Regrettably, I'm a rather old man, and I'm rather set in my ways with respect to the criteria I use to judge other people.
Also I tend to filter advice on how I should conduct my life and how I should make judgements in that life based on my level of respect for those offering the advice.
I'm sorry about that, but again, I'm old, very unlikely to change my ways as my "ways" are based on long experience.
It's funny though. Sometimes commentary from people for whom I lack respect inspires me to think more deeply about a subject.
For example, I was once challenged by someone I didn't know at all to address the fact that a tunnel constructed in the 1950s at a nuclear weapons facility, to remark on this because of my long term and unshakable support of commercial nuclear power.
I personally found the reference to the tunnel absurd, stupid actually, and made some sarcastic remarks about it - which were immediately called by a person pretending to know about logical fallacies - "a straw man."
The sarcastic remark - I don't use emojis to designate them as I assume, often wrongly, a certain level of wit on the part of readers - involved the putative "terror" among anti-nukes on hearing that a radioactive atom would find its way into their little brains.
You know, "a straw man."
Nevertheless the strong reaction to my remark led me to wonder about exactly, in real terms, about how many atoms might find their way into anyone's brain because a tunnel collapsed at a nuclear weapons plant.
I did some research - lots of it actually - involved in answering the question, which led me to evaluate the geological mobility of actinides and fission products. It was fascinating and I'm glad I was inspired to do it, since I learned a lot of interesting things. I wrote about some of the things I learned in that process in this space: 828 Underground Nuclear Tests, Plutonium Migration in Nevada, Dunning, Kruger, Strawmen, and Tunnels.
Since the research in support of that (rather long) post led to learning some really interesting aspects of the chemistry of technetium in particular, of which I was unaware - I regard technetium and a remarkable and potentially extremely valuable element - I really appreciated the inspiration.
Besides the remarks on my personality, your comments above also had something to say about biofuels, including a delicious comment on sugar cane, a subject that I studied and about which I wrote online over 14 years ago.
These comments are also inspiring in an odd way, but I won't respond to them in this now tired thread, the subject of which has been changed from a comparison of the rate of growth of wind power in Denmark to the growth of nuclear power in Finland to something else, not that I agreed that changing the subject was a good idea, but it is what it is, as they commonly say in a rather cliched tautology.
I will remark on biofuels, including sugarcane (probably just by calling up what I wrote 14 years ago), in a separate thread, tentatively titled as of this writing "Biofuels and Very Stable Genius."
Thanks again for your useful remarks.
= new reply since forum marked as read