6 ms·

Is it just me or does ESG feel like a giant virtue signal from companies and investors? Taking this specific issue of nuclear. Nuclear Energy is objectively cl

Is it just me or does ESG feel like a giant virtue signal from companies and investors? Taking this specific issue of nuclear. Nuclear Energy is objectively cleaner than other forms of energy generation and is objectively safe if you operate it properly. With that said, it seems like Nuclear Energy would be embraced by the ESG crowd, but that simply wasn't the case. Now that the rubber met the road, the sentiment has changed. So was nuclear actually bad? Or was it just "bad". Almost seems that everyone was so obsessed with going green and getting rid of "big bad nuclear" that they forgot that they depend on it. Much like a kid quitting his job to pursue the arts and then realizing, he can't make rent without the job they just quit...

indy 4y ago
ESG is a tool that certain political parties can use to "give to their friends" and "take from their enemies". Anyone who doesn't toe the line will find their ESG rating dropping (see Tesla: https://theconversation.com/how-a-sustainability-index-can-keep-exxon-but-drop-tesla-and-3-ways-to-fix-esg-ratings-to-meet-investors-expectations-183705 https://theconversation.com/how-a-sustainability-index-can-k...)
- woodpanel 4y ago
  Been criticizing Tesla for years. But once Elon openly confronted cancel culture's twitterized grip on democracy all of a sudden those criticisms became newsworthy and a concern for regulators. Same with crypto: The scammy-ness and un-pleasentness (ie of funding terrorists and organized crime) was always there, but news-worthy it got only once Canadian Truckers made use of it.
Geee 4y ago
Yes. It's not only virtue signaling, but a deceitful way to control policies and investments. It's not for the environment, but for power and profit.
misterprime 4y ago
Agreed. I'm not opposed to identifying situations where companies are getting away with something for free that they should be paying for, and then correcting that. For example, dumping chemicals into a river, or emitting toxic fumes into the air. Somehow this turned into: "only solar, wind, and thermal are good, so everything other than those are bad. We need to shut down nuclear." It would have been better if it was: "wow, these decades old designs did really well. We've learned a lot over the years, let's build newer, better, cleaner, safer nuclear plants and then shut down the old ones."
- nathanaldensr 4y ago
  This is always what happens when the most militant positions are allowed or even encouraged to control discourse: we end up in an extremist situation.
galimaufry 4y ago
> Is it just me or does ESG feel like a giant virtue signal from companies and investors? Well yeah, it is explicitly intended as a signal that investors can use to select virtuous companies.
bakuninsbart 4y ago
> objectively safe if you operate it properly You are commenting this on a thread in which people are praising France's 60 year old reactors and suggesting Germany keeps their 40 year old reactors running, which were built to last 40 years. "Running them properly" is easier said than done, and frankly, the naive and misinformed opinions spewed constantly about the topic by proponents are a strong argument against nuclear energy. Not that it matters anyway, no one in a position of responsibility is going to build them, regardless of how much Isaac Asimov fans on the internet are crying foul about it.
- nathanaldensr 4y ago
  Enjoy freezing to death this winter (assuming you're German). While this is definitely hyperbolic, it's becoming less so every day this insanity with energy continues.
- twelve40 4y ago
  > no one in a position of responsibility is going to build them a bit of an exaggeration? today: "Sizewell C: New nuclear power station granted development consent by the government ... French energy company EDF, which will partly fund the project, has said the plant will generate electricity for at least 60 years and will employ 900 people."
ncmncm 4y ago
Nuclear was never "bad". It is just the most expensive power, discounting externalities like CO2, disaster liability, decommissioning, and waste management. Include the latter, and it gets worse. Include CO2, and coal is worse. The cheapest power, with or without externalities, is solar followed by wind. A dollar spent on those produces several times as many kWh as anything else. They are of course intermittent, but that doesn't matter much because their share of total generation is low. As their contribution comes to dominate, we will need to add storage. Until then, money is overwhelmingly more usefully spent adding generating capacity, as is being done. But a hell of a lot more should have been and needs to be spent on that.
- kpennell 4y ago
  I'd be curious to hear your take on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5cm7HOAqZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5cm7HOAqZY (California's Renewable Energy Problem by the Youtube channel Real Engineering) Walks through the numbers on what it would take to run California on renewables + storage alone. Because of the intermittency, it seems like the costs of storage (even though it gets better/cheaper each year) maker it not possible.
  - nathanaldensr 4y ago
    I feel like the "wind and solar only!" crowd love to point out externalities of other forms of power generation but not wind and solar. It's not magic; we don't just conjure up windmills and solar panels from thin air and magically suck electricity from them. There are real costs, risks, and suboptimal function of all these systems.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      > real costs Smaller real costs. It costs less to build and operate a solar or wind farm than just to operate an already-paid-for coal plant. It costs, just now, about the same to build and operate a solar or wind farm as to just operate an already-paid-for nuke. But renewable costs are still falling fast. Cost of storage is falling faster than wind or solar ever did. By the time Cali needs to build storage -- after there is renewable generation capacity to charge it from -- it will be very cheap.
raxxorraxor 4y ago
ESG is one of the best examples of good intention paving the way to hell. It is fundamentally undemocratic to the greatest extends aside from creating large factious industries with a parasitic behavior and randomly sanction investments positively or negatively. It enables corruption and companies that can invest into legal departments specialized in compliance towards ESG requirements will win here. It is one of the worst mechanism our financial "experts" came up with. The last present of boomers to finally destroy the world for everyone if I want to exaggerate, but I think it isn't much less.

indy 4y ago

ESG is a tool that certain political parties can use to "give to their friends" and "take from their enemies". Anyone who doesn't toe the line will find their ESG rating dropping (see Tesla: https://theconversation.com/how-a-sustainability-index-can-keep-exxon-but-drop-tesla-and-3-ways-to-fix-esg-ratings-to-meet-investors-expectations-183705 https://theconversation.com/how-a-sustainability-index-can-k...)

woodpanel 4y ago
Been criticizing Tesla for years. But once Elon openly confronted cancel culture's twitterized grip on democracy all of a sudden those criticisms became newsworthy and a concern for regulators. Same with crypto: The scammy-ness and un-pleasentness (ie of funding terrorists and organized crime) was always there, but news-worthy it got only once Canadian Truckers made use of it.

Geee 4y ago

Yes. It's not only virtue signaling, but a deceitful way to control policies and investments. It's not for the environment, but for power and profit.

misterprime 4y ago

Agreed. I'm not opposed to identifying situations where companies are getting away with something for free that they should be paying for, and then correcting that. For example, dumping chemicals into a river, or emitting toxic fumes into the air. Somehow this turned into: "only solar, wind, and thermal are good, so everything other than those are bad. We need to shut down nuclear." It would have been better if it was: "wow, these decades old designs did really well. We've learned a lot over the years, let's build newer, better, cleaner, safer nuclear plants and then shut down the old ones."

nathanaldensr 4y ago
This is always what happens when the most militant positions are allowed or even encouraged to control discourse: we end up in an extremist situation.

galimaufry 4y ago

> Is it just me or does ESG feel like a giant virtue signal from companies and investors? Well yeah, it is explicitly intended as a signal that investors can use to select virtuous companies.

bakuninsbart 4y ago

> objectively safe if you operate it properly You are commenting this on a thread in which people are praising France's 60 year old reactors and suggesting Germany keeps their 40 year old reactors running, which were built to last 40 years. "Running them properly" is easier said than done, and frankly, the naive and misinformed opinions spewed constantly about the topic by proponents are a strong argument against nuclear energy. Not that it matters anyway, no one in a position of responsibility is going to build them, regardless of how much Isaac Asimov fans on the internet are crying foul about it.

nathanaldensr 4y ago
Enjoy freezing to death this winter (assuming you're German). While this is definitely hyperbolic, it's becoming less so every day this insanity with energy continues.
twelve40 4y ago
> no one in a position of responsibility is going to build them a bit of an exaggeration? today: "Sizewell C: New nuclear power station granted development consent by the government ... French energy company EDF, which will partly fund the project, has said the plant will generate electricity for at least 60 years and will employ 900 people."

ncmncm 4y ago

Nuclear was never "bad". It is just the most expensive power, discounting externalities like CO2, disaster liability, decommissioning, and waste management. Include the latter, and it gets worse. Include CO2, and coal is worse. The cheapest power, with or without externalities, is solar followed by wind. A dollar spent on those produces several times as many kWh as anything else. They are of course intermittent, but that doesn't matter much because their share of total generation is low. As their contribution comes to dominate, we will need to add storage. Until then, money is overwhelmingly more usefully spent adding generating capacity, as is being done. But a hell of a lot more should have been and needs to be spent on that.

kpennell 4y ago
I'd be curious to hear your take on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5cm7HOAqZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5cm7HOAqZY (California's Renewable Energy Problem by the Youtube channel Real Engineering) Walks through the numbers on what it would take to run California on renewables + storage alone. Because of the intermittency, it seems like the costs of storage (even though it gets better/cheaper each year) maker it not possible.
- nathanaldensr 4y ago
  I feel like the "wind and solar only!" crowd love to point out externalities of other forms of power generation but not wind and solar. It's not magic; we don't just conjure up windmills and solar panels from thin air and magically suck electricity from them. There are real costs, risks, and suboptimal function of all these systems.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    > real costs Smaller real costs. It costs less to build and operate a solar or wind farm than just to operate an already-paid-for coal plant. It costs, just now, about the same to build and operate a solar or wind farm as to just operate an already-paid-for nuke. But renewable costs are still falling fast. Cost of storage is falling faster than wind or solar ever did. By the time Cali needs to build storage -- after there is renewable generation capacity to charge it from -- it will be very cheap.

raxxorraxor 4y ago

ESG is one of the best examples of good intention paving the way to hell. It is fundamentally undemocratic to the greatest extends aside from creating large factious industries with a parasitic behavior and randomly sanction investments positively or negatively. It enables corruption and companies that can invest into legal departments specialized in compliance towards ESG requirements will win here. It is one of the worst mechanism our financial "experts" came up with. The last present of boomers to finally destroy the world for everyone if I want to exaggerate, but I think it isn't much less.