5 ms·

It's crazy because while the US is one of the biggest emitters per capita, it's also home of the brightest minds and have by far the most efficient research ad

by igortg 1mo ago

It's crazy because while the US is one of the biggest emitters per capita, it's also home of the brightest minds and have by far the most efficient research ad development capacity. So US govt. denial is a huge hit in our already tiny chances to save the planet from hell in the next 50yrs.

FrustratedMonky 1mo ago
Is this still true? China seems to be winning now. And lead in solar, and robots.
- drstewart 1mo ago
  China seems to be winning in brightest minds by what metric? >And lead in solar, and robots. And new coal, don't forget about that.
  - tialaramex 1mo ago
    > And new coal, don't forget about that. For the last full year where we have data (2025), China made slightly less electricity from coal than the one before. Unlike Trump, China's authoritarian leadership seem to have their eye on the ball, China is on Earth so if we trash Earth's climate that's China's climate too. But also, more so than the gas which powers so much of Europe and America's electricity generators, coal is obviously poison, even the unburned coal looks like a movie prop to signify "Mysterious evil" The toxic waste from a gas power plant is a transparent gas that readily mixes with the atmosphere. Does it cause problems? Yes. But compared to "And here's a mountain of radioactive and highly toxic coal ash that's produced by our coal power plant" it's rather subtle.
    - cryptopian 1mo ago
      It's important to remember how radical a change to electricity generation is. Apart from just new plants, you've got to keep the existing grid going, create new distribution infrastructure, reorganise supply chains and labour forces, and you'll also have old infrastructure aging out. It's not ideal, but a long term plan may involve building new fossil fuel generators in the immediate term
      - tialaramex 1mo ago
        > a long term plan may involve building new fossil fuel generators in the immediate term In all but some very extreme cases this is unaffordable because the fossil fuel generator is expensive to build and yet is increasingly stranded destroying any further value.
  - FrustratedMonky 1mo ago
    Do your own research. There are metrics. I'm done explaining to Republicans what they could just as easily go read in a book themselves.
    - drstewart 1mo ago
      [flagged]
      - FrustratedMonky 1mo ago
        no, you
  - Sweepi 1mo ago
    China reduced the CO2/kWh of electricity by 33% in the last 20 years, while increasing output by 320%. The U.S. reduced it by 37%, while increasing output by ... 12%. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix?tab=line&stackMode=relative&time=2005..2025&country=CHN%7EDEU%7EUSA&tableFilter=selection&source=total&metric=generation&frequency=annual https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix?tab=line&... Also talking into considering the insane wealth disparity and the current rate of change, "coal" is just ragebait. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix?tab=line&stackMode=relative&time=2020..2025&country=CHN%7EDEU%7EUSA&tableFilter=selection&source=total&metric=carbon_intensity&frequency=annual https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix?tab=line&...
  - tialaramex 1mo ago
    I already replied to this, but I think it's worth explaining why you can be building more coal plants and yet burning less coal. Rather than try to guess from our high level data about China I'm going to explain more generally how this works. Generators always have what's called a "Capacity factor" which tells us how much power is actually produced relative to the naive "nameplate capacity" the specified maximum power output of that generator. For a nuclear power station maybe you run for 48 days straight at 100% output and then you spend 2 days shutting down, refuelling and spinning it back up, so that's 96% capacity factor. That's very high, only need a few maintenance problems and you would not hit those numbers, real world nukes maybe trend to 90% Coal needs more maintenance downtime but historically you might expect 80% factor, say you have 1000 400MW coal power stations, that's theoretically 400GW of power but because of 80% capacity factor figure you've got more like 320GW Renewables are free, so increasingly it makes no sense to run a fuel consuming generator when there's free electricity available. However both PV and wind are intermittent to some degree, it's not sunny at night and sometimes it's just not windy. So you might build 500 more of those 400MW power stations, at your 80% capacity factor that's 160GW of new electricity supply for a total of 480GW. But actually your plan is to run them just as hard but less often, for 50% capacity factor across the entire fleet, an average of 200 + 100 = 300GW. Over a year your total output from coal generation is down, but your fleet of coal power stations grew enormously, you just don't run them as often. At midnight with dead calm, those power stations are running pretty hard, belching out far more CO2 than in the past. But on a breezy but clear summer afternoon most of them are idle because there's free electricity from every solar and wind farm. So it averages out as less coal, yet there are more coal power stations, at least for a time. Cheap storage starts to eat into this. A coal station which runs for an average of 18 hours per day is fine (75% capacity factor), one which runs for six hours per day (25% factor) is an economic encumbrance, six hours per week (<4%) is a reason to mothball the oldest or worst stations and give the others more work.
Arodex 1mo ago
A lot of the "brightest minds" are, and have always been, immigrants. Guess who is the main target of a purge in the US now.
- drstewart 1mo ago
  [flagged]
  - breakyerself 1mo ago
    For decades the US has managed to be the most powerful economy in the world while taking in tons of these immigrants. Rejecting them is likely to have a negative impact. Xenophobia comes at a cost.
    - drstewart 1mo ago
      Wow. Powerful statement. Now, for those same decades was the US also using gas powered cars and coal fired plants? Sounds like we need to continue using those too! Also, wait till you see how badly the Canadian economy is poised to collapse: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post-mobile.php?story=20260302153358551 https://www.universityworldnews.com/post-mobile.php?story=20...
      - breakyerself 1mo ago
        In that same time period we discovered global warming and ocean acidification as well as developed better ways of getting power. The only downside we've discovered for having an accepting immigration policy is xenophobic backlash. I don't know what point you're trying to make with that article. Less immigrants is causing hardship for their higher-ed system. How does that make your point?
  - collinmcnulty 1mo ago
    Which is why foreign student visas are being handed out in greater numbers, right? Right? Oh. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/21/international-student-enrollment-us-visa-policies.html https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/21/international-student-enroll...
bulatb 1mo ago
The brightest minds in STEM are often loudly, proudly, confidently wrong on every single thing except their narrow specialty in STEM. Many of the people still rejecting climate change are scientists and engineers whose egos make them obligate contrarians.
kakacik 1mo ago
Maybe step down from that ultra high horse a bit and smell the proverbial coffee - let say we do a public vote, I would trust say population of Switzerland 100000000x more than US one on any decent vote. Chinese will take over US in those aspects you write, if they already haven't done so. US population voted trump, lets not forget that. We (rest of the world, >95% of mankind) will never forget that, and the fact that he still has >5% support tells everybody all they need to know about current US and what to expect from it in future. All that says more than any wishful thinking that feels good and fuzzy warm inside.
- hyperhello 1mo ago
  Considering the open shenanigans they’ve been trying on the voting systems, it’s reasonable to believe they have been doing shenanigans the public hadn’t known about. The machinery of vote suppression is well known to these Jim Crow loving fascists.

by igortg 1mo ago

FrustratedMonky 1mo ago

Is this still true? China seems to be winning now. And lead in solar, and robots.

drstewart 1mo ago
China seems to be winning in brightest minds by what metric? >And lead in solar, and robots. And new coal, don't forget about that.
- tialaramex 1mo ago
  > And new coal, don't forget about that. For the last full year where we have data (2025), China made slightly less electricity from coal than the one before. Unlike Trump, China's authoritarian leadership seem to have their eye on the ball, China is on Earth so if we trash Earth's climate that's China's climate too. But also, more so than the gas which powers so much of Europe and America's electricity generators, coal is obviously poison, even the unburned coal looks like a movie prop to signify "Mysterious evil" The toxic waste from a gas power plant is a transparent gas that readily mixes with the atmosphere. Does it cause problems? Yes. But compared to "And here's a mountain of radioactive and highly toxic coal ash that's produced by our coal power plant" it's rather subtle.
  - cryptopian 1mo ago
    It's important to remember how radical a change to electricity generation is. Apart from just new plants, you've got to keep the existing grid going, create new distribution infrastructure, reorganise supply chains and labour forces, and you'll also have old infrastructure aging out. It's not ideal, but a long term plan may involve building new fossil fuel generators in the immediate term
    - tialaramex 1mo ago
      > a long term plan may involve building new fossil fuel generators in the immediate term In all but some very extreme cases this is unaffordable because the fossil fuel generator is expensive to build and yet is increasingly stranded destroying any further value.
- FrustratedMonky 1mo ago
  Do your own research. There are metrics. I'm done explaining to Republicans what they could just as easily go read in a book themselves.
  - drstewart 1mo ago
    [flagged]
    - FrustratedMonky 1mo ago
      no, you
- Sweepi 1mo ago
  China reduced the CO2/kWh of electricity by 33% in the last 20 years, while increasing output by 320%. The U.S. reduced it by 37%, while increasing output by ... 12%. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix?tab=line&stackMode=relative&time=2005..2025&country=CHN%7EDEU%7EUSA&tableFilter=selection&source=total&metric=generation&frequency=annual https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix?tab=line&... Also talking into considering the insane wealth disparity and the current rate of change, "coal" is just ragebait. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix?tab=line&stackMode=relative&time=2020..2025&country=CHN%7EDEU%7EUSA&tableFilter=selection&source=total&metric=carbon_intensity&frequency=annual https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix?tab=line&...
- tialaramex 1mo ago
  I already replied to this, but I think it's worth explaining why you can be building more coal plants and yet burning less coal. Rather than try to guess from our high level data about China I'm going to explain more generally how this works. Generators always have what's called a "Capacity factor" which tells us how much power is actually produced relative to the naive "nameplate capacity" the specified maximum power output of that generator. For a nuclear power station maybe you run for 48 days straight at 100% output and then you spend 2 days shutting down, refuelling and spinning it back up, so that's 96% capacity factor. That's very high, only need a few maintenance problems and you would not hit those numbers, real world nukes maybe trend to 90% Coal needs more maintenance downtime but historically you might expect 80% factor, say you have 1000 400MW coal power stations, that's theoretically 400GW of power but because of 80% capacity factor figure you've got more like 320GW Renewables are free, so increasingly it makes no sense to run a fuel consuming generator when there's free electricity available. However both PV and wind are intermittent to some degree, it's not sunny at night and sometimes it's just not windy. So you might build 500 more of those 400MW power stations, at your 80% capacity factor that's 160GW of new electricity supply for a total of 480GW. But actually your plan is to run them just as hard but less often, for 50% capacity factor across the entire fleet, an average of 200 + 100 = 300GW. Over a year your total output from coal generation is down, but your fleet of coal power stations grew enormously, you just don't run them as often. At midnight with dead calm, those power stations are running pretty hard, belching out far more CO2 than in the past. But on a breezy but clear summer afternoon most of them are idle because there's free electricity from every solar and wind farm. So it averages out as less coal, yet there are more coal power stations, at least for a time. Cheap storage starts to eat into this. A coal station which runs for an average of 18 hours per day is fine (75% capacity factor), one which runs for six hours per day (25% factor) is an economic encumbrance, six hours per week (<4%) is a reason to mothball the oldest or worst stations and give the others more work.

Arodex 1mo ago

A lot of the "brightest minds" are, and have always been, immigrants. Guess who is the main target of a purge in the US now.

drstewart 1mo ago
[flagged]
- breakyerself 1mo ago
  For decades the US has managed to be the most powerful economy in the world while taking in tons of these immigrants. Rejecting them is likely to have a negative impact. Xenophobia comes at a cost.
  - drstewart 1mo ago
    Wow. Powerful statement. Now, for those same decades was the US also using gas powered cars and coal fired plants? Sounds like we need to continue using those too! Also, wait till you see how badly the Canadian economy is poised to collapse: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post-mobile.php?story=20260302153358551 https://www.universityworldnews.com/post-mobile.php?story=20...
    - breakyerself 1mo ago
      In that same time period we discovered global warming and ocean acidification as well as developed better ways of getting power. The only downside we've discovered for having an accepting immigration policy is xenophobic backlash. I don't know what point you're trying to make with that article. Less immigrants is causing hardship for their higher-ed system. How does that make your point?
- collinmcnulty 1mo ago
  Which is why foreign student visas are being handed out in greater numbers, right? Right? Oh. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/21/international-student-enrollment-us-visa-policies.html https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/21/international-student-enroll...

bulatb 1mo ago

The brightest minds in STEM are often loudly, proudly, confidently wrong on every single thing except their narrow specialty in STEM. Many of the people still rejecting climate change are scientists and engineers whose egos make them obligate contrarians.

kakacik 1mo ago

Maybe step down from that ultra high horse a bit and smell the proverbial coffee - let say we do a public vote, I would trust say population of Switzerland 100000000x more than US one on any decent vote. Chinese will take over US in those aspects you write, if they already haven't done so. US population voted trump, lets not forget that. We (rest of the world, >95% of mankind) will never forget that, and the fact that he still has >5% support tells everybody all they need to know about current US and what to expect from it in future. All that says more than any wishful thinking that feels good and fuzzy warm inside.

hyperhello 1mo ago
Considering the open shenanigans they’ve been trying on the voting systems, it’s reasonable to believe they have been doing shenanigans the public hadn’t known about. The machinery of vote suppression is well known to these Jim Crow loving fascists.