Excellent ticker, as usual, Karl.

It's utterly depressing to talk to my fellow physicists about these issues. They all get thermodynamics in an abstract way, but not in practical terms. Worse, they're also exceptionally bad at understanding the macroeconomic implications of the BS they're peddling to our students. 99% of them believe in solar + wind + storage and fully electrified future, electricity prices be damned.

Here's another point. Most people understand that outsourcing is due to cheap labor, but are oblivious to the cheap energy arbitrage that is underneath it all. All the cheap Chinese crap we buy is made with cheap electricity from coal. As we ramp up our renewables driving energy costs higher and higher, expect outsourcing to get WAY worse. Ditto with food prices. Just imagine EV farming combines. Madness.