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PT6A posted:Yeah, that's what I meant. It's really a problem of self-identification, sort of like the problems various religions have with nuts claiming to represent the religion. Yet, at the same time, there are some fairly prominent "environmentalists" who are crazy. The Green Party of Canada used to support homeopathic medicine, wants to have the health dangers of wind turbines (such as headaches and depression) investigated, and the party leader retweeted someone who asked for an investigation of Chemtrails. I think the rate of self-identified environmentalists being quacks is too high to simply be coincidental, and it's a problem that scientists, conservationists, and others concerned about the environment need to address head-on. The problem is if allegedly legitimate environmentalists are just as nuts as the usual suspects. Case in point: Greentec is a large green energy competition with involvement from our environment ministry. One of the candidates for the final round is chosen by audience vote, and in 2013, the Dual Fluid Reactor (a more economical fast reactor design to feed with nuclear waste) won that vote. The jury immediately disqualified it on grounds of lying (the entry said that the reactor was environmentally friendly and would be less dangerous than even renewables), sued and got back into the competition, at which point the jury changed the rules to throw it out again, and removed it from the greentec competition website entirely  On their facebook page, greentec posted choice quotes along the lines of "we will always oppose nuclear power, it is forever linked to the 20000 deaths at Fukushima" suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Jan 6, 2014 |
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Jan 6, 2014 17:01
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Wait what, 20,000 deaths?? I thought like only a couple people died and not even from radiation?
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Jan 6, 2014 18:07
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Baronjutter posted:Wait what, 20,000 deaths?? I thought like only a couple people died and not even from radiation? 19000 people died from the tsunami.
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Jan 6, 2014 18:28
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I know germans are pants-making GBS threads stupid about nuclear power but they don't actually think the plant caused the tsunami do they?
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Jan 6, 2014 18:31
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Baronjutter posted:I know germans are pants-making GBS threads stupid about nuclear power but they don't actually think the plant caused the tsunami do they? They hear "a tsunami hit and the plant exploded and after that there were 20,000 people dead".
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Jan 6, 2014 18:39
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Baronjutter posted:I know germans are pants-making GBS threads stupid about nuclear power but they don't actually think the plant caused the tsunami do they? Pretty sure they expect to see mushroom clouds bursting from nuke plants at any given moment.
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Jan 6, 2014 20:44
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You think you have it bad, imagine how of us with legitimate issues with Nuclear feel. I can't mention the cost of risk abatement, without people (even in this thread) assuming I can't tell the difference between a GE BWR Mark 1 and an ABWR.
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Jan 6, 2014 21:38
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Baronjutter posted:I know germans are pants-making GBS threads stupid about nuclear power but they don't actually think the plant caused the tsunami do they? You're missing the point. The facts were deliberately distorted in order to give the idea that fukushima caused the deaths. However, it's phrased so that they can always say "well we didn't say fukushima caused them, just that they're linked." Of course they're linked! The tsunami killed thousands of people, and damaged the plant. The statement is insidious and disingenuous in order to support an anti-nuclear agenda.
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Jan 6, 2014 22:54
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For the sake of completeness: the injunction to readmit the DFR into the 2013 greentec awards was later lifted, which I hadn't read about before. Since we're now talking about the wording greentec used, sit down and grab a bucket of popcorn  :Have a screenshot of the original quote which they removed later: greentec awards posted:Der Name Fukushima wurde zum Inbegriff für mehr als 19.000 Tote und verwaiste Landstriche. Dieses können, wollen und werden wir nicht ignorieren! Atomkraft in jeglicher Form lehnen wir und unsere Jury kategorisch ab! Eine weitere Diskussion wird es nicht geben!" The remaining greentec facebook post on their justification to exclude the Dual Fluid Reactor is still a hilarious shitfest, despite extensive moderation on greentec's part. Note that greentec talk about that half a dozen times in their posts, elaborately mentioning whose posts they deleted and reported to facebook. The greentec commentary on the entry/statement in defense of excluding it is basically citation_needed.txt (does anyone want me to translate it?). Most of the comments are criticising greentec for kicking out the reactor entry, for confusing and disrespecting the tsunami victims by making them a talking point against nuclear power (prompting hilarious defensive replies from greentec), and for being ideologically opposed to nuclear power and thereby missing the point of actually doing something for the environment. Greentec also make several effortposts wherein they further justify excluding the DFR by countering the statement that it is safe and uses up existing nuclear waste with quote mining (the DFR website/documentation says the reactor does produce some waste - what a shocking revelation  ) and the well-thought out and intellectually honest argument of "You LIE! [citation needed]". This is also what just about all of their other posts in response to people pointing out benefits of nuclear power and exaggerations about the radiation around Fukushima ("which IRRADIATED ENTIRE SWATHES OF LAND", allcaps greentec's) boil down to.e: another hilarious quote: quote:... da haben sie recht - allerdings darf man auch als Veranstalter eine Meinung haben, die z. B. der politischen Richtung (Ausstieg aus der Atomkraft in Deutschland) entspricht. Und auch wenn es ideologisch klingt / ist: dazu stehen wir. Der GreenTec Awards Wettbewerb ist jedoch davon unabhängig - wie die Zulassung des DFR Projektes ja wohl beweist. 
suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Jan 7, 2014 |
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Jan 6, 2014 23:50
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Call me naive but I can't believe any group smart enough to run a competition related to energy genration, I mean they must be staffed with some people with some basic science understanding, could actually believe all the stuff they are saying. Is there a more cynical reason they could be banning the entry? A political or financial reason? Because I can accept idiocy like that from the general german public but not from a large org that should be staffed with intelligent people specifically focused on energy. Like they aren't even trying, they're using the anti-nuclear equivalent of "If climate change is real how come it's snowing?!?!". Like there's some smart people that make a lot of money denying climate change and they use some smart-sounding excuses, I would expect better bullshit and spin from intelligent people. I just can't imagine a bunch of people who are apparently seriously interested in energy generation, enough to run a scientific contest, to be so ignorant on nuclear they'd just lash out in such obvious ignorance and emotion.
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Jan 6, 2014 23:56
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Baronjutter posted:Call me naive but I can't believe any group smart enough to run a competition related to energy genration, I mean they must be staffed with some people with some basic science understanding, could actually believe all the stuff they are saying. You obviously have never dealt with technology events. No one has to know anything about technology to give away an award. The area of "green tech" is so huge that they could have 30 experts on their judging panel and still have none that are energy experts.
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Jan 7, 2014 00:04
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You mean this DOCTOR* speaking about quantum physics might not actually be an expert? *of chiropractic medicine
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Jan 7, 2014 00:05
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Baronjutter posted:You mean this DOCTOR* speaking about quantum physics might not actually be an expert? Or when the Physics PhD explains how their new design is 100% economically viable if you make 3 tiny assumptions.
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Jan 7, 2014 00:09
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Baronjutter posted:I just can't imagine a bunch of people who are apparently seriously interested in energy generation, enough to run a scientific contest, to be so ignorant on nuclear they'd just lash out in such obvious ignorance and emotion. It's the exact same thing with GMOs though - some environmentalists just got it into their thick skulls that sciency things are bad. The dishonesty of their arguments and tactics resembles creationists and climate change deniers in many ways.
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Jan 7, 2014 00:17
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Trabisnikof posted:You obviously have never dealt with technology events. No one has to know anything about technology to give away an award. The area of "green tech" is so huge that they could have 30 experts on their judging panel and still have none that are energy experts. When I took my FE exam the large convention hall next to the exam hall was for a green energy show. That was a hilarious lunch hour. I learned that my civil and ME friends had no idea what power factor correction was (and I don't think the guy selling the magical box to correct it and save your energy bills knew either!)
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Jan 7, 2014 00:37
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PT6A posted:The Green Party of Canada ... wants to have the health dangers of wind turbines (such as headaches and depression) investigated,  You're joking, right? Get your poo poo together, Canada.
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Jan 7, 2014 00:47
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Waaaah the Christians are out to get me
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Quantum Mechanic posted:
To be fair, they have exactly 2 members of parliament, only one of whom (the party leader) was elected while running as a Green Party member. Still, if they position themselves as the option for people who are concerned about the environment, and they have strange, paranoid Luddite fantasies as a platform, it discredits the very idea of environmentalism in the minds of the average person.
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Jan 7, 2014 00:52
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Somehow the crazies that support conservative policies don't prevent them from success. Environmentalists need to learn from the Tea Party.
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Jan 7, 2014 01:05
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Baronjutter posted:Call me naive but I can't believe any group smart enough to run a competition related to energy genration, I mean they must be staffed with some people with some basic science understanding, could actually believe all the stuff they are saying. Is there a more cynical reason they could be banning the entry? A political or financial reason? Because I can accept idiocy like that from the general german public but not from a large org that should be staffed with intelligent people specifically focused on energy. Like they aren't even trying, they're using the anti-nuclear equivalent of "If climate change is real how come it's snowing?!?!". Like there's some smart people that make a lot of money denying climate change and they use some smart-sounding excuses, I would expect better bullshit and spin from intelligent people. I hereby call you naive. To elaborate: * if you read the entire string of responses in the facebook page, they consist exclusively of canned anti nuclear talking points that might at best be defensible when talking about 50-year-old gen II reactors (also they go "oh noes, weapon proliferation" and "long term geological storage of waste", the latter of which the DFR is kind of about). There is no evidence of the greentec people communicating that they understand anything about how the DFR (or current gen IV designs in general) work beyond reading the introductory paragraph of German Wikipedia on molten salt reactors. * The former nuclear safety guy at Forschungszentrum Jülich (one of our premier non-uni research facilities) Dr Rainer Moormann, who won the whisteblower award 2011 or 2012 for exposing some non-disaster involving nothing of note happening to nuclear wastefrom one of the former Jülich research reactors, argues against the DFR on an energy blog: He claims that geological storage remains necessary even if you pass waste through a fast reactor (somehow  ) and that it is a high proliferation risk (nevermind that the waste is so impure it would literally be easier to start from scratch with uranium ore when building nuclear bombs). Also he refers to the fast reactor at Argonne National Lab in the 60s, which according to him was found to be not worth pursuing, conveniently glossing over the fact that part of the reason it was not worth pursuing was precisely that it was really hard to get weaponiseable products out of it  . Also something something something nuclear expensive (nevermind that even at ridiculous levels of cost overruns the Finnish EPR was/is still going to be half as expensive as our rooftop solar bullshit. * I've had the displeasure of actually discussing nuclear power with a group leader from the Wuppertal Institute's Future Energy and Mobility Structures group. The Wuppertal Institute is a sustainability think tank with strong ties to the goverment at least at the state level, and is semi-public (gemeinnützige GmbH), which amongst other things also lets it have PhD students. Choice part of the discussion: me [after going on about using gen IV reactors to burn waste - he literally didn't know the idea existed  ]: "The problems of climate change will be far worse than the problems caused by using nuclear power"him: "That is not true. I do not believe that." Choice bullshit coming out of their policy papers: They state that nuclear power to supplement base load where necessary will actually prevent renewables from becoming viable, because nuclear power plants are completely incapable of following load. Nevermind that when that paper was written, the European Pressurized Reactor (or whatever the EPR acronym stands for) already existed with the capability of going to/from 50% output in an hour, which the American AP-1000 also can do. e: again, someone hasn't been keeping up to date on what modern nuclear power actually looks like Yes, many Germans, including many policy makers and researchers, are that stupid / willfully ignorant. The most common reaction to nuclear power here is perhaps best exemplified by the following exchange with a passionate and otherwise very intelligent environmentalist: * statistics about how nuclear kills less people per energy unit than even renewables is posted "But how can you possibly evaluate a power source by how many people it harms? It really matters how these people die!" No thank you, I don't give a poo poo whether I die slowly from heavy metal poisoning when drinking water downriver of a Chinese solar panel factory or if I die slowly from cancer due to radiation exposure. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Jan 7, 2014 |
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Jan 7, 2014 01:06
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Quantum Mechanic posted:
This is par for the course anywhere the Greens haven't achieved substantial positions in government already. The direction of causality there remains unclear.
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Jan 7, 2014 01:07
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Install Windows posted:This is par for the course anywhere the Greens haven't achieved substantial positions in government already. Wind Turbine Sickness is par for the course for Greens groups? I get anti-nuclear and fluoride and even anti-vax to some degree (although I think there's a special place in hell for anti-vax Greens) but being turbine skeptics is always something I've associated with a completely different brand of crazy.
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Jan 7, 2014 01:11
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Install Windows posted:The direction of causality there remains unclear. Indeed. Oh well, at least we are not the only place with more idiot greens than actual conservationists. No idea whether that's supposed to cheer me up or make me depressed. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Jan 7, 2014 |
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Jan 7, 2014 01:14
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Quantum Mechanic posted:Wind Turbine Sickness is par for the course for Greens groups? I get anti-nuclear and fluoride and even anti-vax to some degree (although I think there's a special place in hell for anti-vax Greens) but being turbine skeptics is always something I've associated with a completely different brand of crazy. Being full of crazies is par for the course in Greens parties that haven't ever held meaningful office. Mostly because only the crazier types tend to hang around in them instead of flocking to a stronger party. In contrast, when those parties are frequently actually holding seats and even being in a governing coalition, the crazy types tend to get blotted out by the kind of people who actually win elections.
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Jan 7, 2014 01:14
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Quantum Mechanic posted:Wind Turbine Sickness is par for the course for Greens groups? I get anti-nuclear and fluoride and even anti-vax to some degree (although I think there's a special place in hell for anti-vax Greens) but being turbine skeptics is always something I've associated with a completely different brand of crazy. I think there's a brand of "invisible waves making me sick" type who hate wind turbines, power lines, wifi, etc. They seem to migrate to the green party because the Greens seem to be open to other loony things that sort of cross over into that territory I guess (alternative medicine and such)?
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Jan 7, 2014 01:14
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Squibbles posted:I think there's a brand of "invisible waves making me sick" type who hate wind turbines, power lines, wifi, etc. They seem to migrate to the green party because the Greens seem to be open to other loony things that sort of cross over into that territory I guess (alternative medicine and such)? Don't forget chemtrails. Yes, some of our greens are that crazy. Chemtrails are, however, useful as a litmus test for "people I won't take seriously, ever". The problem is that after the green parties become generally accepted, the loonies don't just disappear down the rabbit hole they came out of.
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Jan 7, 2014 01:19
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Canadian greens have really hitched their wagons to alt-med types. you know, wi-fi causes generic bad "health symptoms" and golly I've been generically down around the same time that wind farm went up 5k away from my house maybe it's creating some passive wave harmonics that's interfering with my quantum self. Also rich NIMBY's that just don't want any wind farms ruining the views from their 5 million dollar "cabin" they just bought but they'll protest it on insane environmental/health grounds rather than their true "MY PROPERTY VALUES!" grounds.
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Jan 7, 2014 01:19
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Squibbles posted:I think there's a brand of "invisible waves making me sick" type who hate wind turbines, power lines, wifi, etc. They seem to migrate to the green party because the Greens seem to be open to other loony things that sort of cross over into that territory I guess (alternative medicine and such)? I think part of the problem is that a lot of people end up becoming environmentalists because they're a bunch of New Age/hippie/nature worshipping/Luddite flakes.
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Jan 7, 2014 01:21
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PT6A posted:I think part of the problem is that a lot of people end up becoming environmentalists because they're a bunch of New Age/hippie/nature worshipping/Luddite flakes. Something you notice when talking to many of the more open minded (as opposed to "brain fell out in the search for wholesomeness~"  ) such types is that they are not against GMOs or nuclear reactors per say if you explain how you do those things, but then "gently caress Monsanto" (what do you mean there bucketloads of other agribusinesses that are just as bad?) and "perfect safety" come up again.e: Baronjutter posted:Also rich NIMBY's that just don't want any wind farms ruining the views from their 5 million dollar "cabin" they just bought but they'll protest it on insane environmental/health grounds rather than their true "MY PROPERTY VALUES!" grounds. Why can't those people just join Republicans/the CSU so that I don't have to pretend to like them
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Jan 7, 2014 01:34
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PT6A posted:I think part of the problem is that a lot of people end up becoming environmentalists because they're a bunch of New Age/hippie/nature worshipping/Luddite flakes. We really need a science ethics committee to downplay this crap.
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Jan 7, 2014 03:13
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CommieGIR posted:We really need a science ethics committee to downplay this crap. Environmentalism was never a strictly scientific pursuit and it likely never will be.
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Jan 7, 2014 03:36
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computer parts posted:Environmentalism was never a strictly scientific pursuit and it likely never will be. Well, to be fair, new age environmentalism have little in connection with early industrial era muckraking.
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Jan 7, 2014 03:48
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Baronjutter posted:Also rich NIMBY's that just don't want any wind farms ruining the views from their 5 million dollar "cabin" they just bought but they'll protest it on insane environmental/health grounds rather than their true "MY PROPERTY VALUES!" grounds. Wind turbines have done more to beautifully futurise the landscape than any piece of lovely modern art ever did (I'm looking at you, angel of the north).
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Jan 8, 2014 14:37
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Renaissance Robot posted:Wind turbines have done more to beautifully futurise the landscape than any piece of lovely modern art ever did (I'm looking at you, angel of the north). <insert the same picture of the 30 year old wind farm that's abandoned, but just 30 minutes outside of San Francisco> See they're ugly and most of them don't even work!
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Jan 8, 2014 17:32
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Trabisnikof posted:<insert the same picture of the 30 year old wind farm that's abandoned, but just 30 minutes outside of San Francisco> See they're ugly and most of them don't even work! Gearboxes are prone to failure, and yeah they do look kinda bad. Arguing aesthetics isn't in the wheelhouse of wind power.
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Jan 10, 2014 02:55
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Pander posted:Gearboxes are prone to failure, and yeah they do look kinda bad. Arguing aesthetics isn't in the wheelhouse of wind power. There's a huge difference between the turbines from the 70s on steel derricks and modern turbines. Plus, I was also kinda pointing out the laziness that often people just go to the old wind farm that is really close to San Francisco rather than a wind farm constructed this decade.
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Jan 10, 2014 05:46
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Quantum Mechanic posted:
We have some wind turbines on Maui. I get really depressing headaches when I think about how hard it was to get them installed in the first place (most of our power comes from burning oil, but the turbines do offset a small chunk of that)
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Jan 10, 2014 06:05
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Pander posted:Gearboxes are prone to failure, and yeah they do look kinda bad. Arguing aesthetics isn't in the wheelhouse of wind power. Hey! I like how they look.  There's something that's come up in this thread a few times, about storing energy generated by solar arrays for nighttime use. What sorts of methods have been done, and how well do they work in practice?
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Jan 10, 2014 06:19
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Hedera Helix posted:Hey! I like how they look. I think the most robust method of energy storage is pumping water uphill. It's not a very efficient way of storing energy. Also you don't need to store solar energy because it's usually peak generation and you have all sorts of other generation that can't be turned off at night like coal and nuclear power that make energy at night virtually free. There are a whole bunch of proposed methods like pressurized caves, hot salt banks, flywheels, banks of batteries and super capacitors but none are that robust of technologies.
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Jan 10, 2014 06:26
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Dusseldorf posted:I think the most robust method of energy storage is pumping water uphill. It's not a very efficient way of storing energy. Also you don't need to store solar energy because it's usually peak generation and you have all sorts of other generation that can't be turned off at night like coal and nuclear power that make energy at night virtually free. Unfortunately, peak demand doesn't correspond to times of peak solar generation - if you take the UK, you're going to see annual peak demand between 16:00 and 18:00 on winter evenings, when it's either twilight or just plain dark outside (source). Total solar generation at that point is zero.
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Jan 10, 2014 07:48
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RDevz posted:Unfortunately, peak demand doesn't correspond to times of peak solar generation - if you take the UK, you're going to see annual peak demand between 16:00 and 18:00 on winter evenings, when it's either twilight or just plain dark outside (source). Total solar generation at that point is zero. This is why location matters so much in energy discussions. While what you said might be true for the UK (your source doesn't work in chrome), it is not true in the US (and particular the US Southwest): http://www.pecanstreet.org/2013/11/report-residential-solar-systems-reduce-summer-peak-demand-by-over-50-in-texas-research-trial/ Where residential solar was shown (with real world, real home data) to reduce peak demand by 54% for South facing solar and 65% for West facing solar. The electricity generation mix should and will be very different based not only resource availability but a number of other factors that make it difficult to use data from one country and just apply it to another.
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Jan 10, 2014 09:31
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