Vacation Deniers
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We wouldn't need to invade countries or act as the world's policeman if we had LFTR. Most of that bullshit is to keep the oil taps open.
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Sheesh; didn't anyone play SimCity 2000? The first real fusion plant will be built around 2050.
Filed under: I have faith in Maxis's prediction
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Most of that bullshit is to keep the oil taps open.
I don't follow this line of reasoning.
But let's assume it's true for a moment. Even if we're not directly dependent on them, wouldn't the disruptions affect us through the global economy? Who, exactly, are we stopping that wants to shut off the flow of oil (and the counter flow of money that accompanies it)?
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Right; that's why we took over the Iraq oil industry instead of leaving it under the control of the local government. Oh... we didn't? Well at least we signed an agreement guaranteeing US access to their oil expo-- oh... we didn't do that either? Hm.
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We wouldn't need to invade countries or act as the world's policeman if we had LFTR.
Those with access to military might and the desire/will to wield it will always find a justification.
Also, good luck convincing people that it's safe to have a reactor in their automobile in the case of an accident.
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Even if we're not directly dependent on them, wouldn't the disruptions affect us through the global economy?
Oh, absolutely - but they'd be merely a pain in the ass, rather than a life-or-death situation.Who, exactly, are we stopping that wants to shut off the flow of oil (and the counter flow of money that accompanies it)?
Islamic State is just the latest bunch of people who'd *love* to fuck our shit up if they had the opportunity. @abarker said:Those with access to military might and the desire/will to wield it will always find a justification.
Yep, nothing in the world ever changes. And of course, that argument is a straw man.Also, good luck convincing people that it's safe to have a reactor in their automobile in the case of an accident.
Nope. LFTR would provide plenty of energy to reprocess organic waste into hydrocarbons, like gasoline and other petroleum distillates. While I'm thinking about it, it'd do very well to power desalination plants also. Hey, it's a way to combat sea level rise from climate change!
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Islamic State is just the latest bunch of people who'd love to fuck our shit up if they had the opportunity.
Except we're part of the coalition blowing up their oil infrastructure.
US air strikes target Islamic State oil infrastructure
US is apparently trying to disrupt militant group’s funding supply as France says it could join strikes inside Syria
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Hey, it's a way to combat sea level rise from climate change!
Dafuq‽ I mean, I know you're trolling, but that's like 1 + 1 = 6.
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we're part of the coalition blowing up their oil infrastructure
That doesn't mean they won't attempt to respond in kind at some point.
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I can say with relative certainty that is not going to happen
Niagara Falls has a 60 foot high, half mile circumference garbage pile in the middle of it. So, they started extracting energy from it. In 1980.
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Niagara Falls has a 60 foot high, half mile circumference garbage pile in the middle of it. So, they started extracting energy from it. In 1980.
And that has nothing to do with what you quoted?
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That doesn't mean they won't attempt to respond in kind at some point.
Sure, but you're not supporting the War for Oil hypothesis here. They want to kill us and bring about the end of the world or whatever. They'll be happy to kill or damage us in whatever way might present itself.
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Sure, but you're not supporting the War for Oil hypothesis here. They want to kill us and bring about the end of the world or whatever. They'll be happy to kill or damage us in whatever way might present itself.
Precisely. We're after ISIS because they're a bunch of extremist nut-jobs who want to kill everyone who isn't Muslim. And in some cases, they'll kill you for not being Muslim enough. Taking out ISIS has nothing to do with oil.
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And that has nothing to do with what you quoted?
It doesn't start on fire and they can safely process the entire pile. Leachate isn't a problem. They aren't extracting metals yet, but the only reason they aren't is because it isn't profitable yet.
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several billion humans might just be able to change Earth's ecosphere on a grand scale
Except that there are cosmic factors that are several magnitudes stronger than anything we can do.
has been shown repeatedly, the sooner you prepare for an event, the cheaper and less problematic changeover will be.
Unless you wildly speculate on what "prepared" means. Fear-mongering into drastic changes in the economy to "prepare" for something that could have a completely different outcome based on what the sun decides to do.
A system like Earth's may very well be stable. It may also be quite unstable, with the results being maybe even worse than the predictions.
And.... neuter part of the backbone of the economy on a maybe?
why don't we simply err on the side of caution and begin to prepare now?
Because there's two opposing cautions in place.
If you fuck up the economy, who cares if it is 2 degrees hotter. You have to balance the ecological concerns against the productivity concerns. If the cost of having an income is a shift in the ecology, maybe that's worth it? Maybe not?
I have yet to see people compare the outcomes and come up with an opportunity cost vs. risk analysis that fairly represents the costs of shifting the economy to preserve the ecology. Until that happens, I can't make a decision on what changes we should incorporate.
It's either shut down oil and destroy millions of jobs, or doomsday Lousiana is flooded and Yellowstone blows up.
Yeah, reducing dependencies and costs
If we're reducing foreign oil dependencies, that doesn't do anything for the climate change issue.
If we're reducing oil dependencies, I'd like to know with what?
There's two factors to alternative energy, the money economy and the energy economy. Even if we subsidize the crap out of solar and wind (which we are) it still doesn't fix the energy economy. Right now the alternative energy options are so energy economy inefficient, they aren't even marginally an option. It costs almost exactly as much energy to create solar panels as they provide in their lifetime.
Alternative energy is a guilt-removing luxury right now, and it doesn't reasonably accomplish that even.
precautionary principle is not ridiculous
Knives can kill, let's remove all bladed things. Learn to shave with a rock.
How often do you wear a seatbelt? How often do you end up in a car wreck? More analogous, how often do you know you'll be in a car wreck?
That's not even comparable. We have demonstrable and reproducible advantages to wearing seatbelts in a wreck. We have yet to demonstrate or reproduce one planet where sentient beings intervention of releasing CO2 has caused the downfall or measurable pain to that species.
In fact we have demonstrable evidence that Earth has had more CO2 in its atmosphere and carried on just fine.
carry less risk such as reduce greenhouse gas emission
Really? Because crippling the economy and reducing the job market by millions is less risky than flooding Louisiana and having better crop returns.
Louisiana people move to Texas. Ok, global warming problem solved. Plus we now have bigger carrots without using GMO. Everyone wins.
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And
FYI.By calling myself a skeptic, I'm not skeptical of the science so much.
Because Science gets a lot of things just plain wrong, then magically corrects itself, pretends it was always right, and gets a free ride. But most often it is accurate enough. As I understand it, there is a consensus, but the consensus doesn't mean the outcome is really understood.
What I'm skeptical of, is the ability for any of these political machines to understand the economy and the climate change science and risks well enough to accurately represent solutions and their cost/risk evaluations.
Meaning. It doesn't matter whether the science is right. I don't trust our leadership to create a reasonable plan.
They've already demonstrated that they don't understand energy economy.
get us off the foreign oil teat.
We have plenty of options for that. So, it's clear there's a motivation to remain on it.
I could have probably afforded an electric car,
It's been shown that not only do you not earn your cost back, you use up energy through electricity (which is most often coal energy, and worse than oil), but the car companies are manufacturing these cars at a economical and energy economy loss. So it costs more energy and money to make the car, than you'll ever save in CO2 emissions from just using gas.
And the batteries have to be changed ever so often (at least once during the average first user lifespan of a vehicle) and that waste is another count against electric cars.
Again, all the current "green" energy alternatives are just hiding their energy and oil costs from the user, so they think they are an environmentalist.
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Knives can kill, let's remove all bladed things. Learn to shave with a rock.
Moronic comparison. By that particular logic, an atomic bomb is as dangerous as a hairpin.
It's always the same with you bloody idiots. "Hey, let's pull crappy comparisons! Like, let's compare the exhaust from cars to the exhaust from cigarettes and then complain that no one is campaigning for banning cars while also banning cigarettes!"
It's about this level of stupidity you've just reached. Bravo!
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As I understand it, there is a consensus, but the consensus doesn't mean the outcome is really understood.
And the consensus isn't what it is often reported as being. Certainly not at the 97% level.
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It's always the same with you bloody idiots. "Hey, let's pull crappy comparisons!
Yes, there were several lame-o analogies presented in this topic. Thank you for joining me in exposing them.
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Certainly not at the 97% level.
It is probably that high, even before you take out the crackpots and loons.
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It is probably that high, even before you take out the crackpots and loons.
I know you're not familiar with the study upon which that is based, but it's not unreasonable to assume that the statement, "Humans have an effect on the climate via emitting CO2" would have an agreement at least that high.
The study that drove that line is usually presented (from what I recall seeing in popular press sort of places) as supporting something more like, "97% believe that humans are responsible for most warming and it's gonna get a lot worse."
The study itself should never have been published as we are all dumber for having it out there.
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Moronic comparison. By that particular logic, an atomic bomb is as dangerous as a hairpin.
I agree.
That's the moronic comparison I'm talking about.Doing nothing could kill us. Let's do this other non-comparable thing that we haven't bothered creating a fair risk analysis for, because doing nothing is just wrong.
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The study itself should never have been published as we are all dumber for having it out there.
Yeah, we should just get to censor whatever we want, as long as your side gets to decide what is censored and does not even get to be scrutinized. It is a really good thing that you have not railed against just that (imagined in your case) point before...
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"97% believe that humans are responsible for most warming and it's gonna get a lot worse."
Even then, the hockey stick says "most warming this last century".
At which point, I'm like, shrug "And???"
Again, it's very obvious that we are at a cool point in the Earth's climate history, and so it's inevitable that we will warm up.
I don't have to be a critic of the science. It's negligible in the grand scheme of things. At most it will only determine how comfortable we will be. And there's arguments for a warmer average temperature being a good thing.
What I'm adamantly against is jumping the gun and switching everyone over to wind/solar when it has a sub10% return on energy cost, and is not sustainable. Trying to use solar as a primary energy source will destroy the environment more than any warming will, because it will drain up the aquifer and destroy our fresh water supply.
So, fresh water and flooded Louisiana, or solar panel using up our fresh water and still have a flooded Louisiana. Those are the outcomes I see.
It's pointless to be arguing over energy because of this.
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Yeah, we should just get to censor whatever we want, as long as your side gets to decide what is censored and does not even get to be scrutinized.
Sorry, of course, "published" was in the peer reviewed sense.
It is a really good thing that you have not railed against just that (imagined in your case) point before...
Yes, you are imagining stuff here. OK, maybe it's just poor communication. I left out a word or two, and you aren't familiar with the subject. I apologize.
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Even then, the hockey stick says "most warming this last century".
Heh, more terrible science.
What I'm adamantly against is jumping the gun and switching everyone over to wind/solar when it has a sub10% return on energy cost, and is not sustainable.
But this stuff makes sense if it has a reasonable chance of saving us from great catastrophe, even if it costs a lot. But I don't see any way to get there from here.
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costs a lot
Money isn't the issue..... sigh
Ok, so if you measure how much energy coal produces, and then you take from that energy 50% of it to produce solar panels. You think, after the panels are created then we'll be 50% less dependent on coal?
Wrong.
That energy that it cost to create solar panels, produces solar panels that take their entire lifetime to provide the energy it cost to create them.
So basically you run an energy deficit for 15 years, and then finally earn some energy for a few years before having to spend the entire energy cost again in maintaining or replacing the panels.
It would take you years to get returns on those panels enough to replace the lost energy from using up half your coal energy.
This article gives an estimate of 5 years to return energy cost, and 25 years of operation, but that is very very generous.
They found that depending on the technolgoy used, it takes one to four years for solar panels to earn out on their energy debt. Consider that most panels are projected to last 20 to 25 years with proper maintenance and normal use, and you can see that there's a net energy gain here that's rather significant.
Read more: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/energy/stories/do-solar-panels-use-more-energy-than-they-generate#ixzz3UfB4nV00This may not happen if special attention is not given to reducing energy
inputs. The PV industry's energetic costs can differ significantly from
its financial costs. For example, installation and the components
outside the solar cells, like wiring and inverters, as well as soft
costs like permitting, account for a third of the financial cost of a
system, but only 13 percent of the energy inputs. The industry is
focused primarily on reducing financial costs. http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/april/pv-net-energy-040213.htmlThe problem with this math is that panels won't last 20-25 years without maintenance, and what energy cost does that maintenance account for. With warranty periods maxing out at 10 years, I'm skeptical that they would last 20-25 years without intervention.
This is of course ignoring factors that play when you try to make this work on a large scale. When you introduce large scale panels, you have cooling and other factors to consider.
So we do have progress towards this. And it's going on naturally, due to economic factors, with no need for government intervention to force us onto green energy.
Let it happen.
The other problems to resolve are downtime issues. Those can be solved with batteries, but now we have major waste concerns.
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In other words, on a large scale, at only 10% coverage, solar is just now getting past its energy debt and pulling from its own energy supply to make more panels.
If we are patient, it can see a slow sustainable growth.
If we get impatient, we could force a economical change towards solar and be in energy debt for decades to come.
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You generally just make shit up as you go along, don't you?
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Based on what.
You don't think that solar has been in energy debt for the past 15+ years?
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Money isn't the issue..... sigh
Money's always the issue. It's a metric for all that other stuff you said and allows us easy ways to make comparisons.
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Money's always the issue. It's a metric for all that other stuff you said and allows us easy ways to make comparisons.
Except government subsidies have been hiding the energy costs for the last two decades.
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Based on what.
Based upon the fact that you say that solar panels run an energy debt for 15+ years:
That energy that it cost to create solar panels, produces solar panels that take their entire lifetime to provide the energy it cost to create them.
So basically you run an energy deficit for 15 years, and then finally earn some energy for a few years before having to spend the entire energy cost again in maintaining or replacing the panels.
By citing an article that says...the exact opposite?
They found that depending on the technolgoy used, it takes one to four years for solar panels to earn out on their energy debt.
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Also, good luck convincing people that it's safe to have a reactor in their automobile in the case of an accident.
Well, they managed to do it in Fallout, so...
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Except government subsidies have been hiding the energy costs for the last two decades.
Yes, exactly. But burning down wealth and eventually accepting lower standards of living is probably a worthy tradeoff to being dead.
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Islamic State is just the latest bunch of people who'd love to fuck our shit up if they had the opportunity.
And if, like a lot of dumb shits, you don't believe them when they say they would, just watch a few videos of them sawing the heads off of people or throwing them off buildings. Westerners talk about how gay people are oppressed, but they're not officially treated as people to be thrown off of buildings in the West.
When people say they want to kill me and people like me, and start blowing shit up and sawing the heads off of people, I assume they really mean what they say.
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By citing an article that says...the exact opposite?
The article was on personal solar panel usage.
Industry-wide usage runs into a whole different set of problems.
One to five panels on a single home doesn't have the cooling problems that a panel farm has.
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Because Science gets a lot of things just plain wrong, then magically corrects itself, pretends it was always right, and gets a free ride.
One of these words is not like the others. One of these words just doesn't belong...
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One to five panels on a single home doesn't have the cooling problems that a panel farm has.
Based on...what? You actually quoted two studies that showed they are a net positive. Yet you classify that as a win for your argument? If you are going to throw out spurious claims, expect someone to call you on your bullshit and ask for some modicum of proof.
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The problem with this math is that panels won't last 20-25 years without maintenance, and what energy cost does that maintenance account for. With warranty periods maxing out at 10 years, I'm skeptical that they would last 20-25 years without intervention.
Back when I read magazines like Home Power, people were saying their panels tended to last up to 30+ years with minimal maintenance, and still produce most of their power[1]. The batteries, OTOH, won't last nearly that long.
[1] I'm sure a lot of that's anecdotal, but I have never seen actual studies done. Plus, I think "maintenance"--at least as far as the panels are concerned--mainly consists of "keep them clean".
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You actually quoted two studies that showed they are a net positive
Yes, it's a net positive, under the conditions of slow sustainable growth.
If you suddenly switched half your energy to solar, you wouldn't have the same benefit.
10% of the energy, can produce a positive net, with growth, if growing at 1 or 2% every year.
10% of energy cannot produce a positive net, if 50% of the industry switches. It would have another net negative.
It is only positive because the article says that pulling from solar to create more solar is a net positive. Pulling from coal to create solar is a negative factor in this net positive gain.
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Plus, I think "maintenance"--at least as far as the panels are concerned--mainly consists of "keep them clean".
Depends on the climate environment.
It could mean repairing the surface if, say a hurricane, comes through.
Of course, that will be backed by insurance, but the energy cost to repair doesn't disappear.
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Yes, it's a net positive, under the conditions of slow sustainable growth.
If you suddenly switched half your energy to solar, you wouldn't have the same benefit.
It is only positive because the article says that pulling from solar to create more solar is a net positive. Pulling from coal to create solar is a negative factor in this net positive gain.
Did you even bother reading the articles you posted? Hell, you even quoted them as saying that panels purchased today have paid back their energy debt within a few years. There is nothing in there that even hints that there might be an exponential curve on the scalability of it. You are pulling those assertions out of your ass.
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Did you even bother reading the articles you posted?
If current rapid growth rates persist, by 2020 about 10 percent of the world's electricity could be produced by PV systems. At today's energy payback rate, producing and installing the new PV modules would consume around 9 percent of global electricity. However, if the energy intensity of PV systems continues to drop at its current learning rate, then by 2020 less than 2 percent of global electricity will be needed to sustain growth of the industry.
The net positive is dependent on producing within the bounds of the solar panel energy supply.
At the time of this article, 2013, it was estimated that producing solar panels at the level of demand would cost 9% of the energy supply, and they estimated that by 2020, solar panel would produce 10% of the energy supply.
That's a net positive of 1%, right?
However, if the technological decline of cost continues, they estimate only 2% energy supply cost.
Which means that 10% supply for 2% cost. At this point it is a sustainable option. However, that's assuming current trends continue, and that will occur by 2020.
This may not happen if special attention is not given to reducing energy
inputs.This is all assuming that the rate of technological improvement will continue.
However the article noted that.
The industry is focused primarily on reducing financial costs
Meaning that the net positive is not a guarantee.
Slow, sustainable growth will keep the industry towards a track of net positive.
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The net positive is dependent on producing within the bounds of the solar panel energy supply.
Either yours or my parsers are out of whack, because when I read that it says that if it keeps growing then less 2% in the future would be needed for growth. That says precisely fuck-all about if we kept producing them using coal power, they would still pay back their energy debt in less than 4 years. Which to me, is entirely acceptable. It says nothing about scalability issues...
As I said, you are pulling these assertions out of your ass.
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I am pretty sure that you and @boomzilla are working from a different dictionary than the rest of society...
