The Green New Deal

lomiller said:
This is probably wrong. The problem with CO2 is that it persists in the atmosphere for a long time. Methane doesn't stay in the atmosphere nearly as long, it decays into CO2 in about a decade or so. To a first approximation Methane in the atmosphere only increases when emissions of Methane are increasing. IOW "equivalent CO2" should only count increases in Methane production not total respiration.

Furthermore, baring some major unforeseen rapid emission of Methane from permafrost or thawing Methane hydrates, Methane itself is a nearly negligible fraction of total greenhouse forcing by the time we start to get into the really bad scenarios.

Energy used in agriculture and fertilizer production are a bigger problem in the long run than Methane because these represent the introduction new carbon into the carbon cycle, Methane does not.
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Methane is already bubbling out of the ocean floor methane clathrates. In the Pacific, also Alaska lakes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxARROUvFAo
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Germany thought they had found a perfect salt mine, only to discover that water leaks in - it will take decades and billions to get the waste out again.
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I can find examples of anything failing or being poorly planned. You said that permanent storage is not the solution, but isolated cases don't support that claim.
 
Belz... said:
I can find examples of anything failing or being poorly planned. You said that permanent storage is not the solution, but isolated cases don't support that claim.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dounreay

Intetesting to read about the decommissioning here. As i've said before France or USA is not my worry but the whole world's power demands ned to be met and many countries worry me on safety during construction, operation and decommissioning.
 
Belz... said:
I can find examples of anything failing or being poorly planned. You said that permanent storage is not the solution, but isolated cases don't support that claim.
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I think it is common sense: the timescale for keeping the waste safe is in the excess of 10,000 years. Assuming that humanity will survive that long, we can expect major political, social, economic and technological changes during that time.

It would be short-sighted to create facts today that cannot be undone by our ancestors to the nth generation.
 
Belz... said:
Could you expand on this? I'm really interested.
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Sorry for the late reply. I rarely post here because I am generally very busy, while at the same time, as I have said, I don't generally care about debating this topic because I feel that there is generally no sense in debating the views of the Greens which will continue to halt meaningful action against climate change for at least another decade or two.

The issue with the scarcity of some of the minerals and raw materials needed for wind and solar has been talked about a lot. I should say, that I don't think that this is actually going to be an issue that is going affect renewable energy because ways are found around these problems when they get bad enough, but while I don't think that there is a problem with the finiteness of essential materials for renewable energy, those who oppose nuclear energy are always harping about the finiteness of nuclear fuel which is orders of magnitude less of an issue than exists for renewables - which of course they ignore.

For me a much larger problem would be the obscene magnitude of the destructiveness caused by mining and processing for those essential materials.

And here are a couple more.

Mining for nuclear is far less destructive and has a much smaller footprint. That article also has good information about the environmental problems and dangerous child labor that are a part in the mining needed for the batteries that Greens think will allow wind and solar to become reliable sources of power. This is not creating a better world. This is ideologically blinkered people promoting a dystopia.

Now some people might say that these terrible consequences are justified because climate change is such a significant problem, but there are no real examples of renewable energy leading to a significant decrease in ghgs. People think there are, but there are not. Someone earlier in this thread said that conservatives should look at the industrious and technologically advanced Germans. But they have spent many billions over the last decade bringing a massive amount of renewable energy into their grid. It has increased the cost of electricity by a very substantial amount and their ghg emissions have dropped only a tiny percentage (much, much less than in the US over the same period of time - mostly accomplished by switching to natural gas). Germany has reduced ghgs by a pretty decent amount since 1990, but almost all of that was due to shutting done extremely dirty in East Germany after the merger. Despite very strong support from the population, and massive amounts of money, their renewable fantasies have been a complete failure. But they continue to double down on it.


And every time they double down. Every time they make a large public commitment for decades down the road, Greens swoon and say every other country should the same. They demand that every country should make the same commitment going forward, because they have no examples of actual success so far.

You would think that would give them pause. You would think that should make them reassess why renewable builds have accomplished nothing in terms of ghg reductions, despite evidence that every nuclear build - which they 100% oppose - accomplished a lot in terms of ghg reductions. But ideologues don't care about reality. They care about their fantasy.

In Ontario we massively decreased ghg emissions during the 70s and 80s through a large nuclear build. Then in the 90s our emission went back up dramatically when we took a lot of nuclear offline. Then in the early 2000s we decided we were going to lower those emissions again by a large scale wind and solar build, but when the government realized that was doing nothing for emissions (but caused our electricity bills to skyrocket) they brought nuclear back online. But they continued to want to build more wind and solar despite their own research showing that doing so would not only increase electricity bills further, but also would increase our ghgs. And we really don't even use much of the wind and solar we produce. Because it is so unreliable we simply dump most of it into neighboring provinces and states for almost free - despite us paying a lot for it. But despite all that our previous government, in the name of fighting climate change they wanted to build more wind and solar despite knowing that would increase emissions. This is nothing but virtue signalling.

The same is likely the case in Sweden. Posters have said that they plan on being 100% renewable in 2040. But they are also building more nuclear reactors and have said that nuclear will still providing plenty of electricity in 2040. But you have to virtue signal. And what has the pretty substantial wind and solar build in Sweden accomplished so far? Probably nothing. Their imports and exports of electricity have both grown substantially during this time (the same thing happened in Ontario) - meaning that it is most likely that when wind and solar are creating a lot of electricity they are just dumping most of it into neighboring countries, but when it is not producing much they are importing.

Wind and solar, even if they are cheap, make electricity in the grid more expensive for obvious reasons.


And while wind and solar are worthwhile in a couple instances (such as powering isolated areas) it will continue to fail everywhere else it is tried because the problems with it are unlikely to be overcome except by making electricity much more expensive. And even then success is questionable. So why do it? Virtue signalling while the planet burns.
 
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Wayward son said:
Sorry for the late reply. I rarely post here because I am generally very busy, while at the same time, as I have said, I don't generally care about debating this topic because I feel that there is generally no sense in debating the views of the Greens which will continue to halt meaningful action against climate change for at least another decade or two.

The issue with the scarcity of some of the minerals and raw materials needed for wind and solar has been talked about a lot. I should say, that I don't think that this is actually going to be an issue that is going affect renewable energy because ways are found around these problems when they get bad enough, but while I don't think that there is a problem with the finiteness of essential materials for renewable energy, those who oppose nuclear energy are always harping about the finiteness of nuclear fuel which is orders of magnitude less of an issue than exists for renewables - which of course they ignore.

For me a much larger problem would be the obscene magnitude of the destructiveness [URL="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution"]caused by mining and processing for those essential materials.

And here are a couple more.

Mining for nuclear is far less destructive and has a much smaller footprint. That article also has good information about the environmental problems and dangerous child labor that are a part in the mining needed for the batteries that Greens think will allow wind and solar to become reliable sources of power. This is not creating a better world. This is ideologically blinkered people promoting a dystopia.

Now some people might say that these terrible consequences are justified because climate change is such a significant problem, but there are no real examples of renewable energy leading to a significant decrease in ghgs. People think there are, but there are not. Someone earlier in this thread said that conservatives should look at the industrious and technologically advanced Germans. But they have spent many billions over the last decade bringing a massive amount of renewable energy into their grid. It has increased the cost of electricity by a very substantial amount and their ghg emissions have dropped only a tiny percentage (much, much less than in the US over the same period of time - mostly accomplished by switching to natural gas). Germany has reduced ghgs by a pretty decent amount since 1990, but almost all of that was due to shutting done extremely dirty in East Germany after the merger. Despite very strong support from the population, and massive amounts of money, their renewable fantasies have been a complete failure. But they continue to double down on it.


And every time they double down. Every time they make a large public commitment for decades down the road, Greens swoon and say every other country should the same. They demand that every country should make the same commitment going forward, because they have no examples of actual success so far.

You would think that would give them pause. You would think that should make them reassess why renewable builds have accomplished nothing in terms of ghg reductions, despite evidence that every nuclear build - which they 100% oppose - accomplished a lot in terms of ghg reductions. But ideologues don't care about reality. They care about their fantasy.

In Ontario we massively decreased ghg emissions during the 70s and 80s through a large nuclear build. Then in the 90s our emission went back up dramatically when we took a lot of nuclear offline. Then in the early 2000s we decided we were going to lower those emissions again by a large scale wind and solar build, but when the government realized that was doing nothing for emissions (but caused our electricity bills to skyrocket) they brought nuclear back online. But they continued to want to build more wind and solar despite their own research showing that doing so would not only increase electricity bills further, but also would increase our ghgs. And we really don't even use much of the wind and solar we produce. Because it is so unreliable we simply dump most of it into neighboring provinces and states for almost free - despite us paying a lot for it. But despite all that our previous government, in the name of fighting climate change they wanted to build more wind and solar despite knowing that would increase emissions. This is nothing but virtue signalling.

The same is likely the case in Sweden. Posters have said that they plan on being 100% renewable in 2040. But they are also building more nuclear reactors and have said that nuclear will still providing plenty of electricity in 2040. But you have to virtue signal. And what has the pretty substantial wind and solar build in Sweden accomplished so far? Probably nothing. Their imports and exports of electricity have both grown substantially during this time (the same thing happened in Ontario) - meaning that it is most likely that when wind and solar are creating a lot of electricity they are just dumping most of it into neighboring countries, but when it is not producing much they are importing.

Wind and solar, even if they are cheap, make electricity in the grid more expensive for obvious reasons.


And while wind and solar are worthwhile in a couple instances (such as powering isolated areas) it will continue to fail everywhere else it is tried because the problems with it are unlikely to be overcome except by making electricity much more expensive. And even then success is questionable. So why do it? Virtue signalling while the planet burns.
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The planet is burning?
 
The Great Zaganza said:
I think it is common sense: the timescale for keeping the waste safe is in the excess of 10,000 years. Assuming that humanity will survive that long, we can expect major political, social, economic and technological changes during that time.

It would be short-sighted to create facts today that cannot be undone by our ancestors to the nth generation.
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Maybe but how do you propose to proceed? I mean, everything that generates megawatts has waste, accidents, problems and risks. What you describe above is true for all of them.
 
applecorped said:
The planet is burning?
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The saying fiddling while Rome burns is a common figure of speach that expresses meaning - you shouldn't occupy yourself with unimportant things when more important action is required. The saying is not true in that that there were no fiddles at the time, and Nero probably did many things although he was ineffective at stopping the fire.

Virture signalling while the planet burns is a take on that saying.

There is a massive consensus that urgent action is needed, and even though we know of methods that have quickly decreased ghg emissions by a substantial margin, we not only refuse to implement those actions on a larger scale, but try to reverse what those actions have accomplished in past decades. While pushing a rather useless and expensive alternative for ideological purposes.
 
Belz... said:
Maybe but how do you propose to proceed? I mean, everything that generates megawatts has waste, accidents, problems and risks. What you describe above is true for all of them.
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Some currently proposed solutions are basically holes in the ground into which you lower the stuff until full, then pour concrete over it. This makes it nigh impossible to fix any problems that are detected later.

AFAIK, there are no good objections to the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, which would allow for nuclear waste to be retrieved if deemed necessary.
 
FYI Here is the original GND FAQ Blog that AOC posted.
It does indeed say 'Those unwilling to work'
Any large-scale transformation of society can create the risk of some people slipping through the cracks. That’s why the Green New Deal also calls for an upgrade to the basic economic securities enjoyed by all people in the US to ensure everybody benefits from the newly created wealth. It guarantees to everyone:

A job with family-sustaining wages, family and medical leave, vacations, and retirement security
High-quality education, including higher education and trade schools
High-quality health care
Clean air and water
Healthy food
Safe, affordable, adequate housing
An economic environment free of monopolies
Economic security to all who are unable or unwilling to work
The frontline communities that are already facing the ravages of climate change and pollution and working-class communities reliant on fossil fuel industries must be prioritized in any transformation of our society to a renewable energy economy. That’s why the Green New Deal lays out a comprehensive plan that ensures training, investment, and the economic and environmental benefits of the transition prioritize these communities that are most at risk.
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https://web.archive.org/web/2019020...house.gov/media/blog-posts/green-new-deal-faq
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Some currently proposed solutions are basically holes in the ground into which you lower the stuff until full, then pour concrete over it. This makes it nigh impossible to fix any problems that are detected later.
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Agree. This one in the Marshall Island is leaking into the Pacific Ocean, and there does not appear to be any practical solution for fixing it.

220px-Runit_Dome_001.jpg


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/runit-dome-pacific-radioactive-waste
 
Wayward son said:
The saying fiddling while Rome burns is a common figure of speach that expresses meaning - you shouldn't occupy yourself with unimportant things when more important action is required. The saying is not true in that that there were no fiddles at the time, and Nero probably did many things although he was ineffective at stopping the fire.

Virture signalling while the planet burns is a take on that saying.

There is a massive consensus that urgent action is needed, and even though we know of methods that have quickly decreased ghg emissions by a substantial margin, we not only refuse to implement those actions on a larger scale, but try to reverse what those actions have accomplished in past decades. While pushing a rather useless and expensive alternative for ideological purposes.
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Where are you going to place all those nuclear plants and waste dumps? Rightly or wrongly no one wants them near them, they want them somewhere else.
Conservatives may not be as vocal about new nuclear plants now as "greens" but the NIMBY is still strong in them. You are never going to be able to roll out new nuclear plants now at the rate required. Solar cells and batteries are rolling out of the factories now like jelly beans.
 
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a_unique_person said:
Where are you going to place all those nuclear plants and waste dumps? Rightly or wrongly no one wants them near them, they want them somewhere else.
Conservatives may not be as vocal about new nuclear plants now as "greens" but the NIMBY is still strong in them. You are never going to be able to roll out new nuclear plants now at the rate required. Solar cells and batteries are rolling out of the factories now like jelly beans.
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It's a question I don't need to answer. First of all, I know plenty of people who happily live very close to nuclear plants - like 1000 - 2000 feet from Pickering nuclear.

But the main thing, as I have said repeatedly is that the rapid nuclear build is only going to happen after the solar/wind/battery build fails spectacularly for the umpteenth time. And that will only be if civilization has sufficient time and resources left after they finally shed themselves of their current ideology.
 
More energy will solve most problems: power electric cars, desalinated water, capture carbon.
There is space for Renewables and Nuclear.
 
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