On the Psychology of Personal PV and EV ownership

Yep that went south.

Us Stock market is up nicely year to date but a correction looms

 

What about our own TARP

 

Let's add:
- They live in states (not like VA) that support PV with programs that spread out cost

 

I go by "Daly rules" of sustainability (Herman Daly I have no idea what Jon thinks). Daly rules suggest use of limited natural resources must be slowed down to the point that they can be replaced with new alternatives. This continues to be my priority, whereas I feel USA consumes way too much energy.

Now then a lot of environmental folks believe we need to discard or modify the Daly rules, and flat-out leave the carbon in the ground without ever mining it (for various reasons but CO2 is one). The difference between me and the "environmentalists" we are both cutting way back, but I have longer time frame and less urgency to save the planet (because I am not yet convinced +CO2 is worse than running out of resources). I am also worried about other resources like Phorphorous...we have severe shortage possibly in future.

 

...I don't think we really have a "free" market...we have that USA Congress sets the rules and boundaries (eg; ethanol mandate, EV subsidies, subsidies for oil/all, pork, etc) and only within those boundaries we may have some market freedom.

 

Some time ago, a lot of economists minimized most shortages of just about anything as being self correcting. At first I thought that was too narrow a viewpoint since things like overpopulation were not something solved via self correcting economics. Within the last 10 years I have done something of a 180 on the subject. When the rate of population growth slows down significantly as the economics of the area improve, what science explains that? Physics and Accounting are certainly not useful. Maybe what "economics" covers has little to do with money, but with human cooperation. That was the shift in viewpoint I needed. So while the population growth slow down is not economics in the narrow sense, it most certainly is in a wider sense.

Returning to your point. How do we make the best use of our remaining resources? Answer-By using the past lessons of economics and a properly functioning government. Simple stated, the best functioning government provides the regulations and regulation enforcement that a functioning democracy insists is necessary to achieve sustainability and a free market. (Note that a "free market" needs regulations and rules to operate....but one of key rules being the government cannot destroy the market with overtaxation.) The number of problems solved by allowing humans to cooperate directly with each other is immense. That would include making Phosphorous substitutions or recycling as well as sustainable energy solutions. One word of warning...the number of folks who have studied economic history seriously is few. While the number of folks thinking their unvetted view of what government works best......well, not so few.

 

Sometimes your local energy company is a Solar investment

 

Photos of tweets that may be relevant to the discussion . Just updated small size

 

yea ... I'd have to agree. Even so ... congrats RE the OP. What do we say? . . . . baby steps. Often, It's all we can do.
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... and giving the deepest cuts to wealthy foreigners.

 

The PV on my house near Seattle is strictly DIY (do it yourself), sharply cutting installation costs. The community solar projects appear to require professional installation and management, greatly increasing the number of hands in the pot.

Combined with past and present conservation efforts, I believe this puts the house within reasonable reach of net-zero. The energy auditor believed (just as the PV project started, and the heat pump water heater project was being set up) that it was even within reach of LEED certification, something I hadn't ever considered. Getting the house to achieve either standard should add more relative resale value than a smaller installation.

But for people who don't reasonably have the DIY option, a community or co-op project in Eastern Washington does make more sense.

 

Cyprus banking attracted the underworld mostly Russian. It is the European equlivilant of our Bahamas banking.

Smart money was in Switzerland, London or USA

When banks in those countries fail gov steps in to protect investors to a point.

 

Yep it something looks to good to be true it is destined to fail

 

Weeeelllll, I wouldn't quite say that. Short-termism and selfishness are pervasive and can ultimately result in self-destruction.

Also, you don't actually need or want a truly free market. History shows that pretty clearly. An anti-harm pragmatic-idealistic open market.should have a better result. That is, an otherwise free market, with intervention to prevent specific harm or promote less harmful solutions. That is, economic intervention should be avoided because of a tendency to distort, but avoidance of things that directly harm others (e.g. pollution) is a desirable goal and therefore better (e.g. low-pollution) solutions are worthy of support.

That is "consumer decides, consumer pays" isn't sufficient. You also want to add "consumer don't be evil". For transportation simply having proper pricing of oil wouldn't go far enough when the cheapest solution is still likely to be a rolling toxic cancer machine and HOAs and landlords are free to say "Non!" to large numbers of people.