Live data from Hacker News

EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

reuters.com

401–410 of 451 posts

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we have specific environmental problems right now, that are quite serious and worth focusing on? You do this stuff because you want to accomplish something. If animals go extinct, that is obviously unfortunate, but it pales in comparison to the prospect that we do so. The EU isn't trying to accomplish some type of perfect environmental justice, they're trying to keep the world habitable.

That is counter productive to keeping the earth habitable. This "considered middle ground" ideology is more dangerous than denial. Like MLK said about "white moderates".

MLK’s problem with white moderates was not being a middle ground, it was that they urged delay and inaction.

> I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

Indeed, he himself was charting a middle ground between inaction and violence:

> You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible "devil."

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#402
post #397
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas kills 40x more people than nuclear, notwithstanding climate change impact. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

Nuclear make inhabitant 400x more land than gas.

Nope. Nuclear is very land efficient, and you can build them in the desert far away from civilization, and the new reactors are much safer than the Chernobyl reactors.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyway, nuclear is never included in the "renewable" bucket, because the fuel has to be harvested and doesn't renew on a human timescale. Nuclear is green, because its net emissions are almost zero. OTOH burning wood is renewable, but not green, and also not sustainable. So nothing inherently good about being renewable. It's pointless to have a practical classification to then come with "technically..." and some weir…

> Anyway, nuclear is never included in the "renewable" bucket, because the fuel has to be harvested and doesn't renew on a human timescale. You can make the case that it does - if you count uranium in seawater. Theres enough dissolved there now to fuel all the reactors on earth for 60,000 years. Geological processes continually replenish the dissolved uranium.

Yes, and you can argue that coal and oil are currently being created... very slowly... from dead trees and what not. So renewable vs non-renewable doesn't make any sense anymore.

Lets make another name: "energy which source can get replenished in less than 100 years (a life time), as wood, or less, as solar, wind, waves, and can be practically harvested with current methods i.e. not fussion or matter dissolved in the sea". That's the whole phrase you should use from now on instead of "renewable".

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#404

There needs to be clearer terminology and labels for “green”, “sustainable”, “renewable”, “climate neutral” energy. I’d also like to throw in “democratic” in the mix. Because energy and foreign policy can’t be separated. The EU energy mix is going to be geopolitically very important in coming years. We also need to make it very clear what the goals are for each kind and where the tradeoffs are. I think right now the…

First free Assange and then throw in “democratic” in the mix.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#406

There needs to be clearer terminology and labels for “green”, “sustainable”, “renewable”, “climate neutral” energy. I’d also like to throw in “democratic” in the mix. Because energy and foreign policy can’t be separated. The EU energy mix is going to be geopolitically very important in coming years. We also need to make it very clear what the goals are for each kind and where the tradeoffs are. I think right now the…

First free Assange and then throw in “democratic” in the mix.

What does Assange have to do with this area of geopolitics? I’m talking about how the gas supply risks limiting the room for maneuvers of European democracies. For example if the EU wants to strengthen relations with Ukraine, or if Finland wants join NATO then the question of energy supply can’t get in the way.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#407
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar + Batteries/Storage are cheap to build today. No need to choose a worse technology in every way now, that only becomes less viable as time goes on.

> Solar + Batteries/Storage are cheap to build today. That claim is baseless.

It is cheap to build because of subsidies, something that nuclear desperately needs.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#408
post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is small and densely populated. They can't afford to take the risk of having large swaths of land rendered un-inhabitable due to nuclear accidents. If there's one thing the last 60 odd years of nuclear experience has taught us, it is that Human organizations and societies cannot be trusted with maintaining high standards of safety in the long term that is required for fission power plants - even the Japanese w…

How many millions of square kilometres of Japan are uninhabitable due to nuclear energy?

Japan's habitable area according to [1] is about 125k sq Km. Fukushima official Exclusion Zone is about 370 sq km [2] - so that's 0.3% which is quite a significant loss in itself.

However given the events, there's a lot of migration out of the surrounding towns and villages outside the exclusion zone due to fear of radiation amd a very marked population decline in the region. Young families don't want to risk raising children in such an area - so the population effects are significantly amplified and towns will go desolate as the older folks who stay pass away.

[1] https://www.gdrc.org/uem/footprints/tokyo-fprint.html

[2] https://blog.japanwondertravel.com/report-of-fukushima-exclu...

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4199020/

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyway, nuclear is never included in the "renewable" bucket, because the fuel has to be harvested and doesn't renew on a human timescale. You can make the case that it does - if you count uranium in seawater. Theres enough dissolved there now to fuel all the reactors on earth for 60,000 years. Geological processes continually replenish the dissolved uranium.

Yes, and you can argue that coal and oil are currently being created... very slowly... from dead trees and what not. So renewable vs non-renewable doesn't make any sense anymore. Lets make another name: "energy which source can get replenished in less than 100 years (a life time), as wood, or less, as solar, wind, waves, and can be practically harvested with current methods i.e. not fussion or matter dissolved in the…

Solar isn't something that can ever be replenished. There's a fixed quantity of fuel in the sun. Once it burns out, it's gone. That provides the input energy into the process for solar, wind and wood.

With breeder reactors the uranium in seawater would last us 15 million years at current nuclear power consumption levels. If that's not renewable...

There's no such thing as infinitely renewable.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#410
post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If methane is manufactured from CO₂ and H₂O, there is no net GHG release, it's just storage, same as ammonia or pure hydrogen (though large methane leaks would be a problem). IMO, methane is good, if we are actively transitioning to manufactured methane. It's a plug-in substitute with existing distribution networks, storage and consumers, easy and cheap to handle. Though efficiency is pretty bad, so it's mostly good…

Methane is not manufactured from straight gases. Usually it is either mined or steam reformed from oil or coal. You can see the problem - mining with concomitant pollution and release of previously bound CO2 when it's burned. Attempting to do pure electrochemical reforming is extremely energy intensive, and requires rare metal membranes. As well as a way to concentrate CO2 from atmosphere reliably. (The Sleipnir prob…

I am well aware methane is not currently generated from CO₂, as we are still using fossil fuels, not generating enough surplus energy to make the reverse process economical.

Do you have any numbers on synthesis energy efficiency? It is inherently energy intensive, as it is storing energy. Rare metal membranes may be current state of the art, but Nickel catalysts seem a popular alternative.

Post reply on HN