Oh. Oh. It appears that those solar cells on which we bet the atmosphere...

[NNadir]

22. The Chinese are world leaders in the construction of nuclear reactors today.

They are simply better than we are at high technology, although when pressed and prodded to make junk, they can do so.

There has not been one nuclear reactor - and I'm including Chernobyl here - that has proved as dangerous as fossil fuels and the so called "renewable" biomass industry - which combined are responsible, via air pollution, according to the World Health Organization, kills 3.3 million people per year, half under the age of five.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs313/en/index.html

That works out to about 100 million people every three decades or so. The nuclear industry is a mature industry, more than half a century old. Except in the bizarre fantasies of stupid people, it killed nothing like 100 million people in 30 years. So why are you appealing to me to have a special fear of nuclear reactors made by Chinese or anyone else?

I'll tell you what I don't want in my fucking state: I don't want fossil fuel plants built by anyone: American assholes, German assholes, or Chinese assholes.

How come you didn't ask me that question? Very few nuclear plants have ever killed anyone, whereas there are zero dangerous fossil fuel plants that didn't start killing lots of people the moment they were turned on. Which killed more people, the nuclear reactors at Fukushima or the fossil fuel plants that replaced them when they were destroyed, to much mindless cheering?

The fact is, that the destruction of nuclear manufacturing infrastructure through the mindless application of fear and ignorance about the world's largest, by far, source of climate change gas free primary energy, as left all of humanity, as well as the majority of other species, up the creek without a paddle. Nuclear energy, developed by Nobel Laureates, some of the world's greatest scientists, men like Seaborg, and Fermi and Wigner and Bethe was the best form of energy ever invented, and while some people around the planet know that - the great climate scientist Jim Hansen recently published a widely read paper quantifying how many lives nuclear energy saved - the technology was pissed away in service to fear and ignorance.

Now, let's consider the denialist claim about the fact that almost all of the solar infrastructure on this planet under performs when it doesn't fail outright.

The article in the opening post says that 80% of the solar cells in Europe are under performing.

Your excuse for this miserable performance is to announce that "it's all China's fault!" Are you saying that 80% of the solar cells in Europe - they've been throwing hundreds of billions of euros at this shit for more than a decade with no meaningful result - were all manufactured in China?

Personally, I'm sick of "it's all China's fault!" Fuck that shit. While we turn out reams and reams of useless MBA's they turn out reams and reams of people called "scientists."

I spend much of every weekend reading the primary scientific literature, scanning sometimes hundreds of papers. We hate science in this country, but they don't hate it in theirs. At least 40% the quality papers I read are from Chinese scientists.

The fact is that China has a rational plan to phase out fossil fuels, and the United States and Europe don't.

All the racist remarks in the world about China do not make them responsible for the poor performance of solar cells all around the planet. They've only begun to dominate the market recently, and only because this toxic junk has a popularity that outweighs its utility. They're in it for the money, just like their in the Christmas doily business for the money. There's a difference between cheap electronic junk - which is what the solar industry is - and a nuclear power plant.

The solar talisman has always been shit, no matter who's producing the crap - as the records of its energy output clearly show. The industry is 6 decades old, and despite decades of mindless cheering for it, it has failed to produce even one exajoule of the 520 exajoules humanity consumes each year..

By the way, I'm not here to advocate for nuclear energy. Nuclear energy will not save very much at this point. Fear and ignorance have lead us to a point where it is impossible to do anything with it. It's too fucking late.

I am merely here to vent my anger at the destruction of the planetary atmosphere that fear and ignorance have wrought.

In monitoring the carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa I've noticed that 2013's increase over 2012 for monthly averages year to date is 2.69 ppm. In 2012 - the second worst year ever observed - it was 2.25 ppm up to May 2012 over 2011. In 1998, the worst year ever recorded, the year to date had an average of 2.37 ppm over 1997. The final figures for 1998 and 2012 were respectively 2.90 ppm over 1997, and 2.65 ppm over 2011.

February and March of 2013 were both the worst months ever recorded for increases over the previous year. It seems very clear to me that 2013 is well on track to be well over 3.00 ppm for a single year's increase, an all time record. And rest assured, 2014 will be worse, and 2015 worse than that.

I note that of the five worst years ever observed for carbon dioxide increases over the previous year, four of them have taken place in the same decade plus that I've been reading denialist horseshit here - run on coal and gas powered servers - about how solar will save the day. It didn't and it won't. It's trash, expensive trash. It doesn't work.

It doesn't matter at this point that the solar junk was a cheap carny prize, whether made in China, the US, Europe or elsewhere. We're out of time, here, in China, in Europe, everywhere.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.