Are only Environmentalists scientists?

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bullcrap,

you can easily get rid of most of your oil dependency without any persistent financial effects.
all the electricity i use is offset by alternative production, every single watt.

Your alternative sources cannot power industry and transportation sufficiently.

The way to go is build thousand of fast breeder fission reactors and generate all our heat and electricity that way. We would need petroleum only as a chemical feed stock. We would not have to burn it. Our domestic supplies would be quite sufficient. That way we would not have to buy anything from the Arabs and the Emirates.

ruveyn

not all industry but it is already powering plenty of industry in denmark, more every year.

the argument that we cant do it because we havent already is a logical fallacy of proportion.

It is simply a matter of quantity and cost. If we could live off of sunlight that would be great, but we can't. If we had fusion power (other than the sun) that would be great, but controlled fusion has turned out to be a bust. Wind is intermittant. We can't power industry with wind. Not enough tidal power to power industry. We need 5 quads at least of power for industry and transport. We are not going to get it from windmills and solar panels. Windmills and solar panels are at best niche sources and they are only good in certain parts of the country.

We can do away with burning hydrocarbons. We split atoms.

ruveyn

People always say, wind is intermittent so we can't depend on it, solar is intermittent so we can't depend on it, as if we can't use both and as if we didn't have pretty damn good lithium batteries to store electricity and as if we weren't developing better batteries.

I'm not particularly informed on Climate Science, but I do agree. Half the world is starving, yet Biologists have to fight tooth and nail against the masses to help allieviate famine with GM Crops. Where are the triumphant politicians, and sickeningly-sweet advertising movement (find one add that doesn't play to the theme of "green", and I will kiss your crazy god) to spear the advance of Biology? Seems that the Climate Scientists "toasty" apocalypse is far more hailed than the Biologists malthusian doomsday

Fwiw, I'm a biologist and GM crops are a mixed bag at best. They do produce greater yeilds, but most are under patent and the farmer has to pay an arm and a leg up front to buy the seed, and they're sued for patent infringement if they save the seed from one year to the next. In addition, GM crops that have (for example) round-up resistance encourage the spraying of more round-up on the fields, which is already leading to 'superweeds' that are resistant to herbicides in some areas, which means that *all* farmers have to use more poison on their fields just get the same effect that they used to get with less. The long-term effect of these crops sometimes is just to impoverish the farmers even further.
If you mean common-domain crops engineered to be more nutritious or to survive more extreme conditions, then sure, absolutely we need to use more of them.

The Malthusian doomsday is still taught, at least in a college textbook titled Sustaining The Earth. That textbook, for a class called "Humans and the Environment" went into, in it's introductory chapter, about how, because at some point the population would exceed the food production capacity at present, the human population needs to be reduced... and they weren't suggesting emigration to other planets either....

I think we discussed before, and you stated you were willing to make the financial sacrifice for building breeder reactors, but if we build the number we need, it will be a tremendous expense to some taxpayer at some point in the future, not to mention the upgrades that will soon be required for the aging reactors we already have.

The construction of these reactors takes decades, the immediate positive impact generated by tax payer money will be the creation of many new jobs. Not to mention the tax payer money that will eventually be required to rebuild the infrastructure of the US as a whole, that will also create a huge number of jobs.

All good, logical purposes for taxpayer money that we as a country should be willing to pay for. Question is will anyone have the courage to raise taxes for these neccessary and beneficial purposes.

We have the funding for the current nuclear reactor projects, but it's just a drop in the bucket for what will really be required to resolve the issues of clean energy and a solid infrastructure.

Will anyone be willing to sacrifice? Or will it just be put off as the next generations problems as what seems to be the case for most every issue that might require discomfort among current political constituents.

I suspect we will do something, as is evidenced by the current projects for nuclear power, but I don't expect much more anytime soon, because that will mean additional taxpayer contribution. If politicians can't touch tax cuts that were ready to expire, I have a hard time seeing them raise them.

Other countries, like China, are taking the Bull by the horns, taxing appropriately, and upgrading their countries energy sources and infrastructure. It seems like a country that generates the wealth that we do, would not lag behind, but it appear that only the needs of the people that live now are considered, without any concern for the investment of future generations. Hopefully, the country will not fall into third world status because we had the freedom to do nothing.

Perhaps our current problems in job creation, if they get worse, will convince people of the need to raise taxes to create new jobs to rebuild our infrastructure and energy resources; it's the answer to many of our problems, but a pill that not everyone is willing to swallow; as far as I know, it is not even on the table. We have one of the lowest tax rates in the civilized world; it's too bad, so many are spoiled by it.

When we divert money from the requirements to rebuild our nations infrastructure and energy resources we steal the opportunity of future generations to enjoy the same benefits of living here that we have enjoyed. Meanwhile, the current generation enjoys the gift of the illusion of lower taxes, that is theft from future generations.

The majority of taxpayer money that goes into any social program whether it is for people, energy resources, or infrastructure, goes directly back into the economy and benefits many people and businesses that are not asking for help from social programs. The ultimate impact, is stimulation for the whole economy and a better way of life for people now and into the future.

No, they generally suggest that universal access to birth control is a good thing. Ffs, 'Keet, do you want to live on a planet with 20 billion other people, regardless of whether there's adequate food and water? I for one feel a little bit crowded as it is. 'Emigration to other planets' is far more of a pipe dream than a stable population is.

Nuclear reactors, while they provide lots of energy, are not the most cost effective way of getting that energy.

Suggest an alternative.

The idea is to boil water to make steam to run electrical generators.

ruveyn

these costs do not include the indirect costs, such as increases in asthma deaths and acid rain from coal, wars over oil, methane in drinking water from hydrofracking, bird kills from wind, or nuclear meltdowns from nuclear.

"Geo"thermal would probably work well on Io.

Aren't the Io volcanoes all frozen...?