It was challenging to figure out where to put this. It’s also environment, and it turns sharply political for Act III.
If you’re already familiar with renewables, there’s not a lot to learn here but the comparisons with fossil fuels and ethanol. Given that I’ve been on solar since 2023, I appreciated what he was saying to the uninitiated.
Get yourself some Act II if you plan on making it all the way through … it’s an hour and a half.
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I’ve always liked this man. Today I love him.
This was an unusual (For Alec) and remarkable episode. I found it very inspiring. Also Alec is one of the few YouTubers I know of on Fedi. @TechConnectify@mas.to
I’m pretty sure he abandoned his mastodon account a while back
You sure? He posted this very video 9 hours ago, and his last post was only a month ago.
I’d be glad to be wrong. I remember following him on Mastadon and I think he was complaining about either poor moderation tools on the platform or toxicity.
He seems to be active in replies to his own posts. I recall him being frustrated by a lack of tools available for high follower accounts like they apparently offer on Twitter.
Well… I can’t say his complaints were unfounded! Maybe he swapped to a different instance, maybe Mastodon tools got better since then, who knows.
mutherfuken 🔥
well done, alec.
Well that post credits gave me existential dread
It was nonetheless satisfying.
Is there a text summary?
ITT: deliberately unhelpful comments.
You know why text summaries are good? If I read a thesis statement and go “yup, I agree with the thesis and know enough about the major points raised to skip this” I save NINETY FUCKING MINUTES of my life. Alternatively, if I see something in the summary that piques my interest, I can watch the video to get more detail.
Text can’t capture the emotion and vulnerability that Alec put on the line here. A summary betrays the time and effort he put into making the video. He’s even got carefully crafted subtitles in case you watch it silently.
When I read a summary of a film before I go to watch it, I don’t assume that I have absorbed the intensity of an actor’s performance. I have been disappointed too many times by excessively long YouTube videos to spent an hour and a half without knowing what the general content of the video is.
naw. watch the video.
Honestly if you’re up on renewables and support them you can skip most of the video, just watch the last 20 mins where he gets angry about politics
This is what Kagi says:
This video argues that renewable energy technologies, particularly solar and wind power paired with battery storage, are now more cost-effective than fossil fuels, despite efforts to mislead the public. It highlights the economic advantages and long-term sustainability of renewables, contrasting them with the disposable and costly nature of petroleum-based energy, and touches upon political and societal aspects influencing the transition.
Problem is, this isn’t even wrong. Electricity is only useful for some things.
Another unfortunate thing: current renewable infrastructure cannot be built without fossil fuels we’re in the process of running out of.
touches upon political and societal aspects influencing the transition.
“Touches” for 20 straight minutes
In a video 1.5 h long, yeah, 20 minutes is a touch.
That’s certainly something you could look into. I provide original sources.
Watch the video.
this is youtube’s ai summary:
The video discusses the advantages of renewable energy technologies, primarily focusing on solar and wind power, compared to traditional fossil fuels like oil and natural gas (0:00).Here’s a breakdown of the key points:
Disposable vs. Durable Energy (1:19): The video highlights that petroleum is a “disposable” energy source, meaning it’s burned once and gone. In contrast, renewable energy infrastructure like solar panels and wind turbines are durable, one-time investments that generate free energy for decades.
Cost Comparison: Cars (10:14): The speaker compares the lifetime fuel cost of a gasoline-powered car (Nissan Cube) to the cost of installing solar panels to power an electric car (Hyundai Ioniq 5). He demonstrates that the money spent on gasoline for one car could purchase enough solar panels to power several homes for decades, or completely cover an electric car’s lifetime energy costs (18:59).
Solar Farms and Economics (22:33): The video explains that solar farms have virtually no operating costs (OPEX) once built, making them highly profitable. They can sell electricity at a lower price than natural gas plants and still generate healthy profits, which can be reinvested to build more solar farms.
Land Use for Solar (30:35): Addressing concerns about the land area required for solar farms, the video points out that a significant portion of agricultural land in the US is used to grow corn for ethanol, which is a far less efficient energy source than solar power. Converting just a quarter of this corn-for-ethanol land to solar farms could generate more electricity than the entire US grid currently produces annually (35:56).
Wind Power (38:29): Wind turbines are presented as another effective renewable energy source, capable of generating substantial power even on cloudy days and at night. The video likens their energy output to continuously “spitting out gasoline” (39:56).
Materials in Solar Panels (41:17): The video details that solar panels are primarily made of abundant materials like aluminum, glass, and adhesives, with the actual silicon cells being extremely thin. This contrasts with the constant extraction of raw materials for disposable fossil fuels.
Battery Technology (50:52): The video addresses concerns about batteries used with renewable energy, emphasizing their longevity (up to 5,000 charge cycles) and the ongoing advancements in battery chemistry that are extending lifespans, lowering costs, and reducing the need for rare materials.
Conclusion (1:02:41): The speaker concludes that based on economic realities and long-term thinking, renewable energy paired with energy storage is the most sensible and cost-effective path forward, and that misinformation surrounding it often comes from those protecting vested interests.
“AI” summary? Automatically disregarded. I’ll just watch the damn video.
If you know about PV and LFP, just skip to the politics for the last half hour.
I dunno, I did going in but what I got from it was his method of explaining it to people that truly don’t understand.
When you’ve bolted the panels to your roof, wired everything up, charged the batteries off the mains and flipped the breaker on the solar ahead of turning the master switch, there’s more apprehension than waiting in your own wedding processional.
Kinda need a human tldr for this AI tldr
It’s a 90 minute video. If you can’t read 420 words (nice) in summary of a 90 minute video, the problem isn’t the length of the summary.
That said, the summary does have other problems. Notably: it stops at the fake-out ending at 1:02:41, missing a full third of the video, wherein he starts getting more explicitly political and takes a strong anti-Republican, anti-ICE, anti-mainstream media conformity with the above stance, and explicitly endorses getting involved in politics including voting for Democrats not because they’re good, but because a literal wet towel would be a good option compared to the alternative.
He details Jimmy Carter putting water heating solar panels on the White House, and Reagan taking them down. Compares it to Biden passing the Inflation Reduction Act, which included renewable energy funding, and Trump illegally using an executive order to ignore that. He talks about the erosion of the 1st, 2nd, and 4th amendment rights in America. He quotes an essay critiquing King George prior to America’s independence, and points out the exact same words apply perfectly to Trump, before endorsing getting involved in Democratic primaries and voting Democrat in the mid-terms, and complains about lies like “non-citizens are voting” and “other countries will pay for our tariffs”.
He praises protesters in Minnesota, and endorses getting involved in on-the-ground organising and caring about other people.
“An essay” is an interesting choice of reference to the Declaration of Independence. I mean, I guess it was an essay by committee, but that undersells the source.
Oh that’s what it was? Neat! I didn’t know. (In case my instance doesn’t give it away, I’m not American.)
This made me laugh. Americans do forget they put their founding documents on a pedestal, when to the rest of the world they are just a series of essays and letters.
Ya. It was literally the letter that the colonies sent the king telling him to fok off
Maybe it’s about time for another essay.
Yeah, we were a bit peeved at the time.
