Climate Change vs. Conservation

@BrewCityBarfly BEAUTIFUL response. I agree

@BrewCityBarfly I think there are some places that have program for rooftop solar panels. The company pays for the panels & installations and you connect to their electric company selling back what you don’t use. If it’s really that simple it seems like a win-win situation.

@cherokeepatti i am going to look into that. hey are you stockpiling stuff by any chance. i sure am

@akindheart Yes, part of what I am buying at the discount store is that. I find a lot of useful items that I’ve wanted but didn’t want to shell out the $ for full-price. Have been going on $1 days and finding quite a bit, like 40 or more items most times.

@cherokeepatti i have a stockpile of canned goods, paper products, soap, toothpaste and detergent. i look like i am prepared forthe apocalypse

@akindheart it’s surprising the things I am finding at those stores. Sometimes I look on Amazon or other sites and see things I’d like to have…could be health & hygiene or supplements, household goods, even gluten-free items. Then find them a couple days later at those two stores. Not everything of course, but enough to make it worth my while to get up there and shop. Tomorrow it’s supposed to snow 3-6 inches here so I am going to have to stay home. Unless they say in the morning that the snow won’t start falling till afternoon and then I’ll hurry and get up there. I can get everything done and be home by noon.

@BrewCityBarfly Those are valid points. But part of moving towards renewables, like California is with cars, requires that the grid come along with it. As it is now, CA has more electric charging stations than the next three states combined. That's only going to increase because it's an opportunity for the sector. As is the mandate that new single family homes must be be built with solar panels. That's happening. Transitions can't happen over night. But as they roll out then prices to consumers will obviously drop. When the option is to pay more for 'dirty' energy or less for clean energy, that's when it moves quickly.

At best, renewable energies could only supplement our energy production, not replace it; energy demands have grown far beyond what any number of solar & wind farms could ever produce in the best of circumstances (and renewables are location specific, they don't work everywhere)

Nuclear power/SMR's are the only viable alternative to fossil fuels, but even that would come at great expense. Our society is built on oil and coal, any progression will take time; decades, not years

rushed, "stop gap" solutions will only cause more problems in the long run.

@wildbill83 There is free energy in the air waiting to be harvested and used. Tesla’s devices could be used to do that.

@wildbill83 I 100% agree with what you stated. When some people made nuclear a pariah it set us back decades. In some respects I actually blame Al Gore. He is anti-nuclear. I don't know if it was money or what. My state's entire electricity demand, if I recall, can be met by 3 nuclear plants. We shuttered 2 and have 1 left. Nobody wants to go through the regulatory hell to build or modify a plant. So we dial up several more coal or gas plants to replace them.

@BrewCityBarfly Al Gore isn't against nuclear energy. He's against the exorbitant cost of it. Particularly when compared to other methods. So yeah. Your thought about it possibly being about money was accurate.

@Ynotisay Since when? As long as I recall he stated (paraphrasing) that the problem with nuclear is it only came in one size; extra large. Not anymore. If he's changed his opinion, great, however I haven't seen anything indicating he's a proponent.

@BrewCityBarfly Not sure how he could be a proponent if he has very legitimate reasons on why it's not a wise energy source. But here's a little deeper dive from an interview about a year and a half ago.

[i]Regarding radioactive materials, do you think the nuclear waste management can be done in a safe manner?[/i]

[b]Yes, I do, but nuclear energy, in its present form, is the most expensive source of electricity that we have. It is being phased out in most countries. China is still building a few new reactors but most countries are not, mainly because it is so expensive.

There are two other problems. The handling of nuclear waste can probably be done safely but it also adds to the cost. Utility companies are paying money into a fund that is supposed to be used for the careful storage for nuclear waste but it is going to require even more money if there are more reactors built. Another problem is that the experience and knowledge necessary to manage nuclear plants has been hollowed out. The graduate schools that train nuclear engineers have not been training many nuclear engineers because after Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi the acceptability of nuclear energy was damaged in the minds of the public. Germany, for example, cancelled its nuclear plan.[/b]

Makes sense to me. There is no silver bullet. There's been one nuclear plant built in the U.S. in about 25 years. There's a reason for that.

@Ynotisay He doesn't sound like a proponent to me, it's a lot of the same (and sorry for being direct) bullshit that has come out of so many politicians like him for decades. Oh, and I think Europe finally saw the light on this one, much to the chagrin of some. The amount of nuclear waste is a postage stamp in the desert. The cost is because of all the regulations (some necessary) that were put into place by politicians like him to make it almost impossible to build a reactor. Chernobyl was a shot show of incompetence and outdated tech. Fukushima was an anomaly. Politicians have made statements like this so long and I'm sorry, it's why shit stays broken. Tell me how we can make it work, don't just start telling me how it won't.

@BrewCityBarfly You're the only one saying "proponent." And who cares what Al Gore thinks anyway. He's one voice in a sea of voices albeit one with experience. Like I said. There is no silver bullet and there's REASONS why nuclear isn't as viable a form of energy as others. If we don't look at all sides of an issue then our perspective is usually being driven by emotion. And that's fine when we just want to pop off. But it doesn't fly in the real decision making process. About 20% of our power comes from nuclear. Year to year it's actually going up. But that will change. There's other options that are cleaner, less expensive and without the risks that are being advanced more quickly. That's progress. The strong survive.

all of the fear of nuclear power comes from the use of complex large scale supercritical/thermal neutron reactors

sub critical/fast reactors albeit not capable of such large scale production are fairly simple, don't require cooling or control rods, and could easily power most small cities; the entire unit would be smaller than a school bus and could even be buried as they'll run for 10-30 years without maintenance/refueling

it would take a 2,400 acre solar farm to produce the same amount of power as an SMR (not counting some form of energy storage for night hours/times of little to no sunlight

you'd need between 50-100 of the largest commercially available wind turbines for the same power output

Given the constraints and enormous expense of wind & solar, it's sheer madness that the nuclear option is skipped entirely...

Ideally, SMR's could be constructed and buried in close proximity to existing power substations; one one even know they were there. "Renewables" on the other hand take up a lot of space & are quite frankly an eyesore & a blight on the environment they're supposedly "protecting"...

Solar farms are great at roasting birds mid-flight and disrupting air traffic; wind farms generate noise complaints and plummet adjacent property values (they also explode & burn well when subjected to too much wind and the internal braking system fails)

@BrewCityBarfly I am ashamed to admit i voted for Al Gore based on environmental policies. ididn't like what i read about Bush. boy was I ever sorry.