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It is fair enough to argue that Greenpeace in fact want renewables. However, that should be seen as an energy conservatism direction. The energy production nee

It is fair enough to argue that Greenpeace in fact want renewables. However, that should be seen as an energy conservatism direction. The energy production needed to be supplied is not todays need, but the need of a future where we don't want to dig up oil. This means that jet fuels need to be produced by sequestration and all transport needs to powered by electricity (or fuel from sequestration). We also want a future where most of the land is not occupied as farm land and is more wild. This requires indoor farming techniques – again extremely energy intensive. In the end we should plan for a world that uses a lot more energy than today. As renewables scale roughly linear to land it is by many not seen as a feasible alternative, as it wouldn't be able to supply 10x the need of today (which it will already struggle with). In the end: Greenpeaces argument only works if they believe that we are at the end of technological development.

jacquesm 4y ago
I think Greenpeace is more of a political organization these days than an activist organization, and it exists mostly to perpetuate itself and raise more funds. That said, they are found on the long term 'right' side of most of these arguments and a lot of their numerical work on the real cost of nuclear power has proven to be accurate in the longer term (even if at the time it seemed a bit pessimistic). This alone should qualify them to see the achievement of shutting down nuclear power as a major milestone for their organization as something of the end of an era. They worked - especially in the past - quite hard to achieve this goal. I remember when Greenpeace was a bunch of guys and girls and an old boat that they painted over because they cared about the whales. Such idealism is a necessity in order to provide some balance in a world where business tends to dominate over social and long term welfare issues. In that sense they succeeded where many others have failed, their voice has added a lot of weight to various issues and has measurably increased awareness of many environmental issues. To present their effort as having the opposite effect isn't really productive, it clearly isn't their goal nor does it match with any statement that they have made or even a realistic assessment of the technical situation. And that's what makes these arguments so annoying, it's just gamesmanship, it elevates winning the game to a higher level than that it does our long term survival. Massive renewables + a viable storage option is clearly the way forward, anything else is just money games by vested interests. As for jet fuels: I think the age of the jet will come to an end at some point and I'm not at all going to mourn that. It was a luxury that we probably couldn't afford and don't actually need all that much. Travel should be time consuming and expensive because if it isn't we will move around so much that the planet will suffer dis-proportionally. Maybe we'll see another round of boats or maybe a slower form of air travel, I really don't know. But the idea that you hop on a plane at 7 in the morning, are in Barcelona at 9:30, attend a meeting, have lunch and fly back has so much wrong with it that I much prefer our current COVID incentivized world of video conferencing.
- madsbuch 4y ago
  Actions speak louder than words and good intentions don't justify bad actions. > As for jet fuels: I think the age of the jet will come to an end at some point This is fair, you argue within a framework where we have seen the technological peak – something I don't think you will meet to much sympathy for in the forum. As such, this is also where this conversation stops – you can't build a house without the foundation.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    > something I don't think you will meet to much sympathy for in the forum. As if I care. > As such, this is also where this conversation stops – you can't build a house without the foundation. Well, you decided to join it, you're entirely free to back out any time you want. But the house has a foundation, it just isn't going to be in the color that you want. Power will likely be variably priced depending on what time or day or season it is and whether that future arrives 10 years from now or 50 doesn't really matter, it will arrive regardless because non-proliferation alone will stop the world to adopt nuclear power en masse.
    - braza 4y ago
      It’s a very touching statement but the number of flights even with a pandemic returned to the 2015 levels contradicts your thesis. [1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/564769/airline-industry-number-of-flights/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/564769/airline-industry-...
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        Yes, of course they did. But this isn't the long term just yet and when fuel prices here were quite a bit higher a few months ago the effects on mobility were very noticeable. So I take that as a harbinger of what's to come, and in we don't actually know how high those levels would be if COVID had not happened and I suspect quite a bit higher than they are today. Videoconferencing has replaced in person meetings for us in all but the rarest cases.

jacquesm 4y ago

I think Greenpeace is more of a political organization these days than an activist organization, and it exists mostly to perpetuate itself and raise more funds. That said, they are found on the long term 'right' side of most of these arguments and a lot of their numerical work on the real cost of nuclear power has proven to be accurate in the longer term (even if at the time it seemed a bit pessimistic). This alone should qualify them to see the achievement of shutting down nuclear power as a major milestone for their organization as something of the end of an era. They worked - especially in the past - quite hard to achieve this goal. I remember when Greenpeace was a bunch of guys and girls and an old boat that they painted over because they cared about the whales. Such idealism is a necessity in order to provide some balance in a world where business tends to dominate over social and long term welfare issues. In that sense they succeeded where many others have failed, their voice has added a lot of weight to various issues and has measurably increased awareness of many environmental issues. To present their effort as having the opposite effect isn't really productive, it clearly isn't their goal nor does it match with any statement that they have made or even a realistic assessment of the technical situation. And that's what makes these arguments so annoying, it's just gamesmanship, it elevates winning the game to a higher level than that it does our long term survival. Massive renewables + a viable storage option is clearly the way forward, anything else is just money games by vested interests. As for jet fuels: I think the age of the jet will come to an end at some point and I'm not at all going to mourn that. It was a luxury that we probably couldn't afford and don't actually need all that much. Travel should be time consuming and expensive because if it isn't we will move around so much that the planet will suffer dis-proportionally. Maybe we'll see another round of boats or maybe a slower form of air travel, I really don't know. But the idea that you hop on a plane at 7 in the morning, are in Barcelona at 9:30, attend a meeting, have lunch and fly back has so much wrong with it that I much prefer our current COVID incentivized world of video conferencing.

madsbuch 4y ago
Actions speak louder than words and good intentions don't justify bad actions. > As for jet fuels: I think the age of the jet will come to an end at some point This is fair, you argue within a framework where we have seen the technological peak – something I don't think you will meet to much sympathy for in the forum. As such, this is also where this conversation stops – you can't build a house without the foundation.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  > something I don't think you will meet to much sympathy for in the forum. As if I care. > As such, this is also where this conversation stops – you can't build a house without the foundation. Well, you decided to join it, you're entirely free to back out any time you want. But the house has a foundation, it just isn't going to be in the color that you want. Power will likely be variably priced depending on what time or day or season it is and whether that future arrives 10 years from now or 50 doesn't really matter, it will arrive regardless because non-proliferation alone will stop the world to adopt nuclear power en masse.
  - braza 4y ago
    It’s a very touching statement but the number of flights even with a pandemic returned to the 2015 levels contradicts your thesis. [1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/564769/airline-industry-number-of-flights/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/564769/airline-industry-...
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      Yes, of course they did. But this isn't the long term just yet and when fuel prices here were quite a bit higher a few months ago the effects on mobility were very noticeable. So I take that as a harbinger of what's to come, and in we don't actually know how high those levels would be if COVID had not happened and I suspect quite a bit higher than they are today. Videoconferencing has replaced in person meetings for us in all but the rarest cases.