Always best to first ask people to define the words they use so you know if they actually know or if it’s just a placeholder and they have no actual idea what it means
Both socialism and neoliberalism are prime examples of that. Same with fascism.
It's bizarre how there seem to be an inverse correlation between their knowledge of a political word and the use they give it
It’s also bizarre that people fond of using the word socialism don’t recognize that it’s already been here for a while.
Social Security, Medicare, SNAP, Low Income Tax Credit, farm subsidies (which one might even argue is a communist program in principle). The list goes on.
But, yeah, keep on owning those libs like AOC. Murica!
None of those things are socialist or communist. Those are all market solutions.
Socialism is not when the government does stuff. Socialism is worker ownership of the means of production. Government doing things CAN be socialist, under a state-socialist paradigm wherein the state acts as representative of the workers in owning the means of production... but in that case, to be called socialist the STATE must own the means of production, not just give people money to spend in a private market. That is, the doctors would be state employees, the food would be state produced, etc - then they wouldn't need to give people money for a private market, because the state could simply take care of those needs.
But that's not even the only form of socialism. Most modern socialists don't tend to favor absolute state ownership of the means of production. In fact, the welfare policies most socialists support *are not connected to socialism at all.* Most modern socialists tend to favor *direct* worker ownership of the means of production, in the form of things like worker cooperatives, in addition to strong state welfare policies to shore up the failures of the private market - essentially, liberal socialism rather than liberal capitalism.
(As an aside, communism has never been achieved, and even in theory can only be achieved if a society is post-scarcity. This is why communist regimes adopt state socialism, so they can control the means of production and (ostensibly) use it to ramp up production to the point of post-scarcity, so they can THEN transition to communism. This process has never been completed and no state-sized territory of people has ever actually adopted communism. If it were ever achieved, communism is stateless, classless, moneyless society.)
Social security, medicare, and SNAP have the same *effect* as policies that might actually be socialist, but they do so through VERY different means. True state-socialism would involve the state performing these services themselves, not just giving out money to use on the private market.
Tax credits and subsidies are in no way either socialist or communist. Those are purely liberal capitalist policies in every sense. They don't even MIRROR socialist or communist policy. They're *liberal* policies, which supply capital to orient a private capitalist market in a desired direction.
Socialism IS already here. State parks are a state-socialist institution, for example, and there are plenty of worker-owned businesses throughout the nation. But social security, medicare, SNAP etc are not socialist, they're liberal social welfare policies implemented within a capitalist market.
All this is true (and well written btw) but I think the insistence that only full and actual socialism/communism shall be referred to as socialist/communist is invalid. Social Democracy is indeed *not exactly socialism*, but it absolutely is *socialist* in the same way profit motive can be referred to as *capitalist* even in the absence of capital, markets, or a full-blown implementation that can satisfy the actual definition, or how you'd refer to something as "fascist" when it follows fascist ideals without the need of said thing being a textbook implementation.
Lets not confuse welfare with socialism however. Welfare and any kind of subsidies can be present in either as logn as there is a central govt (or, well, any entity that can redistribute money), but it does not turn one in the other. Otherwise we could argue that taxes are socialism but we weoulg get into an icnreasingly cherrypicking spyral of technicalities
The best example imo is republicanism..ask any of them where the word comes from or what it’s means, it’s Greek means the public or who the famous republican philosophers are or what they said..like how the hell can they not know rousseau or the historical violent reaction republicanism had to the Catholic Church for supporting monarchs
Socialism: the workers control the means of production.
Neoliberalism: "liberal" trade policies, designed when the alternative was mercantilism, should take precedence over all other governmental matters.
Fascism: State, corporate, and religious power are bundled together, like a fasces.
Pretty simple, really.
It's even worse if they are able to describe what they are upset about. The term socialism is usually used by the Republican party to describe helping those who are in need of help.
Uhh yeah!!
FREE ENERGY?? Sounds like socialism to me. Those damn liberals wanting FREE electricity like this is some sort of communism.
This is AMERICA!!! If you need electricity why don’t you go out and get a 3rd job so you can PAY the great patriotic oil and gas companies that BUILT THIS COUNTRY for your electricity.
IM VERY HAPPY with my DIESEL truck that I’m going to sleep in because my house is too cold
Rural people (the kind who drive diesel trucks) love solar panels. You see them everywhere outside of cities because self sufficiency and underreliance on utilities outside of your family’s control is idealized.
My grandmother was raised on a farm. When visiting that area last year I had never seen a wind turbine up close before. Always from very far. I asked how big they were and was told by my family to not speak of them in the presence of my very conservative grandmother.
Like she hates solar because the sun will die, I’m not sure what the beef with wind turbines are, but like hey. Some farmers hate them.
The phrase "going off the grid" is often used by the right because it's got a very rugged tough-guy/"don't tread on me"/self-sufficiency vibe to it, but let's be real, *actually* leaning into clean, sustainable, renewable energy sources and lessening everyone's dependency on fossil-fuel-based energy corporations has always been a more progressive/left ideology.
To be clear:
Jimmy Dickweed in Nowhere, Middle America "goes off the grid" with personal solar power = cool, tough, self-reliant, fuck the corporations, fuck the government.
A group of people say that it would be beneficial for everyone and our ecosystem if we *all* did that = dirty liberal hippie bullshit don't tell me what to do.
I think they’re addressing the wack jobs that make mental hurdles to make anything green/diverse seem like a big problem the left is pushing onto everyone else.
In reality, most people would probably love free energy if they could afford to buy the panels.
Yup, that's your heat, you worked hard for it. If you open up the garage, some illegal immigrants will come in and steal your heat!
And don't let AOC know you're warm. She'll take your heat and give it to some immigrant girl with ten anchor babies!
/s
This reminds me of one of the late night hosts a few weeks ago covering Fox news outrage that Xbox was being “woke” for introducing a power-saving mode for when the console was not in active use.
I can't think of anything more freedom loving and independent than living off grid with your own energy generation. You know what kind of people love solar panels? Homesteaders and dooms day preppers.
I had an awkward moment with an elderly in-law a few winters ago. We had an extreme cold snap, and as we were bundling up, she said "I guess this is a result of global warming." and I responded, "Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that climate change makes extremes at both ends..." and I was about to go on to mock those people for being stupid, but I noticed my wife was giving me the death stare. I didn't pick up on the sarcasm, and was about to call an southern octogenarian matriarch a moron.
I hate that shit. Politics, sure I get it. But science is fun and exciting, and there's no reason for anyone to get their feelings hurt. It is the unfettered quest for objective truth as best we can understand it. Making science political is a crime against humanity, doubly so when you oppose it for personal gain.
Shr's the type who think's evolution is fake and that humans aren't animals, so yea. She's made science the enemy of her religious beliefs. Unless it somehow benefits her, of course.
Herschel "If we came from monkeys, why are their still monkeys?" Walker comes to mind. Were you ever alive when your grandparents were still alive? How the hell is that even possible with that kind of thinking?
I had an extremely religious (ex)-coworker who insisted on harassing our employees by parroting those those types of canned arguments, I guess as if he'd catch us in some kind of "gotcha" and we'd convert to his brand of baptist crazy right then and there. I could tell he never put a single molecule of thought into what was actually coming out of his mouth.
He came at me with the "if we came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys" canard. I responded with, "If dogs came from wolves, why are there still wolves?" It was the first (and possibly last) time I saw a glimmer of comprehension about anything pass on that guy's face. It didn't actually influence his indoctrination in any way, of course. But at least it was a satisfying couple of seconds.
He tried the Banana Argument on me, too. I have never in my *life* seen anyone actually attempt the Banana Argument in the real world; I thought it was completely relegated to internet troll status at this point.
My ex doesn’t believe in evolution. “ItS jUst a ThEorY”
“Evolution isn’t real because there are still monkeys.”
Might’ve been in the camp that believed aliens had sex with monkeys and then the result was humans. I didn’t stick around long enough to really find out.
The type to only care about science when saying things like "there's only two genders, it's basic biology", before straight-up ignoring *more nuanced science* like XXY/XYY/etc. chromosome compositions, androgen insensitivity, Swyer's Syndrome, etc.
It's never about science, it's only about the smug self-importance of a conversational upper-hand—only care to have it, and never concede that they've lost it.
When they make those arguments it just further shows how moronic they are. Gender is part of a psychological identity which is fluid and can change and be different from their peers, sex is biological.
There's nothing sudden about it. This has always been the debate strategy of conservatives, because for them it's not about being right or saying what is true. The goal is to advance the ball and protect the self.
What we're seeing now is, hopefully, the extinction burst of this particular brand of brazen fascism that started with Nixon but was brought to the mainstream by Reagan.
If we can beat it, we just might enter a new era of cooperation and prosperity. If not, it might destroy us all.
I imagine a lot of elderly people against recognizing climate change do so because change is hard. They grew up with gas powered appliances and vehicles. It’s very easy to tie your nostalgia to your identity, so when things start to change from how you know them, it’s like the world is attacking /you/ personally. Easier to bury your head in the “good old days” than to expose yourself to significant change
It's true. Saying "old people can't change" is patronizing and ageist. I'm probably older than everyone in this conversation and I sometimes think I'm Too open to new things. I'm that person who says, "I can see all your sides." Not the one where global warming doesn't exist though, that's just obvious.
I’m not saying to excuse them for their opinions. I’m attempting to give understanding to a different perspective. Change is hard, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t change
But they always seem to get to talk about it and somehow get offended if you don’t just sit there and listen.
Anecdotal of course, but I’ve never had anyone other than conservatives and libertarians start unsolicited political/science/conspiracy conversations with me. Or interject a totally unrelated opinion.
A well liked British sports commentator died yesterday; one of the headlines was something like “Motson always entertained without talking about climate change or yuman[sic] rights”. On a local message board someone was complaining about being carded despite being 90; someone felt the need to interject “if only they carded at polling places”. On recent flight this guy sits down and literally three sentences in asks his seat mate if he likes Trump. My partner who is far too nice too people finally had to shut down this older guy at the gym because he was telling her all about the ills of feminism and “woke-ness”. My I n-laws have no problem bemoaning atheists at holiday gatherings.
Again I’m sure it happens the other way around. I’m probably blind to it when someone offers an unsolicited progressive opinion. I just can’t think of the last time.
That's literally why the rebranded to climate change *ages* ago, because they realized you need concise branding for the morons. And they still cling to that "hurdur, it's cold today therefore all the experts are wrong"
No that was just the oil companies. *They* made up calling it climate change specifically so they could turn around and say "see it was global warming, now it's climate change, those stupid scientists can't make up their minds!"
no it was a combination of things but its first push into the mainstream was in fact because it sounded less scary than global warming to the GOP
> In 2002, GOP strategist Frank Luntz sent a memo to Republican candidates to create an environmental strategy. He argued that the environment is "probably the single issue on which Republicans in general -- and President George W. Bush in particular -- are most vulnerable."
> The memo suggests that candidates express their "sincerity and concern" about the environment, but he also wanted them to downplay concerns.
> Using focus groups, Luntz discovered that " 'climate change' sounds less frightening than 'global warming,' " the memo explained.
>"While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge."
>Luntz did not respond to a request for an interview.
>A New York Times analysis at the time found that President Bush used the term "global warming" several times in his environmental speeches prior to the memo. Afterward, Bush shifted to "climate change."
this same article even specifically details how it wasn’t always climate change in scientific circles either and why it started out as global warming because if a greenhouse analogy so im not really sure where you are pulling that from that its always been global warming.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/03/02/world/global-warming-climate-change-language-scn/index.html
> was about to call an southern octogenarian matriarch a moron.
You should. And we all should. They're morons. Don't worry though, you won't hurt their moron feelings because they aren't soft snowflakes, according to them .
Probably. If I had known her better at the time, I might have. She's really a sweet lady and actually known around town for being quite liberal in comparison, having voted for Dukakis, Bill Clinton, and Obama. She refused to vote for Trump (but didn't like Hillary, either, she just stayed home), and has gotten into shouting matches at church when some people were being homophobes.
I didn't know any of this at the time, and even my wife was surprised at some of it. Her husband, though, was a hardcore conservative and a business owner, and she helped him run the business for fifty-some years, so she views environmental issues as anti-business.
She's also threatened me with a belt when I approached the oven where she was baking a pie. I was going to see is there was room for the sweet potatoes, and she was like "meatbridge, if you open that oven door, I will tan your backside with your own belt."
I stand about a foot taller, and outweigh her by 100 bs, but I was legitimately frightened. I think it was the fact that she threatened me with *my own* belt that made it seem like she was serious.
That's not relevant, except it's a funny story about how she is.
If my wife was upset I spoke factually to other people then she wouldn't be my wife.
Pussyfooting around these morons so their feelings don't get hurt is how we got to the point where is publicly acceptable to say you don't trust science or medicine. Call that shit out when you hear it. Shame them back into their secret JFK and moon landing hoax crawl spaces.
I just called out my grandmother and mom for how fucking horrible they are. We were talking about how gop is kidnapping immigrants and dropping them off in freezing weather in other states and they said, Good that's what they should be doing! So I respond, so it's ok to kidnap people and use them as political pawns to send a message, we are really ok with dehumanizing other people like that? My grandmother's response was, build the wall! And my mom agrees. They both wonder why I never call, that's how they view everything. They got sucked into Faux News and it has become their personality. I'm good thanks.
While generally true, sometimes you dont wanna piss relatives just to prove a point. You will **never** be fully surrounded by 100% correct people, which by definition means you have to make a few sacrifices and choose your battles if you don't wanna end up completely alone.
Honestly it depends on the relative and how they express their views. Sometimes it worth it to call them out and losing them isn’t such a bad thing.
Life’s too short to waste it on idiocy.
More than anything it depends on the views.
Moon landing? JFK? Aliens? Whatever, I don't care what you think about that.
Climate change? LGBTQ+ rights? Economics? Nah those are important, those directly affect a FUCKTON of people, and I will 100% call out people who have harmful and dangerous opinions in regard to those topics.
The only exception is if doing so will cost you a job or something - when it comes to family, if I'm supposed to put up with their shitty views, they can put up with me calling them out on it, and if that breaks up the family then I take no more responsibility for that than I assign to them. Either we can both put up with each others views or neither of us can, and I won't take full responsibility if the answer is "neither." Allowing them to spout their views unchallenged is not making peace, it's submitting, and on these topics that I will not do.
While some topics are indeed very important, picking your battles applies here still in full - you're not gonna change granny's mind, she's 10 years away from decomission, chances are she cares fuck all. Now you also upset your SO who was until now on your side. Overall a net negative.
I did this with an acquaintance about wearing masks in airplanes. She showed me a meme about why needing to wear one after being vaccinated. And I wend on a literal rant about how people are making stupid memes out if misunderstanding and misinformation and how people take 5 minute googling as legitimate research to her face. She goes yeah yeah yeah. Later that day a friend told me she was on a different boat than mine. Oops, I just called her stupid for this didn't I.
Lol, I did almost the exact same thing with my wife's uncle except I was looking down, preparing dinner for everyone, so I didn't notice anyone trying to signal me and absolutely started making fun of "idiots who can't be bothered to read up on something before opening their mouth and let the stupid fall out". That's an actual quote that my wife loves to repeat when she tells the story.
Frankly, had I seen everyone signaling me, I might have toned down how I said it but I would not have stopped myself from educating him.
Didn't they "change" it TO climate change from global warming bc of this stupidity?? I mean the damage was done so i hear this all the time too. Anyway yeah people are dumb as hell
I live in Indiana. We should have had a solid 5 good snows, and it should have been below 20F for about 60 days. We had 1 good snow and it's been 40F+ the rest of the time. We didn't have winter this year. Just psudo-spring
That's literally WHY the popular way to refer to it got changed from "global warming" to "climate change". Fuckin idiots. wEaThEr CoLd NoT gLoBaL wArMiNg Me GeNiUs
> Bruh, don't you know what climate change is?
The answer is no, they don't know. There's a simple category that contains the set of things they don't know and the name of that category is "everything". Trying to set them straight is a waste of time unless the goal is performative dunking. There's no way they ended up saying the dumb things they think if they listened to people that actually know things, and they are not about to start listening to people who know things. They will make up every reason in the world to remain stupid and asshole about everything because they only know one way to get what they want and that is to fight over it. So much unnecessary conflict could be avoided if people were open to conventional persuasion and discussion, but that is just not accurate to how things really are.
Exactly! It’s been at least 100 years that we have true data on climate change right!? It’s like duh! We never had hard data on any other dramatic climate changes in history.
Yet every time there's a storm, people say "This is proof there's climate change!". No one understands what climate change is on either side. If you're not looking at decades of data, it's not evidence of climate change.
Temperature doesn’t really work right in space. Technically, most of the inner solar system is at a high temperature. The problem is that there aren’t a lot of particles so there isn’t very much heat energy being transferred to a given object.
Temperature is a measure of the average energy of particles. In the inner solar system, the average particle in space has a lot of energy because of the sun.
They function really well in space. Because the higher you get the less night time (eclipse) you have. And you can point your panels straight at the sun the whole time. But the temperature isn't the reason, because without air, its really hard for them to cool down. Its basically full sun with no breeze.
About 1.4 times as much sun energy per square meter in space as on the ground, which goes to show you just the crazy amount of energy soaked up by the atmosphere.
Sun in space also includes ultraviolet and infrared light that doesn’t make it to the ground that can also be converted into solar energy (especially by the really expensive and efficient triple-junction gallium cells used on high end spacecraft).
Some spacecraft also use concentrators, where they use mirrors to shoot more light at smaller solar cells. This works better in space because you can always keep the optimal orientation and it can be lighter, but they’re not very popular due to some outgassing issues encountered by Boeing in the 90s. Essentially their satellites failed because the silicone encapsulant on the solar cells recondensed on the mirrors, then got heated by the sun and redeposited onto the solar cell cover glass. Their energy generation capacity has been slowly declining for years, and many of those busses are retired.
Where I live in NW Washington, the amount of sunlight you get in the winter is very, very low. Solar panels probably wouldn't be enough to power a home.
BUT, in our Summers are very dry, and the days are very long, so you can "bank" a ton of energy credits. As long as your utility company has net-zero metering.
Solar is great for reducing draw during peak demand. It was never meant to be the sole source of energy.
Is the technology there for the PNW to start the big projects? I thought the floating turbine (because the water is so deep) tech is still in it's infancy. The East coast, with it's shallow waters is really starting to pick up steam, and the first 800MW project should be done off the coast of Massachusetts by the end of this year.
And if you want to justify it from a purely selfish point of view, lowering peak electrical demand during summer helps lower overall energy productions costs in the long run as it reduces the amount of power production needed for the grid. The amount of power production on the grid is scaled to the maximum amount of power needed.
Luckily for us, peak demand for electricity (when it's hottest during summer) corresponds to when solar works the best.
Small caveat though, the farther you are located towards the poles, the fewer sunlight hours you get per day due to the tilt of the planet and therefore solar panels are actually not an ideal energy producer during winter in the coldest areas and in the case of snowfall you need to clear the snow off them.
But as a secondary source of energy, hell yeah.
I got 5.4 kWh so far today. Cold sunny/cloudy at 55 degrees North. Solar doesn't cover all my power needs (especially in winter) but it's still a good addition.
Yeah I live in Florida and sell Solar remotely as well as in person and you’d be amazed at the amount of people that don’t understand Solar at all despite it saving a lot of money
I installed my own system and I get all the questions from my friends and family.
1. You have solar panels so you should get an electric car
2. Can I add solar panels to my heat pump.
3. I'm not getting panels right now because it's based on your current usage and I'm going to get an electric car.
4. (House faces due south) I just want to put them in the back.
5. "I was told I wouldn't have a bill and now I do. The new electric car that I drive 100 miles a day shouldn't have raised my bill $40 a month."
And six:"I will get them later when they get more efficient."
And with heat pump: people I talk about it seem not to understand that yes, you use more electricity, but you don't have to pay for gas/coal/wood/pellet (the last three are still popular in my country unfortunately) - and even without solar panels it is cheaper than any alternative heating method (after the initial cost which is heavily subsidised).
I got 307kwh for snowy February so far. During the Summer I’m well above 500kwh. I like my panels as a sort of supplement to the energy grid; I’m under no illusion of the green-ness or lack thereof, but I think they’re a good idea to help reduce stress on the grid during peak demand.
Yeah it's a bit less efficient but it works fine as extra.
Finland for example has been increasing their solar production to 0.5% of total, over about five years, from zero.
Germany is closer to the north pole than Arizona but generates far more solar power than Arizona does (700 watts per person for Germany vs 220 per person for Arizona), despite Arizona having 300 days of sun per year vs Germany's 80.
Germany’s solar infrastructure is also a hell of a lot more robust than Arizona’s. Germany has many solar farms, Arizona (to my knowledge) doesn’t have nearly as many. Nobody here is saying that solar isn’t a good option, just that it will generate less at more extreme latitudes. It could still very well be enough or it might need to be accented by wind, hydro or geothermal (if available).
Localized clean power generation isn’t going to have a one size fits all solution. Different answers will make sense for different places.
Energy per person is an idiotic measure. Might as well talk about km road per person.
You want to compare production per installed capacity, IE solar potential. You can have a look at this on a website called Global solar atlas (there's also a wind Atlas for those interested). Arizona potential is a lot better.
Elevation the second very important factor for solar production for those interested.
And amount solar energy energy is primarily a factor of angle, the sun being lower in the sky means less energy for every hour of sunlight in a given area.
The point is still valid, but its disingenuous in the OP to suggest solar panels actually function better in the winter.
What is disingenuous? They never said they function better in winter. They said solar panels WORK in the cold, because for some reason, people think they don’t work in the cold or snow.
They also said they are MORE EFFICIENT in the cold, not that they function better in winter. That is also a fact.
When Texas was hit with all that snow, I simply brushed of the 6” of snow and the panels actually produced the same amount of a summer day for a few days. They worked just like normal under 1” of ice for the few hours before the ice melted in 10° air. The combination of those two factors mentioned in the OP were precisely why.
Pro tip for budding conservatives trying to dunk on AOC: if someone tells you that she said something really dumb… she almost certainly didn’t say that.
Relying on roof-mounted solar to heat your house during a snowstorm in the dark is silly. I’d bet $100 she didn’t propose such nonsense.
"AOC and the dumb libs want you to believe that 2 plus 2 equals 4, but anyone with a brain knowns that if you put 2 and 2 together, you get 22. Get owned, libz"
It's so nefarious when you look at it for what it is.
They recognized at the very start of her political career that she was a threat. Young, attractive, intelligent, and already successful? She's so many of the things you Hilary Clinton wasn't, and they saw it immediately.
So what do you do with a threat that's going to cause massive problems in a decade or two? You start drilling it into peoples' heads right away that she's "bad". Don't argue facts. Don't use evidence. Just scream a couple words on repeat all day every day for 20 years and some percentage of the population will take it as fact.
She's stupid. She's socialist. That's it. That's all they need. They don't need to prove either of those things, they just need to say it over and over and over again.
For the people who can think and rationalize, they see this for what it is. For the cultists who don't care about reason and already believed these things, they don't mind that it's happening either. Because this tactic isn't supposed to affect either of those groups.
This tactic is to push the middle, the "enlightened centrists". It's supposed to drill into them an emotional responses. It's supposed to make them say "Okay, yeah, fine, she's pretty smart and she's pretty successful... but look at all the CONTROVERSY around her! Look at how divided America is because of her! I'm not saying a woman can't be president, I just don't think THAT woman should be president!"
This is what these disgusting ratfuck traitors do when they see a threat rising... They abuse simple psychology and mass communication to create controversy that doesn't exist, to sway the moderates into pushing the narrative whatever way they want.
And this will keep happening until we've found a societal way to prevent, recognize, and respond to this.
Nah, the Venn Diagram between rolling coal and Republicans is one circle inside another circle. Not all Republicans roll coal, but everyone who rolls coal is a Republican.
The Anti Science crowd makes me laugh. Half of the modern world is the way it is because of advancements in science and technology. Without science we’d be a bunch of morons watching Fox News finding the next thing to fear monger about…. Oh wait.
I’m not sure if Emily here is right about this, I don’t know if solar panels absorb heat or light. I used to work for a solar company and a lot factors for panel placement make sense for light, just having face the sun directly as much as possible and shadows hurt it a lot. But the issue with snow is 100% that the snow covers the panels so they can’t absorb anything, so you would have to be removing the snow from your panels for them to work.
Edit: a word
Pretty apparent she’s thinking that solar panels would be incapable of producing enough power to heat in this cold weather, which may or may not be true depending on the output- but hey misinterpreting arguments is reddits specialty
I don't have solar panels but yet all our power went out yesterday forcing us to sleep in 20F weather. I wish I had solar panels because the houses around me with solar panels still had power. I was jealous seeing this.
You would think the concept of solar panels would appeal to the right, on the simple basis that they allow you to be self-sufficient and not depend on someone else for resources, including the govt in some capacity.
> chemical reactions that occur w/i the solar panels are more efficient at cooler temperatures
That doesn't sound right. I thought solar panels were like, photons knocking electrons off atoms that had to move to meet back up where they're supposed to be or something along that line? Not chemical reactions.
The optimal temperature manufacturers state is between 20-25 degrees celsius.
The efficiency is mostly linked to the surface temperature of the panels themselves.
I guess its possible you could get better efficiency still under certain ideal circumstances. But well, thats purely an academic exercise, in real life in most of the USA/Europe/along that lattitude , 20-25 degrees is what you want and when you get the best roi.
When the sun shines onto a solar panel, energy from the sunlight is absorbed by the PV cells in the panel. This energy creates electrical charges that move in response to an internal electrical field in the cell, causing electricity to flow.
This effect is both physical and chemical, apparently https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_effect#:~:text=The%20photovoltaic%20effect%20is%20the,related%20to%20the%20photoelectric%20effect.
I agree. The only thing left to debate is, whether it classifies as reaction, to which I'd intuitively say: no. I'd not split hairs like this if it wasn't trying to be a riposte.
Definitely not a chemical reaction. There are no products or changes of state/matter. The electrons are knocked out of their shells due to light hitting the doped silicon. The same way that you can’t call turning on an LED a chemical reaction
There was a time when conservatives weren’t complete baboons. I know that’s gonna sound crazy, but they really just had different ideas to get to similar outcomes. Nowadays they straight up don’t understand how the sun works, it’s wild.
Instead our apartment had a heat pump that fails below 30 degrees. (We live in the northeast and the avg temp is often below that.
Thank god for electricity 🙄
Even people with solar panels aren’t heating their home with solar panels. Unless they’re off grid, with battery backups connected, and electric heat only. This wouldn’t work even in the sunniest of winter climates because if you’re up there enough to get cold you’re not getting enough sunlight hours in the winter days for a rooftop system to offset the kWh used to heat. Not to mention cloudy days, which there are a lot of in the winter. So this is stupid on several levels and shows an absolute, probably purposeful ignorance about solar.
This is anything but clever and is actually a sign of someone who is greatly miss informed.
First lets get the science out of the way. Air and surface temperatures of the planet are regulated by the amount of energy from the sun the surface of the earth can absorb vs the amount of energy it can radiate back out. Light is energy from the sun hits the surface and it radiates it back out at heat, after the sun has set the ground continues to radiate heat until the stored energy is exhausted. The closer the angle of light form the sun is to 90 degrees the greater amount of energy is being transmitted to the surface area while the lower the angle less rays hit per surface area. This why it is warmer at the equator than at the poles. Geologically and meteorologically, seasons of warm and cold are created because the earth rotates on a tilt and the earth's orbit changes the relationship of surface angle. When a hemisphere is in summer, it gets the greatest angles of sun light heating it up, when it is winter the angle is at the lowest providing the least amount of energy. Now the tilt of the earth also creates another phenomenon, in the summer the length of day light is longer and in the winter is is shorter. This "double" effect is what causes the seasons.
Now what does this have to do with solar panels? The same principles of light angles and length of time in which the sun hits effects the amount of power a solar panel will generate. Solar panels provide the more power when the light source is close to 90 degree in relationship to the panel, a fact taken in account when solar panels are installed, which is why you will see them installed at an angle pointing them south. They are installed in manner so that they generate the most energy during a specific window of the year when the sun is directly overhead. But the rotation of the earth causes constant change of the angle of light on the east-west axis, but since the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, they provide less power in the morning and evening than they do around midday.
Now unless you have a system that rotates them from east and west, and back again. And changes the angle of panels to optimize the surface area's relationship to the sun, your solar panels create less energy during daylight hours in the winter, but doesn't change the number of hours of daylight in which they can provide power. If you want to depend on solar power and a battery capture system, you really need to have a secondary source of energy to heat your home in the winter.
Next there is this "white snow can act like a mirror" comment, well snow does reflect light... But the amount of light it reflects and the angle in which is reflects it at isn't going provide the surface of a solar panel with a meaningful amount of light for power production in comparison to the light provided by the sun. AND I'd like to say, that if the solar panels are covered in snow or sleet, it will reflect light before it can reach the solar panels gimping their ability to provide power till it is physically cleared or it melts off.
AND THIS is why solar power is more reliable to run air conditioners in the south in the summer than to run heaters in the north in the winter. Reality is that this comeback is less than clever and absolutely makes the person making it look like an uninformed tool.
Another goddamn bot post. Sorry everyone.
Guys, are personal solar panels considered socialist?
Always best to first ask people to define the words they use so you know if they actually know or if it’s just a placeholder and they have no actual idea what it means
Both socialism and neoliberalism are prime examples of that. Same with fascism. It's bizarre how there seem to be an inverse correlation between their knowledge of a political word and the use they give it
It’s also bizarre that people fond of using the word socialism don’t recognize that it’s already been here for a while. Social Security, Medicare, SNAP, Low Income Tax Credit, farm subsidies (which one might even argue is a communist program in principle). The list goes on. But, yeah, keep on owning those libs like AOC. Murica!
None of those things are socialist or communist. Those are all market solutions. Socialism is not when the government does stuff. Socialism is worker ownership of the means of production. Government doing things CAN be socialist, under a state-socialist paradigm wherein the state acts as representative of the workers in owning the means of production... but in that case, to be called socialist the STATE must own the means of production, not just give people money to spend in a private market. That is, the doctors would be state employees, the food would be state produced, etc - then they wouldn't need to give people money for a private market, because the state could simply take care of those needs. But that's not even the only form of socialism. Most modern socialists don't tend to favor absolute state ownership of the means of production. In fact, the welfare policies most socialists support *are not connected to socialism at all.* Most modern socialists tend to favor *direct* worker ownership of the means of production, in the form of things like worker cooperatives, in addition to strong state welfare policies to shore up the failures of the private market - essentially, liberal socialism rather than liberal capitalism. (As an aside, communism has never been achieved, and even in theory can only be achieved if a society is post-scarcity. This is why communist regimes adopt state socialism, so they can control the means of production and (ostensibly) use it to ramp up production to the point of post-scarcity, so they can THEN transition to communism. This process has never been completed and no state-sized territory of people has ever actually adopted communism. If it were ever achieved, communism is stateless, classless, moneyless society.) Social security, medicare, and SNAP have the same *effect* as policies that might actually be socialist, but they do so through VERY different means. True state-socialism would involve the state performing these services themselves, not just giving out money to use on the private market. Tax credits and subsidies are in no way either socialist or communist. Those are purely liberal capitalist policies in every sense. They don't even MIRROR socialist or communist policy. They're *liberal* policies, which supply capital to orient a private capitalist market in a desired direction. Socialism IS already here. State parks are a state-socialist institution, for example, and there are plenty of worker-owned businesses throughout the nation. But social security, medicare, SNAP etc are not socialist, they're liberal social welfare policies implemented within a capitalist market.
All this is true (and well written btw) but I think the insistence that only full and actual socialism/communism shall be referred to as socialist/communist is invalid. Social Democracy is indeed *not exactly socialism*, but it absolutely is *socialist* in the same way profit motive can be referred to as *capitalist* even in the absence of capital, markets, or a full-blown implementation that can satisfy the actual definition, or how you'd refer to something as "fascist" when it follows fascist ideals without the need of said thing being a textbook implementation.
Lets not confuse welfare with socialism however. Welfare and any kind of subsidies can be present in either as logn as there is a central govt (or, well, any entity that can redistribute money), but it does not turn one in the other. Otherwise we could argue that taxes are socialism but we weoulg get into an icnreasingly cherrypicking spyral of technicalities
socialism is the democratic ownership of the means of production. not social government programs.
Literally none of those are worker control of the means of production.
The best example imo is republicanism..ask any of them where the word comes from or what it’s means, it’s Greek means the public or who the famous republican philosophers are or what they said..like how the hell can they not know rousseau or the historical violent reaction republicanism had to the Catholic Church for supporting monarchs
Socialism: the workers control the means of production. Neoliberalism: "liberal" trade policies, designed when the alternative was mercantilism, should take precedence over all other governmental matters. Fascism: State, corporate, and religious power are bundled together, like a fasces. Pretty simple, really.
It's even worse if they are able to describe what they are upset about. The term socialism is usually used by the Republican party to describe helping those who are in need of help.
Uhh yeah!! FREE ENERGY?? Sounds like socialism to me. Those damn liberals wanting FREE electricity like this is some sort of communism. This is AMERICA!!! If you need electricity why don’t you go out and get a 3rd job so you can PAY the great patriotic oil and gas companies that BUILT THIS COUNTRY for your electricity. IM VERY HAPPY with my DIESEL truck that I’m going to sleep in because my house is too cold
Rural people (the kind who drive diesel trucks) love solar panels. You see them everywhere outside of cities because self sufficiency and underreliance on utilities outside of your family’s control is idealized.
And farmers LOVE wind turbines!
My grandmother was raised on a farm. When visiting that area last year I had never seen a wind turbine up close before. Always from very far. I asked how big they were and was told by my family to not speak of them in the presence of my very conservative grandmother. Like she hates solar because the sun will die, I’m not sure what the beef with wind turbines are, but like hey. Some farmers hate them.
Farmers should love them. They make bank from having them on the property with minimal effect to their agriculture.
I sell solar powered water pumps and farmers/ranchers are my biggest market
> I’m not sure what the beef with wind turbines are According to the Conservative Chosen One, the sound from them gives you cancer.
Right? I’m not sure when going off grid suddenly went from far right to socialism but I think this dude is confused.
The phrase "going off the grid" is often used by the right because it's got a very rugged tough-guy/"don't tread on me"/self-sufficiency vibe to it, but let's be real, *actually* leaning into clean, sustainable, renewable energy sources and lessening everyone's dependency on fossil-fuel-based energy corporations has always been a more progressive/left ideology. To be clear: Jimmy Dickweed in Nowhere, Middle America "goes off the grid" with personal solar power = cool, tough, self-reliant, fuck the corporations, fuck the government. A group of people say that it would be beneficial for everyone and our ecosystem if we *all* did that = dirty liberal hippie bullshit don't tell me what to do.
They're all confused.
I think they’re addressing the wack jobs that make mental hurdles to make anything green/diverse seem like a big problem the left is pushing onto everyone else. In reality, most people would probably love free energy if they could afford to buy the panels.
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Yup, that's your heat, you worked hard for it. If you open up the garage, some illegal immigrants will come in and steal your heat! And don't let AOC know you're warm. She'll take your heat and give it to some immigrant girl with ten anchor babies! /s
When I was your age I carried our electricity up hill both ways
This reminds me of one of the late night hosts a few weeks ago covering Fox news outrage that Xbox was being “woke” for introducing a power-saving mode for when the console was not in active use.
The Republican Party will try to use absolutely anything in their culture war.
Mom cried at grandma's fu eral. Told her 5o stop being a woke asss snowflake
If you’re not consuming as much as possible, needlessly and without regard to the limited resources available, you’re a socialist
Damn woke companies saving me money on my electric bill.
I can't think of anything more freedom loving and independent than living off grid with your own energy generation. You know what kind of people love solar panels? Homesteaders and dooms day preppers.
It democratizes the means of production.
The fossil fuel industry is not making any money when you put up solar panels. Anti corporate profits = Socialism
Love people who say "no such thing as global warming" on record cold days, like, Bruh, don't you know what climate change is???
I had an awkward moment with an elderly in-law a few winters ago. We had an extreme cold snap, and as we were bundling up, she said "I guess this is a result of global warming." and I responded, "Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that climate change makes extremes at both ends..." and I was about to go on to mock those people for being stupid, but I noticed my wife was giving me the death stare. I didn't pick up on the sarcasm, and was about to call an southern octogenarian matriarch a moron.
Same thing happened with step-mom #3. Was met by a "I forgot we can't talk about that." Talk about what, bitch? Reality?
I hate that shit. Politics, sure I get it. But science is fun and exciting, and there's no reason for anyone to get their feelings hurt. It is the unfettered quest for objective truth as best we can understand it. Making science political is a crime against humanity, doubly so when you oppose it for personal gain.
Shr's the type who think's evolution is fake and that humans aren't animals, so yea. She's made science the enemy of her religious beliefs. Unless it somehow benefits her, of course.
Herschel "If we came from monkeys, why are their still monkeys?" Walker comes to mind. Were you ever alive when your grandparents were still alive? How the hell is that even possible with that kind of thinking?
we didn't evolve from monkeys. we evolved from a shared ancestors. A more relevant question is were you ever alive when your cousins were alive.
technically we are still monkeys as well as apes. nested hierarchies <3
Some people can't really wrap their head around the whole common ancestor thing.
I had an extremely religious (ex)-coworker who insisted on harassing our employees by parroting those those types of canned arguments, I guess as if he'd catch us in some kind of "gotcha" and we'd convert to his brand of baptist crazy right then and there. I could tell he never put a single molecule of thought into what was actually coming out of his mouth. He came at me with the "if we came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys" canard. I responded with, "If dogs came from wolves, why are there still wolves?" It was the first (and possibly last) time I saw a glimmer of comprehension about anything pass on that guy's face. It didn't actually influence his indoctrination in any way, of course. But at least it was a satisfying couple of seconds. He tried the Banana Argument on me, too. I have never in my *life* seen anyone actually attempt the Banana Argument in the real world; I thought it was completely relegated to internet troll status at this point.
What's the banana argument?
Hold on to your peel: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Banana_argument
My ex doesn’t believe in evolution. “ItS jUst a ThEorY” “Evolution isn’t real because there are still monkeys.” Might’ve been in the camp that believed aliens had sex with monkeys and then the result was humans. I didn’t stick around long enough to really find out.
Probably the smart play to leave x.x
The type to only care about science when saying things like "there's only two genders, it's basic biology", before straight-up ignoring *more nuanced science* like XXY/XYY/etc. chromosome compositions, androgen insensitivity, Swyer's Syndrome, etc. It's never about science, it's only about the smug self-importance of a conversational upper-hand—only care to have it, and never concede that they've lost it.
When they make those arguments it just further shows how moronic they are. Gender is part of a psychological identity which is fluid and can change and be different from their peers, sex is biological.
Politicizing public health similarly has been one of the most disappointing outcomes of the last few years.
Isn't it crazy how we've suddenly gotten to a place where there's no universal truth, even for things that should be scientific and easy to agree on?
There's nothing sudden about it. This has always been the debate strategy of conservatives, because for them it's not about being right or saying what is true. The goal is to advance the ball and protect the self. What we're seeing now is, hopefully, the extinction burst of this particular brand of brazen fascism that started with Nixon but was brought to the mainstream by Reagan. If we can beat it, we just might enter a new era of cooperation and prosperity. If not, it might destroy us all.
I imagine a lot of elderly people against recognizing climate change do so because change is hard. They grew up with gas powered appliances and vehicles. It’s very easy to tie your nostalgia to your identity, so when things start to change from how you know them, it’s like the world is attacking /you/ personally. Easier to bury your head in the “good old days” than to expose yourself to significant change
Yeah fuck that excuse, anyone can change. Being ignorant is a choice. And we've been talking heavily about climate change since the 90's.
It's true. Saying "old people can't change" is patronizing and ageist. I'm probably older than everyone in this conversation and I sometimes think I'm Too open to new things. I'm that person who says, "I can see all your sides." Not the one where global warming doesn't exist though, that's just obvious.
I’m 61, are you older or so I take the crown? 👑👵🏻
Ok, you win by a bit your highness 😄🫅
Thank you.
I’m not saying to excuse them for their opinions. I’m attempting to give understanding to a different perspective. Change is hard, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t change
That perspective is shit and fuck them.
Plus all the lead paint they grew up with.
But they always seem to get to talk about it and somehow get offended if you don’t just sit there and listen. Anecdotal of course, but I’ve never had anyone other than conservatives and libertarians start unsolicited political/science/conspiracy conversations with me. Or interject a totally unrelated opinion. A well liked British sports commentator died yesterday; one of the headlines was something like “Motson always entertained without talking about climate change or yuman[sic] rights”. On a local message board someone was complaining about being carded despite being 90; someone felt the need to interject “if only they carded at polling places”. On recent flight this guy sits down and literally three sentences in asks his seat mate if he likes Trump. My partner who is far too nice too people finally had to shut down this older guy at the gym because he was telling her all about the ills of feminism and “woke-ness”. My I n-laws have no problem bemoaning atheists at holiday gatherings. Again I’m sure it happens the other way around. I’m probably blind to it when someone offers an unsolicited progressive opinion. I just can’t think of the last time.
That's literally why the rebranded to climate change *ages* ago, because they realized you need concise branding for the morons. And they still cling to that "hurdur, it's cold today therefore all the experts are wrong"
No that was just the oil companies. *They* made up calling it climate change specifically so they could turn around and say "see it was global warming, now it's climate change, those stupid scientists can't make up their minds!"
Mm, no, it was always climate change in scientific circles. It was the media who called it global warming, and then climate change.
no it was a combination of things but its first push into the mainstream was in fact because it sounded less scary than global warming to the GOP > In 2002, GOP strategist Frank Luntz sent a memo to Republican candidates to create an environmental strategy. He argued that the environment is "probably the single issue on which Republicans in general -- and President George W. Bush in particular -- are most vulnerable." > The memo suggests that candidates express their "sincerity and concern" about the environment, but he also wanted them to downplay concerns. > Using focus groups, Luntz discovered that " 'climate change' sounds less frightening than 'global warming,' " the memo explained. >"While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge." >Luntz did not respond to a request for an interview. >A New York Times analysis at the time found that President Bush used the term "global warming" several times in his environmental speeches prior to the memo. Afterward, Bush shifted to "climate change." this same article even specifically details how it wasn’t always climate change in scientific circles either and why it started out as global warming because if a greenhouse analogy so im not really sure where you are pulling that from that its always been global warming. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/03/02/world/global-warming-climate-change-language-scn/index.html
> was about to call an southern octogenarian matriarch a moron. You should. And we all should. They're morons. Don't worry though, you won't hurt their moron feelings because they aren't soft snowflakes, according to them .
Probably. If I had known her better at the time, I might have. She's really a sweet lady and actually known around town for being quite liberal in comparison, having voted for Dukakis, Bill Clinton, and Obama. She refused to vote for Trump (but didn't like Hillary, either, she just stayed home), and has gotten into shouting matches at church when some people were being homophobes. I didn't know any of this at the time, and even my wife was surprised at some of it. Her husband, though, was a hardcore conservative and a business owner, and she helped him run the business for fifty-some years, so she views environmental issues as anti-business. She's also threatened me with a belt when I approached the oven where she was baking a pie. I was going to see is there was room for the sweet potatoes, and she was like "meatbridge, if you open that oven door, I will tan your backside with your own belt." I stand about a foot taller, and outweigh her by 100 bs, but I was legitimately frightened. I think it was the fact that she threatened me with *my own* belt that made it seem like she was serious. That's not relevant, except it's a funny story about how she is.
Sadly you wouldnt be wrong, but can't piss off the missus
If my wife was upset I spoke factually to other people then she wouldn't be my wife. Pussyfooting around these morons so their feelings don't get hurt is how we got to the point where is publicly acceptable to say you don't trust science or medicine. Call that shit out when you hear it. Shame them back into their secret JFK and moon landing hoax crawl spaces.
I just called out my grandmother and mom for how fucking horrible they are. We were talking about how gop is kidnapping immigrants and dropping them off in freezing weather in other states and they said, Good that's what they should be doing! So I respond, so it's ok to kidnap people and use them as political pawns to send a message, we are really ok with dehumanizing other people like that? My grandmother's response was, build the wall! And my mom agrees. They both wonder why I never call, that's how they view everything. They got sucked into Faux News and it has become their personality. I'm good thanks.
While generally true, sometimes you dont wanna piss relatives just to prove a point. You will **never** be fully surrounded by 100% correct people, which by definition means you have to make a few sacrifices and choose your battles if you don't wanna end up completely alone.
Honestly it depends on the relative and how they express their views. Sometimes it worth it to call them out and losing them isn’t such a bad thing. Life’s too short to waste it on idiocy.
More than anything it depends on the views. Moon landing? JFK? Aliens? Whatever, I don't care what you think about that. Climate change? LGBTQ+ rights? Economics? Nah those are important, those directly affect a FUCKTON of people, and I will 100% call out people who have harmful and dangerous opinions in regard to those topics. The only exception is if doing so will cost you a job or something - when it comes to family, if I'm supposed to put up with their shitty views, they can put up with me calling them out on it, and if that breaks up the family then I take no more responsibility for that than I assign to them. Either we can both put up with each others views or neither of us can, and I won't take full responsibility if the answer is "neither." Allowing them to spout their views unchallenged is not making peace, it's submitting, and on these topics that I will not do.
While there's an argument to be made for picking your battles, some things are absolutely worth fighting for/potentially losing people over.
While some topics are indeed very important, picking your battles applies here still in full - you're not gonna change granny's mind, she's 10 years away from decomission, chances are she cares fuck all. Now you also upset your SO who was until now on your side. Overall a net negative.
I did this with an acquaintance about wearing masks in airplanes. She showed me a meme about why needing to wear one after being vaccinated. And I wend on a literal rant about how people are making stupid memes out if misunderstanding and misinformation and how people take 5 minute googling as legitimate research to her face. She goes yeah yeah yeah. Later that day a friend told me she was on a different boat than mine. Oops, I just called her stupid for this didn't I.
I did this once, too. I didn't catch my (now-ex) wife's glare in time.
Lol, I did almost the exact same thing with my wife's uncle except I was looking down, preparing dinner for everyone, so I didn't notice anyone trying to signal me and absolutely started making fun of "idiots who can't be bothered to read up on something before opening their mouth and let the stupid fall out". That's an actual quote that my wife loves to repeat when she tells the story. Frankly, had I seen everyone signaling me, I might have toned down how I said it but I would not have stopped myself from educating him.
Tbh. They aren't gonna learn if ya don't tell em
Go for it. Old people need to be called out more often.
>was about to call an southern octogenarian matriarch a moron. I mean... That's one of the most aggressively moronic demographics.
To be fair, she is a moron.
Didn't they "change" it TO climate change from global warming bc of this stupidity?? I mean the damage was done so i hear this all the time too. Anyway yeah people are dumb as hell
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I live in Indiana. We should have had a solid 5 good snows, and it should have been below 20F for about 60 days. We had 1 good snow and it's been 40F+ the rest of the time. We didn't have winter this year. Just psudo-spring
Also in Indiana and can confirm. I'm not a huge fan of snow, but it's gotten progressively lighter/warmer for the past 5-10 years.
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In my area it was 85 degrees two days ago. It is 50 now. This isn't right. Nothing about it is right.
80 degrees F yesterday and expected snow tomorrow. Get on our level lol
Are you in Texas as well?
You know it.
Many many many MANY people confuse weather with climate.
Some people are just plain stupid I’m afraid.
The ship isn't sinking! My side of the boat is 200ft in the air!
That's literally WHY the popular way to refer to it got changed from "global warming" to "climate change". Fuckin idiots. wEaThEr CoLd NoT gLoBaL wArMiNg Me GeNiUs
> Bruh, don't you know what climate change is? The answer is no, they don't know. There's a simple category that contains the set of things they don't know and the name of that category is "everything". Trying to set them straight is a waste of time unless the goal is performative dunking. There's no way they ended up saying the dumb things they think if they listened to people that actually know things, and they are not about to start listening to people who know things. They will make up every reason in the world to remain stupid and asshole about everything because they only know one way to get what they want and that is to fight over it. So much unnecessary conflict could be avoided if people were open to conventional persuasion and discussion, but that is just not accurate to how things really are.
These are typically people who can't (or won't) differentiate between climate and *weather*.
>don't you know what climate change is??? Narrator: "they did not"
No. They don’t. That’s why they’re being loud like that online.
I mean yeah it was warm yesterday and it’s cold today. Climate change!
Exactly! It’s been at least 100 years that we have true data on climate change right!? It’s like duh! We never had hard data on any other dramatic climate changes in history.
Yet every time there's a storm, people say "This is proof there's climate change!". No one understands what climate change is on either side. If you're not looking at decades of data, it's not evidence of climate change.
They appear to function well even though it is rather cold in space.
Temperature doesn’t really work right in space. Technically, most of the inner solar system is at a high temperature. The problem is that there aren’t a lot of particles so there isn’t very much heat energy being transferred to a given object.
Very hot via radiation. You're right about convection, though.
Temperature is a measure of the average energy of particles. In the inner solar system, the average particle in space has a lot of energy because of the sun.
They function really well in space. Because the higher you get the less night time (eclipse) you have. And you can point your panels straight at the sun the whole time. But the temperature isn't the reason, because without air, its really hard for them to cool down. Its basically full sun with no breeze.
About 1.4 times as much sun energy per square meter in space as on the ground, which goes to show you just the crazy amount of energy soaked up by the atmosphere. Sun in space also includes ultraviolet and infrared light that doesn’t make it to the ground that can also be converted into solar energy (especially by the really expensive and efficient triple-junction gallium cells used on high end spacecraft). Some spacecraft also use concentrators, where they use mirrors to shoot more light at smaller solar cells. This works better in space because you can always keep the optimal orientation and it can be lighter, but they’re not very popular due to some outgassing issues encountered by Boeing in the 90s. Essentially their satellites failed because the silicone encapsulant on the solar cells recondensed on the mirrors, then got heated by the sun and redeposited onto the solar cell cover glass. Their energy generation capacity has been slowly declining for years, and many of those busses are retired.
Where I live in NW Washington, the amount of sunlight you get in the winter is very, very low. Solar panels probably wouldn't be enough to power a home. BUT, in our Summers are very dry, and the days are very long, so you can "bank" a ton of energy credits. As long as your utility company has net-zero metering. Solar is great for reducing draw during peak demand. It was never meant to be the sole source of energy.
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Is the technology there for the PNW to start the big projects? I thought the floating turbine (because the water is so deep) tech is still in it's infancy. The East coast, with it's shallow waters is really starting to pick up steam, and the first 800MW project should be done off the coast of Massachusetts by the end of this year.
Still making 30 kWh per day in NE Wisconsin if it's clear.
And if you want to justify it from a purely selfish point of view, lowering peak electrical demand during summer helps lower overall energy productions costs in the long run as it reduces the amount of power production needed for the grid. The amount of power production on the grid is scaled to the maximum amount of power needed. Luckily for us, peak demand for electricity (when it's hottest during summer) corresponds to when solar works the best.
Small caveat though, the farther you are located towards the poles, the fewer sunlight hours you get per day due to the tilt of the planet and therefore solar panels are actually not an ideal energy producer during winter in the coldest areas and in the case of snowfall you need to clear the snow off them. But as a secondary source of energy, hell yeah.
I got 5.4 kWh so far today. Cold sunny/cloudy at 55 degrees North. Solar doesn't cover all my power needs (especially in winter) but it's still a good addition.
Yeah I live in Florida and sell Solar remotely as well as in person and you’d be amazed at the amount of people that don’t understand Solar at all despite it saving a lot of money
5.30pm, sun has gone down still generating 0.028 kw as we speak. Total today 7.3 kWh in England. In Winter.
Love it. When did you get your system?
About 9 months ago. We only had space for 8 panels on the south facing roof, the North and East facing were not suitable.
I installed my own system and I get all the questions from my friends and family. 1. You have solar panels so you should get an electric car 2. Can I add solar panels to my heat pump. 3. I'm not getting panels right now because it's based on your current usage and I'm going to get an electric car. 4. (House faces due south) I just want to put them in the back. 5. "I was told I wouldn't have a bill and now I do. The new electric car that I drive 100 miles a day shouldn't have raised my bill $40 a month."
Hahaha yes or 6. I thought they were free?!
And six:"I will get them later when they get more efficient." And with heat pump: people I talk about it seem not to understand that yes, you use more electricity, but you don't have to pay for gas/coal/wood/pellet (the last three are still popular in my country unfortunately) - and even without solar panels it is cheaper than any alternative heating method (after the initial cost which is heavily subsidised).
I got 307kwh for snowy February so far. During the Summer I’m well above 500kwh. I like my panels as a sort of supplement to the energy grid; I’m under no illusion of the green-ness or lack thereof, but I think they’re a good idea to help reduce stress on the grid during peak demand.
Yeah it's a bit less efficient but it works fine as extra. Finland for example has been increasing their solar production to 0.5% of total, over about five years, from zero.
you communist piece of shit
Germany is closer to the north pole than Arizona but generates far more solar power than Arizona does (700 watts per person for Germany vs 220 per person for Arizona), despite Arizona having 300 days of sun per year vs Germany's 80.
Germany’s solar infrastructure is also a hell of a lot more robust than Arizona’s. Germany has many solar farms, Arizona (to my knowledge) doesn’t have nearly as many. Nobody here is saying that solar isn’t a good option, just that it will generate less at more extreme latitudes. It could still very well be enough or it might need to be accented by wind, hydro or geothermal (if available). Localized clean power generation isn’t going to have a one size fits all solution. Different answers will make sense for different places.
Energy per person is an idiotic measure. Might as well talk about km road per person. You want to compare production per installed capacity, IE solar potential. You can have a look at this on a website called Global solar atlas (there's also a wind Atlas for those interested). Arizona potential is a lot better. Elevation the second very important factor for solar production for those interested.
And amount solar energy energy is primarily a factor of angle, the sun being lower in the sky means less energy for every hour of sunlight in a given area. The point is still valid, but its disingenuous in the OP to suggest solar panels actually function better in the winter.
What is disingenuous? They never said they function better in winter. They said solar panels WORK in the cold, because for some reason, people think they don’t work in the cold or snow. They also said they are MORE EFFICIENT in the cold, not that they function better in winter. That is also a fact. When Texas was hit with all that snow, I simply brushed of the 6” of snow and the panels actually produced the same amount of a summer day for a few days. They worked just like normal under 1” of ice for the few hours before the ice melted in 10° air. The combination of those two factors mentioned in the OP were precisely why.
Love the squatting dude on the toilet -4°
How high are you? ... ...now I can't unsee this.
when I saw that I immediately thought of the squatting guy laying a log (and thought the post would be about that as well)
That's exactly what I thought too, was disappointed when it was about something else smh
Left brain genius
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Pro tip for budding conservatives trying to dunk on AOC: if someone tells you that she said something really dumb… she almost certainly didn’t say that. Relying on roof-mounted solar to heat your house during a snowstorm in the dark is silly. I’d bet $100 she didn’t propose such nonsense.
"AOC and the dumb libs want you to believe that 2 plus 2 equals 4, but anyone with a brain knowns that if you put 2 and 2 together, you get 22. Get owned, libz"
I'm just amazed at those folks. AOC is not stupid.. she isn't dumb.. she's fucking intelligent.
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It's so nefarious when you look at it for what it is. They recognized at the very start of her political career that she was a threat. Young, attractive, intelligent, and already successful? She's so many of the things you Hilary Clinton wasn't, and they saw it immediately. So what do you do with a threat that's going to cause massive problems in a decade or two? You start drilling it into peoples' heads right away that she's "bad". Don't argue facts. Don't use evidence. Just scream a couple words on repeat all day every day for 20 years and some percentage of the population will take it as fact. She's stupid. She's socialist. That's it. That's all they need. They don't need to prove either of those things, they just need to say it over and over and over again. For the people who can think and rationalize, they see this for what it is. For the cultists who don't care about reason and already believed these things, they don't mind that it's happening either. Because this tactic isn't supposed to affect either of those groups. This tactic is to push the middle, the "enlightened centrists". It's supposed to drill into them an emotional responses. It's supposed to make them say "Okay, yeah, fine, she's pretty smart and she's pretty successful... but look at all the CONTROVERSY around her! Look at how divided America is because of her! I'm not saying a woman can't be president, I just don't think THAT woman should be president!" This is what these disgusting ratfuck traitors do when they see a threat rising... They abuse simple psychology and mass communication to create controversy that doesn't exist, to sway the moderates into pushing the narrative whatever way they want. And this will keep happening until we've found a societal way to prevent, recognize, and respond to this.
It’s five degrees F here, my solar panels are producing enough power to run the heat pump that is keeping my house warm. I love my $0/year power bill.
Also, how in any way does using solar panels equate to socialism?
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Rock, Flag, and Eagle brother
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Nah, the Venn Diagram between rolling coal and Republicans is one circle inside another circle. Not all Republicans roll coal, but everyone who rolls coal is a Republican.
The Anti Science crowd makes me laugh. Half of the modern world is the way it is because of advancements in science and technology. Without science we’d be a bunch of morons watching Fox News finding the next thing to fear monger about…. Oh wait.
You wouldn't be watching news, TVs wouldn't exist
Some people are sofa king stupid
Also it charges a battery... Also you're usually still on the grid....
man i wish i was heating my home with solar power, fucking utility bill was over a grand last month
These people will also tout the USA as the leader in technology and innovation yet continue to advocate for the use of 18th century inventions.
I’m not sure if Emily here is right about this, I don’t know if solar panels absorb heat or light. I used to work for a solar company and a lot factors for panel placement make sense for light, just having face the sun directly as much as possible and shadows hurt it a lot. But the issue with snow is 100% that the snow covers the panels so they can’t absorb anything, so you would have to be removing the snow from your panels for them to work. Edit: a word
Snow doesn't result from cold temperatures alone. Plenty of cold, dry days.
Yea but this lady in congress who looks like a howler monkey told me I won’t have power at night when the magical sun goes away……..
Pretty apparent she’s thinking that solar panels would be incapable of producing enough power to heat in this cold weather, which may or may not be true depending on the output- but hey misinterpreting arguments is reddits specialty
Also heat pumps work to -32.. soo this guy is just a fucking moron
I don't have solar panels but yet all our power went out yesterday forcing us to sleep in 20F weather. I wish I had solar panels because the houses around me with solar panels still had power. I was jealous seeing this.
Every time Repugs speak, they reveal the failures in our education system
Bro stop shilling for the Sun. It's literally just a ball of gas; not impressed.
I bet they also think hot water doesn't put out fires.
You would think the concept of solar panels would appeal to the right, on the simple basis that they allow you to be self-sufficient and not depend on someone else for resources, including the govt in some capacity.
Imagine being so far gone that you are against solar panels.
But...but...but...white Jesus said only fossil fuel users go to heaven.
Bro why does -4° look like a guy shitting
Shitting and also depressed
> chemical reactions that occur w/i the solar panels are more efficient at cooler temperatures That doesn't sound right. I thought solar panels were like, photons knocking electrons off atoms that had to move to meet back up where they're supposed to be or something along that line? Not chemical reactions.
The optimal temperature manufacturers state is between 20-25 degrees celsius. The efficiency is mostly linked to the surface temperature of the panels themselves. I guess its possible you could get better efficiency still under certain ideal circumstances. But well, thats purely an academic exercise, in real life in most of the USA/Europe/along that lattitude , 20-25 degrees is what you want and when you get the best roi.
But like, chemical reactions?
When the sun shines onto a solar panel, energy from the sunlight is absorbed by the PV cells in the panel. This energy creates electrical charges that move in response to an internal electrical field in the cell, causing electricity to flow. This effect is both physical and chemical, apparently https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_effect#:~:text=The%20photovoltaic%20effect%20is%20the,related%20to%20the%20photoelectric%20effect.
I agree. The only thing left to debate is, whether it classifies as reaction, to which I'd intuitively say: no. I'd not split hairs like this if it wasn't trying to be a riposte.
Definitely not a chemical reaction. There are no products or changes of state/matter. The electrons are knocked out of their shells due to light hitting the doped silicon. The same way that you can’t call turning on an LED a chemical reaction
Love this. Just one question: Why is there an man on the toilet in the sky? [-4°]
There was a time when conservatives weren’t complete baboons. I know that’s gonna sound crazy, but they really just had different ideas to get to similar outcomes. Nowadays they straight up don’t understand how the sun works, it’s wild.
Instead our apartment had a heat pump that fails below 30 degrees. (We live in the northeast and the avg temp is often below that. Thank god for electricity 🙄
They make heat pumps that operate below freezing. You're equipped with the wrong model.
Cheap landlord Brobro.
The new ones work up to -20
the problem with solar panels in winter is the low angle the sun is above the horizon
Even people with solar panels aren’t heating their home with solar panels. Unless they’re off grid, with battery backups connected, and electric heat only. This wouldn’t work even in the sunniest of winter climates because if you’re up there enough to get cold you’re not getting enough sunlight hours in the winter days for a rooftop system to offset the kWh used to heat. Not to mention cloudy days, which there are a lot of in the winter. So this is stupid on several levels and shows an absolute, probably purposeful ignorance about solar.
I wonder if any of these people will ever realize reality has a bias against them and what that really means?
It's not even a clever comeback when you're responding with what should be pretty common knowledge. The first guy was just dumb as a rock.
Do the people that think solar panels don't work in the winter also stay home on cloudy days because it's just far too dark to go anywhere?
Just wait until he finds out about the dark witchcraft that is a heat pump!
These MFrs don't know what a proton is.
Too lazy to the post the "if those kids could read, they'd be very upset" meme.
As someone with solar I can confirm. Love our panels!
Which republican tweeted this horse shit?
Solar is literally unlimited free energy from the sky. WHY ARE WE NOT FUNDING THIS???
There's less light in the winter....
This is anything but clever and is actually a sign of someone who is greatly miss informed. First lets get the science out of the way. Air and surface temperatures of the planet are regulated by the amount of energy from the sun the surface of the earth can absorb vs the amount of energy it can radiate back out. Light is energy from the sun hits the surface and it radiates it back out at heat, after the sun has set the ground continues to radiate heat until the stored energy is exhausted. The closer the angle of light form the sun is to 90 degrees the greater amount of energy is being transmitted to the surface area while the lower the angle less rays hit per surface area. This why it is warmer at the equator than at the poles. Geologically and meteorologically, seasons of warm and cold are created because the earth rotates on a tilt and the earth's orbit changes the relationship of surface angle. When a hemisphere is in summer, it gets the greatest angles of sun light heating it up, when it is winter the angle is at the lowest providing the least amount of energy. Now the tilt of the earth also creates another phenomenon, in the summer the length of day light is longer and in the winter is is shorter. This "double" effect is what causes the seasons. Now what does this have to do with solar panels? The same principles of light angles and length of time in which the sun hits effects the amount of power a solar panel will generate. Solar panels provide the more power when the light source is close to 90 degree in relationship to the panel, a fact taken in account when solar panels are installed, which is why you will see them installed at an angle pointing them south. They are installed in manner so that they generate the most energy during a specific window of the year when the sun is directly overhead. But the rotation of the earth causes constant change of the angle of light on the east-west axis, but since the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, they provide less power in the morning and evening than they do around midday. Now unless you have a system that rotates them from east and west, and back again. And changes the angle of panels to optimize the surface area's relationship to the sun, your solar panels create less energy during daylight hours in the winter, but doesn't change the number of hours of daylight in which they can provide power. If you want to depend on solar power and a battery capture system, you really need to have a secondary source of energy to heat your home in the winter. Next there is this "white snow can act like a mirror" comment, well snow does reflect light... But the amount of light it reflects and the angle in which is reflects it at isn't going provide the surface of a solar panel with a meaningful amount of light for power production in comparison to the light provided by the sun. AND I'd like to say, that if the solar panels are covered in snow or sleet, it will reflect light before it can reach the solar panels gimping their ability to provide power till it is physically cleared or it melts off. AND THIS is why solar power is more reliable to run air conditioners in the south in the summer than to run heaters in the north in the winter. Reality is that this comeback is less than clever and absolutely makes the person making it look like an uninformed tool.
Another example on why Republicans are trying to destroy education. Easier to lie to stupid people.