Paul Krugman on Global Warmin, COP 20 and Republicans

[untermensche]

When you can't argue against Krugman's ideas, if you just point out they are not wholly about economics you can ignore them.

 

[laughing dog]

When you can't argue against Krugman's ideas, if you just point out they are not wholly about economics you can ignore them.

Applying that reaoning, since neither dismal nor Jason Harvestdancer are Democrats or economists, that means their views on Democrats and economics can be ignored.

 

[bilby]

What do Krugman's comments have to do with COP20?

This is the second thread recently on this board that has COP20 in its title; why is a meeting that took place over a year ago in Peru suddenly so interesting?

Wouldn't it be better to focus on this year's COP21 meeting in Paris?

 

[Sarpedon]

I do not consider it crazy to think that politics and economics are closely related. The notion of dismissing an economists views on politics is not analogous to, say, dismissing a surgeon's views on politics.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I do not consider it crazy to think that politics and economics are closely related. The notion of dismissing an economists views on politics is not analogous to, say, dismissing a surgeon's views on politics.

You're clearly unaware of just how similar the US government is to the pancreas.

 

[SimpleDon]

Fixed.

Tip: "blaming republicans for global warming" not equal "economics"

Much like Milton Friedman Krugman has found a voice in the political pundit area. At least Krugman comes from a more realistic economic theory base as a New Keynesian than Friedman did as a neoclassical economists pining for the unrealistic and never before seen free market. The advantage that a Keynesian has over other schools of economics is that Keynes concentrated on understanding the economy that we have. Other schools like the neoclassical economics school concentrate on changing the current economic system to match an unrealistic ideal economy that doesn't exist and can never exist.

The problem with the New Keynesians like Krugman is that they have met the neoclassical economists more than half of the way between the realism of Keynes and the fantasy of the free market enthusiasts. Krugman readily admits that he catered to and bent his research toward the neoclassical economists' philosophy in his research so that he could be published in their journals. Certainly he wouldn't have won the Nobel prize in economists had he challenged the neoclassicists more openly.

A prominent neoclassical economist at Harvard, Greg Mankiw routinely writes abstracts and conclusions that follow the neoclassical dogmas but in the body of the paper he presents the actual evidence that he found that routinely deny the dogmas. He knows that most people read only the abstract and maybe the conclusion and don't read the main body of the paper. He has done this for years.

The neoclassical economic is the economics of Marshall that was shown to be in error almost from the very beginning. In fact, Keynes started out to write a defense of his mentor Marshall and his theories. But it didn't take Keynes very far into the research for what became his General Theory to realize that Marshall's neoclassical theories didn't explain the industrial economy that we had in 1936. Keynes realized that the industrial revolution had changed the economy to one dramatically different from the economy of the classical economists, that is of Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, Marx, etc. and that the further development of their theories by the neoclassical economists like Marshall didn't come close to explaining the economy of 1936. And that the single largest difference was that the 1936 economy was no longer supply driven, that is determined by the amount of capital and investments, but was becoming more and more led by demand. That supply, that is capital, was no longer land like it had been in the mainly agricultural economy of the classical economists but now was only money. And money in the modern fiat money system is not a limited resource. Keynes barely could see what we now know is true, that the economy produces the amount of money that it needs in a fiat money system. That what is limiting the economy isn't the money available to invest but the money in the hands of the consumers to buy goods and services.

This revelation of Keynes and the subsequent work done by Keynesians through the decades since have been proven time and time again. But these revelations didn't sit very well with a small but powerful group of people, rich investors who didn't like to be told that they weren't very important to the economy any longer. The wealthy fund the schools that economists work and teach in. The wealthy hire the graduates of the economics schools. They could and they did impose their own views on the schools and on the economists. What was cobbled together was the monster of the neoclassical synthesis, a combination of the discredited neoclassical economics with as little of the much hated demand driven, investor belittling but realistic Keynesian economics as they felt that they couldn't ignore.

Over the years Keynes has been turned into a four letter swear word. Neoclassical economics went over into never Neverland of pure fantasy with supply side economics, the economics that to this day defines the economic policies that we follow. But you can't escape Keynes and his followers. They have explained and predicted every twist and turn, every fault of the supply side economic policies of today, including the Great Recession of 2008. The only economists who not only predicted the financial crisis that caused the recession but who also explained the timing and the reasons for the financial crisis, were the Post Keynesians.

 

[fromderinside]

Tip: "blaming republicans for global warming" not equal "economics"

Much like Milton Friedman Krugman has found a voice in the political pundit area. At least Krugman comes from a more realistic economic theory base as a New Keynesian than Friedman did as a neoclassical economists pining for the unrealistic and never before seen free market. The advantage that a Keynesian has over other schools of economics is that Keynes concentrated on understanding the economy that we have. Other schools like the neoclassical economics school concentrate on changing the current economic system to match an unrealistic ideal economy that doesn't exist and can never exist.

The problem with the New Keynesians like Krugman is that they have met the neoclassical economists more than half of the way between the realism of Keynes and the fantasy of the free market enthusiasts. Krugman readily admits that he catered to and bent his research toward the neoclassical economists' philosophy in his research so that he could be published in their journals. Certainly he wouldn't have won the Nobel prize in economists had he challenged the neoclassicists more openly.

A prominent neoclassical economist at Harvard, Greg Mankiw routinely writes abstracts and conclusions that follow the neoclassical dogmas but in the body of the paper he presents the actual evidence that he found that routinely deny the dogmas. He knows that most people read only the abstract and maybe the conclusion and don't read the main body of the paper. He has done this for years.

The neoclassical economic is the economics of Marshall that was shown to be in error almost from the very beginning. In fact, Keynes started out to write a defense of his mentor Marshall and his theories. But it didn't take Keynes very far into the research for what became his General Theory to realize that Marshall's neoclassical theories didn't explain the industrial economy that we had in 1936. Keynes realized that the industrial revolution had changed the economy to one dramatically different from the economy of the classical economists, that is of Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, Marx, etc. and that the further development of their theories by the neoclassical economists like Marshall didn't come close to explaining the economy of 1936. And that the single largest difference was that the 1936 economy was no longer supply driven, that is determined by the amount of capital and investments, but was becoming more and more led by demand. That supply, that is capital, was no longer land like it had been in the mainly agricultural economy of the classical economists but now was only money. And money in the modern fiat money system is not a limited resource. Keynes barely could see what we now know is true, that the economy produces the amount of money that it needs in a fiat money system. That what is limiting the economy isn't the money available to invest but the money in the hands of the consumers to buy goods and services.

This revelation of Keynes and the subsequent work done by Keynesians through the decades since have been proven time and time again. But these revelations didn't sit very well with a small but powerful group of people, rich investors who didn't like to be told that they weren't very important to the economy any longer. The wealthy fund the schools that economists work and teach in. The wealthy hire the graduates of the economics schools. They could and they did impose their own views on the schools and on the economists. What was cobbled together was the monster of the neoclassical synthesis, a combination of the discredited neoclassical economics with as little of the much hated demand driven, investor belittling but realistic Keynesian economics as they felt that they couldn't ignore.

Over the years Keynes has been turned into a four letter swear word. Neoclassical economics went over into never Neverland of pure fantasy with supply side economics, the economics that to this day defines the economic policies that we follow. But you can't escape Keynes and his followers. They have explained and predicted every twist and turn, every fault of the supply side economic policies of today, including the Great Recession of 2008. The only economists who not only predicted the financial crisis that caused the recession but who also explained the timing and the reasons for the financial crisis, were the Post Keynesians.

Nice.

However we need to be ready for the next justification for hyperinflation let out of the neoclassical cage to scare anyone who dare suggest government power, not held assets, determine the credibility of their money and economy.

PS: I'm probably the last one who will read your nice piece.

 

[arkirk]

Ah, I see. Because he's Krugman he can give informed opinions on any issue.

Especially the Republicratic and Demolican Parties, the parties that dragged us into Iraq and ended up giving us ISIS as a bonus.

You think he's kinda like you huh? Actually, Krugman is a pretty smart cookie. When you study something...even economics, your study counts for something. Depending on the type of economics you study, you can easily come up with views and theories that sharply conflict with classic economics. As Manfred Max Neef has repeated many times...Economics is a sub system of nature, not the other way around. I believe Krugman understands that, but I have my doubts about you.

He appears to be applying Keynesian principles to our physical economy as he sees it. I have very little differences with his opinions. They seem sound to me and should have been listened to. Instead, look at what we have...total irresponsible financialism.

 

[SimpleDon]

Conservatives bare a lot of the blame for the inaction on climate change in the US and therefore in the world. It wouldn't be long until they reverse the field and claim that it was liberal inaction that caused the costly delay in tackling the problem.

But we can't really expect any more from the conservatives. Their fear of change and mistrust of the government makes them completely unsuitable for positions in the government. They don't believe that government can solve problems because it doesn't and can't when the government is dominated by conservatives. Conservatives can't run the government, they are philosophically incapable of doing it.

But when the accounting is complete liberals will have to answer for a ideological blind spot that they have that has impeded the effort to solve climate change, a problem that Krugman has only the slightest mention in the subject column. Liberals freely embrace the problem but refuse to accept the one available, practical solution for it. And have for nearly thirty years, guaranteeing that the problem would in that time become more serious and harder to correct. This is born, I believe, of their mistrust of both the corporations that run the plants and the trained professionals who develop and design the plants.

This solution is of course, the widespread adoption of nuclear power to replace coal fired base power generating facilities.

Here is an op ed by Peter Thiel, the German born American entrepreneur who co-founded PayPal with Elon Musk, in the New York Times, The New Atomic Age We Need.

The single most important action we can take is thawing a nuclear energy policy that keeps our technology frozen in time. If we are serious about replacing fossil fuels, we are going to need nuclear power, so the choice is stark: We can keep on merely talking about a carbon-free world, or we can go ahead and create one. ...

In America, the left worries more about our five billion metric tons of annual carbon dioxide emissions and what it might do to Earth's climate. On the right, even those who discount the environmental effects of fossil fuels can't deny their contribution to economic volatility. We saw this in 2008 when a historic high oil price coincided with a historic financial crisis.

The need for energy alternatives was already clear to investors a decade ago, which is why they poured funding into clean technology during the early 2000's. But while the money was there, the technology wasn't: The result was a series of bankruptcies and the scandal of Solyndra, the solar panel manufacturer in California that went bankrupt in 2011 after receiving a federal guarantee of hundreds of millions of dollars. Wind and solar together provide less than 2 percent of the world's energy, and they aren't growing anywhere near fast enough to replace fossil fuels. ...

No, there is no magic battery technology that is going to change the equation and save alternative energies, sun and wind, and allow them to serve as base generation.

What's especially strange about the failed push for renewables is that we already had a practical plan back in the 1960's to become fully carbon-free without any need of wind or solar: nuclear power. But after years of cost overruns, technical challenges and the bizarre coincidence of an accident at Three Mile Island and the 1979 release of the Hollywood horror movie "he China Syndrome," about a hundred proposed reactors were canceled. If we had kept building, our power grid could have been carbon-free years ago.

Instead, we went in reverse. In 1984, Ohio's nearly finished William H. Zimmer nuclear plant was abruptly converted into a coal-burning facility: a microcosm of the country's lurch back toward carbon. ...

Critics often point to the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union as an even more terrifying warning against nuclear power, but that accident was a direct result of both a faulty design and the operators' incompetence. Fewer than 50 people were reported to have died at Chernobyl; by contrast, the American Lung Association estimates that smoke from coal-fired power plants kills about 13,000 people every year. ...

But not everyone has been paralyzed. While politicians prepare a grand bargain on emissions limits that future politicians are unlikely to obey, a new generation of American nuclear scientists has produced designs for better reactors. Crucially, these new designs may finally overcome the most fundamental obstacle to the success of nuclear power: high cost. Designs using molten salt, alternative fuels and small modular reactors have all attracted interest not just from academics but also from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists like me ready to put money behind nuclear power.

Not to mention that the reticence to build new nuclear power plants has meant that our existing stock of obsolete reactors have been kept on line much longer than they should have been. There are different reactor designs and different fuels that burn their own waste plus the waste accumulated over decades from our current reactors. Designs and fuels that eliminate the problems with nuclear proliferation. Designs that are inherently safe, where a complete, full power shutdown causes no problems' without the requirement for externally powered cooling systems.

This is the perfect storm of two competing but ultimately dysfunctional ideologies which threatens no less than the very survival of the people on earth. This alone should be enough to convince anyone that our dependence on ideology instead of rationality is foolish.

I wrote this intending to post it as thread. But I haven't been doing very well lately and don't have the energy to host a thread. I apologize in advance for dumping in this thread. It is the best that I can do right now.

 

[dismal]

Conservatives bare a lot of the blame for the inaction on climate change in the US and therefore in the world.

Meanwhile, back in reality, data show the US has been reducing CO2 emissions while other countries (without Republicans) ensure more and more CO2 then ever is being spewed.

 

[fromderinside]

Conservatives bare a lot of the blame for the inaction on climate change in the US and therefore in the world. It wouldn't be long until they reverse the field and claim that it was liberal inaction that caused the costly delay in tackling the problem.

But we can't really expect any more from the conservatives. Their fear of change and mistrust of the government makes them completely unsuitable for positions in the government. They don't believe that government can solve problems because it doesn't and can't when the government is dominated by conservatives. Conservatives can't run the government, they are philosophically incapable of doing it.

But when the accounting is complete liberals will have to answer for a ideological blind spot that they have that has impeded the effort to solve climate change, a problem that Krugman has only the slightest mention in the subject column. Liberals freely embrace the problem but refuse to accept the one available, practical solution for it. And have for nearly thirty years, guaranteeing that the problem would in that time become more serious and harder to correct. This is born, I believe, of their mistrust of both the corporations that run the plants and the trained professionals who develop and design the plants.

This solution is of course, the widespread adoption of nuclear power to replace coal fired base power generating facilities.

Here is an op ed by Peter Thiel, the German born American entrepreneur who co-founded PayPal with Elon Musk, in the New York Times, The New Atomic Age We Need.



No, there is no magic battery technology that is going to change the equation and save alternative energies, sun and wind, and allow them to serve as base generation.

What's especially strange about the failed push for renewables is that we already had a practical plan back in the 1960's to become fully carbon-free without any need of wind or solar: nuclear power. But after years of cost overruns, technical challenges and the bizarre coincidence of an accident at Three Mile Island and the 1979 release of the Hollywood horror movie "he China Syndrome," about a hundred proposed reactors were canceled. If we had kept building, our power grid could have been carbon-free years ago.

Instead, we went in reverse. In 1984, Ohio's nearly finished William H. Zimmer nuclear plant was abruptly converted into a coal-burning facility: a microcosm of the country's lurch back toward carbon. ...

Critics often point to the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union as an even more terrifying warning against nuclear power, but that accident was a direct result of both a faulty design and the operators' incompetence. Fewer than 50 people were reported to have died at Chernobyl; by contrast, the American Lung Association estimates that smoke from coal-fired power plants kills about 13,000 people every year. ...

But not everyone has been paralyzed. While politicians prepare a grand bargain on emissions limits that future politicians are unlikely to obey, a new generation of American nuclear scientists has produced designs for better reactors. Crucially, these new designs may finally overcome the most fundamental obstacle to the success of nuclear power: high cost. Designs using molten salt, alternative fuels and small modular reactors have all attracted interest not just from academics but also from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists like me ready to put money behind nuclear power.

Not to mention that the reticence to build new nuclear power plants has meant that our existing stock of obsolete reactors have been kept on line much longer than they should have been. There are different reactor designs and different fuels that burn their own waste plus the waste accumulated over decades from our current reactors. Designs and fuels that eliminate the problems with nuclear proliferation. Designs that are inherently safe, where a complete, full power shutdown causes no problems' without the requirement for externally powered cooling systems.

This is the perfect storm of two competing but ultimately dysfunctional ideologies which threatens no less than the very survival of the people on earth. This alone should be enough to convince anyone that our dependence on ideology instead of rationality is foolish.

I wrote this intending to post it as thread. But I haven't been doing very well lately and don't have the energy to host a thread. I apologize in advance for dumping in this thread. It is the best that I can do right now.

Thingss were going well until you wrote something to the effect that change to nuclear power was a practical solution. It isn't.

First such plants take about a decade each to build after they've gone through all reasonable practical examinations as for site, oversight, disposal, modification and plant life which should take about another 10 years for each plant. Then one has to have a political attitude in place among the public that radiation is safe and they won't e ever hurt by it.

If we just consider what's going on with extremist terrorism its obvious our society is much too fearful to get to such an attitude for two or three generations (60 to ninety years).

so just by these practical and fundamental political obstacles nuclear is not a viable solution. Given your attitude here it is just as likely that we insist government foot the bill to provide a solar/wind/tidal energy infrastructure. The actual times will be much less since it is clear that these technologies are 'safe' and relatively easy to build if cost isn't a big problem. Sure people have got to get used to the idea that government controls economy and that government debt is unlike personal debt. That should be done much more easily than fear of radiation given how quickly we accepted massive personal debt here in america.

so there you go.

Now we have two energy models. I like mine. I rationally fear yours. I lived in a household where the principal wage earner worked at Hanford in eastern Washington on reactors for 25 years.

See how personal and political things get.

 

[arkirk]

Conservatives bare a lot of the blame for the inaction on climate change in the US and therefore in the world. It wouldn't be long until they reverse the field and claim that it was liberal inaction that caused the costly delay in tackling the problem.

But we can't really expect any more from the conservatives. Their fear of change and mistrust of the government makes them completely unsuitable for positions in the government. They don't believe that government can solve problems because it doesn't and can't when the government is dominated by conservatives. Conservatives can't run the government, they are philosophically incapable of doing it.

But when the accounting is complete liberals will have to answer for a ideological blind spot that they have that has impeded the effort to solve climate change, a problem that Krugman has only the slightest mention in the subject column. Liberals freely embrace the problem but refuse to accept the one available, practical solution for it. And have for nearly thirty years, guaranteeing that the problem would in that time become more serious and harder to correct. This is born, I believe, of their mistrust of both the corporations that run the plants and the trained professionals who develop and design the plants.

This solution is of course, the widespread adoption of nuclear power to replace coal fired base power generating facilities.

Here is an op ed by Peter Thiel, the German born American entrepreneur who co-founded PayPal with Elon Musk, in the New York Times, The New Atomic Age We Need.



No, there is no magic battery technology that is going to change the equation and save alternative energies, sun and wind, and allow them to serve as base generation.

What's especially strange about the failed push for renewables is that we already had a practical plan back in the 1960's to become fully carbon-free without any need of wind or solar: nuclear power. But after years of cost overruns, technical challenges and the bizarre coincidence of an accident at Three Mile Island and the 1979 release of the Hollywood horror movie "he China Syndrome," about a hundred proposed reactors were canceled. If we had kept building, our power grid could have been carbon-free years ago.

Instead, we went in reverse. In 1984, Ohio's nearly finished William H. Zimmer nuclear plant was abruptly converted into a coal-burning facility: a microcosm of the country's lurch back toward carbon. ...

Critics often point to the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union as an even more terrifying warning against nuclear power, but that accident was a direct result of both a faulty design and the operators' incompetence. Fewer than 50 people were reported to have died at Chernobyl; by contrast, the American Lung Association estimates that smoke from coal-fired power plants kills about 13,000 people every year. ...

But not everyone has been paralyzed. While politicians prepare a grand bargain on emissions limits that future politicians are unlikely to obey, a new generation of American nuclear scientists has produced designs for better reactors. Crucially, these new designs may finally overcome the most fundamental obstacle to the success of nuclear power: high cost. Designs using molten salt, alternative fuels and small modular reactors have all attracted interest not just from academics but also from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists like me ready to put money behind nuclear power.

Not to mention that the reticence to build new nuclear power plants has meant that our existing stock of obsolete reactors have been kept on line much longer than they should have been. There are different reactor designs and different fuels that burn their own waste plus the waste accumulated over decades from our current reactors. Designs and fuels that eliminate the problems with nuclear proliferation. Designs that are inherently safe, where a complete, full power shutdown causes no problems' without the requirement for externally powered cooling systems.

This is the perfect storm of two competing but ultimately dysfunctional ideologies which threatens no less than the very survival of the people on earth. This alone should be enough to convince anyone that our dependence on ideology instead of rationality is foolish.

I wrote this intending to post it as thread. But I haven't been doing very well lately and don't have the energy to host a thread. I apologize in advance for dumping in this thread. It is the best that I can do right now.

I honestly feel the problem with nukes was the first that made itself abundantly obvious. Radionuclides are not self destroying. A lot of the problem with nukes is the waste from mining. Mining and processing separates a lot of radionuclides that are not usable but nonetheless dangerous in terms of low level radiation.

 

[bilby]

Conservatives bare a lot of the blame for the inaction on climate change in the US and therefore in the world. It wouldn't be long until they reverse the field and claim that it was liberal inaction that caused the costly delay in tackling the problem.

But we can't really expect any more from the conservatives. Their fear of change and mistrust of the government makes them completely unsuitable for positions in the government. They don't believe that government can solve problems because it doesn't and can't when the government is dominated by conservatives. Conservatives can't run the government, they are philosophically incapable of doing it.

But when the accounting is complete liberals will have to answer for a ideological blind spot that they have that has impeded the effort to solve climate change, a problem that Krugman has only the slightest mention in the subject column. Liberals freely embrace the problem but refuse to accept the one available, practical solution for it. And have for nearly thirty years, guaranteeing that the problem would in that time become more serious and harder to correct. This is born, I believe, of their mistrust of both the corporations that run the plants and the trained professionals who develop and design the plants.

This solution is of course, the widespread adoption of nuclear power to replace coal fired base power generating facilities.

Here is an op ed by Peter Thiel, the German born American entrepreneur who co-founded PayPal with Elon Musk, in the New York Times, The New Atomic Age We Need.



No, there is no magic battery technology that is going to change the equation and save alternative energies, sun and wind, and allow them to serve as base generation.



Not to mention that the reticence to build new nuclear power plants has meant that our existing stock of obsolete reactors have been kept on line much longer than they should have been. There are different reactor designs and different fuels that burn their own waste plus the waste accumulated over decades from our current reactors. Designs and fuels that eliminate the problems with nuclear proliferation. Designs that are inherently safe, where a complete, full power shutdown causes no problems' without the requirement for externally powered cooling systems.

This is the perfect storm of two competing but ultimately dysfunctional ideologies which threatens no less than the very survival of the people on earth. This alone should be enough to convince anyone that our dependence on ideology instead of rationality is foolish.

I wrote this intending to post it as thread. But I haven't been doing very well lately and don't have the energy to host a thread. I apologize in advance for dumping in this thread. It is the best that I can do right now.

...
Radionuclides are not self destroying.
...

This may be the least correct statement it is physically possible to make.

The very value and importance of radionuclides is that they ARE self destroying. If they weren't, then uranium would be as useless for fuel as iron.

 

[fromderinside]

I honestly feel the problem with nukes was the first that made itself abundantly obvious. Radionuclides are not self destroying. A lot of the problem with nukes is the waste from mining. Mining and processing separates a lot of radionuclides that are not usable but nonetheless dangerous in terms of low level radiation.

bilby effectively blew up your notion somewhere, probably on this thread, two or three days ago. The problem with nuclear is not material it is emotional and I think it is insurmountable.

 

[maxparrish]

Tip: "blaming republicans for global warming" not equal "economics"

I didn't realize being an economist precludes one from speaking on non-economic matters, even those that have potentially devastating economic impacts. But no, he should stick to what he's right about, the whole Keynesian thing.

Actually nothing precludes anyone from writing about matters for any political reason, even if the author is mindlessly padding their work with with cliches to meet a column deadline. And, as well, nothing precludes anyone from ignoring that author's pointless work.

In general, there are many reasons not read Krugman's popular press commentary but in this instance you shouldn't bother because he is slumming - he barely makes an effort to bloviate a few unsupported assertions. It's a too stupid, and colorless article, unworthy of even Krugman.

 

[ZiprHead]

A prominent neoclassical economist at Harvard, Greg Mankiw routinely writes abstracts and conclusions that follow the neoclassical dogmas but in the body of the paper he presents the actual evidence that he found that routinely deny the dogmas. He knows that most people read only the abstract and maybe the conclusion and don't read the main body of the paper. He has done this for years.

I haven't read any further into this thread yet but I predict Maxie isn't going to like you ripping into his butt-buddy Mankiw.

 

[laughing dog]

I didn't realize being an economist precludes one from speaking on non-economic matters, even those that have potentially devastating economic impacts. But no, he should stick to what he's right about, the whole Keynesian thing.

Actually nothing precludes anyone from writing about matters for any political reason, even if the author is mindlessly padding their work with with cliches to meet a column deadline. And, as well, nothing precludes anyone from ignoring that author's pointless work.

In general, there are many reasons not read Krugman's popular press commentary but in this instance you shouldn't bother because he is slumming - he barely makes an effort to bloviate a few unsupported assertions. It's a too stupid, and colorless article, unworthy of even Krugman.

Instead of actually pointing out where you believe (or possibly actually think) Krugman is wrong, you simply wave your partisan hand and expect any disinterested reader to take your word. LOL.

 

[ZiprHead]

Conservatives bare a lot of the blame for the inaction on climate change in the US and therefore in the world. It wouldn't be long until they reverse the field and claim that it was liberal inaction that caused the costly delay in tackling the problem.

But we can't really expect any more from the conservatives. Their fear of change and mistrust of the government makes them completely unsuitable for positions in the government. They don't believe that government can solve problems because it doesn't and can't when the government is dominated by conservatives. Conservatives can't run the government, they are philosophically incapable of doing it.

But when the accounting is complete liberals will have to answer for a ideological blind spot that they have that has impeded the effort to solve climate change, a problem that Krugman has only the slightest mention in the subject column. Liberals freely embrace the problem but refuse to accept the one available, practical solution for it. And have for nearly thirty years, guaranteeing that the problem would in that time become more serious and harder to correct. This is born, I believe, of their mistrust of both the corporations that run the plants and the trained professionals who develop and design the plants.

This solution is of course, the widespread adoption of nuclear power to replace coal fired base power generating facilities.

Here is an op ed by Peter Thiel, the German born American entrepreneur who co-founded PayPal with Elon Musk, in the New York Times, The New Atomic Age We Need.



No, there is no magic battery technology that is going to change the equation and save alternative energies, sun and wind, and allow them to serve as base generation.

What's especially strange about the failed push for renewables is that we already had a practical plan back in the 1960's to become fully carbon-free without any need of wind or solar: nuclear power. But after years of cost overruns, technical challenges and the bizarre coincidence of an accident at Three Mile Island and the 1979 release of the Hollywood horror movie "he China Syndrome," about a hundred proposed reactors were canceled. If we had kept building, our power grid could have been carbon-free years ago.

Instead, we went in reverse. In 1984, Ohio's nearly finished William H. Zimmer nuclear plant was abruptly converted into a coal-burning facility: a microcosm of the country's lurch back toward carbon. ...

Critics often point to the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union as an even more terrifying warning against nuclear power, but that accident was a direct result of both a faulty design and the operators' incompetence. Fewer than 50 people were reported to have died at Chernobyl; by contrast, the American Lung Association estimates that smoke from coal-fired power plants kills about 13,000 people every year. ...

But not everyone has been paralyzed. While politicians prepare a grand bargain on emissions limits that future politicians are unlikely to obey, a new generation of American nuclear scientists has produced designs for better reactors. Crucially, these new designs may finally overcome the most fundamental obstacle to the success of nuclear power: high cost. Designs using molten salt, alternative fuels and small modular reactors have all attracted interest not just from academics but also from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists like me ready to put money behind nuclear power.

Not to mention that the reticence to build new nuclear power plants has meant that our existing stock of obsolete reactors have been kept on line much longer than they should have been. There are different reactor designs and different fuels that burn their own waste plus the waste accumulated over decades from our current reactors. Designs and fuels that eliminate the problems with nuclear proliferation. Designs that are inherently safe, where a complete, full power shutdown causes no problems' without the requirement for externally powered cooling systems.

This is the perfect storm of two competing but ultimately dysfunctional ideologies which threatens no less than the very survival of the people on earth. This alone should be enough to convince anyone that our dependence on ideology instead of rationality is foolish.

I wrote this intending to post it as thread. But I haven't been doing very well lately and don't have the energy to host a thread. I apologize in advance for dumping in this thread. It is the best that I can do right now.

While I think nuclear would go a long way toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it is not carbon free. It's about the same as wind power generation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions_of_energy_sources

 

[bilby]

Conservatives bare a lot of the blame for the inaction on climate change in the US and therefore in the world. It wouldn't be long until they reverse the field and claim that it was liberal inaction that caused the costly delay in tackling the problem.

But we can't really expect any more from the conservatives. Their fear of change and mistrust of the government makes them completely unsuitable for positions in the government. They don't believe that government can solve problems because it doesn't and can't when the government is dominated by conservatives. Conservatives can't run the government, they are philosophically incapable of doing it.

But when the accounting is complete liberals will have to answer for a ideological blind spot that they have that has impeded the effort to solve climate change, a problem that Krugman has only the slightest mention in the subject column. Liberals freely embrace the problem but refuse to accept the one available, practical solution for it. And have for nearly thirty years, guaranteeing that the problem would in that time become more serious and harder to correct. This is born, I believe, of their mistrust of both the corporations that run the plants and the trained professionals who develop and design the plants.

This solution is of course, the widespread adoption of nuclear power to replace coal fired base power generating facilities.

Here is an op ed by Peter Thiel, the German born American entrepreneur who co-founded PayPal with Elon Musk, in the New York Times, The New Atomic Age We Need.



No, there is no magic battery technology that is going to change the equation and save alternative energies, sun and wind, and allow them to serve as base generation.



Not to mention that the reticence to build new nuclear power plants has meant that our existing stock of obsolete reactors have been kept on line much longer than they should have been. There are different reactor designs and different fuels that burn their own waste plus the waste accumulated over decades from our current reactors. Designs and fuels that eliminate the problems with nuclear proliferation. Designs that are inherently safe, where a complete, full power shutdown causes no problems' without the requirement for externally powered cooling systems.

This is the perfect storm of two competing but ultimately dysfunctional ideologies which threatens no less than the very survival of the people on earth. This alone should be enough to convince anyone that our dependence on ideology instead of rationality is foolish.

I wrote this intending to post it as thread. But I haven't been doing very well lately and don't have the energy to host a thread. I apologize in advance for dumping in this thread. It is the best that I can do right now.

While I think nuclear would go a long way toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it is not carbon free. It's about the same as wind power generation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions_of_energy_sources

Nothing is carbon free. Nuclear and wind are by far the lowest carbon options though, so I am not sure why you feel the need to point out that these are 'the best' but not 'perfect' - it makes zero difference to the conclusions to be drawn when the question is 'how do we minimise carbon pollution'.

Something that is 75x better than the status-quo is probably a good idea, even if it isn't perfect.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

 

[arkirk]

I honestly feel the problem with nukes was the first that made itself abundantly obvious. Radionuclides are not self destroying. A lot of the problem with nukes is the waste from mining. Mining and processing separates a lot of radionuclides that are not usable but nonetheless dangerous in terms of low level radiation.

bilby effectively blew up your notion somewhere, probably on this thread, two or three days ago. The problem with nuclear is not material it is emotional and I think it is insurmountable.

It is material. Uranium mining produces large amounts of unusable but dangerous radioactive materials with much longer half lives. You are mistaken if you think radiochemicals just harmlessly go away. They produce daughter products which more often than not are also emitters of low level radiation...the kind that is most responsible for carcinogenesis. Just because a material is not usable in a reactor does not mean it is not radioactive and not a dangerous source of radiation exposure. Iraq was heavily dosed with U238 and they definitely have problems with birth defects in the areas where DU was used extensively in battle. A lot of this product exists in waste piles on American Indian reservations in Arizona and New Mexico.

I don't think Bilby has destroyed any of my arguments at all. It appears he has a misunderstanding of the nature of radiation.