Democrat 2020

[Don Corleone]

What do you think of the Green New Deal as a rhetorical concept?

To be honest, with my travel to China this past week, I haven't had as much time to go through it as I would have liked. From what I have read and heard, the Green New Deal sounds like a good starting point, but insufficient in and of itself.

I'm going to wind up sounding like a shill for Forbes, but to me, any plan to reduce CO2 emissions and other airborne pollutants that relies exclusively on renewables, and ignores nuclear, is more of a marketing pitch for renewables than it is an environmental policy. Yes, we should absolutely show strong preference towards renewables (which do not come at zero environmental cost either).

But I don't think you can meet 21st century earth's power needs on renenwables alone. Haven't done the order of magnitude calculations on latest efficiencies in wind turbine and solar cell technologies though.

[CrossLOPER]

Forbes...nuclear

The guy who shills nuclear on forbes is a dude who got bullied by other environmentalists because he wants a "pro-business infinite growth" approach to environmentalism, which is impossible. He wants nuclear because it provides "cheap, clean" energy, sort of like clean coal. One of his reasons for speaking against wind-power was because it kills birds. This is true, but it is hilarious because

a. The amount of birds killed by turbines is difficult to calculate, but is generally considered minimal compared to something like HAVING WINDOWS.

b. Wind power kills about half as many birds as.... nuclear power.

He is basically classified among the same groups like Spencer's alt-right, who have gloriously ingenious yet simple solutions to complex problems that only they are willing to talk about because the leftist media won't.

Do not be deceived. Read his books. The sources he cites are at about the level of credibility of climate4u.org.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The guy who shills nuclear on forbes is a dude who got bullied by other environmentalists because he wants a "pro-business infinite growth" approach to environmentalism, which is impossible. He wants nuclear because it provides "cheap, clean" energy, sort of like clean coal. One of his reasons for speaking against wind-power was because it kills birds. This is true, but it is hilarious because

a. The amount of birds killed by turbines is difficult to calculate, but is generally considered minimal compared to something like HAVING WINDOWS.

b. Wind power kills about half as many birds as.... nuclear power.

He is basically classified among the same groups like Spencer's alt-right, who have gloriously ingenious yet simple solutions to complex problems that only they are willing to talk about because the leftist media won't.

Do not be deceived. Read his books. The sources he cites are at about the level of credibility of climate4u.org.

Fission power is not a panacea. While its environmental impact is less than coal or oil based electricity generation, it is not a zero by any means. But I think Don C has a valid point. Renewables are simply NOT at the levels of efficiency needed for a world that is using more and more electricity by the day. Without judicious use of fission power -- at least until renewables can increase efficiency enough and/or we can get fusion power to reach practical use levels -- it is hard to see us setting aside enough of the fossil fuels used for electricity to engender the emission reduction sought by climate change specialists.

And any solution which says 'just use less power' is (despite the good intentions) a non-starter.

[Montmorency]

I haven't familiarized myself with the nuclear issue in years (is Thorium/U-233 still a panacea?), but I remember the following dilemma:

The movement to begin transforming the material basis of our civilization, let alone fundamental economic and social relations, is a marked one. If we would like to rule out nuclear in all circumstances, where is the point that the allegedly high risk threshold is overcome? What if without any incorporation of nuclear power the climate program (e.g. Green New Deal) becomes unacceptably costly, complex, or else watered down?

The crucial practical condition is that any reliance on nuclear must be priced-in long-term, because relative to a 2030 deadline, any nuclear project entering initial development today would optimistically come online well after #timesup. Any new projects proposed in the near future are understood to represent operation to at least the end of the century. However, if it appears we can't meet the most ambitious 2030 benchmarks, and we almost certainly won't, clearly the intensifying maelstrom of climate change will reduce the threshold for any number of measures more or less desperate or compromising. Including nuclear for almost any valuation of the severity of the risks.

Maybe we can estimate today a power infrastructure that excludes nuclear just fine. Maybe as circumstances develop, new factors are identified that change our calculations. We're talking about an ongoing total reform for the rest of our working lives. (Conveniently), I feel like remaining agnostic about the future role of, as distinct from the level of sanguinity around, nuclear (until gnostic).

And any solution which says 'just use less power' is (despite the good intentions) a non-starter.

As in Germany, market-based pricing too can induce 'rationing' and consumer/business efficiency. Non-starter nothing, as far as I can see it this needs to be a particular area of emphasis, at least for now in the planning phase - or else the rest can't be accomplished. The fear you express here is presumptively either or both of higher residential power bills and decreased investment on the margins and disincentivization of energy-intensive commercial/industrial activity - with final impact on individuals. But to say individuals can't reduce or learn to modulate their consumption is nothing less than to say we must prop up the fossil fuel regime indefinitely. The economy must be able to adjust to scarcer/costlier power over time, and (largely indirectly) this entails curtailed individual consumption. Even nuclear represents only a potential of a return to abundance practices for a future generation. Figuring out the politics is a priority but as the process, not the goal.

India and China given current usage levels and state control over the energy and power sectors would theoretically have an easier time with this than Americans accustomed to profligacy, but we have to lead the way and develop appropriate incentives for them alleviating their fundamental strategic orientation around internal stability. According to Wiki, nuclear power is expanding in India and China, but currently supplies only ~3% of their electricity - and nuclear really isn't Green for the developing world, is it? To be fully successful a US Green New Deal needs to contribute to a new transnational legal, economic, and technological architecture...


@SF

The only thing stopping us in the end is the will to actually do it.

That's the bottom line in anything that is theoretically physically possible. We could splinter the whole planet or drive it into the Sun if we really committed to it.

General note about self-styled "pragmatism":

Policy proposals that came out of these movements were specific, detailed and practical. They didn’t demand we reshape all of American society. They imagined a world mostly like our current one, but cleaner. And they’ve largely failed.
[...]
And if bipartisan, practical, detail-oriented climate solutions aren’t working, are they really practical?
[...]
So can we address climate change while keeping things mostly business-as-usual? Or must we instead make drastic changes to the economy and the government? Maybe the answer is just “yes” … as in, “Sure, whatever it takes to make sure something gets done.”

[Husar]

That's the bottom line in anything that is theoretically physically possible. We could splinter the whole planet or drive it into the Sun if we really committed to it.

Absolutely, I said that because Don Corleone appeared to think that it was physically impossible and the space on earth might not be enough, which is apparently very far away from the physical reality that we only need a tiny fraction of the space available on the planet.
And while we're at it, at the moment we seem really committed to cooking our planet without driving it into the sun, you're more correct than you think perhaps.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Absolutely, I said that because Don Corleone appeared to think that it was physically impossible and the space on earth might not be enough, which is apparently very far away from the physical reality that we only need a tiny fraction of the space available on the planet.
And while we're at it, at the moment we seem really committed to cooking our planet without driving it into the sun, you're more correct than you think perhaps.

Pity we can't do a beanstalk. Get up above the atmosphere and solar panel efficiencies soar. Solar is the best long-term answer, even terrestrial. I'd be happy with a shift away from fossil-fuels towards fission, short term, to provide the needed power while solar tech is ramped up in efficiency.

[CrossLOPER]

And any solution which says 'just use less power' is (despite the good intentions) a non-starter.

Here is the deal: use less, find a magical powersource and deploy it in the next five years, or die.

[Montmorency]

Here is the deal: use less, find a magical powersource and deploy it in the next five years, or die.

It's a sliding scale EDIT: <snip unproductive>

[CrossLOPER]

It's a sliding scale EDIT: <snip unproductive>

Yes, and it goes off into a pit called calamity.

Look, most people probably use more than they need to. They leave their xboxes on all day, they drive half a mile up the road to get to where they need to be, they buy cars that do way more than they need to get through 99.999999% of their daily lives, and they eat inefficiently. You don't need to be perfect and vegan and live in a converted schoolbus in the Appalachian Mountains, just cut down a bit.

[Beskar]

For all that talk of Energy...

[Montmorency]

Pity we can't do a beanstalk. Get up above the atmosphere and solar panel efficiencies soar. Solar is the best long-term answer, even terrestrial. I'd be happy with a shift away from fossil-fuels towards fission, short term, to provide the needed power while solar tech is ramped up in efficiency.

I raised the hard physical constraint, a reduction of which through massive spending and will is itself subject to sharply-diminishing returns, on the lead time of any new nuclear project, big or small.

good analogy for the climate change challenge has been advanced: the Alien Invasion. The classic trope calling for humanity to put aside its petty disputes and advantage-jockeying, and actualize the absolute commons.

Astrophysicists say the fleet will be in orbit in as little as a decade, though the full brunt of their military might - itself little understood though surely considerable - will require time to produce atmospheric adaptation for their craft, at first negating their overwhelming advantage. Or maybe they're just cautious, or handicap themselves because they like a challenge, whatever. Building a world military alliance to meet the threat is going to be, like, the hardest thing ever. From the perspective of nuclear detractors, someone here proposes, 'What if we engineer a physiologically-enhanced clone army to be the spearhead against the Xenos ground force?'

In terms of hard physical constraints on time to fruition, financial costs and implementation challenges, requisite research advancements TBD, ethical quandaries, relevance/integration into grand strategy, etc., the clone army proposal against an alien invasion is similar to a 'New Manhattan Project' (though as usual avoid trying to nitpick the deep context of the analogy, say GMOs with legacy nuclear tech; it's orthogonal to the point).

Yes, and it goes off into a pit called calamity.

Look, most people probably use more than they need to. They leave their xboxes on all day, they drive half a mile up the road to get to where they need to be, they buy cars that do way more than they need to get through 99.999999% of their daily lives, and they eat inefficiently. You don't need to be perfect and vegan and live in a converted schoolbus in the Appalachian Mountains, just cut down a bit.

Maybe I snipped too much in the edit. What I was saying was, it's not a dichotomy between "live or die", it's a sliding scale of human devastation. Which is of course concentrated on the poorest and brownest. The harsh part is, not all can be saved (c.f. "triage"), and if not all can be saved, you can expect American politicians of any stripe will eventually prioritize in a way that cuts the poorest and brownest loosest.


Also, Sanders formally declared

[Tuuvi]

To be honest, with my travel to China this past week, I haven't had as much time to go through it as I would have liked. From what I have read and heard, the Green New Deal sounds like a good starting point, but insufficient in and of itself.

I'm going to wind up sounding like a shill for Forbes, but to me, any plan to reduce CO2 emissions and other airborne pollutants that relies exclusively on renewables, and ignores nuclear, is more of a marketing pitch for renewables than it is an environmental policy. Yes, we should absolutely show strong preference towards renewables (which do not come at zero environmental cost either).

But I don't think you can meet 21st century earth's power needs on renenwables alone. Haven't done the order of magnitude calculations on latest efficiencies in wind turbine and solar cell technologies though.

After what happened at Fukushima and Chernobyl I'm extremely skeptical of nuclear power. It may be safe 99% of the time but when something goes wrong the effects are too catastrophic for nuclear power to be worth the risk, in my opinion.

If renewables aren't capable of meeting our current energy needs than I think that means we will have to cut back on consumption which will require a drastic reconfiguration of our economic system. I'm partial to the eco-socialist view that Capitalism is extremely wasteful and it's demand for never-ending economic growth isn't compatible with sound environmental practice.

[Husar]

But I don't think you can meet 21st century earth's power needs on renenwables alone. Haven't done the order of magnitude calculations on latest efficiencies in wind turbine and solar cell technologies though.

I'f I remember correctly, you could power the entire US with solar plants in a fraction of the Nevada desert and Europe from the Sahara desert.

https://www.inverse.com/article/3423...-power-the-usa

Solar panels in the sense of ones that produce energy directly, aren't even the best method. If you just use mirrors to heat oil in pipes and then use that heat to generate energy, you can also store some of the heat in sand tanks for use at night, without requiring lots of batteries.
For europe, there was/is the idea of Desertec https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec, this also includes a map for how much space you need to supply the world, Europe, etc (in 2005, but there is plenty of space for growth). The biggest issue appears to be finance because capitalists probably don't expect too many returns from energy that is basically available for free in the long term or just shy away from the huge investment in the beginning if they already have plenty of profitable power plants...

The idea to power Europe from the Sahara desert already existed before WW1, but was shafted during the war, when oil became the fuel of choice due to convenience in wartime...

The only thing stopping us in the end is the will to actually do it.

[Tuuvi]

I'f I remember correctly, you could power the entire US with solar plants in a fraction of the Nevada desert and Europe from the Sahara desert.

https://www.inverse.com/article/3423...-power-the-usa

Solar panels in the sense of ones that produce energy directly, aren't even the best method. If you just use mirrors to heat oil in pipes and then use that heat to generate energy, you can also store some of the heat in sand tanks for use at night, without requiring lots of batteries.
For europe, there was/is the idea of Desertec https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec, this also includes a map for how much space you need to supply the world, Europe, etc (in 2005, but there is plenty of space for growth). The biggest issue appears to be finance because capitalists probably don't expect too many returns from energy that is basically available for free in the long term or just shy away from the huge investment in the beginning if they already have plenty of profitable power plants...

The idea to power Europe from the Sahara desert already existed before WW1, but was shafted during the war, when oil became the fuel of choice due to convenience in wartime...

The only thing stopping us in the end is the will to actually do it.

One problem with solar and other renewable energy sources is that they require rare earth metals to manufacture, and the mining and extraction of these metals is itself environmentally destructive and energy intensive. Then you have to factor in the manufacturing and shipping of the panels themselves which also uses a great deal of energy. Solar panels also only last 30 years or so before they have to be replaced, which means this process has to be repeated over and over again. Renewable energy technology as it currently exists just isn't enough to fully meet our energy demands.

I listened to a podcast yesterday that lays out the deficiencies of renewable energy sources that I thought was interesting:
https://ashesashes.org/blog/episode-...wable-problems

[Husar]

One problem with solar and other renewable energy sources is that they require rare earth metals to manufacture, and the mining and extraction of these metals is itself environmentally destructive and energy intensive. Then you have to factor in the manufacturing and shipping of the panels themselves which also uses a great deal of energy. Solar panels also only last 30 years or so before they have to be replaced, which means this process has to be repeated over and over again. Renewable energy technology as it currently exists just isn't enough to fully meet our energy demands.

I listened to a podcast yesterday that lays out the deficiencies of renewable energy sources that I thought was interesting:
https://ashesashes.org/blog/episode-...wable-problems

Well, well, well. What do we have here? Someone smearing all over MY idea (just kidding!).

Actually no, if you look at the Wikipedia article that I linked for Desertec, you might note that one of the maps further down shows a lot of power plants in the Sahara desert called "Concentrating Solar Power". These are not your standard photovoltaic panels with rare earth metals. They are far more...simple... They're basically just concave mirrors that concentrate the light onto a pipe with a fluid, usually some kind of oil. The heat in the oil is then used to generate electricity or it can be stored for use at night. Apparently this is one of the most often overlooked solar technologies that comes with few if any drawbacks when deployed in a sunny desert. It's probably not very useful when you deploy it in the nebulous, rainy UK, but nobody is suggesting that either.
https://cleantechnica.com/2013/06/14...aves-humanity/

When environmental and economic benefits are added, CSP’s superiority over fossil fuels and other renewables really come into focus. CAP notes that CSP plant components are largely sourced from common materials like steel and glass, unlike solar PV panels, which depend upon rare earths and volatile global supply chains.

[Montmorency]

Former Clinton Treasury official/"neoliberal shill" now in favor of leftward Democratic realignment

“Barack Obama rolls into office with Mitt Romney’s health care policy, with John McCain’s climate policy, with Bill Clinton’s tax policy, and George H.W. Bush’s foreign policy,” DeLong notes. “And did George H.W. Bush, did Mitt Romney, did John McCain say a single good word about anything Barack Obama ever did over the course of eight solid years? No, they fucking did not.”

We were certainly wrong, 100 percent, on the politics.

Barack Obama rolls into office with Mitt Romney’s health care policy, with John McCain’s climate policy, with Bill Clinton’s tax policy, and George H.W. Bush’s foreign policy. He’s all these things not because the technocrats in his administration think they’re the best possible policies, but because [White House adviser] David Axelrod and company say they poll well.

And [Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel and company say we’ve got to build bridges to the Republicans. We’ve got to let Republicans amend cap and trade up the wazoo, we’ve got to let Republicans amend the [Affordable Care Act] up the wazoo before it comes up to a final vote, we’ve got to tread very lightly with finance on Dodd-Frank, we have to do a very premature pivot away from recession recovery to “entitlement reform.”

A bunch of policies that depended on there being a political-economic consensus to support them, as part of a broad agreement about America’s direction, are a lot worse as policies if that political-economic underpinning is not there. There also are a bunch of lessons about how policies that we thought are going to be very effective are rather less effective.

That’s the political level and on the policy level. We tried to do health reform the Republicans’ way ,and what’s now clear with a Republican Supreme Court and with a lot of Republican governors, any attempt to do it the Republicans’ way is going to get shredded. We tried to do climate policy the Republicans’ way, and got nowhere.

Until something non-rubble-ish is built in the Republican center, what might be good incremental policies just cannot be successfully implemented in an America as we know it today. We need Medicare-for-all, funded by a carbon tax, with a whole bunch of UBI rebates for the poor and public investment in green technologies.

That’s the best policy given the political-economic context. If the political-economic context were different — well, I’m fundamentally a neoliberal shill. It is very nice to use market means to social democratic ends when they are more effective, and they often are.

I’d say we learned more about the world.

I could be confident in 2005 that [recession] stabilization should be the responsibility of the Federal Reserve. That you look at something like laser-eye surgery or rapid technological progress in hearing aids, you can kind of think that keeping a market in the most innovative parts of health care would be a good thing. So something like an insurance-plus-exchange system would be a good thing to have in America as a whole.

It’s much harder to believe in those things now. That’s one part of it. The world appears to be more like what lefties thought it was than what I thought it was for the last 10 or 15 years.

Loyal opposition