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I was thinking about this just the other day: 0. Secure food chains _now_. Nobody is talking about this yet. Droughts + fertilizer shortage + energy crisis + i

by bArray 4y ago

I was thinking about this just the other day: 0. Secure food chains _now_. Nobody is talking about this yet. Droughts + fertilizer shortage + energy crisis + inflation = disaster. Name a single Country that got a good harvest this year. Personally I have begun to slowly store long-storage food items to get way ahead of panic buying. 1. Invest in nuclear power heavily. It's okay saying "people should change their lives to be more sustainable" - without ever giving details about exactly how that is supposed to be done. The people saying such things have _zero_ idea about how their Country actually works. 2. Reduce or remove green levies and stop subsidizing green energy initiatives. It is simply false to state that green energy is cheaper when it is heavily subsidized - if it was so affordable and cheap it should be able to fund itself, but it can't. If it needs growth and is such an amazing investment, allow for private investment. If the UK tax payer _must_ subsidize it, we want part ownership of it so we can set prices. 3. Stop pushing for electric cars when we don't have the energy infrastructure or raw materials. Fuel cars are likely to stay until 2050 or so. Hybrids also make more sense as the 'cheap' energy is likely to fluctuate. 4. If a war were to break out, it will likely happen very soon. Countries are on their back-foot, governments need a distraction and tensions easily rise over limited resources in contended locations. We need immediate preparations for defense and offense.

DFHippie 4y ago
It's cold. Burn the house down now!
bryanlarsen 4y ago
1. It takes 20 years to build a nuke plant, 2 years to do wind and 6 months to do solar. Solving the problem 20 years from now is not solving the problem. 2. In case you haven't noticed, the wind subsidies are now negative. Wind subsidizes natgas, not the other way around. 3. If the lithium supply gets cut off, existing EV's don't stop working. If gasoline gets cut off, gasoline cars are stranded. EV's are crucial for self sufficiency.
- orwin 4y ago
  20 year to build a nuke plant? You'll want to learn about the "plan Messmer". Or 6 years to build 13 900 MW reactors. When they only had experience with UNGG tech and wanted to use PWR. I think in the end, 55 reactors were build in 12 years, replacing all coal and gas plants except for 2. I mean, 50 000 MW in 12 years, basically. For today equivalent of 50 billions USD.
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    As if they could do that today. Even China takes over 10 years to build a nuke, no way the west can do it faster. The US is adding 60GW a year of renewables, 55 of nukes in 12 is not impressive.
- bArray 4y ago
  > 1. It takes 20 years to build a nuke plant, 2 years to do wind and 6 months to do solar. Solving the problem 20 years from now is not solving the problem. As another comment suggested, it shouldn't take 20 years to build a nuclear power plant. "Modern nuclear power plants are planned for construction in five years or less" [1] (with delays, as with all projects of such scale). > 2. In case you haven't noticed, the wind subsidies are now negative. Wind subsidizes natgas, not the other way around. Then why is there still a "green tax"? If wind is as great as suggested, why is it being invested into natural gas, and not into more wind? > 3. If the lithium supply gets cut off, existing EV's don't stop working. If gasoline gets cut off, gasoline cars are stranded. EV's are crucial for self sufficiency. Lithium is just one raw material, out of many. It's not just power generation, we need massive investments into the electrical infrastructure, green energy to actually supply it (or it's pointless) and a way to feed power from EV's back into the grid on mass (to make up for the shortcomings of green energy). Some of these things will take years and years to fix. Look at how long it took to roll out fiber across the UK, and that's just a small glass cable. In the meantime, the Country actually needs to be able to run. EVs will one day be the future in one form or another (I still think hydrogen could make sense), but for now and the near future petrol and diesel are here to stay. 2030/2035 will come and go without mass adoption of EVs (the typical lifecycle of a car is much longer than the intended 10 years). I suspect we will see more and more hybrids at that time to aid the transition, but we still won't have the infrastructure. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants#Delays_and_overruns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla...

by bArray 4y ago

DFHippie 4y ago

It's cold. Burn the house down now!

bryanlarsen 4y ago

1. It takes 20 years to build a nuke plant, 2 years to do wind and 6 months to do solar. Solving the problem 20 years from now is not solving the problem. 2. In case you haven't noticed, the wind subsidies are now negative. Wind subsidizes natgas, not the other way around. 3. If the lithium supply gets cut off, existing EV's don't stop working. If gasoline gets cut off, gasoline cars are stranded. EV's are crucial for self sufficiency.

orwin 4y ago
20 year to build a nuke plant? You'll want to learn about the "plan Messmer". Or 6 years to build 13 900 MW reactors. When they only had experience with UNGG tech and wanted to use PWR. I think in the end, 55 reactors were build in 12 years, replacing all coal and gas plants except for 2. I mean, 50 000 MW in 12 years, basically. For today equivalent of 50 billions USD.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  As if they could do that today. Even China takes over 10 years to build a nuke, no way the west can do it faster. The US is adding 60GW a year of renewables, 55 of nukes in 12 is not impressive.
bArray 4y ago
> 1. It takes 20 years to build a nuke plant, 2 years to do wind and 6 months to do solar. Solving the problem 20 years from now is not solving the problem. As another comment suggested, it shouldn't take 20 years to build a nuclear power plant. "Modern nuclear power plants are planned for construction in five years or less" [1] (with delays, as with all projects of such scale). > 2. In case you haven't noticed, the wind subsidies are now negative. Wind subsidizes natgas, not the other way around. Then why is there still a "green tax"? If wind is as great as suggested, why is it being invested into natural gas, and not into more wind? > 3. If the lithium supply gets cut off, existing EV's don't stop working. If gasoline gets cut off, gasoline cars are stranded. EV's are crucial for self sufficiency. Lithium is just one raw material, out of many. It's not just power generation, we need massive investments into the electrical infrastructure, green energy to actually supply it (or it's pointless) and a way to feed power from EV's back into the grid on mass (to make up for the shortcomings of green energy). Some of these things will take years and years to fix. Look at how long it took to roll out fiber across the UK, and that's just a small glass cable. In the meantime, the Country actually needs to be able to run. EVs will one day be the future in one form or another (I still think hydrogen could make sense), but for now and the near future petrol and diesel are here to stay. 2030/2035 will come and go without mass adoption of EVs (the typical lifecycle of a car is much longer than the intended 10 years). I suspect we will see more and more hybrids at that time to aid the transition, but we still won't have the infrastructure. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants#Delays_and_overruns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla...