if you want me and the rest of humanity to vote for nuclear you have to sell it with the occasional major accident
It's pretty simple, solar and wind can't come close to meeting the world's energy demand, so if you say no to nuclear, you are inescapably saying yes to more fossil fuels and accelerated climate change.
Entire swaths of the planet will become uninhabitable due to the climate there becoming too hot, too dry, or outright flooded. Increasing fossil fuel use only makes this happen sooner.
The effects of climate change could lead to billions of deaths and threaten human civilization entirely. For more details on the effects on climate change, see (starting at around 9:26):
It's pretty simple, solar and wind can't come close to meeting the world's energy demand, so if you say no to nuclear, you are inescapably saying yes to more fossil fuels and accelerated climate change.
Entire swaths of the planet will become uninhabitable due to the climate there becoming too hot, too dry, or outright flooded. Increasing fossil fuel use only makes this happen sooner.
The effects of climate change could lead to billions of deaths and threaten human civilization entirely. For more details on the effects on climate change, see (starting at around 9:26):
This is and old 2010 talking point.
I'll listen to good arguments that 100% solar and wind is a bad idea and shouldn't be the goal, but to say you can't get close is laughable. There's enough resources to built it, and enough capacity to do it easily.
There's arguments against it for reliability reasons, environmental reasons, and even economic reasons. You could definitely do it though
Well we could do something about how much energy we use, I like driving my own F 150 and living in 3000 odd square foot moderatly insulated house, I/we dont have to piss energy and resources away like that though
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I'll listen to good arguments that 100% solar and wind is a bad idea and shouldn't be the goal, but to say you can't get close is laughable. There's enough resources to built it, and enough capacity to do it easily.
There's arguments against it for reliability reasons, environmental reasons, and even economic reasons. You could definitely do it though
Yeah it's technically possible. My point is it wouldn't be practical.
Wind turbine construction and installation is a process that produces emissions. Diesel-powered heavy equipment clears sites, digs foundations, transports components and assembles them. Coal or natural-gas-fired kilns bake the concrete, additional coal to forge steel for foundations and towers, and the hydrocarbon-based fiberglass for their blades. Solar panels also affect the environment in similar ways; extracting resources for manufacture and transportation, devoting land to installation, and maintaining, decommissioning and ultimately disposing them. When they reach their end of life, they become an environmental issue. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michael...ch-toxic-waste
Solar panels seem to be prone to being damaged or destroyed by major weather events... see Puerto Rico's solar panels in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
And as of now there’s still no dependable high-capacity storage technology for the electricity wind and solar produce. This could change at some point but until it does, it's a big problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by afc wimbledon
Well we could do something about how much energy we use, I like driving my own F 150 and living in 3000 odd square foot moderatly insulated house, I/we dont have to piss energy and resources away like that though
Genuinely curious... how do you propose we convince people to use less energy?
Yeah it's technically possible. My point is it wouldn't be practical.
Wind turbine construction and installation is a process that produces emissions. Diesel-powered heavy equipment clears sites, digs foundations, transports components and assembles them. Coal or natural-gas-fired kilns bake the concrete, additional coal to forge steel for foundations and towers, and the hydrocarbon-based fiberglass for their blades. Solar panels also affect the environment in similar ways; extracting resources for manufacture and transportation, devoting land to installation, and maintaining, decommissioning and ultimately disposing them. When they reach their end of life, they become an environmental issue.
Nuclear requires insane amounts of concrete and equipment too. There's no perfect solution, but wind and solar should be the largest contributors due to the low cost
And as of now there’s still no dependable high-capacity storage technology for the electricity wind and solar produce. This could change at some point but until it does, it's a big problem.
You have to build it to have it. We need carbon neutral concrete that isn't ungodly expensive, but electric arc steel and electric heavy duty equipment already exist. These environmental costs are still less than fossil fuel extraction and consumption. Until you build the clean energy sources, you can't get clean energy equipment and arc furnaces. It's chicken and egg, so just start.
Quote:
Genuinely curious... how do you propose we convince people to use less energy?
You're really going to hate my answer backed with lots and lots of evidence...
You're really going to hate my answer backed with lots and lots of evidence...
CARBON TAX!!!!
I'm actually extremely pro-carbon tax. That'll be our one big area of agreement. I think you're seriously underestimating the logistical challenges of replacing all fossil fuels with wind & solar without using nuclear.
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I'm actually extremely pro-carbon tax. That'll be our one big area of agreement. I think you're seriously underestimating the logistical challenges of replacing all fossil fuels with wind & solar without using nuclear.
Oh I think nuclear is going to be very helpful.
I was more cherry picking the statement that "solar and wind won't get youb anywhere close". It absolutely could. Probably not the best option, but back only about ten years ago there were all kinds of awful articles about how all the solar and wind wouldn't even turn on all the lights on the world nevermind everything else. Turns out that's crap. Solar and wind will probably get you 60-80% of the way there
Every week I drive to a vast Costco miles from my house where I buy at the same time food storage containers to put the food in that I buy already in food grade storage containers we happen to call 'packaging' I bring vast amounts of food home to put in a fridge 4 times the size of a fridge in most of the world, a fair chunk of which ends up tucked up in the back out of sight and eventually gets thrown away, I have a wholly seperate plastic tub to throw away the plastic containers we call packaging for products my mother would get wrapped in some newspaper 40 years ago, of course my mum would buy only enough food for a day's meal on the way home form work and for much of my young life we neither had nor needed a fridge.
We could probably quarter the energy consumption of Canada just by changing the way we live back to what life looked like 50 years ago
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Every week I drive to a vast Costco miles from my house where I buy at the same time food storage containers to put the food in that I buy already in food grade storage containers we happen to call 'packaging' I bring vast amounts of food home to put in a fridge 4 times the size of a fridge in most of the world, a fair chunk of which ends up tucked up in the back out of sight and eventually gets thrown away, I have a wholly seperate plastic tub to throw away the plastic containers we call packaging for products my mother would get wrapped in some newspaper 40 years ago, of course my mum would buy only enough food for a day's meal on the way home form work and for much of my young life we neither had nor needed a fridge.
We could probably quarter the energy consumption of Canada just by changing the way we live back to what life looked like 50 years ago
Easily. And anyone could choose to do that, but essentially nobody does.
lol "Do you mind if I take a quick picture while holding your elbow gently and cocking my head sideways? I'm going to be wearing some casual blue jeans"
It's crazy to me to think there are houses down there that have elevated water lines running down the sides of their house, so all it takes is one cold snap and they burst.
Nothing buried, totally exposed lines. I guess they might have to look at changing their building code in the future.
It's crazy to me to think there are houses down there that have elevated water lines running down the sides of their house, so all it takes is one cold snap and they burst.
Nothing buried, totally exposed lines. I guess they might have to look at changing their building code in the future.
What's worse though are the internal pipes bursting in the homes that have no heat
I was more cherry picking the statement that "solar and wind won't get youb anywhere close". It absolutely could. Probably not the best option, but back only about ten years ago there were all kinds of awful articles about how all the solar and wind wouldn't even turn on all the lights on the world nevermind everything else. Turns out that's crap. Solar and wind will probably get you 60-80% of the way there
Wind and solar couldn't even pull their weight as ~25% of Texas' grid when they were needed the most.
That green wedge almost completely disappears when it's needed most. If there hadn't been a backup of reliable NG that could be ramped up with a stable coal and nuclear baseload this disaster would have been even worse. But somehow if wind and solar were 80% of the entire worlds grid everything would be hunky dory? I don't buy it. Intermittency and being energy dilute are non-trivial problems for these energy sources, and barring some incredible technological breakthrough those problems will continue to prevent full widescale adoption into the grid, unless society decides it's ok with regular blackouts and ever-increasing costs. Wind and solar are useful for what they are, namely niche roles in energy grids that can augment them to somewhat lower emissions. But they cannot be relied upon to power an on-demand 24/7 grid. If your goal is lowered carbon emissions and an actually reliable industrial grid then your answer is nuclear, and nothing else.
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People always wonder why houses in the southern USA are so cheap, well i think we found out, they're built like crap.
I recall having breakfast with a group from Texas about 30 some odd years ago, and we were discussing the time it takes to get a permit to build a subdivision in Texas vs Calgary. In Texas it took 6 months, whereas in Calgary it took 3 years.
I also recall discussing the cement quality in foundations in Texas. Someone said that there was a case where a thief managed to enter a house by cutting a hole through the foundation with a jackknife.
That green wedge almost completely disappears when it's needed most. If there hadn't been a backup of reliable NG that could be ramped up with a stable coal and nuclear baseload this disaster would have been even worse. But somehow if wind and solar were 80% of the entire worlds grid everything would be hunky dory? I don't buy it. Intermittency and being energy dilute are non-trivial problems for these energy sources, and barring some incredible technological breakthrough those problems will continue to prevent full widescale adoption into the grid, unless society decides it's ok with regular blackouts and ever-increasing costs. Wind and solar are useful for what they are, namely niche roles in energy grids that can augment them to somewhat lower emissions. But they cannot be relied upon to power an on-demand 24/7 grid. If your goal is lowered carbon emissions and an actually reliable industrial grid then your answer is nuclear, and nothing else.
This is the problem with the fairy farts that supply wind and solar, without GIGANTIC Battery arrays that would have as much if not more of a negative footprint as Nuclear and Natural Gas, you still need those non renewables to fill in the gaps. Better so in a state like texas as this is about worst case scenario, but could you imagine only renewables in Alberta? We would have battery banks the size of the city blocks.
Utilize renewables as much as practically possible (while continuing to perfect the technologies) and fill in the gaps with NG and Nuclear.
Last edited by Samonadreau; 02-21-2021 at 11:38 AM.
That green wedge almost completely disappears when it's needed most. If there hadn't been a backup of reliable NG that could be ramped up with a stable coal and nuclear baseload this disaster would have been even worse. But somehow if wind and solar were 80% of the entire worlds grid everything would be hunky dory? I don't buy it. Intermittency and being energy dilute are non-trivial problems for these energy sources, and barring some incredible technological breakthrough those problems will continue to prevent full widescale adoption into the grid, unless society decides it's ok with regular blackouts and ever-increasing costs. Wind and solar are useful for what they are, namely niche roles in energy grids that can augment them to somewhat lower emissions. But they cannot be relied upon to power an on-demand 24/7 grid. If your goal is lowered carbon emissions and an actually reliable industrial grid then your answer is nuclear, and nothing else.
This is very silly and an extremely misleading graphic. Wind was vastly exceeding expected supply during the windy part of the storm. It was not intended to supply that much power in February, but was a bonus that it did. The wind capacity installed was also not optimized for cold weather and was only ever supposed to supply an average of 6.1GB in February. It averaged about 50% of that during the cold snap. You know what else only did 50% of expected capacity? Gas. I guess gas isn't the solution either. One of the four nuclear plants dropped too. I guess it's not the answer either. Whatever will we do.....
Resiliency is important, and we don't have storage solved, absolutely. You're hyperbole here is silly though, as by your own metric, none of the generators are the answer. The answer is regardless of fuel type, resiliency needs to be built in with connections to other grids, cold weather upgrades, and longer term more distributed production.
While distributed solar would not have averted this catastrophe, if even one in 10 homes had solar and battery they could've helped a lot of neighbors. With costs decreasing distributed energy is essential in load balancing and resiliency
Last edited by Street Pharmacist; 02-21-2021 at 12:54 PM.
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This is very silly and an extremely misleading graphic. Wind was vastly exceeding demand during the windy part of the storm. It was not intended to supply that much power in February, but was a bonus that it did. The wind capacity installed was also not optimized for cold weather and was only ever supposed to supply an average of 6.1GB in February. It averaged about 50% of that during the cold snap. You know what else only did 50% of expected capacity? Gas. I guess gas isn't the solution either. One of the four nuclear plants dropped too. I guess it's not the answer either. Whatever will we do.....
Resiliency is important, and we don't have storage solved, absolutely. You're hyperbole here is silly though, as by your own metric, none of the generators are the answer. The answer is regardless of fuel type, resiliency needs to be built in with connections to other grids, cold weather upgrades, and longer term more distributed production.
While distributed solar would not have averted this catastrophe, if even one in 10 homes had solar and battery they could've helped a lot of neighbors. With costs decreasing distributed energy is essential in load balancing and resiliency
Well, similar to your example, one of two reactors at a nuclear power facility automatically shut down on a safety trip due to not being built to withstand cold weather. And the gas is easy to keep flowing if you have crews ready to do that type of thing. I did that job as a teenager. So again, poor cold weather planning. And from what it sounds like just poor regulations all around.
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