Last edited Sat Apr 4, 2026, 09:32 PM - Edit history (1)
It’s always amusing to see the boldface “facts” trotted out when referring to opinions and weak sauce. You say renewable energy is useless, but it is being used all over the world because people want to do something about climate change. You say advocates of renewable energy “couldn’t care less about fossil fuels” but you seem to ignore or overly criticize the vision of using clean energy to generate hydrogen as an alternative fuel. The whole point of a transition to hydrogen is to reduce and replace fossil fuels. I guess you couldn’t care less about that?
You attack the indirect requirement to mine copper or other materials used to build renewable systems. It disgusts you. But you don’t mention that nuclear plants also use some of the same mined materials. And your vision would mean many more reactors using more materials dug up from pristine wilderness areas. Nor do you mention Uranium Mines. Or radioactive mine tailings. Or nuclear waste disposal sites. Or contaminated exclusion zones. Do nuclear plants actually include turbines that use ( OMG! ) petroleum products for lubrication?
There are downsides to any energy system, but the need to do something and everything to avoid or even mitigate climate change is imperative. I personally don’t like terrestrial wind energy because the capacity is low relative to the footprint, but I’ll accept a blanket of wind turbines across Iowa if they can be integrated with corn farms or whatever they grow there. Wind Farms in the UK are achieving that kind of success. I personally don’t like the idea of small nuclear reactors being used to power individual facilities such as data centers because we have already seen problems with management of radioactive material, and I don’t have much faith in tech company management, or the Trump DOE. But I’m willing to support an attempt to do some of these things to see if it can be successful. I hope it succeeds.
The only ironic “good” that can come out of trump’s stupid, tragic war is that several countries, especially in the East, will have much greater incentive to achieve energy independence. Let’s hope they reach for clean energy, both renewable and nuclear, instead of coal. You can celebrate China’s increase in number of reactors; I’ll celebrate their Solar and Floating Offshore Wind Farms producing energy for the grid and generating hydrogen as well. Australia also has abundant and accessible Solar & Wind “reserves” with more than enough energy to overcome “the tyranny” of the second law of thermodynamics and produce hydrogen for export to Japan.
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