The Green New Deal

There's considerably more to his criticism than that, and your failure to even acknowledge it, let alone address it, doesn't impress.

Can you quote whatever you see as his most valid point?
 
Wow that's a new take on things! The wilder and crazier the proposal the better it is! One of the most ludicrous proposals in my memory and, ya wow it's suddenly a great tactic!

Now that is spin!

Well its better than starting with some totally, over-the-top, bat-crap crazy, outrageous idea.... and then not only wanting it without compromise, but holding the entire country to ransom and endangering people's lives to try to get it.

That's not spin, its stupid arrogance!
 
Not to mention installing and servicing all those tens of thousands of acres of panels out in the middle of the world's deserts.

One might also wonder how on earth all those offshore oil platforms and coal fired power plants are constructed and serviced. Large (exceeding 1000MW) solar power plants exist and the installation and maintenance is possible.
 
Well its better than starting with some totally, over-the-top, bat-crap crazy, outrageous idea.... and then not only wanting it without compromise, but holding the entire country to ransom and endangering people's lives to try to get it.

That's not spin, its stupid arrogance!

Meanwhile:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/sweden-to-reach-its-2030-renewable-energy-target-this-year/

Sweden is on target to meet one of its renewable energy targets years ahead of schedule, and it’s thanks in part to wind turbines.

By the end of 2018, Sweden will have installed 3,681 turbines, with a capacity of 7,506 MW and an estimated annual production of 19.8 TWh.

“After the decision on the increase in ambition was reached, a lot of investment decisions have been taken and many wind turbines are set to be completed in the upcoming years,” Markus​ Selin, analyst at the Swedish Energy Agency, told the World Economic Forum.

According to the Agency, the ambitious targets set for renewables production are now well within reach.

Sweden has ambitious goals for energy and climate adaptation. It has set a target of 50% more efficient energy use by 2030, and 100% renewable energy production by 2040.

It also has a target of net zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2045.
 
Again, this is 100% because you think that the only way to build reactors is the completely absurd way they were most recently built. And again that just shows how completely effectively anti-nuclear groups have been.

Specific measures that could be taken to reduce the cost of Nuclear would go a lot farther than CTish, hand waving claims that "nuclear is only expensive because of environmental groups conspiring against it".

Nuclear is still the most expensive option in places where environmental groups have little to no influence, and the major reason for this is it requires almost a decade of construction and costs before any power is generated. In contrast wind and solar can often be installed and generating power before the bill for the equipment even comes due.
 
So they are on track to achieve what the GND envisions, but gee, 15 years too late to save the planet?

To quote Lambert Strether over at nakedcapitalism:

As David Wallace Wells wrote in New York Magazine:

As a strategy of avoiding that same threshold of two degrees of warming, the investments of a Green New Deal are what logicians call “necessary but insufficient.”

This is not a reflection of the modesty of the legislation, which is not at all modest — in fact, it is perhaps the most ambitious bill put forward in congress in three quarters of a century. It is simply a reflection of the scale of the challenge. In its report, the IPCC compared the transformation required to stay safely below two degrees to the mobilization of World War II. That mobilization was unprecedented in human history and has never been matched since. That time, there was a draft, a nationalization of industry, widespread rationing: The entire American nation turned single-mindedly toward the relevant threat, as did the entire Russian nation — and the two of them, almost inconceivably, in retrospect, allied. That is the kind of mobilization the sober-minded scientists of the world believe is necessary today — to get to half of our current emissions by 2030.

AOC agrees:

Even the solutions that we have considered big and bold are nowhere near the scale of the actual problem that climate change presents to us to our country, to the world. And so while carbon taxes are nice while things like cap and trade are nice, it’s not what’s going to save the planet. It could be part of a larger solution but no one has actually scoped out what that larger solution would entail.

As a meliorist, I think even the GND has a change to make what is to come marginally less bad. If we succeed in mobilizing as the GND contemplates, we may end up doing much better. In any case, I’d rather go down fighting!

I don't see how you can disagree without engaging in climate change denialism, or at least grossly minimizing and downplaying it's predicted results.
 
I'm a proponent of nuclear. But lets table that for a moment and talk about renewable.

If I were to propose a green new deal, this is part of what I propose:

Work with Electric Vehicle manufacturers and come up with a universal fast charging standard, like we have with USB connections on computers. Fast chargers are very expensive and there are basically 3 competing standards in the US between CHAdeMO (Chevy), Tesla, and CCS/SAE. It is a shame that these are not compatible with each other. The government spent a great deal of money on the interstate system, we could subsidize fast charging infrastructure.

Secondly, I would want all EVs to be equipped with an out port as well. If 10% of the population has a $15,000 battery sitting in their driveway, these could power 10 homes while solar isn't available. Charge by day, provide by night given that people run their dishwashers and laundry only when renewables are providing. It isn't as simple as having an outport, it would also require expensive equipment to transform and feed the grid but we could add that to new building codes for new houses.

I don't think people really understand the challenge of storage. Germany can provide 100% of non transportation energy when things are good, and 0% when things are not so good. Their main source of energy is coal and they are way more dependent on it than the US and environmentalists have nothing but praise for their system. We need to look to France, not Germany as a good example but if we aren't going nuclear, we need a crap load of energy storage capacity.
 
I'm a proponent of nuclear. But lets table that for a moment and talk about renewable.

If I were to propose a green new deal, this is part of what I propose:

Work with Electric Vehicle manufacturers and come up with a universal fast charging standard, like we have with USB connections on computers. Fast chargers are very expensive and there are basically 3 competing standards in the US between CHAdeMO (Chevy), Tesla, and CCS/SAE. It is a shame that these are not compatible with each other. The government spent a great deal of money on the interstate system, we could subsidize fast charging infrastructure.

Secondly, I would want all EVs to be equipped with an out port as well. If 10% of the population has a $15,000 battery sitting in their driveway, these could power 10 homes while solar isn't available. Charge by day, provide by night given that people run their dishwashers and laundry only when renewables are providing. It isn't as simple as having an outport, it would also require expensive equipment to transform and feed the grid but we could add that to new building codes for new houses.

I don't think people really understand the challenge of storage. Germany can provide 100% of non transportation energy when things are good, and 0% when things are not so good. Their main source of energy is coal and they are way more dependent on it than the US and environmentalists have nothing but praise for their system. We need to look to France, not Germany as a good example but if we aren't going nuclear, we need a crap load of energy storage capacity.

Agreed we need storage, but why not. A 1000MW of storage might cost USD0.5 billion, a 1000MW power generator would cost over twice that. By getting a good mix between wind, solar and storage coal power can (indeed will) be replaced using existing technologies that are already operational around the world.

For households i think a Tesla Powerwall would cost from USD 5,000 to 15,000 per house and then get cheaper for condominiums. I doubt a car battery can power 10 houses, but if it could then at USD 15,000 for 10 houses no need to share with a car.
 
I think it's a bit funny that it's cited as an example of how we can achieve this 15 years before they do, despite them having (presumably) a head start.

We have some catching up to do. This is not that complicated of a concept.
 
Agreed we need storage, but why not. A 1000MW of storage might cost USD0.5 billion, a 1000MW power generator would cost over twice that. By getting a good mix between wind, solar and storage coal power can (indeed will) be replaced using existing technologies that are already operational around the world.

For households i think a Tesla Powerwall would cost from USD 5,000 to 15,000 per house and then get cheaper for condominiums. I doubt a car battery can power 10 houses, but if it could then at USD 15,000 for 10 houses no need to share with a car.

An EV is a powerwall, or rather, a potential powerwall. My Chevy Spark had a small battery, but a Chevy Bolt has range of something around 300 miles. If you have a 20 mile commute every day, and only go on long drives twice a month, your car(your battery) could serve as public storage. I'd have to do number crunching but a lets say 250 mile range(as excess storage) on a Chevy Bolt is used to provide for 10 houses...if that power is only used for the basics: lighting, TV, internet...it could maybe be done. HVAC would be an issue depending on the weather.
Also, imagine charging your car while at work via solar, driving home and giving back to the grid when things are dark.
 

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