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sebster wrote:

dæl wrote:Not quite infinite, but certainly sufficient energy could be easily achieved if we stopped trying to profit from it, legislate that every new house must have a ground source heat pump, offer grants to retrofit houses with them too, stick a lot more funding into the fusion reactor in oxford, then soon enough everyone pays bill of a few pence a year to pay for upkeep of the national grid.

I wish it was that simple. There's definitely plenty of options available, but the idea that within 50 years we'll minimal cost energy production is very optimistic.

It's not that simple, but initiatives such as that would go a long way toward it. Instead we are now looking at more coal fired power stations which we will absolve from carbon regulations, more fracking, and the government subsidising fossil fuels. It hardly surprising that all of these allow someone to profit, I just think that energy, like so many other things, should be decentralised and not have the first priority be profit, but instead energy.

Melissia wrote:Isn't Crucible a play? Plays are NEVER fun to read...

Yeah, and what a horrible play it is too...

Macbeth, on the other hand, I enjoyed.

dæl wrote:It's not that simple, but initiatives such as that would go a long way toward it. Instead we are now looking at more coal fired power stations which we will absolve from carbon regulations, more fracking, and the government subsidising fossil fuels. It hardly surprising that all of these allow someone to profit, I just think that energy, like so many other things, should be decentralised and not have the first priority be profit, but instead energy.

I certainly agree that we need to be planning our long term energy infrastructure towards no coal plants, not building more of the things. However, I think a few hundred years of human history have shown that the profit incentive is pretty powerful. The challenge is in building a system where the profit motive encourages the right kind of behaviour.

sebster wrote:

dæl wrote:It's not that simple, but initiatives such as that would go a long way toward it. Instead we are now looking at more coal fired power stations which we will absolve from carbon regulations, more fracking, and the government subsidising fossil fuels. It hardly surprising that all of these allow someone to profit, I just think that energy, like so many other things, should be decentralised and not have the first priority be profit, but instead energy.

I certainly agree that we need to be planning our long term energy infrastructure towards no coal plants, not building more of the things. However, I think a few hundred years of human history have shown that the profit incentive is pretty powerful. The challenge is in building a system where the profit motive encourages the right kind of behaviour.

But the profit system rewards not social responsibility, but in fact its opposite. And the short termism you mentioned is a byproduct of it too. I don't doubt its role as a motivator, however the imminent prospect of no energy and/or the collapse of he world's ecosystem should be motivation in itself.

dæl wrote:But the profit system rewards not social responsibility, but in fact its opposite. And the short termism you mentioned is a byproduct of it too. I don't doubt its role as a motivator, however the imminent prospect of no energy and/or the collapse of he world's ecosystem should be motivation in itself.

I don't know anyone in the energy industry (from the coal miners to the venture capitalists) who would work to avoid "the collapse of the world's ecosystem." I know a lot of them who would work for profit.

In fact, I've done a lot of work on clean coal. Not only is it clean, but it's cheap. Meaning the client can easily compete with larger coal operations and make himself a buttload of money.

Without the money, he wouldn't be developing the technology.

Well depending on what the EPA does, clean coal is a dead industry walking. The USA is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and the EPA is shutting it down. Brilliant thats just brilliant.

Coal is the most dangerous fuel source on the planet, even counting Chernobyl and Fukashima it has taken many times more lives than nuclear. Biccat, your point that noone would work to prevent the collapse of the world's ecosystem proves unequivocally that private companies should not be allowed to continue their operations whilst they still place their own selfish interests ahead of those of the planet and the people. I don't care about people making profits, good on them as long as they are harming noone else, but they are, in countless ways.

So what should we replace fossil fuels with? Solar doesn't seem viable whilst a panel takes 10 years to pay for itself, but must be replaced after 10 years. Wind and wave seem as though they could work and should be used. Geothermal for me is a no brainer, and should be implemented on a large scale. Fusion could do with more than the marginal funding currently given. Also the thing in the desert that works on the principal of Archimedes' Death Ray, that seems to work brilliantly.

dæl wrote:Coal is the most dangerous fuel source on the planet

I would have gone with wood/timber.

Logging has been around for far longer than mining, and has probably taken more lives.

Comparing the Coal and Nuclear industries in terms of safety is somewhat disingenuous. The differences in Labour Laws and Technological development in the time frame between the two processes becoming widespread or at least established are the major differing elements.

Coal if done properly, cleaner burning power stations and carbon capture, is many times safer than Nuclear. The plus side is the captured carbon dioxide can be used to extend the life of of oil and natural gas wells.

Fracking is simply the worst 'new' technology to emerge.

dæl wrote:Coal is the most dangerous fuel source on the planet, even counting Chernobyl and Fukashima it has taken many times more lives than nuclear.

It's not dangerous as a fuel source, it's dangerous because it is difficult to acquire.

dæl wrote:Biccat, your point that noone would work to prevent the collapse of the world's ecosystem proves unequivocally that private companies should not be allowed to continue their operations whilst they still place their own selfish interests ahead of those of the planet and the people.

No, it proves unequivocally that nationalizing industries doesn't work. You missed the part where I said even coal miners wouldn't work to "prevent the collapse of the world's ecosystem." Engineers who design wind turbines? They wouldn't either. Construction crews that build hydraulic dams? Nope. Promise the engineer global salvation and he'll decide to start designing buildings for $50k/year instead of wind turbines. Promise the construction worker an end to global warming and he'll pour concrete on sidewalks for $30k/year instead of building a dam.

In short: capitalism works.

dæl wrote:Wind and wave seem as though they could work and should be used.

If you like massive swings and abrupt climate change, this is an awesome idea.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:Well depending on what the EPA does, clean coal is a dead industry walking. The USA is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and the EPA is shutting it down. Brilliant thats just brilliant.

China has coal plants. China loves coal. They're building about 1 plant a week. We'll sell our technology to China if we can't sell it here.

I'd rather the racists be able to speak their complete minds so that we can figure out who they are and what they stand for.

Easier to ignore the jerks after you figure out that they are jerks.


Edit: Wow. This went from Stormfront to Coal vs. Nulear power in 7 pages somehow...

Coal claims a million lives a year, from mine collapses, and lung disease. Coal even releases more radioactive material than nuclear energy — 100 times more per the same amount of energy produced.

Source


Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh)

Coal – world average 161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal – China 278
Coal – USA 15
Oil 36 (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas 4 (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass 12
Peat 12
Solar (rooftop) 0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy)
Wind 0.15 (less than 1% of world energy)
Hydro 0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro - world including Banqiao) 1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear 0.04 (5.9% of world energy)

Source

kronk wrote:I'd rather the racists be able to speak their complete minds so that we can figure out who they are and what they stand for.

Easier to ignore the jerks after you figure out that they are jerks.


Edit: Wow. This went from Stormfront to Coal vs. Nulear power in 7 pages somehow...

No, that's just in this page. Where this argument could easily be held in the thread on Fukishima instead it's here for some inextricable reason.

biccat wrote:

dæl wrote:Coal is the most dangerous fuel source on the planet, even counting Chernobyl and Fukashima it has taken many times more lives than nuclear.

It's not dangerous as a fuel source, it's dangerous because it is difficult to acquire.

See above, you don't know what your talking about, radioactivity and mercury poisoning.

biccat wrote:
No, it proves unequivocally that nationalizing industries doesn't work. You missed the part where I said even coal miners wouldn't work to "prevent the collapse of the world's ecosystem." Engineers who design wind turbines? They wouldn't either. Construction crews that build hydraulic dams? Nope. Promise the engineer global salvation and he'll decide to start designing buildings for $50k/year instead of wind turbines. Promise the construction worker an end to global warming and he'll pour concrete on sidewalks for $30k/year instead of building a dam.

In short: capitalism works.

I didn't realise that every public servent in the world worked for free, silly people. Now actually be serious, noone for a second claimed these people should work for free, but that the overall project should be overseen by people who put social responsibility above profit.

EDIT:

No, that's just in this page. Where this argument could easily be held in the thread on Fukishima instead it's here for some inextricable reason.

Sorry. Will move across with this now.

2nd EDIT:
Racisms bad mmkay.

dæl wrote:Coal claims a million lives a year, from mine collapses, and lung disease. Coal even releases more radioactive material than nuclear energy — 100 times more per the same amount of energy produced.

Your link says 1 million deaths a year from coal. That's per the WHO, who apparently blames this on "Around 3 billion people cook and heat their homes using open fires and leaky stoves burning biomass (wood, animal dung and crop waste) and coal." Not the industry, but individual use. I'm not even sure that's correct, because your link didn't actually source their information.

If you drive coal mining out of the US and other developed nations it will go elsewhere. Do you think it's safer to mine coal in China or in the United States?

I wasn't able to access your other link because it was full of spamming ads that made the page virtually unusable. Comparably, yes, I think nuclear energy is probably the safest, cleanest and most efficient type of energy we can use right now. So lets build some nuclear plants!

dæl wrote:I didn't realise that every public servent in the world worked for free, silly people. Now actually be serious, noone for a second claimed these people should work for free, but that the overall project should be overseen by people who put social responsibility above profit.

Why should they be allowed to work for profit instead of working out of a sense of personal responsibility?

Whilst the coal discussion is perfectly acceptable I think it'd be best served in its own thread, going to lock this one, feel free to start over in a new thread.