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I'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

I'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 ago
You 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 ago
Ironic given the author is so fixated on fallacies and straw man is itself usually referred to as a fallacy...
- blumio 5y ago
  How 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 ago
    Yes, 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 ago
      It’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 ago
        Bad models are not fallacies.
        Retric 5y ago
        Oversimplification 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 ago
    Find 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 ago
  I agree "storage" could be one of the candidates, but the OP does address that at all.
  - Retric 5y ago
    He 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 ago
      but 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 ago
        Storage 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 ago
He 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 ago
Maybe not as literally, but the themes definitely come up in both comment threads and media.
Ensorceled 5y ago
I 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 ago
  Just nod sagely and tell them there's not a single confirmed case of someone surviving windmill cancer.
SkyMarshal 5y ago
Granted #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 ago
I 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 ago
Oh, 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

thechao 5y ago

You 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 ago

Ironic given the author is so fixated on fallacies and straw man is itself usually referred to as a fallacy...

blumio 5y ago
How 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 ago
  Yes, 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 ago
    It’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 ago
      Bad models are not fallacies.
      - Retric 5y ago
        Oversimplification 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 ago
  Find 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 ago
I agree "storage" could be one of the candidates, but the OP does address that at all.
- Retric 5y ago
  He 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 ago
    but 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 ago
      Storage 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 ago

He 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 ago

Maybe not as literally, but the themes definitely come up in both comment threads and media.

Ensorceled 5y ago

I 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 ago
Just nod sagely and tell them there's not a single confirmed case of someone surviving windmill cancer.

SkyMarshal 5y ago

Granted #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 ago

I 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 ago

Oh, 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