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GE is laying off 20% of its workforce devoted to onshore wind power, costing hundreds of jobs
CNBC ^ | 10/6/2022 | Seema Mody

Posted on 10/06/2022 9:14:44 AM PDT by Tell It Right

General Electric is laying off 20 percent of its U.S. onshore wind workforce, which equates to hundreds of jobs, according to a person familiar with the matter who declined to be named.

(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: energy; ge; green; wind
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Onshore wind never made sense to me. Even if you believe that wind energy has some potential, it always seemed to me the only chance of it working would be offshore.

Onshore wind had about as much chance as monogamy in homosexual relationships.

1 posted on 10/06/2022 9:14:44 AM PDT by Tell It Right
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To: Tell It Right

Just wait until they start installing them on the 30 million acres of Gulf of Mexico off LA and TX. To supply 11 million homes. Hmmmmmm! 😵‍💫 Anyone see an issue with that?


2 posted on 10/06/2022 9:22:40 AM PDT by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this? 😕)
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To: Tell It Right

Another “green energy” sector which will be left to the Chinese - all while our satanic green leaders continue to promote “renewable energy.”


3 posted on 10/06/2022 9:24:40 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: Tell It Right

Thorium... thorium... thorium... etc.


4 posted on 10/06/2022 9:26:43 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear (This is not a tagline.)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

Ditto. Thorium.


5 posted on 10/06/2022 9:33:33 AM PDT by RonEB
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To: rktman; who_would_fardels_bear
Just wait until they start installing them on the 30 million acres of Gulf of Mexico off LA and TX. To supply 11 million homes. Hmmmmmm! 😵‍💫 Anyone see an issue with that?

At this point I see an issue with depending too much on any energy source I can't manage on my own. It doesn't matter if it's hydro, oil, coal, natural gas, uranium, thorium, solar, or wind. The #1 problem with any energy source begins with who's managing it. As long as the Dims can get their control-freak hands between it and you, they will.

That's why most of the energy my family needs comes from the sunlight radiating onto our property. The only two people managing our solar power are God and me. And I can always count on God.

6 posted on 10/06/2022 9:34:37 AM PDT by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: Tell It Right

CO2 IS PLANT FOOD!
More CO2 = more plants
More PLANTS = more FOOD
MORE FOOD = MORE HUMANS
Except for THEM, THEIR FAMILIES & FRIENDS, the elites/globalists want earth’s population reduced to UNDER 2 BILLION humans, most of whom would be allowed to live in order to serve THEM.
Why would those responsible propagate and perpetuate this fraud? Perhaps because like a herd of sheep, moved this way and that by a barking sheepdog, a frightened population, ignorant of the FACTS or SCIENCE, is more easily herded to some desired destination. In our case, that destination is a New World Order CORRAL constructed by globalist oligarchs hellbent on creating the compliant & subservient population required to serve THEM & THEIR needs.
But they have a problem: Too many of us are still not in the abattoir corral but milling around near the gate.
After Reagan bankrupted the USSR and European communism became less of a threat (not to worry, as it has been replaced by our homegrown version in the Democrats), a meeting of Western elites at Iron Mountain, Michigan wrestled with the problem of with what to replace communism as a means to frighten the citizens of the West and so resume their herding into the corral. GLOBAL WARMING (now CLIMATE CHANGE) won the coin toss.
BOTTOM LINE: The “global warming” SCAM – perpetuated by the pseudoscience grant money whores – is all about making the “ELITES” lives as comfortable as possible by eliminating competition for the resources they, due to their SUPERIOR BREEDING & STATUS, view as THEIRS.
CO2 is PLANT FOOD!
CONSPIRACY? YOU BET YOUR ASS!


7 posted on 10/06/2022 9:35:38 AM PDT by Dick Bachert
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To: Tell It Right; rktman
I assume you have reasonably priced solar panels on your property that have (or will have) returned your initial investment in a reasonable amount of time.

If this is the case, then the reason you were able to obtain those solar panels is because they were made at a factory which fabricated hundreds or thousands of similar panels.

That factory could not have done so unless it had access to traditional power sources such as electricity from massive power plants or oil/gas from massive refineries.

If/when your solar panels begin to fail, then you will need to acquire new ones. Those panels will be much better than the ones you currently have because they were developed and manufactured by companies that also required access to traditional power sources.

But let's say you want to go completely off grid. You could live in a hut in the woods and get your only energy from a waterwheel you built in a nearby stream and wood you cut and burn. This might work in a place like the US where we in general have law and order (at least for a bit longer), but it wouldn't work in places like Central America where you would soon be found out by terrorists or drug cartels and either murdered or forced into being a drug mule or worse.

The society which could theoretically provide someone with a Jeremiah Johnson type lifestyle requires access to massive amounts of traditional energy supplies. You don't get law and order from a few solar panels and a windmill or two.

8 posted on 10/06/2022 9:47:10 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear (This is not a tagline.)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

I have none. I have space off roof for plenty but the ROI at this point is past my “Use By” date. 😎👍


9 posted on 10/06/2022 9:52:51 AM PDT by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this? 😕)
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To: Tell It Right

Is GE still a woke clusterfark?


10 posted on 10/06/2022 9:53:41 AM PDT by Fido969 (45 is Superman! )
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To: PGR88

You mean the Germans and Spaniards.


11 posted on 10/06/2022 9:56:20 AM PDT by RayChuang88 (FairTax: America's Economic Cure)
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To: rktman

The storms in the gulf will have a field day tearing them up!


12 posted on 10/06/2022 10:00:47 AM PDT by 100%FEDUP (I'm seeing RED!)
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To: Tell It Right

Offshore is where power generation should be aimed. There are yet technologies to be developed and scaled up that could generate massive amounts of energy from tides and ocean currents. Presently such generation has used conventional turbine technology with its attendant problems. Better would be to use systems that leverage nature - such as fin technology to use the water pressure and motion forces in much the same way a fish uses its tail fin or other fins. The oscillation motion can be translated to rotary motion to generate electricity. Primary stumbling blocks are materials that won’t corrode, but as titanium production gets cheaper with newer technologies that enabling technology could spark a lot of activity. Environmental concerns would be minimized when you essentially have fins in water instead of turbines. Tim Finnegan in Australia did some work that was the subject of a 2008 article, don’t know what has happened to his invention.


13 posted on 10/06/2022 10:02:41 AM PDT by LibertyOh
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To: LibertyOh

Hmmmmmm! Seems like whenever we genius humans somehow impede the natural flow of things we screw it up.


14 posted on 10/06/2022 10:07:42 AM PDT by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this? 😕)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

Definitely thorium. I’ll take a mini reactor in my backyard please.


15 posted on 10/06/2022 10:08:29 AM PDT by ConservativeInPA ( Scratch a leftist and you'll find a fascist )
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To: Tell It Right
Several others in the wind biz are cutting staff according to report I heard on Fox biz. Seimens and others.

This nonsense about forcing the world to move on from fossil fuels, when there is no available alternative, only exposes the true agenda.

"go ahead and jump out of this plane...we'll have a parachute available any day now...."

See tagline:

16 posted on 10/06/2022 10:16:53 AM PDT by G Larry (Population Control means Killing Billions, not "limiting growth".)
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To: 100%FEDUP
The storms in the gulf will have a field day tearing them up!
Righto!

Climate Change is making hurricanes more numerous and more powerful so their answer is to place massive, yet fragile, structures in their path.

17 posted on 10/06/2022 10:22:57 AM PDT by citizen (Thieves of private property pass their lives in chains; thieves of public prop. in riches and luxury)
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To: LibertyOh

We have an abundance of gas...and it’s clean energy and cost effective...and not at the mercy of storms. When will the politicians wise up. There is no climate emergency. It is what it is.


18 posted on 10/06/2022 10:23:03 AM PDT by Sacajaweau ( )
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To: who_would_fardels_bear
My wife and I live a little too lavishly to depend on power from a water wheel (or even a modern micro water turbine like in this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P26Qwggdy8k). Especially with most of our driving being in our EV which adds to the power demand (but lets us choose for the most part which days to charge it, which increases our overall efficiency from solar by charging the EV from the solar powered outlet if we already have 100+miles left on the EV's range anyway).

So when the time comes to repair/upgrade components, where will I get the replacement parts? That's the value of the free market. If you get your power only from the grid then you probably have only one option as a local utility, and it is heavily regulated by the state. Thus no free market in getting your power the traditional route. But if I need new solar panels I can buy them from Mission Solar in Texas who made the first ones, or Tesla (too pricy for me), or First Solar (also USA), or Q Cells (Georgia, USA), or Crossroads (Indiana), or LG Solar (South Korea, though for a while they made some in Huntsville, AL), or Aionrise (nation of Georgia, not the Hershel Walker version of Georgia), or Canadian Solar, or many others. The same with inverters and batteries.

And you're right. My return is projected to to pay for the investment on about the 11th or 12th year. That includes the extra in cost for the EV vs replacing my wife's car with another used gas car like we were about to anyway. That also includes all the hookups that go with it (labor for solar installation, hooking up two EV charging outlets, setting up one outlet on a separate load panel that gets powered only when my home solar batteries are charged enough to make it through the night without pulling from the grid, but have another 240V outlet to charge the car with constant power if the EV is low on charge, etc.). That calculation assumes only a reasonable 3% inflation rate in the energy costs I'm mainly avoiding (price of natural gas, power, and gasoline). Obviously if the Dims keep having their way and energy has a higher inflation rate then my project pays for itself sooner. That's also paying interest on both the EV as car payments and on the HELOC loan I took out to pay for the home energy improvements and solar equipment and installation. That payoff calculation accounts for savings at the gas pump and oil changes (also assuming a 3% inflation rate), but having to replace the EV battery in 10 years, but also not having to buy yet another used car on average every 7 years like we've done for many years for $10K (today's prices).

That also assumes a gradual decline in energy production and storage with my solar panels having a 25-year warranty guaranteed to still be producing 70% in the final year (half of my panels guaranteed at 80% in the 25th year), and my home batteries having a 19-year/50% warranty. Hopefully I won't need to replace any solar equipment before the payback is done (it will cost me labor but not parts). If I'm right then the remaining years the equipment lasts past the payoff is icing on the cake.

But that's not as important as the fact that this project has shifted most of our variable future energy expenses into fixed costs. I went from wondering how much energy price inflation would eat up our retirement investments, to paying a fixed HELOC payment and for a few years a fixed car payment (for the EV). Basically it allows me when I begin retirement in a few years to keep my Roth IRA/401K investments more aggressive than I normally would have because it'll cost a lot less to power our house and drive around. I told my wife that I'll still pull the same $450/month from our budget that we were spending in year 2019 for power bill + natural gas bill + gasoline to drive one car ~200 miles/week (back when both of us worked full time and commuted to the office, but today count only 1 car's worth to relate to driving around now with one person retired and one person working from home a lot). The only thing is I'm now using that $450/month to make the HELOC payment (after taking out $30-ish to pay the tiny power bill). When the HELOC payment + power bill is well under the $450/month (because the HELOC minimum payment goes down as the balance is paid down), I'll put the excess into a simple investment account just for future solar maintenance/upgrades. (The interest rate on the HELOC is low and fixed, might as well get a decent return in simple mutual funds instead of paying down a low interest rate loan.)

Dig this: the energy portion of our budget will forever be like it's year 2019. In year 2040 (when my first batteries' 19-year warranty expires), the investment account will have $54K (assuming 10% annual return) and I will have saved $61K on top of that in my retirement investment accounts by virtue of the fact that I will draw only $450/month from them for our energy budget (vs the higher and higher energy costs I'm avoiding). Obviously I'll pull more than that from retirement accounts for other costs of living, but this post is about energy costs. I wish I could make all inflation go away in my budget, but I'll settle for making energy inflation go away.

Will $54K be enough to replace my batteries in 18 years? I dunno. So far solar equipment is like computers in that as the years go by they go down in price relative to throughput. (This year they went up in price like everything else because of Brandon.) So a future battery stack capable of at least 92kWh storage and 86kW of power on demand at any time might be cheaper in 18 years like data processing power and storage is cheaper per gHz and TB than it was 18 years ago. The same with solar panels.

19 posted on 10/06/2022 10:44:10 AM PDT by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: Tell It Right

I believe that GE is now OWNED by the Chinese..


20 posted on 10/06/2022 11:16:56 AM PDT by CMailBag
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