I agree with you on nuclear power, but I think you’re downplaying the possibilities of solar. In the long term, from what I’ve read, solar really can be (and probably will be) a major contributor to power generation. As prices come down for solar panel manufacturing, I think it’s likely they’ll become standard in new buildings and possibly even things like automobile roofs.
I think solar has more a future then wind, for example.
And I think wind has more of a future than nuclear. (Well, technically, solar power is actually just as much “nuclear,” exploiting the radiation output of a giant fusion reactor instead of a fission-powered steam turbine, but you know what I mean.)
I’m sorry to say this, because a lot of highly technically trained engineers work in nuclear power, and nuke plants are probably the most impressive version of the steam engine we have; but nuclear power plants are a giant pain, requiring massive upfront capital investment, and so far a level of government subsidy neither the GOP nor the Democrats seem to want to pay anymore. And no one wants to be the next Fukushima.
The fission-powered giant steam engine is over in the USA. The future is micro-generation. And we’re going to have to get used to the economic realignment that comes with that.
This is exactly why I have been ignoring the climate change debate for years. The solution is obvious, and simple: But liberals refuse to discuss it, because it requires using the forbidden “n-word”, which must never be said in public.
Build 20 new nuclear power plants in the US, stop burning coal, and then encourage sales of electric cars. The nuke plants already exist, the cars already exist. All we need is more of them.
But that discussion is simply not allowed.
Instead, the only discussion is about pie-in-the sky dreams of untested wind/solar power, and stupid political games like carbon credits. And the strongest supporters live hypocritical lifestyles, while lecturing us( with a smug grin) about how stupid we all are for ignoring them…
Yet strangely when I read, say, GIGObuster or Stranger On A Train’s posts they just talk about fairly mechanical and objective stuff, like temperature records and the likely physical effect of CO2.
You, on the other hand, quite openly say your views are based substantially on the apparently unquestionable meritworthiness of the current human condition*. Or as you would put it "Eaaaarth Maaaaaan Gooooooood*!!*
In other words, your criticism of alleged left wing rhetoric actually (and quite obviously) most aptly fits you, not those you decry.
*or “success” as you put it. I don’t quite know why advances in batteries, solar, nuclear, lighting etc wouldn’t count as human success. I’m tempted to think you are actually just conservative in the worst sense of the word; you just don’t like change.
The only solution to climate change impacts is to drastically lower the human population.
Carbon taxing, eliminating coal as an energy source, mandating 100 mpg café standards, etc. will have very minimal impacts.
The world will be fine, it will be its residents that will have to pay the price.
Well, things is that even this does show a lot of ignorance, the reality is that yes, there is a lot of liberals opposed to it, but as I found in the past the reality is that it is not reasonable to think that results like 80% or more in opposition that are obtained in surveys for things like new power plants or disposal of nuclear fuel are just liberals, the reality is more complicated.
The conclusion is that in reality there is a lot conservatives and independents that oppose nuclear power and facilitate the opposition. NIMBY is their ideology.
And then there is the reality of what the politicians are actually doing, while the blind spot is usually in the disposal of nuclear waste, democratic leaders are not against nuclear power as a part of the solution to this issue. As I found also in past discussions the current administration does give support and subsidies to new nuclear power plants and the development of safer nuclear power; and then at the same time, when more support for nuclear is offered in new bills as a part of a comprehensive solution to the issue the Republicans are nowadays willing to toss the nuclear baby with the bathwater because such is their disdain to take care of the issue.
It seems to me that one of the main objections to fission power is the nuclear waste left behind–and still not dealt with in any meaningful way. A different kind of reactor–the traveling wave reactor–is not only an order of magnitude more efficient in the use of fuel, but leaves behind a much lower quantity of relatively short-lived radioactives. Relatively, because they will mainly decay in under a century so really long-term storage is not an issue. In addition, they can also “burn” the spent fuel from conventional reactors and solve the storage problem.
So why aren’t they built? Well, the main reason, as far as I have been able to find, is that a totally new type of reactor would initially cost more to get past the learning curve and would require a whole new safety assessment. Private enterprise is unwilling to do it. Only a government is capable of that kind of expenditure and the US is uninterested. I understand that China is pursuing it, however.
One difficulty with wind and sun is the intermittency. I don’t think any kind of nuclear reactor can be used as a buffer. Hydro power can, but is not available everywhere. So natural gas generators for backup are going to be needed for a long time. But their use can be minimized.
As I said way back in post ~ 15: the right-wing punditocracy has framed the problem in purely emotional terms.
And everything we’ve heard from the conservative side in this thread echoes that emotional, demonize the left, view of the problem. Apparently it’s working.
Why would you post on this board asking for an explanation as to why conservatives feel the way they feel? Seriously, why would you post on this board asking for an explanation as to why *conservatives *feel the way they feel? From your OP, it seems like you knew that it would inevitably devolve into Republican-bashing, and that’s what you were after, in which case you’d might as well have just started this in the BBQ Pit.
But let me give you the benefit of the doubt, and instead presume that you did not realize how much Republican/conservative bashing goes on on this board, and instead say this: If you honestly want to know why conservatives feel the way they do, this board is not the place to ask the question.
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” – H.L. Menchken
Using 2013 data directly from the US Energy Information Administration, the average relalized summer generating capcity of the 99 fully operational full time reactors at 53 plants in the United States is 993 MEe with an average utilization factor of 0.90. That makes the annual power production of an average reactor as 7.83 GWh/yr. Net electrical energy production from coal in 2013 was 1581.115 GWh (and this was the second lowest in the previous ten years with the exception of 2012), That alone would require over two hundred power plants notwithstanding that as electrical production by coal has been modestly reducing, natural gas has been substantially growing; for 2013 numbers it would require more than one hundred forty plants. Atmospheric carbon production between the two fuels is not a one to one correspondence but eliminating all atmospheric carbon production from electrical production would require well over three hundred new nuclear power plants along with essentially multiplying the fuel enrichment facilities and fuel waste management and processing. Your apparently baseless estimate of “20 new nuclear power plants in the US” is off by an order of magnitude for coal alone, and doesn’t even begin to address transportation and industrial sources of CO[SUB]2[/SUB] production.
Nuclear fission certainly should be considered as one aspect of a future reduced carbon production energy strategy, but the claim that nuclear fission is obvious and simple is flatly wrong, and casting it in terms of liberal opposition to conservative wisdom is beyond gross simplification that ignores the fact that nobody wants a nuclear production facility near their city or subdivision, and the cost and problems of remediating nuclear waste products of the entire fuel enrichment, production, and residual waste are not trivial, to be dismissed by a wave of the magic wand. In fact, we should be looking at ways to implement newer technology that reduces both fuel processing cost and effort, and ways to reduce (“burn up”) the fuel completely rather than the terribly inefficient once through cycle that current boiling water and pressurized water reactors. While shutting down the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository may have been politically motivated, the essential technical argument for stuffing expended nuclear fuel into a hole in the ground and hoping that it doesn’t pose some kind of problem for future generations is even more technically short-sighted and misguided.
Trying to cast global climate change is a political issue of “liberals against conservatives” is yet another divisive tact to avoid examining and disucssing actual data. There is really no question based on data whether warming is occuring (unless you are selective about what data you use to intentionally mask the issue), and the only strong correlation is the anthropogenic generation of atmospheric carbon dioxide. While there are certainly other contributors which can affect climate behavior, none of the known or hypothesized sources show substantial correlation over the period for which we’ve seen a trend of increasing global average temperture. It is true that existing amospheric circulation models on a global scale are still being refined (although they’ve gotten a lot better over the last ten years), and that there is limited data to validate future predictions from existing trends, hence the lack of consensus of just how much average temperature may rise and exactly what effects may occur. But there is nearly universal consensus among actual climatologists, with only a handful of apparently politically motivated dissenters who make counterfactual claims. The degree of transparency of the IPCC is such that it would be impossible to conceal the supposed conspiracy, while the typical sources of climate change denial are noted for concealing or lying about their sources of funding.
Stranger
Some of them, like our own FX, are paid by the oil lobby to continue to throw a wrench in things. Others just have an anti-liberal bent and unfortunately, science and facts are seen as liberal nowadays. Still others think that religiously, there’s little we can do to the earth that will harm it since god gave it to us that way. Then there are simply people who are too stupid to understand the science and lash out instead of admitting they’re idiots.
I know nuclear power has a relatively good track record when it comes to safety and is presumably much less damaging to the environment than even the better fossil fuels. But what about the environmental impacts of uranium mining to feed these power plants. I can imagine there being a hell of a lot of runoff and contamination of groundwater, particularly in third world countries where workers rights won’t be up to much.
Well, we were attempting to deal with it in a meaningful way until Obama shut down Yucca Mountain.
Taking hazardous but potentially useful ‘expended’ fuel elements, shipping them across country at great expense, and burying them in the ground in a seismically active area is addressing the problem of nuclear waste “in a meaningful way”, not does it address the waste produced in the pitchblend extraction, uranium milling, and fuel enrichment processes.
Stranger
I guess we’re going to have to totally disagree on this one. If you have a better alternative that can work right now I’ll listen but until then let’s use Yucca Mountain.
What do you believe the advantage of the Yucca Mountain Repository is versus reprocessing, complete burnup, or storage at other, more geologically stable sites?
Stranger
I think this thread demonstrates why we aren’t going to do anything about global warming, except on an ad hoc basis. Liberals spend half their time complaining that conservatives ignore the consensus about global warming, and the other half downplaying any practical options for addressing it.
The same people who oppose Yucca Mountain oppose preprocessing, there are no better, more geologically stable sites, the alternative is on-site storage, which they also opponse, and complete burnuip is not cost-effective with current tecnhologies.
Conservatives want to emphasize use of a proven technology with known problems. Liberals want to emphasize use of unproven technologies with even worse problems, which won’t scale up. Subsidies for nuclear are bad, because they hide the real cost. Subsidies for solar are good, because they develop the industry. China emits more greenhouse gases than the US or Europe. What in the Chinese environmental record suggests that, if the US reduces its footprint, that they will follow suit?
We aren’t going to do anything significant until we have to. We will reduce our oil usage when the price goes high enough, and not before. We won’t convert to solar until the magic technology arises to make it competitive.
If we find out we waited too long and it’s too late, it won’t make any difference. Both sides will take satisfaction in saying that we didn’t implement solar/nuclear when we should have, or we didn’t spend enough money on research into solar/nuclear/fusion,/wind/biomass, or Al Gore took too many flights on his private jet to tell the rest of us to reduce our carbon footprint.
Regards,
Shodan
Bingo! Especially the first reason; based on the AGW-skeptics/ignorants of my acquaintance, the perception that this is something that scientists have discovered, but that (and here’s the important part) liberal environmentalists with an agenda have latched on to, and are trying to use as a political and social pry-bar to curtail their personal freedoms and rights, even though (in their view) the issue’s still an open-ended one in terms of the science.
In other words, they see it as an unresolved scientific issue that the Al Gores of the world are using to try and effect policy changes that would cause them to be unable to drive their SUVs and pickup trucks, either through outright bannination, or through fuel tax increases that would make it prohibitively expensive.
There’s not a religious component to it, other than the fact that these people on the whole, are conservatively religious (i.e. S. Baptist or evangelical) on the whole, and that in many of their churches, politics are preached from the pulpit.
It’s also not an explicitly anti-science position. This is NOT the crowd that thinks that vaccines cause autism, or necessarily in creationism or anything like that. The biggest problem is that the talking heads that they believe have a economic interest in being against AGW, and solutions like cap and trade, not because they’re scientifically or economically unsound, but because they stand to lose from actions taken to curtail AGW.
There’s also a certain current of bang-the-drum patriotism that feels like anything we do that other competing nations (like say… China) aren’t doing is a disadvantage to us, and something that’s going to hurt our standard of living and global position in the future. Strangely enough, they’re probably the most right about this one, and it’s also probably the one that has the least impact overall on anyone.
And finally, in states like Texas, Oklahoma, W. Virginia, Louisiana, Kentucky and Pennsylvania, the oil and coal industries employ a lot of these people, and the environmental costs associated with them is seen as a tolerable evil if it keeps them in jobs and their communities healthy. That’s a hard argument to counter; in a sense, the AGW solutions are asking these people to take one for the team.
I think it’s more of a right wing belief that the left must be wrong on EVERYTHING and that all of their policies are intended to take stuff away from those whose morally superior lifestyles entitle them to have everything they want with no restrictions whatsoever. What, give up inefficient light bulbs? COMMUNISM! Start limiting carbon emissions? Sounds too expensive, how about we attack the science instead? If you admit that liberals are right on any issue, you open up the possibility that they could be right about something else. This must not be allowed to happen.
I admit that liberal opposition to nuclear power is often short sighted. I also think we cannot eliminate global warming, but we can do things that would bend the curve in our favor and the earlier we do them, the better. Clean energy sources should be developed and sensible energy conservation steps should be taken. We have alternatives to the incandescent light bulb, let’s just use them. We can build mass transit, let’s do it.
I don’t think it’s nearly that simple. In the case of light bulbs, I think there’s a notion among that crowd that market forces ought to take care of it- i.e. if it was an issue, electricity would cost more, and therefore, we’d all switch to CFL and LED bulbs of our own accord, as they cost less to operate. When looked at in that light, the idea that the bulbs would just be outlawed for environmental reasons looks fairly manipulative, heavy-handed and agenda driven (by an agenda they don’t agree with). And to top if off, they see $2-3 per CFL bulb, more for an LED, and like $0.60 for a 60 watt incandescent. So it comes across as a government mandate that’s costing them more money to little practical effect, as things like air conditioning, refrigerators, computers, appliances and televisions use FAR more electricity than mere lighting does.
That’s one thing the environmental crowd, and to a lesser extent, the Democratic Party haven’t quite grasped- in the aggregate, people are selfish. They’ll choose the option that’s best for them and their families, even if it’s not the best choice overall. So when someone comes in and suggests that someone pay more for gas because it’s better for the environment, or pay more taxes, because it helps the poor, or buy more expensive CFL/LED bulbs because they save money, they resent that, because they view it as money out of their pockets, and they can’t see the benefits. So it’s resented, as it seems like a one-way transaction.
I really think that the issue is more that oil company interests and asshole politicians have cast doubt upon the credibility of AGW scientists and their findings, by appealing to the fallacy that it’s just a “theory” (when in fact that means it’s pretty much proven), and that there’s doubt about the findings in the first place. I have a feeling that if there wasn’t this undercurrent of doubt, then it wouldn’t be an issue at all.
Nobody likes the idea of sea level rise, more violent weather, mass famine, etc… but if that’s just a possible outcome of something that’s not proven to exist (in their view), or that’s not proven to be caused by man, then the personal costs to them (higher taxes, technological displacement, some degree of economic privation) seem too high to be borne if it’s merely a conjectural thing.
The trick will be getting that crowd to realize that it’s not conjecture at all- it’s pretty much a proven thing, and that now’s the time to act.