Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power | AI and manufacturing booms are pushing the US power grid to the brink and utilities can't keep up
Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power | AI and manufacturing booms are pushing the US power grid to the brink and utilities can't keep up
The future of power in America is obvious. State governments will make corrupt deals with data centers and factories to keep their electricity costs low, and raise prices on residential users to compensate until poor families are priced out.
Buy your solar panels now. Before electricity changes from a right to a privilege.
I used to work in automation and it's amazing how much waste is created just in the process of creating an automated assembly line.
My company built lines that required power to motors and devices than used up to 600 volts of power. Computers and sensors everywhere. The newer lines tend to have so much more crammed into them to increase production of units. More robots and tools means more power required. Power was usually not shut off during any downtime unless we were working on something that needed to be disconnected.
The automation field is pretty amazing until I stepped back to really notice how wasteful and unsustainable automation is.
I had to leave the industry. It's become clear to me that automation is far too destructive to the environment. Corporations and businesses have no care to make automation cleaner or more sustainable.
I don't know how people can expect automation to create more green energy equipment when automation itself is so dirty and demanding.
Interesting, I went through half a bachelors of Electrotechnical Engineering, for the love of renewables but also automation, back then a big hobby of mine together with drones. University got a big grant for some agricultural drone project because it was all the rage. I was asked to participate, found out they had to build a robot instead because using a drone for the task was bollocks but add the drone for decoration because the money was for something with a drone. By then I was already tired of ordering hundreds of tiny pieces from China all the time to keep systems up and running, and staring at screens instead of interacting with the real world.
For every bit of tech that actually improves something there's ten bits of tech developed by arseholes to milk the latest hype. And that shit adds up to all this waste everywhere.
As a covid lockdown hobby, I got an Arduino starter kit. I found myself buying all these little parts for these projects that I had thought up. I ended up losing interest in Arduino because of all the cheap and tiny bits that get made in China and shipped to the rest of the world. All those tiny parts must be shipped in more disposal packages that help protect the parts from moisture and shock.
There's so much energy and waste involved in all these tiny parts and integrated circuits when you look at the whole picture of manufacturing, packaging and shipping.
Robots, technology and open hardware/software concepts are all really interesting. It just gets hard to justify the environmental impact of all this fun tech.
My company built lines that required power to motors and devices than used up to 600 volts of power. Computers and sensors everywhere.
... how do you use 600 volts of power? power is measured in watts (joules/second, volt-amps, whatever), not volts. although i'm not questioning that you know that, considering that your job involved it, i'm just confused at the wording
I probably meant up to 600 voltage. After I went out of my way to get fired from that awful place, I quit my apprenticeship and left the absolute toxic culture of the trades world behind.
Also found it hard to justify being an electrician when electric cables need plastic insulation. Hard to separate electrical needs from the oil industry when the insulating material comes from the oil industry.
I’ve heard the solar industry is a massive scam for a lot of people too- predatory financing deals.
Your not wrong, but my only caveat is my solar installation was no money down, and just switch over from big electric to renewable.
This was my situation but several offers were presented previous that required money down. I agree scams are everywhere but I wouldn't classify Solar as an industry as a scam.
Dont get me wrong, I want to go solar. I’ve just been reading that the top 5 companies you see non stop blasting YouTube ads are actually just predatory lenders using solar as a way to get high interest loans.
If you go solar and aren’t paying cash, make sure you really investigate the company and the fine print. Also be wary of who provides lending for the local installer doing the work.
Hopefully these public goods can at some level be priced in a progressive --- as opposed to bulk discount/price break --- fashion...