Current Events > Greta Thunberg is Time's Person of the Year

(+) Yeah! (+)

scar the 1 posted...

And is thorium all of a sudden a renewable energy source?

Does it need to be? It's way more abundant in nature than uranium is and produces far more energy in the same amount, meaning we wouldn't run out of it for a long time.

Besides, if total irreversible climate change is a mere generation away like many alarmists say, wouldn't you want to find a quick solution to solve the problem without rolling back society to a third world nation and give us time to better develop alternatives like better renewable energy sources?

Phewfus posted...

Does it need to be? It's way more abundant in nature than uranium is and produces far more energy in the same amount, meaning we wouldn't run out of it for a long time.

Besides, if total irreversible climate change is a mere generation away like many alarmists say, wouldn't you want to find a quick solution to solve the problem without rolling back society to a third world nation and give us time to better develop alternatives like better renewable energy sources?

It kind of needs to, yeah. It's more abundant, but it's far from limitless.

About a quick fix solution, it wouldn't be a quick fix. Replacing all our power plants with nuclear plants is not a trivial task, it's an absolutely massive project.

Of course, there are no easy answers at all, since production of solar panels and windmills is also problematic. But nuclear is far from the silver bullet that NB people believe it to be.

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scar the 1 posted...

It kind of needs to, yeah. It's more abundant, but it's far from limitless.

About a quick fix solution, it wouldn't be a quick fix. Replacing all our power plants with nuclear plants is not a trivial task, it's an absolutely massive project.

Of course, there are no easy answers at all, since production of solar panels and windmills is also problematic. But nuclear is far from the silver bullet that NB people believe it to be.

Yeah but Earth's DEATH is on the table so maybe we shouldn't be such choosy beggars.

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joe40001 posted...

Yeah but Earth's DEATH is on the table so maybe we shouldn't be such choosy beggars.

Sure, but in the end what we really need is systemic change. We need to move away from mass consumerism etc, so that we actually use less energy. If we keep scaling up like we're doing now, we'll just be putting nails in our coffin, nuclear or no nuclear.

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scar the 1 posted...

It kind of needs to, yeah. It's more abundant, but it's far from limitless.

Why does it have to be limitless? Depending on the time frame, it may only be needed temporarily before finding a feesable energy alternative.

And I've seen the same people scoffing at nuclear dependability act like AOCs Green Deal is perfectly simple to implement, when it requires an even larger restructuring of society to achieve.

Not to mention it still requires the reduction of living standards for everyone, which is where I start to sense the creep of ideological possession from people talking about patriarchy and consumerism killing the planet while wagging their fingers at something that would save it.

Phewfus posted...

Why does it have to be limitless? Depending on the time frame, it may only be needed temporarily before finding a feesable energy alternative.

Well the time frame doesn't necessarily get much longer in the first place, but more importantly it needs to be renewable. It's just not sustainable to keep mining non renewable minerals for a host of reasons. The issue I see additionally is that the cost of converting to nuclear would be too high for what we're getting out of it.

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scar the 1 posted...

Well the time frame doesn't necessarily get much longer in the first place, but more importantly it needs to be renewable. It's just not sustainable to keep mining non renewable minerals for a host of reasons. The issue I see additionally is that the cost of converting to nuclear would be too high for what we're getting out of it.

And renewables aren't high cost?

scar the 1 posted...

Sure, but in the end what we really need is systemic change. We need to move away from mass consumerism etc, so that we actually use less energy. If we keep scaling up like we're doing now, we'll just be putting nails in our coffin, nuclear or no nuclear.

Any change that's going to matter is going to happen at the government/company level. Susan feeling shitty about using her Keurig isn't going to make a difference, taxing carbon until the world becomes carbon neutral will.

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Phewfus posted...

And renewables aren't high cost?

They're high cost but hopefully into a resource that isn't depleted sooner rather than later.

joe40001 posted...

Any change that's going to matter is going to happen at the government/company level. Susan feeling shitty about using her Keurig isn't going to make a difference, taxing carbon until the world becomes carbon neutral will.

I agree. Governments need to seriously step up and address consumerism, and give up on this crazy idea that there can be infinite growth. Susan is a tiny part of the system, she can't really avoid it.

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scar the 1 posted...

They're high cost but hopefully into a resource that isn't depleted sooner rather than later.

The problem with that, at least insofar as say, solar, is that they rely on materials that are themselves in limited supply and the making of such is harmful to the enviroment. And some have limited use lives before they degrade, again solar.

Now, hydroelectric works great, and does so for long periods, look at the Hoover Dam, but there are so many issues with dams that make them near useless, like, for instance, the fact that there aren't exactly a wealth of locations to build a hydroelectric dam.
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Crazyman93 posted...

The problem with that, at least insofar as say, solar, is that they rely on materials that are themselves in limited supply and the making of such is harmful to the enviroment. And some have limited use lives before they degrade, again solar.

Now, hydroelectric works great, and does so for long periods, look at the Hoover Dam, but there are so many issues with dams that make them near useless, like, for instance, the fact that there aren't exactly a wealth of locations to build a hydroelectric dam.

Yeah, it's very very tricky. Solar like you say isn't exactly good for the environment, nor is building windmills. Hydroelectric kills ecosystems. Wave power is interesting, but nothing is without environmental impact.

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Maybe I'm a bit too quick to get antagonistic, but personally when I hear people talk about how hard it all is, it sounds to me like they are giving excuses why we shouldn't try.

And considering the stakes we really need to try everything we can. Going to the moon was hard, and we did it and we didn't even need to.

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joe40001 posted...

Maybe I'm a bit too quick to get antagonistic, but personally when I hear people talk about how hard it all is, it sounds to me like they are giving excuses why we shouldn't try.

And considering the stakes we really need to try everything we can. Going to the moon was hard, and we did it and we didn't even need to.

That's called a strawman argument

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EIiza posted...

https://imgur.com/ozdzlMY

Awesome lol

Cool. I don't know if she's the most deserving (probably not...), but she deserves it, she's doing good things.

The fact that this bothers idiots is icing on the cake, of course. The Greta cake has plenty of that icing, so yeah, cool.