Someone politely inform me when I'm headed too far O/T - there's not
exactly a lot of people around you can talk about this stuff with...

> call me a dreamer, but if PV cells increase their efficiency by just a few %
> points, they will outprice everything, subsidies be damned.

Aren't they there already? I thought we hit parity in like 2012. The
graphs are pretty amazing, really. I don't see the world economy as
being around to support the exponential solar growth we're seeing much
longer, unfortunately. I guess when we go full 1929 it's moot in
either event, we won't need coal either to power our non-factories for
our non-workers. All the job growth in the last decade was for the
walmart crew, I think the efficiency would have to skyrocket to see
their demographic afford rooftop, so I guess TEP's back to running the
show. I don't know about the rest of the world, but the US appears to
need a full revolution to dump the plutogarchs or it's going to be
Greece for us in perpetuity. The electorate doesn't seem ready to
deliver the goods though...

> Combine that will what Elon Musk is trying to do with battery technology, and I'm pretty
> sure fossil fuels are pretty doomed over the next 10 years.

That rankles a bit. Musk is in the snake oil biz. If we get better
batteries, it's going to be from the efforts of someone else. Anyone
with an exiting battery bank (wish I could've afforded NiFe instead of
LiFe) and the ability to compare specs can see you can buy a better
battery than the junk he's selling right now, and from the Chinese no
less! I run a healthy quantity of them in my bike fleet also...his
breakthroughs are in marketing, not science...shame...we­ need a 'real'
Musk before the wet bulb temp hits 35 in the worst way...but I guess a
depression will deliver the goods similarly, the unemployed don't
drive much or use much electricity...

Cest la vive, I'm going to go be a hypocrite and burn a whole host of
gasoline for the holiday for a couple weeks! Gotta make the most
before my job goes away - I'm in the metals industry, which is kinda
at the base of most other industry and I can tell you first hand, the
phone hasn't exactly been ringing since 2009 if you get my
drift...keeps me up at night a bit obviously.

The science dictates what is *possible*, the economy dictates what is
*probable*...

Steve