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I want to see more emphasis on nuclear in these climate plans. It's a far superior energy source than wind or solar, which have significant environmental costs that are commonly downplayed (manufacturing and disposal).
They're being deployed at scale first because both wind and solar had a learning-by-doing cycle which brought costs to levels below both fossil fuels and nuclear. In much of the world, nuclear never managed to achieve that.
The fossil fuel industry convinced the world that nuclear is dangerous and expensive. In reality, it is the safest and cheapest contemporary source of energy.
Nuclear is still profitable, and has the advantage of already been proven at the scale of an entire industrial nations grid. It takes a while to build, but is still faster than nearly all of our non-binding pledges. Instead, most of the world is betting everything on a massive redesign of the electrical grid with lots of HV DC and new hydro, all for a few percent higher profit.
Moreover, this possibility that renewables might be unstable at nation scale is exactly why we’ve built so many new fossil plants as a ‘bridge’ to when they are ‘ready’. The same would not have been possible if we had chosen the option that made a major industrial nations grid carbon neutral by accident in the seventies.
Yep, we must have energy to power the industrial complex. I mean, what would happen if we couldn't keep the lights on at at weapons factories? Or, heaven forbid, all those Christmas lights and masses of other non-essential products and services?
What will it take for people to take the effects of a degrading nature seriously? When there is another crazy war, it's all folk can think about.
It does make me question why so many "leaders" keep on making the same bad mistakes.
I mean, while we could definitely be more efficient, you realize most of the energy we use in industry not oil related is for things like food, homes, clothes, transport, etc… Wepons are high cost, but ultimately not made at anything like the scale that most other industries operate at.
House wise, nothing can compare to heating and air conditioning in terms of energy use. Heat pumps are very efficient, but they’ll still burn though far more energy than a electric car, much less things like stoves and driers. There are limits to how well you can insulate a home without health risks, and getting close to that still requires pumping in cold air and venting warm to carry out co2. To say nothing of having to also abandon a lot of warm areas becuse they’ve gotten to hot to be safe without heat pumps.
If we are to replace fossil fuel in heating, and exterminating everyone in Canada, Mexico, and the Middle East is off the table, then we need to vastly expand our electricity production.
"If we are to replace fossil fuel in heating"
You make it sound like a choice.
I don't know where you live, however, in the UK we've had decades of government incompetence; because they're "buddies" with the fossil fuel industries.
So, if they hadn't been so crap, we could have had well-insulated buildings that were heated using heat pumps.
The obvious point is, ALL sectors of what's called an economy need to either be more efficient or go out of business.
I said if becuse you made it sound like if we made things more efficient we could shrink our electricity generation and my point was that as we replace oil with electricity we’re going to need to expand it even if we have maximum insulation to replace what’s currently done with fossil fuels. Joule to joule heat pumps may be four to six times as efficient, but heating still requires a massive amount of energy no matter the form it takes.
When people talk about agriculture oil use, outside of biofuel calculations, they typically mean in fertilizer and pesticides, which honestly don’t matter climate wise.
If we’re just talking about fuel, agricultural equipment is actually some of the easiest to electrify since you always have nice high power three phase all over the place for pumps and irrigation pivots. The only trouble comes from the increasing use of three shift operations during harvest time. All of this still requires a lot more electricity though.
I think you're genuinely thinking about solutions, but, your knowledge base needs working on.
"fertilizer and pesticides, which honestly don’t matter climate wise"
They honestly do matter very much!
The "climate" isn't some abstract phenomenon that exists outside of the planet's ecosystems. Insects are fundamental components of an ecosystem. Insecticides kill insects!
Overuse of fertilizer, both organic and synthetic, runs of the land into rivers and oceans (i.e., more pollution)
Nither of which have anywhere near the impact of say, Diesel fuel consumption on global temperatures. Everything you jest mentioned is an effect on the local environment, not the gobal climate, which is to say what we were talking about.
this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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