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People need to keep this kind of thing in mind when major energy policy proposals like the Green New Deal rely on studies by the likes of M. Jacobsen (the guy w

People need to keep this kind of thing in mind when major energy policy proposals like the Green New Deal rely on studies by the likes of M. Jacobsen (the guy who sued his scientific critics), whose 100% renewable scenarios all rely on at least 10x expansion of hydro power in the USA.

specialist 7y ago
TLDR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality I served on an endorsement committee. We made recommendations (or note) to the membership to support candidates, initiatives, referendum, etc. The last big internal food fight was over a levy to renew K-12 school funding. These are usually narrowly won ballot measures. Because some people think taxes is theft, government is evil, yadda yadda. This time something like $100m / year was at stake. Three board members strenuously argued against endorsement. They are local leaders in education policy. Our usual "go to" experts. Committed, knowledgeable, experienced, in the fight. The biggest education boosters you can imagine. The sticking point was ~$55k / year that could potentially be used by charter schools. For something like vans to transport kids to after school care. I don't remember the exact details, but you get the gist. -- I had no idea who Mark Jacobsen is. Okay, he's an influential expert. Being called to task for a report first written in 2009. His cohort is in a pissing match with another led by Ken Caldeira. Some fun. Going out on a limb here: There will be no new dam construction in North America in my life time. Like our current nuclear tech, the (financial) costs are too high, and the timelines are too long. (Wikipedia says we could maybe add power generation to existing unpowered dams, which could be cool.) New Green Deal, or something like it, has to happen. Spoiler alert: You're not going to like most of it. Focus on the positive. Please. If you have to trade support for building some dams (that will never happen) in order to get the programs you support, please just do it.
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  I'm a pragmatist. I like plans that make sense. Wishful thinking based on impossible plans is not a useful path forward. Understanding trade-offs and making them is productive and useful. Discussing facts is an important step in this process. To decarbonize at scale we need large scale new installations of dams, nukes, wind, solar, and geothermal. Spoiler alert: many will protest against all of these for a wide variety of reasons. Still, we must find a way to proceed with low carbon energy. We don't have the luxury of choosing which low carbon energy we like best. We need it all. For greens, start liking nukes more. For conservatives, start liking wind and solar more.
  - manicdee 7y ago
    Liking nukes falls into the same category as liking dams: I want to believe they aren’t going to happen because they are economically infeasible. The same money would buy significantly more capacity in wind/solar/storage. The sticking point with dams and nukes is the same thing: the sheer cost of finding a suitable location, preparing the site, then pouring thousands of tons of concrete (and that has to be exactly the right concrete with no shortcuts). So yeah, I will happily support policy which includes considering nukes when it also includes considerations that I am interested in, but I am not supporting any subsidies for nukes and dams when that money is far better spent elsewhere. The catch there is that the folks that want the nukes and dams will get my support in principle, then trade someone else’s support for subsidising nukes and dams for support of legislation around guns for teachers or “religious freedom” (aka the right to discriminate based on race or religion) or something else I loathe. So the nukes and dams people get their nukes and dams by spending all the money that could have gone to cheaper power, and we get extremely regressive social policy to boot. So given the horse trading that goes on, I can not support dams and nukes for any reason, because even though I believe they are economically infeasible the people that want to build them will trade away things that I consider more valuable than money. For the nukes and dams people, it is far more important to funnel government funds into their (friends’) companies. Nothing else matters: climate change, social well-being, healthy economy … they just don’t care. Check out the Trump administration in the USA with their continual whittling of environmental protection in favour of fossil fuels, or the Morrison government in Australia with water rights rorting. There is simply no room for negotiating with these people because they are not rational actors.
    - acidburnNSA 7y ago
      Those are some pretty massive generalizations that fall apart immediately compared with my experiences.
      - manicdee 7y ago
        Tell us about your experiences with conservative politics participating in the emancipation of women and minorities, and protecting the environment from industrial plunder. In my country we have health minister claiming abortion is “the easy way out” for example, and conservative politics telling us that homosexuality is one step removed from bestiality, and allowing same sex marriage will result in people marrying their pets. At least we aren’t yet at the stage of charging a woman with murder because she failed to avoid being shot in the stomach thus losing her baby. But we are in the process of building an irrigation pipeline so that cotton and rice farmers in the desert can take all the water from less arid farmlands, and kill a thousand kilometres of river.

specialist 7y ago

TLDR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality I served on an endorsement committee. We made recommendations (or note) to the membership to support candidates, initiatives, referendum, etc. The last big internal food fight was over a levy to renew K-12 school funding. These are usually narrowly won ballot measures. Because some people think taxes is theft, government is evil, yadda yadda. This time something like $100m / year was at stake. Three board members strenuously argued against endorsement. They are local leaders in education policy. Our usual "go to" experts. Committed, knowledgeable, experienced, in the fight. The biggest education boosters you can imagine. The sticking point was ~$55k / year that could potentially be used by charter schools. For something like vans to transport kids to after school care. I don't remember the exact details, but you get the gist. -- I had no idea who Mark Jacobsen is. Okay, he's an influential expert. Being called to task for a report first written in 2009. His cohort is in a pissing match with another led by Ken Caldeira. Some fun. Going out on a limb here: There will be no new dam construction in North America in my life time. Like our current nuclear tech, the (financial) costs are too high, and the timelines are too long. (Wikipedia says we could maybe add power generation to existing unpowered dams, which could be cool.) New Green Deal, or something like it, has to happen. Spoiler alert: You're not going to like most of it. Focus on the positive. Please. If you have to trade support for building some dams (that will never happen) in order to get the programs you support, please just do it.

acidburnNSA 7y ago
I'm a pragmatist. I like plans that make sense. Wishful thinking based on impossible plans is not a useful path forward. Understanding trade-offs and making them is productive and useful. Discussing facts is an important step in this process. To decarbonize at scale we need large scale new installations of dams, nukes, wind, solar, and geothermal. Spoiler alert: many will protest against all of these for a wide variety of reasons. Still, we must find a way to proceed with low carbon energy. We don't have the luxury of choosing which low carbon energy we like best. We need it all. For greens, start liking nukes more. For conservatives, start liking wind and solar more.
- manicdee 7y ago
  Liking nukes falls into the same category as liking dams: I want to believe they aren’t going to happen because they are economically infeasible. The same money would buy significantly more capacity in wind/solar/storage. The sticking point with dams and nukes is the same thing: the sheer cost of finding a suitable location, preparing the site, then pouring thousands of tons of concrete (and that has to be exactly the right concrete with no shortcuts). So yeah, I will happily support policy which includes considering nukes when it also includes considerations that I am interested in, but I am not supporting any subsidies for nukes and dams when that money is far better spent elsewhere. The catch there is that the folks that want the nukes and dams will get my support in principle, then trade someone else’s support for subsidising nukes and dams for support of legislation around guns for teachers or “religious freedom” (aka the right to discriminate based on race or religion) or something else I loathe. So the nukes and dams people get their nukes and dams by spending all the money that could have gone to cheaper power, and we get extremely regressive social policy to boot. So given the horse trading that goes on, I can not support dams and nukes for any reason, because even though I believe they are economically infeasible the people that want to build them will trade away things that I consider more valuable than money. For the nukes and dams people, it is far more important to funnel government funds into their (friends’) companies. Nothing else matters: climate change, social well-being, healthy economy … they just don’t care. Check out the Trump administration in the USA with their continual whittling of environmental protection in favour of fossil fuels, or the Morrison government in Australia with water rights rorting. There is simply no room for negotiating with these people because they are not rational actors.
  - acidburnNSA 7y ago
    Those are some pretty massive generalizations that fall apart immediately compared with my experiences.
    - manicdee 7y ago
      Tell us about your experiences with conservative politics participating in the emancipation of women and minorities, and protecting the environment from industrial plunder. In my country we have health minister claiming abortion is “the easy way out” for example, and conservative politics telling us that homosexuality is one step removed from bestiality, and allowing same sex marriage will result in people marrying their pets. At least we aren’t yet at the stage of charging a woman with murder because she failed to avoid being shot in the stomach thus losing her baby. But we are in the process of building an irrigation pipeline so that cotton and rice farmers in the desert can take all the water from less arid farmlands, and kill a thousand kilometres of river.