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But it makes for a great talking point and strawman, doesn't it? As soon as someone brings that up, one can savely ignore the rest of what they have to say on

by hef19898 3y ago

But it makes for a great talking point and strawman, doesn't it? As soon as someone brings that up, one can savely ignore the rest of what they have to say on the subject.

freedomben 3y ago
> As soon as someone brings that up, one can savely ignore the rest of what they have to say on the subject. Ah yes, the perfect example of our contemporary confirmation bias at work. As soon as someone says something you don't like, dismiss them on that and everything else.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Oh, don't worry, time permitted I still read through all that gibberish to accoint for the risk of being wrong. Happens once every blue moon. Let's run a test: What's your position on nuclear power vs. solar and wind?
  - freedomben 3y ago
    I'm not an expert by any stretch on those topics, so I largely defer to people who are, but I see in them all a set of pros and cons, tradeoffs that we have to make. Nuclear has enormous potential IMHO and I think we've missed opportunities by being so afraid it, though the issue of safety and waste disposal are very real. Nuclear could unlock lots of other potential energy technologies though including desalination and other things that take enormous amounts of power, because they burn 24/7 even when demand is low. We cold use that excess instead of wasting it. Wind largely seems like not worth it, between the disruptions to birds and other wildlife, the huge resources involved to built and maintain it, and the unreliability of it, and general low power output, it doesn't seem to me like the best investment, with maybe a few exceptions like a particularly windy mountain pass or something. Solar is wonderful, particularly the localization that it enables. The con with solar though is that it requires storage (batteries) because it only produces when the sun is shining. There may be some clever ways to work around that, but Lithium is already becoming harder to get and there are concerns about sustainability even just for building EVs. If we have to start putting huge battery banks in homes, that might not be sustainable/scalable. How about you? what are your thoughts on those?
    - hef19898 3y ago
      That is a surprisingly balanced take, except the bird stuff. My take, in very small nutshell: - Nuclear is dead, by virtue of beingnto expensive and taking too long to build - a combination of a more flexible grid, renewables (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and so on) is the way to go - EV batteries don't really need lithium, do they? - solar does not require storage for more than a couple of hours max (!), and the "clever ways" around storage do not require lithium, batteries or storage at all (demand side measures work just fine for yeaes now) - wind is in some places intentionally held back, even in very suitable places based on BS arguments - until we stop this pointless discussion aroind nuclear power, wind or no wind and the fact that the sun ain't shining at night, we will not get the necessary transition (which is already happening by the way) up to speed
    - pjc50 3y ago
      The bird take is a dead giveaway of partial information; people starting from the point of view of caring about birds recognize that the direct impact is actually pretty small, compared to habitat loss, use of pesticides, glass buildings (yes really) and domestic cats. With a few exceptions for protecting very specific breeding sites.

But it makes for a great talking point and strawman, doesn't it? As soon as someone brings that up, one can savely ignore the rest of what they have to say on the subject.

freedomben 3y ago

> As soon as someone brings that up, one can savely ignore the rest of what they have to say on the subject. Ah yes, the perfect example of our contemporary confirmation bias at work. As soon as someone says something you don't like, dismiss them on that and everything else.

hef19898 3y ago
Oh, don't worry, time permitted I still read through all that gibberish to accoint for the risk of being wrong. Happens once every blue moon. Let's run a test: What's your position on nuclear power vs. solar and wind?
- freedomben 3y ago
  I'm not an expert by any stretch on those topics, so I largely defer to people who are, but I see in them all a set of pros and cons, tradeoffs that we have to make. Nuclear has enormous potential IMHO and I think we've missed opportunities by being so afraid it, though the issue of safety and waste disposal are very real. Nuclear could unlock lots of other potential energy technologies though including desalination and other things that take enormous amounts of power, because they burn 24/7 even when demand is low. We cold use that excess instead of wasting it. Wind largely seems like not worth it, between the disruptions to birds and other wildlife, the huge resources involved to built and maintain it, and the unreliability of it, and general low power output, it doesn't seem to me like the best investment, with maybe a few exceptions like a particularly windy mountain pass or something. Solar is wonderful, particularly the localization that it enables. The con with solar though is that it requires storage (batteries) because it only produces when the sun is shining. There may be some clever ways to work around that, but Lithium is already becoming harder to get and there are concerns about sustainability even just for building EVs. If we have to start putting huge battery banks in homes, that might not be sustainable/scalable. How about you? what are your thoughts on those?
  - hef19898 3y ago
    That is a surprisingly balanced take, except the bird stuff. My take, in very small nutshell: - Nuclear is dead, by virtue of beingnto expensive and taking too long to build - a combination of a more flexible grid, renewables (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and so on) is the way to go - EV batteries don't really need lithium, do they? - solar does not require storage for more than a couple of hours max (!), and the "clever ways" around storage do not require lithium, batteries or storage at all (demand side measures work just fine for yeaes now) - wind is in some places intentionally held back, even in very suitable places based on BS arguments - until we stop this pointless discussion aroind nuclear power, wind or no wind and the fact that the sun ain't shining at night, we will not get the necessary transition (which is already happening by the way) up to speed
  - pjc50 3y ago
    The bird take is a dead giveaway of partial information; people starting from the point of view of caring about birds recognize that the direct impact is actually pretty small, compared to habitat loss, use of pesticides, glass buildings (yes really) and domestic cats. With a few exceptions for protecting very specific breeding sites.