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NNadir

(33,368 posts)
7. If you don't know what you're talking about, make stuff up.
Mon May 28, 2018, 04:52 AM
May 2018

Last edited Mon May 28, 2018, 10:20 AM - Edit history (2)

Right now on this planet, which is being destroyed by ignorance, combined, the solar and wind industries combined on this planet, after 50 years of insipid cheering by mindless people holding contempt for science and engineering, produced less than 10 exajoules of the 567 exajoules humanity was consuming as of 2016.

Despite cat calls from people who hate scientists and engineers, and despise science and engineering, the nuclear industry was constructed in about 25 years, and has consistently produced 28 exajoules for the entire twentieth century.

This information is presented by the International Energy Agency here:

IEA 2017 World Energy Outlook, Table 2.2 page 79 (I have converted MTOE in the original table to the SI unit exajoules in this text.)

The data here shows that the reported "growth" in so called renewable energy, which has proved useless to address climate change and is in fact, nothing like "renewable" has been at approximately 1/6 the rate of growth of coal, which grew by 60 exajoules while so called renewable energy grew a little over 6 in the 21st century.

The United States built 111 nuclear reactors in about 20 years, from 1960-1980 while producing the lowest electricity prices on the planet in any industrial nation. France built 57 in about 10-15 years, while providing electricity prices that are half those of Germany and less than half of those in Denmark.

The argument that what has already happened is now impossible suggests, if not to people who can't think clearly, to me at least, that some kind of popular delusion has taken hold.

It is true that the growth of nuclear energy has been stalled, but this is not a reflection of engineering capability but is a reflection of public ignorance, criminal ignorance, since nuclear energy saves lives. The fact remains that while nuclear energy has been under attack continuously by people who can't think, who hate the science of the Nobel Laureates who built the industry in less than 40 years from benchtop to a major industry, it still is almost three times the size of the useless, wasteful, expensive front for the fossil fuel industry, the so called "renewable energy" industry.

One can make all the Trumpian distortions to the contrary, and frankly attacks on the nuclear industry have been Trumpian before there was Trump, but the truth is what it is.



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