[ckaihatsu]

When the Prius first came out, in 2001, the Right went nuts.

Wait, that's wrong, they were already nuts, and stupid..

I pointed out that it was a transitional technology, which it still is. We are in a massive transition to an economy that is not based on carbon fuels.

That's not easy, or cheap, and moving Americans to do the right thing, well, it's like herding drunk cats.

The Federal government should have committed trillions years ago, and declared an emergency.

So you have to give California credit for trying.

But without a national plan, and the will to make it happen, I wonder if even a rich state can pull it off. Because make no mistake, no state is ready for what's coming; the hammer won't just come down in California...

Yeah, it's ultimately *political*, not technical, because there are actually *many* options available regarding energy implementations -- but the *institutional culture* is the 'resting inertia' here, and won't budge easily (the petrochemical industry).

Human history has historically been very 'emergent', from past conditions / markets, and only recently are we beginning to get some kind of 'grasp' over how best to deploy and use present-day societal- and consumer-type technologies.

Ideally, though, I'd much rather see *discussion* (as here), over various *technical* approaches that may be most suitable, or not, for the public's energy needs. The *energy* question here, in terms of 'political will', seems to parallel the *abortion*, and *cannabis* issues, too -- whether or not to *federalize*.

[late]

The *energy* question here, in terms of 'political will', seems to parallel the *abortion*, and *cannabis* issues, too -- whether or not to *federalize*.

We needed a national policy 20 years ago, badly.

There's no substitute for sanity..

[ckaihatsu]

We needed a national policy 20 years ago, badly.

There's no substitute for sanity..

Modern society is *still* catching up to the more-or-less *accidental* / incidental development of *industrialization* / industrial-mass-production. That's the crux of all politics, really, since it's about society's *current* means of production.

The way I put it recently is 'How should a factory be valuated' -- because it can't be *both* by equity capital, and by something else at the same time (though there *is* politics, of course). The context was around 'market socialism' which *should* be taken to be self-contradictory and an absurdity -- that's what that 'valuation' argument was for.


Social Production Worldview

Spoiler: show

[BlutoSays]

When the Prius first came out, in 2001, the Right went nuts.

Wait, that's wrong, they were already nuts, and stupid..

I pointed out that it was a transitional technology, which it still is. We are in a massive transition to an economy that is not based on carbon fuels.

That's not easy, or cheap, and moving Americans to do the right thing, well, it's like herding drunk cats.

The Federal government should have committed trillions years ago, and declared an emergency.

So you have to give California credit for trying.

But without a national plan, and the will to make it happen, I wonder if even a rich state can pull it off. Because make no mistake, no state is ready for what's coming; the hammer won't just come down in California...

It's very cheap for some. People like YOU who always expect other people to pay for everything.

You want a "national plan"? Go to China and India and challenge them on doing whatever they want in their interests. Don't give me the BS about how we have to set an example. The only example we're going to be setting is national bankruptcy thanks to idiotic ideologies with zero financial reality in the mix. Now that will be a declared emergency.

Get your ass off of the internet opinionating all day and start building solar panels and wind turbines. Don't just wish it with OPM. Get your f'n ass in gear and start building them.

What you seek as a liberal is any cause to transfer money from one group of people to another. You can't help yourself. It's inherent in your DNA. This is just another charade of yours.

Too bad more of you leftist morons don't get curb stomped, but hopefully that's coming.

[BlutoSays]

Energy Transition a ‘Dangerous Delusion’: Report
Nathan Worchester, The Epoch Times, September 8, 2022

An Aug. 30 report argues that the idea of totally transitioning from fossil fuels is a “dangerous delusion.”

“The lessons of the recent decade make it clear that [solar, wind, and battery] SWB technologies cannot be surged in times of need, are neither inherently ‘clean’ nor even independent of hydrocarbons, and are not cheap,” it states.

Authored by Mark Mills of the conservative Manhattan Institute, the report comes as the Russia-Ukraine war wreaks havoc on global energy markets, particularly in Europe.

In a Sept. 7 speech, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen vowed to try to “flatten the curve” of electricity use during peak hours through rationing.

Faced with rising energy prices, some politicians are rethinking their stances on fossil fuels.

Newly elected British Prime Minister Liz Truss will end her country’s fracking moratorium on Sept. 8, as reported by The Telegraph.

While noting that electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines have all significantly improved in recent years, Mills highlighted barriers that impede a complete departure from hydrocarbons.

Raw materials pose one fundamental challenge. Citing a May 2021 analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA), Mills argued that any sweeping energy transition would require a massive increase in supplies of various minerals.

The supply of lithium, for example, would need to rise 4,200 percent.

IEA projections cited in the report suggest that rising commodity prices could drive up the prices of batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels. Electric vehicle prices are already increasing thanks to the increasing costs of raw materials.

‘Very Interesting Winter’

Stephen Haner, a senior fellow with the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy in Virginia, agrees with Mills’ analysis.

He told The Epoch Times in an Aug. 7 interview that the average American may find it hard to track the energy transition issue “until they suddenly open up their Dominion [Energy] bill, and they see that their power bill went up 40 percent.”

“I don’t see it ever being 100 percent fossil free. It’s just not going to work. Can there be a higher percentage of wind and solar? Yes,” he said, adding that the world may soon face a “very interesting winter.”

Another expert, Daniel Kish of the American Energy Alliance, told The Epoch Times it is misleading to directly compare the levelized costs of wind and solar to the costs of coal, nuclear, or other dispatchable sources of electricity.

Such comparisons often serve to support the claim that renewables are cheaper than conventional energy.

He pointed out that the United States’ Energy Information Administration distinguishes dispatchable technologies, such as coal and nuclear, from resource-constrained technologies like wind and solar.

“You can’t compare the costs of part-time energy when you’ve got full-time demand to full-time, demand energy that is there when you need it,” Kish said in an Aug. 7 interview.

Like Mills, he worries the United States could become far more dependent on Chinese minerals and supply chains than it ever was on OPEC oil.

“For the life of me, it’s like you’re being driven right into China’s open arms, and you’re doing it on purpose,” he said.

Some Experts More Critical

Other experts contacted by The Epoch Times were more critical of the report.

Professor Iain MacGill of the University of New South Wales told The Epoch Times in a Sept. 6 email that there was “much to both agree and disagree with” in the report.

He drew attention to the IEA’s warning in 2021 that underinvestment in non-fossil fuel energy could prove destabilizing.

“In at least part, our current problems arise from reductions in fossil fuel investment that weren’t sufficiently offset by clean energy investment,” MacGill said.

“Building up supply chains will be key. But the alternative is surely far worse–runaway climate change.”

Christian Breyer, a professor of solar economy at Finland’s Lappeenranta University of Technology, was far harsher.

In a scathing Sept. 7 email, he told The Epoch Times that the report was “a long list of old stuff which is partly simply wrong or solutions are known. [sic]”

He then cited his own recent scientific review, claiming that it demonstrated the feasibility of an energy transition based primarily on solar, wind, and batteries.

One section covers raw materials, an area where Mills and many others have raised potentially huge shortfalls as a serious issue. Even Breyer’s review notes that “practically all research in this field finds critical limits for material availability.”

His proposed solutions? Among others: making lithium extraction from seawater much cheaper, and the mandatory, near-100 percent recycling of lithium batteries.

Kish, of the American Energy Alliance, expressed doubts about such a vision.

“Nobody is recycling batteries at scale. At a certain point, you have to take a look at the costs involved,” he said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/energy-tr ... 17765.html

[Pants-of-dog]

People like YOU who always expect other people to pay for everything.

Do you clean up all the toxic fumes and greenhouse gases that come out of your car exhaust? Are you paying to have it cleaned up?

If not, then you must be expecting someone else to pay to clean it up.

[BlutoSays]

Do you clean up all the toxic fumes and greenhouse gases that come out of your car exhaust? Are you paying to have it cleaned up?

If not, then you must be expecting someone else to pay to clean it up.

It's cleaned up within reason. BUt that's not to say that you go jackass crazy and turn out mandates that cause the whole country to become unemployed or sit in the fucking dark.

You liberals have this view that everything kills and we must have iron-fisted mandates to enact anything you see fit. Now, every decision has two sides to it, regardless of a politician only telling you one side of the story.

Many of these proposals skyrocket prices for people who can ill afford it, cause higher unemployment, and create other opportunity losses as they are enacted. And they're enacted by people who sit in air-conditioned offices all god damned day and have no real view of reality. And "studies" can tell a person anything they want to hear.

Would you agree that unemployment kills people? Or is the only thing that kills people dirty air, water and climate change?

[ckaihatsu]

(I'm sure *others* would like to take-a-turn here, but anyway....) (grin)

Get your ass off of the internet opinionating all day and start building solar panels and wind turbines. Don't just wish it with OPM. Get your f'n ass in gear and start building them.

'Experientialism' -- as though one has to have *experiences* oneself (instead of education), in order to have *knowledge*, *expertise*, and *authority* about something, or about doing something. Everything useful these days is made by wage slaves on *machines* (duh). TLDR: red herring.

You're simply extending, and projecting, this 'experientialism' / moralism onto others -- we don't live in fucking artisanal-craft medieval days of personally whittling wooden spoons out of hand-felled trees.

I'm getting *sick and tired* of the right wing at PoFo being so *evasive* and bullshitty about the issue of *value*. Really, at this point it's just looking *amateurish*.

What you seek as a liberal is any cause to transfer money from one group of people to another. You can't help yourself. It's inherent in your DNA. This is just another charade of yours.

Too bad more of you leftist morons don't get curb stomped, but hopefully that's coming.

*Violence* -- for the spoils, and for flag-hoisting -- ?


Trump Demands Either New Election 'Immediately' or Make Him 'Rightful' President Now

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-dem ... sident-now

[BlutoSays]

(I'm sure *others* would like to take-a-turn here, but anyway....) (grin)





'Experientialism' -- as though one has to have *experiences* oneself (instead of education), in order to have *knowledge*, *expertise*, and *authority* about something, or about doing something. Everything useful these days is made by wage slaves on *machines* (duh). TLDR: red herring.

You're simply extending, and projecting, this 'experientialism' / moralism onto others -- we don't live in fucking artisanal-craft medieval days of personally whittling wooden spoons out of hand-felled trees.

I'm getting *sick and tired* of the right wing at PoFo being so *evasive* and bullshitty about the issue of *value*. Really, at this point it's just looking *amateurish*.





*Violence* -- for the spoils, and for flag-hoisting -- ?


Trump Demands Either New Election 'Immediately' or Make Him 'Rightful' President Now

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-dem ... sident-now

I don't sit here and demand any action on the part of the government. I'm a let the market decide type of person. My God! It's awful! I know!

People actually making their own decisions or not on whether to buy an electric car or a gasoline car based on what they want with no artificial inducements, subsidies or threats from Uncle Sham. How novel!

[Pants-of-dog]

It's cleaned up within reason.

How?

What exactly is done to clean it up and how exactly do you contribute to this clean up?

[BlutoSays]

How?

What exactly is done to clean it up and how exactly do you contribute to this clean up?

Oxygen sensors, catalytic converters, OBD-II, EGR systems.

Do you drive a car?

[ckaihatsu]

I don't sit here and demand any action on the part of the government. I'm a let the market decide type of person. My God! It's awful! I know!

*No one* here is arguing against individual self-determination and consumer choices / discretion.

This is, interestingly, both a red herring *and* a strawman.

The 'civilizational' (societal) issue here is that of *distribution*, because there sure-as-hell isn't any *coherent* system for who-gets-what-and-why in the world as it exists *today*.

Here's my *favorite* market-failure from history -- it's the market marking the market, then *collapse*:

Competitive pressure to lower standards

Structured investment mortgage-related securities were the rating agencies' "golden goose"—in the words of one agency manager.[36] Agencies earned as much as three times more for grading these complex products as for corporate bonds, their traditional business. On top of revenue generated for issuing credit ratings, agencies often earned $300,000–500,000 and as much as $1 million to construct a structured investment vehicle.[47] By 2007 the business accounted for just under half of the total ratings revenue and all of the revenue growth for Moody's—one of the largest agencies.[57] But there was always a danger of losing out on this lucrative business. Issuers played the three big credit agencies off one another, 'shopping' around to find the best ratings.

Richard Michalek, a former vice president and senior credit officer at Moody's, testified to the FCIC that even when they were not realized, "The threat of losing business to a competitor ... absolutely tilted the balance away from an independent arbiter of risk ...." When asked if the investment banks frequently threatened to withdraw their business if they didn't get their desired rating, former Moody team managing director Gary Witt told the FCIC,

“Oh God, are you kidding? All the time. I mean, that's routine. I mean, they would threaten you all of the time. . . . It's like, ‘Well, next time, we're just going to go with Fitch and S&P.'”[58]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_ra ... _standards

---

People actually making their own decisions or not on whether to buy an electric car or a gasoline car based on what they want with no artificial inducements, subsidies or threats from Uncle Sham. How novel!

*Or*, a thread on PoFo for people to chime-in on what they'd like to drive, all the way up to a mass survey -- who needs *markets* -- ! (Seems to work well-enough for the 'defense contracting' industry and its *military syndicalism*.)

[Pants-of-dog]

Oxygen sensors, catalytic converters, OBD-II, EGR systems.

Do you drive a car?

Oxygen sensors and OBD-II codes do not clean anything. While catalytic converters and EGR systems do remove many particulates, they do nothing to clean the toxic fumes and greenhouse gases that escape your exhaust system.

So, when it comes to what you do to clean up the stuff that comes out of your exhaust, you do nothing.

I see.

[BlutoSays]

Oxygen sensors and OBD-II codes do not clean anything. While catalytic converters and EGR systems do remove many particulates, they do nothing to clean the toxic fumes and greenhouse gases that escape your exhaust system.

So, when it comes to what you do to clean up the stuff that comes out of your exhaust, you do nothing.

I see.

[ckaihatsu]

(Again.)

Capitalism at work. Why power grids are allowed to be run by people who want higher prices, scarcity and blackouts and are corrupt to boot. It;s not that hard if you sideline the Capitalists form the system.

---

Truss was following in the footsteps of governments across Europe forced to make similar interventions in recent days. Stating that “Extraordinary challenges call for extraordinary measures”, she announced an “energy price guarantee” limiting average annual household bills to £2,500 over the next two years. Retaining the Johnson government’s £400 energy bill discount and the temporary removal of green levies costing £150, means the next bills in October are kept around their current still high level of £1,971.

Truss announced that businesses would receive “equivalent support”, to be reviewed in six months. The cost of the measure is around £90 billion for the household element, with the rest to cushion price rises for businesses.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/0 ... l-s08.html

[Pants-of-dog]

:roll:

Now, why do you expect us to pay for your mess?

[Steve_American]

We needed a national policy 20 years ago, badly.

There's no substitute for sanity..

Not just to late, to everyone.

The many IPCC reports have been was very conservative for the last 20 years. This was due to how the system was set up by the UN and the clear fact that the scientists didn't want to assert anything they could not prove (in some sense).

Therefore, when the last IPCC report said in the fine print, that the world is going to see accelerating, irreversible temperature increases that will reach 2 deg. C above pre-industrial temp, it is not strange that you-a;;missed it.

I know that you are all in some level of denial. Either you deny the whole thing, or you think that something can be done. Well, if the world reaches +2 deg. C above pre-ind. levels there are more tipping points that will take us to a +3 deg. C level in about 5 to 7 years more. Remember, they said the temp increases will accelerate.

So, late, we should have acted in the 70s and even then it may have been impossible to stop the world from reaching a +3 deg. C temp level. It would have taken a freeze on population growth followed by a decrease in pop. It would have taken radical steps to reduce the burning of coal and oil, etc. All this was impossible to get agreement on then just as it is now.
. . . Therefore, by the 70s we were doomed. We sailed past the point of no return before we knew there even was such a thing. Therefore, we can't really blame anyone. In a sense, Mother Nature is to blame, because she formed those coal beds and oil pools, so we could find them and burn them too fast.

.

[ckaihatsu]

Not just to late, to everyone.

The many IPCC reports have been was very conservative for the last 20 years. This was due to how the system was set up by the UN and the clear fact that the scientists didn't want to assert anything they could not prove (in some sense).

Therefore, when the last IPCC report said in the fine print, that the world is going to see accelerating, irreversible temperature increases that will reach 2 deg. C above pre-industrial temp, it is not strange that you-a;;missed it.

I know that you are all in some level of denial. Either you deny the whole thing, or you think that something can be done. Well, if the world reaches +2 deg. C above pre-ind. levels there are more tipping points that will take us to a +3 deg. C level in about 5 to 7 years more. Remember, they said the temp increases will accelerate.

So, late, we should have acted in the 70s and even then it may have been impossible to stop the world from reaching a +3 deg. C temp level. It would have taken a freeze on population growth followed by a decrease in pop. It would have taken radical steps to reduce the burning of coal and oil, etc. All this was impossible to get agreement on then just as it is now.
. . . Therefore, by the 70s we were doomed. We sailed past the point of no return before we knew there even was such a thing. Therefore, we can't really blame anyone. In a sense, Mother Nature is to blame, because she formed those coal beds and oil pools, so we could find them and burn them too fast.

.

You should compare notes with Qatzel, because he's *also* doom-and-gloom -- but from a *scientific* point of view it's *never* 'game-over' because there are always things that can be done to *counteract* the current bad situation.

Politically I *know* that efforts have to be centralized and coordinated at the global scale, which is *not likely to happen* in the context of capitalist geopolitics, but at least there's a greater variety of *approaches* to it (like aquaponics), instead of your outright *fatalism*.

Politics and ideology

Extinction Rebellion's third demand ("Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens' Assembly on climate and ecological justice") has been summarised by its leadership as a demand to "go beyond politics".[109] This demand has been criticised by socialists, including individuals who have participated in the movement's action. Writing for The Independent in April 2019, Natasha Josette, an anti-racist activist and member of Labour for a Green New Deal, critiqued Extinction Rebellion both for marginalising ethnic minorities and for not recognising that "the climate crisis is the result of neoliberal capitalism, and a global system of extraction, dispossession and oppression".[110] Also writing for The Independent, Amardeep Dhillon argued that XR's narrow focus on net zero carbon emissions meant that it ignored extractivism and the threat to the environment posed by companies in the extractive sector using greenwashing to defend and advance their economic interests, suggesting that XR's position "threatens to give carte blanche to governments and corporations who are happy to shift the burden of climate destruction onto poor and indigenous communities of colour in the global South".[111]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinctio ... d_ideology

[ckaihatsu]

Also:

*knowledge*, *expertise*, and *authority* about something, or about doing something

[14] Bloom's Taxonomy, Illustrated

Spoiler: show

[Steve_American]

You should compare notes with Qatzel, because he's *also* doom-and-gloom -- but from a *scientific* point of view it's *never* 'game-over' because there are always things that can be done to *counteract* the current bad situation.

Politically I *know* that efforts have to be centralized and coordinated at the global scale, which is *not likely to happen* in the context of capitalist geopolitics, but at least there's a greater variety of *approaches* to it (like aquaponics), instead of your outright *fatalism*.

The part I highlighted is just your assertion.

For example, in WWII the British developed dam busting bombs. The flew a couple to bust some dams.

Right after the explosion next to the dam on the water side, there was nothing that could be done to stop the dam from filing.

Another, 10 minutes before the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs hit the earth, there was nothing we could hve done to stop it. Not even100 atom bombs would have made a difference.

In the case of ACC, the levels of CO2, CH4, and nitric oxide we have already reached are going to continue to heat the earth for decades. The earth is not in equilibrium. It is not hot enough now to radiate enough heat at night to keep it from heating. Besides this the Arctic permafrost is outgassing CH4 in massive amounts. This will accelerate. Bacteria in the thawing soil will begin to digest old dead plant matter in the soil, this process releases heat, that will thaw more soil, etc.
. . . I suppose that if we invented a way to remove CO2 from the air at a rate of a giga ton per day or per hour or per second (and this didn't need a lot of energy), then we likely could stop the heating. However, we can't do that.

I have argued for decades that some things ae impossible. Some examples, sending a probe to the center of the sun. Pole vaulting over the Moon using todays Olympic rules.

.