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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#270451: Feb 7th 2019 at 2:11:17 PM

The Green New Deal sounds like the first half of what I want to see from next-gen politicians like AOC:

  1. Fresh innovations and bold new ideas brought with the creativity and enthusiasm of youth.
  2. Carefully audited and reviewed by more experienced politicians to weed out the parts that sound cool in the moment but are actually bad.

In a perfect world, those would be the responsibilities of liberals and conservatives respectively, but the Republicans are f*cknuts so Dems have to do it all.

She issued an exciting new proposal, and it's pretty cool but with an obvious stupid part. Now it's on the rest of the team to go "Ahem, I like it but let me explain to you why getting rid of nuclear power is counterproductive to the rest of this."

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 7th 2019 at 3:12:18 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#270452: Feb 7th 2019 at 2:14:14 PM

A new yearbook photo has come out in Virginia, this time showing Tim Kaine (who was Hillary's pick for Vice President).

It's absolutely horrifying.

It shows him sitting with other students as part of the.... friendship club grin

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#270453: Feb 7th 2019 at 2:16:38 PM

[up] Scandalous.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#270454: Feb 7th 2019 at 2:17:26 PM

[up][up]The hair! The collars! Those patterns! And, I suspect some very distressing things going on with the lower leg lines we can't see... [lol]

Edited by Euodiachloris on Feb 7th 2019 at 10:18:04 AM

BearyScary Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: You spin me right round, baby
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#270458: Feb 7th 2019 at 3:16:43 PM

Yes, just like how ordering pizza was apparently a code for a pedophile sex ring.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#270459: Feb 7th 2019 at 3:22:23 PM

Honestly, it's kind of amazing that while Northam was being a disgusting racist in college Tim Kaine was being the human equivalent of a Care Bear or Pony from MLP.

It's just so ridiculously wholesome grin

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Feb 7th 2019 at 6:22:46 AM

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Oruka Since: Dec, 2018
#270460: Feb 7th 2019 at 3:25:20 PM

AOC is entirely on the right track regarding fission power at least, and I respect her more for it. I understand that people are misinformed on both sides of the issue. I recommend checking out Sustainable Energy Without Hot Air. It's well sourced and cuts right through the bullshit. To simplify, fission power is inefficient if you take the whole supply chain into account. It is also, in the long term, dangerous, and non-renewable.

http://withouthotair.com

Finally, the sitting president defunded the Department of Energy, which was in dire straits to begin with. It takes clever, conscientious, parsimonious people to handle this. The US govt. is not reliably any of those things.

Thorium's great, but since it can't be weaponized, that research gets no funding. And it's finite. Fusion remains a metaphor for itself, a literal pipe dream, a bubble of plasma that you need to spend huge energy keeping together, because it bursts at the slightest touch. And deuterium and tritium are also finite on Earth.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#270461: Feb 7th 2019 at 3:26:54 PM

[up]Oh wth is that 90's html bullshit.

Seriously, that site is painful to look at.

Also, it's kind of bad form to make an argument that requires us to buy and read an entire book in order to adequately argue against it.

Edited by M84 on Feb 7th 2019 at 7:29:50 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#270463: Feb 7th 2019 at 4:02:44 PM

AOC is entirely on the right track regarding fission power at least, and I respect her more for it. I understand that people are misinformed on both sides of the issue. I recommend checking out Sustainable Energy Without Hot Air. It's well sourced and cuts right through the bullshit. To simplify, fission power is inefficient if you take the whole supply chain into account. It is also, in the long term, dangerous, and non-renewable.

http://withouthotair.com

Even if this is true (which is a big if, one poorly designed website isn't very convincing) that doesn't mean that we should move away from nuclear power right now.

Considering how the Vox article I posted rather clearly establishes that nuclear power is critical to pursuing 100% renewable energy in a (relatively) cheap manner, I'm going to have to repeat my position. I do not consider her stance on nuclear power to be wise.

Just because moving away from nuclear power may be a net-positive sometime in the future does not mean that it's a net-positive now.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Feb 7th 2019 at 7:03:20 AM

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#270464: Feb 7th 2019 at 4:05:39 PM

IIRC Nuclear Energy is actually more environmentally friendly per watt of energy.

Leviticus 19:34
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#270465: Feb 7th 2019 at 4:16:37 PM

Aren’t the current generation of reactors significantly safer and generate sigificantly less waste than the older generation Light Water Reactors?

And to be fair, the amount of actual waste product generated by the standard nuclear power plant is actually significantly less than a standard coal plant.

Heck, we already have the technology to create reactors that can literally run on nuclear waste.

Dewan went with molten salt. She and fellow MIT alum Mark Massie, who previously worked at the Gates-backed nuclear startup Terra Power, have built the Waste-Annihilating Molten Salt Reactor. Their design, a modern-day variant of a tested but unused reactor developed half a century ago in a national laboratory, can run on nuclear waste.

They estimate that if all 270,000 metric tons of existing high-level nuclear waste went into their reactors, they could produce enough electricity to power the world for 72 years, even assuming projected increases in global energy demand.

How can this be? Conventional reactors, fueled by pellets of solid uranium oxide, use only 3 percent or 4 percent of uranium’s energy so the waste remains radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. But because Dewan’s reactor uses uranium in a liquid rather than solid form, it extracts 96 percent of the energy.

The liquid fuel has another advantage. If a molten salt reactor loses electric power (as happened at the Fukushima plant following the tsunami), the fuel automatically drains into an auxiliary tank and freezes solid in a few hours. Hence, no meltdown.

Edited by megaeliz on Feb 7th 2019 at 7:31:54 AM

HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#270466: Feb 7th 2019 at 4:59:32 PM

I know it's an annoying request, but could someone give me the TL:DR on what happened the past week? College just started and I've been unable to keep up with the news while I got all the paperwork sorted out.

CommanderAce Commander Thor from Planet Earth, United States Since: Oct, 2011 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Commander Thor
#270467: Feb 7th 2019 at 5:57:56 PM

Is there a TL;DR on the Green Deal? And what does this mean with air travel because there’s a lot of reactionary “they’re banning airplanes!” going around and I first learned of this from my conservative dad, who’s not a very good source on any left-leaning stuff.

Power of Thor!
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#270468: Feb 7th 2019 at 6:08:24 PM

OK, hang one. First off, kudos on citing Sustainable Energy Without Hot Air by David Mac Kay, a very readable and useful guide on how much energy is available from various alternative sources of energy, relative to average energy consumption in Great Britain and other coountries (a much more accessable version is available for free here.

However, I've read SEWHA, in particular his chapter on nuclear energy sources, and that is emphatically not what he concludes. He is in fact a proponent of nuclear energy, and documents that we have enough uranium and/or thorium to last us at higher than current consumption levels a thousand years if not more. Building and decommissioning nuclear facilities is difficult and expensive (it is by far more expensive across the lifetime of the reactor than the fuel itself), and the fuel does present a challenge in terms of storage and safety, but nevertheless he concludes that these barriers are surmountable using current technology.

That said, I dont fault AOC too much for leaving out nuclear energy. Right now the main priority is to gain public support for the idea of using sustainable technology to create jobs and grow the economy while protecting the climate (ie, the so called "Green Deal"), and the specific details will be negotiated later. True, alternative energy is not price competitive without either nuclear energy or importing large amounts of electricity from solar overseas (in which the main barrier is the lack of efficient storage technology), but that's a case that can be made later.

Edited by DeMarquis on Feb 7th 2019 at 9:09:39 AM

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
CommanderAce Commander Thor from Planet Earth, United States Since: Oct, 2011 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Commander Thor
#270469: Feb 7th 2019 at 6:11:33 PM

What’s the whole “they’re banning airplanes” reactionaries are saying? I know AOC’s thing was on transportation that makes them unnecessary, but that’s not saying they’re getting rid of aircraft, is it?

Power of Thor!
TheRoguePenguin Since: Jul, 2009
#270470: Feb 7th 2019 at 6:23:01 PM

They're not banning aircraft. It's just reactionary nonsense.

Edited by TheRoguePenguin on Feb 7th 2019 at 6:23:29 AM

DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#270471: Feb 7th 2019 at 6:25:09 PM

[up]x2 Yeah, AOC's plan means that Air Travel within the United States will not be needed. Not a ban on airplanes, or a ban on air travel, especially outside the States (because you can't build a railroad to Europe or Japan from the USA, at least not without a lot of hassle with foreign, somewhat hostile powers).

CommanderAce Commander Thor from Planet Earth, United States Since: Oct, 2011 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Commander Thor
#270472: Feb 7th 2019 at 6:35:32 PM

That’s what I figured, that trains and other stuff would make flights in the states unnecessary, but not banned. Naturally, my dad telling me this was “they’re banning planes,” which had me very skeptical because no one wants to ban planes.

Power of Thor!
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#270473: Feb 7th 2019 at 6:37:55 PM

As of right now, we do not have the technology to build commercial aircraft that can run on non-polluting power sources. Petroleum fuel is just too energy-dense for its weight: nothing else can compete. That may change in the future but for now, if we want commercial flight, we need gasoline.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
ITNW1989 a from Big Meat, USA Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
a
#270474: Feb 7th 2019 at 6:39:50 PM

This is why we need to get a manned flight to Mars, so we can discover the Prothean cache there.

All joking aside, I like the idea of no longer needing current aircraft in order to travel long-distance around the US in a timely fashion.

Hitokiri in the streets, daishouri in the sheets.
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#270475: Feb 7th 2019 at 6:48:19 PM

We need more trains

Oh really when?

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