Has anybody else given up on climate change?

In My Humble Opinion
81

If your actual expectation is that we will stop, and you’ll be pessimistic for anything else, then yeah…you are definitely going to be pessimistic. It’s not realistic to expect people to just stop using power. It’s not realistic to expect people to just use power when the wind is blowing and/or the sun is shining. It’s not going to happen, so you have to gauge the response and the expectation on reality, which is we need to do this while not having the world meltdown economically and socially with people in complete rebellion because they don’t have any power.

The problem has been the ‘anti-nuke hippies’ you mentioned along with many environmental groups who touted wind and solar as the be-all and end-all to solve all our problems. It never was going to without some way to store the excess energy (which, of course, changes the price structure and takes away the killer argument that wind and solar is cheaper than nuclear), and it was frustrating to be in these discussions a decade ago and trying to explain that with all of the kumbayah and unicorn fuzzy feeling stuff going on. I’m not sure why we need to blame the ‘corruption that surrounds the nuclear industry’ with specific examples in the US, because while that did happen, that’s not the reason why we stopped building nuclear power plants…and by ‘we’ I mean the world, not just the US. It WAS a concerted effort by your ‘anti-nuke hippies’ and other groups, and it has a real impact on this problem now. And, it’s STILL having impacts, as we are STILL not building the plants at the rate we should be. We are back to baby steps, with, IIRC from a recent discussion on this, the US maybe build 2-3 new plants that maybe will be ready in the next few years, assuming they are actually complete. I might be misremembering, and maybe 1 is ready soon or even online now. We SHOULD be building 10 times more than that and should be building a ton of the small modular plants or at least a handful as testbeds and proof of concept systems, with an eye towards full production going flat out for the next decade or so.

We aren’t, and we won’t be for maybe that decade. All the while, the only alternative is going to be fossil fuel power plants, and, perhaps, energy storage systems to go with the wind and solar plants we have along with the trickle of potential new nuke plants with the hope of more down the road. All of that is going to take a lot of time and a lot of resources.

The only good thing there is, at least in the US, those will mainly be natural gas instead of coal. But China is still building a ton of new coal plants, and so is India. China is also building a ton of new coal plants in other countries, though they SAY they will stop proposing new ones. As their lips are moving I’ll believe it when I see it.

But, I still don’t think all hope is lost. We just have a accept that the climate has changed, and prepare for the bad things that will happen, and work towards doing as much mitigation as we can with an eye toward shifting things so that we are at net zero, with perhaps bringing some CO2 capture technologies in play to help speed up the mitigation.

82

The first thing we should do is to stop shutting down perfectly good nuclear plants. Really, this is a no-brainer, and yet New York recently shut down Indian Point and California will soon shut down Diablo Canyon, despite not having any replacement for the 9% of California’s electricity it provides, Prepare for ‘green’ California to start buying more fossil fuels - if they can. And prepare for prices to go even higher as they add demand without supply to fossil markets.

Germany shut down a bunch of its nuclear capacity in a panic after Fukashima, and now have to resort to buying gas from their main strategic rival, increasing greenhouse gases and putting their energy security in the hands of an authoritarian enemy. Good work, Germany. They have engaged in the largest buildup of wind and solar in Europe, which drove their energy prices up until they were the highest in Europe, and now their fossil fuel consumption is increasing. This is the opposite of reasonable global warming policy, but we’re planning to try the same stunt here, somehow expecting different results.

These are the most critical infrastructure issues facing the US right now, and yet the trillion dollar ‘infrastructure’ bill addresses none of it. But Joe Biden likes trains, so tens of billions will go to building trains that will make global warming worse. And now there will be no political will for another infrastructure bill. The government shot its infrastructure wad on things that will not help climate change at all, and ‘build back better’ has a lot of useless ‘green’ initiatives that won’t move the needle on climate change but WILL funnel money to Democratic constituents.

No one is serious about climate change. Lots of smoke and fury, signifying nothing.

83

Plus, Germany has become increasingly dependent on Russian gas. So, it’s kind of a lose/lose/lose for them right now. And other European powers are in a similar boat wrt needing to import gas from Russia.

I agree…we need to stop shutting down nuclear power plants that are not end of life and are still able to produce and be safely managed. Sadly, in both cases you mentioned, that ship has sailed.

84

About 75% of German homes are heated by fossil fuel-based furnaces, so nuclear power plants were not going to prevent them from needing to import gas. Also New York isn’t shutting down Indian Point, it’s a privately owned nuclear plant that was commissioned in 1962, and it could not profitably continue generation.

A big issue nuclear has is that the price structure of it means to keep the plants viable they would actually require heavy government subsidy in most cases. Ohio has a couple nuclear plants owned by First Energy around Cleveland that are quasi-bankrupting that company because its generation costs are just too high.

The environmental movements 45 year war on nuclear is, absolutely, one of the dumbest and most short-sighted things to come out of that movement–along with their almost sociopathic (successful) efforts in the 1980s to get funding pulled for Norman Borlaug’s efforts to introduce new crops and farming techniques into sub-Saharan Africa that he had previously successfully introduced to Mexico and India. Literally rich people crowing about the environment telling people living in huts they didn’t deserve better food security. (Luckily some Japanese interests stepped in and ended up funding Borlaug’s African endeavors.)

Nuclear should absolutely be a bigger part of the solution, and the huge blockers that extremist environmentalists have put into place to make it so hard to deploy are a big part of the reason its costs are so high and uncompetitive. But the point still remains nuclear even best case scenario is not going to be able to compete with natural gas or coal on a price basis, which means it would have to be subsidized akin to how solar and wind are in order to naturally develop in the market.

85

That’s…kind of true. But IIRC, it was governor Cuomo who ramped up pressure on the company to shut down with a series of public discussions and investigations. I don’t recall the particulars, and certainly am not speaking to its economic viability, but I seem to recall that, originally, it still had about 10 years left before EOL. I might be misremembering though.

It’s a good point, though, of course, just because they have gas furnaces now or in the past doesn’t mean they couldn’t have regulated them out of existence and mandated electric heat pumps or the like.

86

France gets 80% of its electricity from nuclear, and has the lowest electricity prices in Europe. They also make 3 billion Euros per year selling excess power to their neighbors.

Nuclear power can be very inexpensive. As you said, the cost hurdles are regulatory and legal, not intrinsic to the technology.

And if we had to subsidize nuclear - so what? We’re heavily subsidizing wind and solar. Why is nuclear the only green power source which absolutely must not be subsidized?

How about this: 50% of all carbon taxes are redistributed to build more nuclear capacity. Canada could build a nuclear plant every two years just from carbon taxes. And from a Pigouvian tax perspective, putting the money taxed on an externality into something that will remove the externality from energy is the perfect offset. Instead, the money finds its way into general revenues to be spent on whatever.

Another fast cost reduction in the US could be done with simple regulatory changes - for example, a moratorium on further environmental lawsuits after a nuclear plant has started construction, and streamlined approvals for copies of plants using the same design.

87

I think it shouldn’t be a direct subsidy either, but rather by increasing the cost of fossil fuels, so nuclear becomes more attractive. Wind and solar will build out, and be very cheap, but as is so often said, that isn’t good enough, and to cover themselves utilities will be forced to buy nuclear power, even if it’s expensive. This will also encourage storage systems to be developed and built.

Sounds great! Let’s get those carbon taxes in place.

That needs to be balanced with oversight to make sure that the environmental affects are consistent with what was originally estimated. As written, it would just invite the builders to cut corners after the fact. Of course, that’s all just details. I get what you’re saying, and generally agree.

An upgraded grid would not only allow distribution of wind and solar, but also of nuclear. Build the plants away from people. Accept that some small amount of wilderness area will be destroyed to build nuclear plants. In exchange, existing space used for fossil fuel production will be reclaimed.

My biggest problem, is these are all discussions that should have happened 40 years ago.

88

I agree. However…

Pursuant to an injunction obtained by over a dozen states with significant oil and gas industries against Biden’s executive order suspending new leases, which the government fought and is appealing. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

89

I’d known for a long time that the whole push to get people to conserve, inconvenience themselves, do things that cause them to personally experience harder lives, for gains so small they could not be measured on an individual level, was nonsense and just trying to get humans to not behave like humans, but I’d never heard the comparison before and it seems so apt!

Not only is environmental concern directed at individuals much like abstinence sex education, it feels like it has the same level of moralistic component to it. It’s not going to work, everyone knows damn well it’s not going to work, but the people preaching it get a feeling of moral superiority from putting down those who go against the nonsensical and unrealistic limitations they preach about.

90

I gave up a long time ago. But I’m old and have no descendants to fret about, so I’ve settled into a kind of it-sucks-but-fuck-'em-what-can-ya do mode.

91

I appreciate how succinctly you captured that feeling,

I live in a subdivision where the HOA pays big money to the trash collection companies for recycling and they provide HUGE HUGE recycle bins for homeowners. And people fill them up religiously and put them out for collection.

Most plastics and paper are not getting recycled and the trash companies fully know that. But this facade of recycling is big business. So the trash companies burn fossil fuels to haul all this junk, the burn more fossil fuel to separate all the junk , then even more to send most of it into the landfill.

I proposed to my HOA, that we have a smaller truck come by and homeowners only recycle aluminum and Type 1 and Type 2 Plastic (water bottles mostly) but was shot down. I guess it was immoral.

The point is this “All, or Nothing” morality will drive us to the brink and IMO Humans will have no option but to try Geoengineering technologies. Some people see this (and a lot don’t) and have taken a head start in figuring out this technology.

92

Mesa, where I live, has a recycling program. It used to accept almost everything but plastic film – I still have the big sticker on the blue bin with the details. Then they announced it was too expensive and cut way back.

Now the only thing I put out on a regular basis is corrugated cardboard – they won’t even take chip board – magazines and newspapers, tin cans and beverage containers – plastic and aluminum.

93

It’s kind of hypocritical to claim that the problem with acceptance of nuclear power is solely due to anti-nuclear sentiment and the media. A huge part of modern public resistance to nuclear power is climate science denial, mostly on the part of the right wing.

You can’t persuade people that nuclear power is a crucial and necessary part of fighting climate change if you’re simultaneously allowing a massive denial propaganda machine to constantly indoctrinate them with the false notion that climate change isn’t a real problem to begin with.

But it’s convenient for conservatives to blame liberals for not doing enough to combat climate change, while glossing over the massive conservative efforts to undermine and sabotage all attempts to cope with climate change in favor of short-term fossil-fuel profits.

94

Sure it can be subsidized, but that brings us back to k9bfriender’s point that capitalism doesn’t solve all problems. A big part of the shit we’re in now is due to decades of market-worship propaganda promulgated by powerful people who found the dissemination of pro-market, anti-regulatory attitudes to be very convenient for their own profits.

The eventual solution to the shit we’re in now, if there ever is one, is going to have to involve acknowledging that govenment action is necessary to rein in catastrophic forms of capitalist destruction impelled by pursuit of short-term profits, even if that decreases the efficiency of some market functions.

95

Pointing at conservatives and the mote in their eye doesn’t take the mote out of your own, so to speak. While it’s true that conservatives have done a ton to prop up fossil fuels, it’s mainly due to the fact that liberal types have pushed for solar and wind at all costs and as the panacea for all ills while simultaneously pushing against nuclear. Basically, while well-meaning. they have done more to foster our dependence on fossil fuels than the evil conservatives who DO want that profit as the end goal. If we’d been building nuclear power plants all along we wouldn’t be as dependent on fossil fuels, full stop.

Basically, this isn’t about blaming liberals or saying conservatives magically want to fix climate change. While no doubt some do, most don’t…and don’t give a shit about it. But liberals have helped pave the road to hell with their good intentions, and in the end, good intentions or bad intentions don’t really matter…it’s results. And the result of this pissing match is…the shit we are in today.

And I’m STILL not giving up on climate change mitigation, despite the fact that both sides seem more interested in scoring points than actual, practical solutions. Sadly, like the motto of this board, it’s simply going to take longer than we thought or than it should have taken…

96

We had this conversation before, as France showed, the solution is more education and government intervention in favor of nuclear power. Of course, as I noted many, many times before, that smells like socialism, so it remains a no-go zone for the current anti-intellectual right. So please dispose of that blame game.

Because as noted before, if there was already a cap-and-trade system for all the US, then some recently closed nuclear plans would be still online instead of power companies closing them and going for natural gas instead.

A lot of what is going on now was caused by the first “big” win of the anti-science conservatives. It was to convince many that cap-and-trade was a tool of the devil when it was proposed as a way to deal with the issue back in the 2010s

97

That’s funny. I looked up when cap and trade started, and they list that as 2005. Know when we stopped really building nuclear power plants? It’s also funny that you think I’m trying to blame only liberals. It’s like you only read part of what I say, then throw in a bunch of stuff that isn’t really related. I also did a quick search on when wind and solar really started to be pushed in the US. Any idea when that was? I’ll give you a hint…it was before cap and trade became a thing.

That said, I never claimed that conservatives were ALSO not to blame…big time…for the mess we are in. But trying to put all this on ‘the first big anti-science win’ being cap and trade just doesn’t seem to hold up. Anti-nuclear sentiment far preceded that, and the US had stopped building the majority of plants far before that.

Not sure what the smell of socialism has to do with any of this, nor why you think I was against France, education or government incentive, or how any of that plays into anything I’ve said here on in the past.

98

That shows a bit of ignorance, the reason why in France Nuclear was not seen as scary was that a big investment was done to really educate the public about nuclear power, same goes for the government help in favor of one industry, the thing that you are trying to deny here is that there is a mess of ideals that make conservatives go against that kind of move in general. Just look at how history is being attempted to be erased by the current right wing in schools.

BTW I wanted to note that the issue I had was for your claim that the right wing has just a mote in their eye, in reality while one can make a point that there is a beam in the eye of several liberals (as noted many, many times before many moderates like me are in favor of nuclear as a support for other renewables) the Republicans now are controlling the sawmill, and most Republicans like to have the new ignorant beams installed in their eyes.

99

Well, since you are putting words in my mouth that I didn’t say, I’ll follow suit. Basically, the real first anti-science player in this drama was the left, specifically the anti-nuclear crowd, who used fear and ignorance to push an anti-science agenda that is still impacting us today. Further, they pushed a pro-wind and pro-solar agenda that they billed as a total panacea, despite the obvious flaws in such a system without a viable energy storage system to go along with it. This was disingenuous, to put it mildly, especially since at least some of them were smart enough to realize that such a system could not work as they were pushing it, and would only work if we ramped up the cost (and magically invented the technology and manufacturing to scale it as well)…yet did so anyway. This was long before cap and trade became a thing.

As I said, the right has a lot to account for in this mess. But in their case, at least they are honest about putting profits above everything, including the truth. Whatever it takes to make a buck is their whole schtick. The left is supposed to be better, but they have either been ignorant, anti-science dupes or willing accomplices to deception…you know, for the greater good and all.

I never said you were against nuclear energy. Unlike you, I actually am not putting words or ridiculous bullshit in your mouth. But you are trying to defend one side by casting aspersions on the other, as if the fact that conservatives are evil, money-loving bastards forgive left-wing anti-nukes for being anti-science bastards that were either dupes or deceptive bastards. If you want to lump yourself in their ranks by handwaving away their complicity in all of this that’s on you. I certainly don’t lump myself in the ranks of the right-wing types who are only after profit, nor do I try and defend or handwave their actions away.

I am curious about this part in your incredibly ridiculous post though:

Again, where did I ever say anything to the contrary to this? Or hell, even mention it? How does you putting words in my mouth that have nothing to do with what I said or know about the situation ‘show a bit of ignorance’? Just curious as to your leap of logic here. Could be the 4th glass of tequila has me so fuzzed I"m missing it, so figured i’d ask. Much of this seems to only peripherally be about anything I’ve said here or in the past, much of it seems to either be a tape recording for type stuff. As far as I know, I never claimed or even talked about why France is lightyears ahead of not just the US but most if not all of Europe, and don’t disagree with your blurb about why that is, so just wondering.

100

It is not what you said, I’m saying. (That was to make clear that it is not a mote what conservatives have in their eyes)

The bit about other countries investing heavily in science education and government intervention are constantly declared by the right in the US to be socialistic ideas… or worse.

BTW since the point is to see what can be done now, I have to notice also that the new senator from Georgia (like the also new democratic senator from Arizona) was not against nuclear power. The point is that while one can find a lot of failings in the past, one has to realize what is the best thing one can do to deal with climate change, vote for the politicians that do see the global warming problem and offer solutions and vote out the ones that claim that there is nothing to worry about.