4 ms·

I'm making the claim because it is painfully obvious that unless you're making calculations about spherical cows there's nowhere near enough resources, surface,

by cmehdy 6y ago

I'm making the claim because it is painfully obvious that unless you're making calculations about spherical cows there's nowhere near enough resources, surface, and specifically predictability to have renewables be more than marginal for a long time. And at all times, due to unpredictability, there is no chance at all that the source is controllable. Therefore, unless and until we have much much MUCH better ways to store energy (which would be absolutely fantastic), we cannot count on renewables alone. As for the second thing I did not claim that, I said that renewables have a CO2 footprint that isn't negligible due to their construction and maintenance (and again, I'm all for renewables - I'm just not lying to myself about renewables solving all the worlds problems) And I don't understand what you're on about when it comes to energy density. If you haven't understood the following you're just deluding yourself: the quantity of materials (i.e. what comes into making a solar panel or windmill or a power plant) and the volume of the transformation sources (i.e. how much space you need for your windmills and solar panels and nuclear power plants) AND the possibility to leverage the energy (i.e. where you can put your mills, panels, or plants) are all overwhelmingly in favour of nuclear. So we should absolutely turn towards renewables, but if you think for one minute that the oil+gas+coal could be dropped for solar panels and mills without actually being carried by the sheer energy output of nuclear, you haven't quite taken a look at the numbers enough.

pfdietz 6y ago
He's right, and you are grossly overestimating your level of clue. You do not understand the degree to which you do not understand. Dunning-Kruger says hi. I suggest you try to fully flesh out your supposed argument, with as much self-skepticism as you can muster. Your enemy is your tendency to motivated reasoning, where you stop thinking when you get a conclusion you like. The symptom of this is that you present half-baked nonsense, which as he told you is easily debunked (or so vague as to not even need debunking.)
- cmehdy 6y ago
  First, let's get back to the very beginning: my first message gave an explanation to what was pure antagonizing of the "pro-nuclear" people, and I mentioned that it's based on physics (which it is). You're stating a "he's right you're wrong" with an unsubstantiated singular paragraph while I've been giving dozens of elements of reflection over a half dozen posts. That's a bit rich, isn't it? You want something to substantiate a decent amount of what I'm saying? Here's one part[1]. Here's a case for why nuclear is the actual bridge for renewables[2]. Here's why renewables can't save the planet[3]. Reasons for environmentalists to look at nuclear[4]. And if you happen to care enough to actually read full reports, the IPCC did a lot of work and it's always good to try to read their reports with an open mind to collate the data[5]. Have a good day. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(07)61253-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(07)61253-7/full... [2] https://towardsdatascience.com/a-case-for-nuclear-bridging-the-route-to-renewables-with-low-carbon-energy-f0ad069a37ce?gi=187ce9ec4531 https://towardsdatascience.com/a-case-for-nuclear-bridging-t... [3] https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-the-planet/ https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-th... [4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/09/09/as-renewables-falter-environmentalists-stand-up-for-nuclear/#7c2b81b82d32 https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/09/09... [5] https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/ https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    Let's go through go through those links and see if they support your claim that "it is painfully obvious that unless you're making calculations about spherical cows there's nowhere near enough resources, surface, and specifically predictability to have renewables be more than marginal for a long time". [1] No, that doesn't support your claim (and it's from 2007, an aeon ago in the renewable field). In fact, that abstract says "The negative effects on health of electricity generation from renewable sources have not been assessed as fully as those from conventional sources, but for solar, wind, and wave power, such effects seem to be small" [2] That states "As a corollary, nuclear energy also occupies significantly less space / land than renewables (several hundred times less in fact)." But that doesn't mean the land area required by renewables makes renewables infeasible. And it also ignores the distribution network needed for nuclear; if that is included, the ratio of land areas needed is much smaller. He also says "the debate is not about building new nuclear power plants but to retain the remaining ones for as long as possible." So that link doesn't supply justification for building new nuclear plants. I can accept that CO2 taxes (for example) would enable existing nuclear plants to keep operating, at least for a while. [3,4] Ah, Shellenberger. He was the guy who was claiming PV was dirty because it used rare earth elements from China (spoiler: that's a lie). He fails to make any quantitative argument that land area or other inputs for renewables render it infeasible. And he repeats the tired nonsense about Germany having high energy costs because of renewables (as if that somehow justifies the doublethink that installing much more expensive sources would have led to lower costs.) [5] And yet more irrelevancy. Look, if you actually had a cogent argument to support your claim, you could have pointed to a real detailed argument supporting it. But it was bullshit all along, and you know that, so you spewed out a Gish Gallop of irrelevancy. And indeed, how could it have been otherwise? Your claim requires that all possible configurations of renewables, all possible configurations and types of storage, and all possible configurations of energy using activities cannot work. And how could you POSSIBLY establish that? You could have claimed there's a lot of work to be done, and that it's not CERTAIN that renewables could do the job, and for that reason nuclear should be kept alive as an option. But that's not what you were arguing.
    - cmehdy 6y ago

by cmehdy 6y ago

pfdietz 6y ago

He's right, and you are grossly overestimating your level of clue. You do not understand the degree to which you do not understand. Dunning-Kruger says hi. I suggest you try to fully flesh out your supposed argument, with as much self-skepticism as you can muster. Your enemy is your tendency to motivated reasoning, where you stop thinking when you get a conclusion you like. The symptom of this is that you present half-baked nonsense, which as he told you is easily debunked (or so vague as to not even need debunking.)

cmehdy 6y ago
First, let's get back to the very beginning: my first message gave an explanation to what was pure antagonizing of the "pro-nuclear" people, and I mentioned that it's based on physics (which it is). You're stating a "he's right you're wrong" with an unsubstantiated singular paragraph while I've been giving dozens of elements of reflection over a half dozen posts. That's a bit rich, isn't it? You want something to substantiate a decent amount of what I'm saying? Here's one part[1]. Here's a case for why nuclear is the actual bridge for renewables[2]. Here's why renewables can't save the planet[3]. Reasons for environmentalists to look at nuclear[4]. And if you happen to care enough to actually read full reports, the IPCC did a lot of work and it's always good to try to read their reports with an open mind to collate the data[5]. Have a good day. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(07)61253-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(07)61253-7/full... [2] https://towardsdatascience.com/a-case-for-nuclear-bridging-the-route-to-renewables-with-low-carbon-energy-f0ad069a37ce?gi=187ce9ec4531 https://towardsdatascience.com/a-case-for-nuclear-bridging-t... [3] https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-the-planet/ https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-th... [4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/09/09/as-renewables-falter-environmentalists-stand-up-for-nuclear/#7c2b81b82d32 https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/09/09... [5] https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/ https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/
- pfdietz 6y ago
  Let's go through go through those links and see if they support your claim that "it is painfully obvious that unless you're making calculations about spherical cows there's nowhere near enough resources, surface, and specifically predictability to have renewables be more than marginal for a long time". [1] No, that doesn't support your claim (and it's from 2007, an aeon ago in the renewable field). In fact, that abstract says "The negative effects on health of electricity generation from renewable sources have not been assessed as fully as those from conventional sources, but for solar, wind, and wave power, such effects seem to be small" [2] That states "As a corollary, nuclear energy also occupies significantly less space / land than renewables (several hundred times less in fact)." But that doesn't mean the land area required by renewables makes renewables infeasible. And it also ignores the distribution network needed for nuclear; if that is included, the ratio of land areas needed is much smaller. He also says "the debate is not about building new nuclear power plants but to retain the remaining ones for as long as possible." So that link doesn't supply justification for building new nuclear plants. I can accept that CO2 taxes (for example) would enable existing nuclear plants to keep operating, at least for a while. [3,4] Ah, Shellenberger. He was the guy who was claiming PV was dirty because it used rare earth elements from China (spoiler: that's a lie). He fails to make any quantitative argument that land area or other inputs for renewables render it infeasible. And he repeats the tired nonsense about Germany having high energy costs because of renewables (as if that somehow justifies the doublethink that installing much more expensive sources would have led to lower costs.) [5] And yet more irrelevancy. Look, if you actually had a cogent argument to support your claim, you could have pointed to a real detailed argument supporting it. But it was bullshit all along, and you know that, so you spewed out a Gish Gallop of irrelevancy. And indeed, how could it have been otherwise? Your claim requires that all possible configurations of renewables, all possible configurations and types of storage, and all possible configurations of energy using activities cannot work. And how could you POSSIBLY establish that? You could have claimed there's a lot of work to be done, and that it's not CERTAIN that renewables could do the job, and for that reason nuclear should be kept alive as an option. But that's not what you were arguing.
  - cmehdy 6y ago