4 ms·

Sorry man, but all your hopes look pretty bad (as any other average eco-enthusiast hopes do). 1. Renewable energy (solar and wind mainly) is shitty mostly, not

Sorry man, but all your hopes look pretty bad (as any other average eco-enthusiast hopes do). 1. Renewable energy (solar and wind mainly) is shitty mostly, not delivering, huge resources required, and huge backup battery/hydro storage required. SOLUTION = Nuclear 2. EV cars are junk, poorly packed energy, much less than gasoline per kg, giving bad range and big mass overhead to vehicle (meaning also bigger energy consumption). You just feel eco but price is paid in electrical infrastructure / power-plants / battery materials. SOLUTION=Nuclear again, then you can pack your cheap electricity back to chemical energy and use totally clean ICE which now has totally clean exhaustion (no impure fossil shit). 3. Recycling (although not highlighted in article) is waste of time and resources (mostly), moving junk around the globe so that you can feel green :D SOLUTION=Nuclear again, just get abundant cheep electricity and burn it with plasma torches. Don't send you garbage to China, even they don't want it. In short, Fusion would be great, Fission will save us also. Just stop wasting time/money/resources on other stupid ideas that change nothing and sometimes do more harm than original solution they have replaced.

adrianN 7y ago
We have about 10 years of emissions left if we want to stay below 2°. Building nuclear plants takes ten years on average, at the current rate of building them. If you wanted to suddenly build two or three orders of magnitude more, you'd first have to scale up the supply chain, e.g. for pressure vessels. There is not enough time left for a nuclear revolution.
- syrrim 7y ago
  The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.
- Recurecur 7y ago
  > We have about 10 years of emissions left if we want to stay below 2°. First off, if that is the case you can be sure we'll end "above 2°" (by which I'm sure you mean 2° above some earlier average). China and India alone have massive projected tails for their CO2 output. Second, "10 years of emissions left"? You're suggesting that somehow C02 emissions could be curtailed completely within 10 years? Absurd... Neither transient or equilibrium climate sensitivity are known well enough to make such pronouncements - but the global warming alarmists feel it necessary to periodically throw a deadline out there. They think it's good psychology, and will lead to more panic...whether or not such panic is actually justified.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    No, I'm suggesting that we start a linear reduction right now and be done in 20 years. Perhaps overshoot the target by a few years and pay for it with carbon sequestration.
    - Recurecur 7y ago
      Your "we" includes every nation on Earth? Including China and India who have built many coal fired electricity plants lately, and have plans to build many more? Plants that have design lifetimes of ~40 years? You expect to have all fossil fuel powered vehicles worldwide phased out within 20 years? Including aircraft? What about cargo ships? There is no practical chance of even hitting the lowest trajectory IPCC target, much less something considerably below that.
      - adrianN 7y ago
        Well then we probably shouldn't even try right? Just keep on accelerating towards that cliff.
        Recurecur 7y ago
        Did I say that? What does make sense is to do cost effective, beneficial, and non-sacrificial things. One of the best things overall is to promote next generation nuclear power as a major alternative to coal. If coal could be phased out entirely within 20-30 years that would be a huge win. Perhaps grid storage could largely replace gas generation. That would leave fossil fuels mainly in transportation, which would be a giant improvement over today. Lower CO2 trajectories give more time to rigorously evaluate the science, get more data, and develop revolutionary technology.
- bradlys 7y ago
  And there's enough time for a solar or wind revolution? It's not like solar panels come out of thin air either. Same with windmills... To build solar or wind at the scale we need would be quite the "revolution". Probably even more so than nuclear because you'd have no way to store the energy unless you went absolutely mad with lithium mining and battery production. Which would also take years to scale. Truth is - both options are difficult. But I think nuclear is a lot easier and it's surprising that it meets so much resistance all the time. It's much more like take a few square miles out of a few geographies and you get reliable power. Versus - miles and miles of solar panels (that you may or may not be able to fly over and are very prone to the weather of the day) or windmills (killing all the birds and not so great sound for anyone close). And then the battery farms you gotta spread around everywhere... Or have everyone purchase $5,000+ in batteries that have to be replaced every X years.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    Renewables have the benefit that they provide a gradual reduction in CO2 emissions that starts basically right now, compared to not reducing emissions at all until the reactors go online.
    - bradlys 7y ago
      I think the scale required to do batteries + solar + wind is much greater than building nuclear power plants. I know that nuclear power plants are a large scale event but so is creating a factory to make PVs. Same with lithium mines. Same with refinement of that lithium. Now we're getting into having to create lots of steel for wind turbines too. In my mind, you get to the end in 10 years with nuclear. With solar, you get to production capacity to solve the issue in 10 years while slowly addressing the problem along the way. I think the dent you'd make in 10 years while ramping up to production capacity would at best just match increased demand. Then you have large swaths of land that are dedicated to solar cells, wind turbines, refineries, factories, and mines we had to use for all the lithium. (Not that some of those won't exist for nuclear)
      - adrianN 7y ago
- yread 7y ago
  Also, about 1/3 of CO2 emissions of nuclear power gets created during construction, ie. building a ton of nuclear in the next ten year would produce a huge amount of CO2 before we get any benefits.
  - watbywbarif 7y ago
    Same with solar and wind, I think even worse.
    - yread 7y ago
      Uh, yes but it doesn't take 10 years before you get energy out of it?
ZeroGravitas 7y ago
Genuine question: if you had to pinpoint a small number of sources that led you to these opinions on renewables, EVs, recycling and nuclear power, what would they be?
- watbywbarif 7y ago
  Sad thing is, I don't have it. I am forming my opinions during last decade or so from various sources, books and articles, I mostly look at numbers, and numbers of top eco friendly ventures look bad and bloated. I am considering to aggregate all this is more serious article backed with sources. I can give you just few last ones that have left a mark on my opinion and still can remember the source :) Recycling: https://www.ft.com/content/360e2524-d71a-11e8-a854-33d6f82e62f8 https://www.ft.com/content/360e2524-d71a-11e8-a854-33d6f82e6... Just look how much waste is going around a globe and do rough calculation how much oil is used only for transport! Nuclear energy danger??? https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy I am deeply sad because events like Chernobyl and Fukushima have stopped nuclear revolution when it could have made huge difference. Remember that Fukushima had 15000+ dead from tsunami and only 1 from radiation! I will try to remeber/find more, at work now so...

adrianN 7y ago

We have about 10 years of emissions left if we want to stay below 2°. Building nuclear plants takes ten years on average, at the current rate of building them. If you wanted to suddenly build two or three orders of magnitude more, you'd first have to scale up the supply chain, e.g. for pressure vessels. There is not enough time left for a nuclear revolution.

syrrim 7y ago
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.
Recurecur 7y ago
> We have about 10 years of emissions left if we want to stay below 2°. First off, if that is the case you can be sure we'll end "above 2°" (by which I'm sure you mean 2° above some earlier average). China and India alone have massive projected tails for their CO2 output. Second, "10 years of emissions left"? You're suggesting that somehow C02 emissions could be curtailed completely within 10 years? Absurd... Neither transient or equilibrium climate sensitivity are known well enough to make such pronouncements - but the global warming alarmists feel it necessary to periodically throw a deadline out there. They think it's good psychology, and will lead to more panic...whether or not such panic is actually justified.
- adrianN 7y ago
  No, I'm suggesting that we start a linear reduction right now and be done in 20 years. Perhaps overshoot the target by a few years and pay for it with carbon sequestration.
  - Recurecur 7y ago
    Your "we" includes every nation on Earth? Including China and India who have built many coal fired electricity plants lately, and have plans to build many more? Plants that have design lifetimes of ~40 years? You expect to have all fossil fuel powered vehicles worldwide phased out within 20 years? Including aircraft? What about cargo ships? There is no practical chance of even hitting the lowest trajectory IPCC target, much less something considerably below that.
    - adrianN 7y ago
      Well then we probably shouldn't even try right? Just keep on accelerating towards that cliff.
      - Recurecur 7y ago
        Did I say that? What does make sense is to do cost effective, beneficial, and non-sacrificial things. One of the best things overall is to promote next generation nuclear power as a major alternative to coal. If coal could be phased out entirely within 20-30 years that would be a huge win. Perhaps grid storage could largely replace gas generation. That would leave fossil fuels mainly in transportation, which would be a giant improvement over today. Lower CO2 trajectories give more time to rigorously evaluate the science, get more data, and develop revolutionary technology.
bradlys 7y ago
And there's enough time for a solar or wind revolution? It's not like solar panels come out of thin air either. Same with windmills... To build solar or wind at the scale we need would be quite the "revolution". Probably even more so than nuclear because you'd have no way to store the energy unless you went absolutely mad with lithium mining and battery production. Which would also take years to scale. Truth is - both options are difficult. But I think nuclear is a lot easier and it's surprising that it meets so much resistance all the time. It's much more like take a few square miles out of a few geographies and you get reliable power. Versus - miles and miles of solar panels (that you may or may not be able to fly over and are very prone to the weather of the day) or windmills (killing all the birds and not so great sound for anyone close). And then the battery farms you gotta spread around everywhere... Or have everyone purchase $5,000+ in batteries that have to be replaced every X years.
- adrianN 7y ago
  Renewables have the benefit that they provide a gradual reduction in CO2 emissions that starts basically right now, compared to not reducing emissions at all until the reactors go online.
  - bradlys 7y ago
    I think the scale required to do batteries + solar + wind is much greater than building nuclear power plants. I know that nuclear power plants are a large scale event but so is creating a factory to make PVs. Same with lithium mines. Same with refinement of that lithium. Now we're getting into having to create lots of steel for wind turbines too. In my mind, you get to the end in 10 years with nuclear. With solar, you get to production capacity to solve the issue in 10 years while slowly addressing the problem along the way. I think the dent you'd make in 10 years while ramping up to production capacity would at best just match increased demand. Then you have large swaths of land that are dedicated to solar cells, wind turbines, refineries, factories, and mines we had to use for all the lithium. (Not that some of those won't exist for nuclear)
    - adrianN 7y ago
yread 7y ago
Also, about 1/3 of CO2 emissions of nuclear power gets created during construction, ie. building a ton of nuclear in the next ten year would produce a huge amount of CO2 before we get any benefits.
- watbywbarif 7y ago
  Same with solar and wind, I think even worse.
  - yread 7y ago
    Uh, yes but it doesn't take 10 years before you get energy out of it?

ZeroGravitas 7y ago

Genuine question: if you had to pinpoint a small number of sources that led you to these opinions on renewables, EVs, recycling and nuclear power, what would they be?

watbywbarif 7y ago
Sad thing is, I don't have it. I am forming my opinions during last decade or so from various sources, books and articles, I mostly look at numbers, and numbers of top eco friendly ventures look bad and bloated. I am considering to aggregate all this is more serious article backed with sources. I can give you just few last ones that have left a mark on my opinion and still can remember the source :) Recycling: https://www.ft.com/content/360e2524-d71a-11e8-a854-33d6f82e62f8 https://www.ft.com/content/360e2524-d71a-11e8-a854-33d6f82e6... Just look how much waste is going around a globe and do rough calculation how much oil is used only for transport! Nuclear energy danger??? https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy I am deeply sad because events like Chernobyl and Fukushima have stopped nuclear revolution when it could have made huge difference. Remember that Fukushima had 15000+ dead from tsunami and only 1 from radiation! I will try to remeber/find more, at work now so...