Blake [he/him]

Lmfao are you serious? Supporting renewables makes me a shill for fossil fuel companies? You’re stretching so far you’re going to split.

When it comes to generating electricity, nuclear is hugely more expensive than renewables. Every 1000Wh of nuclear power could be 2000-3000 Wh solar or wind.

If you’ve been told “it’s not possible to have all power from renewable sources”, you have been a victim of disinformation from the fossil fuel industry. The majority of studies show that a global transition to 100% renewable energy across all sectors – power, heat, transport and industry – is feasible and economically viable.

This is all with current, modern day technology, not with some far-off dream or potential future tech such as nuclear fusion, thorium reactors or breeder reactors.

Compared to nuclear, renewables are:

• Cheaper
• As clean or cleaner, in terms of emissions
• Faster to provision
• Less environmentally damaging
• Not reliant on continuous consumption of fuel
• Decentralised
• Much, much safer
• Much easier to maintain
• More reliable
• Much more capable of being scaled down on demand to meet changes in energy demands

Nuclear power has promise as a future technology. But at present, while I’m all in favour of keeping the ones we have until the end of their useful life, building new nuclear power stations is a massive waste of money, resources, effort and political capital.

Nuclear energy should be funded only to conduct new research into potential future improvements and to construct experimental power stations. Any money that would be spent on building nuclear power plants should be spent on renewables instead.

Frequently asked questions:

• But it’s not always sunny or windy, how can we deal with that?

While a given spot in your country is going to have periods where it’s not sunny or rainy, with a mixture of energy distribution (modern interconnectors can transmit 800kV or more over 800km or more with less than 3% loss) non-electrical storage such as pumped storage, and diversified renewable sources, this problem is completely mitigated - we can generate wind, solar or hydro power over 2,000km away from where it is consumed for cheaper than we could generate nuclear electricity 20km away.

• Don’t renewables take up too much space?

The United States has enough land paved over for parking spaces to have 8 spaces per car - 5% of the land. If just 10% of that space was used to generate solar electricity - a mere 0.5% - that would generate enough solar power to provide electricity to the entire country. By comparison, around 50% of the land is agricultural. The amount of land used by renewable sources is not a real problem, it’s an argument used by the very wealthy pro-nuclear lobby to justify the huge amounts of funding that they currently receive.

• Isn’t Nuclear power cleaner than renewables?

No, they’re pretty comparable in terms of emissions, and renewables are cleaner in terms of other environmental impacts. You can look up total lifetime emissions for nuclear vs. renewables - this is the aggregated and equalised emissions caused per kWh for each energy source. It takes into account the energy used to extract raw materials, build the power plant, operate the plant, maintenance, the fuels needed to sustain it, the transport needed to service it, and so on. These numbers generally show that renewables tend to be as clean or cleaner in terms of total lifetime emissions, and in addition, since nuclear relies on fuel extraction (mining) and has lots of issues regarding waste, renewables is overall cleaner than nuclear.

• We need a baseline load, though, and that can only be nuclear or fossil fuels.

Not according to industry experts - the majority of studies show that a 100% renewable source of energy across all industries for all needs - electricity, heating, transport, and industry - is completely possible with current technology and is economically viable. If you disagree, don’t argue with me, take it up with the IEC. Here’s a Wikipedia article that you can use as a baseline for more information: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy

As much as I support this, it’s not going to win this fight.

We keep fighting them by their rules, with their systems, and in the places where they are strong.

The law, the politicians, the media and the wealthy are all on their side.

Peaceful protest, legal battles, voting, the free market, regulation, international summits, agreements, accords, and treaties, all of these things have failed.

The time has long since passed to take action into our own hands and remind the ruling class who they should be afraid of.

If you’re reading this and you agree, don’t just upvote and move along. Join the IWW, search online for groups organising direct action in your area, learn about mutual aid and get out there. Share the message far and wide. We can’t just sit back and tell each-other that if we vote for the right people it’ll end this shit, because it won’t.

The BBC hasn’t been impartial for at least 20 years. Not only that, but they’re the most transphobic publicly funded institution in the UK.

Everyone knows they’re being sarcastic, but we also live in a world where it’s a crime punishable by death to be LGBTQ+, where mentioning the topic in public is a crime and there are US politicians who have literally called for genocide against LGBTQ+ people, so it’s just a shitty thing to say.

single-handedly destroying globalism

Oh no! Anyways…

How dare you suggest that the NY Post would editorialise headlines? I’ll have you know that they’re a very reputable bastion of journalistic integrity, stretching all the way back to their founder (and America’s most beloved founding father), Lin Manuel Miranda. 🦅🇺🇸

When it comes to generating electricity, nuclear is hugely more expensive than renewables. Every 1000Wh of nuclear power could be 2000-3000 Wh solar or wind.

If you’ve been told “it’s not possible to have all power from renewable sources”, you have been a victim of disinformation from the fossil fuel industry. The majority of studies show that a global transition to 100% renewable energy across all sectors – power, heat, transport and industry – is feasible and economically viable.

This is all with current, modern day technology, not with some far-off dream or potential future tech such as nuclear fusion, thorium reactors or breeder reactors.

Compared to nuclear, renewables are:

• Cheaper
• Lower emissions
• Faster to provision
• Less environmentally damaging
• Not reliant on continuous consumption of fuel
• Decentralised
• Much, much safer
• Much easier to maintain
• More reliable
• Much more capable of being scaled down on demand to meet changes in energy demands

Nuclear power has promise as a future technology. But at present, while I’m all in favour of keeping the ones we have until the end of their useful life, building new nuclear power stations is a massive waste of money, resources, effort and political capital.

Nuclear energy should be funded only to conduct new research into potential future improvements and to construct experimental power stations. Any money that would be spent on building nuclear power plants should be spent on renewables instead.

Frequently asked questions:

• But it’s not always sunny or windy, how can we deal with that?

While a given spot in your country is going to have periods where it’s not sunny or rainy, with a mixture of energy distribution (modern interconnectors can transmit 800kV or more over 800km or more with less than 3% loss) non-electrical storage such as pumped storage, and diversified renewable sources, this problem is completely mitigated - we can generate wind, solar or hydro power over 2,000km away from where it is consumed for cheaper than we could generate nuclear electricity 20km away.

• Don’t renewables take up too much space?

The United States has enough land paved over for parking spaces to have 8 spaces per car - 5% of the land. If just 10% of that space was used to generate solar electricity - a mere 0.5% - that would generate enough solar power to provide electricity to the entire country. By comparison, around 50% of the land is agricultural. The amount of land used by renewable sources is not a real problem, it’s an argument used by the very wealthy pro-nuclear lobby to justify the huge amounts of funding that they currently receive.

• Isn’t Nuclear power cleaner than renewables?

No, it’s dirtier. You can look up total lifetime emissions for nuclear vs. renewables - this is the aggregated and equalised environmental harm caused per kWh for each energy source. It takes into account the energy used to extract raw materials, build the power plant, operate the plant, maintenance, the fuels needed to sustain it, the transport needed to service it, and so on. These numbers always show nuclear as more environmentally harmful than renewables.

• We need a baseline load, though, and that can only be nuclear or fossil fuels.

Not according to industry experts - the majority of studies show that a 100% renewable source of energy across all industries for all needs - electricity, heating, transport, and industry - is completely possible with current technology and is economically viable. If you disagree, don’t argue with me, take it up with the IEC. Here’s a Wikipedia article that you can use as a baseline for more information: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy

Would you explain what the contradiction is between a desire for peace and an opposition to imperialism?

If “containment of x” means “making it harder for x to invade” then yes, I am advocating for that so long as the ends justify the means, and yes, that is peaceful coexistence. If you have a personal problem with that, then I don’t care. But it’s a perfectly coherent philosophy.

Yes, my comment included the word appeasement. What’s your point?

My argument is that neither side should invade the other and that they should peacefully coexist. I support peace, balanced reconciliation, and the end of capitalism.

A threat to CCP interests it may be, but that wouldn’t justify a military invasion that would kill a shitload of people, would it? It would have to be sinking food or medicine shipments with coastal guns or something equally abhorrent to justify such an act. And again, that would absolutely be valid justification for an invasion, so they wouldn’t do it. How can you claim to be one of the good guys when you justify a military invasion and the deaths of thousands of innocents as “just a fact of how things will turn out”.

Oh, my apologies, you’re quite right, I initially misread your message, sorry about that - thank you for your answer and I appreciate your consistency. I appreciate you arguing in good faith and I understand your position.

I disagree with you, I think you have an altogether a bit too optimistic perspective of the CCP, but I understand why you would be inclined to feel that way.

My point is, I think it’s pretty clear that Taiwan stands no chance whatsoever in a hot conflict with the Red Army - I hope that’s something that we agree on. I am sure that Taiwan is also very aware of that fact.

So what threat is posed by providing conventional munitions to Taiwan? If they were used in aggression, they would guarantee their own demise. Do you really think that they would be so desperate to strike a meaningless blow against the CCP that they would trade everything to accomplish that?

If so, why would these weapons change anything? They could have sacrificed everything for a single meaningless act of violence long before now. It’s not like Taiwan is being supplied with nuclear weapons, is it?

Providing Taiwan with conventional weaponry only accomplishes one thing: making an invasion of Taiwan less compelling.

Why do you try to attack an identity you’re assuming that I hold, rather than addressing my actual arguments? Could it be because you’re incapable of actually successfully arguing against the points I’m making?

And no, I’m not an “ultra”, though it’s quite a vaguely defined term, I’m not opposed to all of the structures that ultra-leftists are traditionally opposed to. Keep guessing, though. You’ll probably get it eventually. The world is a nuanced place and you shouldn’t try to shove everything into a convenient box to make it easier to deal with. That’s lib behaviour. You should know better.

You’re not engaging with my argument because you know fine well what the outcome would be. I think we’re done here.

Assume that it wouldn’t, though - I could just as easily say “with the right incentives, the United States could elect a communist president and transition to a people’s republic”, so let’s take them at their word that never means never and go from there, shall we?

you can’t win against me, who studied at Oxford, Nato boy

This is the most unbelievably embarrassing thing I have ever read on Lemmy. Honestly, if you regret writing this, please let me know. I will amend my comment to erase the fact you ever wrote it.

you protect the ROC’s claims

Please cite evidence of my support of Taiwan’s territorial claims. If you believe that opposing CCP imperialism means that one must also support Taiwanese territorial claims then you have made an incorrect assumption - and a converse error on your part does not constitute a failure on mine.

I’m very sorry that I refuse to defend the strawman you so thoughtfully prepared for me. By all means, whack away at him. I would suggest that you take your own advice, by the way, and read my actual comment and respond to the text of what I wrote, not some imagined subtext your Oxford-educated brain conjured to allay your cognitive dissonance. Oh, and one last thing - whatever your parents paid for that education, unfortunately it would appear to have turned out a poor investment.

If the Taiwanese state would never capitulate and reintegrate peacefully with the CCP state, which is their claim, then wouldn’t that make an invasion of Taiwan inevitable, regardless of weapons?

I’m not a lib. And no, I don’t believe in supporting the lesser evil. I don’t support any evil.

Here’s a question for you: would you support a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan?