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Climate Change 2: Thank God for Global Warming

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Re: Climate Change 2: Thank God for Global Warming

climate change is inconvenient because people have to be willing to change their lifestyle. It's easier to just say its all made up.

Such as? If the investment into solar, wind, and nuclear was enough, we would not be burning stuff for our electricity. But you would still have electricity. If we just did that for the entire power grid, the change would be enormous. And the possibility of making HUGE money supplying solar, wind, and nuclear power is very much there- hampered by the coal, gas, and oil plant owners who want to keep their money flowing.

Once we do that, we can talk transportation.
 
Such as? If the investment into solar, wind, and nuclear was enough, we would not be burning stuff for our electricity. But you would still have electricity. If we just did that for the entire power grid, the change would be enormous. And the possibility of making HUGE money supplying solar, wind, and nuclear power is very much there- hampered by the coal, gas, and oil plant owners who want to keep their money flowing.


Once we do that, we can talk transportation.

People think short term. Short term going to completely renewables would be a huge investment passed onto rate payers. If you can convince yourself climate change is a liberal conspiracy then it’s not worth it. Also you can’t drive a manly jacked up truck that spews black smoke. Only sissys drive hybrids.

Those of us that believe science see the benefit in investing in renewables. Both for the sake of our planet and long-term economic benefit.

But hell, I don’t want to give up airplane travel, which has a big-*** carbon footprint. And I’ll never give up my gas cooktop (some cities in California are banning installation of gas appliances).

BTW — Im not sure I’d lump nuclear in there. It’s good froma carbon perspective but it’s super expensive to build and not very popular post Fukushima. I don’t know if nuclear will ever be cost effective in my lifetime. It costs billions to build a single reactor now.
 
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That’s the insane thing, it doesn’t require you change that much even. We have the technology.

As much as I hate Teslas and think they’re garbage, we have a (somewhat) working model to fix cars. We have solar technology that could work if everyone had rooftop grids. The list is endless.

Just subsidize the green tech.

Sure, but its easier to do nothing. And telling yourself it’s liberal hysteria gives you an out other than just being selfish.

Right now electric cars are still a lifestyle change (that’s totally manageable for most people), but it’s still less convenient. It’s not impossible — I know a family that owns two Teslas and that’s it. They are all electric. They drove one to Florida from Maine for a vacation (I think they drove instead of flew because they loved the cars so much).
 
Re: Climate Change 2: Thank God for Global Warming

People think short term. Short term going to completely renewables would be a huge investment passed onto rate payers. If you can convince yourself climate change is a liberal conspiracy then it’s not worth it. Also you can’t drive a manly jacked up truck that spews black smoke. Only sissys drive hybrids.

Those of us that believe science see the benefit in investing in renewables. Both for the sake of our planet and long-term economic benefit.

But hell, I don’t want to give up airplane travel, which has a big-*** carbon footprint. And I’ll never give up my gas cooktop (some cities in California are banning installation of gas appliances).

BTW — Im not sure I’d lump nuclear in there. It’s good froma carbon perspective but it’s super expensive to build and not very popular post Fukushima. I don’t know if nuclear will ever be cost effective in my lifetime. It costs billions to build a single reactor now.

I’ll cut you if you take my gas stove.
 
Re: Climate Change 2: Thank God for Global Warming

People think short term. Short term going to completely renewables would be a huge investment passed onto rate payers. If you can convince yourself climate change is a liberal conspiracy then it’s not worth it. Also you can’t drive a manly jacked up truck that spews black smoke. Only sissys drive hybrids.

Those of us that believe science see the benefit in investing in renewables. Both for the sake of our planet and long-term economic benefit.

But hell, I don’t want to give up airplane travel, which has a big-*** carbon footprint. And I’ll never give up my gas cooktop (some cities in California are banning installation of gas appliances).

BTW — Im not sure I’d lump nuclear in there. It’s good froma carbon perspective but it’s super expensive to build and not very popular post Fukushima. I don’t know if nuclear will ever be cost effective in my lifetime. It costs billions to build a single reactor now.

If we put the subsidies into nuclear that we do for oil, it would be considerably less expensive to build. As well as include all of the safe solutions that most nuclear engineers seem to know about- which were missing in Japan. Let alone, the various other ideas that are far less wasteful and dangerous that are going around.

Seems to me that the overall narrative is 100% being driven by oil, which prevents any real consideration of good alternatives.

Just like the whole bio fuel discussion is being driven by corn, which pushes out far more energy rich sugar beets and sugar cane. Let alone the plants that grow a good amount of oil, like rapeseed.

And it totally misses the very factual economic opportunity for growth in renewable fuel. One that oil will never get to see since they divested from it 30 years ago.
 
Re: Climate Change 2: Thank God for Global Warming

If we put the subsidies into nuclear that we do for oil, it would be considerably less expensive to build. As well as include all of the safe solutions that most nuclear engineers seem to know about- which were missing in Japan. Let alone, the various other ideas that are far less wasteful and dangerous that are going around.

Seems to me that the overall narrative is 100% being driven by oil, which prevents any real consideration of good alternatives.

Just like the whole bio fuel discussion is being driven by corn, which pushes out far more energy rich sugar beets and sugar cane. Let alone the plants that grow a good amount of oil, like rapeseed.

And it totally misses the very factual economic opportunity for growth in renewable fuel. One that oil will never get to see since they divested from it 30 years ago.

Yes. Very good post.
 
In think Germany is now completely on renewables.

It isn’t that hard.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. They're still at about 35% coal/lignite. They do have a plan to close all coal mines in the next 15ish years. However, they also still buy some energy from neighboring countries, which is fossil fuel powered. So I don't know if that's better.
 
Re: Climate Change 2: Thank God for Global Warming

Unfortunately, that's not the case. They're still at about 35% coal/lignite. They do have a plan to close all coal mines in the next 15ish years. However, they also still buy some energy from neighboring countries, which is fossil fuel powered. So I don't know if that's better.

Was it Germany that shut down nuclear after Fukishima then backed it out when they realized that would push their coal right back up again?
 
Re: Climate Change 2: Thank God for Global Warming

You'd think Republicans would be all in on something called "rapeseed."

-I'll show myself out.
 
Re: Climate Change 2: Thank God for Global Warming

Nuclear is not an option. The most dangerous place in the world is still that basement in Pripyat. It will be for the next several generations. Even now the waste is eating through the concrete floor and eventually (on a geologic scale, not a human one) that radiation will leak through and contaminate the ground water for...how many tens of millions? Already there are fish in the Pacific testing positive following Fukushima. The problem is only going to get worse as it moves up the food chain and they end up in the seafood section of your supermarket. And, oh BTW, Fukushima is still spreading highly radioactive water into the Pacific. Use as many safety measures as you want. It will never be safe. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tidal waves, any number of natural disasters can come along and destroy the power plant. Even now there's a ticking time bomb under the melting Greenland ice. No, not the greenhouse gasses, though that's its own problem. The remnants of Camp Century, including the nuclear reactor and all the waste. Thankfully the engineers figured out unstable ice sheets were not a good place to put nuclear missiles or we'd really have a nightmare but all that radioactive waste is just what the Atlantic needs. Estimates were that would happen in about 80 years, but the Greenland ice is melting much faster than anticipated and those estimates are now short enough that some of us will be alive to see the waste drift into the ocean. Yay!
 
Re: Climate Change 2: Thank God for Global Warming

Nuclear is not an option.

I know, I was just saying it's included in the renawables count so being all renewable per se is not all that great for the environment.

The future is the angry glowing blob in the sky. It's pretty f-cking obvious.

All solar eventually means free power like free air and water, and incidentally will also be accompanied by the return of free air and water. It will be the third great leap forward, after the steam engine and electricity.

Free unlimited power plus FTL means we made it, we can get away from the apes.
 
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Re: Climate Change 2: Thank God for Global Warming

The holy grail is still fusion. Solar is just a bridge unless storage also advances significantly.
 
Re: Climate Change 2: Thank God for Global Warming

Nuclear is not an option. The most dangerous place in the world is still that basement in Pripyat. It will be for the next several generations. Even now the waste is eating through the concrete floor and eventually (on a geologic scale, not a human one) that radiation will leak through and contaminate the ground water for...how many tens of millions? Already there are fish in the Pacific testing positive following Fukushima. The problem is only going to get worse as it moves up the food chain and they end up in the seafood section of your supermarket. And, oh BTW, Fukushima is still spreading highly radioactive water into the Pacific. Use as many safety measures as you want. It will never be safe. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tidal waves, any number of natural disasters can come along and destroy the power plant. Even now there's a ticking time bomb under the melting Greenland ice. No, not the greenhouse gasses, though that's its own problem. The remnants of Camp Century, including the nuclear reactor and all the waste. Thankfully the engineers figured out unstable ice sheets were not a good place to put nuclear missiles or we'd really have a nightmare but all that radioactive waste is just what the Atlantic needs. Estimates were that would happen in about 80 years, but the Greenland ice is melting much faster than anticipated and those estimates are now short enough that some of us will be alive to see the waste drift into the ocean. Yay!

Fukishima was a flawed design. Chernobyl was an even more flawed design.

Breeder reactors keep reusing fuel, so waste isn't a problem.

And Thorium salt reactors- which are pretty unique in terms of how they work and their safety system, does show a lot of promise.

And we will need an alternative to solar when there's no sun and the batteries run out. Let alone, a system that is flexible enough to change relative to demand- which Solar and wind really isn't- they are subject to their supply more than the demand. Whatever that is- it's a power system that is robust to the surrounding environment. Heck, in an area that I'm a HUGE proponent of solar, and they have massive amounts of wind- post hurricane, they need *something* other than both, since neither can survive, at the moment.

Unless you have a better option than to just burn stuff.
 
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