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The Great German Energy Experiment

technologyreview.com

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Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#151

Post by skore »

ars wrote: post #143
skore wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, ok then. I thought this was a business discussion - cost input vs. benefit output. Instead, it seems like we're arguing for what would give us the perfect energy perpetuum mobile.

> I thought this was a business discussion - cost input vs. benefit output It's not. It's a physics discussion: Energy produced vs pollution created.

Hmm, this is slowly turning into word-twisting.

Obviously, "pollution created" is a negative benefit output and "energy produced" is a positive one.

I guess the actual problem in our discussion is that you have a profoundly different understanding of pollution since my cutoff is pretty much at "any nuclear waste".

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#152

Post by snowwrestler »

ClHans wrote: post #127
cturner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theere's a basic role of government that's widely agreed upon - that it keeps us from hurting one another and clarity on the use of roads and telecommunications channels and the like. And I realise that opinions diverge above that, but I'll put mine. Generally government is poor at picking winners, and inefficient, and seems like a bad place to look for inspiration in engineering. When governments set up things like…

"Generally government is poor at picking winners, and inefficient" [citation needed] "Often the government people end up on the side of workers in the field rather than the public that they're meant to be serving." [citation needed] Oh, it was all opinion. That's fine. In my opinion, government is as efficient as the private sector (ever seen the waste and mismanagement going on in these huge megacorps? it's insane!)…

During the 20th century there were many attempts at government-directed economies, some very large. In every instance they underperformed free market economies.

We tried it. It doesn't work as well.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#153

Post by ClHans »

snowwrestler wrote: post #152
ClHans wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Generally government is poor at picking winners, and inefficient" [citation needed] "Often the government people end up on the side of workers in the field rather than the public that they're meant to be serving." [citation needed] Oh, it was all opinion. That's fine. In my opinion, government is as efficient as the private sector (ever seen the waste and mismanagement going on in these huge megacorps? it's insane!)…

During the 20th century there were many attempts at government-directed economies, some very large. In every instance they underperformed free market economies. We tried it. It doesn't work as well.

I didn't say anything about a Soviet-style centrally-planned economy, either.

... Hey, I discovered a great site the other day:

http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#154

Post by ThomPete »

tokenadult wrote: post #138

I guess the problem with a long article, even an interesting long article like the one submitted here, is that it is hard to read to the end. Near the end of the submitted article is this paragraph: "A second problem is that even when it comes to alternative energy sources, Germany doesn't reward carbon dioxide reduction. Rather, its policy establishes well-defined subsidies for specific technologies: a kilowatt-hour…

Great quote in there

"If a problem can't be solved, enlarge it"

Eisenhover.

Edit: Oh and buying the book for sure. Good stuf thanks.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#155

Post by snowwrestler »

skore wrote: post #150
ars wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is hardly anything as destructively polluting as nuclear waste. Oh really? Fly ash is much worse, since it's also radioactive, and there is a LOT more of it. The pollution sent up smoke stacks is also much worse since it's actively spread to people, and there is a lot of it. In contrast nuclear waste is very small, and stays far away from anyone. > they drive it around on rails every couple of years. A pollut…

> Fly ash is much worse, since it's also radioactive My apologies, I was indeed talking about radioactive waste in general being hard to top in terms of pollution. It goes without saying that I'm not terribly happy with how this country is getting into coal lately. So yes, fly ash is definitely a concern as well. I just happen to think waste from nuclear fuel is easier to "not produce" right now. > A pollution source…

U.S. citizen here. The storage site is on hold (not scrapped) only because of fear-mongering folks like yourself. There is no technological reason to fear the rail shipment of nuclear waste. It is not difficult to engineer enclosures that will withstand the most energetic possible train wreck. And obviously they are well shielded for radiation.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#156

Post by snowwrestler »

ClHans wrote: post #153
snowwrestler wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During the 20th century there were many attempts at government-directed economies, some very large. In every instance they underperformed free market economies. We tried it. It doesn't work as well.

I didn't say anything about a Soviet-style centrally-planned economy, either. ... Hey, I discovered a great site the other day: http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

You said "In my opinion, government is as efficient as the private sector." Directly refuting you is not a strawman.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#157

Post by ferringham »

gaius wrote: post #36
loceng wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics are easy. Money on war 'invests' your resources into other countries (no return, negative return likely), vs. money on innovation and infrastructure in your own country (positive return, long-term; potential for making other things more efficient, more cost-efficient become higher).

Sorry, but that's nonsense, you cannot underestimate the impact of military technologies like jet engines, radar, communications satellites, GPS, the internet, superglue... The whole of the modern world is based on military tech. Plus you gainfully employ lots of people (e.g. teaching trades to people who haven't done well in mainstream education) and as a free bonus you get the defence of the realm.

Most of these were invented because of the threat of war not the war itself. The best example is the Space Race between the US and USSR. There was no war, however the threat of the nuclear war pushed the technology forward tremendously.

Threat of war is better than war as it doesn't destroy your population and economic base.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#158

Post by ars »

skore wrote: post #151
ars wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought this was a business discussion - cost input vs. benefit output It's not. It's a physics discussion: Energy produced vs pollution created.

Hmm, this is slowly turning into word-twisting. Obviously, "pollution created" is a negative benefit output and "energy produced" is a positive one. I guess the actual problem in our discussion is that you have a profoundly different understanding of pollution since my cutoff is pretty much at "any nuclear waste".

> since my cutoff is pretty much at "any nuclear waste"

Really? So I guess there is not much point in talking to you further. (Although I guess other people are also reading these threads.)

It might help your case if you explained why, but I'm betting it's irrational fear, not anything you could explain.

Me, I prefer to measure my pollution in terms of damage caused, not fear. There is a pollution action day in my city right now because of people like you, and I'm not happy about it. I want them to shut down all hydrocarbon electric plants (save the hydrocarbons for cars), and switch everything to nuclear.

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#159

Post by ClHans »

snowwrestler wrote: post #156
ClHans wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say anything about a Soviet-style centrally-planned economy, either. ... Hey, I discovered a great site the other day: http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

You said "In my opinion, government is as efficient as the private sector." Directly refuting you is not a strawman.

I'm sorry, maybe you can explain it like I'm five.

What does the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the public or private sector have to do with a centrally-planned economy?

Or, let me be charitable (because I think I know what you were getting at...) and instead put it to you this way:

Let's say government-financed or government-run health care is more efficient or more cost-effective than privately-run health care, because there's no privately-run insurance company that exists to extract a bit of dosh from every doctor-patient transaction.

(And safe money's on government-financed/run health care buying better health care for its citizens, dollar for dollar and measuring on a variety of health outcomes. I've seen a lot of arguments from theory that "more free markets, less regulation" would do as good a job, or better, but I haven't seen evidence of that, just arguments from theory.)

Does this mean that a country that adopts a single-payer or government-run health care system for its citizens has _also_ adopted a centrally planned--or in your words, "government-directed"--economy?

Re: The Great German Energy Experiment

#160

Post by mbq »

skore wrote: post #78
mbq wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nuclear plants are not the only source of highly toxic nuclear waste -- medicine, science and industry have also a fine share, and they are often dealing with much more dangerous isotopes that are in the nuclear waste. The storage problem comes fact any attempt of reason immediately sinks in an overall panic; and the by-design scaleable long-run solution is pretty simple -- to put them from where we have mined th…

Absolutely agreed - but we can "solve" energy differently. Not so much for other applications. So nuclear waste in energy is completely avoidable. Not sure I understand your second paragraph.

I was trying to imply that conceptually there is no difference between 1kg and 10000kg of nuclear waste if the only that we do about it is to sit and cry that it would kill as all -- this way it certainly will finally end up smuggled and dumped on a random landfill. And it is just impossible to make humanity stop using any radioactive material.

There are many good and realistic ideas how to use nuclear material way better than now and how to inactive and store it in a perfectly safe way, but this science is marginally supported (compared with "green" competitor) and decision makers are intimidated to avoid its implementation.

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