New York Times Goes Pro Nuke

[LowDown]

'Beliefs that solar and wind power can displace fossil fuels amount to 'hallucinatory delusions'

...But even as the consensus among experts builds that coal and other fossil fuels must be sharply reduced and eventually removed from the energy matrix, there is no agreement on what sources of energy could feasibly take their place, and how to get from here to there.

As in the 1970s, environmental activists remain enthralled by the sun and the wind. But three decades’ worth of renewable energy dreams have yielded too little to entrust them with the job of replacing fossil fuels.

Today renewable energy supplies only about 6 percent of American demand. And most of that comes from water flowing through dams. Solar energy contributes next to nothing.

Averting climate change is likely to require much less eco-friendly sources of power. This includes natural gas, of course, which emits about half the carbon dioxide of coal. But over the long term it is likely to require much more investment in a big bugaboo of the environmental movement: nuclear power.

The experience of Germany is instructive. Relying too much on wind and solar has left them in danger of days long blackouts, especially in the winters when the sky is overcast and air is motionless over all of Europe for 3 to 5 days at a time. So they had to go back to coal.

But, of course, all this anguish over carbon emissions may well be misplaced anyway. There is now a lot of evidence that human carbon emissions don't even matter, that natural CO2 sources dwarf human ones and that those natural sources are independent of human activity.

 

[davidtaylorjr]

The experience of Germany is instructive. Relying too much on wind and solar has left them in danger of days long blackouts, especially in the winters when the sky is overcast and air is motionless over all of Europe for 3 to 5 days at a time. So they had to go back to coal.

But, of course, all this anguish over carbon emissions may well be misplaced anyway. There is now a lot of evidence that human carbon emissions don't even matter, that natural CO2 sources dwarf human ones and that those natural sources are independent of human activity.

Shhhhh you are pointing out reality again....they might not take it well!

 

[longview]

Unless we find better ways to store solar and wind energy,
nuclear power appears to be the only long term game in town.
I still hold out hope for storing excess energy as hydrocarbons,
but that will take a change in thinking.
Fueling the Fleet, Navy Looks to the Seas - U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
The alternative is a world that only feeds about 1 billion people.

Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention,
Sometimes it's just a mother.

 

[joG]

Shhhhh you are pointing out reality again....they might not take it well!

You are right. That would not go over well in most quarters here in Germany. But that is changing. The price of electricity is risng and the population is beginning to realize they were lied to. The population seems to begetting a little restive.

 

[Wiseone]

Ya look at that big back track in renewable energy

 

[Deuce]

The experience of Germany is instructive. Relying too much on wind and solar has left them in danger of days long blackouts, especially in the winters when the sky is overcast and air is motionless over all of Europe for 3 to 5 days at a time. So they had to go back to coal.

They didn't have to. Nuclear power is literally the safest form of power that exists. Solar power causes more deaths than nuclear!

But, of course, all this anguish over carbon emissions may well be misplaced anyway. There is now a lot of evidence that human carbon emissions don't even matter, that natural CO2 sources dwarf human ones and that those natural sources are independent of human activity.

There has always been evidence that nature emits more CO2 than we do. That isn't a new revelation. But you're missing a piece: the part where nature also absorbs CO2.

 

[KevinKohler]

Nuclear power is how the rest of the solar system, and known universe does it....



Just saying.

 

[Deuce]

Nuclear power is how the rest of the solar system, and known universe does it....
Just saying.

Well we haven't really worked out that fusion thing yet.

 

[KevinKohler]

Well we haven't really worked out that fusion thing yet.

And we won't, as long as we're afraid of it.

 

[Wiseone]

Nuclear power is how the rest of the solar system, and known universe does it....

Just saying.

False equivalence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just because the Sun is a giant gravity fed nuclear explosion in the sky doesn't mean its a good idea to build a nuclear power plant.

 

[LowDown]

They didn't have to. Nuclear power is literally the safest form of power that exists. Solar power causes more deaths than nuclear!

Yes, but the Japanese reactor accident stampeded them into giving up their nukes. That left them with nowhere to go but coal.

There has always been evidence that nature emits more CO2 than we do. That isn't a new revelation. But you're missing a piece: the part where nature also absorbs CO2.

No, the work I'm talking about is about net production or absorption of CO2 by natural sources. It turns out that this follows temperature. So CO2 net production and therefore atmospheric levels follow changes in temperature in modern times just like it did in the ice cores according to these investigators.

 

[Deuce]

Yes, but the Japanese reactor accident stampeded them into giving up their nukes. That left them with nowhere to go but coal.





No, the work I'm talking about is about net production or absorption of CO2 by natural sources. It turns out that this follows temperature. So CO2 net production and therefore atmospheric levels follow changes in temperature in modern times just like it did in the ice cores according to these investigators.

This doesn't support your argument nearly as much as you think it does...