The Left is doing it wrong.

We need to stop calling it the green New Deal; and call it the Patriot Power Act.

We’re not trying to go green or “Woke”. No! We’re making ’Merca energy independent! We’ll stop importing oil from the tourist countries! And be energy self sufficient!

—BRANDING!!

93 points

By that token, America should have bullet trains everywhere

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36 points

It’s our second amendment right! It’s in the Constitution! I demand bullet trains

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14 points

Perfect

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45 points

Or…stop defining everything as left/right and make things for people. Stop the divide, it’s what ‘they’ want.

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32 points

Yes. I was amazed that anyone was able to make a vaccine political.

And some of the other kookiness from Qanon and similar really makes me wonder about the mental health of the general public.

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7 points

It’s when I started looking for answers on mass psychosis. I’m still unclear on the how.

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6 points

Did you end up finding evidence of mass psychosis actually happening?

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2 points

Maybe ideological subversion by Russia for the last 40 years?

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5 points

I was in Barnes and noble today and there’s a whole bookshelf in the new non-fiction section from a bunch of conservative personalities with crazy books about trusting Q, knowing how to believe in Q, how Biden has ruined America but trump will return and save us, all sorts of delusional shit.

The mental capacity of the general public has always been poor because there are some extremely dumb and gullible skewing it from just basic people, these grifters selling these delusional books and ideas is what’s making this worse. Being allowed to call your political opponents demons and saying your leaders are all chosen by god on high should be banned in political discourse

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15 points

That is just not how it works. I wish it was, but someone will always make literally whatever political

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2 points

Need to get rid of first past the post voting. It incentives two polarized parties. Maybe ranked choice instead?

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2 points
*

As long as money can control politics it will. Post scarcity might fix it someday, but so many things have to happen before then—that will disadvantage vested interests—that it’s hard to imagine humanity making it there.

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-3 points

Online, there’s always this division and blame on either the left or right. In my real life experience amongst friends, people are more willing to have a normal conversation about different opinions without all the outrage like I see online.

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6 points

Where is this magical realm, because it surely isn’t where I am.

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1 point

Definitely not my experience. I live in a “blue” area but …. A friend up north gets worked up about vaccines, and his wife runs a daycare! He’s educated and intelligent but has entirely off-base assumptions. My brother in the Midwest works for a car manufacturer …. still thinks electric vehicles are a fad that don’t work and never will. “Look around you” does not compute because it’s “just Tesla” and everyone knows they have poor uplift and loosing tons of money and only survisipve on government handouts

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10 points

Well the unfortunate part of that is it isn’t working and a solid 30% of the population will just call you ‘woke’ and ignore you for saying it.

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3 points

Stop the divide, it’s what ‘they’ want.

You’re sending some conflicting signals, my Mac

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-2 points
*

Companies are not people, so no…I’m not.

Political agendas are also not human, so again I’m still not.

You’re one of those that love to cause divide.

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3 points

Was that an us-and-them argument against us-and-them arguments?

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1 point

That sounds nice but, much like the name for these bills, it’s not reality.

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0 points

Who’s they?

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39 points

And we can call wind farms, “Jesus Farms!”

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26 points
*

And vaccines can be “immunity guns”. Want to keep your kids safe? Give their immune system guns!

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11 points

Keep on going. You’re good at this.

Next, try to come up with suitable branding for teaching stem literacy and critical thinking.

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17 points
*

You mean “Gun Manufacturing” (Mechanical Engineering), “Bunker Building” (Civil Engineering), “Things Hitting Things” (Physics), “Explosives, Toxins, and Poisons” (Industrial Chemistry), “DIY Alternative Medicine” (Pharmaceutical Chemistry), “Owning the Libs” (Law), “Ripping off the IRS” (Taxation and Accounting), “How to be Offensive” (Language theory, reading/writing comprehension), “How to win at Gambling” (Mathematics, Statistics) “Why Libs Think Like Pussies” (Philosophy), “War” (Geography, Geo-politics, International Studies).

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4 points

It’s those libtards and their hot air. Let’s use that nonsense to power good old ‘Murican homes and factories

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3 points

minecraft 1.20.1 java edition vanilla Jesus farm (75 jesus/h)

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2 points

The sun of god

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35 points

Democrats suck at branding.

Private companies do not, though: https://www.sempersolaris.com/

Veteran owned, uses made in America parts, offers military discounts and they have a program where they do free installs for struggling vets.

Their tagine is “declare your independence from the power company”

I interviewed for a job with them once and they actually sounded very competent too

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8 points

Maybe they’re good at branding, but they suck at marketing.

If your product exists, fills a niche, solves a problem, and is the right price, but no one is buying it, then you suck at marketing.

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4 points

Or the niche is too small

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27 points
*

Patriot Power is real, and it really sucks. It’s the solar power offerings through 4Patriots, weak-ass off-brand Chinese batteries & weak, overpriced solar panels. The only good things 4Patriots offers is survival food & sun kettles.

There are plenty of people on the right who would love energy independence, but problems include cost, infrastructure, and implementation. I’m team solar panel/nuclear power, but every few years…the solar panel tech gets way better than it EVER was. So when is the right time to plunk down tens of thousands of dollars?? It’s just now starting to get really good.

Wind turbines are also getting much better. And it’s about damn time.

The biggest financial problem is energy storage solutions, spend $5-10K per battery, and have it lose 40% of its effectiveness after 5 years?? Yeah, no thanks, I’m not an idiot.

But we’re coming up with (ACTUAL, WORKING, COST-EFFECTIVE) solutions for that problem, too. Sand, gravity, and waterfall batteries.

All this to say, the technology is just now starting to get serious traction & legs under it. ¯\(°_o)/¯ It’s not ready…until it’s ready. The ‘greenest’ things we can do, right now, involve reducing our usage & upping our efficiencies (via new windows/doors, insulation). That’s the smart money.

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5 points

I just heard about gravity “batteries” that involve lifting concrete blocks to store potential energy, then dropping them to generate electricity with a turbine. It’s probably the most interesting thing I’ve heard of in a while and such a clever way to store energy without needing a battery.

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12 points

The math doesn’t really work out for gravity batteries. A fifteen ton block dropping 100 feet releases about a kwh of energy.

Or you could just have $150 worth of lithium batteries.

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2 points

How much energy is released is not as important as the ratio of how much it takes to lift vs. lower (AKA “efficiency”)

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1 point

This. Thanks for doing the math. The only way it makes any real sense is if you a have geographical features that can store the energy. Ie right near a mountain and a large body of water high up. And even with that, it often only makes economical sense at exsisting dams where you can pump the water back into the reservoir and the generation systems is already paid for and in place.

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-1 points

See I’ve been skeptical about the gravity battery, too. I’m glad to see it developed, toyed with, but I like very simple ideas with very few, if any, moving parts. Gravity battery? Moving parts, cables. Would be a nightmare to work on if it broke down, possibly dangerous with the stored potential energy.

Much safer: sand battery. BTUs are expensive, you’re probably heating your water, and depending on the winter climate where you live, you are using electricity to convert to BTUs so you can heat your home/not die. I say skip the middle man!! Convert the extra energy generated from solar/wind/whatever…store it in the fucking sand as heat.

I also look at the sand battery’s simplicity, serviceability from a post-nuke/EMP/grid-down/post-apocalyptic standpoint. Should I be unfortunate enough to survive. It’s so…practical. Solar panels should only get hit <15% damage from EMP. It gets the electricity. Sent to large copper rods, acting as heating elements. Heat the sand. 🙌🏻 Sand will cost a few thousand & never degrade. Rods, cheap enough, have some spares. Those shitty LiPO batteries play out during the apocalypse, as they literally always do? You’re SOL.

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7 points
*

Yes. And it works.

It’s called a Dam.

The catch is we spend 0 energy on the upstream water.

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4 points

Timberborn has those, it’s a city builder game with beavers.

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3 points

there are plenty issues with wear of all moving parts involved. fortunately it can be improved on in a pretty straightforward way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGGOjD_OtAM

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2 points

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGGOjD_OtAM

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.

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2 points

Energy storage is THE issue…. You want to be a billionaire? Figure that out.

Pumped hydro, is great, but there are very few places where it is feasible

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2 points

there are many nifty ways to do it. i like molten silicon for example https://silbat.com

but how about shift in perspective? if you want to get in on all renewable power source, maybe it’s you who should adjust power consumption a little bit instead? fortunately most of energy used is used up for heating, and you can plug all excess energy into heater, store energy in big barrel of water for all your heating needs, and skim electrical power when available + maybe batteries as a higher priority

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1 point

The government used to invest in such things for their citizens but I guess a well-educated, fed, homed citizenry isn’t considered a good roi anymore, not to mention adequately staffed public care facilities. Yes i know i heard about what Biden and nursing homes. Funny thing is, that was the norm thirty years ago, and restaurant employees got a free meal. If they worked a shift and other things we don’t have anymore, because regulation is Satan and fu they got theirs, and the dollar went further. I keep seeing blaring ads about government assistance for solar panels but they seem sus.

Maybe see what you find online, but will you be charged for not using your energy provider?

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2 points

Forgot to address the gov assist stuff, it’s legit actually, but it’s not exactly the boon normies think it is. So you buy & install solar, with evidence, you document everything & jump through all their little hoops. When you meet their requirements, you’re given a 30% or whatever ‘credit’ on your federal income taxes. Which isn’t exactly free money, but it’s better than a kick in the head & it’s rewarding you for going solar.

Now you wanna talk fucking sus??? All those third-party solar installers, namely, those that “will install for free” or “costs you nothing out of pocket 🤗”. Those guys are sus as all hell. They’re predatory, they’re not trying to help you! Only enrich themselves. Again, IIRC, sometimes they take your gov’t tax credit money somehow. And/or they charge you monthly, or they take money/power you generate via the solar panels…I don’t trust any of it; you’re inviting random-ass people onto your property & they’re installing thousands of dollars in gear you don’t technically own, and you’re pressing your property into servitude until it’s “paid off” in 10, 15, 20 years. Don’t do it. Buy it, own it, get all the benefits for yourself.

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2 points

Yeah it’s bs to have to pay for feeding energy back to the grid and bs people scam people to install anything. It’s bs we still subsidize anything that’s a legit utility/need for the corporate robber barons instead of individual families who otherwise can’t afford needs.

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2 points

So here’s the deal, in a nutshell:

I’m afraid if I “go public” with my goddamn private solar energy setup, AKA I opt into a grid tie-in deal where I feed my excess electric back into the grid, I pay extra for setup. And IIRC my electric provider charges monthly for the “privilege” of tie-in. And these are just the devils we know about! I take the money, I subject my system & my property to scrutiny from third party companies & my state, who knows what stupid shit they might come up with & force onto me.

The best, simplest, cleanest solution I can think of is to privately install enough renewable energy to power my home. And a robust energy storage system that can power my needs when the sun isn’t shining, wind isn’t blowing, etc.

IIRC my electric provider charges $10 or $20, monthly, whether you use their electric or not. <=$240 annually? I call that a small price to pay for energy independence with the insurance of an established electric provider able to take over if system(s) fail.

Alternatively, if renewable energy production/STORAGE options become better & more reasonable in cost, just overbuild like hell & go fully off-grid. Discontinue electric service. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It’s tempting…had a blackout just last night. 😂

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1 point
*

but do you need stored large amounts of electric energy? most of energy use is in form of heat for space heating and hot water, and for storage of that all you need is big barrel with multiple heat exchangers (coiled pipes + baffles). put in heat from solar concentrators, heat pump maybe, furnace and you’re good in all situations

problems only really begin if you want to start up welder on cold winter night

other than that, generate energy from solar + wind turbine, top up battery, dump excess in heat pump or water heater. have small petrol generator to service surge capabilities. this will be enough in majority of cases. this is also the logic national energy grids operate on, with the difference that you can’t set up pumped hydro storage in your backyard, most of the time

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1 point

problems only really begin if you want to start up welder on cold winter night

or try to cook dinner on your induction stove. A good hot water storage should reduce the need for electrical power storage but won’t eliminate it

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0 points

when is the right time to plunk down tens of thousands of dollars??

Yesterday

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