Shut up, Thomas Friedman


Thomas Friedman is one of the many reasons I do not and will not subscribe to the NY Times — they have way too many assholes granted a sinecure to babble their stupid opinions on one of the more prestigious newspapers in the world, and I guess all we can do is make a little effort to reduce their reputation, one reader at a time. So you’ll have to read his latest stupid column via a link to a site that skims off articles from the NYT.

Anyway, he starts off with classic centrist garbage — you know, both sides are wrong and extremist, therefore we ought to pick something in the middle.

On the one hand, liberal greens will tell you that the world is ending — but that we must not use nuclear power, an abundant source of clean energy, to stave it off. On the other hand, conservative greens will tell you that the world is ending, but that we can’t burden people with a carbon tax or a gasoline tax to slow global warming.

On a third hand, suburban greens will tell you that the world is ending, but that they don’t want any windmills, solar farms or high-speed rail lines in their backyards.

On a fourth hand, most of today’s leaders will tell you that the world is ending, so at Glasgow they’ve all decided to go out on a limb and commit their successors’ successor to deliver emissions-free electricity by 2030, 2040 or 2050 — any date that doesn’t require them to ask their citizens to do anything painful today.

He’s right that the Glasgow meetings were relatively ineffective because they were all about compromise, but isn’t that what Friedman wants? Split the difference, find a middle ground, characterize all environmentalists as wackos? He got what he wanted, so he can’t complain that his very own brand is a failure. His own solution is to further empower technocrats and corporations to engineer us out of the hole the technocrats and corporations have dug us into.

His answer is this turd to make it all worse.

In short: we need a few more Greta Thunbergs and a lot more Elon Musks. That is, more risk-taking innovators converting basic science into tools yet to be imagined to protect the planet for a generation yet to be born.

The only reason we need more Greta Thunbergs is because the Elon Musks have been running amuck. He’s not a “risk-taking innovator” — he’s a billionaire who is busy looting the planet and our economy to fuel his ego. He doesn’t do science! He spends money on whatever gives him a good return on his investment; his fantasy of launching people (not himself, obviously, other people) to Mars is flaming anti-environmentalism.

I am not surprised, though, that Thomas Fucking Friedman worships Musk as his Space Jesus.

Comments

  1. imback says

    What we need is an annual tax on wealth in order to raise needed funds to massively invest in combatting climate change. So sure involve Musk by having him fork over a few billion a year.

  2. gijoel says

    Libertarianism is antithetical to survival in space. The ‘Fuck you I’ll do what I want’ isn’t going to cut it if that attitude is going to fuck up the air everyone breaths.

  3. raven says

    conservative greens

    Is an oxymoron that doesn’t even exist.
    The conservative solution to climate change is to deny that it exists and also that while the earth is getting warmer, this is due to natural processes. Claim 2 contradicts claim 1 but they don’t care.

    The whole point is to do nothing because doing something takes effort and costs money.

  4. says

    freidman – what a piece of shit he is.

    We are all smarter than him because his unending support for WMD’s got us here today and we knew it was a lie. A despicable human for sure.

  5. birgerjohansson says

    The late science fiction author Philip Jose Farmer (who among other thrings wrote the World of tiers- and Riverworld series) stated early in the 1970s that looking after the nature of the Earth must have priority over space research.
    He was also groundbreaking by introducing “adult” themes into Science fiction, such as The Lovers, where the girlfriend is a human-mimic organism.

  6. StonedRanger says

    Im a bit confused here. If, as you say, the NYT has “way too many assholes granted a sinecure to babble their stupid opinions on one of the more prestigious newspapers in the world” what makes the NYT so prestigious?

  7. stroppy says

    @8

    The reporting not the opining. And it’s relative; it’s more prestigious than the New York Post for instance. There’s a lot of crap out there.

  8. Akira MacKenzie says

    <blockquoteOn the one hand, liberal greens will tell you that the world is ending — but that we must not use nuclear power, an abundant source of clean energy, to stave it off.

    I’ll agree with him here (and only here). There is no fucking way we’re going to run a high-tech, multi-terawatt civilization on wind farms, solar panels, an other fucking-hippie-tech.

  9. Akira MacKenzie says

    Sorry let’s retry that.

    On the one hand, liberal greens will tell you that the world is ending — but that we must not use nuclear power, an abundant source of clean energy, to stave it off.

    I’ll agree with him here (and only here). There is no fucking way we’re going to run a high-tech, multi-terawatt civilization on wind farms, solar panels, an other fucking-hippie-tech.

  10. Allison says

    StonedRanger @8

    what makes the NYT so prestigious?

    They print what the powers-that-be want people to believe, in a style which panders to the privileged classes’ snobbishness. They spin or falsify or suppress news so that what’s “fit to print” is whatever the bosses want people to believe. So the powers-that-be insist that it is prestigious, and the privileged classes flatter themselves that they only read the elite newspaper. And since they don’t read other sources, they don’t notice how often what the NYT reports is biased or out-and-out false. The NYT prints just enough stuff that could be construed as critical of the status quo that people can think it’s independent.

    From what I’ve seen from the few NYT staffers that I have known, it sounds like it’s kind of an establishment echo-chamber, so the staffers don’t see the spin as false, they see it as the One True Way to see things.

  11. unclefrogy says

    @8
    the reputation accumulated in the last hundred or so years not so much on what they have been doing lately .

  12. beholder says

    Taxing the rich and removing them from positions of global power sounds nice. Unless election season is rolling around, at which point you guys stop making meaningful criticisms of the plutocratic, anti-environmental status quo of your own party, and foreclose any threat of not voting for them, because the opposition is supposedly so much worse.

    It’s been too many replays of that to count at this point. We vote for the lesser evil, and then we wonder why the lesser evil is on the same team as American oligarchs who want to destroy all human life.

  13. bcw bcw says

    I finally had enough and went from “supporting journalism” to getting access without paying for it. It turns out you can get a vacation suspension for up to six months while retaining online access. After six months, you go on vacation again. I’ve done this for six years.

    I’m less angry about their heavy overweighting of rightwing columnists; including pretend Liberals like drunken Maurean Dowd with her hate campaign against any Democrat especially Hillary Clinton; and as “my job is comforting the comfortable David Brooks; than with their supposed news coverage. How many sympathetic articles have they written about MAGA’s in diners and the fraction of a percent vaccine-refusers in hospitals, workplaces, police and government while completely ignoring the majority of people? How many years did we have of the “now Trump turns Presidential” and “Javanka is a moderating influence” and now endless horserace articles about the infrastructure packages without any interest in what is actually in them? Oh yeah, they ran an article today unfairly & inaccurately picking at small pieces of the package while still ignoring the effects of the package itself.

  14. Frederic Bourgault-Christie says

    Isn’t it a spectacular lack of self-awareness to talk about how a meeting at Glasgow didn’t require doing anything hard or making any sacrifices and then to talk vaguely about “innovations” that might solve the problem, as if “innovations” are magically much more difficult than at least some people having to cut their income and consumption levels?

  15. Frederic Bourgault-Christie says

    @11: The energy experts are nowhere near that sure, and nuclear power is no salvation. But it does appeal to technocrats like Friedman and does let people adopt “both-sideism” as a default position. I do agree that nuclear power should be on the table and there is irrational opposition to it, but there’re also real concerns.

  16. John Morales says

    Akira @11:

    There is no fucking way we’re going to run a high-tech, multi-terawatt civilization on wind farms, solar panels, an other fucking-hippie-tech.

    Heh. You sound a bit like Gerrard the Obsessed.

    What I do find most amusing is that modern solar PV and wind farms are much more advanced tech than old-fashioned nuclear tech.

    PS

    The latest World Nuclear Industry Status Report shows that the world’s operational nuclear capacity grew by just 400 MW in 2020, with generation falling by 4%. By contrast, renewables grew by 256 GW and clean energy production rose by 13%.

  17. Akira MacKenzie says

    @18

    More advanced than thorium reactors and fusion? I doubt it.

    I suppose I’m the only one who realizes that the 60s-70s counter-culture was the WORST thing to happen to the Left. The “Old Left” knew to bathe daily and visit a barber/stylist, wore suits, ate meat, kept their recreational drug use private, deny the existence of god snd “spirituality,” and not to make themselves into the clownish objects of ridicule the hippies became. I’d say the only things the “New Left” got right was the 1970s sexual revolution, but that was pre-dated nearly a century earlier by the free love movement, and rejection of Abrahamic sexual mores is a very low bar to cross.

    So please, take your filthy granola-tech back to your shit-covered, poor-addled commune, and let the rest of us power our superior civilization with more powerful split or fused atoms.

  18. GerrardOfTitanServer says

    Was going to stay out of it, but because i think that this could benefit from direct citations and quotes.

    @11: The energy experts are nowhere near that sure,

    What makes an energy expert an “energy expert”? Because they say so? I know what most of the climate scientists say, and it’s pretty direct and unambiguous.

    Quoting leading climate scientist Dr. Ken Caldeira:
    https://youtu.be/KnN328eD-sA?t=121

    There’s really only one technology that I know of that can provide carbon-free power when the sun’s not shining and the wind’s not blowing at the scale that modern civilization requires and that is nuclear power […]

    https://youtu.be/KnN328eD-sA?t=3109

    The goal is not to make a renewable energy system. The goal is to make the most environmentally advantageous system that we can while providing us with affordable power, and I think if – a clear analysis of that will show that nuclear power will be part of that solution.

    Quoting leading climate scientist Dr. Kerry Emanuel:
    https://youtu.be/KnN328eD-sA?t=251

    Let me tell you why I’m here. As Kirsty just told you, I work in the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, and we have a good-fashioned motto in Latin which is “mens et manus” which means “mind and hands”, and we’re very much about solving problems. I’ve worked – all four of us [Dr. Ken Caldeira, Dr. Kerry Emanuel, Dr. James Hansen, Dr. Tom Wigly] have devoted substantial fractions of our professional lives to understanding fundamental physics, chemistry, biology, climate systems, and we [??] do it because we want to understand it. We didn’t have any ulterior baggage there, but that study of the climate system has very strongly led us to the conclusion that we are incurring unacceptable risk for future generations. I think that’s why we’re all here. Solve the problem. Now as Ken properly said, there are a lot of people who see this as an opportunity to advance one agenda or another. Ok. We have to be conscious of that. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But, why are four climate scientists who don’t have strong backgrounds in nuclear physics here talking to you today about nuclear energy? It’s because we’re scientists, and we can do the math. Alright? If we want – if we truly are sincere about solving this problem, unless a miracle occurs, we are going to have to ramp up nuclear energy very fast. That’s the reality. That’s not my ideology. I don’t care whether it’s nuclear, like my friend Kenny said. We don’t care if it’s nuclear, or solar, or hydro. Whatever combination works. The numbers don’t add up unless you put nuclear power in the mix.

    https://youtu.be/KnN328eD-sA?t=1297

    So, Seth, first of all, I very much agree with my colleague [??], 10 to 15 years is about right. To him that sounds like a long time. To me that sounds remarkable. I mean Sweden and France went – this country that we’re in went from almost no nuclear power to 80% electricity in something like 15 years. What else are – What are our other options? We can scale up and solar and wind pretty quickly up to a certain limit, and then we run headlong into the barriers dictated by intermittency.

    https://youtu.be/KnN328eD-sA?t=1956

    I probably differ a little bit from my colleagues in that I don’t think it should be a level playing field. I think we should put much more money into nuclear and stop wasting a lot on covering the Earth in solar panels. We can get to 30%, and then you hit a brick wall. We’ve done the numbers. Have you? You cannot power the world on renewables. You can’t do it. Unless there’s a miracle. Alright? We’ve done the math. So sorry I take an exception to you. You’re very wrong on this. Alright?

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/10/29/top-climate-scientists-warn-governments-of-blatant-anti-nuclear-bias-in-latest-ipcc-climate-report/

    The anti-nuclear bias of this latest IPCC release is rather blatant, and reflects the ideology of the environmental movement. History may record that this was more of an impediment to decarbonization than climate denial.

    Quoting preeminent climate scientist Dr. James Hansen:
    https://youtu.be/KnN328eD-sA?t=2041

    Well, I can point out one or two points. What you find if you advocate – you know frankly. I’ve spoken to many scientists, and by far the majority agree that nuclear needs to be part of the solution. However, when you stand up and say that, there’s an anti-nuclear community which I would characterize as quasi-religious, which just hammers you, and you have to spend a lot of your time trying to deal with that. I’ve even found that, some of the – you know that I’m no longer a government employee, I have to raise the funds to cover my group of four people, and there are a number of foundations – the foundation that had been my most reliable source while I was a government employee – because I liked to speak out – is not part of my government job, but – so I had to prove that I was not using government funds, so when I traveled I had to get non-government funds to pay for that. Well, the foundation that provided the funds now will not give me a dime because they are anti-nuclear, and so there’s a lot of pressure on scientists just to keep their mouth shut, but you know we’re at a point where we better not keep our mouths shut when can see a story which has become very clear, and that is that it’s a mirage to think that all-renewables can provide all of the energy that we need and at the speed we need. China and India are using tremendous amounts of power – almost all coal for their electric plants – and there’s no way that they can power their steel mills and all the other factories that they’re building products for us on solar panels, and they know that. The governments of China and India know that. They want modern, better, safer nuclear technology, and for the West not to help them is immoral because we burned their share of the carbon budget. Now they’re stuck in a – they want to get wealthy. They want to raise people out of poverty. They need energy to do that. You can’t do it without energy, and so if they don’t have an alternative to do that, they’re going to use coal, and we should be helping them to find a clean alternative.

    https://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/jim-hansen-presses-the-climate-case-for-nuclear-energy/
    http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110729_BabyLauren.pdf

    A facile explanation would focus on the ‘merchants of doubt’ who have managed to confuse the public about the reality of human-made climate change. The merchants play a role, to be sure, a sordid one, but they are not the main obstacle to solution of human-made climate change.

    The bigger problem is that people who accept the reality of climate change are not proposing actions that would work.

    […]

    The insightful cynic will note: “Now I understand all the fossil fuel ads with windmills and solar panels – fossil fuel moguls know that renewables are no threat to the fossil fuel business.” The tragedy is that many environmentalists lineup on the side of the fossil fuel industry, advocating renewables as if they, plus energy efficiency, would solve the global climate change matter.

    Can renewable energies provide all of society’s energy needs in the foreseeable future? It is conceivable in a few places, such as New Zealand and Norway. But suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.

    This Easter Bunny fable is the basis of ‘policy’ thinking of many liberal politicians. Yet when such people are elected to the executive branch and must make real world decisions, they end up approving expanded off-shore drilling and allowing continued mountaintop removal, long-wall coal mining, hydro-fracking, etc. – maybe even a tar sands pipeline. Why the inconsistency?

    Because they realize that renewable energies are grossly inadequate for our energy needs now and in the foreseeable future and they have no real plan. They pay homage to the Easter Bunny fantasy, because it is the easy thing to do in politics. They are reluctant to explain what is actually needed to phase out our need for fossil fuels. Reluctance to be honest might seem strange, given that what is needed to solve the problem actually makes sense and is not harmful to most people. I will offer a possible explanation for their actions below.

  19. Lofty says

    Akira MacKenzie @19, and there I was thinking you were one of the reasonable ones. Where I live solar and wind provide over 60% of the electrical energy used by the entire state and that percentage is climbing every year. Hardly any hippy communes either, just engineers and businesses doing their sums.

  20. John Morales says

    Akira:

    More advanced than thorium reactors and fusion? I doubt it.

    Your doubt is duly noted.

    I suppose I’m the only one who realizes that the 60s-70s counter-culture was the WORST thing to happen to the Left.

    You USAnians amuse me greatly.

    So please, take your filthy granola-tech back to your shit-covered, poor-addled commune, and let the rest of us power our superior civilization with more powerful split or fused atoms.

    <snicker>

    You imagine boiling water to drive turbines is more technologically advanced than photovoltaics?

    (Lemme guess, you think internal combustion engines are more advanced than electric motors)

    BTW, how’s it working in the land of the free, the capitalist exemplar of the world, where profit is king?
    <clickety-click>
    https://ieefa.org/solar-wind-replacing-nuclear-according-to-2021-u-s-power-plans/

    Overall, 63,667 MW of new resources are projected to come into service, while 10,693 MW are set to be retired, leaving a net gain of 52,974 MW. More than three-quarters of the new capacity is from solar and wind, with slightly more solar than wind, while about half of the capacity to be retired comes from three nuclear plants.

    Huh.

    BTW, I exported more than 7 MWh to the grid, last year. Got solar panels on my roof. ;)

    (No electricity bill, I’m in credit)

  21. John Morales says

    Gerrard, you also amuse me. Thing is, grid storage, smart grids, demand management etc are things. All going gangbusters, both in R&D and deployment.

    You’re stuck in this mid C20 mindset, so you won’t get it.

    (The buggy-whip mindset)

  22. GerrardOfTitanServer says

    John
    Your argument “BTW, I exported more than 7 MWh to the grid, last year. Got solar panels on my roof. ;) / (No electricity bill, I’m in credit)” is fallacious. It pretends that the grid is a giant free battery. As soon as I call you on it, you backpeddle to a slightly more defensible position. It’s dishonest. You should know better by now. But you don’t really care about what’s true – because if you did, you wouldn’t continue to make such flagrantly dishonest arguments.

    PS:
    Smart grids can’t conjure electricity from nothing. Won’t help in the week in winter in Europe with near zero solar and wind, which is a thing that happens.

    Batteries are often a combination of too expensive and requiring scarce resources. Lithium ion, for example, is both too expensive, and there’s not enough feasibly mineable lithium worldwide for even 1 day of grid storage. We need a miracle breakthrough for solar and wind, and by extension all renewables, to work, and I don’t think that miracle is coming. I’ll side with the scientists who can do the math, and my own ability to do the math, instead of a dishonest fool like you.

  23. GerrardOfTitanServer says

    John,
    You also cited some clearly dishonest rhetoric about capacities – directly comparing solar and wind nameplate capacity vs nuclear capacity. You should know this is dishonest. Just for starters, wind and solar often have real capacity factors around 20% and 30%, and nuclear is around 90%. Doesn’t look so impressive then, does it? It’s all these little things that you do which are dishonest, and it’s infuriating.

  24. John Morales says

    Gerrard:

    Your argument “BTW, I exported more than 7 MWh to the grid, last year. Got solar panels on my roof. ;) / (No electricity bill, I’m in credit)” is fallacious. It pretends that the grid is a giant free battery.

    In your imagination. I get 12c per KWh from my provider, but I pay 15-24c/KWh depending on time of day. They profit from it, my power gets onsold to other users who aren’t fortunate enough to be able to afford solar panels. Also, remember I still power my own home; for example, re demand management: I have a timer on my system that runs my electric hot water system (9:30am-3:30pm) when it’s sunniest. Which is when I use my dishwasher, my clotheswasher, when I run my AC etc. None of this off-peak (night) tariff stuff of days of yore.
    Thing is, overall, I end up sending a shitload more out than I suck in.
    I do live in a sunny place, mind you :) And so do a lot of other people.

    As soon as I call you on it, you backpeddle [sic] to a slightly more defensible position.

    In your dreams. I’m telling you straight. Facts.
    You do get that my provider still profits, right? $1/day supply charge, for example.

    But you don’t really care about what’s true – because if you did, you wouldn’t continue to make such flagrantly dishonest arguments.

    Again, facts.

    Smart grids can’t conjure electricity from nothing.

    No, but they can manage generation and demand and distribute it, well… smartly.

    Won’t help in the week in winter in Europe with near zero solar and wind, which is a thing that happens.

    Well, it helps here, where I live.

    (As for Europe, well… <clickety-click>
    Renewables met 97% of Scotland’s electricity demand in 2020)

    Batteries are often a combination of too expensive and requiring scarce resources.

    There are heaps of types, and not just batteries.

    Again (you keep ignoring this) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage#Forms

    We need a miracle breakthrough for solar and wind, and by extension all renewables, to work, and I don’t think that miracle is coming.

    You only say that because you’re clueless, and mired in mid C20 thinking.

    I’ll side with the scientists who can do the math, and my own ability to do the math, instead of a dishonest fool like you.

    I’ll side with reality.

    (Hey, what’s your power bill?)

  25. John Morales says

    Gerrard, did you imagine that because I’ve departed Marcus’ blog, I would ignore your wankings?

    You also cited some clearly dishonest rhetoric about capacities – directly comparing solar and wind nameplate capacity vs nuclear capacity. You should know this is dishonest. Just for starters, wind and solar often have real capacity factors around 20% and 30%, and nuclear is around 90%. Doesn’t look so impressive then, does it?

    And yet, that’s where the money is being spent by businesses who desire to make $$$, instead of nuclear. Worldwide.

    (Apparently, they value profit more than being impressed)

    It’s all these little things that you do which are dishonest, and it’s infuriating.

    Says the guy that seriously argued with me that, even were renewables utterly free (no cost whatsoever for however much one wanted), they’d still be useless and worthless.

    Right.

  26. GerrardOfTitanServer says

    Says the guy that seriously argued with me that, even were renewables utterly free (no cost whatsoever for however much one wanted), they’d still be useless and worthless.

    You could at least have the integrity to properly quote me dipshit. I said that regarding solar and wind. I also said that I like hydro and that hydro is generally good. Conflating all renewables is ignorant, and pretending that I do is also dishonest.

  27. John Morales says

    You could at least have the integrity to properly quote me dipshit. I said that regarding solar and wind.

    Ahem. Are not solar and wind “renewables”?

    But sure, just for you: “Says the guy that seriously argued with me that, even were solar and wind utterly free (no cost whatsoever for however much one wanted), they’d still be useless and worthless.”

    There you go.

  28. GerrardOfTitanServer says

    Are you really saying that the following are remotely equivalent?

    1- Says the guy that seriously argued with me that, even were renewables utterly free (no cost whatsoever for however much one wanted), they’d still be useless and worthless.

    2- Says the guy that seriously argued with me that, even were solar and wind utterly free (no cost whatsoever for however much one wanted), they’d still be useless and worthless.

    Go fuck yourself. Fucking troll.

  29. John Morales says

    Heh. Sure, not all renewables are wind or solar (though what mechanisms do you imagine enable the hydropower dams?). Look up the hydrologic cycle, if you care to.

    Anyway, point being, once one has electrical power one can transform/store it in any number of ways.
    Yes, I know you imagine it’s not doable (despite my various adductions over time, which I note did not include hot rocks, for example), and I know you imagine hydrogen or higher substances can’t be generated from renewable power. But that’s just you, Gerrard.

    (And possibly Akira, though I sense a strategic withdrawal from them)

    Go fuck yourself. Fucking troll.

    Your piteous whining is music to my ears. Can’t argue my facts, so all you have is bluster.

    (There, there!)

  30. tuatara says

    Quoting leading climate scientist Dr. Ken Caldeira:

    https://youtu.be/KnN328eD-sA?t=3109

    The goal is not to make a renewable energy system. The goal is to make the most environmentally advantageous system that we can while providing us with affordable power, and I think if – a clear analysis of that will show that nuclear power will be part of that solution.

    Emphasis mine.

    AND

    Quoting leading climate scientist Dr. Kerry Emanuel:

    https://youtu.be/KnN328eD-sA?t=251

    I don’t care whether it’s nuclear, like my friend Kenny said. We don’t care if it’s nuclear, or solar, or hydro. Whatever combination works.

    No emphasis needed. Says it all right there.

    Ooooh, AND…

    Quoting preeminent climate scientist Dr. James Hansen:

    https://youtu.be/KnN328eD-sA?t=2041

    Well, I can point out one or two points. What you find if you advocate – you know frankly. I’ve spoken to many scientists, and by far the majority agree that nuclear needs to be part of the solution.

    Again. No emphasis needed.

    I don’t see where they say that solar and wind are useless and the only solution is nuclear alone. How about you, John Morales? Did I miss something?

  31. John Morales says

    tuatara,

    How about you, John Morales? Did I miss something?

    Not really. Though I note that many of those links Gerrard adduces from his stash are often quite old — I’ve seen some over a decade old. Cost and performance curves for renewables solar and wind and storage are rather impressive over that period.

    (Kinda embarrassing when those articles refer to, say, solar at half the power for three times the cost, for example)

    And FWIW, I’ve made it quite clear that I don’t have any problem whatsoever with nuclear deployment (subject to sensible safety and regulatory regimes), but rather with the attitude that the goal can’t possibly be met with renewables. Of any sort :)

  32. tuatara says

    Jonh Morales.

    It may not appear so but I also agree that appropriate nuclear deployment will be helpful.

    What riles me is the attitude that nuclear is the only solution and renewables are useless.

    While citing climate scientists is all well and good one cannot cite the nameless engineers that are making the SA power network here work on wind and solar alone for large parts of the day, exporting renewable power to neighbouring VIC. This has got to be assisting in the immediate reduction of CO2 emmissions that we all so desperately need to see.

    It has to be better than doing nothing while we wait for the mythical SMRs and other theoretical reactors to arrive.

  33. Akira MacKenzie says

    EDIT @ 19 (damn autocorrect and seething anger):

    …to your shit-covered, pot-and-LSD–addled commune,

  34. says

    F00k right off and die, Gerrard, your hypocrisy, dishonesty and obvious double-standards have already been exposed and debunked on stderr’s “Argument Clinic” post.

  35. KG says

    More advanced than thorium reactors and fusion? – Akira MacKenzie@19

    I doubt whether even GerrardOfConspiracyTheories in his latest wall-of-text (which, since he routinely spouts the most ridiculous conspiratorial garbage, I’m not going to bother reading) said anything quite so fucking stupid as that. Thorium reactors, despite numerous pilot projects, have never managed to displace or even seriously rival their uranium-using counterparts There are reasons for that. As for fusion, “It’s the power of the future… and always will be!” It’s at best decades away from actual power production, and may well never get there. For one thing, it requires tritium, and the only feasible source of tritium is bombarding lithium with neutrons, but it’s far from clear this is actually workable. But of course we already use fusion power, since solar, wind, hydro and wave power are all generated by the fucking great fusion reactor experts call “the sun”.

  36. stroppy says

    Well Akira, you’ve intentionally blown the dog whistles winding up GOTS to come and derail the thread. Way to troll!

  37. says

    I doubt whether even GerrardOfConspiracyTheories … said anything quite so fucking stupid as that.

    Well, he has repeatedly blamed “greens” for practically ALL of our present-day environmental problems. And he claims to be a supporter of nuclear power, while spewing absolutely unhinged hatred toward others who also support nuclear power, simply because they don’t support it EXCLUSIVELY. So don’t underestimate his stupidity.

  38. unclefrogy says

    at the risk of sounding like one of those “pot and LSD addled hippies” so disparaged by the “expert” above I have to start at the beginning.
    The power needs now and projected are for the “modern world” as it is constituted now. Our modern world is based primarily on profit and consumption fueled by continuous growth. We ship vast amounts of commodities and cargo across all the oceans of the world to every possible port in search of profit, chasing raw material, cheap labor and high prices. Most of the finished goods, the products that end in the consumer’s hands are designed with as short a usable life span as the market will accept. Little of it can be repaired most ends in land fills or incinerators or dumped into the sea. A small percentage gets recycled. The whole world economy is based on the consumer market and economic growth. There is no way to sustain perpetual growth the very idea is a delusion. So the answer is bigger and “better” power supply, a bigger and better markets more finished goods filling more land fills all existing on a very finite planet that does not care a thing about any of our desires. We need to expand to exploit the stars before we devour our home world into a vast industrial dream of power and glory.
    one of the answers to our power needs may be in imagining, in reevaluating what we are doing and why and figure out a more realistic way to order our lives in the world we have and how its systems really work. To debate and struggle how to maintain our modern world the way it is today is just to put off the disastrous collapse of the unsustainable and make it much more difficult to make any kind of desirable recovery after the collapse which may be abrupt or just as likely slow, prolonged and agonizing .

  39. KG says

    Raging Bee@43,
    Oh, I don’t! I guess I shouldn’t really have said that without reading his latest screed.

  40. says

    tuatara @34: So even the people GerrardofTitanicStupidity keeps on citing as the eminent scientists who agree with him…don’t really agree with his policy demands? Thanks, that just shows I underestimated GoTS’s blatant dishonesty and willful stupidity. What a bad old joke.