To be a Capitalist and an Environmentalist at the Same Time?

[Windguy]

Now society accepts people to buy their own solar panels placed upon their own rooves, use their own electricity and sell the rest. Once their value has been paid for, the rest is for free!!

There is no difference between my idea and some person doing this. We have just manipulated the reserve rate that controls inflation to help pay for it all. Instead of just being a single person involved, it is a whole conglomerate of people. The sun is free, the wind is free so why can't the energy off them be for free. Both are sustainable to the true sense of the word. As having an orange tree in your own backyard, should you be charged for each orange you pick?

Obviously you can't take more than what you've paid, originally in the green tax, for in amount of electricity per month. It's exactly the same as having an orange tree. You can't pick more than is grown so you have to go to the shop and buy some more if you need them. Hopefully the scheme could cover nearly all but the heaviest users of electricity. Those users will have to purchase their extra electricity from the excess produced for the coffers that pay for the maintenance and upgrades of the system.

Unless you saturate your country there will be a full market economy of purchasers of the excess electricity, and people using too much and paying for it. Coal will still be around for a fair while, but because of the method for paying for the renewables, the excess electricity would be competitive to coal, even for large industries.

[cbacba]

theres nothing free about solar panels. Whether a panel will last long enough to actually pay for the initial cost is questionable. Then there is the ongoing opportunity cost of lost revenue from leaving the money in the bank and drawing interest. In fact, it's questionable if the interest rate on that money could actually cover the electric costs by itself. Even if the panel lasts for 20 years, there is still costs for maintaining it. Who washes off the bird poop and dust? There's labor invovled and perhaps chemicals like soaps and maybe environmental costs perhaps for disposing of the chemicals. There's also replacement costs and repair costs for the circuitry. While it may make sense in remote areas with no power mains as an alternative, it is not at present time a viable alternative even with massive tax incentives or credits - which are money taken from others who might have had a better use for it anyway.

Your fruit tree example is another one. These require maintenance, fertilizer, and water. Fruit requires picking which involves labor. It might require pest controls and chemicals as well. Fruit flies may have to be controlled and exterminated.

You should know that there is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. This applies to economics as well. Rest assured if the gov. is involved, actual costs are astronomically higher in the long run too. They have no incentive to conserve nor forces to make them conserve. Waste, fraud and abuse is the norm, not the exception.

Sunlight and wind are essentially free. But these do not provide useful energy without conversion. Man's tools, capital equipment, and labor are required to manipulate these into a form that is useful. Hence, it's no longer free and cannot be given away because there are costs involved which means there is a cost to individuals and to society. Those costs will be paid in some way by some one and if it's not by the user, there's no incentive to conserve and properly utilize the resource.

Imagine free cars that cost society a man year each to produce that contains 10 valuable screws worth 1$ each or contains $20 worth of aluminum and copper. One merely has to start getting free cars and extract that to become rich. All that labor is wasted as well as the other materials. Perhaps one has to buy those cars to scrap from others because they are rationed. Net result, utopias don't exist and cannot exist in this form. Then again, perhaps the western capitalist systems are utopian for those in the socialist workers paradise where cost doesn't matter because you starve to death in total poverty.

[treekiller]

Originally Posted by Windguy

The sun is free, the wind is free so why can't the energy off them be for free.

Kill a tree + burn the wood = free heat. After all, trees are really just stored sunshine.

[nemesis9]

Originally Posted by treekiller

Kill a tree + burn the wood = free heat. After all, trees are really just stored sunshine.

So are fossil fuels, and our rapid rate of burning them and releasing that stored energy is warming the planet.

[nemesis9]

Originally Posted by cbacba

theres nothing free about solar panels. Whether a panel will last long enough to actually pay for the initial cost is questionable. Then there is the ongoing opportunity cost of lost revenue from leaving the money in the bank and drawing interest. In fact, it's questionable if the interest rate on that money could actually cover the electric costs by itself. Even if the panel lasts for 20 years, there is still costs for maintaining it. Who washes off the bird poop and dust? There's labor invovled and perhaps chemicals like soaps and maybe environmental costs perhaps for disposing of the chemicals. There's also replacement costs and repair costs for the circuitry. While it may make sense in remote areas with no power mains as an alternative, it is not at present time a viable alternative even with massive tax incentives or credits - which are money taken from others who might have had a better use for it anyway.

Your fruit tree example is another one. These require maintenance, fertilizer, and water. Fruit requires picking which involves labor. It might require pest controls and chemicals as well. Fruit flies may have to be controlled and exterminated.

You should know that there is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. This applies to economics as well. Rest assured if the gov. is involved, actual costs are astronomically higher in the long run too. They have no incentive to conserve nor forces to make them conserve. Waste, fraud and abuse is the norm, not the exception.

Sunlight and wind are essentially free. But these do not provide useful energy without conversion. Man's tools, capital equipment, and labor are required to manipulate these into a form that is useful. Hence, it's no longer free and cannot be given away because there are costs involved which means there is a cost to individuals and to society. Those costs will be paid in some way by some one and if it's not by the user, there's no incentive to conserve and properly utilize the resource.

Imagine free cars that cost society a man year each to produce that contains 10 valuable screws worth 1$ each or contains $20 worth of aluminum and copper. One merely has to start getting free cars and extract that to become rich. All that labor is wasted as well as the other materials. Perhaps one has to buy those cars to scrap from others because they are rationed. Net result, utopias don't exist and cannot exist in this form. Then again, perhaps the western capitalist systems are utopian for those in the socialist workers paradise where cost doesn't matter because you starve to death in total poverty.

Well, your attitude is that "science is settled, and economics is settled". There *is* a such thing as scientific and cultural advancement. There are many things regarding energy that are all around us and yet we don't understand them.
The cost of climate and environmental damage and the "lost opportunity" cost of *them*, are things you refuse to factor in because your short term thinking only sees the immediate losses to your 'high and mighty' profit margin. If you take a longer view with long-term non-economic views prioritized above short-term profit motives you will see that the economics will work out.
Not only that, your short-sighted economic framework does not quantify human happiness, quality of life, or social needs, nor can it. Your short term mindset can only "quantify" things anyway, therefore you have lost the ability to "qualify" anything, a fatal flaw in your ability to survive.

Your short-sighted, blind adherence to some "economic" philosophy may make you rich in the short term, but in the long run you will be morally bankrupt and extinct.

[treekiller]

Originally Posted by nemesis9

So are fossil fuels, and our rapid rate of burning them and releasing that stored energy is warming the planet.

No it's not nemesis. The Earth is 70% water and 97% of that is ocean. The oceans are now at the mean temperature of the last 3000 years.

[nemesis9]

Originally Posted by cbacba

Imagine free cars that cost society a man year each to produce that contains 10 valuable screws worth 1$ each or contains $20 worth of aluminum and copper. One merely has to start getting free cars and extract that to become rich. All that labor is wasted as well as the other materials. Perhaps one has to buy those cars to scrap from others because they are rationed. Net result, utopias don't exist and cannot exist in this form. Then again, perhaps the western capitalist systems are utopian for those in the socialist workers paradise where cost doesn't matter because you starve to death in total poverty.

This is utter, total nonsensical thinking. There are more people starving in America than in many places on earth. And there you go again, everything has a price. Well, what's the price of pain, what's the price of love, what's the price of friendship and cooperation.
All you see is man competing and struggling against other men. Every man for himself. Well, that's not how we survived these last few thousand years. And I don't see a lot of starvation in South America, where most of the governments are democratic socialist for the most part.
Furthermore, the only colors you seem to see are black and white. It's either this or that, capitalist or socialist, wealth or poverty. Well, that's not how nature works. Nature works by balance, not platitudes.

You are merely painting a picture of your own destruction.

[nemesis9]

Originally Posted by treekiller

No it's not nemesis. The Earth is 70% water and 97% of that is ocean. The oceans are now at the mean temperature of the last 3000 years.

Perhaps you should read the following study:

Penetration of Human-Induced Warming into the World's Oceans
Tim P. Barnett,1* David W. Pierce,1 Krishna M. AchutaRao,2 Peter J. Gleckler,2 Benjamin D. Santer,2 Jonathan M. Gregory,3 Warren M. Washington4

A warming signal has penetrated into the world's oceans over the past 40 years. The signal is complex, with a vertical structure that varies widely by ocean; it cannot be explained by natural internal climate variability or solar and volcanic forcing, but is well simulated by two anthropogenically forced climate models. We conclude that it is of human origin, a conclusion robust to observational sampling and model differences. Changes in advection combine with surface forcing to give the overall warming pattern. The implications of this study suggest that society needs to seriously consider model predictions of future climate change.

1 Climate Research Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 0224, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
2 Program for Climate Model Diagnoses and Intercomparison/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Post Office Box 808, Livermore, CA 94550, USA.
3 UK Met Office Hadley Centre and University of Reading, Reading RG6 6BB, UK.
4 National Center for Atmospheric Research, Post Office Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307, USA.

[Windguy]

Originally Posted by treekiller

Kill a tree + burn the wood = free heat. After all, trees are really just stored sunshine.

You've just worked out renewables! It's a pity if you cut down your single solitary tree on your property you would have to wait 10 years from planting before you can do it again!

Look at the idea again, and see if there is a genuine reason it won't work before you shoot off at the mouth. I don't mind playing smart ass every now and again, but thats after I have genuinely found other people have said something stupid. Pick the faults then have a decent crack at dressing me and my idea down.

As you can see I'm shaking in my boots already.

[Windguy]

Originally Posted by cbacba

theres nothing free about solar panels. Whether a panel will last long enough to actually pay for the initial cost is questionable. Then there is the ongoing opportunity cost of lost revenue from leaving the money in the bank and drawing interest. In fact, it's questionable if the interest rate on that money could actually cover the electric costs by itself. Even if the panel lasts for 20 years, there is still costs for maintaining it. Who washes off the bird poop and dust? There's labor invovled and perhaps chemicals like soaps and maybe environmental costs perhaps for disposing of the chemicals. There's also replacement costs and repair costs for the circuitry. While it may make sense in remote areas with no power mains as an alternative, it is not at present time a viable alternative even with massive tax incentives or credits - which are money taken from others who might have had a better use for it anyway.

Your fruit tree example is another one. These require maintenance, fertilizer, and water. Fruit requires picking which involves labor. It might require pest controls and chemicals as well. Fruit flies may have to be controlled and exterminated.

You should know that there is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. This applies to economics as well. Rest assured if the gov. is involved, actual costs are astronomically higher in the long run too. They have no incentive to conserve nor forces to make them conserve. Waste, fraud and abuse is the norm, not the exception.

Sunlight and wind are essentially free. But these do not provide useful energy without conversion. Man's tools, capital equipment, and labor are required to manipulate these into a form that is useful. Hence, it's no longer free and cannot be given away because there are costs involved which means there is a cost to individuals and to society. Those costs will be paid in some way by some one and if it's not by the user, there's no incentive to conserve and properly utilize the resource.

Imagine free cars that cost society a man year each to produce that contains 10 valuable screws worth 1$ each or contains $20 worth of aluminum and copper. One merely has to start getting free cars and extract that to become rich. All that labor is wasted as well as the other materials. Perhaps one has to buy those cars to scrap from others because they are rationed. Net result, utopias don't exist and cannot exist in this form. Then again, perhaps the western capitalist systems are utopian for those in the socialist workers paradise where cost doesn't matter because you starve to death in total poverty.

So you would be happy with my idea if everyone just paid for their electricity as per normal but got a cheque at the end of the year to either pay off their mortgage faster or in their hands? So no freebies, just the people in the green houses get a cheque.

I do think it discriminates against the renters who do help pay off peoples investment properties though.