[josephcsible]

Why are people acting like this is a bad thing? It's not like the same amount of CO2 causes more global warming if it's emitted by Switzerland than it does if it's emitted by Ghana or Peru. If I buy my neighbor solar panels, isn't that just as good for the environment as if I bought myself solar panels instead?

[ZeroGravitas]

There's been a well funded disinformation campaign against anything that would reduce the use of fossil fuels.

They've kind of lost the battle on "are renewables a scam", "are EVs a scam", "is climate change a scam" etc. but still with pockets of resistance. Unfortunately they were fighting it on multiple fronts and are still winning on some.

One where they're still winning is "are carbon credits a scam".

(For completeness, in the US they're still doing okay on "is recycling a scam" and "are carbon fees a scam")

So it's basically a succesful artificial conspiracy theory that we're dealing with.

Rich countries paying poorer countries to escape fossil fuel dependency is an obviously good idea, but like anything it's not perfect, so if you get people angry enough then you can slow it down and sell more fossil fuels.

[ETH_start]

The most impactful disinformation campaign, by far, is against nuclear power, which is far and away the most promising substitute for fossil fuels for base power.

The most outrageous part of this is that this campaign is dominated and spearheaded by environmental groups and green parties. By successfully stopping the expansion of nuclear power, these groups have done more than any other faction or movement to increase CO2 emissions.

[Schroedingersat]

Firstly, the PWR industry is zero carbon (for now), but otherwise is just as filthy, exploitative, corrupt, profitable, and domineering as the coal industry. Nothing any environmentalists do has any power to limit them in any way and the only interest capable of stopping them is the fossil fuel industry (whilst hiding behind a smokescreen of fake environmentalism) so you're not going to change anything by shooting the greens.

Secondly, it can't expand. There's not enough Uranium. Add 100GW a year of PWRs for ten years and you can't fuel them for more than a couple of decades (MOX is an expensive scam that saves 20% at best and releases more radiation than fukushima and tmi combined as a matter of course). Breeders might be viable, but they don't centralise power to Urenco and Rosatom so they were abandoned.

You're spreading a lie designed by the fossil fuel industry to delay renewables.

[ETH_start]

>>Nothing any environmentalists do has any power to limit them in any way and the only interest capable of stopping them is the fossil fuel industry (whilst hiding behind a smokescreen of fake environmentalism)

The largest environmental group, Greenpeace, has literally invaded a number of nuclear plants to protest government plans to permit new plants.

>>Secondly, it can't expand. There's not enough Uranium.

There's enough uranium and thorium for 2.3 million years of humanity's total global energy consumption x 1000.

Breeder reactors extract something on the order of 100X more energy from uranium than 2nd generation nuclear power plants, and that's the standard by which you have to judge the sustainability of fission feedstock resources.

[Schroedingersat]

> The largest environmental group, Greenpeace, has literally invaded a number of nuclear plants to protest government plans to permit new plants.

Have similar protests in coal mines or fracking or oil wells or on fuel tankers ever done anything to slow down the fossil fuel industry? Did they send state sponsored terrorists to bomb an EDF ship and get away with it completely other than throwing a couple of patsies under the bus?

Greenpeace's objections have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the permits go through and the very idea that they have more power than the French, Chinese, Russian, and US military and nuclear industries combined is utterly laughable. You cannot possibly think anyone would believe such a ludicrous lie.

It's actually kind of heart warming that you think environmentalists have so much power. Why do you think they chose not to use it to stop coal, plastic or beef?

> Breeder reactors extract something on the order of 100X more energy from uranium than 2nd generation nuclear power plants, and that's the standard by which you have to judge the sustainability of fission feedstock resources.

Not until one exists that actually runs in breeding mode on a commercial scale and that's what you're proposing building. Until then there's about 40 years with the current fleet and the suggestion of building enough PWRs to make a similar contribution to renewables means there would be 20 even after doubling the fuel economy.

Suggesting that you could scale uranium mining 5x to provide the first load for a couple of thousdand PWRs, complete them all by 2030, and then design and build five times as many breeders to keep them fueled in the 20 years you had left so as not to decomission all your freshly built reactors is a ridiculous farce. And that wouldn't even cover all electricity, let alone primary energy.

[ETH_start]

>>It's actually kind of heart warming that you think environmentalists have so much power. Why do you think they chose not to use it to stop coal, plastic or beef?

Your narrative doesn't line up with reality. In Germany, the primary political force behind the decision to shut down the country's nuclear plants was the national Green Party. A similar dynamic is seen across numerous countries in the EU.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups have significant influence on the leading left-leaning parties, and are the most responsible for so many governments stopping nuclear power expansion.

>>Not until one exists that actually runs in breeding mode on a commercial scale and that's what you're proposing building.

We'll have such reactors long before we run out of uranium. And once operational, they will be able to use the stored waste from the non breeder reactors as fuel.

The shunning of nuclear power at the behest of so-called green parties and environmental groups like Greenpeace is why it has not grown massively as an energy source. If permits for new plants were actually issued at the pace that the economy needs, and especially if that were combined with next gen nuclear tech got anywhere close to as much funding as solar/wind for deploying generation potential, the technology would have rapidly progressed, and today would dominate energy sources.

[ZeroGravitas]

Greenpeace was founded to protest nuclear weapons tests. That's why their name has peace in it.

You can disagree with them if you want, people are free to have their own priorities, but they correctly think that nuclear power is a hidden subsidy for nuclear weapons.

[ZeroGravitas]

I quite like nuclear power, advocacy of it has however mostly devolved into bashing environmentalists and green parties which raises many red flags for me.

I don't know if the people still banging that drum are being disengenious, or they've just been taken in by the misinformation campaign I mentioned, but generally the more of the items I listed you hate or are suspicious of, then the more suspicious of you I am, as it lends evidence of you being someone who has been duped, so for example:

If someone likes (or at least doesn't hate in a weirdly political way) carbon fees, carbon credit, heat pumps, EVs, renewables, induction stoves, green parties and environmentalists, recycling, efficiency then yeah sure I believe you like nuclear power because it's a low carbon power source, see James Hansen for example.

On the other hand, if you hate carbon fees, and carbon credits, and EV subsidies, and green parties and environmentalists but love nuclear power because it's such a great low carbon source. That doesn't add up to me. You might be sincere but confused, but either way you're not really helping so motivations don't really matter. See Michael Shellenberger for example of someone who is obviously lying, or Bill Gates for someone who's just partially confused.

[ETH_start]

I personally love carbon credits and while I wouldn't go as far as saying I love EV subsidies - due to the graft that often accompanies subsidies - I am positively inclined toward them.

If you study the history of nuclear power, you will see that environmental groups and green parties have been the singular force stopping its expansion. This criticism is not an exaggeration and justifies my harsh judgment of them.

>>See Michael Shellenberger for example of someone who is obviously lying

What makes it obvious that he's lying?

[ZeroGravitas]

The consistent pattern of everything he's ever said on the topic:

https://www.desmog.com/michael-shellenberger/

Like you he claims to be pro-nuclear but is also scathing about government subsidies and expensive power. Which doesn't add up, not for two decades if you're paying attention, and certainly not for the last five years even if you haven't. Renewables are cheap power.

It's like his audience is a couple of decades behind the facts if they can accept this as a logical argument.

His very pro natural gas stance is also a weird anomaly.

[ETH_start]

>>Renewables are cheap power.

Renewables are not cheap power.

"True cost of using wind and solar to meet demand was $272 and $472 per MWh"

https://web.archive.org/web/20220916003958/https://files.ame...

>>His very pro natural gas stance is also a weird anomaly

Natural gas is cheap and cleaner than coal.

[realgeniushere]

Recycling is a scam. Just about everything you recycle gets sent to the landfill anyway. The only difference is that you feel good about yourself as you sort it into the recycling bin. One exception, I’ve been told, is aluminum.

[ZeroGravitas]

Well, it depends on how disfunctional your country is, but generally that's not true:

https://www.eea.europa.eu/ims/waste-recycling-in-europe

And in the US per-state:

https://www.eunomia.co.uk/reports-tools/the-50-states-of-rec...

> The study ranked each state according to its recycling rate for CCPMs in 2018, with the 10 states with the best recycling rates comprising: Maine (72%); Vermont (62%); Massachusetts (55%); Oregon (55%); Connecticut (52%); New York (51%); Minnesota (49%); Michigan (48%); New Jersey (46%); and Iowa (44%).

Note for comparison purposes, that US report is on CCPM (plastic bottles and trays, glass bottles and jars, aluminium cans, steel cans and cardboard and boxboard), which the EU calls out seperately as "packaging waste" with an average of 66%.

And it's 'material reprocessed rather than material collected for recycling' they count.

That recent Greenpeace USA study suggests that only type 1 and 2 plastics are close to meeting their 'actually being recycled into more of the same stuff' targets across the USA.

[codefreeordie]

The people who are being paid aren't the same people as the people who are having to make do without.

[sfe22]

Read the article. Switzerland is already emitting less than a third per capita than an average American. Probably got stuck with the same percentage reduction to meet some global quotas, and they are increasing efficiency in other countries to meet it. I see this as double win, yet we complain here.