Josh wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 2:30 pm
Exactly what source of money can we use to “invest” in “clean renewable energy”?
Print more dollars?
The US could quit spending more on the military than the next top eleven countries combined. This graph mislabels military spending as "Defense" spending but it shows the point.
Josh wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 2:30 pm
The only sustainable “clean” energy is nuclear - and Europe is busy shutting down their nuclear power plants to replace them with Russian gas.
I'm glad "clean" is in quotes. When you have extremely toxic waste that lasts for millennia that we have no good permanent storage solutions for, that is a clear misnomer.
JimFoxvog wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 3:42 pm
The US could quit spending more on the military than the next top eleven countries combined.
While not connected to climate change, much of the cost of the US military is policing he world. The US would have to go back to isolationalism to cut much of these costs. I would support it, but doubt it will happen.
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JimFoxvog wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 3:42 pm
The US could quit spending more on the military than the next top eleven countries combined.
While not connected to climate change, much of the cost of the US military is policing he world. The US would have to go back to isolationalism to cut much of these costs. I would support it, but doubt it will happen.
Much of that world policing has involved fights to defend access to global petroleum reserves, or prevent them from falling into the control of others. In a world that runs on clean renewable energy much of that becomes unnecessary.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Josh wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 2:30 pm
The only sustainable “clean” energy is nuclear - and Europe is busy shutting down their nuclear power plants to replace them with Russian gas.
I'm glad "clean" is in quotes. When you have extremely toxic waste that lasts for millennia that we have no good permanent storage solutions for, that is a clear misnomer.
Josh is right about Europe, or at least Germany shutting down its nuclear power plants to become more reliant on Russian gas. That was an epic and historic blunder. And it turns out that, unsurprisingly, secret Russian funding was behind the German green and environmental parties campaigns to shut down nuclear energy in Germany.
In any event, the issue of reactor waste is entirely a political problem, not a scientific one. The total volume of high-level reactor waste is quite small and we know how to store or dispose of it safely. The obstacles are entirely political. The best solution would probably be to bury it in deep sea subduction zones where it would slowly sink over time into the earth's mantle and be harmlessly destroyed. Seawater is actually an extremely good radiation barrier.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Most “clean” energy uses more energy to build than it will ever produce (eg wind turbines are bad about this) and often causes environmental destruction too (an example is hydro flooding millions of people out of their homes).
Josh wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 11:28 am
Most “clean” energy uses more energy to build than it will ever produce (eg wind turbines are bad about this) and often causes environmental destruction too (an example is hydro flooding millions of people out of their homes).
These things have to be built - eventually will require disposal.
Huge salvage requirements will be necessary. Is this why God created deserts??
“Billions” in immediate profits are seductive. For the right price, most-anything is negotiable.
Josh wrote: ↑Wed Mar 09, 2022 11:28 am
Most “clean” energy uses more energy to build than it will ever produce (eg wind turbines are bad about this) and often causes environmental destruction too (an example is hydro flooding millions of people out of their homes).
This contradicts any studies I've read. Usually the energy payback is seen in under a year. Here's a typical report:
Energy Balance analysis
The energy balance is an assessment of the relation between the energy consumption of the product and the energy production throughout the lifetime. The energy balance analysis in Vestas V90 3.0 MW shows that, for an offshore wind turbine 0.57 years (6.8 months) of expected average energy production are necessary to recover all the energy consumed for manufacturing, operation, transport, dismantling and disposal.
As far as an onshore wind turbine is concerned, the energy balance is similar but shorter than the offshore one, with only 0.55 years (6.6 months) needed to recover the energy spent in all the phases of entire lifecycle. This difference is due to a larger grid transmission and larger steel consumption for the foundations in an offshore scheme.
The V 80 2 MW turbines installed in Horns Rev only needed 0.26 years (3.1 months) to recover the energy spent in the offshore installation. The same turbines installed in the Tjaereborg onshore wind farm had an energy payback period of about 0.27 years (3.2 months).
...
Record high temperatures this month have been reported in both the arctic and the antarctic. The 70°F above normal at the antarctic weather station is the largest deviation from normal at a weather station ever recorded.
Hot poles: Antarctica, Arctic 70 and 50 degrees above normal
Weather stations in Antarctica shattered records Friday as the region neared autumn. The two-mile high (3,234 meters) Concordia station was at 10 degrees (-12.2 degrees Celsius),which is about 70 degrees warmer than average, while the even higher Vostok station hit a shade above 0 degrees (-17.7 degrees Celsius), beating its all-time record by about 27 degrees (15 degrees Celsius), according to a tweet from extreme weather record tracker Maximiliano Herrera.
The coastal Terra Nova Base was far above freezing at 44.6 degrees (7 degrees Celsius).
It caught officials at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, by surprise because they were paying attention to the Arctic where it was 50 degrees warmer than average and areas around the North Pole were nearing or at the melting point, which is really unusual for mid-March, said center ice scientist Walt Meier.
Neto wrote:Figured I'd just drop this in here.
Ecology is not exactly to do with this thread, but those wind farms are a blight on the landscape.
I hope they don't put up any more of them.
Caspar, Wyoming
.. “Expect to see more blades come to the landfill at least until the end of next spring as more turbines are replaced or decommissioned.”
These things are numerous, huge, and ugly. There are many across Illinois farm fields.
How can anyone look at them without marveling at the future SALVAGE business and long-term waste storage (burial) they represent? Not to mention the initial production-construction,
(fossil fuel) transportation, installation costs.
Deaths of birds and bats.
Eagles have made significant comeback since “Silent Spring,” evidently, so much so, they can now be written-off as collateral damage - ahem, for the acceptable PC cause.
Wear blinders, don’t think about it in any balanced manner.
A bald eagle is shown in 2020 in Philadelphia.
NextEra Energy subsidiary ESI Energy was sentenced to probation and ordered to pay more than $8 million in fines and restitution after at least 150 eagles were killed over the past decade at its wind farms in eight states.
Chris Szagola/AP
JimFoxvog wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 3:42 pmThe only sustainable “clean” energy is nuclear - and Europe is busy shutting down their nuclear power plants to replace them with Russian gas.
I'm glad "clean" is in quotes. When you have extremely toxic waste that lasts for millennia that we have no good permanent storage solutions for, that is a clear misnomer.
[/quote]
I'm actually kind of with Josh on this. Not the notion that nuclear is the only sustainable clean energy. There are plenty of other sources of clean energy. But that nuclear is a viable option.
Storage of high-level nuclear waste is actually mostly a political problem not a scientific problem. There are plenty of viable and safe options for permanent storage. They are just politically difficult to implement. It can also be re-processed but but that is expensive and also politically problematic because you end up with weapons-grade plutonium.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
A bald eagle is shown in 2020 in Philadelphia. 