Comments on: Clean energy or renewable energy? The label matters!

By: Marginalizing the “strict-father” camp - FueladdictsFueladdicts

Marginalizing the “strict-father” camp - FueladdictsFueladdicts — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 16:19:43 +0000

[…] pitfall of Lakoff’s suggestions, which his colleague Elisabeth Wehling fell into, is that everyone might drop to the Republican level by playing their framing game. If we are not […]

By: Selling the energy transition based on values - FueladdictsFueladdicts

Selling the energy transition based on values - FueladdictsFueladdicts — Mon, 13 Feb 2017 14:45:34 +0000

[…] a recent post, Craig Morris took a critical look at US linguist’s recommendations for “framing” […]

By: Hans

Hans — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 12:51:40 +0000

Rapeseed fuels are indeed a dead-end technology. The main reasons these are supported are an agricultural lobby and because it is a lazy solution: you can use the existing infrastructure, and only change the fuel. The same is true for Maize/Corn for electricity.

Chernobyl is not the wildlife h(e)aven you think it to be:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6946210.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7949314.stm
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/forests-around-chernobyl-arent-decaying-properly-180950075/
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/chernobyls-bugs-art-and-science-life-after-nuclear-fallout-180951231

By: Hans

Hans — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 12:22:17 +0000

At the moment Uranium extraction from seawater is still science fiction. A bit early to bet on it. Even though there may be quite a lot uranium in the sea, you are still consuming it. This does not fit the definition of renewable.

Nobody is saying Britain should be completely powered by geothermal. You are attacking a strawman.

By: RRMeyer

RRMeyer — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 01:39:40 +0000

In reply to James Wimberley.

Nuclear power from breeder reactors powered by ocean extracted uranium clearly is renewable. It is also sustainable for as long as the earth exists.
http://large.stanford.edu/publications/coal/references/docs/pad11983cohen.pdf
Geothermal performed renewably has a very low energy density. 5 times lower than UK demand if the entire heat rising up from under the UK was captured.
https://www.withouthotair.com/c16/page_98.shtml

By: RRMeyer

RRMeyer — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 01:07:08 +0000

The other renewable energy in the rhs picture shows how dangerously misleading the renewable label is. Energy crops (rapeseed) as far as the eye can see. The chernobyl exclusion zone is much healthier for wildlife than this pesticide-soaked monoculture wasteland.
But it is renewable. Hooray! No matter that the EROEI is only between 2 and 3, meaning that nearly half the energy content of the rapeseed oil is used to feed this process. No matter that we life on a finite planet and that farming for food is already one of the biggest strains we put on the environment.
No, because of the irrational green aversion of nuclear power, we massively increase the farming problem for trifling amounts of energy.

By: RRMeyer

RRMeyer — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 00:49:27 +0000

For an interesting correlation with the “books about solar in the US” chart, look at this:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/01/daily-chart-22
Just as nuclear power was taking off, people were more and more talking about solar. How very useful for the fossil fuel industry, as solar only started producing meaningful amounts of energy 30-40 years later. The fossil fuel moguls were extremely apt at shaping the puplic debate, using just the framing techniques that Craig illustrated.
Jimmy Carter is a case in point. He talked about the dangers of nuclear and installed solar panels on the White House. He also promised the coal industry a golden future with much increased production.
Anybody with a real concern about the state of the climate should look at the economist chart again, and ponder what opportunities were missed, how this happened, and, above all: Cui bono?

By: RRMeyer

RRMeyer — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 00:38:12 +0000

In reply to RRMeyer. Correction: German wind output 2015 was only 79TWh, I used the inflated data posted by AEGB and only corrected 6 months later. As the picture shows one reactor and 2 cooling towers, maybe we should compare with 4000 wind turbines? Also, a fleet of nuclear reactors gives you a high amount of security of supply which a fleet of wind turbines, even combined with solar, manifestly does it. Maybe firm it up with pumped hydro? Google "Ringwallspeicher" to get an idea of the scale of what would be required just to replace 2 nuclear reactors. So intermittend renewables will only ever be supplements to a largely fossil fuel powered grid. No threat to the fossil fuel industry and therefore heavily promoted by their sycophants.

By: RRMeyer

RRMeyer — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 19:36:25 +0000

The atmosphere does not care about labels, it cares about emissions. In a broader context, nature cares about ecological impacts. On both counts, nuclear is the best technology we have.
Arbitrary labelling only unthreatening technologies as acceptable and then, among the unacceptable technologies, singling out nuclear for first elimination is a game the fossil fuel lobby has played for decades. You would think the latest climate data would make some fossil fuel apologists reconsider their role in the destruction of the biosphere, but no.

By: RRMeyer

RRMeyer — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 19:20:16 +0000

How cute comparing 3 wind turbines with Cattenom in the picture. In 2015 Cattenom provided 36 TWh of clean electricity while the 26000 Wind turbines installed in Germany provided 85 TWh. If you were interested in honesty you would compare 2760 Wind turbines with the quarter of Cattenom shown in the picture.