4 ms·

The title is symptomatic for the climate discourse; either for or against oil/coal and wind/solar. I find the question "what is a reliable, clean and affordable

The title is symptomatic for the climate discourse; either for or against oil/coal and wind/solar. I find the question "what is a reliable, clean and affordable energy source?" much more relevant and productive.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
codingdave 3y ago
Affordable is the trick, though - while I totally understand why that is important, sometimes it seems like we're going to end up saying: "Sorry we are going extinct... staying alive wasn't profitable." I know that is both an idealistic and hyperbolic take on things. The bigger point is that when people say "affordable", they often really mean "profitable". But we cannot afford not to fix the problems.
- garte 3y ago
  It seems to me that nuclear and fossil energy is heavily subsidized almost everywhere. So affordability is kind of a tricky metric.
- throwawayqqq11 3y ago
  "Affordable" could also be taken as "doable". Which broadens the scope largely but misses the main problem: sustainability. This take is not just not helpful but, i would argue, actively harmful to the debate. By definition, sustainability is a waste management, that allows recycling rates of 90% or higher. CO2 is just one of our waste products we totally didnt care about.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    The United States spent 6% of its GDP putting human beings on the moon. And this was done during a time that historians don't generally consider to be a time of vast deprivation for the populace; it turns out investing in and inventing rocketry and aerospace technologies the likes of which humanity has never seen before is great for job creation. How much of the GDP should we be willing to spend to actively replace pollution generating energy plants with lower polluting alternatives?
    - flerchin 3y ago
      No we didn't. Not even close.
    - throwawayqqq11 3y ago
      Pollution will be in every path we choose, managing the waste is the quest and i dont think that direct government intervention is the best or most practical way here. IMO regulations and sanctions would be better. Eg. imagine the EU or US enforcing fully repairable or recyclable products in their markets. What would china do?
      - pjc50 3y ago
        > imagine the EU or US enforcing fully repairable or recyclable products in their markets. What would china do? What, you mean like the existing WEEE directive which requires all electronics to be lead-free and recyclable? China would, obviously, start selling repairable and recyclable products into those markets.
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      > The United States spent 6% of its GDP putting human beings on the moon. Sorry, wrong. The Apollo program cost about $25B in 1960's dollars. That's over the entire period, not just one year. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190712-apollo-in-50-numbers-the-cost https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190712-apollo-in-50-num... "In 1965, Nasa funding peaked at some 5% of government spending," But government spending != GDP. According to this, https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-gross-domestic-product https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-... GDP in 1965 was $743B
      - shadowgovt 3y ago
        My mistake. Amortizing the numbers, it comes out to more like 2.5% annually. https://www.herkulesprojekt.de/en/is-there-a-master-plan/the-moon-landing.html https://www.herkulesprojekt.de/en/is-there-a-master-plan/the... ... so the question stands. How much are we willing to spend, and do we think it will actually damage either the economy or people's quality-of-life (when having a major industrial project in fact creates job and business opportunities, historically speaking)?
- ajross 3y ago
  To be fair, though: wind power is cheap as dirt, which is why we're building it out like crazy basically everywhere with real estate for the turbines. Which is also why it's being opposed with weird canards like "But Birds!" and not practical arguments about power grid management.
- jes5199 3y ago
  I get where you're coming from but in 2024, solar is the cheapest source of power on earth, and wind is second-cheapest. Economics and survival are aligned for once, we just gotta actually build the new system and deprecate the old
  - badpun 3y ago
    Solar and wind are pretty expensive a lot of the time, e.g. on windless nights.
    - jes5199 3y ago
      you can either fall back to natural gas peaker plants or grid-battery. Batteries keep getting cheaper, too
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
It's a false dichotomy and it's funded and pushed by corporate, idealistic (but heavily funded) and political interests.
emceestork 3y ago
Not sure I understand the objection. The research this article is about compared Wind vs Oil/Coal effects on birds. The title seems in line with the findings of the research. > I find the question "what is a reliable, clean and affordable energy source?" much more relevant and productive. Seems to me like examining externalities of different energy sources is a part of the nuance of this question. Feels like you're being a bit of a hater.
- jdybide 3y ago
  [flagged]
pjc50 3y ago
> "what is a reliable, clean and affordable energy source?" "Clean" and "affordable" map immediately and obviously onto wind and solar; what then happens is people engage in a lot of wrangling around "reliable" to push nuclear, requiring bending both "clean" and "affordable" quite a bit and running into an invisible other criteria of "quick to deploy" and "politically acceptable".
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Well, "quick to deploy" is absolutely essential. "Politically acceptable" is a red herring. But the OP's question is loaded too. We don't need "reliable" right now. Fossil fuel can cover the reliability gap on the short term perfectly well. Until the question becomes "well, we replaced all the peak consumption with renewables, now what?", asking for reliability is status-quo propaganda.
- amadeuspagel 3y ago
  It's mislieading to use "politically acceptable" like "quick to deploy". What's "politically acceptable" is something we shape with every word we say and which differs accross countries. Speaking of countries, I could reduce this answer to one word, which refutes every single point you make: France.
  - pjc50 3y ago
    France have done better than most, largely due to building their fleet before Chernobyl, but even they have long term maintenance and cost overrun problems that led to shortages: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2022/08/26/edf-s-nuclear-fleet-receives-another-blow_5994861_19.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2022/08/26/edf-s-n... And the EDF reactor project in the UK is of course overrunning on time and budget. (when is the next French nuclear reactor new build scheduled to come on line?)
    - ViewTrick1002 3y ago
      For those that do not know: Flamanville 3. Commercial introduction delayed from 2012 to hopefully 2024. Current cost estimate is five times the original budget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
alistairSH 3y ago
As long as you're including long-term negative externalities in the "affordable" portion of your analysis, sure.
jdybide 3y ago
Your framing implies that the answer must be a single source, which is nonsense. The best answer is almost certainly a portfolio of multiple sources that allows for dramatically more innovation.
petsfed 3y ago
I mean, the title is in response to the specific, observed phenomenon of people in oil/gas/coal producing areas arguing for environmental restrictions on solar/wind/nuclear, but not arguing the same for oil/gas/coal. In the context of "what is a reliable, clean and affordable energy source?", we need to address that whatever we pick will necessarily hurt somebody's bottom line, and they will dig in and fight tooth and nail to prevent that happening, even if their livelihood is at the expense of the species. So rationally addressing a bad faith argument against many options that answer your question is, I think, worthwhile.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

codingdave 3y ago

Affordable is the trick, though - while I totally understand why that is important, sometimes it seems like we're going to end up saying: "Sorry we are going extinct... staying alive wasn't profitable." I know that is both an idealistic and hyperbolic take on things. The bigger point is that when people say "affordable", they often really mean "profitable". But we cannot afford not to fix the problems.

garte 3y ago
It seems to me that nuclear and fossil energy is heavily subsidized almost everywhere. So affordability is kind of a tricky metric.
throwawayqqq11 3y ago
"Affordable" could also be taken as "doable". Which broadens the scope largely but misses the main problem: sustainability. This take is not just not helpful but, i would argue, actively harmful to the debate. By definition, sustainability is a waste management, that allows recycling rates of 90% or higher. CO2 is just one of our waste products we totally didnt care about.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  The United States spent 6% of its GDP putting human beings on the moon. And this was done during a time that historians don't generally consider to be a time of vast deprivation for the populace; it turns out investing in and inventing rocketry and aerospace technologies the likes of which humanity has never seen before is great for job creation. How much of the GDP should we be willing to spend to actively replace pollution generating energy plants with lower polluting alternatives?
  - flerchin 3y ago
    No we didn't. Not even close.
  - throwawayqqq11 3y ago
    Pollution will be in every path we choose, managing the waste is the quest and i dont think that direct government intervention is the best or most practical way here. IMO regulations and sanctions would be better. Eg. imagine the EU or US enforcing fully repairable or recyclable products in their markets. What would china do?
    - pjc50 3y ago
      > imagine the EU or US enforcing fully repairable or recyclable products in their markets. What would china do? What, you mean like the existing WEEE directive which requires all electronics to be lead-free and recyclable? China would, obviously, start selling repairable and recyclable products into those markets.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    > The United States spent 6% of its GDP putting human beings on the moon. Sorry, wrong. The Apollo program cost about $25B in 1960's dollars. That's over the entire period, not just one year. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190712-apollo-in-50-numbers-the-cost https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190712-apollo-in-50-num... "In 1965, Nasa funding peaked at some 5% of government spending," But government spending != GDP. According to this, https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-gross-domestic-product https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-... GDP in 1965 was $743B
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      My mistake. Amortizing the numbers, it comes out to more like 2.5% annually. https://www.herkulesprojekt.de/en/is-there-a-master-plan/the-moon-landing.html https://www.herkulesprojekt.de/en/is-there-a-master-plan/the... ... so the question stands. How much are we willing to spend, and do we think it will actually damage either the economy or people's quality-of-life (when having a major industrial project in fact creates job and business opportunities, historically speaking)?
ajross 3y ago
To be fair, though: wind power is cheap as dirt, which is why we're building it out like crazy basically everywhere with real estate for the turbines. Which is also why it's being opposed with weird canards like "But Birds!" and not practical arguments about power grid management.
jes5199 3y ago
I get where you're coming from but in 2024, solar is the cheapest source of power on earth, and wind is second-cheapest. Economics and survival are aligned for once, we just gotta actually build the new system and deprecate the old
- badpun 3y ago
  Solar and wind are pretty expensive a lot of the time, e.g. on windless nights.
  - jes5199 3y ago
    you can either fall back to natural gas peaker plants or grid-battery. Batteries keep getting cheaper, too

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

It's a false dichotomy and it's funded and pushed by corporate, idealistic (but heavily funded) and political interests.

emceestork 3y ago

Not sure I understand the objection. The research this article is about compared Wind vs Oil/Coal effects on birds. The title seems in line with the findings of the research. > I find the question "what is a reliable, clean and affordable energy source?" much more relevant and productive. Seems to me like examining externalities of different energy sources is a part of the nuance of this question. Feels like you're being a bit of a hater.

jdybide 3y ago
[flagged]

pjc50 3y ago

> "what is a reliable, clean and affordable energy source?" "Clean" and "affordable" map immediately and obviously onto wind and solar; what then happens is people engage in a lot of wrangling around "reliable" to push nuclear, requiring bending both "clean" and "affordable" quite a bit and running into an invisible other criteria of "quick to deploy" and "politically acceptable".

marcosdumay 3y ago
Well, "quick to deploy" is absolutely essential. "Politically acceptable" is a red herring. But the OP's question is loaded too. We don't need "reliable" right now. Fossil fuel can cover the reliability gap on the short term perfectly well. Until the question becomes "well, we replaced all the peak consumption with renewables, now what?", asking for reliability is status-quo propaganda.
amadeuspagel 3y ago
It's mislieading to use "politically acceptable" like "quick to deploy". What's "politically acceptable" is something we shape with every word we say and which differs accross countries. Speaking of countries, I could reduce this answer to one word, which refutes every single point you make: France.
- pjc50 3y ago
  France have done better than most, largely due to building their fleet before Chernobyl, but even they have long term maintenance and cost overrun problems that led to shortages: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2022/08/26/edf-s-nuclear-fleet-receives-another-blow_5994861_19.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2022/08/26/edf-s-n... And the EDF reactor project in the UK is of course overrunning on time and budget. (when is the next French nuclear reactor new build scheduled to come on line?)
  - ViewTrick1002 3y ago
    For those that do not know: Flamanville 3. Commercial introduction delayed from 2012 to hopefully 2024. Current cost estimate is five times the original budget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...

alistairSH 3y ago

As long as you're including long-term negative externalities in the "affordable" portion of your analysis, sure.

jdybide 3y ago

Your framing implies that the answer must be a single source, which is nonsense. The best answer is almost certainly a portfolio of multiple sources that allows for dramatically more innovation.

petsfed 3y ago

I mean, the title is in response to the specific, observed phenomenon of people in oil/gas/coal producing areas arguing for environmental restrictions on solar/wind/nuclear, but not arguing the same for oil/gas/coal. In the context of "what is a reliable, clean and affordable energy source?", we need to address that whatever we pick will necessarily hurt somebody's bottom line, and they will dig in and fight tooth and nail to prevent that happening, even if their livelihood is at the expense of the species. So rationally addressing a bad faith argument against many options that answer your question is, I think, worthwhile.