What ho one and all,

I received regular updates from a web site called Quora; many of the questions and answers are very interesting.

Just come across this one; don't know how true is is but ...

Having read it, I did Google George Franklin and came up with many links and various interesting files.
https://www.newspapers.com/article/el-paso-times-george-c-franklin-nasa-en/132562132/

As more & more counties get more solar farms...here's some truth about solar farms. Note: the largest solar farms in Canada are in Alberta...

From a STEPHENVILLE resident, George Franklin:

I should start by telling you what bonafides I have for writing this. I am a retired aerospace engineer. A literal rocket scientist if you will. I worked on MX (Peacekeeper) Space Shuttle, Hubble, Brilliant Pebbles, PACOSS, Space Station, MMU, B2, the Sultan of Brunei's half billion dollar private 747 with crystal showers, gold sinks and 100 dollar a yard coiffed silk carpets. I designed a satphone installation on prince Jeffry's 757. I did all of the design work for the structure of Mark 1V propulsion module currently flying on at least 3 spacecraft that I know of. Some of the more exciting projects I have worked on are not shareable.
My personal projects include a spin fishing reel with a 4.5 inch spool which is entirely my own designed, machined and assembled. It has 2 features that are patentable. A unique true flat level wind and a unique line pickup mechanism. I am also am FAA certified glider pilot and FAI certified gold glider pilot. I fly both full scale and model sailplanes. I am Microsoft certified and ComTIA A+ certified.
Solar panels are at best about 20% efficient. They convert almost 0% of the UV light that hits them. None of the visible spectrum and only some of the IR spectrum. At the same time as they are absorbing light they are absorbing heat from the sun. This absorbed heat is radiated into the adjacent atmosphere. It should be obvious what happens next.
When air is warmed it rises. Even small differences in ordinary land surfaces are capable of creating powerful forces of weather like thunderstorms and tornadoes. These weather phenomena are initiated and reinforced by land features as they are blown downwind. It is all too obvious to me what will happen with the heat generated by an entire solar farm. Solar farms will become thunderstorm and tornado incubators and magnets.
Solar panels are dark and and they emit energy to the space above them when they are not being radiated. This is known as black-body radiation. Satellites flying in space use this phenomenon to cool internal components. If they didn't do this they would fry themselves.
So solar farms not only produce more heat in summer than the original land that they were installed on, but they also produce more cooling in winter, thus exacerbating weather extremes.
So I conclude with this. There is nothing green about green energy except the dirty money flowing into corrupt pockets.
There is no such thing as green energy. The science doesn't exist. The technology doesn't exist. The engineering doesn't exist. We are being pushed to save the planet with solutions that are worse than the problems.

Waddya think?

Knows how to bang his own drum. I do not know what to make of it

I can't say that I fully agree with him because, what do I know? But he certainly has more credentials than I do so perhaps there is something to what he says.

Posted By: RexBut he certainly has more credentials than I do so perhaps there is something to what he says.

Well there could be, but he's obviously wrong on so many points so why not assume he's wrong on all the rest? Basically common sense doesn't need credentials! Neither does having them prevent mistakes or lying. Or sock puppets etc etc. On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog.

The internet has changed in the last few years. It's become cheap and easy to use bots to flood a low-credibility website with guff like this. Eventually some credulous individuals will start reposting it for them, into higher-credibilty sites like GBF. Then someone else will think 'I read it on GBF so it must be true' and repost it somewhere else, and next thing you know it's being quoted in national newspapers. Once the lies are repeated 1e6 times they become the truth.

I've seen this nonexistent 'George Franklin' appearing in a few places. As well as being a rocket scientist and aircraft interior decorator with entry-level IT helpdesk qualifications, he is sometimes also a helicopter pilot, AI consultant, medical researcher, Florida religious leader. Presumably a lies-bot has plucked itself a couple of names from US history to give itself some persona. He has never yet had any background in energy or climate science, perhaps the intended audience wouldn't like that.

There are a lot of actors who might have started this particular one:
- interested in undermining credibility of present US government energy policy: china, russia, far-right
- interested in undermining renewable electricity: middle east states, oil and coal companies, politicians representing mining or oil constituencies, unhappy bneighbours of PV developments
- interested in creating something eye-catching or controversial: influencers, bloggers, talk hosts


To break this cycle, everyone needs to treat controversial stuff we read on the internet as lies until proven true, we can't assume any more that it's true until proven false. Sad, because it makes the internet less useful.


PS if a PV panel that wastes 80% of sunlight as heat, is dangerously overheating the weather, then think how dangerous it would be to put soil or plants or buildings there instead, which waste almost 100% of sunlight as heat!

One green initiative will definitely have a meteorological effect, the extent may be very small but it is increasing, and that is the energy taken out of the wind by wind turbines. It will interrupt the system at one level or another. Wonder what Lorenz would make of that.

Posted By: revorthe energy taken out of the wind by wind turbines. It will interrupt the system at one level or another

Effectively using up Earth's angular momentum, converting it ultimately to heat which is dissipated into space. Earth will get locked sooner to the moon first (as the moon has already become to Earth) and eventually to the sun. But how soon? I've only ever seen one estimate, and it was millions of years.

Another similar, separate from the GHG issue, is the simple increase in heat that humans dump into the biosphere, whether by burning fossil, increasing solar capture (by PV, wave, tide, and wind as above), or increasing geothermal retrieval from the depths. To dissipate that extra heat will require a higher equilibrium surface temperature. But how much? Again, it seems to be negligible.

Posted By: Rex
Waddya think?

Clearly rubbish.

Posted By: Rex"How much googling did you do? First page of results and this:"

I came up with the posted info on Quora so did Google him. There are a lot of George Franklins, but the link I gave take you to the correct NASA engineer.

He may not be right but he does have extremely good 'seat of the pants' engineering background.

Mea culpa

Getting the wrong Mr Franklin - that was embarrassing, apologies Rex.

I saw the article you linked and thought this chap must be about 94, and unlikely to be alive, let alone actively posting on the internet.

however I do share what appears to be a growing consensus - the article is misinformation

I know a fairy, her name is Nuff -- Fairy Nuff

Did not consider any AI bot content but yes, that is a realistic possibility.

A friend who runs a local coffee shop, used ChatGPT to create a recruitment flyer. It made working in the coffee shop amazingly attractive. A food fun read!