Althouse: "With progressives pushing Democrats to embrace the Green New Deal — and Republicans ridiculing the idea as socialism — Mr. Schumer is effectively trying to turn a weakness into a strength."

March 4, 2019

"With progressives pushing Democrats to embrace the Green New Deal — and Republicans ridiculing the idea as socialism — Mr. Schumer is effectively trying to turn a weakness into a strength."

"He is planning daily floor speeches attacking Republicans for inaction and a proposal for a special Senate committee focused on the issue, which he intends to announce this week. And while there is virtually no chance of passing climate change legislation in a Republican-controlled Senate with President Trump in office, Mr. Schumer said he wanted legislation to run on next year — and bring to a vote in early 2021, should his party win the White House and the Senate. 'This is the first time Democrats have decided to go on offense on climate change,' Mr. Schumer said in an interview.... But the rise of climate change as a rallying cry has come with huge downsides for Democrats. The ambitions of its youthful advocates have clashed with the caution of Democratic veterans... 'Climate change, to our frustration, was never an issue that rung a bell with voters, particularly in the throes of coming out of an economic crisis,' said David Axelrod, the former chief political strategist to Mr. Obama. 'But now we’re a decade down the road, and the road is surrounded by floods and fires in a way that is becoming more and more visible.'... The Green New Deal immediately won the embrace of multiple Democratic presidential candidates, including Senators Kamala Harris of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont... 'Do our Democratic colleagues really support this fantasy novel masquerading as public policy?' Mr. McConnell asked last week on the Senate floor... 'Do they really want to completely upend Americans’ lives to enact some grand socialist vision?'"

From "Pressed by Climate Activists, Senate Democrats Plan to ‘Go on Offense’" (NYT).

The Times article quotes Trump's CPAC speech sarcastically encouraging Democrats to run on the Green New Deal: "I think it’s really something that they should promote."

If it's really so bad to run on the Green New Deal, why are Trump and McConnell taunting them about it now? I think it is a bad signature issue, but this early taunting makes me wonder whether perhaps it's good. The reason I think it's bad is that it's all about how awful everything is and how much sacrifice is going to be extracted from everyone.

I think people are drawn to the sunnier vision, and Democrats have worked so hard at painting Trump as dark, ugly, and cruel. The panic and horror about climate change and the demand for immediate and dramatic sacrifice seems to undo all that work and to take on pessimism as the Democratic brand.

I realize the Democrats who are pushing the Green New Deal must think they can put it in a sunny light. It's "Green" and it's "New" and it's a "Deal." But in the old New Deal, good things were offered to people — hope and economic benefits. The Green New Deal asks you to give up hope and to give up economic benefits. What is the psychological draw? Fear? I know there's a way to get to optimism if you can really believe in wonderful technological advances, but where are they?

364 comments:

«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 364 of 364

Laslo Spatula said...: Re: "You changed the words. I said “from.”

I'm not getting this. Here's a copy/paste of what I copy/pasted in my comment above:

“Obviously, it's wrong to say that energy from a wind turbine flows into your house only while the wind is blowing, and you'd lose your mind if you believed “

Here is a cut/paste from your original post:

Obviously, it's wrong to say that energy from a wind turbine flows into your house only while the wind is blowing, and you'd lose your mind if you believed

What word did I change? I'm not seeing it, so I don't understand your comments afterward.

I am Laslo.; 3/4/19, 2:51 PM
Freder Frederson said...: I'm to believe not a single physicist thought about splitting the atom? FDR got all the eggheads together and told them to create an entire branch of science from thin air? And they stumbled onto nuclear weapons?

Actually thinking of it and achieving it are two different things.

There is an (most likely apocryphal) story about Oppenheimer showing a fellow physicist, who was skeptical that a bomb could be built, around Los Alamos. Oppenheimer says to him "and you said this would be impossible unless we devoted the entire wealth of the nation to producing a bomb." To which the other physicist answers, "looks like I was pretty close to the mark."; 3/4/19, 2:51 PM
mandrewa said...: Freder Frederson said, "Where are you getting your numbers? Say we (i.e., those of us who believe the planet is warming) are faking all the temperature data, how did we manage to get 95% of the glaciers in the world to retreat? (and the higher latitude you go to the more alarming the retreat)."

I don't know specifically where he got his numbers but when Basil Duke said, "Let's say, New York's Central Park had a typical temperature of 73.5 degrees in May in 1910. In 2018, that figure is 73.4. What to do if you're a leftwing liar who wants to cripple our economy by screaming "climate change"!!!!! It's simple: change the 1910 figure to 71.3. Viola!!! Temps have increased by more than two degrees since 1910!!!! Shut down the factories! Kill all the cows!!! Ban all the things!!! Starve, America, you racist bastards!!!", I assume he was referring to information like this:

61% Fake Data

You don't have to watch the whole thing. If you go to 5:55 in the video you'll find the discussion of the 'adjustments' to US temperature data. I'm old enough to remember when the US government websites just presented the data as it was, or in other words what the thermometers recorded. The unaltered US temperature data showed significant swings, like the 1930s were quite hot, and the 60s/70s were cold, but overall the trend was flat.

Anyway as Tony Heller points out in the video, the situation right now is astonishing. Somehow the government, or the climate scientists in the government, have persuaded themselves that the thermometers we can read right now, aren't accurate, and therefore they have to adjust their readings upward and also that the thermometers of the past weren't accurate, and they adjust their readings downward.

And then most amazing of all, if you look at the average adjustments being applied by the US government to thermometers year by year and compare it the so-called temperature record by year, they match almost exactly. In other words, our evidence for warming in the lower 48 states of the United States is the adjustments! It doesn't show up in the actual data!

It's enough to make one despair. And I can understand why so many people think the whole thing is a hoax.

But I don't think it's a hoax. Or at least not completely. Partly this is a matter of physics. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Increased concentrations have to be causing some warming (although I think it's a hugely complicated issue trying to estimate how much.) And then we still have some real scientists, or in other words 'scientists' who are not first and foremost activists. Their satellite data covers the globe and the last 40 years and it shows an upwards trend of 0.13 degree Celsius per decade, or 1.3 degree Celsius per century.; 3/4/19, 2:51 PM
buwaya said...: "I think you are so enamored of nuclear energy simply because you believe the hippies hate it."

I was personally sold on nuclear energy by Edward Teller himself, when he spoke at our university. He made a remarkably solid case. This was before anti-nuke was popular, and it was unheard of in Asia.; 3/4/19, 2:57 PM
Drago said...: Freder: ,I am not only talking about the Manhattan Project but also the post war investment by the government in peaceful nuclear energy through the National Labs and the fuel production facilities...."

LOL

Yeah, nuclear propulsion for submarines and combat ships played no part....."

Hilarious.; 3/4/19, 2:59 PM
Freder Frederson said...: Estimate what would an off-grid house cost that consumed energy at the same rate as a standard houses today (in other words match the electric demand curve) using only windmills, solar panels, and batteries?"

Why are you assuming that no advances in energy efficiency (and overall, compared to other advanced countries, U.S. homes are extremely energy inefficient) will be made (or are not part of the Green New Deal). Compare air conditioners, refrigerators, furnaces, t.v.s, insulation, available energy efficient windows, etc., to those produced 40 years ago.

When I moved into my 70's era house in New Orleans, I replaced the original windows with double pane insulated windows, beefed up the attic insulation, and replaced the central air conditioner and furnace with new ones (and not super duper efficient ones either). My electric bill in the summer (which is what really counts in New Orleans) dropped from $400 to $200 a month.; 3/4/19, 3:03 PM
buwaya said...: There was no need to make a bomb in order to make a nuclear power plant.
At the very beginning of the Manhattan project, Enrico Fermi built the famous self-sustaining reactor in the University of Chicago, on a relative shoestring. That's pretty much all you need. Add a steam plant and there you are.; 3/4/19, 3:03 PM
Drago said...: My favorite idea from the post-war 40's was the concept of nuclear powered long-range bomber aircraft!!

Thank goodness our German scientists were, in the end, better than the Russian German scientists and we got to ICBM's in time to dump the NukeReactorWithWings idea!; 3/4/19, 3:05 PM
Freder Frederson said...: Yeah, nuclear propulsion for submarines and combat ships played no part.....

Actually, the nuclear plants on subs and ships require a much more refined fuel than large commercial nuclear power plants. They are produced in separate facilities.

Go back to telling me how I got the whole Bundy trial wrong. At least you know a little about that.; 3/4/19, 3:06 PM
cubanbob said...: And just WHAT is it that makes you think we claim to know how to do as you suggest?

“If either of them can explain how it can be done without violating the laws of nature then they truly will be by leaps and bounds the wealthiest people ever to have lived. And the most brilliant. Newton, Einstein will be simpletons in comparison and Gates and Bezos mere paupers. We have less than twelve years to git er done according the New Green Deal Democrat Brain Trust so ladies we have no time to waste so get to it! And thanks in advance!”

Who made any such claims that you speak of?

So many strawmen

Inga the Green New Deal is the strawman. And you are the straw woman. If you rule out fossil fuels and nuclear energy which is what the GND watermelons are proposing all you have left is renewables, and as I said, you and Althouse are advocating for the impossible. So like I said if you have the answer, out with it for the sake of humanity. Otherwise please explain to us rubes why are you a reality denier?; 3/4/19, 3:06 PM
Freder Frederson said...: There was no need to make a bomb in order to make a nuclear power plant.

I never said there was. But without the governments vast investment in the nuclear infrastructure and research, (name a company that would have been willing or able to build a Y-12, K-25, or Metropolis Works Plant, when a commercial nuclear power industry didn't even exist) the commercial nuclear power industry would have never arisen.; 3/4/19, 3:11 PM
FullMoon said...: Thanks to its energy density, nuclear plants require far less land than renewables. Even in sunny California, a solar farm requires 450 times more land to produce the same amount of energy as a nuclear plant.

Energy-dense nuclear requires far less in the way of materials, and produces far less in the way of waste compared to energy-dilute solar and wind.

A single Coke can’s worth of uranium provides all of the energy that the most gluttonous American or Australian lifestyle requires. At the end of the process, the high-level radioactive waste that nuclear plants produce is the very same Coke can of (used) uranium fuel. The reason nuclear is the best energy from an environmental perspective is because it produces so little waste and none enters the environment as pollution.

All of the waste fuel from 45 years of the Swiss nuclear program can fit, in canisters, on a basketball court-like warehouse, where like all spent nuclear fuel, it has never hurt a fly.

Why Renewables Can’t Save the Planet; 3/4/19, 3:12 PM
gahrie said...: the [glaciers] retreat began long before the industrial revolution

This statement is simply not true. If I am mistaken, please provide a source for this assertion.

From wiki:

The last glacial period is sometimes colloquially referred to as the "last ice age", though this use is incorrect because an ice age is a longer period of cold temperature in which year-round ice sheets are present near one or both poles. Glacials are colder phases within an ice age in which glaciers advance; glacials are separated by interglacials. Thus, the end of the last glacial period, which was about 11,700 years ago, is not the end of the last ice age since extensive year-round ice persists in Antarctica and Greenland. Over the past few million years the glacial-interglacial cycles have been "paced" by periodic variations in the Earth's orbit via Milankovitch cycles.

Glaciers have been retreating for almost 12,000 years.; 3/4/19, 3:12 PM
Original Mike said...: Anybody who wants insight into Freder's knowledge of physics and energy should give this Althouse thread a read. Fair warning; don't be drinking while you read it if you value your monitor.; 3/4/19, 3:15 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Strictly speaking I didn’t write “city wide storage” either. That’s a formulation unique to Inga, who apparently cannot even cut and paste with any accuracy. Sigh.; 3/4/19, 3:16 PM
buwaya said...: "Y-12, K-25, or Metropolis Works Plant"

None of these were or are necessary for nuclear power generation. These were only needed for the high degree of enrichment required for weapons grade fuel. Fermi needed none of this, he used natural uranium.; 3/4/19, 3:19 PM
OldManRick said...: This statement is simply not true. If I am mistaken, please provide a source for this assertion.

Try this map of Glacier Bay - https://www.nps.gov/images/Glacier-Bay-Inset-Detail-Map.jpg

It shows the retreat of glaciers from 1750 to the present. If you look carefully you will see the majority of the retreat was finished by 1880 and in some cases at the mouth it's been advancing since the 1920's. In the 1600's it was a river valley but, within 100 years, the glaciers had advanced 60+ miles to the mouth of the bay. What could have caused this rapid advance and retreat of glaciers?

It was called the little ice age. We've been coming out of it for a long time. Ironically, it coincided with the solar period known as the Maunder Minimum where sunspot activity was extremely low. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum.

Take a look at the sunspot cycles in this image - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum#/media/File:Sunspot_Numbers.png

Our recent "global warming" just happens to have occurred during a period when we had four of the six most active sunspot cycles ever recorded. What a coincidence! They refer to it as the modern maximum.

BTW, in one of the Great Courses series on geology, the lecturer mentions that tidal glaciers are both advancing and receding now and implies that it has nothing to do with "global warming". I laughed when I saw it because it was obvious he was trying to tip toe past the potential harassment he would get for "denying" global warming.; 3/4/19, 3:22 PM
mandrewa said...: Freder Frederson said, "Why are you assuming that no advances in energy efficiency (and overall, compared to other advanced countries, U.S. homes are extremely energy inefficient) will be made (or are not part of the Green New Deal). Compare air conditioners, refrigerators, furnaces, t.v.s, insulation, available energy efficient windows, etc., to those produced 40 years ago."

There have been substantial increases in energy efficiency in a variety of appliances. And much of that improved efficiency was driven by capitalism, that is the desire to make the appliances less expensive. Now we are in to the era of government mandate, where the government is mandating that all sorts of things be even more efficient. As a result everyone needs to be very careful. For instance it's quite possible to buy a refrigerator that will spend a significant portion of its time at temperatures higher than are safe, and the reason the manufacturer is making it, and risking be sued, is that these refrigerators make it possible for the manufacturer to meet the government mandate.

I knew that anyone trying to meet the challenge that I posed was going to suggest that people simply not need to use so much energy. That's why I phrased it the way I did. The point is to just focus on the cost without mixing in other subjects like more efficient energy use or simply not using energy.

After all, you can do all of those things anyway, regardless of where the energy for your house comes from now. If this is all so easy, why aren't people doing this already?

Also if we allow less use of energy as part of our solution, what level of lower energy use is reasonable? Say someone says the wealthiest 10% of the population can afford to build my off-grid, windmill, solar panel powered house, but by the way, in the fine print, they are only allowed to use 10% of the energy they are using for a house now. Then in reality are we really mostly talking about conservation of energy?

And if so, again, what's preventing people from doing that right now? And what does this have to do with windmills?; 3/4/19, 3:28 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: “the [glaciers] retreat began long before the industrial revolution”

If you drive down by the river from our place in MT, just as the river comes out of the mountains by Clark Fork, ID, geologists have found the scratches of glaciers up to several thousand feet above the valley floor. Turns out that the retreating glaciers exposed an ice plug that would, on occasion, pop, allowing Glacial Lake Missoula, larger than some of the Great Lakes, to drain in a day or so, as it took a short cut to the Columbia, and thence the ocean. Rinse and repeat. The location of our house would be almost 2,000 feet below the surface before one of those ice dam blowouts. It took decades before geologists figured out that this was the cause of the Scablands of E WA and NE OR. The glaciers that blocked the valley are long gone now, except for some tiny remnants left behind in Glacier Nat Park, a couple hundred miles away. And, yes, that was long before the industrial revolution.; 3/4/19, 3:32 PM
cubanbob said...: Blogger Drago said...
Field Marshall Freder: "You seem to think that no one actually believes that things will get very bad indeed (and you only need to look to Miami Beach as a canary in the coal mine"

LOL

Miami Beach flooding occurs because it sits 3 foot above sea level and has ALWAYS flooded during King Tides (sun and moon aligned on same side of the Earth creating significantly higher tides).

Further, there has been an INCREASE in people moving to Miami Beach since 2000 which creates greater building density and fewer heavy rain runoff opportunity in this city which gets about 50+ inches of rain each year plus additional seasonal storms and surge.

I would think that having been exposed as an hilarious lying hack regarding the Bundy trial, where you got EVERY finding wrong, you would be more careful.

But, nope!!

LOL

Drago I live in the beaches area. Trust me there are a lot of rich and stupid Democrats living here which is why Miami Beach is a mess. The previous Mayor, Philip Green pretty much ruined Miami Beach property values with his green idiocy and campaign to make MB an urban spring break attraction. I live on a much narrower barrier strip a few miles north of MB. We always had flooding during the King Tides. Pretty bad flooding during the tides even without a rainstorm. Then we elected an intelligent retired businessman as Mayor and he got the town to float a bond issue to redo the streets, underground the utilities and install pumps with sufficient capacity to keep the streets from flooding during the King Tides. Miami beach is corrupt, not well managed and squanders money on crap. That is the difference. Now that my town has done what it has done the wealthier sections of MB are clamoring to do what we did. And they are starting to do it despite the typical MB stupidity. And no, Global Warming hasn't affected my home's value. Luxury homes on MB have declined in value due to MB stupidity. In contrast, in my town home prices have doubled in the last ten years. Indeed my home (if Zillow is to be believed) has trebled in value over the fourteen years I have owned it. Who governs matters.; 3/4/19, 3:33 PM
Maillard Reactionary said...: Why the frantic, strident GND enthusiasm from the Dims?

The immortal Mencken said it best:

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

To understand American politics, read Mencken.; 3/4/19, 3:37 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: “Strictly speaking I didn’t write “city wide storage” either. That’s a formulation unique to Inga, who apparently cannot even cut and paste with any accuracy. Sigh.”

“They have already convinced Althouse that battery technology and city-scale storage is just around the corner. It will remain just around the corner for the foreseeable future and beyond.”

City-SCALE storage, no difference really. To be city wide, it would need to be city-scale and Althouse did not say anything about “city-scale storage”, as you erroneously reported.; 3/4/19, 3:37 PM
Drago said...: Freder: Why are you assuming that no advances in energy efficiency (and overall, compared to other advanced countries, U.S. homes are extremely energy inefficient) will be made (or are not part of the Green New Deal)."

What is the projected increase in cost to construct a home in the US compared to a "comparable" home in "other advanced countries"?

What nations comprise the set of "other advanced countries"?; 3/4/19, 3:38 PM
mockturtle said...: I have milk from a cow in a bottle in my refrigerator.

Well, shame on you! Cows are polluters and they must go! Never mind that their manure makes good fertilizer. And that dairy products [yogurt!] are good and that a rare steak is a divine experience. And lest you believe that ovine cheese is acceptable, think about all those herds of farting sheep.; 3/4/19, 3:41 PM
Drago said...: CubanBob, I have lots of family in the Miami Beach area (for many decades) and they tell me the same thing.

Having spent alot of time there I saw it for myself as well.

I keep waiting for one of these Freder hacks to photoshop a pic or two showing polar bears devouring Miami Beach residents during a King Tide.; 3/4/19, 3:42 PM
Drago said...: Inga is still pretending large scale energy storage was not part of the GND/Wind discussion.

LOL; 3/4/19, 3:44 PM
alanc709 said...: Wind and solar will be unable to power our economy, unless they find a way to make them scalable and distributable. Our distribution system can't handle long-range distribution, to overcome overproduction and shortages caused by the intermittent nature of renewables. Too much power loss over long distances. As far as scalability, you'd probably need a wind farm the size of Texas to even begin to power the country. If you think that's possible, you really are insane.; 3/4/19, 3:50 PM
Original Mike said...: Inga, it was clear from the original exchange that Althouse believed (and still may) that power from wind turbines was stored for later use. So did you.; 3/4/19, 3:52 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: “Inga is still pretending large scale energy storage was not part of the GND/Wind discussion.

LOL”

“But here's something I need you to do...DON'T NAME ANOTHER COMMENTER WHEN YOU'RE DISAGREEING WITH HIM... It looks like a pointless, childish game. If you seriously want to argue on the substance, quote the person and disagree with the material posted. Don't make it about the person.”

Ann Althouse; 3/4/19, 3:54 PM
Basil Duke said...: Freder, I'm happy for you and your fancy schmancy double pane windows and more-efficient AC system. However, under the goddess empress' grand green scheme, there will be NO AC of any kind - more efficient or otherwise - if she has her way. Like the humble sirloin steak and Toyota Corolla, it will go the way of the passenger pigeon and American chestnut: fini! kaput! Adios! Anything less, and our children will die horrible and premature deaths - unlike the deaths by starvation, bloody flux, heat stroke and hypothermia certain to come once the Green New Deal is implemented in the next 12 years. And it most certainly WILL be implemented, coz AOC is da boss, yo!!!; 3/4/19, 4:00 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: “Inga, it was clear from the original exchange that Althouse believed (and still may) that power from wind turbines was stored for later use. So did you.”

Indeed. And we were right.

“How can Wind Energy be Stored?

Battery Storage

Electrical batteries are commonly used in solar energy applications and can be used to store wind generated power. Lead acid batteries are a suitable choice as they are well suited to trickle charging and have a high electrical output charging efficiency.

Compressed Air Storage

Wind turbines can use excess power to compress air, this is usually stored in large above-ground tanks or in underground caverns. When required the compressed air can be used through direct expansion into a compressed air motor. It can also be injected in an internal combustion turbine, where it is burnt with fuel to provide mechanical energy which then powers a generator.

Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Hydrogen fuel cells can also be used to store excess energy. A hydrogen generator is used to electrolyse water using power generated from the wind turbine, storing the resulting hydrogen and converting it back to electricity using a fuel cell power system when needed.

Pumped Storage

Pumped storage is associated with hydroelectric power generation but is yet to be used with wind power generation. Water could theoretically be pumped up to an elevated reservoir utilizing excess generated power and then be used to drive a water turbine when required. The technology is proven and has been used for centuries, giving a relatively high overall efficiency of 70%. Existing hydroelectric power plants could be utilized if they are in an area suitable for a wind farm.”

https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=488; 3/4/19, 4:01 PM
iowan2 said...: City-SCALE storage, no difference really. To be city wide, it would need to be city-scale and Althouse did not say anything about “city-scale storage”, as you erroneously reported.

That's the only way the statement makes sense. This is all in reference to President Trump's remarks at CPAC. His skillful mocking of the GREAT LEAP FORWARD. Requires that the entire population will be forced into compliance. NO FOSSIL FUELS. None. Electricity from only clean sources. That means if you have a couple of cloudy, low wind days, electricity comes from somewhere. WHERE? Has to be "city scale storage". No one cares about people going of the grid. Its a free country. What President Trump is mocking, is the notion that the United States Government, lead by our very own AOC...will be 100% renewable electricity. That is going generate the exact scenario described by our President.; 3/4/19, 4:01 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wind-power-turbine-storage-electricity-appliances/

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/battery-storage-takes-a-hold-in-the-wind-industry#gs.mKQcoYIN

http://windeis.anl.gov/guide/basics/

https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/04/05/470810118/solar-and-wind-energy-may-be-nice-but-how-can-we-store-it; 3/4/19, 4:05 PM
Drago said...: Inga doubles down with links to unserious and impossible energy storage devices for large scale energy consumption.

This is the thinking that leads to mass starvation and mass graves.

However, given that no one who would perish is named Heather Heyer, it doesnt really matter.; 3/4/19, 4:05 PM
BJM said...: Freder said: "You seem to think that no one actually believes that things will get very bad indeed (and you only need to look to Miami Beach as a canary in the coal mine"

What ignorant twaddle...ever hear of the Florida Platform?

Florida as we know it has been underwater for much of it's existence. Portions of the Florida peninsula have been above or below sea level at least four times in it's geological history. Florida is built on limestone Karst, a porous stone created by eons of accumulating sea fossils. Karst dissolves in fresh water creating an vast underground network of rivers, lakes (aquifers) and springs.

Have you seen how land is reclaimed for building in Florida? They dump a thick layer of fibrous plant material such as logging debris into the marsh and then concrete riprap, followed by crushed limestone much like roadbase, sand and topsoil...the entire southern peninsula is a thick floating sponge with skyscrapers and large buildings tapped into the igneous bedrock...it's unstable by it's very nature.; 3/4/19, 4:06 PM
Drago said...: There is no limit to the degree of magical thinking to which leftists are prone.; 3/4/19, 4:08 PM
BJM said...: Hey Inga I gotta link for ya.; 3/4/19, 4:11 PM
Original Mike said...: "Indeed. And we were right."

No you weren't. I didn't write, "could be stored, no matter the cost". Nobody is doing that stuff NOW for all sorts of expensive reasons. By this point even you realize this, though you won't admit it.; 3/4/19, 4:12 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: “Inga doubles down with links to unserious and impossible energy storage devices for large scale energy consumption.

This is the thinking that leads to mass starvation and mass graves.

However, given that no one who would perish is named Heather Heyer, it doesnt really matter.”

“But here's something I need you to do...DON'T NAME ANOTHER COMMENTER WHEN YOU'RE DISAGREEING WITH HIM... It looks like a pointless, childish game. If you seriously want to argue on the substance, quote the person and disagree with the material posted. Don't make it about the person.”
Ann Althouse; 3/4/19, 4:12 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Up until several decades ago, when we satellites became available, there is no way to honestly say that one year was a little warmer, and this one a little cooler. Why? Because the figures and calculations being used are statistical hogwash. First, we don’t have yearly average temperatures. What they do is take the average of the high and low for each day, then average them over a year. Which is statistically garbage. The reason is that averaging the high and low to represent the mean temperature for the day presupposes that the temperatures for the day are normally distributed. And there is no reason to suppose that. Similarly, but maybe not as dramatically, averaging the daily averages for a yearly figure has the same statistical infirmity - the assumption of an underlying normal distribution. Then there is the problem that most of the measurements were taken around big cities in 1st and 2nd World Countries. Which means that they are very heavily biased to be along the North American and European coasts. Then they use secret formulae to extrapolate temperatures around the world based on those NAvand European coastal big cities. Which, BTW, are also to the urban heat island effect, which is assumed away by many climate “scientists”. And, even that ignores the oceans have been extremely hard to model, since the ships doing the measuring were mostly moving at the time, and might be hundreds of miles away the next time that the sea temperature was taken. I could go on, but the reality is that the figures usually used to prove global warming, cooling, etc, are statistical nonsense.; 3/4/19, 4:13 PM
Freder Frederson said...: Fermi needed none of this, he used natural uranium.

I would like to see your design for a commercially viable reactor that uses un-enriched uranium.

Here is a description of Fermi's reactor and its incredible power output:

The reactor contained 45,000 ultra-pure graphite blocks weighing 360 tons, and was fueled by 5.4 tons of uranium metal and 45 tons of uranium oxide. Unlike most subsequent nuclear reactors, it had no radiation shielding or cooling system as it operated at very low power – about one-half watt. "

(emphasis added).; 3/4/19, 4:15 PM
Unknown said...: > I have milk from a cow in a bottle in my refrigerator.

So matter (milk) is the same as energy (electricity).

In Wisconsin does the electricity man leave bottles of watts on your doorstep for you to watch TV?; 3/4/19, 4:20 PM
Unknown said...: Schumie to spend all his time talking about a problem that doesn't exist

and if it did, the US could not solve it, but still at great cost

Isn't this liberal SOP?; 3/4/19, 4:22 PM
Maillard Reactionary said...: As Mencken said: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Any questions?; 3/4/19, 4:28 PM
Freder Frederson said...: What is the projected increase in cost to construct a home in the US compared to a "comparable" home in "other advanced countries"?

That I don't know. What I do know, from working in environmental programs for the U.S. military, that our requirement for energy efficiency improvements to existing buildings was a three year payback (i.e., the cost savings from reduced consumption had to pay for the investment within three years). We were able to find a lot more projects than there was money available.

On my house, the payback (the improvements came in at about $15,000) was aboutfive years (considerably shorter than the expected lifetime of the furnace and a.c., and of course the insulation and windows were good for the life of the house). Another advantage of the window upgrades were that none of my windows blew out in Katrina, when several of my neighbors with original windows (I lived in a subdivision built by the same builder all around the same time) had windows blown out, which really increased the storm damage.; 3/4/19, 4:28 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: “Inga, it was clear from the original exchange that Althouse believed (and still may) that power from wind turbines was stored for later use. So did you.”

Indeed. And we were right." (links)

Inga, those links you provided would work better if the statement was "power from wind turbines COULD, IN THE FUTURE, be stored for later use."

Those methods currently vary from theoretical to experimental to small-scale with no immediate path to achieve success at the size and dependability needed. A lot like 'breakthroughs' in medical science that never quite make it past the lab.

Unfortunately, there is not much point in talking about these issues at an in-use level when the responses are simply links chosen by headlines that advertise things their connected articles don't even supply.

California is currently employing wind farms. I suggest you read about their experiences (good and bad).

I am Laslo.; 3/4/19, 4:28 PM
Drago said...: Unknown: "In Wisconsin does the electricity man leave bottles of watts on your doorstep for you to watch TV?"

Only if there is sufficient wind force to propel the Electricity Man from his unicorn up to the front stoop.

I am making a real effort to speak "Lefty".; 3/4/19, 4:29 PM
Drago said...: Laslo: "Unfortunately, there is not much point in talking about these issues at an in-use level when the responses are simply links chosen by headlines that advertise things their connected articles don't even supply"

This is the problem in "discussing" anything with leftists.

There are entire lefty cottage industries devoted to producing headlines that make the lefties feel better about their lunatic proposals which actually have no hope of success due to being, you know, make believe.; 3/4/19, 4:32 PM
Drago said...: For instance, Freders ridiculous reference to Miami Beach when he has zero geological or astronomical understanding of what is happening there.; 3/4/19, 4:34 PM
Unknown said...: waiting for godot has become waiting for the magic battery.

Energy is transmitted because storage at scale is problematic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage
> As of 2017, the largest form of grid energy storage is dammed hydroelectricity, with both conventional hydroelectric generation as well as pumped storage. Alternatives include rail energy storage, where rail cars carrying 300 ton weights are moved up or down an 8-mile section of inclined rail track, storing or releasing energy as a result; or disused oil-well potential energy storage, where 100 ton weights are raised or lowered in a 12,000 ft deep decommissioned oil well.

We can build many cheap large scale dams and pump water to make windmills viable. Or drill 2 mile deep wells to move 100 ton weight in. Or as many suggest, make unlimited batteries from rare earths which come from the Congo. simple!

But sure, go on about milk bottles, proffy.; 3/4/19, 4:36 PM
alanc709 said...: Washington is investigating breaching hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River to promote salmon habitat. Don't expect hydropower to be an available reusable if Dems (Jay Inslee) get their way. We have NO large-scale way to store and distribute electricity in this country. Reusables require storage and distribution to overcome the intermittent nature of wind and solar. Pretend all you want, Inga, it is not currently feasible to replace fossil fuel power production with anything other than nuclear.; 3/4/19, 4:44 PM
Clyde said...: If the socialist Democrats have their way, it would end up more like a Green New Depression. They want to wreck our economy while real polluters like China and India would go merrily about their carbon-intensive economic development, and even if EVERYONE were to embrace the Democrat socialists' draconian solutions that would impoverish everyone except for the DemSoc Inner Party (who would be exempt from all of the new laws and regulations they would promulgate), it would still make no significant difference to the climate in the long term. It's probably the worst idea from a party that has come up with many, many bad ideas.; 3/4/19, 4:44 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: well, after considering all the back-and-forth, the results are in.
As a dyslexic, the favored source of energy: unclear; 3/4/19, 4:47 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: But-- but but we never tried storing electricity in milkbottles in the fridge tho. Interdasting.; 3/4/19, 4:52 PM
effinayright said...: Where are you getting your numbers? Say we (i.e., those of us who believe the planet is warming) are faking all the temperature data, how did we manage to get 95% of the glaciers in the world to retreat?
*******************************

Where did you get that figure? WHERE?

It's bloody freaking nonsense. Had you ANY idea of the thermodynamics of changing ice to water, you would know how stupid your comment is.

You need to explain why all those glaciers expanded over the years as temps were very slowly rising, only to suddenly melt in the face of a further increase of a fraction of a degree. (no body argues, btw, that atmospheric temps have slowly risen of the past 150, so that's a red herring. The question is, what's responsible for that rise? Is it humans, or is it another periodic Warming period we've seen at least four times over the past 3000 years?)

It would take massive amounts of thermal energy to accomplish what you claim.

It takes one Calorie to change the temperature of one gram of 0 degree C water to 1 degree C water. But it takes 80 Calories to change 1 gram of ice to 1 gram of water.

Got that? 80 times the energy!

As for your claims about nuclear energy: tell that to the French, who get 70% of their electricity from nuclear power.; 3/4/19, 4:53 PM
Freder Frederson said...: For instance, Freders ridiculous reference to Miami Beach when he has zero geological or astronomical understanding of what is happening there

I never said that geological factors had nothing to do with it. You are implying (even though no one has the guts to say it explicitly) that the problems have nothing to do with sea level rise. I live in New Orleans, where we are losing land because of sea level rise, lack of new sediment being deposited, and the land sinking. It is possible that there is more than one cause; 3/4/19, 4:57 PM
Freder Frederson said...: As for your claims about nuclear energy: tell that to the French, who get 70% of their electricity from nuclear power.

I bet you wouldn't trade your electric bill for a French person's bill for an equivalent amount of energy use.; 3/4/19, 4:58 PM
effinayright said...: Unknown said...
waiting for godot has become waiting for the magic battery.

Energy is transmitted because storage at scale is problematic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage
> As of 2017, the largest form of grid energy storage is dammed hydroelectricity, with both conventional hydroelectric generation as well as pumped storage. Alternatives include rail energy storage, where rail cars carrying 300 ton weights are moved up or down an 8-mile section of inclined rail track, storing or releasing energy as a result; or disused oil-well potential energy storage, where 100 ton weights are raised or lowered in a 12,000 ft deep decommissioned oil well.

We can build many cheap large scale dams and pump water to make windmills viable. Or drill 2 mile deep wells to move 100 ton weight in. Or as many suggest, make unlimited batteries from rare earths which come from the Congo. simple!

But sure, go on about milk bottles, proffy.
*********************

Who is this "we" and HOW "can" they do what you claim w/o expending massive amounts of energy building cheap(!) large scale dams, and pump all that water, or drilling 2-mile deep holes with weights (moved how?) inside them?

I especially like the "unlimited" batteries that be made from "rare" earths! Sure, they're not that rare, but so far there's never been such a thing as an "unlimited" battery. Maybe you mean millions of batteries, but even then, the energy requirements to mine, refine and separate those rare earths would be horrendous.; 3/4/19, 5:00 PM
FullMoon said...: I bet you wouldn't trade your electric bill for a French person's bill for an equivalent amount of energy use.

Why not?; 3/4/19, 5:02 PM
buwaya said...: One thing Teller pointed out, and this was already so in the 1970's, was that the high cost of nuclear power plants was due to the bureaucratic and legal overhead, and he was confident that this could be overcome over time, and that a nuclear power plant should not be inherently more expensive than a conventional steam plant of similar capacity.

Hah. Teller was not a cynic.; 3/4/19, 5:04 PM
Michael said...: Inga
You read the Scientific American article you posted? Of course you didn't. To sum it up for you: there is not yet storage of power from windmills to run your dishwasher. But they hope there will be.; 3/4/19, 5:08 PM
n.n said...: Wind turbines and photovoltaic cells are environmentally disruptive (throughout their life cycle), not limited to the blight factor and related climate change for utility scale distributions. Batteries and other storage and buffer technologies have their own environmental impact profile that is separable from sources, sinks, and links in the path.

There is no limit to the degree of magical thinking to which leftists are prone.

Proud and green is one of diverse paths to conflation of logical domains. In Stork They Trust is another.; 3/4/19, 5:12 PM
Freder Frederson said...: Why not?

Unless you live in Hawaii, cost of electricity in this country ranges from 8 to 17 cents a Kwh. In France it is 19.4.; 3/4/19, 5:13 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: I didn’t “report” anything. I paraphrased Althouse, at least one interpretation of Althouse. Looks like almost everyone who chimes in agreed with both my interpretation of our hostess and the infeasibility of large scale storage. If such a thing existed MY electricity bill would drop. I live within 2 miles of one if the largest installations of windmills in CA at Windy Point. And within 5 miles of two huge solar arrays. If we could store excess energy from them for Palm Springs it would help. Most people don’t know that gas or other fossil fuel generation must be collocates with these renewables, always running, ready to ramp up if a cloud passes over or the wind subsides. It takes more production capacity to run renewables than it does to run FF alone. If you don’t believe me look it up.; 3/4/19, 5:18 PM
buwaya said...: French electric rates -

https://en.selectra.info/energy-france/guides/electricity-cost

That is, adjusting for increases since the disparate periods and currency conversion, it is about the same as California, New York, and most of the US Northeast. It is however actually explicitly taxed (about 1/3 of the price is taxes), which is not the case with most US electric charges. Apples to apples, allowing for reasonable comparable charges for financing and equity profit, France would be on the mid-low end of US States as far as rates go.

France has the lowest electric rates in Western Europe.

Note: If you want an argument FOR socialism, consider that the quite efficient French electric system is government owned (or mostly so). Électricité de France (EDF); 3/4/19, 5:19 PM
buwaya said...: CA is more like 19c/kwh

https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/; 3/4/19, 5:22 PM
Birkel said...: Hey, what's $93,000,000,000,000 between friends?
And that's just the first ten years.

Heck, it only costs FIVE FUCKING TIMES more than the GDP of the whole country.; 3/4/19, 5:26 PM
FullMoon said...: That is, adjusting for increases since the disparate periods and currency conversion, it is about the same as California, New York, and most of the US Northeast. It is however actually explicitly taxed (about 1/3 of the price is taxes), which is not the case with most US electric charges. Apples to apples, allowing for reasonable comparable charges for financing and equity profit, France would be on the mid-low end of US States as far as rates go.

Highly taxed Nuclear rates same as fossil fuels, with no pollution. What's not to like?; 3/4/19, 5:29 PM
Drago said...: Its pointless arguing science, technology, economics of power generation with leftists.

They mean to rule us and every aspect if our lives.

To do this they need to disarm us, control our healthcare and use the GND to oversee every other aspect of our lives.

And they arent kidding.; 3/4/19, 5:31 PM
tcrosse said...: French electricity is much more nuanced than ours.; 3/4/19, 5:33 PM
Jim at said...: Washington is investigating breaching hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River to promote salmon habitat.

They've been wanting to breach the four dams on the Lower Snake since before Clinton became President. Then it was more about salmon habitat.

But nobody can put a face on salmon habitat, so now they're using the declining Orca population as the reason.; 3/4/19, 5:44 PM
Jim at said...: lack of new sediment being deposited

That's because your business/tourism and political leaders - working with the Army Corp of Engineers - have spent decades directing the Mississippi River to where they want it to go instead of where it should go.

That doesn't have a thing to do with climate change.; 3/4/19, 5:47 PM
Meade said...: "French electricity is much more nuanced than ours."

I call mine freedom electricity.; 3/4/19, 5:52 PM
Freder Frederson said...: All of the waste fuel from 45 years of the Swiss nuclear program can fit, in canisters, on a basketball court-like warehouse, where like all spent nuclear fuel, it has never hurt a fly.

And how thick do the walls of that basketball court like warehouse have to be? Each commercial nuclear reactor produces about 27 metric tons of high-level spent fuel rods a year (plus a lot of low and medium level waste). Four reactors over 45 years is 4860 tons. That is about 250 full tractor trailer loads of the most dangerous waste. That is a hell of a basketball court you got there. Figure ten forty foot trailers in a regulation NBA court (94 x 50 feet). You would have to stack them 25 high. Even if assume a single stack of standard 55 gallon drums to fill out a forty foot trailer, you're still talking a stack 75 feet high. And that doesn't even include what happens to the reactor core, the containment building, and all that irradiated piping and water at the end of the life of the plant.; 3/4/19, 5:56 PM
Drago said...: French electricity is very susceptible to being disrupted by German electricity which is by and large driven by Putin's hydrocarbons via the Nordstream pipeline.; 3/4/19, 5:56 PM
Freder Frederson said...: That doesn't have a thing to do with climate change.

Where did I say it did?; 3/4/19, 5:57 PM
Arashi said...: I was trained by the US Navy to be a nuclear power plant operator - so I have a bit of knowledge about nuclear power plants used on Naval vessels and about plants in general. The major sticking point for nuclear using uranium is all of the high level waste produced during operation. Another sticking popint is the lack of a standard design for the plant as they have been designed and built in the US. France has avoided this issue by mandating a standard plant design for their power plants. They still have the waste disposal issue, and now that they no longer dump it all in teh Pacific it is a problem they have not solved.

You don't have to use uranium for a nuc plant. Thorium works, and does not generate the levels of high level waste that come with uranium. One of the reasons that uranium got the nod ealry on was because of bomb making - thorium won't work. Also, one of the byproducts of a uranium reactor is plutonium - also good for bombs.

So nuclear, using thorium, with a standard plant design could work.; 3/4/19, 6:06 PM
Drago said...: Freder: "And how thick do the walls of that basketball court like warehouse have to be?"

Yucca mountain represents infinite storage capacity for all nuclear waste and is extraordinarily appropriate being located in a desert (dry) and comprised of pyroclastic rock formed from volcanic eruptions long long ago (like more than 100 years?..LOL) and is not porous (for these purposes).

Its perfect.

But, naturally obama and the leftists shut it down as a way of attacking nuclear power in general.

Then the lefties turn around and say: gee, there's no good long term storage for nuke waste!!.....(and we'll shut down the next good place as well!!); 3/4/19, 6:07 PM
Freder Frederson said...: And a lot of the missing sediment (about 2/3 of the historic load) at the mouth of the Mississippi has been lost because of capture behind dams upstream (mainly in the Missouri watershed). So there is another trade off of building dams.; 3/4/19, 6:08 PM
Drago said...: Arashi: "Another sticking popint is the lack of a standard design for the plant as they have been designed and built in the US. France has avoided this issue by mandating a standard plant design for their power plants."

This is key.

I grew up in a Navy Nuke Engineering
Officer home and this was a subject of conversation for decades. However, later in, the Snowflake US designs allowed Nuke Engineers to cash in....; 3/4/19, 6:10 PM
Freder Frederson said...: But, naturally obama and the leftists shut it down as a way of attacking nuclear power in general.

Yucca Mountain was in trouble, both as an engineering and political venture, long before anyone heard of Obama. It was originally supposed to start accepting waste in 1998.; 3/4/19, 6:12 PM
Arashi said...: Drago,

You might want to do some investigating of the Soviets and their success with storing high level radioactive waste in a mountain. It did not go well. This was in the late 60's and I am fairly sure it could be done better and safer here, but maybe just no.

Put the stuff in the certified shipping containers and throw them on a low G track to the sun - which was proposed when we had a shuttle program and actually researched as a workable solution.; 3/4/19, 6:13 PM
FullMoon said...: And how thick do the walls of that basketball court like warehouse have to be? Each commercial nuclear reactor produces about 27 metric tons of high-level spent fuel rods a year (plus a lot of low and medium level waste). Four reactors over 45 years is 4860 tons. That is about 250 full tractor trailer loads of the most dangerous waste. That is a hell of a basketball court you got there. Figure ten forty foot trailers in a regulation NBA court (94 x 50 feet). You would have to stack them 25 high. Even if assume a single stack of standard 55 gallon drums to fill out a forty foot trailer, you're still talking a stack 75 feet high. And that doesn't even include what happens to the reactor core, the containment building, and all that irradiated piping and water at the end of the life of the plant.

So, the future will bring multile improvements in renewable technology but, at the same time, no new discoveries regarding nuclear waste?

And, since nuclear is clean, why not use it as green technology is being perfected?

Are you for minimizing carbon output, or not?
Beginning to seem you are more interested in winning an argument than actually making a significant improvement; 3/4/19, 6:15 PM
Rabel said...: Laslo, I've been warding off dementia by exercising my mind with the puzzle presented by Althouse's seemingly irrational position on the flow of wind power electricity and I think I might have an answer.

I think she may be disassociating the production of electricity at the wind turbine location and the ability of electricity to flow into your house due to the wind currently blowing or not blowing - at your house.

In that oddly restricted sense she's right - the wind doesn't have to be blowing at your current location for electricity produced by wind turbines to flow into your location (unless the turbine is in your back yard). This leaves the issue of energy storage out of the equation.

If that was what Trump was saying (and it was, literally) then it is "bad science" on Trump's part.

Of course, that's not what he meant (he was comically referencing wind power's inherent intermittency problem) and it's hard to believe that Althouse thought that's what he meant, but it's the best I've got so far.

I could be wrong, but right now my brain's pumped up like D. K. Metcalf's six pack and that's a good thing, or so I'm told.

The milk bottle analogy is going to take a good bit more gym work because the bottle would represent a currently non-existent electricity storage method and we don't want to talk about that right now.; 3/4/19, 6:16 PM
FullMoon said...: The problem with nuclear is that it is unpopular, a victim of a 50 year-long concerted effort by fossil fuel, renewable energy, anti-nuclear weapons campaigners, and misanthropic environmentalists to ban the technology.

Why Renewables Can’t Save the Planet; 3/4/19, 6:19 PM
Drago said...: Freder: "Yucca Mountain was in trouble, both as an engineering and political venture,.."

LOL

There is no technology now or forever that you and your lefty pals cant make into a political problem.

Literally.

And with the GND Commie-ploy, we will add cars, planes, cow farts, hamburgers etc.

Remember fracking?

How about GMO/foods which could save millions from starvation? Lefties say "no".

You idiots want everyone corralled and under complete control. Everything else is simply sophistry in pursuit of that Leftist paradise.; 3/4/19, 6:20 PM
Arashi said...: If we could get some nuc advocates to push thoriumn reactors, that would get rid of the bomb issue. And thorium plants have much lower waste issues.

Also - get states to not site them on active fault lines could help - I won't name California, but California. Also standardize the design. It makes construction easier, training easier, etc.; 3/4/19, 6:23 PM
Drago said...: Arashi: "If we could get some nuc advocates to push thoriumn reactors, that would get rid of the bomb issue. And thorium plants have much lower waste issues."

Lefties dont care about the fuel. They want nukes gone, along with fossil fuels.

They dont care about the body counts.; 3/4/19, 6:27 PM
cubanbob said...: Drago said...
CubanBob, I have lots of family in the Miami Beach area (for many decades) and they tell me the same thing.

Having spent alot of time there I saw it for myself as well.

I keep waiting for one of these Freder hacks to photoshop a pic or two showing polar bears devouring Miami Beach residents during a King Tide."

You can't cure willful and invincible foolishness. Freder is hardly the worst. I have a sister who fits the MB Democrat profile I mentioned, concerned with Global Warming, bought a Tesla, is concerned about the seal level rise (and its effect on property prices) but just knocked down her home on MB and is building a new one, much bigger one with a fancy solar energy system (which she will never recoup in savings) but with lots and lots of windows and with a standby whole house generator ( natural gas powered). Virtue signalling at it's finest. Good thing my brother in law makes enough to float all of this. The South Florida building code requires new coastal construction be 8 ft above sea level and withstand a sustained wind of 140 mph. The alarmist claim the sea level will rise 1 ft in the next one hundred years. By then every low lying structure would have been torn down and rebuilt to the 8 ft code. When banks stop lending in the MB area due to the sea level rising then I'll worry.

Freder incase you didn't know, the first demonstration that fission was possible was in 1938. Eisenstein along with numerous physicist proposed to FDR the nuclear weapons program in 1939. Nuclear energy was always from its inception a military program that was adapted for civilian use. In an alternative world without Hitler but with the same level of scientific development nuclear energy could just have been developed solely for power generation without the need for compact pressurized water cooled reactors and highly enriched near weapons grade fuel. The reactors in use today were developed to be compact enough for use on warships. The people who designed and built those reactors for the military didn't see the need to reinvent a wheel soley for commercial use when the reactors they designed were more than adequate for the job of power generation. Maybe if the government created a better regulatory scheme for nuclear power, plants that are inherently much safer, use much less refined material but are otherwise less efficient would come into the marketplace. Perhaps that is the route we need to go now.; 3/4/19, 6:28 PM
Arashi said...: cubanbob - So your sister bought a Tesla? Has anyone pointed out to her the environmental disaster that is lithium mining\processing? Or shown her how the cobalt that is used in lithium batteries is mined in the DRC by children and that it is a conflict mineral?

Or are true bleu folks like her unconcerned wtih what their virtue signaling does to others around the world?; 3/4/19, 6:36 PM
Freder Frederson said...: Freder: "Yucca Mountain was in trouble, both as an engineering and political venture,.."

LOL

Why are you amused by a simple statement of fact?; 3/4/19, 6:39 PM
Ann Althouse said...: @Laslo I was talking about how you paraphrased me, not how you quoted me.; 3/4/19, 6:41 PM
Freder Frederson said...: And, since nuclear is clean, why not use it as green technology is being perfected?

Now you are just being blatantly dishonest. If you are going to criticize me, don't make shit up.

I said exactly what you are claiming I didn't way back up in the thread. Look it up yourself, I shouldn't have to repeat myself or have to find the post that directly contradicts your assertion.; 3/4/19, 6:43 PM
Achilles said...: Say we (i.e., those of us who believe the planet is warming) are faking all the temperature data, how did we manage to get 95% of the glaciers in the world to retreat?

There was this thing called the ice age shot 12000 years ago.

The glaciers have been retreating ever since.

I am much more worried about glaciers that are growing rather than retreating. For obvious reasons. If they ever stop retreating then we are really fucked. At that point we better get on it but right now it is simply nature doing nature’s thing and a bunch of evil people trying to push mass starvation and economic catastrophe.

I am glad all of this leftist stupidity is finally getting aired out. Ann now knows more than she did yesterday. Even she knows she was embarrassingly ignorant and it was taking a bunch of “scientists” at face value that made her look stupid.

More people need to actually learn how things work and what is actually going on.; 3/4/19, 6:45 PM
John henry said...: Blogger FullMoon said...

Over an 80-year lifespan, fewer than 200 people will die from the radiation from the worst nuclear accident, Chernobyl,

I'm not even sure that is accurate, Full Moon.

About 45 people died in the Chernobyl disaster. These were people in the plant and some firefighters that got exposed to direct, intense, radiation. These exposures occurred on the day of the accident or the succeeding 2-3 days.

Deaths occurred relatively soon (days or weeks) after exposure.

Not sure if you are counting them in the 200 deaths.

The rest of the deaths are more like "Ivan died at 76 years old in 2016. If he had not been exposed to Chernobyl, actuarial tables show that he should have lived to 77.3 years old."

In other words, bullshit.

There may be some shorter lifespans because of Chernobyl. But they are so few and the calculations are so nebulous that even the 200 (less the ones that were exposed onsite) is a pretty bogative number.

Its like the 6,000 number "killed by Hurricane Maria" in Puerto Rico. There were some deaths, sure. But when Juan Fullano de Tal get killed in an accident 3 months after the storm because a traffic light was not working because there was no electricity, is that really a death caused by Hurricane Maria?

Dead people are worth a lot of govt money. people always try to pump the numbers up. If all that were killed in Chernobyl was the 45 or so, where would the massive aid come from? Nope. That is why they were initially reporting 10s of thousands of deaths from Chernobyl. That kind of number opens a lot more wallets than 45 dead does.

John Henry

John Henry; 3/4/19, 6:50 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: “Now you are just being blatantly dishonest. If you are going to criticize me, don't make shit up.

I said exactly what you are claiming I didn't way back up in the thread. Look it up yourself, I shouldn't have to repeat myself or have to find the post that directly contradicts your assertion.”

This sort of dishonesty happens multiple times a day in every single thread. It’s a real problem and most often is directed at liberal commenters, but I’ve seen it being employed on even Althouse more and more, especially the last few weeks.; 3/4/19, 6:52 PM
Drago said...: Freder: "Yucca Mountain was in trouble, both as an engineering and political venture,.."

LOL

Why are you amused by a simple statement of fact?

I actually explained it all...in the very same post...which I guessed you "missed"...like every salient and actal result of the Bundy trial that you completely misrepresented.

So here it all is again Bundy-liar:

Freder: "Yucca Mountain was in trouble, both as an engineering and political venture,.."

LOL

There is no technology now or forever that you and your lefty pals cant make into a political problem.

Literally.

And with the GND Commie-ploy, we will add cars, planes, cow farts, hamburgers etc.

Remember fracking?

How about GMO/foods which could save millions from starvation? Lefties say "no".

You idiots want everyone corralled and under complete control. Everything else is simply sophistry in pursuit of that Leftist paradise.; 3/4/19, 6:58 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: “So here it all is again Bundy-liar:”

“But here's something I need you to do...DON'T NAME ANOTHER COMMENTER WHEN YOU'RE DISAGREEING WITH HIM... It looks like a pointless, childish game. If you seriously want to argue on the substance, quote the person and disagree with the material posted. Don't make it about the person.”

Ann Althouse; 3/4/19, 7:01 PM
effinayright said...: Achilles said...

I am glad all of this leftist stupidity is finally getting aired out. Ann now knows more than she did yesterday. Even she knows she was embarrassingly ignorant and it was taking a bunch of “scientists” at face value that made her look stupid.
****************

I'm not so sure: Althouse said this:

"If it's really so bad to run on the Green New Deal, why are Trump and McConnell taunting them about it now? I think it is a bad signature issue, but this early taunting makes me wonder whether perhaps it's good. The reason I think it's bad is that it's all about how awful everything is and how much sacrifice is going to be extracted from everyone."

So...she thinks things really *are* bad re: climate change, which is bullshit to the nth.

She further thinks the GOP is trying to hide how much sacrifice it will require from everyone to correct this non-existent bullshit problem.

I'd ask Althouse if she ever took any real Science classes. In my experience, the same people who go on and on about "climate change" can't tell you what the top gas in the atmosphere by volume is, and what the top "greenhouse gas" is.

Spoilers: they are Nitrogen and Water, NOT Oxygen and CO2, which is dwarfed by H20 by about 50 to 100 times. CO2 is a trace gas, only 400 parts per million in the atmosphere. The Earth has experienced much higher, and lower, CO2 concentrations, and the world has been both warmer and colder. IOW higher CO2, lower temps than today, and vice versa.; 3/4/19, 7:02 PM
effinayright said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/4/19, 7:05 PM
Drago said...: Its very important to Inga that obvious lefty lies be covered up.

For obvious reasons.; 3/4/19, 7:05 PM
FullMoon said...: And, since nuclear is clean, why not use it as green technology is being perfected?

Now you are just being blatantly dishonest. If you are going to criticize me, don't make shit up.

I said exactly what you are claiming I didn't way back up in the thread. Look it up yourself, I shouldn't have to repeat myself or have to find the post that directly contradicts your assertion.

If you are ok with nuclear energy along with renewable, we do not disagree. Somehow I thought you were against nuclear power.; 3/4/19, 7:10 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: Mischaracterization or mind reading, a common tactic here. If commenters had a real argument they would be able to comply with Althouse’s request that I reposted many times today. If commenters think Althouse is so “stupid”, why do they bother to comment here?

“I am glad all of this leftist stupidity is finally getting aired out. Ann now knows more than she did yesterday. Even she knows she was embarrassingly ignorant and it was taking a bunch of “scientists” at face value that made her look stupid.”
****************

“I'm not so sure: Althouse said this:”

“But here's something I need you to do...DON'T NAME ANOTHER COMMENTER WHEN YOU'RE DISAGREEING WITH HIM... It looks like a pointless, childish game. If you seriously want to argue on the substance, quote the person and disagree with the material posted. Don't make it about the person.”

Ann Althouse; 3/4/19, 7:10 PM
effinayright said...: Blogger wholelottasplainin' said...
Inga...Allie Oop said...
“So here it all is again Bundy-liar:”

“But here's something I need you to do...DON'T NAME ANOTHER COMMENTER WHEN YOU'RE DISAGREEING WITH HIM... It looks like a pointless, childish game. If you seriously want to argue on the substance, quote the person and disagree with the material posted. Don't make it about the person.”

***************

Oh, sure. We're supposed to put something somebody said upthread in quotes, and always report on the entire comment---rather than extract what we are disagreeing with---and NOT name the person we are disagreeing with.

No academic journal does that, no law review article does that. In the latter situation, for example, a dissent is identified by the judge(s) dissenting.

Perfesser Ann is trying to make us engage in practices she never has engaged in herself.

Inga is only too happy to have her errant nonsense be commented on, without having its origins highlighted.

I call Bullshit.; 3/4/19, 7:11 PM
Drago said...: Fullmoon: "If you are ok with nuclear energy along with renewable, we do not disagree. Somehow I thought you were against nuclear power."

Freder wrote something about Nukes being acceptable but only as a transition to some other unmentioned, undesignated, undescribed magical energy source.; 3/4/19, 7:18 PM
Arashi said...: So lets build thorium based nuc plants while we work at perfecting fusion plants. Dang, I like that idea.; 3/4/19, 7:19 PM
John henry said...: Blogger Unknown said...

Alternatives include rail energy storage, where rail cars carrying 300 ton weights are moved up or down an 8-mile section of inclined rail track

I know you are citing Wikipedia but this is pretty vague. The energy stored and released by the railroad track is not a function of its length. It is a function of the total change in elevation.

How inclined is the track? If it is 90 degrees (straight up) that would be pretty impressive. If it is 8 miles long but only rises 100 feet, not so much. And damn little energy storage.

A quick, back of the envelope calculation of the oil well scheme gives me about 1,200 horse. Less than a bulldozer. Or, roughly 1MW. If you take an hour to lower the weight, that is 1,000 KWH of electricity. Not very much.

And that does not allow for any efficiency losses. You probably have system losses in the round trip up and down of at least 50%. Maybe closer to 75%.

Rail cars full of rocks sound like a great idea until you calculate how little energy they really store. Especially for the cost involved.

John Henry

, storing or releasing energy as a result; or disused oil-well potential energy storage, where 100 ton weights are raised or lowered in a 12,000 ft deep decommissioned oil well.

We can build many cheap large scale dams and pump water to make windmills viable. Or drill 2 mile deep wells to move 100 ton weight in. Or as many suggest, make unlimited batteries from rare earths which come from the Congo. simple!

But sure, go on about milk bottles, proffy.

3/4/19, 4:36 PM; 3/4/19, 7:21 PM
FullMoon said...: Oh, sure. We're supposed to put something somebody said upthread in quotes, and always report on the entire comment---rather than extract what we are disagreeing with---and NOT name the person we are disagreeing with.

Repetitive posting by hall monitor of that particular rule is a subtle attempt to curry favor.; 3/4/19, 7:21 PM
Freder Frederson said...: Freder wrote something about Nukes being acceptable but only as a transition to some other unmentioned, undesignated, undescribed magical energy source.

Well, yes I did. Which is exactly what Full Moon claimed I didn't say.

So what's your point?

If 200 years ago I had posted: "I think killing whales is wrong, but perhaps we should stick with whale oil while we work to find something better", you would have responded, "Freder wrote something about whale oil being acceptable but only as a transition to some other unmentioned, undesignated, undescribed magical energy source."; 3/4/19, 7:26 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/4/19, 7:27 PM
mandrewa said...: Freder Frederson and Arashi, Elysium Industries has proposed a molten salt reactor design that would burn spent reactor fuel rods, or in other words waste, and leave behind as it's own waste something that only needs to be stored for 300 years.

In other words, this MSR (it's one possible kind of MSR, there are a lot of different MSR designs) takes in nuclear waste from PWRs or BWRs that would need to be stored for 15,000 years before it's safe and transforms it into something that only needs to be stored for 300 years, and of course in the process it extracts far more energy from those spent fuel rods than they ever delivered in the first place.

I seems to me that everyone that has been concerned about the nuclear waste issue should be incredibly pleased with this idea, as not only does it largely eliminate future nuclear waste as a concern, but it simultaneously cleans up most of the past nuclear waste that has been accumulated and is sitting around at various storage sites that we don't know what to do with.

Arashi, you might be interested to know that Elysium Industries is basically the former Navy nuclear research team.

See Fast-Spectrum Molten-Salt Reactor - Elysium Industries - Ed Pheil @ TEAC8; 3/4/19, 7:27 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: Repetition is a way of learning.; 3/4/19, 7:29 PM
John henry said...: 1,200 horsepower.

John Henry; 3/4/19, 7:30 PM
Arashi said...: mandrewa - Thanks for the link.; 3/4/19, 7:30 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/4/19, 7:33 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: The Green New Deal asks you to give up hope and to give up economic benefits.

What "hope?" The "hope" that scientists don't know what they're doing? The "hope" that we can one day get the physical laws of nature and the universe to not exist until they've petitioned a fossil fuel company for permission/approval to exist? WTF.

Necessity is the mother of invention. The need to develop carbon-neutral energy resource industries therefore creates jobs. Are you anti-development?

It's an economic benefit to not rely on an extraction industry's supply, when you can instead connect your generator to something a company can never create an exclusive barrier to you for access. No one can privatize, claim and make you pay them for your wind or sunshine.

Lady, what is wrong with you? Why are you so opposed to making sense on such basic things?

Aren't you able to think for yourself? I think sometimes you just repeat propaganda instead of questioning it.; 3/4/19, 7:34 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Spoilers: they are Nitrogen and Water, NOT Oxygen and CO2, which is dwarfed by H20 by about 50 to 100 times. CO2 is a trace gas, only 400 parts per million in the atmosphere. The Earth has experienced much higher, and lower, CO2 concentrations, and the world has been both warmer and colder. IOW higher CO2, lower temps than today, and vice versa.

Try this on for irrational: "Folks, arsenic is a much more potent poison than methanol. Therefore we can poison someone with as much methanol as we please!"; 3/4/19, 7:39 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: FullMoon said:

Somehow I thought.

Hahahaha.; 3/4/19, 7:43 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Lol. Green Leap Forward. I love it.

Yes, it will be so hard for that to compare favorably to the Republican alternative: The Sludgy Radioactive Brown Stumble Backward.; 3/4/19, 7:45 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Republicans are so rational. Earth is 60 degrees warmer than it would be without GHGs and yet they insist that you must believe GHGs play no role in warming and can be increased at will.

Why can't these so-called Republican expert geniuses tell us what it is that they think keeps the earth so much warmer than outer space?

They've got a fucking answer for everything - as long as it's the wrong answer.; 3/4/19, 7:48 PM
FullMoon said...: Repetition is a way of learning.
...............................

Tell your lover.He missed the memo !; 3/4/19, 7:49 PM
FullMoon said...: Cow farts.; 3/4/19, 7:50 PM
effinayright said...: Try this on for irrational: "Folks, arsenic is a much more potent poison than methanol. Therefore we can poison someone with as much methanol as we please!"
*************

Who are you quoting here??

You're offering nonsense: CO2 is not a poison, but a gas essential to plant and animal life. Unless the atmosphere contains at least 150 ppm CO2, we all will die.

High concs of CO2 as poison? Submariners routinely live in C02 atmospheric concentrations of up to 7000 ppm w/o ill effects.

"There are studies showing cognition decreases as CO2 levels increase, but there are also studies that show CO2 levels need to be extremely high to be harmful to human health. It’s also interesting that the U.S. Navy says average CO2 concentrations 3,500 parts per million (ppm) — levels nearly 10 times higher than what Harvard claims is safe.

“Data collected on nine nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines indicate an average CO2 concentration of 3,500 ppm with a range of 0-10,600 ppm, and data collected on 10 nuclear-powered attack submarines indicate an average CO2 concentration of 4,100 ppm with a range of 300-11,300 ppm,” according to a 2007 National Research Council report on exposure issues facing submarine crews.

Interestingly enough, the NRC noted that a “number of studies suggest that CO2 exposures in the range of 15,000-40,000 ppm do not impair neurobehavioral performance.”

https://www.nap.edu/catalog/11170/emergency-and-continuous-exposure-guidance-levels-for-selected-submarine-contaminants

The ONLY time CO2 is deadly is during the outgassing from beneath old volcanic lakes, as actually happened in Chad in 1986. The latter is a very rare event.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos_disaster; 3/4/19, 7:53 PM
Drago said...: Freder: "So what's your point?"

LOL

My point was obvious: Whats your magical future energy source?; 3/4/19, 7:54 PM
effinayright said...: Trump International Crime Syndicate said...
Republicans are so rational. Earth is 60 degrees warmer than it would be without GHGs and yet they insist that you must believe GHGs play no role in warming and can be increased at will.
*************

What a solid gold electrostatic asshole you are. You offer not a scintilla of evidence for your claim.; 3/4/19, 7:55 PM
FullMoon said...: If 200 years ago I had posted: "I think killing whales is wrong, but perhaps we should stick with whale oil while we work to find something better", you would have responded, "Freder wrote something about whale oil being acceptable but only as a transition to some other unmentioned, undesignated, undescribed magical energy source."
..........................................................

No such thing as internet 200 years ago. They didn't even have tv or radio.; 3/4/19, 7:58 PM
Drago said...: Wholelotta: "What a solid gold electrostatic asshole you are. You offer not a scintilla of evidence for your claim."

Ask him if GHG's play a role in causing people to defecate on San Francisco sidewalks!

If past performance is any guide, he will say yes...but only if he can blame it on midwesterners.

Dont ask me to explain his "thinking", apparently its quite.....complex...

LOL; 3/4/19, 7:58 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: CO2 is not a poison...

Actually you should try breathing it at 5% concentrations or greater if you believe that bullshit. DUMMY!

But it obviously doesn't have to be a poison to illustrate your innumeracy in claiming that the existence of potentially more potent GHGs in any way makes the anti-sustainability denialists' "let's do nothing about CO2!" cry rational.; 3/4/19, 8:02 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: You offer not a scintilla of evidence...

"Claim"! Lol!

It's basic science, dipshit. The guys who put men on the moon have "claimed" it. Check out their data sources or find everyone an alternative one if you dispute it.

They even have one that's more attuned to your reading and intelligence level. Here's the kids' version.; 3/4/19, 8:06 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Whats your magical future energy source?

Lol. One source. We can/should only have ONE!

LET IT BE COAL!; 3/4/19, 8:14 PM
FullMoon said...: It's basic science, dipshit. The guys who put men on the moon have "claimed" it.

Yeah, many of those guys from the sixties are dead.

Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not...; 3/4/19, 8:17 PM
n.n said...: The New Deal was a precursor to catastrophic anthropogenic climate change. The Gray New Deal is founded on a prophecy of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.; 3/4/19, 8:17 PM
Drago said...: Most of the Gemini/Apollo program guys/gals had already headed out the door by the late 80's/very early 90's.

I guess time stands still when you are in a chemically induced haze.

Lets try this out: Hey HoaxPPT, did you enjoy Dustin Hoffman's new movie "The Graduate".

I hear its killing it at the Drive-ins.; 3/4/19, 8:34 PM
cubanbob said...: Rabel said...
Laslo, I've been warding off dementia by exercising my mind with the puzzle presented by Althouse's seemingly irrational position on the flow of wind power electricity and I think I might have an answer.

I think she may be disassociating the production of electricity at the wind turbine location and the ability of electricity to flow into your house due to the wind currently blowing or not blowing - at your house.

In that oddly restricted sense she's right - the wind doesn't have to be blowing at your current location for electricity produced by wind turbines to flow into your location (unless the turbine is in your back yard). This leaves the issue of energy storage out of the equation."

Rabel it maybe just as simple of Althouse assumes that homes are assigned to a specific wind turbine and that that turbine always has enough of a wind to turn it. Or her home is on a priority grid. She knows she's wrong but doesn't want to admit it. Which explains her milk analogy. And let's not try to put her back up as she is our hostess. It's not that big a deal.; 3/4/19, 8:37 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: Althouse said: "@Laslo I was talking about how you paraphrased me, not how you quoted me."

I have done my best to parse your statements.

At this point I cannot make sense of it in a way that works with our current available science.

You are obviously free to clarify what you meant; after 600+ combined comments I'm not sure anyone has been able to paraphrase what you intended in a manner that seems cohesive to me or agreeable to you (the milk pouring didn't make much sense to me, since it seems like that would mean we actually had the 'bottles' available).

Frankly, I think it started as a passing thought you had on the way to your main point of the post, and is not worth the attention that has been paid.

For me, the pea under my mattress was the stark claim that anyone who didn't agree with you was dishonest or ignorant.

I do not claim to be a scientist; I would consider myself a somewhat well-read layman at best.

However, there have been enough comments from people with obvious education and experience that I don't think I'm so far off the mark as to warrant the dishonest/ignorant label.

At this point I will leave it there, and go read the comments about the VW you are looking at. I've seen a few on the roads up here in the Seattle region -- it's a nice-looking car (without being so damned small as the toy Mini Coopers). Good luck on the decision.

I am Laslo.; 3/4/19, 8:43 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: “It's not that big a deal.”

After the last 24 hours, sorry but that caused me to laugh.; 3/4/19, 8:44 PM
FullMoon said...: Lets try this out: Hey HoaxPPT, did you enjoy Dustin Hoffman's new movie "The Graduate".

I hear its killing it at the Drive-ins.

He more of a Easy Rider type, when he flirting with the Austrian Silver Tressed Cougar.....

Born to be wild....
Like a true nature's child
He was born, born to be wild...; 3/4/19, 8:44 PM
Rabel said...: I thought I was sort of giving her an out by assigning the basis of the disagreement to the specific language used, rather than a lack of fundamental knowledge. Maybe not.; 3/4/19, 8:44 PM
Rabel said...: Blessed are the peacemakers for they get all the pieces.; 3/4/19, 8:45 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: “Rabel it maybe just as simple of Althouse assumes that homes are assigned to a specific wind turbine and that that turbine always has enough of a wind to turn it.”

Um... I doubt she thinks that.; 3/4/19, 8:47 PM
Fen said...: What I found most interesting about that thread is that the Global Warming Doom skeptics

1) are more educated about Wind and Solar alternatives than the alarmists, and

2) while the are cynical about the viability of Wind, they are excited and hopeful that there will be breakthroughs in the battery technology needed to store the energy from Wind. In contrast, the alarmists would abandon Wind simply because Trump endorsed it, for them its about tribalism not science.; 3/4/19, 8:51 PM
Fen said...: "I doubt she thinks that."

Do you find it odd that after 24 hours and some 500 comments, Althouse has been unable to clarify her remarks? A highly intelligent and shrewd communicator who has some 10+ years experience relaying her thoughts on her blog, every single day, to an audience she is very familiar with.

Someone is not posting in good faith. Either its Althouse or all the 40+ people politely asking her what she meant.; 3/4/19, 9:02 PM
FullMoon said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/4/19, 9:07 PM
cubanbob said...: Trump International Crime Syndicate said...
Republicans are so rational. Earth is 60 degrees warmer than it would be without GHGs and yet they insist that you must believe GHGs play no role in warming and can be increased at will.

Why can't these so-called Republican expert geniuses tell us what it is that they think keeps the earth so much warmer than outer space? "

Back in middle school ( in the late sixties) we learned the answer to that: close enough to the sun but not too close and a planet with enough mass to hold a thick enough atmosphere that has a lot of water, rotates on its axis and isn't tidally locked. Water vapor is the principal greenhouse gas.; 3/4/19, 9:11 PM
Rabel said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/4/19, 9:46 PM
Rabel said...: Maybe the fact that wind turbines look like gigantic penises with whirligigs on top is clouding her cognitive capabilities. What with her well known interest in whirligigs.; 3/4/19, 9:48 PM
Original Mike said...: "Do you find it odd that after 24 hours and some 500 comments, Althouse has been unable to clarify her remarks?"

She can't clarify her remarks. Never having really thought about it, she had only a vague idea how the power system works.; 3/4/19, 9:54 PM
Original Mike said...: To correct a student's misunderstanding of a principle, you need to determine the root of the misunderstanding. To do that, you engage them in comversation. They are often evasive, however, embarrassed to display their lack of understanding.; 3/4/19, 10:05 PM
effinayright said...: Original Mike said...
"Do you find it odd that after 24 hours and some 500 comments, Althouse has been unable to clarify her remarks?"

She can't clarify her remarks. Never having really thought about it, she had only a vague idea how the power system works.

*************

And like almost ALL warmistas, she will never admit to her ignorance, never ask for clarifying questions, and most of all never admit IGNORANCE AND FACTUAL ERROR.; 3/4/19, 10:07 PM
effinayright said...: Original Mike said...
To correct a student's misunderstanding of a principle, you need to determine the root of the misunderstanding. To do that, you engage them in comversation. They are often evasive, however, embarrassed to display their lack of understanding.
*********

Yeah, I'm thinking how our Scientifically Learned and Beloved Inga went all postal over the term" city-scale storage".

I think, steeped as she, in utter ignorance of matters scientific, thought we were talking about batteries the size of cities.

We weren't---but Bill Gates WAS talking about the gigantic size such power storage would have to be to handle three days of Tokyo's power requirements after a typhoon.

He said it couldn't be done.

So either way you look at it, Inga is a horse's patootie---but we all knew that.; 3/4/19, 10:13 PM
Original Mike said...: "And like almost ALL warmistas, she will never admit to her ignorance, never ask for clarifying questions, and most of all never admit IGNORANCE AND FACTUAL ERROR."

It doesn't have anything to do with global warming.; 3/4/19, 10:14 PM
effinayright said...: Trump International Crime Syndicate said...
You offer not a scintilla of evidence...

"Claim"! Lol!

It's basic science, dipshit. The guys who put men on the moon have "claimed" it. Check out their data sources or find everyone an alternative one if you dispute it

********You are so fucking stupid. The greenhouse gas effect of water vapor is much larger than that of CO2.

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/climatesciencenarratives/its-water-vapor-not-the-co2.html; 3/4/19, 10:19 PM
effinayright said...: Trump International Crime Syndicate said...
CO2 is not a poison...

Actually you should try breathing it at 5% concentrations or greater if you believe that bullshit. DUMMY!
****************************

There is NO PLACE on this earth where anyone on this Earth has ever breathed 5% CO@ for long, EXCEPT the people living around that lake in Chad, who died. Your comment is stupid beyond belief.

The current CO2 concentration in our atmospher is 400 ppm, which is 0.04%, not 5% you innumerate, unscientific moron. 5% is 125 times what's in our atmosphere.

And I notice you didn't respond to a single point I made about plants loving CO2, or how submariners work in environments more than 10 times CO2 than we do on land.

Face it: you're a moron.

5% is 125 times 0.04% .; 3/4/19, 10:27 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: The greenhouse gas effect of water vapor is much larger than that of CO2.

Hi Stupid Man. How's it going?

I'm sure you could spend several more replies not understanding the fact that "less than something else" still does not mean "zero effect."

Which part your head was impacted when your brain damage set in?; 3/4/19, 10:45 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: There is NO PLACE on this earth where anyone on this Earth has ever breathed 5% CO@ for long.

Even though you're illiterate, you still manage to type. Aren't you narcissistic enough to at least remember your own claims?

What you're saying above isn't what you claimed. YOU claimed that "CO2 is not a poison."

So stop getting your body to expel this "non-poison" and let it build up in you. Or breathe in a roomful of all the CO2 you've exhaled and not ventilated out.

A guy like you can get away with that. I mean, you like smelling your own farts, obviously.; 3/4/19, 10:50 PM
Fen said...: Freder:"And it amuses me to no end that the right's favorite energy source is a technology that would not exist, and would not even be remotely viable, without one of the most massive investments of government resources in the history of mankind."

I'm amused that you are amused.
|
I'm amazed that a man of your years and intelligence, someone who has likely debated the Right for decades... has no understanding of what roles the Right believes the government should fill. The Department of Defense is a socialist creation? Really?

How does this happen? Because if you guys can't be educated, there aren't many options left on what to do with you.; 3/4/19, 11:01 PM
Fen said...: Ritmo: " YOU claimed that "CO2 is not a poison."

You are being dishonest. Dihydrogen monoxide (cough) is also not a poison, yet has killed millions of humans.

But I look forward to your ignorant war on Oxygen...

Oxygen Toxicity in Humans
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4925834/; 3/4/19, 11:08 PM
Fen said...: One of my fav posts exposing the ignorance of people like Ritmo:

"When they blather on about carbon, what they actually mean is carbon dioxide, which is just one carbon atom doing a ménage à trois with two hunky oxygen atoms. Such a complete tart. As trace gases go and as the name suggests, there’s not a lot of it around but plant life thrives on it, which is why farmers pump vast quantities of it into greenhouses to produce bumper crops.

The alarmists believe there’s a so-called forcing mechanism initiated at a certain theoretical threshold level of carbon dioxide, which will magnify the Earth’s temperature. Nobody’s ever proved such a physical mechanism exists and indeed, nobody’s ever even demonstrated it either. Despite nearly two decades of increasing carbon dioxide levels, the global thermometer has stubbornly refused to move upwards and if anything, looks to be heading in the other direction. The demonisation of carbon is all about belief, which is religion, rather than science, which is about prove it or hit the road Jack.

When they picked on carbon as being the root of all evil, they were mounting an attack on the elemental basis of all life on Earth. If you’ve come to believe as I do that environmentalism has become anti-life, it was somehow inevitable that carbon absolutely had to become their hate object.

Good luck with banning it, by the way."

https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/sleeping-with-the-enemy/

Read the whole thing, you'll discover that Carbon is quite the hussy.; 3/4/19, 11:15 PM
Fen said...: "It doesn't have anything to do with global warming."

Yup. For proof, suggest any solution to Global Warming that doesn't include Socialism.; 3/4/19, 11:19 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Freder: "Yucca Mountain was in trouble, both as an engineering and political venture,.."

“LOL”

“There is no technology now or forever that you and your lefty pals cant make into a political problem”

No, there really weren’t technical issues. The political issue is that the trains carrying nuclear waste would mostly go through LAS Vegas, which was Harry Reid’s power base. Which is to say that it was killed as a political favor to the most powerful Senate Dem. Of course, it would have bee far cheaper to just lay track and run the trains around Las Vegas. If you ever see it, most of the area around that city is very flat desert mostly unoccupied and unused for much of anything - though one of (Harry Reid’s oldest son) Rory Reid’s clients had a solar farm on BLM land that had been leased to Clive Bundy, and the Bundy cattle were interfering with the solar panel, thus their standoff with the BLM SWAT team (BLM then run by a former Reid top staffer).; 3/4/19, 11:51 PM
Oso Negro said...: I would just like to add that I have reached the point in life that I cheerfully accept my ignorance about many topics. I am freely and cheerfully ignorant! And I intend to go right on being ignorant about many things. There are simply too many fields of human endeavor to master. But, if I know anything about a topic, I usually know a lot at this point. One thing I know for certain - you can't quickly Google something and pretend to knowledge.; 3/5/19, 12:02 AM
Fen said...: Freder: "I live in New Orleans"

You choose to live below sea level?
And you believe in Global Warming?

....?; 3/5/19, 6:24 AM
Birkel said...: In truth, invention is much more often the mother of necessity.
But I won't expect some here to understand that.; 3/5/19, 8:16 AM
Birkel said...: Let me play this dumb game:
Water is a poison because if you drink 5 gallons in one hour you will die.

Not sure about the point of so many of the stupid things typed above.
Bored?
Stupid?; 3/5/19, 8:20 AM