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... are you accusing me of astroturfing? huh Do you want to know why so many of these initiatives fall apart? Because they get sold as pipe dreams. We'll just

... are you accusing me of astroturfing? huh Do you want to know why so many of these initiatives fall apart? Because they get sold as pipe dreams. We'll just throw solar cells on every roof (what I was actually replying to) and free energy for all! Yeah! We'll power the entire planet! Disagree with me? Screw you, you are just working for big oil! No. We need to be realistic. In some regions, solar is the bomb diggety. In others, wind can generate a lot of watts. And pretty much anywhere that has hydro or geothermal as an option do great. And in a subset of those, it is sufficient to handle power needs. So sell it that way. Don't perpetuate the myth that we are "just about there" because that makes it an easy target. Explain that it is still mostly about supplementing power and lessening dependencies. Because pushing the former just leads to "Your proposal will handle about a quarter of non-peak energy usage. And it will take at least a decade until it might get to 50?" ------- Also, you may want to consider reading other branches as most of your points (aside from the accusations of astroturfing...) were already brought up in other branches. And you'll see that I even praise the UK.

crdoconnor 10y ago
>... are you accusing me of astroturfing? huh No. I think when many people say "I want clean energy" they're not actually all that bothered. That's how proposals like the one I mentioned get killed off. Oil/gas interests can gin up a tepid nimby backlash and with a nod and a wink get the government to kill them off in response, and the government pays no political price for it. Meanwhile, a Chinese run nuclear project that makes NO financial sense gets government subsidies and fracking gets the go ahead largely because of who the Tories are friends with. This is the reality of green energy these days: it's not market forces keeping it down, it's being kept down by active suppression of market forces. >Do you want to know why so many of these initiatives fall apart? Because they get sold as pipe dreams. Are you saying that the Navitus Bay proposal was a pipe dream? >So sell it that way. Don't perpetuate the myth that we are "just about there" Price per kwh-wise, we are already there: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/wind-power-now-the-cheapest-source-of-electricity-but-the-government-continues-to-resist-onshore-a6685326.html http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/wind-power-now-the-...
- CmdrSprinkles 10y ago
  Jesus Christ. I tried to be polite but I'll just outright say it: Don't be a dick. You are falling into the trap of "You aren't pure enough for me so you are evil" that is so common. And you are once again picking a single metric to compare against (seriously, read the other branch where there is a great discussion that breaks things down a lot better with respect to an island off the coast of Scotland). Price per kilowatt-hr is one metric that is worth considering. So is kw-hr per square mile, installation costs, maintenance costs, and many others. Not to mention that a lot of those metrics assume optimal conditions which might only exist for a portion of a given day (or year...). The reason why filthy sources (oil and coal) and comparatively clean (nuclear) energy are used is that they are consistent. It doesn't matter if it is a bright summer day, a cold and windy night, or just a dreary morning: They make the same amount of energy per unit resource (mostly. There are actually a lot of caveats). But, as mentioned, they are a lot harder to fine tune. And they result in a dependence on expensive resources and are bad for the environment (nuclear isn't AS bad, but it is still pretty crap). That is where clean sources like wind and solar come into play for the vast majority of the planet. We can drastically lower our dependence on dirty sources by using clean sources to supplement and wean us off of dirty energy. But I guess I am not ideologically pure enough for you (or, at least, the small snippets of my posts aren't).

crdoconnor 10y ago

>... are you accusing me of astroturfing? huh No. I think when many people say "I want clean energy" they're not actually all that bothered. That's how proposals like the one I mentioned get killed off. Oil/gas interests can gin up a tepid nimby backlash and with a nod and a wink get the government to kill them off in response, and the government pays no political price for it. Meanwhile, a Chinese run nuclear project that makes NO financial sense gets government subsidies and fracking gets the go ahead largely because of who the Tories are friends with. This is the reality of green energy these days: it's not market forces keeping it down, it's being kept down by active suppression of market forces. >Do you want to know why so many of these initiatives fall apart? Because they get sold as pipe dreams. Are you saying that the Navitus Bay proposal was a pipe dream? >So sell it that way. Don't perpetuate the myth that we are "just about there" Price per kwh-wise, we are already there: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/wind-power-now-the-cheapest-source-of-electricity-but-the-government-continues-to-resist-onshore-a6685326.html http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/wind-power-now-the-...

CmdrSprinkles 10y ago
Jesus Christ. I tried to be polite but I'll just outright say it: Don't be a dick. You are falling into the trap of "You aren't pure enough for me so you are evil" that is so common. And you are once again picking a single metric to compare against (seriously, read the other branch where there is a great discussion that breaks things down a lot better with respect to an island off the coast of Scotland). Price per kilowatt-hr is one metric that is worth considering. So is kw-hr per square mile, installation costs, maintenance costs, and many others. Not to mention that a lot of those metrics assume optimal conditions which might only exist for a portion of a given day (or year...). The reason why filthy sources (oil and coal) and comparatively clean (nuclear) energy are used is that they are consistent. It doesn't matter if it is a bright summer day, a cold and windy night, or just a dreary morning: They make the same amount of energy per unit resource (mostly. There are actually a lot of caveats). But, as mentioned, they are a lot harder to fine tune. And they result in a dependence on expensive resources and are bad for the environment (nuclear isn't AS bad, but it is still pretty crap). That is where clean sources like wind and solar come into play for the vast majority of the planet. We can drastically lower our dependence on dirty sources by using clean sources to supplement and wean us off of dirty energy. But I guess I am not ideologically pure enough for you (or, at least, the small snippets of my posts aren't).