Every Day 10k People Die Due to Air Pollution from Fossil Fuels
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Re: Every Day 10k People Die Due to Air Pollution from Fossil Fuels
#2We really need to ramp up on nuclear. Either by building more traditional fission power plants, figuring out fusion, or capturing more of the energy from the giant, infinite nuclear reactor in the sky.
Re: Every Day 10k People Die Due to Air Pollution from Fossil Fuels
#3Forbes also just ran a piece claiming California’s renewable energy push caused the recent rolling black outs . This new article seems better supported but the one on California was a pile of unsupported and even just false claims.
Like when it blamed jerry brown for being the cause of SONGS, the nuclear plant, shutting down. No mention of competitiveness or the years of repair need led or massive repair bill contributing, only jerry brown was the cause as far as the Forbes article was concerned.
But this article seems more based in reality, but coming from Forbes doesn’t help it. I just find it weird they publish opposite articles without any reconciliation or quality control on at least one of them.
Re: Every Day 10k People Die Due to Air Pollution from Fossil Fuels
#4We really need to ramp up on nuclear. Either by building more traditional fission power plants, figuring out fusion, or capturing more of the energy from the giant, infinite nuclear reactor in the sky.
It's too late for nuclear. If the last 30 years had seen R&D anything like wind and solar we'd be in a much better place. And the battle for public opinion is lost.
Unfortunately, there's no time left for nuclear (fission), so the best we can do is jump on the renewables bandwagon.
Re: Every Day 10k People Die Due to Air Pollution from Fossil Fuels
#5So we would reduce deaths by 7% by abandoning fossil fuels. Hmm, seems like a low priority by itself but I could be misjudging the significance.
Re: Every Day 10k People Die Due to Air Pollution from Fossil Fuels
#6How much has life expectancy been boosted by universal access to electricity in the Western world enabled by hydrocarbons aka fossil fuels?
Re: Every Day 10k People Die Due to Air Pollution from Fossil Fuels
#7How many thousands get to not die because of use of fossil fuels? Just for perspective...
Re: Every Day 10k People Die Due to Air Pollution from Fossil Fuels
#8We really need to ramp up on nuclear. Either by building more traditional fission power plants, figuring out fusion, or capturing more of the energy from the giant, infinite nuclear reactor in the sky.
It's too late for nuclear. If the last 30 years had seen R&D anything like wind and solar we'd be in a much better place. And the battle for public opinion is lost. Unfortunately, there's no time left for nuclear (fission), so the best we can do is jump on the renewables bandwagon.
Could you offer some insight into why you believe this is the case?
As someone in my 20s, I don’t think I know anyone who is opposed to nuclear. From my vantage it’s not clear why this would be considered a lost battle.
Re: Every Day 10k People Die Due to Air Pollution from Fossil Fuels
#9The underlying research is suggesting that air pollution is the primary cause of 1/6 deaths worldwide [1], and fossil-fuel air pollution specifically 1/15. I'm not sure it passes the sanity check (wouldn't we have noticed sooner?). If air pollution is really responsible for 1/6 deaths then we've got a massive low-hanging fruit to greatly improve our life expectancy and quality of life that we should take advantage to remedy with gusto! But—I would like to see the counters and follow up studies with more conservatively tuned variables to see if they've over-projected by an order of magnitude or more. Regardless, we should reduce air pollution, but the science should inform our level of resource allocation and intensity. If it's really responsible for 16% of all deaths, then resources at least equal to those spent fighting comparable sources of death should be spent eliminating air pollution.
[1] 8.8 million per year in abstract: https://academic.oup.com/cardiovascres/advance-article/doi/1... over 55 million globally annually
Re: Every Day 10k People Die Due to Air Pollution from Fossil Fuels
#10So we would reduce deaths by 7% by abandoning fossil fuels. Hmm, seems like a low priority by itself but I could be misjudging the significance.
1. No, that is huge in a vacuum. If there were a no-cost/no-tradeoff way to save 7% of deaths then it would be a huge priority.
2. Obviously, ending use of fossil fuels is nowhere near no-cost/low-tradeoff. So abandoning fossil fuels probably would not reduce deaths by 7%. Or possibly even cause a lot more death especially in the short term. But again, if it did, that would be a huge deal.