Greta is at it..AGAIN

[GeekyBugle]

Mining Lithium ISN'T green.

https://archive.is/HIdS3

[GeekyBugle]

I'm sure minning Lithium from the ocean floor will have exactly ZERO negative impact on the ecosystems...

https://archive.is/3c4SK

[GeekyBugle]

That Far-Right rag the BBC tells us that ONLY 5% of ALL Lithium batteries are recycled because it's too expensive/dangerous to recycle them. I'm sure switching to EVs only AND to solar/wind with the massive demand for such batteries will go hunky dory...

https://archive.is/ENODQ

[GeekyBugle]

Would you look at these science dennying climate change "skeptics"?

https://archive.is/DEf7X

"It costs more to break a panel down and recover the raw materials than what the raw materials themselves are worth."

https://archive.is/JJYVo

[oggsmash]

Current battery tech is not even close to green.  It would be GREENER to focus on fuel efficiency for vehicles...hybrids might help to a degree, but the battery is still an issue.  In any event pushing batteries while reducing (massively) grid capacity points to a completely different goal in mind for the people pushing it.  They want a technocracy that uses carbon (planes, cars, etc) and to make it too expensive/impractical for the average person to be as mobile and free in places like the USA.  These people want to limit free movement, or at least every policy they rave about only really does just that.  So they are so wildly incompetent and bereft of scientific knowledge they miss where their "good intentions" are in fact only destructive or they are malevolent people with malevolent final plans selling to the masses with deception and obfuscation of reality.   Either way these people have no business making any policy or decisions.

[DocJones]

I'm for global warming.  If CO2 is indeed the reason, then we need to pump as much of it into the atmosphere as we can so the planet can become warmer and greener.  We're going to need the increased agricultural production to feed the future billions of people. 

[jhkim]

My bad, when I said safer, reliable and cleaner I was talking about Nuclear, just noticed I ommited writting the word.

The Eurupean countries that closed their Nuclear plants to please the Environmentalists are doing worse? Well I'm shocked!

EVs don't "spit out harmful pollutants into the air" while you're driving them, that's true, all the harmful pollutants are produced while manufacturing them and producing the energy to charge them plus all the pollution produced when those batteries are no longer usable.

They are being used as an alternative BECAUSE the governments are both punishing the manufacture/use of ICE vehicles while subsidizing the manufacture/use of EVs, all of that while turning a blind eye to all the environmental damage done for the manufacture and the pollution created during it's life and after for the dispossal of the batteries.

I agree that neither pollution should be discounted -- but they should be evaluated fairly. I'm reading through your recent links, but they don't seem to be doing side-by-side comparison. An EV battery is good for 100k to 200k miles -- which is the equivalent of 4000 to 8000 gallons of gasoline, or about 200 to 400 barrels of crude oil. So the question is:

1) What is the damage from drilling, refining, and then burning the gasoline from 300 barrels of crude oil?
2) What is the damage from mining the materials and manufacturing one EV battery?

I don't have exact answers for these. Battery manufacture produces toxic material, but it's a question of how much is produced and how much of that will get into people's bodies -- compared to breathing in output from car exhaust like carbon monoxide, ground-level ozone, and particulates.

I do know that around 5 million people a year have early deaths from air pollution. How many would you guess have early deaths every year from battery waste? I'm skeptical that it is anywhere close to 5 million. You can say "battery waste is toxic" but that's like saying "nuclear waste is toxic". It's technically true, but nuclear waste is relatively tiny and extremely well-handled -- particularly when compared to dumping toxins directly into the air that people breath.

[GeekyBugle]

My bad, when I said safer, reliable and cleaner I was talking about Nuclear, just noticed I ommited writting the word.

The Eurupean countries that closed their Nuclear plants to please the Environmentalists are doing worse? Well I'm shocked!

EVs don't "spit out harmful pollutants into the air" while you're driving them, that's true, all the harmful pollutants are produced while manufacturing them and producing the energy to charge them plus all the pollution produced when those batteries are no longer usable.

They are being used as an alternative BECAUSE the governments are both punishing the manufacture/use of ICE vehicles while subsidizing the manufacture/use of EVs, all of that while turning a blind eye to all the environmental damage done for the manufacture and the pollution created during it's life and after for the dispossal of the batteries.

I agree that neither pollution should be discounted -- but they should be evaluated fairly. I'm reading through your recent links, but they don't seem to be doing side-by-side comparison. An EV battery is good for 100k to 200k miles -- which is the equivalent of 4000 to 8000 gallons of gasoline, or about 200 to 400 barrels of crude oil. So the question is:

1) What is the damage from drilling, refining, and then burning the gasoline from 300 barrels of crude oil?
2) What is the damage from mining the materials and manufacturing one EV battery?

I don't have exact answers for these. Battery manufacture produces toxic material, but it's a question of how much is produced and how much of that will get into people's bodies -- compared to breathing in output from car exhaust like carbon monoxide, ground-level ozone, and particulates.

I do know that around 5 million people a year have early deaths from air pollution. How many would you guess have early deaths every year from battery waste? I'm skeptical that it is anywhere close to 5 million. You can say "battery waste is toxic" but that's like saying "nuclear waste is toxic". It's technically true, but nuclear waste is relatively tiny and extremely well-handled -- particularly when compared to dumping toxins directly into the air that people breath.

So the water pollution from mining the lithium doesn't count? https://media.istockphoto.com/id/1399997488/photo/greenbushes-lithium-mine.webp?b=1&s=170667a&w=0&k=20&c=_pJKX6mjys2DVjDsFz7smuxqiYFHDFXykI4LWfJLBWc=

ALL the air pollution from the mining, shipping the Lithium to China doesn't count?
All the air pollution from the manufacturing of the batteries in China doesn't count?
All the air pollution from shipping those batteries to the US?
What about the air pollution from manufacturing and shipping the EVs to the US?
What about the air pollution from producing the electricity to charge the batteries?

You KNOW I live in México City right?

Photo of the Thermoelectric plant on Tula Hidalgo (About 58 miles from the city) https://i0.wp.com/en15dias.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/VideoCapture_20210422-104049-1024x576.jpg?resize=950,534&ssl=1

Wonder why the air quality here sucks... Despite all the electric transport (Metro, Trams, Busses and Electric Cars) and the constant prohibition for ICE vehicles to drive one or two days a week or more when there's an enviromental "emergency".

YOU don't smell the smoke so you can pretend it isn't there, just like you don't see the mines and all the damage they cause so you can pretend it isn't real.

ALL EVs do is to allow you to not see the smoke comming from them because it has been moved somewhere else, so those who drive them or promote them can act all hollier than thou while being giant douchebags.

[ralfy]

Also, the term "resourcefulness" is too general. It's actually oil used thanks to low energy density plus petrochemicals. The catch is that according to the IEA conventional production for that peaked back in 2005, which is why we've been resorting to unconventional production. Tapping resources like Manifa will cost around $200 a barrel.

What this ignores is the simple fact that US proved crude oil reserves have gone up substantially from 21,575 million barrels in 2005 to 41,151 million barrels in 2021.  The difference is that frakking technology.  That crude oil was always there.  Now extracting it is economically viable.  That's an example of the resourcefulness he is talking about.  If we were really concerned about CO2 emissions, the best single thing we could do to reduce them would be to convince the CCP to adopt frakking on a wide scale and replace all of their coal-fired power plants with gas-fired ones.  Instead, the technology is being vehemently opposed by the same people who oppose nuclear power using the same sorts of half-truths, lies and alarmist rhetoric.

The Club of Rome and their various successors have been making doom and gloom alarmist predictions of this sort since the early 70s.  They have consistently been wildly wrong about them.  Why do these people have such a sterling track record of being wrong about everything?  It's because all of their arguments and predictions are built off of the basic premise that we are using up all the resources and running out.  This premise is demonstrably false so all of the predictions based on it are also false.  The Simon-Erlich wager proved that 34 years ago.  Your arguments are based on this same false premise.

Right, and fracking took place because world conventional production peaked in 2015, which the IEA confirmed in 2010 and King predicted correctly in 1976.

If any, fracking supports what the Club of Rome said. Otherwise, there'd be no need to resort to uncoventional production in the first place.

The same with the Ehrlich wager: they were focusing on price, not diminishing returns, which is what the mining industry has been experiencing for decades:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFyTSiCXWEE

A century ago, you could get lots of high-grade copper with no heavy equipment. Now, you need the latter to get lower amounts of copper and of lower grade. It's the same with oil: you start with an energy return of a hundred barrels for each barrel used, then after several decades it goes down to three, and then you resort to fracking.

[ralfy]

The core of the Club of Rome and associated's doom and gloom and desire to exterminate somewhere between 50-90% of humanity can be summed up as "Got mine! Pull up the ladder and fuck anyone trying reach for it!"

The idea that others might not have to look up to them fills them with wrath ("How DARE You!").

Any tool that might help others have better lives (i.e. abundant and affordable food and energy) relative to their privilege must be stopped.

They demand a return of Sumptuary Laws (you will eat bugs while we shall eat steak, you will be confined to 15 minute cities while they are free to jet around the world) to preserve their elite status.

They want to be gods and every reminder they aren't must be destroyed (they oppose any religion and reality itself for opposing their delusions).

The Environment is just their weapon and justification for these generational Narcissistic Sociopaths to try and get their serfs/slaves back.

It's based on simple physics: you have a limited biosphere plus gravity, and eventually you face diminishing returns. Which is exactly what happened.

https://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/2763500/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf

That's why real data generally followed the LtG business-as-usual trendline across four decades.

But humanity needs and wants more material resources and energy, so they come up with the opposite of "doom and gloom" aka realism. That's either Greta's ecovillage world or Wall Street's "we can innovate ourselves out of any crisis or there's no crisis".

Meanwhile, what's happening to aquatic foodstock? Arable oil conditions? Fresh water potability? Etc.

Innovation is a nice sell, similar to the Green Deal, but when you study the matter further, you see lots of cracks in both.

[ralfy]

I am not 100% fully educated in the arguments when it comes to "climate change" but:

- when back in the 70s when the "experts" were perdicting a new ice age in the near future AND IT DIDN'T HAPPEN

- when in the 90s & 2000s the "Experts" changed their tune and said it's "global warming" now, with Al "The Messiah" Gore blaring the "Earth has a fever" and Miami will be underwater in 20 years AND IT DIDN'T HAPPEN

- where there is no real consensus among scientists when it comes climate change. just because someone says "a consensus among scientists" doesn't mean the consensus is correct. there are plenty of scientists who disagree with the causes of climate change. The dissenting voices are harshly shouted down or at least ignored.

- when I'm told in order to save the earth I need to limit my meat intake and eat more veggies, when it is been proven that it takes MORE land and water to produce vegetables and more harsh on the environment using modern agricultural methods.

- or being told we should EAT MORE BUGS for protein. NO, but FUCK NO!

and the "Elites" are still puttering around in gas-guzzling jets, or sitting in gigantic homes with 13 different air conditioners, eating Big Macs or Whoppers?

CONSIDER ME A SCEPTIC. I don't trust any of them. They have an agenda, and it's control of the population. It's not about money. Money is just a means to an end. It's about POWER AND CONTROL.

"He who controls a thing can destroy a thing".

That goes with people.

If anyone really thinks the Elites have the well-being of us poor unwashed masses at heart, you are lying to yourself.

It's all about POWER and CONTROL

In the late 1960s, they thought that pollution was blocking sunlight, and that it would lead to an ice age. They found out they were wrong when global cold spells disappeared after 1976. They realized that while soot was blocking sunlight CO2 was trapping surface heat.

Decades later, deniers funded Berkeley Earth to debunk conclusions made by the NAS. BEST ended up confirming what the NAS said.

What about power and control? The world population is controlled by only a few thousand corporations, and mostly in finance. They can only maintain power not through decreased consumption but by the opposite. Why? Because income and returns on investment are dependent on increasing sales and consumption of goods and services plus more financial gambling.

What about governments and even military forces? They are dependent on the same rich for funds, and they also need more consumption, like more public services and more and better armaments, to show that they're working.

In short, those in power want business as usual, and their idea of sustainability is actually sustainable development, i.e., continuous economic growth.

What's the problem, then? When you look at reports published by the Pentagon, banks like HSBC, insurers like Lloyds of London, and others for their clients and personnel, you see that they are warning of more risks due to combinations of war, epidemics, pandemics, financial crashes, pollution, food and other shortages, energy crises, and more, and ultimately driven by two things: business as usual going against physical limits, and the consequences of that.

Finally, why are the poor, unwashed masses ignorant of this? Because most of them are poor and don't want to be poor, which means they need to earn more in order to spend more. And the non-poor are counting on them to do that because their own investments and income are dependent on ever-increasing production and consumption of goods and services. In short, no one wants to hear bad news even though not just experts but even the same rich that fund them to study the matter know of such things. That's why they've been buying up land in various countries and having places to escape built. They're hoping that they can ride it out.

[ralfy]

This is the "nut picking argument":

The  mainstream "green movement", the bulk of whatever "enviromentalist" movement is, is composed of anti-nuclear, anti-human, marxist fearmongerers.

But I guess you would call them "no true scotssman".

GeekyBugle, you specifically asked to name ONE prominent personality who didn't fit your parameters. I named Michael Shellenberger -- and then you came back that naming one person doesn't count because the mainstream isn't like that. You specifically asked about one person outside the mainstream -- you can't dismiss it because he's not like the rest.

The majority of any political movement these days are ignorant fearmongers -- hyped up on social media and outrage, and going on about how we're all doomed because the other side are pure evil.

As for "drill baby drill" what's the option? One that doesn't neccesitate millions of your countrymen to go into poverty or die from hunger, cold, heat?

Again, we don't have a REAL alternative for fossil fuels, thanks to the "enviromentalists".

We use alternatives all the time - it's around 40% of our electricity nationally, and in many other countries it's the majority - like France or Sweden. You keep speaking as if either we use zero fossil fuels or nothing matters, but that's obviously hyperbole. There are lots of in-between steps. As yosemitemike noted,

In 1900, when the global human population was 1.5 billion, almost three million people – roughly one in 500 – died each year from air pollution, mostly from wretched indoor air. Today, the risk has receded to one death per 2,000 people. While pollution still kills more people than malaria does, the mortality rate is falling, not rising.

I agree. Since 1900, we've taken many steps to limit air pollution - like the 1963 Clear Air Act. And we can do more. It's not hypothetical - many countries can and have reduced pollution. One of the best ways is through nuclear power, but there are many options.

Well, IF it's not ZERO fossil fuels then what is it? For electricity generation you don't have a more reliable, cheaper and cleaner option.

For transport you DON'T have any other option:

Batteries weight the same full than empty, which limits the cargo and range of ANY vehicle, which in turn impacts prices. EVs aren't good even for commuting, as proven by Commiefornia asking their ressidents to NOT charge them because the grid can't service them. In winter EVs often can't start.

Let's go with the lightest EV the Nissan Leaf: 3,516 lbs https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/how-much-does-an-electric-car-weigh $25,675

The closest in size is the Nissan Sentra 3,038 lbs $23,325

And that's for cars.

In trucks you're out of luck, to be able to carry ANY payload to any interesting distance you need a lot of batteries, which, since they weight the same full as empty the range is reduced, also the cargo is reduced and since you CAN'T charge the batteries in the same time you can fill the tank your time to deliver is increased. What about refrigerated goods?

Don't get me started on planes and cargo ships.

IF you're serious about reducing air pollution you MUST be 100% behind Nuclear.

If you're not an anti-human authoritarian murderer you MUST be in favor of fossil fuels for transport.

IF you're serious about the environment you CAN'T be for wind, solar or EVs because their manufacture still uses fossil fuels AND their waste is toxic AND they aren't reliable, AND the mining for minerals is environmental suicide.

ANY other question?

Every energy source has low returns and quantity. Even if we put every source online we won't be able to meet even the basic needs of the world population.

That means there's no way that we will stop using fossil fuels, and what's affecting fossil fuels will also affect what we need to replace them, like uranium.

One has to live in a fantasy to think that people are resourceful enough to innovate their way out of simple physics. That's not going to happen.

So the "Final Solution" is to reduce the human population, I agree Fritz, you first.

(You're either scientifically illiterate/idiot or so ideologically possesed you lie by reflex, good bye and have a good life.

That's not the final solution because that leads to population aging. Why do you think industrialized countries have been getting young people in poor ones to take care of their elderly and to fill in jobs that they can't fulfill?

Now, you're resorting to personal insults, and because you can't face the arsenal of common sense that I've been throwing at you.

The world elite want continuous economic growth but it has to rise slowly and steadily, together with population. Anything faster leads to poverty while anything slower leads to population aging, and both are disastrous. That's why they came up with the idea of "sustainable development", which environmentalists and their right-wing opponents thought was sustainability.

In short, with less beef, let's try growing them or make them out of bugs.

Now, what's causing that? It's physical limits: you have less arable land, less fresh water, etc., then you have less food. This isn't rocket science.

In which case, how does continuous growth take place in a biosphere with physical limitations? The answer is, create more credit, which is exactly what happened after 2005: oil prices went up due to high capex, and that was met with increasing debt to cover the higher costs but didn't reverse energy returns. The result was financial crashes coupled with resorting to fracking.

[ralfy]

We use alternatives all the time - it's around 40% of our electricity nationally, and in many other countries it's the majority - like France or Sweden. You keep speaking as if either we use zero fossil fuels or nothing matters, but that's obviously hyperbole. There are lots of in-between steps.

Well, IF it's not ZERO fossil fuels then what is it? For electricity generation you don't have a more reliable, cheaper and cleaner option.

For transport you DON'T have any other option:

No country is 100% off fossil fuels, but many countries that use *less* fossil fuels have overall more reliable, cheaper, and cleaner power. France and Sweden generate less than 20% of their energy from fossil fuels, and their energy is cheaper than average in Western Europe - thanks in part to early investment in nuclear power. (Germany and Denmark which have no nuclear are doing much worse.)

In particular, about the "cleaner" part... Fossil fuels are considered cleaner only because air pollution is given a free pass, even though it has clearly documented health effects, causing 5 million or so early deaths every year worldwide. If there was even the slightest health effect from a nuclear accident, a city would be shut down and evacuated. But we've been conditioned to think that air pollution is acceptable because it's just "normal". As Brad put it "Breathing in diesel exhaust will kill you from carbon monoxide poisoning a billion times sooner than anything else in there." -- as if that is some sort of reassurance that really diesel is safe.

Batteries weight the same full than empty, which limits the cargo and range of ANY vehicle, which in turn impacts prices. EVs aren't good even for commuting, as proven by Commiefornia asking their ressidents to NOT charge them because the grid can't service them. In winter EVs often can't start.

For what it's worth, my stepson is driving an eGolf that he got from his father. I think in your charging comment, you're referring to the record-heat week back in August 2022 when California asked everyone to reduce electricity use. Is that right? California does have below-average electricity reliability, but it's #35 out of 50. The three lowest are Oregon, Texas, and Louisiana.

https://generatordecision.com/states-with-the-most-least-reliable-power-grids/

I wouldn't dismiss all problems with EVs, but you're claiming that they don't even exist as an alternative.

You said before that there are no easy answers. I agree about that. EVs exist and are currently being used as an alternative to gasoline cars. Gasoline cars have greater range and weigh less, but they also spit out harmful pollutants into the air that are proven to damage lungs and reduce lifespan. There isn't a simple metric for how these trade off with each other.

Around 70 pct of heavy equipment in mining, around half of manufacturing, petrochemicals, the bulk of shipping, and mechanized agri are heavily dependent on fossil fuels. That's why even renewable energy is made using it or from it. The other set of materials needed are minerals.

What's the catch? Both oil and minerals face diminishing returns. That's why capex tripled for the oil industry while new oil went up much slower, and why increasing amounts of energy are needed to extract smaller quantities of minerals, and of lower grade.

The public gobble news about "game changers" and all that, but they always come up with catches, like that news about drilling for geothermal almost anywhere using new drilling tech, but with the catch of figuring out where to move the ash produced from drilling. Meanwhile, Greta dreams of an eco village where everyone will be happy. Good luck with that.

[ralfy]

Bill Gates: The Net Zero transition will require the energy grid "to be about three times bigger than it is today".

"Consumers can help us by stretching to buy an electric car, or an electric heat pump, or food that's made a low emissions way."

"The rich countries owe it to the world not only to reduce their emissions, but to drive down the cost of these green products."

https://archive.is/l8M85

Exactly! So why is the Club of Rome seen as wrong? In order to meet the basic needs of the world population, we'll need at least an additional earth in terms of energy and material resources. To meet wants including EVs for personal use, three more.

[GeekyBugle]

Bill Gates: The Net Zero transition will require the energy grid "to be about three times bigger than it is today".

"Consumers can help us by stretching to buy an electric car, or an electric heat pump, or food that's made a low emissions way."

"The rich countries owe it to the world not only to reduce their emissions, but to drive down the cost of these green products."

https://archive.is/l8M85

Exactly! So why is the Club of Rome seen as wrong? In order to meet the basic needs of the world population, we'll need at least an additional earth in terms of energy and material resources. To meet wants including EVs for personal use, three more.

BECAUSE all their predictions, since the 70s have been wrong and BECAUSE your lñeaders are buying beach front property comrade.