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Instead of making unsubstantiated claims, how about presenting an item of misinformation as you perceive it and show us why it's wrong. That would be a positive

Instead of making unsubstantiated claims, how about presenting an item of misinformation as you perceive it and show us why it's wrong. That would be a positive contribution. 'Strawmen', 'misinformation'? Why take your anonymous word for it?

jamil7 6y ago
What unsubstantiated claims did I make? The video begins in bad faith by painting proponents of renewable energy as people who have no understanding of technology or physics searching for "unobtainium". I don't believe anything in this submission is much of a positive contribution.
addicted 6y ago
Let me start with the first “fact” discussed. That wind and solar are pretty much near max efficiency limits, so despite promises of big gains, there isn’t much to come. They are right that there isn’t too much excitement about gains in efficiency. But the whole promise of big gains has nothing to do with efficiency but lowering costs. In fact, the highest efficiency solar panels aren’t even the most popular. The most popular ones have much lower efficiency than what we have managed to get because their cost per KWH is tremendous. So yeah, there are still big gains expected because solar has seen price halving every few years and there is no reason that should stop anytime soon. The wind curve is flattening at this point but it’s already cheaper than existing coal in many places. Next, yeah, the solution to storage isn’t to just build batteries. There are other options as well. And sure it may take 500 years for one factory to build the entire need they’ve suggested. Good thing we love in a global system where there are other countries and other companies that can build the same thing. What if we have 500 factories building batteries. You’d build enough capacity to cover the US in 1 year and enough to cover the world’s current energy needs in a few years. If every country built 5 or so factories to supply batteries weld have over a 1000 such factories. Countries spend far more money on other energy sources on an annual basis. The 20 years and billions of dollars in subsidies are red herrings. That’s usually the case for most new technologies. How much money and time went into computing (since before WW2!) and it was only in the 80s and 90s that it became something available to the masses. I’m not sure what a non renewable material is, but materials can be recycled and reused. And here’s something. Other sources of energy also need materials! Gas doesn’t just make it to our cars by floating through the air. There’s a lot of tech and machinery in the way. Rare earth materials are not that rare. It’s only coming from outside the US because lack of environmental standards makes it marginally cheaper. If the US needed it could easily procure it by itself. Also I thought this was about energy powering the globe but the video is clearly a jingoistic America focused video. Also, the idea that materials coming from outside the US is a problem when the vast majority of fossil fuels also come from outside the US doesn’t really add up. Yup. Child labor in developing countries is a huge problem. I’m not sure what this has to do with renewable energy considering it’s true for every industry. Yup, we will need conventional energy to do a lot of stuff. Good thing we don’t need to go from 3% renewable to 100% overnight. The waste argument is also nonsensical. It’s very easy to manage waste coming from large industrial efforts. The problem with waste is that it’s hard to manage waste when it’s small amounts coming from many sources which won’t be the case in case of wind and solar farms. I can’t handle the last minute. The video is complete junk.
- kaycebasques 6y ago
  Thanks. This is an example of the kinds of rebuttals I was hoping for.

jamil7 6y ago

What unsubstantiated claims did I make? The video begins in bad faith by painting proponents of renewable energy as people who have no understanding of technology or physics searching for "unobtainium". I don't believe anything in this submission is much of a positive contribution.

addicted 6y ago

Let me start with the first “fact” discussed. That wind and solar are pretty much near max efficiency limits, so despite promises of big gains, there isn’t much to come. They are right that there isn’t too much excitement about gains in efficiency. But the whole promise of big gains has nothing to do with efficiency but lowering costs. In fact, the highest efficiency solar panels aren’t even the most popular. The most popular ones have much lower efficiency than what we have managed to get because their cost per KWH is tremendous. So yeah, there are still big gains expected because solar has seen price halving every few years and there is no reason that should stop anytime soon. The wind curve is flattening at this point but it’s already cheaper than existing coal in many places. Next, yeah, the solution to storage isn’t to just build batteries. There are other options as well. And sure it may take 500 years for one factory to build the entire need they’ve suggested. Good thing we love in a global system where there are other countries and other companies that can build the same thing. What if we have 500 factories building batteries. You’d build enough capacity to cover the US in 1 year and enough to cover the world’s current energy needs in a few years. If every country built 5 or so factories to supply batteries weld have over a 1000 such factories. Countries spend far more money on other energy sources on an annual basis. The 20 years and billions of dollars in subsidies are red herrings. That’s usually the case for most new technologies. How much money and time went into computing (since before WW2!) and it was only in the 80s and 90s that it became something available to the masses. I’m not sure what a non renewable material is, but materials can be recycled and reused. And here’s something. Other sources of energy also need materials! Gas doesn’t just make it to our cars by floating through the air. There’s a lot of tech and machinery in the way. Rare earth materials are not that rare. It’s only coming from outside the US because lack of environmental standards makes it marginally cheaper. If the US needed it could easily procure it by itself. Also I thought this was about energy powering the globe but the video is clearly a jingoistic America focused video. Also, the idea that materials coming from outside the US is a problem when the vast majority of fossil fuels also come from outside the US doesn’t really add up. Yup. Child labor in developing countries is a huge problem. I’m not sure what this has to do with renewable energy considering it’s true for every industry. Yup, we will need conventional energy to do a lot of stuff. Good thing we don’t need to go from 3% renewable to 100% overnight. The waste argument is also nonsensical. It’s very easy to manage waste coming from large industrial efforts. The problem with waste is that it’s hard to manage waste when it’s small amounts coming from many sources which won’t be the case in case of wind and solar farms. I can’t handle the last minute. The video is complete junk.

kaycebasques 6y ago
Thanks. This is an example of the kinds of rebuttals I was hoping for.