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India and China are chucking research and money at new nuclear technology. It's not unreasonable to predict that in 20 years, the west will probably be buying m
by mnw21cam 12y ago
India and China are chucking research and money at new nuclear technology. It's not unreasonable to predict that in 20 years, the west will probably be buying molten salt reactors from China.
I think, regarding the economics, there are quite a few environmental scientists who are very cognisant of economics and how that interacts, such as Tim Jackson at the University of Surrey, UK. However, where they do know anything about it, they tend to recognise that economics is not helping the environment at all, so perhaps they should work in areas where they are likely to make a difference instead.
There is a fundamental mis-match between the environment and economics. In economics, eternal exponential growth is mandatory. In the environment, eternal exponential growth is impossible.
- danielweber 12y agoChina is throwing research and money at everything. They are still opening new coal plants, I think the rate is one per week.
- protomyth 12y agoI hope both succeed and if we do we should buy the fruits of their efforts since we seem to not be going that direction. I have seen nothing but environmentalists who understand economics being vilified. I hope this attitude changes. Economics does not require "eternal exponential growth is mandatory", although some popular schools of economics do. Economics is just a very good way to actually judge cost.
- TeMPOraL 12y agoThere are two different aspects of economics here; on one hand, it's blindingly obvious that growth-based economy is unsustainable. On the other hand, it's what is driving the world right now, so effective ways to fix the system will likely need to use it for their advantage, and not ignore it.
- emp_zealoth 12y agoI would think only in some economics "belief systems" exponential growth is mandatory I call them belief systems, because when you look at it, it can hardly be called science: examples of mutualy exclusive theories are coexisting and sides quite often forge the data using advanced obsfucation: tweak some parameters here, adjust them there, carefully pick base data and voila - you've just proven whatever the hell you believe is "the only true way"