Temperatures above 50C used to be a rarity confined to two or three global hotspots, but the World Meteorological Organization noted that at least 10 countries have reported this level of searing heat in the past year: the US, Mexico, Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, India and China.
In Iran, the heat index – a measure that also includes humidity – has come perilously close to 60C, far above the level considered safe for humans.
Heatwaves are now commonplace elsewhere, killing the most vulnerable, worsening inequality and threatening the wellbeing of future generations. Unicef calculates a quarter of the world’s children are already exposed to frequent heatwaves, and this will rise to almost 100% by mid-century.
Nickel in generator coils? What? They are mode from copper. Sometimes aluminum because it’s cheaper than copper. The majority of nickel isn’t even used in things like batteries, it’s used to make steel alloys like stainless steel and heat resistant alloys used for engine parts. Also you keep pretending all of these material aren’t recyclable. Metals can be reshaped an indefinite number of times. It’s like arguing you can only use water once.
I am not talking about a pipedream. I am talking about something that was actually implemented in the soviet union. This isn’t Thorium that has never had a commerical implementation that was successful. Both of these reactors are still operational:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-600_reactor
There is even a third one that has now been decommissioned, but still operated for around 20 years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-350_reactor
You’re lost again. I am talking about doing that in the long term after we have decarbonized.
Given you kept talking about the elite and how they can’t exist in your degrowth scenario, it seemed to me that blame was implied. I am not being dishonest here. If anything you are the one changing goal posts by doing the whole I didn’t say that routine when it’s clearly implied.
Yes. Did I not say it isn’t necessary in the long term? I thought I stated it pretty clearly. I don’t support long term degrowth anymore than I support shrinking the human population long term. Maybe the population of earth specifically, but not the population of all humanity.
I am still waiting for a response to that last quote. I think you’ve found something you can’t dispute.
Good job there isn’t a copper shortage coming …
Oh wait
Nickel is used in the alloys needed in wind turbines and solar panels.
Theres no factual basis to what you’re saying. You’re just declaring utter bollocks to be thus and such.
Youre saying they don’t use uranium or are you trying to move the goal posts again?
Oh, I see, mining the moon is a solution for when we’ve already fixed the problem. No wonder it was so confusing.
No, you just made that up and its not implied. They can’t exist without vast amounts of excess labour being undertaken. Im saying its two birds with one stone. That doesn’t mean I’m saying that they made all the emissions. If that’s genuinely what you read from those words then you have a problem. Youre just grasping at straws here.
It took a long time to drag out of you.
Well, far be for me to have to explain to you the finite nature of the planet you find yourself on. Who knows, maybe perpetual growth on a finite planet is possible? Maybe all the scientists and the laws on entropy are wrong and youre right? Maybe thats a thing that could happen in the real world?
Omg, yeah, you got me. I can’t dispute that there are more “lower” and middle class people in the world. Well done you.
Nope not at all. Do you understand what an isotope is? The vast majority of Uranium on earth is U-238. Ordinary reactors mainly use U-235 with less usage of U-238. If you look at the composition of “spent” fuel you would see most of it is unreacted Uranium. Likewise the depleted uranium produced in manufacturing new reactor fuel can also be used by turning it into Plutonium.
Normally when people talk about running out of Uranium they are talking about U-235. Since you have provided no source I can only presume this is what you mean. If you could link your source we could actually talk about it.
You might want to actually read up on closing the fuel cycle, this is where you reuse previously used fuel. One of the reactors I am talking about uses plutonium as part of it’s fuel source. Plutonium can only have come from other reactors, meaning it’s reusing either material from nuclear weapons that was originally produced in military reactors, or from waste produced by other civilian power reactors. It’s called a breeder reactor because it produces more fissile material than it actually burns. This fissile material comes from converting fertile U-238 into fissile Plutonium. All of this stuff is a google search away.
Here are some places you can start learning about this stuff:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactor-grade_plutonium
This is again without getting into the Thorium fuel cycle which involves converting Thorium-232 into Uranium-233. This has been done before in the USA but only on a small scale. If this could be scaled up you could make your own Uranium without mining it. It would require some U-235 to start with but would become self-sustaining in a couple of years. You can read about it here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle
I am talking about plans for expansion once the global warming situation is resolved. I probably should have stated this more clearly which is my fault. I apologize for causing confusion.
Also pretending Nuclear is the only option is even more funny. Solar and wind are the cheaper energy sources. There are plenty of other options too like geothermal, tidal, hydro, and so on.
Honestly man just take the loss and actually read up on stuff next time. It’s great for your education to actually learn how science and technology works, instead of grasping at straws. You’ve painted yourself into a corner where regardless of whether you are correct or not you don’t actually understand enough to defend your arguments. You aren’t informed enough to determine if things like degrowth are actually necessary or not. Heck I am not informed enough to make those decisions either, and I understand this stuff better than you do, especially the basics of nuclear fuel cycles. Ultimately this comes down to engineering and scientific considerations, and frankly you don’t strike me as an engineer. While I am a scientist this isn’t my area either, and I shouldn’t be called on to make policy decisions in this area.
I mean, you could Google “uranium shortage” and find what you need very quickly. Again, I’m not spending my evening teaching you and providing you with sources that you’re unable to refute in any way, despite your best efforts. I’m sure you’ve convinced yourself that anyone who doesn’t do that for you must be wrong but thats just not how the world works.
I’ve already told you how there isn’t enough of the materials we need to make sufficient numbers of solar panels or wind turbines, let alone figure out a way to store the energy for when we need it later.
Why is the default position that there has to be enough of what we need to do that, unless proven wrong?
Degrowth doesn’t have to mean smaller.
I used to do research too but then I left for a career that paid more. Not that something like that would make me right or more believable, of course. No, that would be ridiculous.
Im not really sure why you decided to bring up your career in an unrelated field. Honestly, if I was arguing for perpetual growth on a finite planet, I wouldn’t tell anyone I was a scientist, let alone demand someone “take the L” for having to explain to you that our energy consumption can’t grow perpetually.
I never argued for perpetual growth on earth. I think you’ve completely missed what I am talking about. I only started arguing with you because it became obvious you had no idea what you were talking about with regards to renewables and nuclear.
If you had started off by explaining that degrowth to you just meant not expanding infinitely on earth then most of this argument wouldn’t have even happened. I don’t support infinite growth on one planet either. I support expanding out into the solar system and even further away in the long term, but even that obviously has it’s limits somewhere.
To me it sounded like you were saying we can’t move to renewables without shrinking the economy massively and tanking standards of living.
Looking back at this argument I can see it’s one of those where neither party actually understands the others position, and is actually just arguing against what they think the other person believes.