https://phys.org/news/2017-02-renew...&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter
We need real answers, not utopia.
We need real answers, not utopia.
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Attention greens, renewables won't cut it
- Thread starter Loren Pechtel
- Start date
Derec
Contributor
Uhm, probably not, and it is certainly not as easy a most think it will be, but I would not take the word of a "professor of Romance studies and comparative literature" for it.
barbos
Contributor
I don't disagree with the claim but what the hell?
repoman
Contributor
This is tangentially related:
It is too bad that we have not provided a check on ourselves. But what do you expect of a film of bacteria on an agar plate?
There is no way out but a crash. Current human lives are more important than animal lives and more important than future human lives.
This is as totalitarian as it gets:
We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine. And the machine is bleeding to death.
As a species we are Trumpian to the ecology of the planet.
It is too bad that we have not provided a check on ourselves. But what do you expect of a film of bacteria on an agar plate?
There is no way out but a crash. Current human lives are more important than animal lives and more important than future human lives.
This is as totalitarian as it gets:
We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine. And the machine is bleeding to death.
As a species we are Trumpian to the ecology of the planet.
Jimmy Higgins
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Renewables alone won't cut it. Thanks Einstein.
laughing dog
Contributor
I don't know any "green" that thinks switching entirely over to renewable sources of energy will solve the issues around climate change.
LordKiran
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First year college students who don't know any better maybe.
But they oppose anything but renewables, that's saying they think renewables can do it all.
Jimmy Higgins
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Who is "they"? You posted it here, so you must be talking about us locals yokels.
laughing dog
Contributor
No, it is not saying that switching to renewables only will solve the climate change issues. It may be saying they believe switching to renewables will eliminate the contribution to climate change from relying solely on fossil fuels and uranium, which is not the same thing as solving all the issue with climate change.
Axulus
Veteran Member
Even the idea that we can replace all or most fossil fuels in the near future is a pipe dream. Here are the predicted energy sources in the future:
If leftists were actually serious about climate change they'd be gung ho for nuclear power as a way to reduce climate change (and once renewables become more competitive, we can replace nuclear power when that makes sense).
They should also be much more in support of fracking for natural gas as a replacement for coal, as a temporary, but not permanent, measure to reduce greenhouse gases.
Their refusal to adopt nuclear to any great degree and their anti-fracking attitude shows their concern for global warming to be spurious.
If leftists were actually serious about climate change they'd be gung ho for nuclear power as a way to reduce climate change (and once renewables become more competitive, we can replace nuclear power when that makes sense).
They should also be much more in support of fracking for natural gas as a replacement for coal, as a temporary, but not permanent, measure to reduce greenhouse gases.
Their refusal to adopt nuclear to any great degree and their anti-fracking attitude shows their concern for global warming to be spurious.
Liberals don't support nuclear power? That is news to me.
That and their private jet trips with Richard Branson.
Jimmy Higgins
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Woo hoo!!! Nuclear power! Yeah! Gung Ho!!!Even the idea that we can replace all or most fossil fuels in the near future is a pipe dream. Here are the predicted energy sources in the future:
If leftists were actually serious about climate change they'd be gung ho for nuclear power as a way to reduce climate change (and once renewables become more competitive, we can replace nuclear power when that makes sense).
They should also be much more in support of fracking for natural gas as a replacement for coal, as a temporary, but not permanent, measure to reduce greenhouse gases.
Their refusal to adopt nuclear to any great degree and their anti-fracking attitude shows their concern for global warming to be spurious.
I mean, we still don't know what to do with the waste, and it takes a long time to build reactors, and the reactors don't last more than 40 years, and every fucking plant seems to have issues (I grew up in a town with a nuclear plant, so it was always in the news), but yeah. Gung ho!!! Nuclear can only handle so much load in the US. We are a rather large nation.
Axulus
Veteran Member
Woo hoo!!! Nuclear power! Yeah! Gung Ho!!!Even the idea that we can replace all or most fossil fuels in the near future is a pipe dream. Here are the predicted energy sources in the future:
If leftists were actually serious about climate change they'd be gung ho for nuclear power as a way to reduce climate change (and once renewables become more competitive, we can replace nuclear power when that makes sense).
They should also be much more in support of fracking for natural gas as a replacement for coal, as a temporary, but not permanent, measure to reduce greenhouse gases.
Their refusal to adopt nuclear to any great degree and their anti-fracking attitude shows their concern for global warming to be spurious.
I mean, we still don't know what to do with the waste, and it takes a long time to build reactors, and the reactors don't last more than 40 years, and every fucking plant seems to have issues (I grew up in a town with a nuclear plant, so it was always in the news), but yeah. Gung ho!!! Nuclear can only handle so much load in the US. We are a rather large nation.
Sounds like way easier problems to deal with than runaway global warming.
Derec
Contributor
That's the spirit!
We know what to do with the waste (reprocess and bury), it takes too long to build reactors because of inefficient overregulation, and designs available to us now are far superior to what we had in the 60s and 70s which is when many of our active reactors were build and all reactors that were sites of major accidents - i.e. TMI (68-74), Chernobyl (72-77) and Fukushima (67-71). Seriously, we have much better technology today. We should use it!
No reason why we could not build more reactors to cover more of the demand. Nuclear power plants, like coal power plants, are base load plants. Thus nuclear is very well positioned to replace the dirtiest of fossil fuels. In addition to most CO2 per GWh, coal plants release nasty stuff like mercury and also release more radioactivity than nuclear plants.
Also, nuclear is far superior regarding deaths.
How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt? We Rank The Killer Energy Sources
Nuclear comes off orders of magnitude safer than coal and even worldwide nuclear (with deaths from Chernobyl et al) is safer than rooftop solar.
Treedbear
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Just to be clear, if there was no possibility of actually following through with safely storing the waste would you still be in favor of maximum use of nuclear energy knowing that all the waste would be stored on site? Because that's the elephant in the room.
bilby
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Woo hoo!!! Nuclear power! Yeah! Gung Ho!!!Even the idea that we can replace all or most fossil fuels in the near future is a pipe dream. Here are the predicted energy sources in the future:
If leftists were actually serious about climate change they'd be gung ho for nuclear power as a way to reduce climate change (and once renewables become more competitive, we can replace nuclear power when that makes sense).
They should also be much more in support of fracking for natural gas as a replacement for coal, as a temporary, but not permanent, measure to reduce greenhouse gases.
Their refusal to adopt nuclear to any great degree and their anti-fracking attitude shows their concern for global warming to be spurious.
I mean, we still don't know what to do with the waste, and it takes a long time to build reactors, and the reactors don't last more than 40 years, and every fucking plant seems to have issues (I grew up in a town with a nuclear plant, so it was always in the news), but yeah. Gung ho!!! Nuclear can only handle so much load in the US. We are a rather large nation.
We know exactly what to do with the waste - we can store it, or we can use it as fuel (either by reprocessing, or in the future, by adding it to the fuel stream of Molten Salt reactors). In the sixty years of nuclear power generation, the worldwide total number of people killed by exposure to nuclear waste is zero; If waste management is the biggest problem with the technology, then we should certainly embrace it, given how clearly safe that waste is.
It does take a while to build a reactor, so that's a good reason to start today, and not delay any further.
Nuclear power IS always in the news as having issues; but as it is demonstrably the safest way of generating electricity ever commercialized, the only possible reason for this is a concerted campaign of fear and disinformation against it. Using the existence of a disinformation campaign as evidence for the problem the campaign is claiming exists is a wonderful piece of circular reasoning, but it shouldn't be considered seriously by sane people.
All sources of energy are potentially dangerous. Nuclear power is the least dangerous of all the sources we have yet been able to commercialize. Fire is dangerous, but we don't consider banning it.
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On-site storage isn't ideal; But so far it hasn't hurt anyone, in 60 years. So it's hardly a major hazard. Unlike, for example, fly-ash from coal power plants.
So yes, even if on-site storage was the only possibility, I would support replacing as many coal plants with nuclear as possible, as quickly as possible. That would be a justified move on waste storage safety grounds alone.
I disagree. They are misguided but that doesn't make their concern for global warming spurious.
You owe me a new irony meter!
You don't want nuke, you agree that renewables can't do it. Thus you are voting for global warming.