Avoiding a “Solar Fleece”

A number of readers have asked me how to judge an investment in solar power.  Today we will take a deep look at solarnomics.  However, as you’ll discover, there’s a legal cloud – not so much an accounting  issue – that lurks as great peril to solar investors.

Yeah, including us.  I got “bit” too.

It’s a useful tale.

We’ll also cover the near-term future in our ChartPack section.  Where things are ideally positioned for an “Insert Big Event” in the next few days.  Something large enough to be a scapegoat on which blame for financial calamity could be blamed.

Stick around…things are getting “Interesting.”

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57 thoughts on “Avoiding a “Solar Fleece””

  1. The first and largest home energy saver is to not overbuild. Less is more, more or less. The single biggest and easiest energy efficiency update is increased attic insulation. The pay-out is usually quick. Next, a very high efficiency heat pump will save much energy in a climate like Ure’s. The pay-out tends to be a lot longer out, though.
    Solar, to offset the daytime HVAC load, has merit. Trying to make money off the public utility is questionable, unless you have a really good contract with them. My utility wants to lawyer, and assign liabilities that I don’t want to shoulder.

    • Check with Hank on this, but since electrons move ay 186,000 miles per second. And we provide 60 Hz, therefore one cycle of power ought to move electrons at 3,100 miles per second. Since it is a wave, half the time, it goes away, then back to origin. There 1.550 miles would be the our distance of impacts to negotiate.

      (Should I go on?)

      • Liabilities are for back feed when the line is under maintenance, and I figure the second I tie in I will be responsible for line crew accidents in a 100 mile radius. It won’t matter whether my system is at fault or not.

    • “Energy Efficiency” in Hawaii means flow-thru ventilation. We have ceiling fans, not HVAC systems. I have one 10kBTU window A/C that gets used a few days a year when the tradewinds quit during hot August nights. Horrible power draw, but not used very often. Other than that, the steel roof is a solar oven in the attic and I installed an auto radiator fan to ventilate the oven. The fan is run by an offline 300w PV panel when the sun shines, and the solar panel also runs my solar hot water pump and controller.

      • Now that’s exactly the kind of lash up I was thinking of moving toward. Grid for when it works but plug and play options when it doesn’t.

  2. “And on the other side of the aisle? ”
    Trump vs Kennedy
    just last evening I was thinkin ,,, it is the uni-party that is getting smashed by the combo of T and K
    Separate fronts attacking the same enemy.
    Trump is smashing RINOs on one side and Kennedy is smashing demonrats in their other arm.
    I think it was/is a PLAN and not a co-in-ci-dence
    I will not be surprised, IF they join forces later in the movie.
    They both have their base. Most like and trust both, I do.

    Then there is Joe,,, no, the other Joe, like a voice in the wilderness, John the Baptist or Joe Rogan,,,, come ye vipers, debate on my stage the truths about the vaccines,,, here is some money,,, what, is it not as much as Billy Gates gives ya?

    baptising the masses

    the demons MURDERED JFK and RFK and MARTIN, AND DO NOT THINK FOR ONE SECOND, THAT HAS NOT BEEN ATTEMPTED ON TRUMP OR ROBERT jr.
    Demons know , no boundries, no borders, no morals

    at 70 yrs of age, I never thought I would witness this historical event,,, there is a changing of the Guard
    as hunter uses the scales of Lady Justice to weigh his crack cocaine,,, hey hey hey, this shit is bringing the attention of the masses front and center
    where attention goes,,, energy flows,,, we are energy beings

  3. “Do-It-Yourself Law Enforcement ”

    People love the police layer.

    Over last year everyone is paying more property taxes, yet funds for actual police are no longer available. City council gives everyone 2 minutes to berate and then police keep the meetings moving. It’s an ecosystem.

    Like a 1950’s cowboy picture. Hand your money to the bad guys or else.

  4. I’m having 4 joints replaced on my right hand tomorrow. The surgery should open up my hand and make it more usable as well as making it look normal. Please keep me in your prayers over the next few days. Thanks friends.

  5. Sun Shades ? you mean Trees, right ?

    “If you are confused , check with the Sun
    carry a compass to help you along
    Ure feet are going to be on the ground
    Ure head is there to move you around

    ..so stand in the place where you live
    now face North
    think about direction
    wonder why you havent before
    now stand in the place where you were
    now face West
    think about the place where you live
    wonder why you havent before”. -REM

    https://youtu.be/X95aytwB9TE

    Cmon man – trees grow (SouthernPine) at a predictable rate. House didnt move did it? Hear in the NE , we utilize large hardwood trees for Sun shades. And actual Sun shades for over the Cement Pond area – no leaves/debris from Sun shades..

    Disclose this – please.

    Only DISCLOSURE – can we break FREE ! otherwise the Future of this spiral galaxy is in serious question.
    ..Farsight/Military/Allguires’ group certainly arent the only ones who remote view.
    What has been “viewed” by “others” has never been seen or experienced before in the milky way(not good)..”they” bee tracing ‘it” back to our Solar System and Planet..

    Further insight into above referenced remote viewing – link is to one of Dr Courtney Browns recent interviews – fascinating, valuable HUMINT or is it REPINT ? Either way kinda like listening to R Attenborough describe unique animal/plant behaviors, cept they are describing characters from a Star Wars bar. https://email.cloud.secureclick.net/c/7258?id=2783700.984.1.e2ca7542841b2a99be4f95ee074e03ad

    Go ahead and take a wild guess at Dr Browns age .. remarkable, no?

    Homework – compare&contrast early adopter Solar versus early adopter Bitcoin..hmmm NOPE – still No BTC 4 G.

    10Q

    • I will NEVER waste another two weeks of my fall/winter – prime ham radio dx time – blowing fucking leaves off the shop and the area between house and shop.
      Amazing what a long-term labor saving device a chainsaw is!
      WE do grow trees and have thousands more. Southern and loblolly shed needles pretty good tree.

      The best trees are 2x4s., 2x8s etc.

      • And as witnessed by the storm last week, trees close enough to shade the house are also close enough to fall on the house when that unexpected big wind hits. Luckily ours fell away from the house rather than on it. Turns out a tornado passed over our house en route to destroy a few buildings a couple of miles from us.

    • I have to agree with George. Trees anywhere near a house are both a fire and crime risk. Nobody should be able to approach a house without triggering motion detectors, cameras, or perhaps a response from the occupants. Trees a couple of hundred feet out can be great, but should be limbed up to the point that nobody and nothing can hide under them. Besides, they look better.

      A good insulated roof, and perhaps even a cold roof are much better for shading than relying on nature’s idea of what you need.

      • Depends upon what region of the country you are in.

        Here in my part of the Midwest Wild Fires are NOT a concern … except for the occasional grass fire near roads when/if the grass gets all dried out in late summer, usually lit off by an unextinguished cigarette thown out of a vehicle. My area is an agricultural and other than in the cities in small towns is mostly composed of farm fields so the woods that remain are scattered and non adjacent. I have NEVER heard of a house burning down anywhere around here because of trees near it catching fire (but people do NOT have pine trees here either … virtually all hardwoods)

        The risk of trees falling on the house IS real … but except for tornadoes it is confined to trees that SHOULD have been pruned long before they took a tumble. Most of the ones that do lose a branch or part of a trunk that weren’t obviously weak do so because of our once every 10/20 year ice storm. Not much one can do wrt that situation except make sure hour home insurance is paid up.

        Here it is the common practice to have hardwood trees SHADING the house in the summertime. Out of town among the farms It is hard to find a house that doesn’t have that type of landscaping. Ditto in the cities and small towns.

        About the only areas that do NOT have shading trees are actually the new subdivisions where the trees are planted but are not yet old enough to have grown to a sufficient height to provide such shade.

        Different regions with different climates, different natural vegetation and different rainfall patterns definitely call for different solutions to the “house heat” issue. One size does not serve all.

      • ” Trees anywhere near a house are both a fire and crime risk.”

        That depends on how you define “near.” I’ve got trees 50-70 feet out. They’re perfect for hiding cameras and motion sensors, and yes, I have every inch of ground within 100 feet covered, most by multiple cameras facing different directions. My camera/sensor coverage goes out several hundred yards, but everything close is covered by multiple angles. The trees do such a good job my kids couldn’t find many of them, even knowing where to look. Trees be good, as long as they’re not close enough to punch your roof…

  6. “Now they only pay half. the original rate.”

    We read about the Texas grid being in constant “worry” condition. There you are adding to the grid, going above and beyond for your people and you get penalized.

    The value of a kWh has never been more but your kWhs are somehow worth less. Clearly the power company decided to confiscate the value of your kWhs. What are they using the value for?

    Here in MI power switched us to so-called day rates to save us money. Overall the rates increased (unless we don’t use power) and the power company has requested to raise rates again –

    “The utility’s request seeks to hike residential rates by 13.9%, commercial rates by 11.5%, and industrial rates by 7%.”

    13.9% is huge. Imagine getting 13.9% of your arm or leg lopped off. Impactful to day operations, eh.

  7. My local PUD charges 3.37 cents per kilowatt hour. A 3% increase is planned by the end of the year. The average electrical residential bill in my area is below $60 a month.
    – My little solar sub-station is not connected to ‘feed-back’ into the grid.., never was – never will be [ for several reasons].
    – I have a bank of marine batteries for my ‘storage’. [ Heavy little beasties.] They are not designed to run the entire house., just select items – weather dependent. Heating is not much of a problem as our wood stove is rated for twice the sq footage., and the wood stove is backed by a brick wall – I can stoke-it around 6 at night and be still putting out the btu’s in the morning. Maintaining the wood supply is the only supply-trick.

  8. Perhaps the $1.00 value menu items will return to fast food screens.

    US approves chicken made from cultivated cells, the nation’s first ‘lab-grown’ meat

    “For the first time, U.S. regulators on Wednesday approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells, allowing two California companies to offer “lab-grown” meat to the nation’s restaurant tables and eventually, supermarket shelves.”

    https://apnews.com/article/cultivated-meat-lab-grown-cell-based-a88ab8e0241712b501aa191cdbf6b39a

  9. I don’t see a way in to Upside Foods or Good Meat.

    “The Agriculture Department gave the green light to Upside Foods and Good Meat,”

    Upside Foods – these folks are in:

    “Abu Dhabi Growth Fund, Temasek, Baillie Gifford & Co., Bill Gates, CPT Capital, Cargill, Cercano Management, Christiana Musk, Dentsu Ventures, EDBI, Givaudan, IndieBio, John Doerr, Kimbal Musk, Norwest Venture Partners, SALT Fund, SOSV, SoftBank, Synthesis Capital, and Tyson Foods”

    https://www.goodmeat.co/
    https://upsidefoods.com/

  10. The biggest reason my solar PV (Leased, SunRun) works is the outrageous cost of grid juice here at $0.55 kwh. When the salesman pitched me, he said “We become your alternate power company, and we can lease you a system that will cost less than the grid usage per kwh. And we do the maintenance.” And so far that has proved true. The battery failure fiasco proved this out, as with a severely limited production system, they reduced my lease payments appropriately to the amount of solar PV that I actually was getting. Plus they (actually the battery maker) ate the maintenance and replacement costs of the battery. I’m sure it played hell with the company’s lease accounting over time, but they were also sold a bill of goods by the battery mfgr about reliability. SunRun handled all the paperwork and approval with the local utility, and the system CAN sell back to the utility, but is programmed to limit that to only 1kwh per month that shows on my bill. Something to keep the grid company accounting active, I guess. I had zero cash outlay for the PV system, but they did require that I pay for a meter box upgrade and distro panel that my old house needed anyway, and that remains my property.
    So I’m very happy with my system. It saves me money. I don’t know how their costs and lease payments would work out in areas with cheaper electricity, though.

    • Electricity is cheaper here, but the base charge per meter is high. That’s tolerable if you have one meter, but for more than one – in situations where turning it off triggers new permits and inspections? Not likely. Most likely I could replace several billing accounts with a single solar panel, charge controller, and battery each, but it would really cost to turn the mains back on.

      It’s a gotcha situation.

      I believe the best solar setup is a totally separate system with no connection to the grid at all. No need to beg for permission, and it’s like a generator only quieter. No backfeed possibility. Batteries can store a bit for high loads when you need it, like welding and HVAC. I’m blessed that to date this year(midsummer), I’ve not even considered turning on my 32 KBTU a/c unit. The only reason I bought it was that it cost only $125. I might use it for a few days in July or August, but that would be exceptional. I do run it for 10 minutes once in a while just to keep the seals wet.

  11. Re: The Golden Fleece
    feat. ‘son power

    Folks,

    The Firm’s website has been updated with an unattributed photograph from Britain’s privately held media conglomerate who date to 1865. The King and family members hosted visiting world dignitaries in the Throne Room of St. James Palace prior to the Ukraine Recovery Conference. Commoners are reminded that it is a criminal offense to step off the public sidewalk of Marlborough Road and into the Palace proper. The British Foreign Secretary shut down questioning from a “Daily Mail” reporter who dared question His Majesty concerning his entry, Saga, at Ascot. Regrettably Saga had been soundly defeated by a usurper Royal Champion.

    President Zelensky’s website offers the transcript of his speech by video to the conference in London. “PM Rishi” appears to be a dear friend. A $3 billion cheque must be in the mail. The US $1.6 billion did not generate a shout-out to the attending Secretary of State.

    Time to venture over to the studio and see what DJ George has on the boil for the nooner show. Oh, nice. Here we go.
    Wet Leg
    “Oh No”.

    https://youtu.be/qXX05S6tiRk

    • Re: Jumpmaster P Morgan
      feat. Embarcadero

      Folks,

      Yesterday evening President Biden attended his second fundraiser of the day in a San Francisco financial district restaurant. What I found interesting is that the reit which holds 51% interest in the multi-tower class A complex is cutting its dividend by 55%. “The Real Deal” owned by an Iranian-American journalist goes on to say the reit’s largest tenant is recently defunct bank First Republic. First Republic signed another pricey Class A deal in LA just prior to covid. The landlord of the property has scrubbed the names of office space leasing tenants from its website for that tower and others in its portfolio.

      Oh, yes, back to the fundraisers. Mr. Xi was again called a dictator. And apparently Climate Czar Kerry will soon be sent to Beijing.

      • .Ze word has come down, and all no essential personnel are to evacuate Tioneon.. yesterday.

        Did you see the “shadow” on khershon/crimea bridge this AM ?
        Ze Bear is eating nato’s breakfast, lunch and dinner, too include the whole bird & stuffing too.

        nato – its what for dinner, after a 1st course of borscht and shotz Stolichnaya Elit..Snizu vverth!

  12. A small glimpse at the RV market – which is a factor[ albeit-a small factor.] when looking at the health of the economy.
    Winnebago indicated fiscal 2023 third quarter revenue plunged 38.2%
    Revenue for its towable RVs slumped 52.3%, while those for motorhomes fell 27.5%.
    Higher interest rates, discounting to sell units and less available cash/credit for purchases were the top three reasons for the sharp decline.

    • Banks that provide the Floor Plan Loans to RV dealers must be shitting bricks right now.

      Took the pullable camper to the Big Lake yesterday … going to be here a couple of days and then turn it over to my older son and his family to use until the end of next week. Not as big as the lake I was at last week (HAD to help a friend “house sit the deck” of his cottage on that lake – hard work but somebody has to do it since his wife went home to go to work!!) but still big enough you can’t see across it.

      Campground here, mid week and summer vacations haven’t really gotten started yet, is only about 1/3 to 1/2 full for the campers area (full service hookups 100% occupied) and only about 1/15th of the tents area is occupied. Everything shows to be totally full for the weekend though.

      What I have noticed over the years is that in places where just tents used to be used are now occupied by newer multi tens of thousands of dollars pull-ables or the hundred thousand+ dollar Class A’s. I would think by this point in time anybody and everybody who has an interest in taking a condo with them when they go camping (guilty as charged) has now already purchased one.

      fwiw if you have never shopped an RV dealer for a “new” RV they make Jewelry Merchants look like they don’t know how to make money via markups. The markups are so bad (high) that you should be able to get AT LEAST 1/3 off of the MSRP, and even without bargaining should get 1/4 off MSRP. Beware of all the add-ons that the dealers try to hit you with too!

      When recessions hit if you shop it right, ie: bank repo sales and the public auctions, you should be able to get a 2 to 3 year old unit for 1/3 of what the person actually paid just a couple of years before (generally NO financing available). My theory of recreational items has always been that if you can’t buy it for CASH then you should NOT be buying it!! (ie: NEVER finance a recreational item)

      Over the years I have only bought used (always at about than 1/2 of the bank loan value), and then “use it up”, but if you don’t know anything about them take someone who does to go through the unit since some items are an arm and a leg to replace if not working (new bigger 12v/propane fridge/freezers START at about $2100, and quickly go to to $3,500+!)

      Now … where will I tow my portable condo next?

    • “A small glimpse at the RV market – which is a factor[ albeit-a small factor.] when looking at the health of the economy.”

      I have several friends who worked in the industry. When the economy was still on the rise, in 2006, the RV market utterly crashed. One friend who had 20 years in and a bunch of specialized certs, lost everything he owned (except his car and his cat), walked out on a mortgage with six years remaining, and moved from Northern Indiana to Southern Tennessee, to move in, as a 50-something, with his parents.

      I can’t remember by how many months the RV crash preceded the housing crash, but it did, and I wondered whether it could be a bellwether — ‘Guess we’re about to find out…

  13. Approval
    hear, hear An expression used to express approval, as in Whenever the senator spoke, he was greeted with cries of “Hear! hear!” This expression was originally Hear him! hear him! and used to call attention to a speaker’s words. It gradually came to be used simply as a cheer.

  14. Bitcoin held by “illiquid entities” is at an all-time high as demand for the token climbs.
    The total held by “illiquid entities”, or those with little-to-no financial spending history, is now at a record high 15,207,843 tokens.

  15. Austin, is already at “file your police report cause we ain’t coming unless someone is threatening your life.’

    It’s so racist though, it wants YOUR RACE, but you can’t tell them the PERPS race.

    And, who wants to order a police person online anyhow?

    They do not come for car accidents, car thefts, burglaries, only if there is a crime in process where your life is threatened.

    Property taxes UP!!! Police presence, coverage, and response time DOWN.

    Lost electricity 3 times in 6 minutes, last outage lasted 1 hr. 15 mins.

    Nice way to help the grid, rolling blackouts.

  16. Titan Sub: OceanGate CEO Didn’t Want to Hire ’50-Year-Old White Guys’ Because They’re Not ‘Inspirational’

    “When I started the business, one of the things you’ll find, there are other sub operators out there but they typically have gentleman who are ex-military submariners and you’ll see a whole bunch of 50-year-old white guys,” Rush told a representative with Teledyne Marine in August 2020.

    “I wanted our team to be younger, to be inspirational and I’m not going to inspire a 16-year-old to go pursue marine technology but a 25-year-old you know who’s a sub pilot or a platform operator or one of our techs can be inspirational,” Rush continued.

    https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=63826

    I sincerely hope Stockton Rush has had a “come to Jesus” moment. With only a couple hours of oxygen left at the time of my typing, he has perhaps repented of his opinions regarding 50yo White men with serious submariner OJT? I’m okay with him dying from his arrogance, stupidity, and inability to see facts beyond his own Leftist prejudice. I’m seriously pissed he likely took four others with him.

    **thoroughly disgusted**

    • “I’m okay with him dying from his arrogance, stupidity, and inability to see facts beyond his own Leftist prejudice. I’m seriously pissed he likely took four others with him.”

      You know Ray, I have the same feeling about our top government leaders. They are taking millions with them.

      Per George’s column this morning.

      “The U.S. has scuttled two peace talk openers with Ukraine.”

      Peace just ain’t on the table.

  17. Solar Panels:

    #1 …. why should the power company PAY YOU MORE than they pay their big power providers for electrons?

    Like any other business they buy power WHOLESALE, then invest LOTS of money in building out their system of lines, transformers, and employ LOTS of people to keep those serviced and working … thus they MUST MARK UP the power they buy (in most regulated situations) in order to cover THEIR COSTS … or GO BROKE and shut down.

    Think of it like selling a car to an Auto Dealership. They pay you one price, but have LOTS of expenses in remarketing it plus a profit margin, so they sell it at a HIGHER price. They are NOT going to pay you the same price they sell it to the public for because they have LOTS of expenses. Would you expect an auto dealership to pay you the same price they are going to sell the car for?

    Here we have never had the situation you HAD in Texas where the Electric Utilities will buy back from it’s customers the Full RETAIL PRICE of the electricity the customers generate. Nope … they pay their customers THE SAME AMOUNT IT COSTS THEM TO BUY THE POWER FROM THEIR BIG GENERATING PROVIDERS (mostly independent companies that build big Natural Gas generating units, or Canadian Hydro power since the utility is totally getting our of generating it’s own power).

    How would a utililty cover it’s operating expenses if it paid the same price for the raw electricity as it sells it for? How would they cover all the costs to build and maintain the infrastructure it takes to move that power around?

    (fwiw California FORCED it’s utilities to do that, which meant that the poorer people who couldn’t afford to generate their own power were SUBSIDIZING THE RICH since the rich weren’t paying for the infrastructure overhead costs … which was falling mostly on the renter class and the lower middle class (industrial users in most states do NOT pay for most of the infrastructure cost since they are point to point users and NOT on the general grid – sometime they pay for their own direct grid to the producer and bypass the overall grid entirely).

    California is now terminating that SUBSIDY OF THE RICH since people finally figured out that all it was was a scam for the POOR TO SUBSIDIZE THE ALREADY RICH – at least those rich enough to be home owners who could install their own solar systems)

    Here, as I have talked about before, they break down the bill into a charge for the electricity – ie: what they pay to BUY the power, and a “delivery” charge which is what they charge for building and maintaining they system plus their regulated profit margin. The individual power producer (ie: a house) gets paid the same as the averaged pricing of their big providers. FWIW my monthly charges generally break down to 40%-45% for the electricity itself and 55%-60% for the delivery charge (ie: their infrastructure).

    Consider yourself “lucky” that for a number of years YOU were riding for FREE off of the utility’s infrastructure for the power YOU were Selling back to them. Effectively the Power Company was PAYING YOU DOUBLE +- for power they could have gotten form others at about 1/2 the price. That has never happened here with our regulatory system. (but note the California SCAM THE POOR system which not only allowed that to happen but FORCED it to happen).

    #2 Super Energy Efficient Homes

    As for “super energy efficient homes” … yep that is the way to go. Remote acquaintance built a big 3200sf home in the Cleveland area and made it super energy efficient. His monthly energy bills for the coldest months ran about $40/mo for gas and about $60 for electricity.

    The utilities were so upset that they BOTH came out about three times and did a full property search for hidden underground wires, pipes etc. since both were convinced he was somehow stealing energy from someone somewhere.

    Alas he was not … which they finally believed after he had them in and they all went over his his building plans, super energy efficient systems in the house, right down to his shower fixtures, and they also talked to the contractors who built the home for him.

    SUPER energy efficiency is doable. He said it cost him about 5%-7% more to build that way but figured his payback was about 10 years and then it was all free and clear money for him.

    (also look into the below grade greenhouses out in Iowa/Nebraska area who use large diameter piping systems, multiple pipes, that are buried about 12′ underground that sucks in outside air, heats it via the air running through plastic piping underground, mostly via natural convection, for 100′ -150′ (pipes need not be in a straight line) which then come into the green houses. With NO heating system they can maintain 50 to 60 degrees in the winter, even when 20 below and below 80 in the summer. Some great YouTube videos of those set ups)

    • My point is that in order to slowly (screw) America, we are being subject to solar being rammed down our throats now -= and in time we will get EVEN LESS than wholesale power sources

      A screw job in the wings.

      You suddenly believe the word of government, reg agencies and power companies?

      They HATE independent people – the whole worldwide game is to box everyone up in a controlled city while the ulber rich fucktards live in their rural dachas. Same as the Sovvies got.

      The equty spin’s done got to you. Equality, baby. All Electrons do the same work and therefore on the same system, rates should be equal.

      Why, you’re talking like an accountant cpa tax lawyer…

      EQUAL PROTECTION FOR ELECTRONS – EQUAL PAY!!!

      • EQUAL should mean that they pay YOU the same that they pay the commercial Power Generators who they get most of their power from … NOT DOUBLE.

  18. “They HATE independent people – the whole worldwide game is to box everyone up in a controlled city while the uber rich fucktards live in their rural dachas. Same as the Sovvies got.”

    George, you fail to see that very few people in the entire world realize the “Russian oligarchs” didn’t just make all their money after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

    SOCIALISM is not a one-class system. It is a two-class system where one class is very small in population, but unimaginably wealthy and powerful, and the other class encompasses virtually everybody, and everyone in this class [is] totally dependent on the upper class for every facet of their very existence. The USSR had its oligarchs. Modern China has its oligarchs and our (communistic) intellectual idiots point them out and tell us: “China is moving toward capitalism,” which is a lie. Hell, Zimbabwe and Venezuela have their oligarchs. There are more billionaires in Venezuela than there are in some Urepeein countries.

    We will be coerced, via a combination of social pressure and sheer lack of sufficient income to own property, into living in buildings with PV roofs. Once we are there, we will only be able to have the stuff that’ll fit into our apartment. “Government” and utilities are already in an unholy alliance, and it is an alliance “government” can terminate at any time by nationalizing the utilities.

    “Government” can nationalize the utilities at any time, without comment, by passing a piece of legislation which makes it impossible for the utility to survive (like “coal”) or by creating a critical demand shortage and an inability for utilities to deliver on that demand (like fuel oil in the East, during a bad winter). Everybody from DC to Maine would beg the “government” to take over and deliver unto them, some BTUs…

  19. “Of course, extreme heat comes with it, too: Sweltering heat tests Texas’ power grid and patience as thousands in South still without electricity.”

    We had two days in the 80s this week. I was hoping “summer” could read a calendar, but alas. Today’s high was 73. We got two days in the 90s a few weeks back (90° and 93° — pretty much normal, for my area) and then the bottom fell out and we recorded highs in the 60s and lows in the low 40s to low 50s for nearly two weeks, until we climbed back into the 70s last week. I’m guessing this’ll be another year in which we don’t see 100° temps in August. The stupid high and low pressure cyclones that are causing Texas to bake and pelting the Southern States’ tornado alley (MS, AL, GA), are thrusting cold Atlantic air from the East, all the way into Southern Illinois. I suspect the Canadian fires contributed, but something screeched those pressure cyclones to a stop — they really need to get their asses moving again…

  20. “”US torpedoed Israeli brokered Ukrainian /Russia peace deal … link below. This is separate from the one brokered by Erdogan that was also torpedoed by the US/GB”

    Not to be confused with the original “peace talks,” three weeks after the start of the fireworks, where Putin and Zelensky arranged to meet, to discuss details and make an arrangement. That’d be the first deal that never happened, because the idiot in the White House told Zelensky that peace was not an option, until Putin was permanently out of office and out of power. This was briefly in the mainstream press and I mentioned it here at the time. Does anyone think Putin didn’t hear about it? If Vlad had said the same thing about Biden, or about intending to own all the economy from Punta Arenas to Nome, we’d have had five carrier groups off Russian waters within two weeks.

  21. “Do-It-Yourself Law Enforcement is being invented in Texas: Dallas residents must soon report some offenses online to free up officers for more serious crimes.”

    DIY Law Enforcement: 5 parts aqua regia, then wash the leftovers in phosphoric acid…

  22. One caution I would make, regarding high- or super-insulated homes is:

    Da house gotta breathe.

    If you make things too tight, you will have very serious condensation and blackmold issues in very short order. The University of Minnesota is probably the best source for information regarding highly-insulated dwellings, and (I believe) is also the BEST source for scientificish studies on underground housing…

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