My thermo class in college was taught by a legitimate scientist. He had us work through the total cost and output of every possible “energy saving” scheme. None of them made sense even with the most generous assumptions.
My personal pet peeve is electric cars. The material for the battery is mined in dirt poor countries using child labor and water cannons. After the land is mined out it looks like the lunar surface and can barely support bacteria. The people went from poor to probably dead. When you figure the cost to the environment for the mining, transportation, the energy and environmental cost of refining and production, and disposal, the few nickels you save while driving the car are inconsequential. Then, there’s the fact that at the end of three, four, or even ten years, the cost of a replacement battery far out paces the value of the car and it gets junked years or decades before it would otherwise be junked if it was a “polluting” gas car. Then there’s the inconvenience of waiting for it to charge, finding a charge station and the possible rolling blackouts as the other unicorn poop planet saving technologies take long and unpredictable naps.
I can say, with certainty, that in the Northeast the grid is not prepared for that amount of load increase. Many lines are old and many areas are wooded and remote. There are nowhere near enough linemen, designers, and engineers to accomplish this work.
I’ve seen at least one engineer wish that all engineering students would have to take a project class, where you have to build and compete a vehicle using only parts from a set box of things (that everyone gets), that included a solar panel. That way, he said, all such students would gain an appreciation for just how weak a power source they were, how long it takes to collect useful energy, and how difficult it is to win a competition when that’s what you have to depend upon.
My Grandfather worked in a coal mine when he was 12.
Why would I be involved in supporting child labor?
Why would anyone for that matter?