You also have to deal with a ton of extra plumbing and envelope penetrations, and the space the thermal solar collector takes up doesn’t fit nicely with a solar PV array either. A HPWH might use 800 kWh/year, so thats like less than two 400+ W panels to cover all your water heating. I think thermal solar is fine tech and there are certainly situations where it makes sense (perhaps yours) but overwhelmingly HPWH is more cost effective and simpler.

There are a few over 3.3 on the ESTAR product finder, and I think this is just a reflection that these products are new and there aren’t that many out there. It’s all a bit dumb since a 240V can be run in hybrid/high output/electric resistance mode and kill your efficiency, but the 120V are usually HP only and they have the exact same compressor since they only need like 800watts in HP mode, so there’s no reason for their efficiency to be lower whatsoever. Do what you need to do to get that incentive money though.

There are 120V HPWHs now too. Depending on your water use and incoming water temps, it could be an even cheaper solution since you might avoid the wiring run.

Never say never. There are hard income limits for certain tax credits, like EV tax credits, and some weird COVID relief funds for dependents that actually do result in situations where you get less money for making more money. Also things like ability to fund a Roth IRA. I know because it has happened to me. Even following the tax table results in some situations where you can make a few bucks less by earning more, as someone pointed out above. Other folks have pointed out other benefits cliffs and higher education shenanigans. But you’re generally right.

I’ve been to Maui once and it blew my mind that there isn’t at least a light rail that goes from the popular beach areas to the airport. They are like 3 main roads they could follow in a loop. Tax the shit out of the tourists and get free light rail for residents. Tourists already spend $1000/week on cars/parking at resorts that just make life miserable for locals, just take that wasted money and build rail, powered by abundant sunshine/batteries. The status quo is so absurd.

They said it was orange corn flour all along, and they have a history of not actually damaging anything but using the appearance of “damage” to make a point. Corn flour is a very simple, inert substance. You’re actually demonstrating the hypocrisy that this group is trying to highlight - more concern over something like corn flour damaging these rocks than the damage done by millions of barrels of crude oil extracted every day. Where’s your outrage over acid/micro plastic in rain that falls on these stone every week? There will be new species of moss that grow on these rocks, or pollen that blows on them from invasive species, possibly damaging them as the climate heats up - are you worried about that? Why can folks summon outrage over something inert that touched a famous rock, but not for destruction of the actual biosphere? If Stonehenge is that fragile, why are people allowed anywhere near it? You’re more than welcome to disagree with them, but if you spend more energy complaining about Just Stop Oil than you do complaining about actual oil companies, you’re actually just supporting the oil companies.

https://professortorberts.com/shop/

If you’d been paying attention, you’d know it wasn’t permanent from the get go.

That’s not the comparison at all, the comparison is what the sattelites are made of (mostly aluminum) and what the meteors are made of (mostly other stuff, like earth).

Is it actually better than coal though? It takes very little methane leakage to be as damaging as coal. Methane is shitty and we really shouldn’t celebrate any of its use.

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/14/1187648553/natural-gas-can-rival-coals-climate-warming-potential-when-leaks-are-counted

It may be true that Starlink is a great service, but that’s entirely irrelevant to the point of the article and any ozone destruction that the satellites cause.

Are you just doing the thing where you cast doubt on journal articles because they feel wrong? You don’t think humans can affect the natural environment in such a way? This sounds oddly familiar and a bit ironic for this community…

Meteors aren’t made out of aluminum like satellites are btw. There will be more reasearch done and we will learn more. But for now, there’s a potential issue.

https://phys.org/news/2024-06-satellite-megaconstellations-jeopardize-recovery-ozone.amp

We’re a lot better at standing, walking, and running long distances. Not sure if I’d say objectively worse, just better at different things (but objectively way less cool than peeling a banana and eating it with your feet).

What kind of ice are you riding on? Snow, even packed snow it usually ok, but turning/braking on ice is a disaster without studded tires. Source - I’ve crashed on ice several times despite being a very competent rider in all conditions for 3 decades.

The reality is everything is at risk with a fascist anti-environmentalist leader, especially if they have a majority of Congress and the courts. I just don’t see how exercising additional restraint with respect to fuel economy standards, as if that creates opportunities for abuse down the road, helps anything here. The EPA is following the law, and should keep doing that. Your example with asbestos is just the EPA not regulating harder, so let’s applaud harder regulation.

As to the last 20 years, considering the makeup of Congress, I’d say the IRA was monumental.

I respect that (and am also very passionate about this topic too). I was nearly hooked just yesterday while in our new “protected bike lane” by some asswipe in an SUV and fortunately braked hard early because of a weird feeling I had about them when I glanced over. I was just loosely trying to stay on topic here. Stay safe friend.

This echoes generic fear mongering of regulation from the conservative side. The EPA operates according to specific rules, it’s not just out there making random policies. Legislation creates the mandate, they promulgate within the law. What does “but will it always” do good things even mean? What are some bad things the EPA has done in your mind? Saying the government shouldn’t have the power to regulate emissions that are destroying the biosphere is absurd. There’s no right to ICE vehicles in perpetuity enshrined in the constitution. If the EPA ever start doing truly asinine things, then we elect leaders to change the laws dictating their mandate. This is just basic democracy stuff.

What company assets are you even referring to? This is about seizing profits, you know like fines and taxes already do. I think you’d make a lot of friends seizing profits from these already subsidized companies that are doing great harm to the biosphere, but you do you.

Are you saying you don’t also want the 6 things they talk about on the article? The point is there’s is broad public support for a range of good policies, so let’s try to aggressively do those things. We can also work on other, harder things.

I’m a bike commuter and a strong towns type too, but despite this basket of policies being beneficial to everyone, it’s like a prisoners dilemma of inaction. The chicken and egg game of removing parking and building transit is just exhausting and unfortunately doesn’t poll well because most people can’t think long term (or even medium term).

Not defending return to office, but public transit, EVs, walking, biking, etc. I can’t imagine federal employees that aren’t already in offices already making up anywhere near the 12% total carbon reduction for the entire country. This is a remarkable policy, now let’s just ramp those prices up (and it would be nice if it made its way south to the US).

That’s fair. In my neck of the woods for example (Colorado) the utility preemptively shut power down for a bunch of customers the other month because they didn’t want to be liable for (another) fire during a red flag event. This is a first for Colorado, although it’s been happening in California for awhile. It didn’t go over well (for many reasons) but I’ve heard of several neighbors going out and spending $10k on gas generators to backup their homes. This is frankly fucking stupid to me - spend the money on solar/battery if you must, then you can have resiliency while also reducing carbon massively. Yes I know solar/storage costs more upfront than $10k, but a) if you’ve got $10k on standby for outages only you can afford solar/storage, and b) that money actually has a real payback period vs the sunk cost of a whole home gas generator. It’s madness. So when people I talk to in my sphere talk about resiliency, it’s generally ass backward conventional thinking that’s often counterproductive and a waste of resources. We have got to find a way to have smarter conversations about this and educate folks, rather than let the prepper industry play that role. Sorry for the rant!