4 ms·

Good thing nothing like that ever happens with nuclear. ("Externalities of wind power"? Oh.... is this bird strikes?)

by flir 3y ago

mrmanner 3y ago
> ("Externalities of wind power"? Oh.... is this bird strikes?) Noise is problematic for wildlife, and in some areas we tend to build wind power in previously quiet areas.
- flir 3y ago
  Yeah, I'm just reading up on the subject. Apparently a badly placed wind farm can have knock-on effects on the whole food web. We quickly reach a "never do anything" impasse though.
- jnsaff2 3y ago
  This is like the peak of bikeshedding. Completely forgets the impact of climate change to the ecosystems.
  - mrmanner 3y ago
    No, climate change is a far bigger problem. No one argues otherwise. There’s a pervasive idea, though, that renewable electricity production is harmless so there’s no point focusing on and avoiding waste. Adding to that, by acknowledging the harms of wind power we can locate it where it’s less harmful. Near cities or at sea, instead of destroying the few quiet places.
defrost 3y ago
If, as you say, you're reading up on the subject, side effects of wind power (and increased electric networks with solar, batteries, etc) are increased mining and concentrate processing of copper, nickel, lithium, etc. Not being a scaremonger, these are just real costs that come along for the ride into a brave new future. Spodumene processing in Malaysia from Australian concentrates (Mt. Weld, etc) to produce litium for batteries creates massive acid dams of wate and tonnes of radioactive waste. Copper mining has always been problematic (albeit out of sight for many) and much more of that is called for. Without being pro or anti any of the possible solutions for power generation we need moving forward, they all have toxic waste issues that bear looking into.
- jnsaff2 3y ago
  4 billion tonnes of coal mined per year. 2021 produced 50 thousand tons of pure lithium. Coal gets used ONCE, lithium stores energy thousands of times before recycling to do it again. This kind of context is important before whatabouting.
  - defrost 3y ago
    Coal has peaked, is on a plateau, and will decline and continue so, according to the IEA. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652273 Lithium, Copper, Nickel, and a slew of other minerals and elements are on the increase and have some serious waste products. The comparison here is to > Good thing nothing like that ever happens with nuclear. (with implied /s) with the rational response that all resources come with a downside. This kind of context is important before whatabouting. You've whatabout'd by dragging in coal.
    - flir 3y ago
      Lets try rephrasing it. Given that we need about 580m terajoules (source https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/climate-change/energy/global-energy-consumption https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/climate-change/ene...) what's the least worst way of achieving that? Mixed, obviously, and different mixes in different parts of the world, but what should be our first-choice energy source? Assume fusion's off the table for now, lets stick with things that already exist. My gut feeling is that wind, with its primarily local ecological impacts that are able to be minimised with careful placement and design, is a strong candidate for least-worst solution. The catastrophic failure mode of a wind farm does a lot less damage than the catastrohopic failure mode of a nuclear reactor, for a start. I do realise a lot of that wind power is probably going to end up in batteries (I'm hopeful for StEnSEA, but like fusion it's a bit Real Soon Now).
      - defrost 3y ago
        Regardless of our personal positions and feelings on nuclear it's going ahead and will persist as a global low continuous baseload provider; South Korea is building more, China is building more, both at home and globally. In a very real sense to date the actual catastrophic failure modes of nuclear haven't been that bad on a realistic industrial scale. Chernobyl persists as a bad place to dig into the soil if you're a Russian soldier commanded to do dumb things, as a large area nature reserve the case could be made that it has been a positive for non human animals. The events at the Fukishima nuclear plant had few actual direct deaths, as an incident embedded within the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that directly caused 19,759 deaths, 6,242 injured, and 2,553 people missing it would fade from sight were it not for the evacuations and containment costs. The areas evacuated are already allowing returns to much of the region, the containment costs are the kinds of things that can be mitigated with engineering on future projects. I'm no great fan of nuclear but pragmatically designs and safety have improved over the decades and actual deaths and casualties look small compared to deaths in conventional resource mining and industrial accidents such as the Bhopal disaster (500,000 people exposed to the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate). Sure, let's go with as much wind and solar as we can, let's have battery farms, green gas production, overnight thermal energy storage in sodium salts, etc. But let us also pay attention to the costs of "green energy" - the ramp up to meet the current fossil fuel power creation levels will drastically ramp up toxic waste byproducts from nickel|copper mining, litium for batteries, rare eath processing, etc. We are in a looming CO2 crisis that is worse for being kicked down the road since the 1970s when eraly action could have been taken. Let's not blindly walk into another e-waste crisis by greenwashing away the real issues that come with new energy sources.

Good thing nothing like that ever happens with nuclear. ("Externalities of wind power"? Oh.... is this bird strikes?)

by flir 3y ago

Good thing nothing like that ever happens with nuclear. ("Externalities of wind power"? Oh.... is this bird strikes?)

> ("Externalities of wind power"? Oh.... is this bird strikes?) Noise is problematic for wildlife, and in some areas we tend to build wind power in previously quiet areas.

flir 3y ago
Yeah, I'm just reading up on the subject. Apparently a badly placed wind farm can have knock-on effects on the whole food web. We quickly reach a "never do anything" impasse though.
jnsaff2 3y ago
This is like the peak of bikeshedding. Completely forgets the impact of climate change to the ecosystems.
- mrmanner 3y ago
  No, climate change is a far bigger problem. No one argues otherwise. There’s a pervasive idea, though, that renewable electricity production is harmless so there’s no point focusing on and avoiding waste. Adding to that, by acknowledging the harms of wind power we can locate it where it’s less harmful. Near cities or at sea, instead of destroying the few quiet places.

defrost 3y ago

If, as you say, you're reading up on the subject, side effects of wind power (and increased electric networks with solar, batteries, etc) are increased mining and concentrate processing of copper, nickel, lithium, etc. Not being a scaremonger, these are just real costs that come along for the ride into a brave new future. Spodumene processing in Malaysia from Australian concentrates (Mt. Weld, etc) to produce litium for batteries creates massive acid dams of wate and tonnes of radioactive waste. Copper mining has always been problematic (albeit out of sight for many) and much more of that is called for. Without being pro or anti any of the possible solutions for power generation we need moving forward, they all have toxic waste issues that bear looking into.

jnsaff2 3y ago
4 billion tonnes of coal mined per year. 2021 produced 50 thousand tons of pure lithium. Coal gets used ONCE, lithium stores energy thousands of times before recycling to do it again. This kind of context is important before whatabouting.
- defrost 3y ago
  Coal has peaked, is on a plateau, and will decline and continue so, according to the IEA. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652273 Lithium, Copper, Nickel, and a slew of other minerals and elements are on the increase and have some serious waste products. The comparison here is to > Good thing nothing like that ever happens with nuclear. (with implied /s) with the rational response that all resources come with a downside. This kind of context is important before whatabouting. You've whatabout'd by dragging in coal.
  - flir 3y ago
    Lets try rephrasing it. Given that we need about 580m terajoules (source https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/climate-change/energy/global-energy-consumption https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/climate-change/ene...) what's the least worst way of achieving that? Mixed, obviously, and different mixes in different parts of the world, but what should be our first-choice energy source? Assume fusion's off the table for now, lets stick with things that already exist. My gut feeling is that wind, with its primarily local ecological impacts that are able to be minimised with careful placement and design, is a strong candidate for least-worst solution. The catastrophic failure mode of a wind farm does a lot less damage than the catastrohopic failure mode of a nuclear reactor, for a start. I do realise a lot of that wind power is probably going to end up in batteries (I'm hopeful for StEnSEA, but like fusion it's a bit Real Soon Now).
    - defrost 3y ago
      Regardless of our personal positions and feelings on nuclear it's going ahead and will persist as a global low continuous baseload provider; South Korea is building more, China is building more, both at home and globally. In a very real sense to date the actual catastrophic failure modes of nuclear haven't been that bad on a realistic industrial scale. Chernobyl persists as a bad place to dig into the soil if you're a Russian soldier commanded to do dumb things, as a large area nature reserve the case could be made that it has been a positive for non human animals. The events at the Fukishima nuclear plant had few actual direct deaths, as an incident embedded within the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that directly caused 19,759 deaths, 6,242 injured, and 2,553 people missing it would fade from sight were it not for the evacuations and containment costs. The areas evacuated are already allowing returns to much of the region, the containment costs are the kinds of things that can be mitigated with engineering on future projects. I'm no great fan of nuclear but pragmatically designs and safety have improved over the decades and actual deaths and casualties look small compared to deaths in conventional resource mining and industrial accidents such as the Bhopal disaster (500,000 people exposed to the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate). Sure, let's go with as much wind and solar as we can, let's have battery farms, green gas production, overnight thermal energy storage in sodium salts, etc. But let us also pay attention to the costs of "green energy" - the ramp up to meet the current fossil fuel power creation levels will drastically ramp up toxic waste byproducts from nickel|copper mining, litium for batteries, rare eath processing, etc. We are in a looming CO2 crisis that is worse for being kicked down the road since the 1970s when eraly action could have been taken. Let's not blindly walk into another e-waste crisis by greenwashing away the real issues that come with new energy sources.