@polezaivsani @phneutral

Have you actually read "The Coal Question"? I have, and recommend it.

Energy is the one resource which is substitutable ad libitum for virtually all others ― for instance, we can obtain drinking water from the sea, and reduce the drain on river systems, freeing up water for agriculture or leaving natural watercourses undisturbed. It is also, with the development of nuclear fission and its regenerative fuel cycle, the resource with the least limits on increased use.

@polezaivsani @phneutral

Anyway, "Jevons' Paradox" is simply the observation that increasing the efficiency of use of any resource (not just energy) tends to increase the demand for that resource, because it increases the benefit of using each unit, and thus (among other things) the price you can afford to pay for it.

There are, of course, saturation phenomena which work in the other direction. An obvious one is that reducing food waste rarely increases the overall demand for food.

@publius @polezaivsani I think you are missing the entire point of this thread — and perhaps #solarpunk in general. As solarpunk is a fictional genre you are free to add nuclear power to your story if you like to. But solarpunk as a whole is thought to be bottom up and empowering (no pun intended). Nuclear power plants are rarely build by everyday people. Whereas PV on your roof top is. Perhaps SMEs will change that. I don’t know — I don’t care frankly.

@publius @polezaivsani on another note: I don’t understand why every nuclear evangelist is strictly anti-renewables. Perhaps it is even possible to build reactors and renewables — France is doing that afaik.

@phneutral @publius @polezaivsani I think that's an unfair generalization. There is a lot of pro-nuclear advocates/orgs which do not dismiss renewables in the long run. This is more about focusing message on the current situation (=we need to drop fossil fuels asap, while renewables need some development to take over e.g. energy storage, so nuclear + renewables mix is currently best), and pushing back harmful narratives (like in DE - going to renewables through natural gas due to nuclear scare).

@adam_krassowski @publius @polezaivsani I‘m sorry. Shouldn‘t have generalised it like that. It just feels like it every time on reddit, twitter and here as well.
Speaking of Germany (as I happen to be German) I think that most non-Germans are generalising as well. Yes, the nuclear scare is big. But what is even bigger are the coal and gas lobby. Thus I don’t think the anti nuclear movement is to blame in general.

@adam_krassowski @publius @polezaivsani the Energiewende (transitional period between shifting from nuclear and coal to renewables) would have been possible if the CDU and SPD did not destroy new industries twice in the process (first Solar/PV in the early 2000s and up until last year Wind as well). Moreover instead of advocating for new HVDC power highways from north (off-shore wind) to south (big industry) they sided with NIMBYs.

@phneutral

Sorry, but the “CDU/SPD destroyed renewables” is a myth that is used to justify an engineering failure of #Energiewende, largely caused by completely unrealistic assumptions of the project back in 2011. I have written an extensive analysis about these assumptions based on the documents published by Ethics Committee here:

https://write.as/arcadian/ideological-origins-of-energiewende

Also, when you use the word “NIMBY”, that’s a rather arrogant way of speaking of people who oppose thousands of square kilometers of land covered by wind towers and PV panels, turning hills and forests effectively into an industrial landscape. Especially that when the same people protested against nuclear power plants that have much smaller environmental impact, that was described as “justified anger of the local residents” 😉

@adam_krassowski @publius @polezaivsani

@kravietz
How exactly is this a myth? CDU and SPD were the parties in power of the German government. Are you suggesting that the Ethics Committee is responsible? They do not hold the (political) power.
@polezaivsani @publius @adam_krassowski @phneutral

@denki

Yes, I’m saying it’s Ethics Committee that is responsible for the failure of Energiewende, and if you read the article I linked, you will also see evidence which made me draw such conclusion. The failure was designed from the very start of Energirewende in 2011, and it’s written in plain text in the foundational documents.

To put that in the political context, Ethical Committee pushed a recommendation for Energiewende that was severely biased and based on flawed assumptions, and thus physically impossible to carry out. The fact that it was CDU/SPD in power did not really matter much, if it was Greens, the plan would fail exactly in the same way.

As a reminder, in 2018 when the Green Coal Commission was created with representatives from ~30 organisations including industry and NGOs, everyone voted for extension of coal until 2028, including Greenpeace (!). They voted for coal (!) because they knew there’s no other way to keep the lights on in Germany.

@polezaivsani @publius @adam_krassowski @phneutral

@kravietz @polezaivsani @denki @adam_krassowski @phneutral

Prominent Green leaders (mostly without relevant scientific credentials) got together to denounce Jim Hansen as a "climate denier" in the NEW YORK TIMES, because he said that nuclear energy was needed for decarbonization.

There is no more respected atmospheric scientist than Dr Hansen, nor anyone who has done more to sound the alarm about CO₂.