EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake • Hacker News Board

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#91

Post by Ekaros » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

lrae wrote: post #72

Ekaros wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be considered terrorism automatically and carry such penalties.

https://youtu.be/kZRg0_B0XX4 - Yeah this absolutely looks like an act of terrorism! (Actually, on a serious note, the person going there with the sole goal of stirring up the protest is more likely the one to be the terrorist, no? I'd say taking away that sign and even potentially removing the person is actually de-escalating. But you should obviously let the police do that.)

Clearly violent attack that should not be tolerated in our society run by political goal of causing fear and terror in others. I hope the perpetrator rots in jail for years...

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#92

Post by epistasis » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

Ekaros wrote: post #53

pyrale wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nuclear power plants take forever to build. In France, the first nuclear plants of the current production group were contracted in 1970, and connected to the network in 1977, so that's 7 years for a pilot industrial project. Later plants were built in 5-6 years. The kicker is that this work is highly scalable: France built over 6 reactors per year over its program. The current issue with new generation reactors see…

I think large part of it is increased scrutiny and standards. Which is entirely justified. And most of issues could be solved as said with knowledge and proper pipeline of keeping people who already gained experience from past projects on new ones.

As an amateur, I read everything I can about why the US's current nuclear construction attempts have failed, and my conclusion is exactly the reverse. The problem is a lack of scrutiny and attention to detail, poor planning, bad logistics, and general incompetence.

The NRC reviews only the safety of reactors, not if it's a constructible design. If somebody had held Westinghouse to the standard of having constructible designs, in addition to safe designs, maybe the disasters at Vogtle and VC Summer might have been avoided.

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#93

Post by rndgermandude » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

MichaelZuo wrote: post #54

ChrisKnott wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most Western countries you won't go to prison at all, let alone for several years, for common assault. Maybe if you caused serious injury.

This is the first time I’ve heard of that. Which countries specifically won’t prosecute for randomly attacking and lightly injuring someone standing on the sidewalk or in a public park or some other gathering place?

It's not about not prosecuting at all[0]. The sentences just are either fines or suspended prison sentences, so people stay out of prison, which I remarked about in my sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28653514

[0] Which may happen if the state thinks it cannot prove the allegation or the act was so minor, it would be a waste of everybody's time. But the "case dropped because too minor" doesn't usually happen in assaults, but more for non-violent things like riding the bus without a valid ticket or illegally downloading a few songs.

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#94

Post by keewee7 » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #10

Don't forget that climate change is good for Russia...

That is true.

But what are they gonna do about it? The Russophiles in the West are already climate change denialists and nobody takes them serious

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#95

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

Green gas is already propane plus silicone in some circles.

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#96

Post by Brigand » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #34

willis936 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Green Parties the world over are anti-nuclear and have been since the 80s. Considering how much harm to the environment has come by the hand of green parties, I'm beginning to wonder if they aren't lobbied by fossil fuel companies.

Dunno about parties, but multiple eco-focused organisations are paid at least in part by oil & gas. Greenpeace actually founded a gas-providing energy utility in Germany (Greenpeace Energy, recently renamed Green Planet Energy to… avoid headlines about Greenpeace selling gas, despite those headlines being true). Other orgs got more direct funding from oil & gas players e.g. FoEI was literally founded with an oil baro…

Greenpeace Energy is selling methane generated by electrolysis from wind energy.

See here: https://www.h2-international.com/2019/04/01/joint-effort-to-...

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#97

Post by oblak » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

keewee7 wrote: post #90

willis936 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Green Parties the world over are anti-nuclear and have been since the 80s. Considering how much harm to the environment has come by the hand of green parties, I'm beginning to wonder if they aren't lobbied by fossil fuel companies.

>I'm beginning to wonder if they aren't lobbied by fossil fuel companies. They are. The mass hysteria about Fukushima was fueled by "environmentalists" who were being funded by the Australian coal lobby.

never let a serious crisis go to waste

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#98

Post by wcoenen » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

Sharlin wrote: post #6

Proven wrote: post #2

[flagged]

Any fuel price that does not fully cover the externalities of extracting and burning said fuel is artificially low rather than artificially high. Right now, the price of hydrocarbon fuels is artificially low everywhere on Earth. Even in the EU.

> Right now, the price of hydrocarbon fuels is artificially low everywhere on Earth. Even in the EU

Just to provide some context to Americans: the typical price of gasoline in the EU is currently about 1.5 euro/liter, which translates to more than 6.6 dollar/gallon.

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#99

Post by agilob » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:53 PM UTC

rasz wrote: post #69

"There is absolutely no health justification for such a regulation," "The whole proceeding against an industry that has made invaluable contributions to the American economy for more than fifty years is the worst example of fanaticism since the New England witch hunts in the Seventeenth Century." "no person has ever been found having an identifiable toxic effect from the amount of lead in the atmosphere today." "Tetr…

>"There is absolutely no health justification for such a regulation,"

What about Nord Stream 2? I bet they will find enough money and political influence to justify it

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#100

Post by epistasis » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:53 PM UTC

criley2 wrote: post #82

epistasis wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are really really close to a solution, and for the one thing that nuclear is hyped to provide--clean electricity--we have cheaper and easier and more scalable solutions than nuclear. The challenges we have now with decarbonization are not solved by cheap electricity. The challenges I'm talking about are industrial and chemical processes, transitioning transport quickly enough, freight, aviation, agriculture, etc.…

There is nothing cheaper and easier and more scalable than nuclear for baseload gigawatt generation, especially when you actually account for the insane amount of batteries required to make wind/solar/etc viable as a baseload technology. People point at solar panel progress and always conveniently stay silent on the big battery problem (the mining problem, the scalability problem, the toxicity problem, etc) Nuclear d…

> the mining problem, the scalability problem, the toxicity problem, etc

These are all trivial compared to nuclear's construction problem.

But I've never heard that batteries are not "scalable," when they are actually one of the most incredibly scalable technologies out there. Want a few watt hours? No problem. Want 10GWh? No problem. Want to distribute a MWh at every distribution station across a country? No problem.

Batteries scale as small or large as we can conceive.

> atrocious rare earth batteries

There aren't rare earth elements in batteries. It's been funny to watch "rare earth" become a synonym for "harmful" because this does not seem to have any basis in fact that I can understand.

> coal isn't going anywhere

Coal is already a dead man walking. Most of its use in the US is uneconomic, and loses money for utility customers. Bad financial agreements, executive incompetence, and misaligned economic incentives between utilities and their customers are the only reason its still on the grid.

Everybody who bet on coal 10 years ago was foolish, and should lose their capital, but since that section of our economy is run on cronyism instead of capitalism, people bad at capital allocation are not losing their shirts like they should.