561–570 of 612 posts
I like Musk's lens: the sun is 99.8% of the galaxy's total mass and over 99.99% of its energy production. Pretty straight-forward where you want to be getting your energy from.
No? He doesn't do that at all? Gee maybe he never really cared then.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oil and gas have used, between drilling and refining, over 7 million acres of land in just the US. Yes, it provides more electricity, but at the cost of destroying the entire planet's biosphere, global warming, etc. Current US estimates for solar land usage are 500,000 acres. The land use arguments are bunk. Anyone who complains is repeating oil and gas propaganda.
Around me, conservatives started a grassroots "save the whales" campaign to block wind. Conservatives, protesting on the street to save the whales. Talk about a sight to see.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speaking to the grandparent comment, fracking is precisely what earned US "energy independence" for the first time ever, in 2011.
> earned US "energy independence" In a very myopic way.
All I see is missed opportunities to build a bunch less nuclear power plants and call it a day, without messing up with the landscape. Am I the only one? I believe if we Europeans and Americans start building nuclear power plants again we could finally compete. Renewable energy is not constant and has a storage problem
I also lament the landscapes covered by solar panels. Even deserts are not dead barren ecosystems. Some of these installs are only slightly better than paving the whole area. But I get it, and tradeoffs are necessary. Another reason China may prefer this to more concentrated nuclear power is that is is much more distributed and resilient to targeted attacks.
Utter horseshit.
Putting up what amounts to a bunch of shade on steel pillars just doesn't harm the environment. There are more than a few contexts where it improves the environment.
There's no identified or predicted harm from large scale photovoltaic installations.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president. I remember that day vividly. It was the middle of the Great Recession, it was the worst our economy was doing in a long time. Millions were out of work. People were looking to the government to see what the plan was to get the country back on track. A reporter asks McConnell what the senate’s number one priority wa…
have democrats not made similar statements about Trump, him being a danger to democracy and such?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I have zero wives yesterday and one today, by next week I will need a new house for all my new wives. Like I said in the original post: >Even the people who understand the scale don't understand the purpose. >The Chinese grid isn't renewable or non-renewable. It's built to keep the lights on for anything short of a thousand year catastrophe. Only capitalists are so penny wise and pound foolish to bet their civiliz…
I agree with you, china is building risk mitigation in a way that no one else is, and it will serve them well. However, in this thread I’m solely replying to your comment on the “24% nuke by 2060” plan. That particular plan is not going to happen any more, nuclear is not competitive enough, even for china.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it's not. The efficiency of an EV Motor > efficiency of ICEV motor. Even with 100% black coal. The carbon is reduced by about 30% IIRC (that number can and does improve as the grid greens).
Yes it is. Here is the study https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03062...
Also focusing on only carbon footprint is misleading. EVs pollute far less overall, even on the 2015 electric grid.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The rhetoric around "energy independence" always sounded like it was pointing exactly toward renewables, and it's hard not to see the missed opportunity in hindsight
Can’t power the military with renewables. Need nuclear and fossil fuels for that. One doesn’t want to be dependent on foreign nations to power their military.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you, china is building risk mitigation in a way that no one else is, and it will serve them well. However, in this thread I’m solely replying to your comment on the “24% nuke by 2060” plan. That particular plan is not going to happen any more, nuclear is not competitive enough, even for china.
I disagree. They’re not going to go the battery energy storage route, instead they will just fill in intermittent gaps in renewable electricity production with nuclear as they ramp down coal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. They’re not going to go the battery energy storage route, instead they will just fill in intermittent gaps in renewable electricity production with nuclear as they ramp down coal.
But where is the evidence to back up this 4D chess move? They have been failing to meet their nuclear roll out plans year after year? Why would they magically hit a ridiculously high goal of 24% by 2060?