On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 10:04:57 AM UTC-6, James Nicoll wrote:

> _Right now_ the pressing issue is greenhouse gas emissions. However,
> if we developed entirely carbon-neutral energy sources, radiated heat
> would still limit what we can do without Venusian-style planetary
> death. That limit is both very, very large compared to our current
> production of waste heat (like, at least three orders of magnitude)
> and something we could reach surprisingly quickly with continued
> exponential growth.

That is true. But what conclusions should we draw from it?

Some people do believe that this means we must focus on reducing
energy use, not just switching to carbon-free energy sources, if we are
really going to solve the complete problem.

I wish to be as likely as possible to avoid disaster in the short term, and
I also consider factors which avid environmentalists are inclined to neglect.

I think that it's going to be very difficult to sell people on switching to a
lifestyle that uses less energy. So it makes sense to switch to carbon-free
energy urgently, and thus have *more time* to accomplish the much more
difficult component of the task.

Particularly as we don't yet live in a world that is at peace. We *can't*
drastically cut energy use if the "other guy" doesn't if we happen to be
fighting a war with the other guy that we need to win for our survival!

John Savard

Hamish Laws <hamish.laws@gmail.com> writes:
>On Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 2:50:20=E2=80=AFAM UTC+10, Mike Van Pelt wrot=
>e:

>Nuclear power plants typically take over 5 years to build, the nuclear ener=
>gy institute states that during peak construction building a plant employs =
>around 7000 workers, now I don't know what the actual job requirements are =
>over the 5 years of production but it does seem likely to be a significant =
>amount of cash being paid out in wages

5 years? Vogtle3 construction started June 2009. It was connected to
the grid last month.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Plant

Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:
>On 5/30/2023 11:50 AM, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>> In article <ef644585-a589-4ba8-94a7-434045ea2fffn@googlegroups.com>,

>> How much of the cost of nuclear is inherent cost of nuclear,
>> and how much is the cost of fighting the barratry of the
>> anti-nuke lobby every step of the way? To a great extent,
>> the cost argument strikes me as a "Lizzie Borden demands the
>> court's mercy because she is an orphan" argument.
>
>There are reputedly going to be 300 orders of the new SMR nuclear
>reactors over the next 24 months in the USA. Dow Chemical in Freeport,
>Texas (30 miles south of my house) just ordered one to replace the steam
>generation from a half dozen of their gas turbines that were bought back
>in the early 1970s (GE Frame 7A).

You do realize that those SMR's generate about 50MW? That's about
1/20th of a CH4-fired traditional plant.

It's unlikely they'll replace baseload power. Useful for some
industrial environments and isolated communities in Alaska, perhaps,
but not scalable to provide replacement for fossil fuel grid plants.

On 5/31/2023 8:42 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:
>> On 5/30/2023 11:50 AM, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>>> In article <ef644585-a589-4ba8-94a7-434045ea2fffn@googlegroups.com>,
>
>>> How much of the cost of nuclear is inherent cost of nuclear,
>>> and how much is the cost of fighting the barratry of the
>>> anti-nuke lobby every step of the way? To a great extent,
>>> the cost argument strikes me as a "Lizzie Borden demands the
>>> court's mercy because she is an orphan" argument.
>>
>> There are reputedly going to be 300 orders of the new SMR nuclear
>> reactors over the next 24 months in the USA. Dow Chemical in Freeport,
>> Texas (30 miles south of my house) just ordered one to replace the steam
>> generation from a half dozen of their gas turbines that were bought back
>> in the early 1970s (GE Frame 7A).
>
> You do realize that those SMR's generate about 50MW? That's about
> 1/20th of a CH4-fired traditional plant.
>
> It's unlikely they'll replace baseload power. Useful for some
> industrial environments and isolated communities in Alaska, perhaps,
> but not scalable to provide replacement for fossil fuel grid plants.

Yes. Actually the pride of GE gas turbine offerings, the GE LM-6000, is
a 48 MW gas turbine fired with natural gas or diesel using a 100%
ceramic combustion path and power turbine. The gas turbine was first
used on the Boeing 747. It can fire at temperatures up to 2,600 F
giving it a 35% simple cycle efficiency and can be online in five
minutes for a hot start. The cost is $65 million for one or $50 million
each in quantities of 100. This is the competition for the SMR and will
win for power generation as long as natural gas is below $5/mmbtu. Add
a heat recovery steam boiler and the efficiency rises to 65% but the
startup is four hours.
https://www.ge.com/gas-power/products/gas-turbines/lm6000

The nuclear reactor SMRs do not require hardened domes and can be
installed in any quantity that you need. They will produce steam 24
hours per day at 50 weeks per year. They will get refueled once every
five years or so. They will win the situation where process steam is
needed for industrial plants and refineries.

There will probably never be another natural gas fired conventional
steam boiler built for a 1,000 MW with 30% efficiency. The last large
stream boilers that I know of are the Oak Grove 900 MW twins burning
lignite coal built in Texas in 2010. And Sandow 5 in Texas. All
natural gas large units for power generation use a combination of gas
turbines, heat recovery boilers, and steam turbines for overall 65%
efficiency and 90+% availability.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Grove_Power_Plant

Lynn

On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 4:48:13 PM UTC-4, Scott Lurndal wrote:

> And here are the players, with analysis of the potental
> energy provided by each:
>
> Chapter 10: Renewable overview
> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9js5291m#page=182

OTEC is missing from the report.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion

I think it would be classed as both "alternative" and "renewable" since it relies on sun-powered
ocean heating. However, the small number of projects in action would seem to say it's impractical.

In article <u564oc$257cd$1@dont-email.me>,
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>On 5/30/2023 3:20 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> On 5/29/2023 7:09 PM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>>> Which is not a good argument for doing nothing about current problems.
>>
>> At year +398, the Earth is hit by a wandering planet coming through the
>> Solar System.  All of those years of hardship and privation, scattered
>> all throughout the cosmos.  If only we had some extra electricity,
>> SkyWatch might have seen the wandering planet and given us enough
>> warning to do something about it.  Instead, we shut down SkyWatch at
>> year +2.
>>
>That's not a good argument either.

"We should be getting out into space" is not "doing nothing about
current problems", and "doing something about current problems"
does not preclude getting out into space.

Frankly, if we get taken out by an asteroid at this point, it's
our own damn fault; we've known about the threat and had the
capacity to develop countermeasures for decades.

--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

In article <ead0f4c6-9a6e-46f4-845c-8907a40ffaaan@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>I think that it's going to be very difficult to sell people on switching to a
>lifestyle that uses less energy. So it makes sense to switch to carbon-free
>energy urgently, and thus have *more time* to accomplish the much more
>difficult component of the task.

It's going to be an especially hard sell to convince people they need
to be poor while the people telling them they need to be poor are
very conspicuously not-poor. (Thinking about all the glitterati flying
individually in their private jets to conferences about shutting down
energy generation for everyone else.)

--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

In article <7bee6207-77e8-4ead-a402-4c9cdbb65ff9n@googlegroups.com>,
Ross Presser <rpresser@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 4:48:13 PM UTC-4, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>
>> And here are the players, with analysis of the potental
>> energy provided by each:
>>
>> Chapter 10: Renewable overview
>> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9js5291m#page=182
>
>OTEC is missing from the report.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion
>
>I think it would be classed as both "alternative" and "renewable" since it relies on sun-powered
>ocean heating. However, the small number of projects in action would seem to say it's impractical.

I think I recall there were some issues with fouling by
marine organisms. At scale, creating ocean circulation from
the depths back up to the surface, bringing up nutrients
currently lost to the biosphere, would have some effect.
Arguably beneficial effect, but the "No! Nature is perfect!
You can't change *anything*!" folks would have connniptions.

I'm not forgetting "It would be nothing short of disastrous if
we were ever to discover a source of cheap, clean, abundant
energy." I'm also not forgetting Paul Ehrlich's editoral
in the San Francisco Chronicle (I think; one of the Bay Area
newspapers, anyway) when it looked like Pons and Fleishmann
had really discovered something, that the discovery was a
catastrophe, "like giving a machine gun to a retarded child."
(His words.)

Whatever the energy source, whatever its characteristics,
if it's sufficient to power industrial civilization, the
core of "the movement" will find or manufacture some reason
to oppose it.
--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

In article <UeqdM.536321$Sgyc.318200@fx40.iad>,
Scott Lurndal <slp53@pacbell.net> wrote:
>Mike Van Pelt <usenet@mikevanpelt.com> writes:
>>In article <ef644585-a589-4ba8-94a7-434045ea2fffn@googlegroups.com>,
>>Hamish Laws <hamish.laws@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>Thorium is unproven commercially
>>
>>But a number of demonstration reactors have been built.
>
>Can you actually point to more than the experimental
>operations at various national labs and the two small
>research reactors in India?
>
>And most of those were built in the early 1960s and
>shut down within the decade.

Five seconds of Google...

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/thorium.aspx
--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

In article <u56onv$2aqiq$1@dont-email.me>,
Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>Ultra-capacitor batteries are the answer. We just have to keep them
>from discharging all at once. People are working on it right now and
>some claim to have an answer. They should be chargable without losing
>cells over 100,000 cycles at a very high efficiency, maybe over 90%.
>They should not have a narrow temperature range like chemical batteries.
>
>https://www.tecategroup.com/products/ultracapacitors/ultracapacitor-FAQ.php

I keep hearing about these, but I really want to see something
I can buy at Best Buy or off Amazon. There was another
company several years ago promising one "real soon now"
(eStor? I think.) but as I recall, after collecting a bunch
of venture capital funds, they vanished.

But I do really want to see these.

--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

On Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 11:35:09 PM UTC-6, Mike Van Pelt wrote:

> I'm not forgetting "It would be nothing short of disastrous if
> we were ever to discover a source of cheap, clean, abundant
> energy." I'm also not forgetting Paul Ehrlich's editoral
> in the San Francisco Chronicle (I think; one of the Bay Area
> newspapers, anyway) when it looked like Pons and Fleishmann
> had really discovered something, that the discovery was a
> catastrophe, "like giving a machine gun to a retarded child."
> (His words.)
>
> Whatever the energy source, whatever its characteristics,
> if it's sufficient to power industrial civilization, the
> core of "the movement" will find or manufacture some reason
> to oppose it.

Yes. Of course, though, James Nicoll pointed out one valid
argument for that kind of reasoning: with exponential growth,
eventually our energy use would warm the planet directly in
an unacceptable manner without help from the greenhouse
effect.

And population growth, and various human activities facilitated
by abundant energy would, of course, have negative environmental
effects.

The bulk of the people in the ecology movement do have an agenda.

One of the parts of that agenda is that they're anti-war, so they don't
believe we really need lots and lots of heavy industry to be able
to defend ourselves from Russia and China and so on. As long as
they stick to an agenda so obviously out of sync with reality, of course
their movement is going to be a non-starter politically.

But that doesn't change the fact that anthropogenic global warming
is both a scientific fact and a serious menace. If doing things their
way won't help, we have to find another way.

John Savard

On Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 11:43:29 PM UTC-6, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <u56onv$2aqiq$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Ultra-capacitor batteries are the answer. We just have to keep them
> >from discharging all at once. People are working on it right now and
> >some claim to have an answer. They should be chargable without losing
> >cells over 100,000 cycles at a very high efficiency, maybe over 90%.
> >They should not have a narrow temperature range like chemical batteries.
> >
> >https://www.tecategroup.com/products/ultracapacitors/ultracapacitor-FAQ.php
> I keep hearing about these, but I really want to see something
> I can buy at Best Buy or off Amazon. There was another
> company several years ago promising one "real soon now"
> (eStor? I think.) but as I recall, after collecting a bunch
> of venture capital funds, they vanished.
>
> But I do really want to see these.

I thought that ultracapacitors were real enough, but I wouldn't call them
"the answer", perhaps the ones that _aren't_ real are another order of
magnitude better in storage capacity so that if they were real, they could
be the answer.

I mean, though, I have to admit that pumping water uphill for use by
hydroelectric dams is a form of energy storage that will actually work
in practice, since it's based on *very* well-established proven technology.

I tend to be suspicious of things like super capacitors or super flywheels
improving on batteries to power electric cars. I will believe those when they
actually work in practice, because they require orders of magnitude
improvements to things we have.

Of course, we do have ultracentrifuges, and if they remember to make the
flywheels in pairs that rotate in opposite directions... they might be able
to achieve something that would work well enough for a... demonstration.

John Savard

On Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 11:36:23 PM UTC-6, Mike Van Pelt wrote:

> Five seconds of Google...
>
> https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/thorium.aspx

That page, though, seems to indicate that while research on incorporating Thorium
fuel into existing nuclear cycles has been done, it hasn't actually *gone* anywhere.

They tried it, then they gave it up.

That may just mean we don't need it yet (we haven't run out of Uranium, and we're not
building lots and lots of additional nuclear reactors) but it creates at least the impression
that the experiments that were tried... failed.

John Savard

Mike Van Pelt <usenet@mikevanpelt.com> writes:
>In article <UeqdM.536321$Sgyc.318200@fx40.iad>,
>Scott Lurndal <slp53@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>Mike Van Pelt <usenet@mikevanpelt.com> writes:
>>>In article <ef644585-a589-4ba8-94a7-434045ea2fffn@googlegroups.com>,
>>>Hamish Laws <hamish.laws@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>Thorium is unproven commercially
>>>
>>>But a number of demonstration reactors have been built.
>>
>>Can you actually point to more than the experimental
>>operations at various national labs and the two small
>>research reactors in India?
>>
>>And most of those were built in the early 1960s and
>>shut down within the decade.
>
>Five seconds of Google...
>
>https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/thorium.aspx

A very optimistic view of a potential future. It doesn't
describe any existing thorium based commercial reactors, nor
are any current in the planning stage to be built (other than
the Indian ones referred to above).

Some quotes from the article:

"Thorium fuels can be designed for both \u2018pebble bed\u2019 and \u2018prismatic\u2019
types of HTR reactors."

"So it is possible, for example, to design thorium-plutonium BWR fuels that are tailored for
\u2018burning\u2019 surplus plutonium"

"They are a viable early-entry thorium platform."

"These reactors are still at the design stage but are likely to be very well suited for
using thorium as a fuel."

"The sub-critical ADS system is an unconventional nuclear fission energy concept
that is potentially \u2018thorium capable\u2019."

"A key finding from thorium fuel studies to date is that it is not economically viable to
use low-enriched uranium (LEU \u2013 with a U-235 content of up to 20%) as a
fissile driver with thorium fuels,"

The remaining portions of the article enumerate the experimental reactors
I referred to above.

And concludes with

"A great deal of testing, analysis and licensing and qualification
work is required before any thorium fuel can enter into service. This
is expensive and will not eventuate without a clear business case and
government support. Also, uranium is abundant and cheap and forms only
a small part of the cost of nuclear electricity generation, so there
are no real incentives for investment in a new fuel type that may
save uranium resources."

"Other impediments to the development of thorium fuel cycle are the
higher cost of fuel fabrication and the cost of reprocessing to
provide the fissile plutonium driver material. "

On Thu, 1 Jun 2023 05:27:21 -0000 (UTC), Mike Van Pelt
<usenet@mikevanpelt.com> wrote:

>In article <ead0f4c6-9a6e-46f4-845c-8907a40ffaaan@googlegroups.com>,
>Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>I think that it's going to be very difficult to sell people on switching to a
>>lifestyle that uses less energy. So it makes sense to switch to carbon-free
>>energy urgently, and thus have *more time* to accomplish the much more
>>difficult component of the task.
>
>It's going to be an especially hard sell to convince people they need
>to be poor while the people telling them they need to be poor are
>very conspicuously not-poor. (Thinking about all the glitterati flying
>individually in their private jets to conferences about shutting down
>energy generation for everyone else.)

Which, in a nutshell, is why these pie-in-the-sky plans always fail.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

In article <46ce2ec7-3cc8-4748-a5b2-b451bdd39411n@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>I tend to be suspicious of things like super capacitors or super flywheels
>improving on batteries to power electric cars. I will believe those when they
>actually work in practice, because they require orders of magnitude
>improvements to things we have.

(Hal Heydt)
A UK company called RiverSimple has been working on a fuel
cell/supercap "town" car for some years. They've built some
working versions, last I looked at them.

The supercaps are for storing regenerative braking energy and
providing surge power for acceleration.

On Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 11:27:25 PM UTC-6, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <ead0f4c6-9a6e-46f4...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

> >I think that it's going to be very difficult to sell people on switching to a
> >lifestyle that uses less energy. So it makes sense to switch to carbon-free
> >energy urgently, and thus have *more time* to accomplish the much more
> >difficult component of the task.

> It's going to be an especially hard sell to convince people they need
> to be poor while the people telling them they need to be poor are
> very conspicuously not-poor. (Thinking about all the glitterati flying
> individually in their private jets to conferences about shutting down
> energy generation for everyone else.)

While there is definitely some truth to that, I tend not to go there
because that's usually the kind of politics dragged up by those who
are completely opposed to doing anything to move away from fossil
fuels. But someone does have to tell the Ted Kennedy liberals not to
do the sort of dumb things that make it easier for guys like Trump.

John Savard

On Thursday, June 1, 2023 at 1:35:09 AM UTC-4, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <7bee6207-77e8-4ead...@googlegroups.com>,
> Ross Presser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Monday, May 29, 2023 at 4:48:13 PM UTC-4, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> >
> >> And here are the players, with analysis of the potental
> >> energy provided by each:
> >>
> >> Chapter 10: Renewable overview
> >> https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9js5291m#page=182
> >
> >OTEC is missing from the report.
> >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion
> >
> >I think it would be classed as both "alternative" and "renewable" since it relies on sun-powered
> >ocean heating. However, the small number of projects in action would seem to say it's impractical.
> I think I recall there were some issues with fouling by
> marine organisms.

Long ago, in a grad school course, we were asked to evaluate OTEC . This
was an exercise to see what we could do with the information provided,
of course. Not a serious study of OTEC

My equations seemed to show that it would not work (not that that means anything
at this point). What amused me, though, is that the professor, who was
big in international science organization, asked if he could keep my solution.
This was probably because I used some unusual mathematics for this field
(IIRC calculus of variations) not because it was terribly convincing.

But a few months later one of the organizations with which he was associated
gave a negative review of OTEC. A coincidence but a funny one.

At scale, creating ocean circulation from
> the depths back up to the surface, bringing up nutrients
> currently lost to the biosphere, would have some effect.
> Arguably beneficial effect,

It's just too complex to be "arguably" anything.

but the "No! Nature is perfect!
> You can't change *anything*!" folks would have connniptions.

Remember when "SSTs are destroying the ozone" was a rallying cry?

At the time we knew of three chemical reactions that took place in the
stratosphere. Thanks to the above money flooded into atmospheric
chemistry and five years later we knew of 170 reactions - and also that
SSTs had little effect on ozone. The real threat lay elsewhere.

And compared to the oceanic mixed layer, the stratosphere is simple.

William Hyde

On Thursday, June 1, 2023 at 4:40:27 PM UTC+10, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 11:35:09 PM UTC-6, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>
> > I'm not forgetting "It would be nothing short of disastrous if
> > we were ever to discover a source of cheap, clean, abundant
> > energy." I'm also not forgetting Paul Ehrlich's editoral
> > in the San Francisco Chronicle (I think; one of the Bay Area
> > newspapers, anyway) when it looked like Pons and Fleishmann
> > had really discovered something, that the discovery was a
> > catastrophe, "like giving a machine gun to a retarded child."
> > (His words.)
> >
> > Whatever the energy source, whatever its characteristics,
> > if it's sufficient to power industrial civilization, the
> > core of "the movement" will find or manufacture some reason
> > to oppose it.
> Yes. Of course, though, James Nicoll pointed out one valid
> argument for that kind of reasoning: with exponential growth,
> eventually our energy use would warm the planet directly in
> an unacceptable manner without help from the greenhouse
> effect.

It required an absolutely huge increase in energy consumption though so not something we need to worry about for a long time.
>
> And population growth, and various human activities facilitated
> by abundant energy would, of course, have negative environmental
> effects.

Population growth isn't a huge concern currently
and with the types of generation we're looking at to reduce pollution (and the impact on climate) they can have significant improvements in environmental impact over the current situation (wood burning stoves, charcoal heating etc all have impacts on the environment in terms of air quality and sourcing the fuel)

>
> The bulk of the people in the ecology movement do have an agenda.
>
> One of the parts of that agenda is that they're anti-war,

anybody who's not anti-war is an idiot
Nobody should be pro-war or neutral about it

How best to avoid wars and what to do about them is open to question.

>so they don't
> believe we really need lots and lots of heavy industry to be able
> to defend ourselves from Russia and China and so on. As long as
> they stick to an agenda so obviously out of sync with reality,

coming from the vatgirl evangelist that's a laugh

> of course
> their movement is going to be a non-starter politically.
>
> But that doesn't change the fact that anthropogenic global warming
> is both a scientific fact and a serious menace. If doing things their
> way won't help, we have to find another way.

On 6/1/2023 6:59 PM, Hamish Laws wrote:
> On Thursday, June 1, 2023 at 4:40:27 PM UTC+10, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 11:35:09 PM UTC-6, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>>
>>> I'm not forgetting "It would be nothing short of disastrous if
>>> we were ever to discover a source of cheap, clean, abundant
>>> energy." I'm also not forgetting Paul Ehrlich's editoral
>>> in the San Francisco Chronicle (I think; one of the Bay Area
>>> newspapers, anyway) when it looked like Pons and Fleishmann
>>> had really discovered something, that the discovery was a
>>> catastrophe, "like giving a machine gun to a retarded child."
>>> (His words.)
>>>
>>> Whatever the energy source, whatever its characteristics,
>>> if it's sufficient to power industrial civilization, the
>>> core of "the movement" will find or manufacture some reason
>>> to oppose it.
>> Yes. Of course, though, James Nicoll pointed out one valid
>> argument for that kind of reasoning: with exponential growth,
>> eventually our energy use would warm the planet directly in
>> an unacceptable manner without help from the greenhouse
>> effect.
>
> It required an absolutely huge increase in energy consumption though so not something we need to worry about for a long time.
>>
>> And population growth, and various human activities facilitated
>> by abundant energy would, of course, have negative environmental
>> effects.
>
> Population growth isn't a huge concern currently
> and with the types of generation we're looking at to reduce pollution (and the impact on climate) they can have significant improvements in environmental impact over the current situation (wood burning stoves, charcoal heating etc all have impacts on the environment in terms of air quality and sourcing the fuel)
>
>>
>> The bulk of the people in the ecology movement do have an agenda.
>>
>> One of the parts of that agenda is that they're anti-war,
>
> anybody who's not anti-war is an idiot
> Nobody should be pro-war or neutral about it
>
> How best to avoid wars and what to do about them is open to question.
>
More energy supplies is generally considered one way....

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On Thursday, June 1, 2023 at 3:27:25 PM UTC+10, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <ead0f4c6-9a6e-46f4...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >I think that it's going to be very difficult to sell people on switching to a
> >lifestyle that uses less energy. So it makes sense to switch to carbon-free
> >energy urgently, and thus have *more time* to accomplish the much more
> >difficult component of the task.
> It's going to be an especially hard sell to convince people they need
> to be poor

It's a bullshit argument
We aren't in a situation where we need to reduce energy consumption due to waste heat and, if we ever approach a situation where we do, we should be so energy rich we could synthesise fuel to get to the moon, hollow it out and use it for a lot of the production, or move some asteroids to closer orbits use them
We can improve the efficiency of various tasks (reverse cycle air conditioners for heating, improved building design for thermal efficiency etc) but it's not a "reduce energy usage or die" situation
(Yes, there are legitimate questions of where we should put new generation & transmission but that's also true about coal or gas generators, not to mention coal mines and fracking)

There are also legitimate questions about how we make living better for people in all sorts of areas as well, suburban sprawl vs higher density living, car focused cities versus improved public transport more support for walking and cycling but we don't need answers for them to address carbon emissions

>while the people telling them they need to be poor are
> very conspicuously not-poor. (Thinking about all the glitterati flying
> individually in their private jets to conferences about shutting down
> energy generation for everyone else.)

"Shutting down energy generation" is not the aim of the vast majority of people arguing we need to stop emissions, focusing on that means you ignore the vast majority of discussion which gives vastly more practical approaches to the problem.

And, seeing as the entire air travel industry emits about 2.4% of CO2 emissions, a few people taking private jets to events is completely insignificant in real terms, but it does give the people who want to keep with the status quo something to jabber about while they ignore the actual arguments

Hamish Laws <hamish.laws@gmail.com> writes:
>On Thursday, June 1, 2023 at 4:40:27=E2=80=AFPM UTC+10, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 11:35:09=E2=80=AFPM UTC-6, Mike Van Pelt wr=
>ote:=20
>>=20
>> > I'm not forgetting "It would be nothing short of disastrous if=20
>> > we were ever to discover a source of cheap, clean, abundant=20
>> > energy." I'm also not forgetting Paul Ehrlich's editoral=20
>> > in the San Francisco Chronicle (I think; one of the Bay Area=20
>> > newspapers, anyway) when it looked like Pons and Fleishmann=20
>> > had really discovered something, that the discovery was a=20
>> > catastrophe, "like giving a machine gun to a retarded child."=20
>> > (His words.)=20
>> >=20
>> > Whatever the energy source, whatever its characteristics,=20
>> > if it's sufficient to power industrial civilization, the=20
>> > core of "the movement" will find or manufacture some reason=20
>> > to oppose it.
>> Yes. Of course, though, James Nicoll pointed out one valid=20
>> argument for that kind of reasoning: with exponential growth,=20
>> eventually our energy use would warm the planet directly in=20
>> an unacceptable manner without help from the greenhouse=20
>> effect.=20
>
>It required an absolutely huge increase in energy consumption though so not=
> something we need to worry about for a long time.

300 years or thereabouts if the growth rate of the last century
continues.

>>=20
>> And population growth, and various human activities facilitated=20
>> by abundant energy would, of course, have negative environmental=20
>> effects.=20
>
>Population growth isn't a huge concern currently

Consider if the rest of the world per-capita usage rate matches
same per-capita energy as the USA.... Even without population
growth (which is currently progged to reach 9billion).