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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 tha

• 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
    [1] Aeons ago means litteraly nothing. You can contemplate gradual improvements to the EROI, but they don't change by an order of magnitude despite the metric truckton of money we've been throwing at the problem. The order of magnitude does not change, the output doesn't really significantly shift either. [2] Land area occupied by renewables doesn't make it INFEASIBLE, can you stop putting it words into my mouth I did not say? Did you not read the literal dozens of times I've mentioned renewables are worth developing and using? Do you understand that when I compare one with the other, this is not a XOR but an OR and I am talking about orders of magnitude and controllability therefore what actually matters for the bigger immediate changes? Or do you want to wilfully continue to ignore that I've said that about ten times now and dance the same dance again and again? It's not infeasible, it's merely on average impractical. That is, you need to identify the narrow areas where the installation offsets the CO2 output of the construction + materials + maintenance bill. Yes it does improve, and yes that ROI improves significantly too. Did you read my sentence right now? I don't want you to say again the same damn things, I'm just checking you even read the messages. But no, the solar output is not what will allow you to keep your fridge running and your shower hot at all times. If you want to sell me the idea of not having power at all time I'm genuinely OPEN to it, but then actually have the sincerity of shifting the debate to something meaningful rather than the same points over and over again. [3,4] Ad hominem, and you also happen to miss that yes a majority of PV as it stands does not use the awesome research that avoids using involving a decent amount of mining (and that research didn't come for free btw, and that could have paid for next-generation nuclear research for which the current generation already beats by far photovoltaic). So sure, handwave away. [5 and not 6] So you ignore the IPCC reports? TL;DR am I right? I have nothing more to say to you.
    • pfdietz 6y ago
      EROI of renewables is just fine, and getting even better. Attempts to argue it's not have been thoroughly debunked. About land area: you said this "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." If land area (which I assume is what you meant by "surface" there) isn't a showstopper, why did you list it? But thanks for admitting now that it isn't a showstopper. I consider the point conceded and that part of your claim retracted. > Ad hominem Argument from authority can be met by impeaching the credibility of the authority. > So you ignore the IPCC reports? Show me in the IPCC report where it supports your claim "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." I'll wait.