of difference over the long term but still cost us Trillions of dollars in our economy (Europe’s too), and that China, India, and Africa will see the futility in it and won’t follow suit in the next bunch of years.

Heres one of his writings, https://www.hoover.org/research/keep...-bjorn-lomborg

American global warming activists are rich and crazy, but the youth follow their lead. He makes a lot of sense but our liberal friends don’t use common sense and listen. Look him up if Global Warning interests you.

And it's not just China, India, and Africa. Southeast Asia is another one.

[wufan]

If you look up Bjorn Lomborg who does research and works for the Hoover Institution, you will find out how crazy the liberals are on Global Warming. His research says that making the moves on Global Warming, our country and Europe is doing now (electric cars, etc) will make less than 1 degree of difference over the long term but still cost us Trillions of dollars in our economy (Europe’s too), and that China, India, and Africa will see the futility in it and won’t follow suit in the next bunch of years.

Heres one of his writings, https://www.hoover.org/research/keep...-bjorn-lomborg

American global warming activists are rich and crazy, but the youth follow their lead. He makes a lot of sense but our liberal friends don’t use common sense and listen. Look him up if Global Warning interests you.

Amazingly Britain and the EU are leading the charge towards net zero and the US is lagging behind.

[Shockm]

Amazingly Britain and the EU are leading the charge towards net zero and the US is lagging behind.

So we are doing better than the EU? Probably right, but our new Trillion dollar boondoggle shiny Inflation Reduction Act that just passed, keeps us in the ballpark and our economic downward spiral trending faster than before.

[wufan]

So we are doing better than the EU? Probably right, but our new Trillion dollar boondoggle shiny Inflation Reduction Act that just passed, keeps us in the ballpark and our economic downward spiral trending faster than before.

No question we are going the wrong way in that we are subsidizing green businesses.

If a governments goal is to go green through incentivizing corporations, the only thing that makes sense is to build better batteries. We need another battery tech leap beyond the capabilities of lithium in order to harness wind and solar as a viable tech.

Alternatively nuclear energy is already green and fully developed.

The fact that nuclear is evil and that wind/solar is not scaleable due to battery limitations, is how you know that they aren’t serious. It’s not about climate, it’s about political power.

[SubGod22]

This follow up has little if anything to do with warming, but I think the tiny house idea has legs should be furthered where possible. I'm not going to even start with what to do with the homeless but I believe (based on an admittedly small sample size) that the younger generation is thirsting for living like this. I was amazed to see how quickly really small apartments with few amenities were snatched up recently. And the tenants are thrilled. If they can be maintained with minimal skill, I believe there is a huge untapped market here. Insurance would be an issue and some kind of communal shelter would be necessary in an area like Kansas. And not everyone wants that neighborhood around, but still, I believe there is opportunity.

I couldn't care less about the warming aspect of anything. I just like the idea of cleaning things up where possible and in a responsible way that isn't at a major cost to taxpayers.

I don't get the tiny house thing myself. I have a small enough house right now and feel constrained at times and wish I had more space, but I've seen a lot of comments on social media about people loving it. There's definitely a market for it and it would also be a relatively inexpensive way of trying to help a certain segment of the population get back on their feet in some areas.

[SubGod22]

Take-out Containers Turned into Valuable Seaweed Chemical Using Rays of Sunlight

Polystyrene (Styrofoam) has been turned into a valuable chemical found in seaweed by exposing it to sunlight.

Broken down, it produces DPM (diphenylmethane,) a molecule in the aquatic plant used in drug development, polymer manufacturing, and even fragrances and other cosmetics.

Polystyrene is the indestructible plastic is found in everything from takeaway containers to TV packaging.

It’s rarely recycled due to costly and complex processes required, as well as the difficulty of collecting it.

Now scientists have broken it down using a simple and inexpensive technique that combines UV (ultraviolet) rays and a chemical catalyst.

Market incentive is baked into the process, since the market price for DPM is 10-times higher than other materials currently made from polystyrene. Other valuable chemicals produced included benzophenone, used for clear coatings in the printing and film industry, and 4-oxo-4-phenyl-butyric acid.

Sounds like we may be on the way to effectively breaking down and utilizing Styrofoam for other purposes in a cost effective way.

[Shockm]

Elon Musk calls for more fossil fuels in the world in order to transition to renewables. Biden has appointed many far left energy radicals to run his executive agencies. Possible future unrest from people who can’t afford this immediate transition.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-to-renewables

[SubGod22]

California Begins Covering Canals with Solar Panels to Fight Drought

State utilities in California are preparing to launch a pilot project to cover California’s irrigation canals in solar panels.

The decision was influenced by a landmark 2021 research paper, where scientists at Univ. of California Santa Cruz crunched the numbers and figured that the panels would save 63.5 billion gallons of water from evaporation annually by shading the flowing water.

Turlock Irrigation District Water & Power is preparing two pilot canal projects: a 500-foot (152-meter) curved canal section near the town of Hickman, and a second mile-long (1.6-km long) straightaway in nearby Ceres.

GNN reported last year that the UC Santa Cruz investigation found that for every megawatt of solar energy generated during Turlock’s 290 days of average sunshine, the pairing of panels over canals could replace 15-20 diesel generators used to pump water along the canals.

Called Project Nexus, the work is slated to begin this October with funding of $20 million from the state’s coffers.

This is one way to do it. I'm a fan of finding ways to not take up a ton of land for solar projects, as has been posted in the past, and I guess this is another way to do that and apparently help reduce evaporation in the process. I'll be curious to see if there are negatives to doing this as well and what impact those may have.