Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

thebellows.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 397 posts

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#311

Post by m0zg »

dagmx wrote: post #310
m0zg wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a revision with or without cow farts? It cracks me up when people take suggestions of a _bartender_ on this topic seriously.

She is a Congress woman with a degree in economics. Whether or not she was a bartender is neither a disqualifier for her current position, nor is it a source of shame. What are your credentials if any to have an opinion on this matter, if you think that being a past bartender disqualifies her position?

I did not voice an "opinion on the matter" precisely because my credentials with respect to it are the same as her own: non-existent. An economics degree does not make one an expert on energy policy, just like a law degree or a software engineering degree doesn't make one a surgeon.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#312

Post by godelski »

manfredo wrote: post #112
godelski wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always say this whenever nuclear conversations come up: > It isn't nuclear vs renewables, it is nuclear + renewables vs renewables. You use the best technology for the local environment and situations. Why take something off the table? Seems like the author is buying into the common false dichotomy because it is more sensational.

It largely is a dichotomy, because nuclear power largely makes wind and solar redundant. Peak energy demand occurs right around or after sundown. If we're going to fulfill this demand with nuclear, then we could just run the nuclear plants all day long and build no solar or wind. Solar and wind are a good complement to natural gas. We can dial back the gas when the intermittent sources of energy are producing. This b…

Except this isn't true. We've always had and will continue to have a diversified portfolio of energy sources because the cost of production changes depending on your environment. There's this bad idea flowing around that prices are consistent. Some places nuclear is better. Some places wind is. Some places solar is. It is also good to not be solely dependent upon a single instance because of security issues (one of many reasons France is targeting a 50% nuclear power generation).

You can't use averages and apply it to extremes. The world isn't homogeneous.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#313

Post by defterGoose »

clows wrote: post #166

As long as Nuclear Power costs don't include the long term waste storage it's dishonest about the real costs (just like the oil industry). Also - current nuclear power plants need cold water for cooling - france had to turn of plants due to heat [1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-electricity-heatwa...

TFA makes it abundantly clear that waste storage is a vanishingly small portion of the cost. Dig a giant hole in a mountain in the desert. Put waste in. Station security guards. Continue for a century. Repeat.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#314

Post by dagmx »

m0zg wrote: post #311
dagmx wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She is a Congress woman with a degree in economics. Whether or not she was a bartender is neither a disqualifier for her current position, nor is it a source of shame. What are your credentials if any to have an opinion on this matter, if you think that being a past bartender disqualifies her position?

I did not voice an "opinion on the matter" precisely because my credentials with respect to it are the same as her own: non-existent. An economics degree does not make one an expert on energy policy, just like a law degree or a software engineering degree doesn't make one a surgeon.

You however voiced your opinion that her platform is meaningless based on a past profession rather than acknowledge the merits of her current profession, educational background or any external input she may have received to put forward this platform with many others.

Why not address the merits or lack thereof of the platform instead of trying to tear her down?

How is anyone of a lower socioeconomic demographic ever meant to make a difference if people like you simply dismiss them based on a job they had to hold to make ends meet? It's elitist

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#315

Post by kristopolous »

pdonis wrote: post #274
kristopolous wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. I've been hearing that for 20 years and I sincerely, eagerly and in good faith welcome their arrival. However, until then, we have to go off of the existing historical reality. We can't run the numbers with any kind of integrity based on what is currently vaporware.

> what is currently vaporware Designs that are actually operating and producing power are not vaporware. The reasons those designs aren't already doing that in the US are political, not technical. Anti-nuclear politics in the US has made people believe that every nuclear reactor is a Chernobyl waiting to happen. That was a pernicious lie even in the 1980s, and it is much, much more of a pernicious lie now. In terms o…

Sure, you could handwave the "mass societal pushback" and change it to "cheering societal acceptance" and then fudge away the costs associated, but that's simply not what is going to happen.

You have to account for greenpeace and all the organized opposition. You have to account for the politics

That's why you need to go off of concrete material historical reality - if you're free to apply counterfactuals as you please than practically any conclusion is permissible because we can tweak and modify whatever we need.

Just like the "business as usual" advocates are hypothesizing a globally deployable massive carbon sucking technology to somehow exist in the future without a shred of evidence that it's at all plausible. It's extremely dubious gambling with the future of society.

Reality overrides counterfactual hypotheticals every time. When ambitious next-generation nuclear is ready to go, then there's a possible opening but right now it's simply not there.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#316

Post by m0zg »

dagmx wrote: post #314
m0zg wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not voice an "opinion on the matter" precisely because my credentials with respect to it are the same as her own: non-existent. An economics degree does not make one an expert on energy policy, just like a law degree or a software engineering degree doesn't make one a surgeon.

You however voiced your opinion that her platform is meaningless based on a past profession rather than acknowledge the merits of her current profession, educational background or any external input she may have received to put forward this platform with many others. Why not address the merits or lack thereof of the platform instead of trying to tear her down? How is anyone of a lower socioeconomic demographic ever m…

First off, I do generally regard non-expert opinions on complex subjects as ridiculous (see Gell-Mann amnesia on why that is). But AOC helped me in that by not reading her own proposal, and allowing "cow farts" to figure prominently in it. That just invites ridicule.

As to why I did not address the merits: it's not a serious proposal, so there's really nothing to address as it presents no details for how to get from point A to point B, how much it will cost, how it will (or will not) help domestic industry, what the electricity will cost when all is said and done, how that will affect the standard of living, etc.

It's a "hope" and, as they say in the military, hope is not a strategy. This is sort of like "addressing" a poem - a completely meaningless endeavor.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#317

Post by dagmx »

m0zg wrote: post #316
dagmx wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You however voiced your opinion that her platform is meaningless based on a past profession rather than acknowledge the merits of her current profession, educational background or any external input she may have received to put forward this platform with many others. Why not address the merits or lack thereof of the platform instead of trying to tear her down? How is anyone of a lower socioeconomic demographic ever m…

First off, I do generally regard non-expert opinions on complex subjects as ridiculous (see Gell-Mann amnesia on why that is). But AOC helped me in that by not reading her own proposal, and allowing "cow farts" to figure prominently in it. That just invites ridicule. As to why I did not address the merits: it's not a serious proposal, so there's really nothing to address as it presents no details for how to get from…

By ridiculing the platform in this comment of yours, you contradict your previous comment that you have no opinion on it due to your lack of credentials.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#318

Post by manfredo »

epistasis wrote: post #309
manfredo wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 hours of 17 Gigwatts would represent 20% of the ~300 GWh global lithium ion battery production [1]. That's a massive storage plant, and such a plant would represent an order of magnitude increase in battery storage. But consider the fact that the US consumes 11.5 TWh of electricity daily. Plans for an economy powered by wind and solar call for anything from 12 hours to 3 weeks of storage depending on how much overp…

It's not a single plant, and it's not all going to be installed in a year; these are the interconnection plans for all sorts of much smaller projects. We are only at the infancy of lithium ion production, I'm actually surprised that we are at 300GWh. With this very limited capacity, and typical grid storage batteries being warranties for around 15 years, our current production supports a global deployment of 4.5TWh o…

If your takeaway is that we're on track to solve energy storage with lithium ion batteries, then you have severely misinterpreted the situation.

Remember 300 GWh is global battery production. 4.5 TWh is 9 hours of storage for just the United States. Furthermore, actually using this quantity of batteries would entail ceasing the use of lithium ion batteries for electric vehicles and electronics - not a realistic option. Furthermore batteries only last a few hundred to a thousand cycles, depending on depth of discharge. These batteries need to be replaced every 3-5 years if they're being used for diurnal use (cycled 365 times a year), not 15. If you produce 300 GWh of batter every year and hook it up to the grid you'll only reach 0.9 or 1.5TWh of battery storage - the first batteries you add will have worn out before 15 years. This can be extended if you reduce depth of discharge. But that entails building an over-capacity of storage. E.g. if you're only withdrawing or storing half the energy you can increase the lifespan, but then you need to build 2 TWh for every 1 TWh of actual storage that can be used.

Global daily energy consumption is 60TWh. If we want to provide 12 hours of storage then this amounts to 30 TWh. If this is cycled daily, a battery with a life of 2,000 cycles (which is very, very good) then we'd need to be contributing 5.5 TWh of batteries to grid storage every year. Most lithium ion battery production is expected to be dedicated to electric vehicles, with grid storage making up only ~10% of produced lithium ion batteries [1].

And 12 hours of storage is likely only enough to get us to ~80% renewables. 100% renewables is estimated to require 3 weeks of storage [2].

We're not anywhere close to solving grid storage with lithium ion batteries, even if we assume its exponential growth will be sustained.

1. https://energycentral.com/c/ec/world-battery-production

2. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#319

Post by kristopolous »

pdonis wrote: post #271
kristopolous wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a proponent of it for 8 years and no, that's inaccurate. Instead, many advocate for oil, gas, and nuclear to no longer get tax subsidies, government insured loans, preferential treatment with land use, or be able to freely externalize on to the community the damage and debris their products leave behind. These companies also shouldn't have a Right to profit guaranteed by international trade treaties or be a…

> oil, gas, and nuclear to no longer get tax subsidies, government insured loans, preferential treatment with land use, or be able to freely externalize on to the community the damage and debris their products leave behind I'm find with that, as long as it also includes no more government subsidies, etc. to renewables. Which have been given out for decades to renewables projects that, unlike oil and gas, do not even…

It's a big tent ... there's some people that want to push social justice, living wage and political equity in the program. I think that's utter folly.

Then it just becomes the DSA agenda under a cape labeled "renewable energy" and it's a political non-starter. There's no way.

The advocates show that each of the issues separately have broad support so they think that by putting it all together you'll get the union as a coalition.

I think they'll more likely get somewhere from the intersection to practically nobody.

It'd be as if Republicans were trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, end obamacare, and ban gay marriage as a single package. Good luck!

I'd almost cynically claim it's only political theater to be leveraged in their reelection campaign. The DSA has a pretty solid ground game but you need to toss them red meat to get them to come out for you.

People like say, hamburgers and ice cream, but not on the same plate. I don't think the AOC GND is good politics. And as we've seen, the support seems to be leveling out.

That's why I side on the mostly-libertarian GND camp which was closer to what Jill Stein was advocating for 8 years ago. Remove all protections, remove all subsidies, open up a market, give consumers choice.

Then they can fight for a living wage if they please, but separately, not together.

I think it's far more politically feasible and achievable.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#320

Post by shawndrost »

rayiner wrote: post #287
heimatau wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GND is a quick read (or even a quicker skim). People should just read it [1, 2]. I support GND and it's surprising how the news outlets let this narrative grow. GND is a social justice document more than a Renewable Future. I hope others take the brief time to read it. [1] - Reader read: https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/08/heres-the-full-text-of-... [2] - Official document, pdf: https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/s…

It’s not merely a social justice document. It’s about achieving social justice in a specific way: through government, union, and activist group-led “national mobilization.” It’s far from the market-oriented approaches being implemented in Europe, such as carbon pricing.

It's very similar to what is being implemented in Europe. The European Green Deal is a government-, union-, and activist-led (inter)national mobilization. They summarize the plan as a "Europ[ean] growth strategy" with a primary goal of "no person and no place is left behind".

https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/euro...

Post reply on HN