The Ukraine Crisis

[Baldy]

Yeah, then we'll be right where Germany and the rest of Europe is now.

You folks just don't think this stuff through, do you?

The US, European Union, and NATO should also send troops to the Ukraine. I'm all-in for protecting the Ukraine at this point considering they're dying to protect their freedom. This would be a just use of troops and in-line with the values of the West.

I'm ready to challenge the notion the Russians will destroy the entire world because they can't invade Ukraine.

No.

I'm talking about Germany and the rest of Europe being the largest importer of natural gas in the world and dependent on a despot like Putin for a very significant portion of that gas.

I could go on a JSO type rant about how Europe has turned its back on home grown sources of energy like nuclear (and yes, even the evil coal) but people of your particular political persuasion don't really care. For you folk, it's all renewables or nothing.

[GannonFan]

Lindsey Graham may be taking over as the dumbest politician.

Lindsey Graham doubles down on call for Vladimir Putin’s assassination

https://nypost.com/2022/03/04/lindsey-g ... tion-call/

He's just bitter he couldn't finagle the justice from South Carolina to be the next SCOTUS nominee. Still stings apparently.

[∞∞∞]

that gas.
I could go on a JSO type rant about how Europe has turned its back on home grown sources of energy like nuclear (and yes, even the evil coal) but people of your particular political persuasion don't really care. For you folk, it's all renewables or nothing.

You should re-read my post.

If you don't want to: "100% renewable/nuclear"

[Baldy]

that gas.
I could go on a JSO type rant about how Europe has turned its back on home grown sources of energy like nuclear (and yes, even the evil coal) but people of your particular political persuasion don't really care. For you folk, it's all renewables or nothing.

You should re-read my post.

If you don't want to: "100% renewable/nuclear"

You're the outlier.

[∞∞∞]

You should re-read my post.

If you don't want to: "100% renewable/nuclear"

You're the outlier.

I don't disagree. I've certainly had the argument too many times with fellow progressives. While the goal should be 100% renewables, that's not realistic at this point. BUT there's a genuine issue with fossil fuels and we should stop using them as soon as possible, both for our children's future and its risk to national security. Nuclear is the perfect bridge to gap the divide until we're completely reliant on renewable sources.

Nuclear is one the greatest (and safest) sources of energy ever discovered. It's nearly 100% efficient, has contributed to significantly less deaths than any fossil fuel, it's sustainable, and it's comparatively great for the environment.

[CID1990]

Americans are spoiled; gas should cost a lot more. If it wasn't subsidized so heavily, it would be $10-15/gal. before the war even started. We should be leading the charge to be 100% renewable/nuclear, promoting electrification, and building a great national network of public transportation. It's also a matter of national security. Our problem is not doing enough to end America's dependency on oil, whether produced domestically or abroad.

Hopefully higher prices finally push us into actually going all in on reinventing ourselves, but I know people will just bitch instead. Posting "Biden did that" stickers while coal-rolling bicyclists and/or driving something doing 15mpg.

And I'm with everyone here saying we should completely cut off Russia's oil supply to the US. Ukrainians are suffering for their freedoms; I think we'll be fine paying a few extra dollars a gallon. Raise taxes and subsidize the poor that can't.

Um

I think it is pretty clear that as long as you agree that nuclear power is our golden ticket to a clean green future, then you’ll have no arguments from the right

I suggest you work on the anti-nuke Greens. They’re in your tent


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[houndawg]

You should re-read my post.

If you don't want to: "100% renewable/nuclear"

You're the outlier.

Nope. This is not your grandfather's nuclear energy.

[Baldy]

You're the outlier.

I don't disagree. I've certainly had the argument too many times with fellow progressives. While the goal should be 100% renewables, that's not realistic at this point. BUT there's a genuine issue with fossil fuels and we should stop using them as soon as possible, both for our children's future and its risk to national security. Nuclear is the perfect bridge to gap the divide until we're completely reliant on renewable sources.

Nuclear is one the greatest (and safest) sources of energy ever discovered. It's nearly 100% efficient, has contributed to significantly less deaths than any fossil fuel, it's sustainable, and it's comparatively great for the environment.

A society relying on 100% renewals is not an obtainable goal.

[BDKJMU]

Americans are spoiled; gas should cost a lot more. If it wasn't subsidized so heavily, it would be $10-15/gal. before the war even started. We should be leading the charge to be 100% renewable/nuclear, promoting electrification, and building a great national network of public transportation. It's also a matter of national security.

Our problem is not doing enough to end America's dependency on oil, whether produced domestically or abroad.

Hopefully higher prices finally push us into actually going all in on reinventing ourselves, but I know people will just bitch instead. Posting "Biden did that" stickers while coal-rolling bicyclists and/or driving something doing 15mpg.

The heavily subsidized thing is always a red herring. It's not really subsidization to allow capital to depreciate over time and a host of other things that we allow Big Oil to do that we also allow every other industry and business to do. Should it cost more than it does? Sure, but not anything like 2x-3x more like your proposing.

As for moving to other power, absolutely we should, but those are just as heavily subsidized by the same things you are decrying we do for oil. And segments of our country have spent the past 50 years vilifying nuclear energy so much that even now, when it's blatantly obvious that we should be building several nuclear plants, we're still hearing the same hesitation that has plagued us for 50 years.

And as for transportation, that's just a pipe dream. We aren't Europe, we don't have population centered in just a small number of areas. We've already spread out around the country. There's no national public transportation solution that would be feasible without forcing tens of millions of people to uproot and move closer to each other. But it's also not needed - electric cars will be here before we know it and assuming we can build the energy production sufficiently to account for that, there won't be cars burning gas on the roads in a couple of decades. Which will be far sooner than the magical national network of public transportation that won't ever happen.

As far as all cars being electric in a couple of decades, nope.
-We don’t have the electricity supply.
-We don’t have the power grid to handle said supply.
-We don’t have the lithium for the batteries unless you want to be reliant on China for yet another vital interest.

[houndawg]

I don't disagree. I've certainly had the argument too many times with fellow progressives. While the goal should be 100% renewables, that's not realistic at this point. BUT there's a genuine issue with fossil fuels and we should stop using them as soon as possible, both for our children's future and its risk to national security. Nuclear is the perfect bridge to gap the divide until we're completely reliant on renewable sources.

Nuclear is one the greatest (and safest) sources of energy ever discovered. It's nearly 100% efficient, has contributed to significantly less deaths than any fossil fuel, it's sustainable, and it's comparatively great for the environment.

A society relying on 100% renewals is not an obtainable goal.

Besides the grid all we need to do is figure out a method of wireless transmission from panels in space to the grid

[BDKJMU]

The US, European Union, and NATO should also send troops to the Ukraine. I'm all-in for protecting the Ukraine at this point considering they're dying to protect their freedom. This would be a just use of troops and in-line with the values of the West.

I'm ready to challenge the notion the Russians will destroy the entire world because they can't invade Ukraine.

That we can agree on. If we don't stand up for one country being attacked and brutalized by another country for basically no reason other than imperial designs what would we stand up for.

Sounds like a neo-con response. So you want to go to war with Russia. You want to go to war with China, too, when they invade Taiwan?

The US is not the world’s policeman. Supplying arms is one thing, US boots on the ground is another.

[∞∞∞]

I don't disagree. I've certainly had the argument too many times with fellow progressives. While the goal should be 100% renewables, that's not realistic at this point. BUT there's a genuine issue with fossil fuels and we should stop using them as soon as possible, both for our children's future and its risk to national security. Nuclear is the perfect bridge to gap the divide until we're completely reliant on renewable sources.

Nuclear is one the greatest (and safest) sources of energy ever discovered. It's nearly 100% efficient, has contributed to significantly less deaths than any fossil fuel, it's sustainable, and it's comparatively great for the environment.

A society relying on 100% renewals is not an obtainable goal.

It is an absolutely attainable goal. There's more than enough renewable energy right now to do what we want, but we're inefficient at harnessing it. It's only a matter of advancing material sciences to a cost-efficient point (and technological growth is exponential). In addition to getting better at harnessing different energy sources, items using energy sources are also getter more efficient. It's two functions converging on each other.

People saying something is not obtainable, then humans eventually obtaining it, is a tale as old as time. There's always smarter people working on these problems than those who think they understand them.

[AZGrizFan]

A society relying on 100% renewals is not an obtainable goal.

It is an absolutely attainable goal. There's more than enough renewable energy right now to do what we want, but we're inefficient at harnessing it. It's only a matter of advancing material sciences to a cost-efficient point (and technological growth is exponential). In addition to getting better at harnessing different energy sources, items using energy sources are also getter more efficient. It's two functions converging on each other.

People saying something is not obtainable, then humans eventually obtaining it, is a tale as old as time. There's always smarter people working on these problems than those who think they understand them.

Hence why he said “not realistic AT THIS POINT…”….

[UNI88]

It is an absolutely attainable goal. There's more than enough renewable energy right now to do what we want, but we're inefficient at harnessing it. It's only a matter of advancing material sciences to a cost-efficient point (and technological growth is exponential). In addition to getting better at harnessing different energy sources, items using energy sources are also getter more efficient. It's two functions converging on each other.

People saying something is not obtainable, then humans eventually obtaining it, is a tale as old as time. There's always smarter people working on these problems than those who think they understand them.

Hence why he said “not realistic AT THIS POINT…”….

I believe Trip posted "While the goal should be 100% renewables, that's not realistic at this point." Baldy posted "A society relying on 100% renewals is not an obtainable goal."

I agree with Trip. It isn't realistic now but is obtainable. We just don't know how long it's going to take.

[Ibanez]

Hence why he said “not realistic AT THIS POINT…”….

I believe Trip posted "While the goal should be 100% renewables, that's not realistic at this point." Baldy posted "A society relying on 100% renewals is not an obtainable goal."

I agree with Trip. It isn't realistic now but is obtainable. We just don't know how long it's going to take.

I just read an interview with the Bank of America CEO and I think it's appropriate for this discussion. We're all aware of BofA and how large of a bank they are.

Banks and investors take heat for not simply cutting polluters loose.

Simply saying we’re not going to hold X or Y in our portfolio does not mean X or Y doesn’t keep going on. Getting X or Y to get greener on their steel production every year, or commitments made by the oil and gas industry — not only their operations, but with carbon capture and storage and things that offset their emissions — their change is actually the great change.

The binary decision of invest-not invest, lend-not lend, do business with or not do business with — that doesn’t change the behavior of those companies. You want those companies to declare net-zero, put a plan on the table. Then society wants to hold them accountable.

How do we get to accountability?

If you make metrics part of the official sector, then you can see who’s making progress. Then the decision isn’t, “Yep, there’s 12 companies in this industry, let me get out of all 12.” It’s, “These 10 are making progress, I’ll stay with them and those two will start to suffer from investors and others.” That’s played out in the oil and gas industry in the last couple years.


Now you’re working across sectors to get the various metrics to converge.

Remember this key thing, if you believe that changes need to happen, it isn’t going to happen by charity. There’s just not enough money. There $6 trillion or $7 trillion per year required to make these changes happen. All the foundations of the world have a couple trillion dollars in them or less.

What you’re doing is putting a perpetual motion machine called capitalism to drive this change. It will not happen otherwise. It just won’t happen. Governments could try to regulate it. But as you know, the sticking power of those regulations ebb and flow.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/0 ... n-00012821

[AZGrizFan]

Hence why he said “not realistic AT THIS POINT…”….

I believe Trip posted "While the goal should be 100% renewables, that's not realistic at this point." Baldy posted "A society relying on 100% renewals is not an obtainable goal."

I agree with Trip. It isn't realistic now but is obtainable. We just don't know how long it's going to take.

That’s what I get for trying to read this board and work at the same time.

I MUST get my priorities in order, dammit.

[89Hen]

Hence why he said “not realistic AT THIS POINT…”….

I believe Trip posted "While the goal should be 100% renewables, that's not realistic at this point." Baldy posted "A society relying on 100% renewals is not an obtainable goal."

I agree with Trip. It isn't realistic now but is obtainable. We just don't know how long it's going to take.

Probably until we figure out how to harness dilithium crystals.

[BDKJMU]

What worldwide supply disruptions have there been so far to cause prices to jump like this? Russia is still able to sell its oil, no?

[UNI88]

I believe Trip posted "While the goal should be 100% renewables, that's not realistic at this point." Baldy posted "A society relying on 100% renewals is not an obtainable goal."

I agree with Trip. It isn't realistic now but is obtainable. We just don't know how long it's going to take.

Probably until we figure out how to harness dilithium crystals.

Then we'd be at risk of a possible Burn.

[SDHornet]

Yeah, then we'll be right where Germany and the rest of Europe is now.

You folks just don't think this stuff through, do you?

The US, European Union, and NATO should also send troops to the Ukraine. I'm all-in for protecting the Ukraine at this point considering they're dying to protect their freedom. This would be a just use of troops and in-line with the values of the West.

I'm ready to challenge the notion the Russians will destroy the entire world because they can't invade Ukraine.

Hard pass on troops and planes to Ukraine. Fortunately NATO already nixed that idea this morning which pretty much seals Ukraine's fate.

[UNI88]

The US, European Union, and NATO should also send troops to the Ukraine. I'm all-in for protecting the Ukraine at this point considering they're dying to protect their freedom. This would be a just use of troops and in-line with the values of the West.

I'm ready to challenge the notion the Russians will destroy the entire world because they can't invade Ukraine.

Hard pass on troops and planes to Ukraine. Fortunately NATO already nixed that idea this morning which pretty much seals Ukraine's fate.

I agree but it's going to make it difficult to convince a country to give up it's nukes in the future

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[SuperHornet]

I would SO love to have a B-52 drop one on Red Square right about now....

[LeadBolt]

We should have done a lend/lease, sale, whatever to Ukraine on the 160 military planes we retired last year sitting in the desert.
Can you imagine what a squad of A10’s or F15/16’s could do to that Russian convoy sitting on the road?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[LeadBolt]

With current technology, a totally renewable energy infrastructure would mean giving up a modern or post-modern life style.
It would also triple the cost of power.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[93henfan]

Goodbye, Hind.