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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1075810)	6/29/2018 12:38:29 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576272

"calls renewables a ‘grotesque idea’ Not quite. He said "renewables and batteries alone". He likes nukes, so the idea of renewables, batteries, nukes, and efficiency is OK. "The notion that renewable energies and batteries alone will provide all needed energy is fantastical. It is also a grotesque idea, because of the staggering environmental pollution from mining and material disposal, if all energy was derived from renewables and batteries" = James Hansen: We should look at all energy options \| MIT News news.mit.edu/2015/james-hansen-climate-change-rose-lecture-0416 Apr 16, 2015 e have to rebalance the planet’s energy balance,” Hansen said. Earlier calculations, he said, had indicated that would require a sustained reduction of 6 percent annually in global carbon emissions — a very difficult target to meet — but more recent measurements have shown that the planet is absorbing more carbon dioxide than scientists had expected, so the actual needed reduction may be less. “The science is crystal clear,” Hansen said: We can’t afford to burn even the already known reserves of fossil fuel. And avoiding that, he said, will require a substantial increase in the use of nuclear power. “We need to be realistic in looking at the available energy sources,” he said, pointing out that solar and wind energy still represent only about 3 percent of global energy supply. “If we could decarbonize electricity, then we could solve the problem,” Hansen added: Even liquid fuels for transportation can be manufactured using alternative sources of electricity. Sweden, he noted, has already achieved essentially carbon-free electricity, thanks to a combination of nuclear power and abundant hydropower; France is nearing this goal, thanks mostly to its extensive use of nuclear power. Both countries, he said, produced most of their nuclear infrastructure within a decade, “so that has been the fastest way to decarbonize that has been demonstrated so far.” Fossil fuels have been artificially cheap because their true costs to society, including pollution and climate change, have been ignored, Hansen said. To counter that, he added, what’s needed is “to put a rising fee, a tax, on carbon emissions,” which would be collected at the source, and then returned directly to the public. “That would be a huge incentive for entrepreneurs to develop no-carbon and low-carbon energy and products,” Hansen said. And by returning the money to the people, he said, those who achieve the greatest reductions in carbon use would reap the greatest profit. Projections show that such an approach could reduce U.S. carbon emissions by more than half within 20 years — and create 3 million new jobs in the process. “I think you need to be open-minded,” Hansen said. “We should be looking at all the carbon-free energy sources, and figuring out what their contribution should be — and frankly, the market should be helping us do it. … We should have a carbon-free energy portfolio, and let the market find what is the least expensive way. We should be doing [research and development] on all the good candidates, and certainly nuclear is one of them.”