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96vette t1_ixl0ifk wrote

Doesn’t say if ethanol is included in the articles renewable energy. Ethanol is a renewable fuel with a high carbon footprint. We need to eliminate ethanol and increase nuclear.

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DannyBlind t1_ixlaiuf wrote

Ethanol is a good replacement for fossil fuels since it has a high energy density, keeps long and it burns cleaner. However, as you said, it is still garbage compared to alternatives. Cover every roof, nay, replace every roof with solar panels. Make offshore windfarms and build nuclear thorium reactors for a proper baseline.

How ethanol got labeled the same as solar- or windpower is still beyond me

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Lightning_Lance t1_ixm5v5x wrote

Because lobbying ofc.. It's also made from corn iirc and those farms are not sustainable. But tbh I don't fully remember what I've read about it, I just remember the general sense of ethanol being a bad idea.

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FantasmaNaranja t1_ixm76vc wrote

well if they arent sustainable then why does the US goverment subsidize so much of it thus making the problem far worse! surely the goverment wouldnt fuck up the enviroment for the sake of profitability right? /s

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genasugelan t1_ixm6y36 wrote

Same way natural gas got labelled green in the EU.

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tuc-eert t1_ixmtlsm wrote

To be fair, natural gas is quite green emissions wise if you stop all the methane leakages.

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Able-Fun2874 t1_iy5r5bq wrote

See that if is unfortunately the big issue. We won't.

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MaximilianCrichton t1_iy788ln wrote

Your comment could do with apostrophes around the 'if', I had to read this quite a few times

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_Wyrm_ t1_ixno8cw wrote

The primary argument I hear against nuclear is always waste disposal i.e gotta put the spent fuel somewhere...

But the footprint for storage is smaller than most other shit, considering the power density and relative efficiency of nuclear to begin with

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DannyBlind t1_ixqgfru wrote

Thats why I specified thorium reactors. The fuel gets depleted to such an extend that waste is practically a non issue as it is exponentially less than conventional nuclear

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[deleted] t1_ixmbrob wrote

Renewables are absolutely better than ethanol and fossil fuels, and I think the final step to sustainability is dramatically scaling back consumption (from the production side i.e. out with planned obsolescence, the mass marketing and creation of unnecessary goods etc)

Unfortunately solar panels have a productive lifespan of 25-30 years, and require a lot of destructive mining to procure the necessary metals. Every renewable has its environmental downside (still better than the status quo), meaning a truly sustainable baseline can only be achieved by cutting back on our habits that call for such high energy needs (mostly in manufacturing).

I think we can do it. :)

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DannyBlind t1_ixqk81i wrote

Disclaimer: i kind of went off on a rant there, but in my excuse, im passionate about this shit because I've been active into environmentalism for the last 20 years. Strap in, it's going to be a long one. Also please don't take anything i say personally, that is not my intention.

>(...) require a lot of destructive mining to procure the necessary metals.

I always hear the argument from bad faith actors, not that you are one but please double check your info and their sources. This argument gets tauted for batteries aswell.

Now I don't argue that the mining and refinement process is not polluting, on the contrary, it's pretty damn destructive.

HOWEVER, are people really arguing that extracting the nessecary minerals from litteral rock and dirt is more cost effective than taking the worn materials (ie: solar panels or batteries) and refine those back into useable minerals?

In addition we have the alternatives: oil/coal/gas. Burning these produces a shitton of pollutants other than CO2! A buddy of mine worked as a safety council in regards to nuclear waste. His work was making sure that all materials salvaged from a decommissioned nuclear reactor didnt exceed a certain radiation threshold. They had to stop multiple times because the coal powerplant, a bit xurther away, caused so much extra background radiation that it would exceed the thresholds by over 10x!

Also, that is just burning the garbage. Now lets talk about the procurement of said fossil fuels. Sure mining cobalt is pretty bad, but how many oil spills happened in recent memory? How big was the scale of the affected area and how bad were their repercussions?

Thats just oil, what about the coal mines? The workers have a massive increase in risk of cancer, if the don't die of blacklung that is. Also what do we do with depleted mines? We abandon them. We cant fill them with water due to risk of contamination of the water table (heavy metals like mercury, lead or arsenic/the chemicals that might've been used during extraction). We might use them for storage, but that costs too much money so we leave them as is.

Now we can talk about natural gas. Sure it burns cleaner, but storage and transport is a massive issue. In addition it is more cost effective to not fix leaks and just pay the fines due to massive lobbying. This releases multiple metric fucktons of raw methane into the air. If memory serves me right, methane is roughly 32x worse than CO2. But it degrades, no worries! Into CO2...

Individuals cutting back on their consumerism is a fraction of a drop in an ocean. For example what dafuq does it matter if I half my waste output, for 2 garbage bags a week to 1, while an average mcdonalds produces a container of garbage per day? What difference does it make if i take a bike to work instead of my car while international shipping starts burning bunker oil (that is such dirty fuel that it needs to be preheated to 40C before its even liquid!) as soon as they touch international waters? Why does it matter if i take shorter showers while the argicultural sector uses over 40% of all potable water that they pollute after use because of massive over fertilisation?

Now people will argue: "but all these problems exist because of peoples consumerism!" No it doesn't. The individual gets the choice between a bad option and a worse option. The only real short term solutions is a carbon tax, sweeping legislation and a massive clamp down on political corruption and industries across the board while improving international relationships so everybody starts getting their shit together!

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[deleted] t1_ixqmsz1 wrote

We agree with each other.

I guess I'm using the word consumerism less as an individual practice, and more as a culturally accepted state of the world. To me, that state of the world of course implicates the companies you listed such as McDonalds, and the idea that we need all of that international shipping you mentioned. While i think it's naïve to remove individual humans from sustainability, after all, our consumption habits in the Global North will in fact have to change for a more sustainable future. We also though indeed don't individually have the power to change it, it must be initiated far earlier in the chain. Environmentalists have been traumatized by "consumerism" being weaponized by highly-polluting companies to shift blame to individuals, and that's disingenuous of companies, but removed from that political context we must be sober-minded about how we are a part of consumerism. I find it equally disingenuous when people paint a picture of companies making changes, our lives (in rich countries) being largely unaffected, and the world subsequently healing. Our lives will be affected because if the planet consumed the way the US does, we'd have already run out of planet.

You pose the harms of mining against the harms of fossil fuels, but that's not what was happening in my head. The harms of fossil fuels are a given and out of the question. I think about the harms of mining vs not mining (as much as possible) and not burning fossil fuels.

World A: Status quo - very bad

World B: Consumption and energy needs stay the same, but we use renewable energy - bad

World C: Consumption and energy needs go way down, and we use renewables for what's left that is required - good.

Note on refining metals from used products back into usable materials, that's so good, but still not ideal if paired with current consumption and energy needs. Not having to mine more for a new solar panel would be cool, but that solar panel would still fuck with the environment the way solar panels, and wind, and hydroelectric, and geothermal, currently do. That's why less all around is preferable. I really fuck with Degrowth as an economic policy, rather than "Green Growth." I recommend Jason Hickel and Giorgos Kallis as excellent scholars that have written a lot of super accessible and persuasive stuff on the subject.

Edit: Formatting on mobile

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DannyBlind t1_ixrrimp wrote

Refreshing to see a constructive argument on reddit these days.

I agree with your points however i am more cynical as a person. In my eyes your arguments are too idealistic. Humans are greedy. It will be extremely hard to shift an entire society to consuming to such a less extend that your vision becomes reality.

That is to say that my vision is also verly idealistic but I think better achievable. I see the mining more as a bad investment that makes up for it in the long run as the pollution is more localised and therefore easier to deal with. In addition it puts less emphasis on the production of fossil fuels.

We already see this with the recent mass adoption of electric cars and covid. Fossil fuel prices went down across the board making it less tempting to upscale production. On the contrary, it helped downscale production. I think continuing this trend is the key

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96vette t1_ixmhx3m wrote

Nuclear fusion is the answer.

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DannyBlind t1_ixql3zd wrote

No it's not. Nuclear fusion, as it stands, is a pipedream. Nuclear fusion has been 20 years away from being successful for the last 60 years! We need answers now! They might not be as great as the, theoretical, nuclear fusion but we need a solution 20 years ago. Second best time is now

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96vette t1_ixr38u3 wrote

Nuclear fission reactors should have been replacing coal fired power plants 30 years ago. Instead we got “no nukes” and global warming. Currently billions of dollars are being invested in fusion development by private equity and wealthy individuals. This is a good sign that fusion power is going to happen, sooner than you think. In the meantime, solar and wind are a good stepping stone to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

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DannyBlind t1_ixs6vry wrote

I am a relatively pessimistic person, so i want a solution now, while we wait for fusion to be realistic. I have to say, i hope i am wrong and you are right

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SantiJamesF t1_ixn0y09 wrote

Covering every rooth with solar panels is quite literally impossible. Wind energy is also horrible for the environment as when ever it gets too windy, it has to be shut off or it's motor will combust. That ain't even the main issue, it's the fact it's killing thousands of endangered birds every year, and tens of thousands of non endangered birds. Solar has also been killing birds that fly over the solar farms, getting fried by the intensified sunlight reflected off of panels.

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_Wyrm_ t1_ixnpkzh wrote

>Solar has also been killing birds that fly over the solar farms, getting fried by the intensified sunlight reflected off of panels.

Solar farms work differently than solar panels. Farms reflect light to a collection point (which means these alleged birds would need to fly into the focal area), whereas panels turn light directly into energy.

In addition, solar farms are typically in barren sections of land. Birds would not typically land or even fly low enough in these areas to put themselves in harm's way. Even if they did, the very small area they'd need to pass through to be instantly taken out of the air is so close to the collection site there's not really any point talking about it.

>Covering every rooth with solar panels is quite literally impossible.

Says who? Big Coal?

>Wind energy is also horrible for the environment as when ever it gets too windy, it has to be shut off or it's motor will combust.

...And that's horrible for the environment how exactly? It's a built-in automatic safety in like every windmill that's out there. Why do you think shutting down a windmill in high wind is bad for the environment? Are you high?

>That ain't even the main issue, it's the fact it's killing thousands of endangered birds every year, and tens of thousands of non endangered birds.

Wind turbines account for less than 1 in 4000 bird deaths. You can give flat numbers, but the statistics don't lie. Though I can't find a comparable figure, I would bet money that planes account for a much larger share than windmills... But I don't see you saying planes bad (which they are, but that's about carbon footprint and efficiency of travel).

It seems to me like you don't use the grey matter god gave you.

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Tobias_Atwood t1_ixnf437 wrote

You sound like you get your alternative facts from fox news. You should correct that >.>

>Covering every rooth with solar panels is quite literally impossible.

How is it "literally impossible"? At most it would be a massive financial and structural investment that would take years to do. Difficult, but not impossible in the least.

>Wind energy is also horrible for the environment as when ever it gets too windy, it has to be shut off or it's motor will combust.

How does shutting down a power generating turbine due to inclement weather make it horrible for the environment?

>That ain't even the main issue, it's the fact it's killing thousands of endangered birds every year, and tens of thousands of non endangered birds.

If you actually did research instead of listening to rightwing pundits spin yarns about imaginary bogeymen you'd know that the amount of birds killed by wind turbines is so few as to be almost a complete non issue. Coal and natural gas plants actually kill many dozens of times more birds per megawatt generated than wind or solar. If you want to protect birds, build more wind and solar.

>Solar has also been killing birds that fly over the solar farms, getting fried by the intensified sunlight reflected off of panels.

You're thinking of water heated sunlight reflection solar. It uses a vast collection of mirrors that reflect sunlight onto a water tower to boil the water and use the steam to turn a turbine. Photovoltaic solar panels installed nowadays absorb sunlight by turning it into electricity directly.

No one is putting mirrors on their roof to boil water for steam turbines. PV panels are way more efficient now. And PV panels certainly don't emit high intensity beams of energy capable of frying birds.

Maybe go read about the stuff you're trying to discredit before you go spout such a massive wall of lies and falsehoods.

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sampjennings t1_ixl0x5f wrote

To my knowledge there is no ethanol fired power plant in the US

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LuckyHedgehog t1_ixmjvn3 wrote

The article clearly defines what forms of renewables are projected to overtake coal and nuclear though. I'm not sure how you started talking about ethanol

>The government energy tracker predicts that wind, solar and hydro will generate 22 percent of U.S. electricity by the end of this year. That is more than coal at 20 percent and nuclear at 19 percent.

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96vette t1_ixmmxrc wrote

You’re right! I skipped over the subheading stating wind, solar and hydro power are the renewables they are talking about. Ethanol is considered a renewable by the government. It is blended with gasoline to reduce dependence on oil. Ethanol is a less efficient fuel than gas and is corrosive, so not a great ICE fuel.

Our conversion away from fossil fuels encouraging. There is more than just changing fuel sources though. For example, the small manufacturing plant where I worked had four gas fired heat treating furnaces with a cost of $5 million each. These will need to be replaced with electric furnaces, a significant capital investment.

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Cinnamon_BrewWitch t1_ixnqnzn wrote

It took me a second, but my first thought was "I don't want to drive a nuclear-powered car."

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96vette t1_ixo1zye wrote

You wouldn’t have to be concerned about range. Start driving and only have to stop for food and potty.

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SilverNicktail t1_ixry9a4 wrote

Ethanol is a little over 1% of electricity generation in the US, and that needle has barely moved. I don't think this is a real concern compared to the displacement of coal and gas.

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ApizzaApizza t1_ixndjin wrote

Nuclear is pointlessly expensive. Solar/offshore wind.

We have a fucking fusion reactor in the sky, come on.

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96vette t1_ixnfkfs wrote

Fission reactors would have had a great positive impact on climate change. The anti nuke crowd bears some responsibility for the climate problems we now face.

Small fusion reactors will be developed that can safely power heavy equipment, trains, trucks and possible aircraft. Larger fusion reactors will provide clean, reliable power for cities. Wind and solar are a good stepping stone to this future. Lead, follow or get out of the way.

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ApizzaApizza t1_ixokmvy wrote

>Fission reactors would have had a great positive impact on climate change.

Indeed, but they were plagued with problems…were expensive as fuck to build, and take for fuckin ever.

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96vette t1_ixpc2gp wrote

Problems that would have been resolved if the technology had been allowed to develop.

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