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Fallacies I have encountered when disccusing 100% renewable energy
- glofish 5y agoI'll save you all the trouble. The article contains a number of strawman fallacies that the author then boldly defeats. I do try to read about renewable energy - never encountered the statements that OP claims to be pervasive: - "Fallacy 1 - Fix It All, Fix it Now or Fix None Of It" what? who claims this? it is evidently not feasible. - "Fallacy 2 - 100% Lemon or 100% Lime or Bust" (only one kind of renewable can be successful) ... again, who would ever claim that? - "Fallacy 4 - Nothing Less Than Perfection, All the Time" ... and so on, one strawman after the other...
- thechao 5y agoYou must not have the right kind of ‘friends’ on Facebook; the fallacies you listed are straight up on my feed. My favorite one is that wind turbines aren’t recyclable, therefore moar coal!
- orwin 5y ago(btw, steel making and most of mettalurgy can be done using hydrogen. Even using grey hydrogen, it saves carbon)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- stathibus 5y agoIronic given the author is so fixated on fallacies and straw man is itself usually referred to as a fallacy...
- blumio 5y agoHow is this a straw man argument? "A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man"."
- glofish 5y agoYes, that is what this blog does > the typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition It defeats anti-renewable fallacies, by making up some easy to defeat fallacies.
- Retric 5y agoIt’s impossible to respond to fallacies without saying them. I can show you examples of every single one of these if you want. This #2 example is interesting as it specifically excludes hydroelectric which is a common refrain in 100% calculations: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20022019/100-percent-renewable-energy-battery-storage-need-worst-case-polar-vortex-wind-solar/?amp https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20022019/100-percent-rene... Now having given an example can I mention how modeling the grid without hydroelectric power is a fallacy?
- stathibus 5y agoBad models are not fallacies.
- Retric 5y agoOversimplification is. Essentially asking how much X do we need then not minimizing X is not answering the question. 10^100 kWh of storage would work, but so would 10^99 kWh, 10^98 ... we care about the minimum not simply any number that’s sufficient.
- stathibus 5y agoFind a real life person who makes the arguments and would agree with your presentation of them.
- hannob 5y ago> what? who claims this? A very pervasive argument against renewables is "but storage!!!". That's one form of this type of argument. There isn't much storage needed for renewables unless you get to very large numbers. Germany is close to 50% renewables, and it barely built any storage at all in the past years. (There's some existing amount of storage, but that largely existed before renewables even started). Every time you have a "but storage!!" argument, it's an argument primarily relevant for the step from 80% renewables to 100%. But it's very often brought up in situations where the question is rather how to get from 10% renewables to 30%.
- glofish 5y agoI agree "storage" could be one of the candidates, but the OP does address that at all.
- Retric 5y agoHe specifically mentions storage in several contexts. “You don't have to make the storage super cheap, you've got cheap power (see Fallacy 3) and you don't have to solve storing the power for weeks or months. All you have to do is suck up enough power at 2pm and sell it at 2am in order to turn power prices positive during the daytime.”
- glofish 5y agobut it is not a one of the fallacies, right? It would have been better if "storage" was one of the main titles instead you get:"Fallacy 2 - 100% Lemon or 100% Lime or Bust" I am not saying that the author does not make valid points, I am saying that the valid points get lost when titled with evident nonsense
- Retric 5y agoStorage alone isn’t a fallacy. Digging into exactly how much storage is excessive would be another, but that’s a perfectly valid debate and not the root issue with the kind of nonsense people regularly bring up. Here’s one that seems to be about storage but is really a #2 example. It arbitrarily picks 50% solar 50% wind 0% hydro and then does a bunch of meaningless calculations as if that’s ever what people would build in the North East: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20022019/100-percent-renewable-energy-battery-storage-need-worst-case-polar-vortex-wind-solar/?amp https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20022019/100-percent-rene... The issue with that article isn’t storage it’s the energy mix used and the lack of excess production. As #1 points out you get to 100% not by building that in a day you build more storage, more wind, more hydro, and or more solar and then figure out what else is cost effective to add. Currently there is seemingly excess solar in California with prices going negative except unlike what’s mentioned people are actually still building solar because it’s cheap enough that even without selling in the middle of sunny days it’s still profitable. It’s really not obvious that that’s going to happen just running some
- blumio 5y agoHe read them on discussions about renewable and I have seen them in discussions creeping up as well. It is also a good primer to relate his experiences to daily work as well. Like fallacies in software engineering. Similar to the encouragement vs. Disencourigment: instead of telling someone 'dont do it's vs. 'sounds interesting. What would be a good easy to do first step to see if it is good'
- Aachen 5y agoMaybe not as literally, but the themes definitely come up in both comment threads and media.
- Ensorceled 5y agoI routinely encounter all of these fallacies when discussing renewables with family and co-workers. Especially “the sun doesn’t shine at night” types of gotcha. I encounter “wind mills cause cancer” less often now, but still encounter “kills billions of birds” all the time. Do you actually converse with people who are against renewables energy? Or even people who claim “it’s not ready”?
- pfdietz 5y agoJust nod sagely and tell them there's not a single confirmed case of someone surviving windmill cancer.
- SkyMarshal 5y agoGranted #1, #2, #4 were strawmen and not particularly interesting, but #3 (system costs) and #5 (cost trends) were interesting, and really the crux of the matter for renewables.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoI regularly see the second fallacy here on HN. It is embarrassingly stupid, but it seems to have some kind of staying power.
- otikik 5y ago> what? who claims this? The article starts with: " I was reading this post https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2021/09/fossil-fuels-are-dead.html#comments https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2021/09/fossil-... on Charles Stross' blog, and the comments, and ... " So I assumed that some comments there are at least similar to what the author is discussing. > it is evidently not feasible No one who has ever incurred in fallacious arguments starts them like that, by naming the fallacy they are about to incur in. But it would be nice.
- marcosdumay 5y agoOh, I think I've seen each of those strawman on the wild doing their thing.
- senectus1 5y ago>and so on, one strawman after the other... no, you are wrong, at least in my country. These arguments are either outright stated or HEAVILY hinted at in the Murdoch Media, and in arguments put together by right wing politics in Australia. the level of dishonest discourse in green resources and climate change is absurd
- orwin 5y agoAgree, but the snark against nuclear is unwarranted. As the author said, we don't need 100% today. And he acknowledge that problems exist, and they have to be solved. Wehn reading him, i have the impression that he acknowledge that some issues/blocks can take some time to clear. Why gamble? Just take nuclear as a crutch, plan for 100 year of pilatable nuclear + hydro baseload and 30 year of gaz peakers, to clear the blocks in front of renewables, and if the issues are fixed in the next 30-50 years, great, you can decommission the nuclear plants early! If you really think GW is the biggest issue of this century, not using all available tools, however dangerous you think they might be, to help you with your issue is plain dumb.
- blumio 5y agoI'm trying to understand from what you got your snark from. Do you refer to: "I think the renewable industry will end up better and cheaper than the current system but if I'm wrong about the renewables industry being good at optimising that bundle of benefits, problems and"? As far as I know, nuclear fuel is rare and we don't have a solution to thorium reactors yet. I would personally not mind more nuclear were it makes sense though. Germany is not very suited though as it's quite populated but there is plenty of empty space in USA. There is a risk though as current nuclear power station have issues in drought situations. Nonetheless I haven't read is arguments. Perhaps he wrote about it.
- FabHK 5y ago> I'm trying to understand from what you got your snark from. Do you refer to [...] I think GP might refer to footnote 1 in the article: > [...] one could technically replace fossil fuels with nuclear power. it would just be more expensive, more dangerous and slower - so probably only a few billion dead. Personally, I think modern nuclear reactors (that are optimised for safety and efficiency, not for generating nuclear weapons material) and a tad more sensible regulation could make nuclear power safe and cheap, and turn nuclear (together with renewables, of course) into a formidable weapon against global warming.
- Aachen 5y agoWhat is GW? Something to do with nuclear I presume but I'm not sure who you're calling dumb.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- forinti 5y agoYou need to be able to replace your battery for a phone to last that long. It would be nice if manufacturers had to make them easily replaceable too. EDIT: Posted to wrong story by mistake.
- Aachen 5y agoYou might enjoy Fairphone if you're actually willing to pay that premium for having a more sustainably produced and repairable phone. The company also produces spare parts, e.g. vibration engine + mic + usb port are in the bottom module which costs a grand total of €20 to order new. Screw it in with a regular Philips. There's also a decent (especially compared to the market share) community so it has good support for various roms if that's your thing. By default it's a normal Android with Google stuff. They'll introduce a new model with 5G some time this month, in case you're in the market. (I'm not affiliated by the way, just a fan)
- GoodJokes 5y agoThere is a lot of haranguing about following the science and picking good sources on hackernews, yet articles from Non-expert personal blogs get discussed to death.
- tcmb 5y agoHas anyone ever considered the effects of wind and solar power on the climate? If wind drives turbines, the energy is not available anymore to circulate air in the atmosphere. And if solar energy is absorbed to a high degree by solar panels, it won't heat up the earth as it used to do before. So, it seems like a fallacy to think that increasing wind and solar power will have not influence the climate. Is this line of thinking present in the current discussion, or is it not valid?
- detritus 5y agoGiven that both of these situations draw energy from the atmosphere, they should be complementary to the goals of climate change mitigation. I suppose 'covering the Sahara in solar panels' might need a little thought in regards to how it affects weather patterns across North Africa and Europe, but we're a wee way off from there yet.
- tcmb 5y agoAgreed for solar, but I don't see how a reduction of wind energy would contribute to the goal of keeping the temperature increase below a certain level. Kinetic energy is not driving temperature increase, is it?
- detritus 5y agoI suppose not, but reducing wind energy at near sea level would reduce the energy of weather systems, including hurricanes, that whilst products of climate change are the pointy ends of the stick that cause irritation and woe in humans and other creatures. Again, probably not much, mind!
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y agoOther way around. Temperature increase drives kinetic energy in the atmosphere.
- mepiethree 5y agoThe total amount of wind and solar in the world is several orders of magnitude higher than the amount that we would harness so this isn’t really a relevant consideration. It’s like asking if a piece of dust on an Olympic sprinter would slow them down due to air resistance.
- cblconfederate 5y agoEh, nobody claims those things. Try tackling electric cars though, imho there is a lot of wishful thinking in their deployment
- aero-glide2 5y agoI haven't seen anyone claim 4 out of the 5 points. I don't quite understand the target audience for this article.
- thedrbrian 5y agoPatting oneself on the back? Or the more rude version
- Ensorceled 5y agoI have. So, probably people who, like me, encounter these kinds of arguments with family and friends and would like to have counter points ...
- tasty_freeze 5y agoOne thing I hear frequently against wind energy is "but what about the birds?" Usually this is said by someone who politically doesn't care about wildlife. 1. effort is put into abating the issue to some degree. 2. billions of birds are killed due to human activity. Number one is house cats, but impacts with windows and cars is orders of magnitude more than due to wind turbines. 3. wind power displaces gas and coal power. the effects of pollution (particulates, mercury, etc) is far worse than wind turbines for birds. not only that but it is better for anything that breathes oxygen, including humans. So if the "what about the birds" crowd actually cared about birds, they'd push for wind power over coal. But it isn't about the birds; it is a pretext for keeping the status quo.
- andromeduck 5y agoWind only displaces gas and coal when governments aren't shutting down nuclear to persue it like in Germany, California, New York, etc.
- pfdietz 5y agoThis is not true. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig2-gross-power-production-germany-1990-2020.png https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...
- andromeduck 5y agohttps://www.nber.org/papers/w26598 https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598
- pfdietz 5y agoThat paper is comparing what happened to what would have happened without the nuclear phase out. That is, coal would have gone down MORE if nuclear had not been phased out. It does not support your claim that nuclear was replaced by coal. As the graph I gave you shows, coal use there declined over this decade, even as nuclear has also declined.
- xyzzy21 5y agoMostly correct. But the problem is that these are literally the points of Green proponents/Anti-climate-change people. They have a religious, purist, orthodox attitude - ZERO fossil fuels ASAP! Only a portfolio of all sources can enable a transition and time required to debug all the problems with the new technology. But Green Absolutism has no room for that. The fact is: We Will be using fossil fuels in the next 50-100 years still. It may become smaller or more limited but it will NOT be zero. If you try to force the issue to absolutely, we will end up with NOTHING - either from Green or from Fossil because the system will break. Just like supply chains have broken recently, fossil fuels are just as deeply intertwined into the supply chain network FOR EVERYTHING that is post-1800 technology. It's like a jenga pile or pick-up-stix situation.
- kergonath 5y agoZero fossil fuels needed to happen 20 years ago. ASAP won't be good enough. One argument can be made to keep around existing gas-powered plants to absorb demand peaks, but building coal or gas plants right now is lunacy. Nuclear might or might not be in the future, but fossil fuels certainly need to die much quicker than they do.
- lamontcg 5y agoNobody makes that argument, this is what an actual strawman argument looks like.
- xondono 5y agoWhere does one find this kind of ludicrous arguments? Facebook? There are far more important barriers in the way of 100% renewable energy than these strawman arguments.
- baron_harkonnen 5y agoOne thing people seem to misunderstand is where renewable skepticism is coming from. Sure there are some lingering climate deniers that don't like renewables out of principle, but a growing amount of criticism comes from people (I put myself in this camp) that see renewables as distracting us from the real and immediate need for decarbonization. I'm very skeptical about renewables ability to address any of our climate problems, but that stems more deeply from the clear observation that globally, we are not replacing fossil fuels with renewables, but rather supplementing fossil fuel energy. Globally all sources of energy production have continued to rise. And to preempt any "but Germany/Sweden/etc!?", the planet does not care about some local success if globally emissions rise. The problem is that most renewable advocates argue that renewables will solve our energy and carbon problems so we don't need to consider any other method of decarbonization that will necessarily result in economic contraction. Our way of life is absolutely unsustainable. I would certainly hope that renewables would allow us to have a less severe economic contraction then without, but the idea that we can just keep on with current economic growth and that renewables will magically allow this to happen without permanent and catastrophic impacts on our climate is dangerously naive. The original argument for renewables was that they would help us with decarbonization. They objectively do not. We do objectively know that reduced economic activity does reduce emissions. If we want to avoid catastrophic climate change we need immediate and aggressive decarbonization. Maybe renewables will have a major part to play in our less industrial future, but alone they have proven incapable of even mitigating this problem.
- jokoon 5y agosolar and wind energies are beneficial to fossil fuels because fossil fuels will be burned when there's no wind or sun. nuclear in the only viable green energy, and the EU is on its way to recognize nuclear as green energy. renewables at a large scale is not worth it because there is just not enough copper on earth for it, and same goes for batteries.