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Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

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Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#91

Post by fallingfrog »

majormajor wrote: post #77
fallingfrog wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me play devils advocate though. Right now nuclear provides 10% of the world’s power. Now since it was first deployed in the 70’s there have been at least 3 major accidents I can think of: Fukushima, Chernobyl, and 3 mile island. So that’s one every 15 years, roughly. The naive math behind that suggests that if we were to increase the number of power plants by a factor of 10 to supply all the world’s power, we sho…

The odds definitely aren't that straightforward. Experiments and development in the 1950s. First commercial plant in 58. Further growth in 60s and 70s. Including deadly accidents like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1 in 1961 - protests grew in 60s and 70s too. Three Mile Island 1979. Chernobyl 1986. Fukushima 2011. That 25-year gap between Chernobyl and Fukushima - and the extraordinary circumstances causing Fukush…

True, it has. But, the failure rate is not zero. And more plants mean they will happen more often. I’m just pointing out that it’s rational to worry about a small probability high consequence disaster.

Nuclear fission is a reaction with a positive feedback loop, making it naturally unstable, and requires some mechanism to create a negative feedback of greater magnitude to make it stable. And that requires some kind of active machinery to function properly. If that machinery fails, then the feedback loop becomes positive again. Machines can always fail, so I doubt that fission can ever be made completely safe.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#92

Post by pengod »

rayiner wrote: post #27

Opposing nuclear was the first catastrophic mistake environmentalists made, causing them to be a net negative overall in terms of climate change. Opposing carbon capture will be the next (and possibly last) one. If you think climate change is a serious problem, then you need to put aside your moral beliefs and think like an engineer about solutions. There is no math that allows you to conserve/renewables your way to…

"Carbon capture research" has been an excuse to divert funding away from renewables for 20+ years. It's hardly made a dent in emissions and it's unlikely to change any time soon.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#93

Post by lost_tourist »

rayiner wrote: post #27

Opposing nuclear was the first catastrophic mistake environmentalists made, causing them to be a net negative overall in terms of climate change. Opposing carbon capture will be the next (and possibly last) one. If you think climate change is a serious problem, then you need to put aside your moral beliefs and think like an engineer about solutions. There is no math that allows you to conserve/renewables your way to…

When someone says they're "green" but hard-core antinuclear I just stop listening after that. They have done almost zero research on the topic and have 99% likely just decided because someone told them it was bad. Nuclear is our only viable path if we plan on keeping a dependable power grid. Battery tech is not currently up to par with what we need to make wind and solar 100% solutions. We need at least a 10X increase in storage density and longevity for that. They should absolutely be part of the mix though as they're cheaper than nuclear per kW

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#94

Post by lost_tourist »

olddustytrail wrote: post #75
algoatecorn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the most reasonable take. For some reason people in the West tend to ignore that 80% of the world is on the lower part of the exponential slope of progress, income, and demand for fossil fuel derived goods - and they are running up that slope at breakneck speed as a result of technological innovation. Is the other 20% going to look down from our place of wealth and abundance - built on fossil fuels and countl…

And who exactly are going to be paying for these ruinously expensive nuclear power stations for the poorer countries? Is it you and rayiner? Or perhaps you want your government to fund it through increased taxes on you? I'm sure you wouldn't want the poor countries to pay for it themselves.

IF we don't choose to build the expensive ones we'll never learn how to make cheaper ones, it is the cycle of every technology. Nuke development in the West has been stymied for generations by pearl clutchers.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#95

Post by olddustytrail »

eldaisfish wrote: post #90
olddustytrail wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who exactly are going to be paying for these ruinously expensive nuclear power stations for the poorer countries? Is it you and rayiner? Or perhaps you want your government to fund it through increased taxes on you? I'm sure you wouldn't want the poor countries to pay for it themselves.

Whenever this line of reasoning is brought up, i ask one question - what is the cost of climate change? Who will bear that cost and who will deal with the effects? A poor country deriving energy from a nuclear power plant means that carbon isn’t being emitted for energy production over the lifetime of that nuclear plant. Despite all the hype, no renewable technology has been able to supply a growing electrical demand…

Complete failure to answer the question of who is paying for the nuclear power plant.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#96

Post by olddustytrail »

linhns wrote: post #88
olddustytrail wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who exactly are going to be paying for these ruinously expensive nuclear power stations for the poorer countries? Is it you and rayiner? Or perhaps you want your government to fund it through increased taxes on you? I'm sure you wouldn't want the poor countries to pay for it themselves.

> ruinously expensive You just disqualified yourself from any argument there. Nuclear power is the cheapest and most efficient form that we have ever found. Yes, the upfront cost may be huge but loans can help with that

You really have no idea of costs. Nuclear is by far the most expensive. Well, ok, gas became equally expensive with the Ukraine war but it had to quadruple in price to get there.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#97

Post by olddustytrail »

algoatecorn wrote: post #82
olddustytrail wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who exactly are going to be paying for these ruinously expensive nuclear power stations for the poorer countries? Is it you and rayiner? Or perhaps you want your government to fund it through increased taxes on you? I'm sure you wouldn't want the poor countries to pay for it themselves.

Both mine and rayiner's commentary wasn't focused only on nuclear, but rather the harebrained and unrealistic doomscape narrative coming out of the West. When did it become so unpopular to point out what is most likely to happen? Because if we're placing bets, I'm gonna put my money on the developing nations not giving a flying F about emissions. Therefore, we need to think like realists and instead of idealists.

So you want your government to subsidize nuclear energy in other countries?

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#98

Post by thehappypm »

linhns wrote: post #88
olddustytrail wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who exactly are going to be paying for these ruinously expensive nuclear power stations for the poorer countries? Is it you and rayiner? Or perhaps you want your government to fund it through increased taxes on you? I'm sure you wouldn't want the poor countries to pay for it themselves.

> ruinously expensive You just disqualified yourself from any argument there. Nuclear power is the cheapest and most efficient form that we have ever found. Yes, the upfront cost may be huge but loans can help with that

If you ignore all the costs, yes, the costs are low.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#99

Post by SecretDreams »

rayiner wrote: post #27

Opposing nuclear was the first catastrophic mistake environmentalists made, causing them to be a net negative overall in terms of climate change. Opposing carbon capture will be the next (and possibly last) one. If you think climate change is a serious problem, then you need to put aside your moral beliefs and think like an engineer about solutions. There is no math that allows you to conserve/renewables your way to…

[flagged]

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#100

Post by thehappypm »

lost_tourist wrote: post #93
rayiner wrote: post #27

Opposing nuclear was the first catastrophic mistake environmentalists made, causing them to be a net negative overall in terms of climate change. Opposing carbon capture will be the next (and possibly last) one. If you think climate change is a serious problem, then you need to put aside your moral beliefs and think like an engineer about solutions. There is no math that allows you to conserve/renewables your way to…

When someone says they're "green" but hard-core antinuclear I just stop listening after that. They have done almost zero research on the topic and have 99% likely just decided because someone told them it was bad. Nuclear is our only viable path if we plan on keeping a dependable power grid. Battery tech is not currently up to par with what we need to make wind and solar 100% solutions. We need at least a 10X increas…

I think nuclear, today, is a hardcore bad idea. Nuclear is showing no tangible signs of getting cheaper, and renewable and battery prices continue to fall.
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