NYT: Consider Every Energy Source Not Called Nuclear When Discussing Climate Change

There is no good faith explanation for the failure of the NYT to discuss nuclear power. Nor is there any good faith explanation for failing to discuss the discouraging real-life science-based numbers re the % of U.S. energy usage that could realistically be replaced by wind and solar.

Michael Schellenberger discusses the missed opportunity:

The underlying reason for the failure of Biden’s ambitious climate plans is that progressives remain dogmatically pro-renewables and anti-nuclear. After I and a handful of others spent much of 2019 criticizing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for her anti-nuclear Green New Deal, she said in May of that year that she would “keep the door open” on nuclear power. But in October she advocated the closure of New York’s Indian Point nuclear plant. When the plant closed earlier this year, natural gas use and carbon emissions increased, as my colleagues and I had long predicted. Had Biden advocated the increase of nuclear power from today’s 19 percent to 50 percent of America’s electricity by 2050, he would have won Republican support, and America would be on a path to significantly reduced emissions.

Schellenberger also discusses the reasons the US is missing the opportunity to actually do something about fossils fuels, especially the fear that nuclear power plants will be over budget (something many other countries are willing to figure out):

The public interest case for nuclear power is obvious. Building nuclear power plants that can last 80 or 100 years is much more similar to building roads and bridges than it is to importing from China solar panels that last just 10 or 20. And taking responsibility for the peaceful use of our most dangerous technology, the only one that truly poses an apocalyptic threat to human civilization, rather than let China and Russia control it, is obviously in America’s national security interests.

From an environmental point of view, safely managing and eventually re-using used nuclear fuel rods at the site of production is much closer to the “circular economy” vision of permanent recycling than to the reality of solar waste disposal, which turns out to involve either dumping flimsy used solar panels on poor Africansor paying four times more for solar electricity than progressives had claimed.

Progressive support for nuclear has grown quickly. Two progressive and socialist science writers, Will Boisvertand Leigh Phillips, spoke out forcefully and insightfully in support of nuclear, in 2013 and 2016. This year, two socialists, Emmet Penney and Bhaskar Sunkara, made the economic and climate case for nuclear power.

Unfortunately, most mainstream news reporters remain hostile to nuclear energy and they reach many more people. They repeat the same false claims that there is something so terribly complicated about nuclear plants that we can’t build them, even as they are built all over the world.

But all infrastructure projects are over-budget, and everybody in construction knows this. Even people who have renovated a kitchen know this. The UK-France tunnel under the English Channel was $3.6 billion over budget. The International Space Station program is tens of billions of dollars over budget. And the Sochi Winter Olympics were $39 billion over budget.

I was once a big fan of solar panels.  It seemed like we would be getting electricity for almost free.  That was before reality set in.  Here's Michael Schellenberger discussing the big problems with solar:

But a major new study of the economics of solar, published in Harvard Business Review (HBR), finds that the waste produced by solar panels will make electricity from solar panels four times more expensive than the world’s leading energy analysts thought. “The economics of solar,” write Atalay Atasu and Luk N. Van Wassenhove of Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires, one of Europe’s leading business schools, and Serasu Duran of the University of Calgary, will “darken quickly as the industry sinks under the weight of its own trash." . . . .

The problem is the sheer quantity of the hazardous waste, which far exceeds the waste produced by iPhones, laptops, and other electronics. The volume of waste expected from the solar industry, found a team of Indian researchers in 2020, was far higher than from other electronics.

“The totality of these unforeseen costs could crush industry competitiveness,” conclude the HBR authors. “If we plot future installations according to a logistic growth curve capped at 700 GW by 2050 (NREL’s estimated ceiling for the U.S. residential market) alongside the early replacement curve, we see the volume of waste surpassing that of new installations by the year 2031.”

It’s not just solar. “The same problem is looming for other renewable-energy technologies. For example, barring a major increase in processing capability, experts expect that more than 720,000 tons worth of gargantuan wind turbine blades will end up in U.S. landfills over the next 20 years. According to prevailing estimates, only five percent of electric-vehicle batteries are currently recycled – a lag that automakers are racing to rectify as sales figures for electric cars continue to rise as much as 40% year-on-year.”

But the toxic nature of solar panels makes their environmental impacts worse than just the quantity of waste. Solar panels are delicate and break easily. When they do, they instantly become hazardous, and classified as such, due to their heavy metal contents. Hence, used solar panels are classified as hazardous waste. The authors note that “this classification carries with it a string of expensive restrictions — hazardous waste can only be transported at designated times and via select routes, etc.”

This is a frustrating topic for me because the high level of hypocrisy by those who claim to be concerned about the environment.  I have many left-leaning friends who claim that the environmental issues we face, including energy issues, are "dire." They've been saying this for a decade, yet most of them do nothing in their personal lives to change that situation. This hypocrisy is rampant among Democrats, and it looks like Joe ens new infrastructure package will do next to nothing to reduce carbon emissions.  Nuclear will still be on life support, even though it is our most promising technology.

The people who claim the be the most concerned about carbon will continue to put their furnaces and AC on high, as they always have (I know almost know one who will sacrifice comfort (or even wear a sweater in the winter) for the sake of the environment.  People will blithely continue to take jobs requiring long commutes in their large cars, many of which have pathetic gas mileage. They will continue taking long trips in cars and jets (I'm guilty of this one).  When is the last time (if ever) that you've ever heard another American refuse to burn fossil fuel for the sake of "the environment"?  I would challenge anyone to tell any difference between Democrats and Republicans on environmental issues based on their conduct.  At least many conservatives are honest, when they say they have no intention of changing their conduct to reduce consumption of fossil fuels. We, the left-leaning American people, left-wing media and "progressive" politicians, talk a loud game about the environment. But if action really speaks louder than words, the only thing we can confidently conclude is that most of us on the left don't give a shit about "the most pressing existential issue of our day."

Continue ReadingNYT: Consider Every Energy Source Not Called Nuclear When Discussing Climate Change

Two Worlds

When I first heard about the irresolvable blue dress versus brown dress dispute, I assumed it was an outlier. I didn't realize that it was the template for every social issue going forward.

We now have a world where many of us see decades of commendable racial progress based on MLK's urge that we treat each other based on content of character, not color of skin. On the other side are many other people who consider themselves to be "white" who claim to have experienced an epiphany over the past year. They see themselves as drenched in guilt because they have been blindly perpetuating the mentality of slave-holders. Is there any possible way to bridge this gap?

I believe that Thomas Chatterton Williams has nailed it: Speak only for yourself based only on your own life, your own choices and your own experience. If you've been a lifelong closet racist, such as Robin DiAngelo, then, yes, it's time to come clean. I suspect there are more than a few such people But don't pretend that you can speak for anyone else. Don't pretend that it has been impossible to treat everyone else as individuals.Don't pretend that it is a rare thing. Don't pretend that everyone else inevitably sees people as "colors" and treats them in stereotypical ways. If you recently had a revelation that you are a racist, go fix yourself and quit projecting your dysfunctional mindset onto everyone else. As part of your healing process, you might want to read Thomas Chatterton Williams' excellent book: Self-Portrait in Black and White: Family, Fatherhood, and Rethinking Race.

Continue ReadingTwo Worlds

Wide Open Classroom Discussion

A professor at Duke has convinced his students to open up classroom discussions. The project could not happen in the absence of trust. An excerpt from the WSJ:

To get students to stop self-censoring, a few agreed-on classroom principles are necessary. On the first day, I tell students that no one will be canceled, meaning no social or professional penalties for students resulting from things they say inside the class. If you believe in policing your fellow students, I say, you’re in the wrong room. I insist that goodwill should always be assumed, and that all opinions can be voiced, provided they are offered in the spirit of humility and charity. I give students a chance to talk about the fact that they can no longer talk. I let them share their anxieties about being socially or professionally penalized for dissenting. What students discover is that they are not alone in their misgivings.

Having now run the experiment with 300 undergraduates, I no longer wonder what would happen if students felt safe enough to come out of their shells. They flourish. In one class, my students had a serious but respectful discussion of critical race theory. Some thought it harmfully implied that blacks can’t get ahead on their own. Others pushed back.

My students had an honest conversation about race, but only because they had earned each other’s trust by making themselves vulnerable. On a different day, they spoke up for all positions on abortion. When a liberal student mentioned this to a friend outside class, she was met with disbelief.

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The Modern Woke Version of the Need for Endless War

Glenn Greenwald analyzes the recent comments of Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Greenwald places Milley's over-the-top concerns with white supremacy on a long historical arc of U.S. militarism. We must always have a villain and if we don't actually have one, we will concoct one. According to Greenwald, the motivation sprouted in WWII PTSD and continues today, turbo-charged by the collective power of the military-industrial complex. Here is an excerpt:

The post-WW2 military posture of the U.S. has been endless war. To enable that, there must always be an existential threat, a new and fresh enemy that can scare a large enough portion of the population with sufficient intensity to make them accept, even plead for, greater military spending, surveillance powers, and continuation of permanent war footing. Starring in that war-justifying role of villain have been the Communists, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Russia, and an assortment of other fleeting foreign threats.

According to the Pentagon, the U.S. intelligence community, and President Joe Biden, none of those is the greatest national security threat to the United States any longer. Instead, they all say explicitly and in unison, the gravest menace to American national security is now domestic in nature. Specifically, it is "domestic extremists” in general — and far-right white supremacist groups in particular — that now pose the greatest threat to the safety of the homeland and to the people who reside in it.

In other words, to justify the current domestic War on Terror that has already provoked billions more in military spending and intensified domestic surveillance, the Pentagon must ratify the narrative that those they are fighting, those against whom they are fighting to defend the homeland, are white supremacist domestic terrorists. That will not work if white supremacists are small in number or weak and isolated in their organizing capabilities. To serve the war machine's agenda, they must pose a grave, pervasive and systemic threat.

Chris Hedges, who sees all forms of nationalism as a symphony of lies, wrote this about war:

The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidness of much of our lives become apparent. Trivia dominates our conversations and increasingly our airwaves. And war is an enticing elixir. It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. And those who have the least meaning in their lives, the impoverished refugees in Gaza, the disenfranchised North African immigrants in France, even the legions of young who live in the splendid indolence and safety of the industrialized world, are all susceptible to war’s appeal. Many of us, restless and unfulfilled, see no supreme worth in our lives. We want more out of life. And war, at least, gives a sense that we can rise above our smallness and divisiveness.

George Orwell saw this too: “War had been literally continuous, though strictly speaking it had not always been the same war…. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil.”

Continue ReadingThe Modern Woke Version of the Need for Endless War

The Motte and Bailey Approach to Preaching Critical Race Theory (CRT)

The Motte and Bailey tactic used by CRT apologists is described by The Woke Temple on Twitter:

Also on Twitter, I spotted another description by Moe Lastman:

It’s a textbook motte-and-Bailey.

No one is opposing “ideas”, they are opposing the pedagogy which is founded in CRT that teaches white children to be ashamed of the color of their skin and black children to feel like they are powerless victims.

Continue ReadingThe Motte and Bailey Approach to Preaching Critical Race Theory (CRT)