Edwird
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Joined: 5/2/2016
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quote:
ORIGINAL: blnymph
quote:
ORIGINAL: Edwird
When we return focus to greater efficiency and apply that across the board, then maybe we will lose the destructive economy of "just get more!" and evolve to the more advanced economy of how to produce greater things with less energy or mineral inputs. Evolution is its name.
At some point, we are going to have to go in that direction or just continue the decline.
Yes the closure of nuclear power plants was hasty after Fukushima and a 180° turn of the ruling parties policy who had quit the exit agreement of the previous government just before Fukushima. The real problem is less the power plants in themselves but the unsolved waste management - about the same time it was found that the former underground GDR nuclear waste dump is leaking and has to be cleared which costs a nightmarish sum. For the first time it had to be accepted even by a nuclear-friendly government and industry that the costs of the waste management could not be ignored, and with them nuclear is not competitive.
The reduction of consumption is indeed of importance - thermic insolation of old houses, new low or zero emission houses, full or combined engines electric cars, car-sharing, public bike rental, grid infrastructure, up to increased energy efficiency for steel and aluminium production. We had a reduction of underground coal mining close to nil already (the pits had simply to be dug too deep) but there is a coal lobby active to exploit the surface lignite deposits in the far east and west. But it is clear that this is at best a jobs and energy option for another few years but not for the future - again with unforeseeable costs for decades.
So even from a purely capitalist perspective fossile as well as nuclear energy are already cost ineffective and the longer used the more. The environmental as well as distaster consequences are just side effects of the problem that by our dependency on those we are burning money not yet earned.
You forgot to mention the de-commisioning of nuclear power plants, which can be almost as expensive as building them in the first place, which is why I might argue for getting more out of existing power plants to amortize the cost.
But all that militating against building new N plants in any case. I used to ask: "why can't we just throw the nuclear waste out into space and aim it towards the sun?" But then I remembered that uranium is a good step heavier than lead, and we produce mega-tons of it. Never mind.
As to coal mining . . . aside the fires in Ohio rivers in the US, there were also small towns in Pennsylvania and West Virginia whose streets came afire from the coal mines beneath.
I am glad to hear about all the new technologies coming on board that are gradually replacing fossils, but I pay more attention to such things as high strength steel (which means less weight in things using steel, ergo less energy to move it), carbon fiber aircraft wings to reduce weight, the new light bulbs that provide more lumens per watt, etc. I know that the compact fluorescent (CFL) light bulbs have a small bit of mercury in them, but 5-10 years from now there will be almost nothing but LED bulbs available or sought. Dull stuff, not as exciting as new ways to 'get more!' energy.
Then there is graphene, of which fullest exploitation will be ongoing after I die, and now this:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/518301/new-form-of-carbon-is-stronger-than-graphene-and-diamond/
What I was addressing, though, was the whole current mindset of more! in our purely quantitative sense of things, whereas progression occurs when we think in a more qualitative sense.
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RE: Plunging price of renewable energy makes end of fos... - 
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