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Comment by henrikschroder | Hacker News Reader

Sweden held a referendum in 1980 about nuclear power, and the only choice was about how fast our nuclear power plants should be shut down.

It took twenty years until a reactor was closed, and five more years until one whole plant was closed.

During this time, Sweden's energy consumption has of course gone up, and although there's been some increase in wind and water power, the net result is that each time we close a nuclear reactor, we have to import a lot more electricty from Danish or German coal-powered plants.

So the net result for the environment is negative, but the environmentalist movement thinks it's a huge win.

I'm willing to wager that this German proposal will have the exact same end result. The only way to successfully switch to renewable energy is by making renewable energy cheaper than coal or nuclear.

View on HN

Germany has increased the use of renewable energy in a decade from 6 to 16% for the generation of electrical energy. The laws and regulation have been put in place: the EEG. This law has been copied world-wide by dozens of countries.

The goal is to be at 100% with renewable energy in 2050. The closing down of the nuclear power plants is only one milestone on that way. The fossil-based plants will be reduced over time, too. As a bridge technology gas power plants are seen which make it possible to use heat and electricity. Those have an extremely high degree of efficiency. The gas supply is there. New pipelines are being built currently.

Closing down the nuclear power plants is one goal. They are extremely expensive and they need huge amounts of money which we need to invest in renewable energy technology. Also the nuclear industry favors the big corporations who prevent market mechanisms and try to undermine any new energy source. They are also not flexible enough to be used in a future energy mix.

Given that the goal is to go fully to renewable energy in the next 40 years, the nuclear power plants have to go first. The acceptance for them in the German society is also at an all time low.

Keeping old nuclear power plants running is not expensive, building them is expensive. Dismantling nuclear power plants is also expensive but there is no way around those costs, anyway.

See Fukushima for the cost of running nuclear power plants.

The cost of the running power plant is deferred also to a future which then needs to deal with the waste from burned fuel.

Germany has no solution how to deal with the fuel.

The cost for that adds up every day.

I don’t think the cost for dealing with waste adds up. It stays (pretty much) constant: High fixed costs and very low variable costs.

Dismantling a nuclear power plant doesn’t get more expensive just because they are running longer. When it comes to waste, finding a site and building the infrastructure is expensive, the cost of dealing with additional waste from letting the plants run longer has to be negligible.

Whether or not we have a solution to deal with the fuel is pretty much irrelevant. We have to find a solution anyway, there is no way around it. We might as well keep the plants running longer.

we don't have even a viable intermediate solution. Which would have to be built.

The spent fuels are full and provide a new danger. See Fukushima on the effects of full spent fuel pools in times of an nuclear accident. Reactor five had also recently a loss of cooling for it.

Currently much of the used fuel is stored on site. This has never been planned, costs additional money, and provides new dangers.

Plus, for a storage solution it definitely makes a huge difference if we have to store the nuclear waste of ten reactors running ten years or of twenty reactors running 50 years. The cost is not the same.

This need is there whether we stop in 2022 or 2032. It doesn’t make a difference.

Also: High fixed costs, low variable costs. It’s as simple as that.

Low variable cost? What?

The current experimental Asse II site already cost us BILLIONS of Euros. Plus it is fucked up and needs to been evacuated for a few additional billions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schacht_Asse_II

Those are fixed costs. The interesting question is what the marginal cost of adding another kg of nuclear waste is.

It's not just the nuclear fuel that needs storing you know: http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/w/waste-radioac...

Each plant produces a huge amount of waste each year it runs, all of various impact levels, but all of which has a cost to store or process. So yes, there may only be a small amount of extra direct fuel waste, but there is a lot more than that to consider.

Sure, but that gets us no closer to knowing the marginal cost of one additional kilo of nuclear waste (of any description). My suspicion is that the marginal cost is quite low.

All I'm saying is this: You likely can't take the average cost of safely storing one kilo of waste given current levels of waste and calculate the additional cost that results from letting the reactors run a few more years. This is econ 101. I like to use newspapers to explain the concept: The cost of making 10,000 newspapers in nearly the same as the cost of making 20,000 newspapers. This is because nearly all the money that has to be spent is fixed (wages for journalists and staff, buildings and machines, …). The variable costs are very low in comparison (letting the presses run a little longer, additional paper, ink, …).

There is also a variable cost in allowing the old designs to continue to run that you are not accounting for.

Building, dismantling and taking care of waste all costs money and generates no revenue. (Building a nuclear power plant at least brings with it potential future revenue. Power companies have no interest in dismantling plants or taking care of waste, it doesn't make them money.) Running the plant also costs money but also generates revenue. Especially old nuclear power plants (which are already written off) are profitable as hell. Why do you think are power companies interested in keeping them running as long as possible?

Every additional day those nuclear power plants run decreases their cost/kWh.

They are interested in keeping them running as long as possible because that is where their pay checks come from. Every additional day they run increases the risk of catastrophic failure, that is the point I am making. I don't see them as a valid or viable enterprise. The cost/revenue model of accounting is really stretched when it comes to dealing with the timelines necessary for proper nuclear disposal. I see what you are saying about how it is a tiny cost over that huge 30000 year period. Taking that period as given, do you agree that the years where the plant is operational are the most risky?

If the output of waste from a nuclear reactor is still that 'hot', they're doing it wrong. That waste then needs reprocessed for draining more energy out of it, furthering the transmutation to good 'ol lead. It'd be akin to burning gasoline with a 100% conversion output of CO. Guess what: that's incomplete combustion and you just lost a lot of energy. But that's what these reactors do all the time.

If you can't get lead out of it, at least get something that only has a half-life of a few billion years. Then its about as dangerous as lead.

How many people died at Fukushima ? 1

How many people die every year because of coal plants working perfectly normally ? 30 000 in the US alone.

See http://squid314.livejournal.com/292620.html

Nuclear waste is a bigger problem indeed, but using Fukushima as an argument against nuclear is both dishonest and stupid.

Expenses, not deaths, were the topic of discussion.

We're talking full cost accounting and deaths are a large component in that. (well depends on how many deaths there are of course, in coal plants they're a big part).

Death is the ultimate expense.

In that case, Fukushima is even less relevant to the discussion.

First, the Fukushima case is not yet closed. Tepco told us today (faz.net), that the three damaged reactors are stiil out of control, at least until end of this year. We will see, what will happen.

Second: don't you ignore the risk of how many people _could_ die, in the case of a big disaster? That would have global conequences for quite some days (ironic).

Even if nobody would die under normal conditions (nuclear and coal), the consequenences of a (more or less probable) big catastrophe (height of fall) are the main counter argument against nuclear power.

>« Even if nobody would die under normal conditions (nuclear and coal »

Except the point of what I was saying and of the link I gave is precisely that under "normal conditions", people die due to coal, whereas it is not the case with nuclear plant.

The reason is that all a nuclear plant releases in the air is water.

> « the consequenences of a (more or less probable) big catastrophe (height of fall) are the main counter argument against nuclear power. »

You must take into account the odds of a probable disaster, such as an earthquake in Japan, but not the consequences of any disaster. It's just unreasonable to assume an improbable disaster will happen. You end up renouncing any technology by thinking that way.

Obviously, Nuclear power plant must be built with security as the main concern. Obviously, a nuclear reactor can be very dangerous. But refusing to use nuclear plants, which are much more efficient than classic ones and a good long-term investment, is idiotic.

We're far more likely to die in a car accident than because of radio-activity, or any other disaster that's on television. Yet, noone is suggesting that a country should be "car free".

Until a better, safer replacement is found, we'll use cars, and nuclear plants.

Until a better, safer replacement is found, we'll use cars, and nuclear plants.

I'd wager the change of mind will happen rather quickly after the first terrorist crashes a plane into an US nuclear facility.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZjhxuhTmGk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7eI4vvlupY

Impressive video. However, I wonder if that test would look as good with a real passenger jet.

According to wikipedia the empty weight of a Phantom F4 is 30,328 lb.

The empty weight of a Boeing 737 is up to 80,000 lb (almost 3x as much). The empty weight of an A380 is 610,000 lb (20 times as much).

Would that the walls of the containment area on the reactors in Fukushima were that thick.

I'm pretty sure a big earthquake followed by a tsunami is more damaging than a plane crash.

The recent review of reactor safety here in Germany found that not a single site would survive a large passenger aircraft crashing into it.

http://www.bz-berlin.de/aktuell/deutschland/kein-deutsches-a...

I don't read German.

>« not a single site would survive a large passenger aircraft crashing into it. »

Now, what does that even mean ? If surviving means "keep on working", obviously not.

If it means destruction of the protection layers of concrete around the reactor, it's more dangerous, but just because the reactor is open, it doesn't mean the radioactive material is going to fly away.

just because the reactor is open, it doesn't mean the radioactive material is going to fly away.

How is the radiation supposed to be contained when your reactor just turned into a burning pile of rubble?

That's exactly why it's dangerous to anyone near the plant, as opposed to a Chernobyl-style or Fukushima-style disaster, where radioactive material is disseminated.

So, your reactor was just turned into a burning pile of radioactive rubble by having something like 150,000 lb of mass smashed into it.

And you say radioactive material will not disseminate?

Not on a comparable scale.

Besides, reactors are a small target that's mostly underground. That should limit the damage.

In any case, may I remind you we're discussing a very hypothetical scenario ?

Weeks after Fukushima alleged terrorists were found making their way towards Sellafield in the UK. The obvious viability of this hypothetical attack became apparent after March 11th.

Yes, and ?

Nothing happened.

The fact is that terrorists want to target nuclear plants.

What's unlikely is that any of them should succeed. Terrorism isn't that easy.

Over a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everything drops to zero - and nuclear has a pretty long timeline.

It seems about as unlikely as someone flying planes into the world trade center...

But gladly terrorism isn't that easy, right?

Yes, it is probably more unlikely than a big earthquake followed by a tsunami.

How many terrorist attacks of that scale have been successfully conducted ?

Over the last twenty years, only one.

During the same period, there has been a dozen of large-scale earthquakes.

And as I said, you're fare more likely to die from a car accident than from any big disaster you see on television.

Not on a comparable scale.

Excuse me? As far as I know the damage to the containment was very limited in Fukushima. And they were very worried about maintaining the cooling in the damaged buildings.

In a plane crash scenario we might be talking about no containment and no cooling at all. Instead we might be left with a pile of radioactive rubble and a kerosine fire.

After all you could be right that the scale would not be comparable...

In any case, may I remind you we're discussing a very hypothetical scenario?

Well, 9/11 did happen, and reactor walls are not built to resist a plane crash. So what exactly is hypothetical about the scenario?

As far as I know the damage to the containment was very limited in Fukushima

Right. Except water from the ocean was going in and out through the few tiny holes, and maybe that was the main problem.

See, uranium doesn't fly away when the reactor is open, but of course, if irradiated water goes right back in the ocean, there's dissemination on a bigger scale than Chernobyl.

« 9/11 did happen »

A huge scale terrorist attack like this is statistically less likely than an earthquake in Japan.

Right. Except water from the ocean was going in and out through the few tiny holes, and maybe that was the main problem.

Where are you getting that from? Afaik they flooded the buildings with seawater on purpose, as a means of cooling. They did that because it appeared to be the lesser of two evils.

See, uranium doesn't fly away when the reactor is open

It does seem to fly pretty well when you add fire. At least that's what the 2600 squaremile no-go zone in chernobyl would suggest.

statistically less likely than an earthquake

That may be true, yet it's bound to happen eventually, right?

How would you rate the socio-economic impact of a single such event in contrast to, say, 9/11?

Chernobyl had no core containment, it used graphite as a moderator, and it wasn't merely fire that disseminated radioactive material, it was a big explosion. Also, the director was incompetent. Note that the impact of Chernobyl remained rather localised. 2600 square miles may sound big, but on a European scale, it's not much, and Europe is the smallest continent.

If you're telling me poor design and incompetence are bad and especially dangerous in security-sensitive contexts, I agree. So ?

Flooding the reactors was indeed the lesser of two evils.

« That may be true, yet it's bound to happen eventually, right? »

No. It may happen.

Chernobyl had no core containment

Can we agree that any given reactor will likely have no core containment either, after a passenger jet crashed into it?

it was a big explosion

Likewise can we agree that there will be a big explosion when a plane crashes into a reactor?

the director was incompetent

And that is unheard of in other reactors?

on a European scale, it's not much

So, which of these areas would you like to evacuate permanently?

http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/power-reactors-map-sm....

No. It may happen.

I wonder where you're taking your optimism from. Yes, terrorism may disappear. But it doesn't seem too likely, does it?

Can we agree that any given reactor will likely have no core containment either, after a passenger jet crashed into it?

No. A broken core containment still provides some protection.

I take my optimism from the fact that I'm not too impressed by things that have little chance from happening, which prevents me from being scared of meteor rains, terrorist attacks, or whatever disaster you can think of.

To put things in perspective, again :

There are much less nuclear power plants than there are dangerous pesticide or fertiliser factories. It is also more likely that a pesticide or fertiliser factory will be poorly maintained.

And yet, people who want to shut down nuclear plants are much more numerous and listened to than people who want to shut down chemical plants.

The only reason people are afraid of nuclear power is that it is associated with those bombs so powerful nobody ever dared to use them in a war since 1945.

There is no rational reason to shut down nuclear plants, and get rid of an energy source that's more efficient and cleaner than any other we know of.

A broken core containment still provides some protection.

Have you seen what a plane crash does to a structure?

As far as I know most reactor walls are not hardened to withstand a plane-crash. That means you wouldn't end up with a "broken core containment". You'd end up with a pile of rubble.

not too impressed by things that have little chance from happening

That's a valid opinion. But I think it's an equally valid opinion that terrorist attacks are not as rare as meteor rains. And that terrorists will specifically target these facilities.

The only reason people are afraid of nuclear power is that it is associated with those bombs

Personally my concerns are not related to the bombs.

I merely think the economic equation that makes nuclear plants appear cost-effective will collapse over the first such event.

Your average nuclear plant is said to be profitable to the tune of $500mio USD/yr. The total cost of the chernobyl disaster is estimated at around $235 billion dollars, and counting.

That means all US nuclear plants combined (circa 100) have to run for 10 years in order to break even with a single disaster. And that's under the assumption that a meltdown in the middle of the USA wouldn't be quite a bit more expensive than a disaster in the middle of Ukrainian nowhere.

Thus my conclusion is that the facilities will be shutdown rather quickly when and if such an event occurs.

reactors are a small target that's mostly underground

Not sure where you are getting this idea, but it's not true. The reactors are usually above ground, and they aren't small at all.

Compared to the WTC, it's quite small, and easy to miss from above. It's quite telling that most people identify a nuclear plant by its cooling towers, something that isn't a specific part of their design.

I can hardly imagine a bigger catastrophe than Fukushima... Now, the following facts are from my memory, so they might not be absolutely accurate, but I believe the points stand.

- It was hit by an earthquake with a magnitude 1 point higher than it was built for, and it was perfectly OK.

- Only the following tsunami damaged it, and only because it interrupted the power supply of the cooling pumps.

Let us not forget that the power plant was 20 or so years old. New plants would no doubt be much safer.

'only'?

6 reactors were affected. Four of them are wrecked. There are full pools of spent and active fuel exposed to sunshine.

Tepco had twenty years to build higher walls against a Tsunami. There were already enough complaints about the weak security before it got hit.

That there are earth quake in the sea causing Tsunamis is nothing new for Japan.

They failed.

You might be surprised to hear that there are also Tsunamis in North Europe.

They were lucky at Fukushima.

There were no substantial aftershocks that damaged the plant, nor were there any secondary tsunamis.

I can hardly imagine a bigger catastrophe than Fukushima

That's a failure of imagination. Imagine if a comparatively minor secondary tsunami had hit after the containment vessel had been breached. That could spread highly radioactive materials just abotu anywhere - and, worse - could have made it too dangerous to get close enough to the plant for the for the fire engines (!) to spray water to cool the reactors.

Also, the swedes reversed their decision few years ago. Nowdays while they are not increasing nor decreasing nuclear power, they are OK with replacing the old reactors.

Because of the ongoing massive costs savings it is expected that within 2015 or so it will be cheaper for house owner's to produce their own energy with photovoltaic than buying it. (Without governmental support) This will be a massive game changer: Decentralized, DIY, prosumer energy connected in a smart grid. The private rooth area and climate in for example Austria is enough to produce 1/3 of the electric energy used in Austria.

The Germans are actually ahead in this area because of current governmental price guarantees for selling self produced electricity back to the grid. This is stimulating accelerated cost savings development in the German solar industry.

A plus-energy house from a German university won the last competition in the US.

http://www.solardecathlon.gov/past/2009/final_results.html

Citation needed. Is this with photo-voltaic cells built with dangerous and scarce materials?

http://www.taz.de/1/zukunft/umwelt/artikel/1/solarstrom-wird...

Taz seems to be a rather leftist newspaper, wouldn't take it at face value.

There are citing a study by the bank "Landesbank BW". You can find the same study in other media mentioned.

A bank is usually very reputable in calculating economics.

Oh, the fear of 'leftist' newspapers.

For the US, pretty much every newspaper in Germany is leftist.

You betcha ;-) Even for european standards this is leftist. They do have good articles though as it is usual for ideologists only on topics where the ideology doesn't already provides the answers.

Also, the mentioned bank is a state bank. Usually not the moste creditable ones. Especially not on issues that include subsidies.

According to [1] photovoltaic energy might be competitive in Germany by 2012/2013 in regions with a lot of sunshine and by 2016 "in regions with less intensive sunshine." (I'm not sure whether "less intensive" means average.) These numbers assume consumer prices and no subsidies. For industry users competitiveness is expected by 2019.

Hawaii: already competitive (2009), California: 2011 (assuming 3kW plants)

Reuters [2] writes that "very sunny countries could reach that breakeven in five years[2012] or so, and even cloudy Britain by 2020."

The breakeven is called Grid Parity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity

[1] http://www.wm.baden-wuerttemberg.de/fm7/1106/Endbericht%20Br... (German, 2009, this is the report cited by taz.de)

[2] http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/10/19/environment-solar-... (2007)

This doesn't answer his question, but anyway: it depends on how you account for things. When you take into account the production cost and materials needed for PV, electricity from them is not a sustainable energy source in any non-marketing meaning of the word.

I think he's mistaken is saying that it'll only come from PV; it's for all forms of 'sustainable' energy (I myself wouldn't count PV under that, but the popular opinion does so I'm including it here).

So it's including geothermal, air heat pumps, zero energy use for residential heating (high insulation and heat recuperation in ventilation systems), etc.

Some countries (e.g. Ireland, UK) are a bit more north than Austria. Would they get enough sunlight to go solar?

"The only way to successfully switch to renewable energy is by making renewable energy cheaper than coal or nuclear."

I wouldn't be sure about that. Imho another way is to let the government offer incentives or just plain ban certain types of energy production. I live in Switzerland and our gov just did the same thing - Deciding not to let anyone build another nuclear plant in CH again. So we have Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and a lot of other countries reacting to Fukujima. But I think it will take quite some time until people realize nuclear power is potentially highly dangerous and that it might be a good idea to spend the extra money to produce renewable energy.

I cannot agree. You are stuck in a view that energy needs to be cheap and that energy must be available despite the costs of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations. This is the classical view of people who see technical progress as a kind of god given fact or as the natural direction humanity must take.

We are (probably) willing to set aside places for Luddites to live. For now, you can go to North Korea or some other nice place without much energy use...

(Be careful when choosing, poor countries have lots of environmental destruction which they can't afford to clean -- it might be bad for your health.)

:-)

Edit: It is not a false dichotomy; I compared to the only known low-energy societies. My point is that there is no low energy using society, where anyone would want to live (except the local junta). (And the expensive alternative to nuclear is coal, which is arguably worse with its climate effects.)

This is a false dichotomy. You need not choose between cheap energy and no energy, you can also have expensive energy, and I do not see how expensive energy implies North Korea.

(UPDATE: Although you can also have expensive energy that is unpleasant!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#cite_n... Table for figure 54 World power use by region, 1990–2008, TWh Europe: 2857 US: 4533 pdf warning - albeit free of charge. By your logic - europe is for luddites because it approaches half the consumption of the US per captita.

If you really are going to argue that Europe is a low energy society, sure... :-)

No, it's a place that's energy demands are lower, are growing at a lower rate, while offering a comparable standard of living. Why do you keep trying to make a false dichotomy? It's not a binary choice that has to be made.

Yes, the US system seems to have bad incentives and waste energy. At least, compared to Europe.

>>Why do you keep trying to make a false dichotomy?

I am not, you didn't read read what I argue against. :-)

I started by answering a comment by "Andi" above. He/She argued against growth and technical development. Which is just stupid, since pollution and energy use gets less with better economy/technology. (E.g., not so many decades ago there were no cleaning facilities on coal plants and no waste management for cities.)

I read it a few times before I replied. Andi was making a comment about the costs of energy for us and for future generations. Andi was saying that ignoring the cost for future generations is typical behaviour of people "who see technical progress as a kind of god given fact or as the natural direction humanity must take." You are mistaking that as an argument against all future technical development. It's easy to see that better technology can be more efficient. I disagree that pollution and energy use gets less with better economies and technology as a rule, even if there has been some progress as you mention. EU, US and Asia are all guilty of creating percentage wise more pollution and using percentage wise more energy over the last ten years, have a look at the PDF.

Let me tell you a story about Sweden.

A few hundred years ago, they realised they would soon get low on trees suitable for critical parts of war ships. So they planted a lot of them. An early triumph of ecological resource awareness.

Those trees are ready about now, but won't be used for their original intent... :-)

Re nuclear waste -- it can always be made into a slurry pumped down into old oil wells. There is absolutely no connection to ground water, so it won't come back. (It is probably a bad idea, since there might be uses for it in a few decades.)

Quote I argue against: "who see technical progress as a kind of god given fact or as the natural direction humanity must take."

>>You are mistaking that as an argument against all future technical development.

It is really hard to read any other way than as a Luddite. In addition, I note that you made a claim -- but didn't present any other way of reading that sentence...

>>I disagree that pollution and energy use gets less with better economies and technology as a rule, even if there has been some progress as you mention

Go check some statistics for pollution for e.g. Northern Europe over the last 50-60 years. (Much less Mercury contaminants, waste water treatment, no low Ph rain, etc, etc.)

Less energy is used to create new units of GNP increase. Energy is used better. Some of that GNP is used to find alternative energy implementations.

I appreciate the story about Sweden.

Andi said that ignoring the cost for future generations was the issue. He wasn't arguing against all technical progress. It's not just that one sentence I referred to, it's his entire comment. Perhaps the quotes confused you, they were there to give context.

Pumping nuclear waste down old oil wells is not enough, what if someone nasty decides to make plutonium? Storage will need to be guarded, keeping a list of what has been stored provides an incentive for terrorists but offers the possibility of future reuse.

Noted, go check some statistics for pollution during China's booming economy over the last twenty years, much worse in many regards. I refer you back to pdf I already linked for energy consumption.

There is no rule that states pollution and energy usage reduce with better economies and technology.

>>Andi said that ignoring the cost for future generations was the issue. He wasn't arguing against all technical progress. It's not just that one sentence I referred to, it's his entire comment

AGAIN, "In addition, I note that you made a claim -- but didn't present any other way of reading that sentence".

You just made another claim. If you want to show a thesis, then quote the relevant part and show it. Here is what he wrote:

>>You are stuck in a view that energy needs to be cheap and that energy must be available despite the costs of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations. This is the classical view of people who see technical progress as a kind of god given fact or as the natural direction humanity must take.

From the rest of his comments, where he seems to think that natural resources will disappear if they are used, he has no clue about anything. (Hint: People are mining scrap heaps, etc.) He was against cities -- where each individual use less land and resources than people living in the countryside (or maybe he just want to kill everyone in cities -- where are they going to go, otherwise?)

>>Pumping nuclear waste down old oil wells is not enough, what if someone nasty decides to make plutonium?

First, you changed the subject. I assume you yield on Andi's "point" about cost to future generations.

Second, nothing are going to stop e.g. Iran, Pakistan and North Korea from building nuclear power plants and getting bombs. That cat is out of the bag. So that is irrelevant.

>>There is no rule that states pollution and energy usage reduce with better economies

Afaik, western societies pollute less and less over the last 50-60 years. I gave examples. (The energy use is increasing, but less and less for each additional unit of GNP.)

>>go check some statistics for pollution during China's booming economy over the last twenty years

When the economy reaches a certain level, countries start to invest in clean technology, etc. China has already started. The dirtiest phase is industrialisation -- it is still better than what was before.

Thank you for your reply. I think we need to cut down on what we are talking about here because the focus is being lost. First and foremost I will not yield on Andi's "point" about cost to future generations. Second, you brought up nuclear waste disposal in oil wells as a hand waving suggestion. I had no intention of changing the subject. I should not have responded to this disposal comment. There is quite a concerted effort to stop the countries you mentioned achieving nuclear arms, and it may stop them, so it's not irrelevant to the oil well point. It should not be made easier for people to develop nuclear weapons grade plutonium. This whole oil well thread of conversation is irrelevant however, in my opinion. I suggest we drop this element of the conversation, because it will not lead anywhere fruitful, I believe.

To bring some focus to this discussion: you have said that I have made two separate claims. I made one single claim. The claim I continue to make is that: Andi said that ignoring the cost for future generations was the issue. He wasn't arguing against all technical progress. The second time I mentioned this, was as clarification to the claim.

Here is what he wrote:

This does not argue against all technical progress, it argues against ignoring the cost to future generations. As I see it, that is the claim I am making, and that quote is the evidence to back up my claim. This is not a second or third claim, this is the claim I have been making all along.

If you could please, tell me what separate claims you think I am making.

I don't think you can make a rule out of the claim that western societies' pollution has decreased over the last 50-60 years. You've given an example, I've given counter examples, i.e. it is not a rule. We can get into an example war, where I can give more and more examples of pollution increase, and you can give more and more examples of pollution decrease, and there's no point in it. There is no rule that states pollution and energy usage reduce with better economies and technology.

Just because China has started to invest in clean technology (clean in some circumstances means nuclear, I assume you don't mean that), doesn't mean it's going to use it, and it doesn't mean it's pollution and energy usage will reduce. I've invested in pink socks, am I going to wear them?

I will read Andi's other comments now for better or worse. To reiterate: there is no forced binary choice to be made between living as luddites, and ignoring the cost of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations. Is that clear?

>>This does not argue against all technical progress, it argues against ignoring the cost to future generations.

(I know what Andi wrote, I quoted it in the comment above...)

He talks about future generations -- and against technological progress being important; he is arguing against cities and some back-to-nature garbage. A confused Luddite.

He is of course welcome to go back to being too poor for education and having 30% child mortality. But he'll have to kill off most of the population that can't survive in his world, Khmer style.

Which was what I rested my case on before. You could have asked for links to his comments, instead of ignoring them in your answer.

(I meant that you repeated your claim again, without any support. Like here. Not made a new one. Sorry for any confusion.)

>>It should not be made easier for people to develop nuclear weapons grade plutonium.

So the West should close down a large part of the energy production -- because radioactive materials might, in ten years time, end up with dictators. The really unpleasant dictators already have nuclear reactors (and bombs, in at least two of the three cases mentioned). (I know that Pakistan isn't formally a dictatorship right now.)

That is just not coherent.

(The point about oil wells was more of a proof of principle which I've seen geologists argue -- it is not popular locally, because political parties has married another solution. We can get rid of radioactive materials, if we absolutely have to. It is not a good idea, yet.)

>>Just because China has started to invest in clean technology ... doesn't mean it's going to use it

Sigh... And China might also stop growing food?

China has to implement clean tech -- since the economy will grow multiple times the coming decades and there are already bad environmental problems.

It is just too expensive not to do it. (Popular unrest, public health and destruction of farming land.)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12595872

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_water_crisis

And why isn't nuclear clean? Check how many people coal kills in China/year...

And so on, I'll probably not check if this is answered.

I read his comments, you should go and visit some truly bad cities to appreciate why someone might argue against them. His other comments are not relevant to the claim I am making, now that I've read them. On weapons grade plutonium, you are trying to put words into my mouth - I can make my own points thank you.

You seem to have some narrative built up of how the world will progress. e.g. pollution and energy use, what China is going to do, what would happen if they don't, what happens if nuclear power is abandoned, how China's economy will develop over the next few decades. And if you don't mind me saying so, you cannot see into the future, you are far too sure of yourself. Coal can be a lot cleaner than it is in China. However that country's disregard for its miners and workers, betrays a certain level of contempt for human life. Do you think that China will operate nuclear reactors as clean and as well as the rest of the world? Nuclear is not clean, clean is a classical propaganda term for nuclear, like pro choice and pro life camps in an American abortion debate. There is no rule that states pollution and energy usage reduce with better economies and technology, not for China, any of the countries you mentioned, not for anywhere.

I will de-construct Andi's comment that is so contentious for you: Here is what he wrote:

>>You are stuck in a view that energy needs to be cheap and that energy must be available despite the costs of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations.

The crucial words here are 'stuck in a view' and 'despite the costs of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations.' It the phrase 'stuck in a view' links this sentence to the following one:

>>This is the classical view of people who see technical progress as a kind of god given fact or as the natural direction humanity must take.

Here he states that people 'stuck in this view' this 'classical view' see 'technical progress as a kind of god given fact or as the natural direction humanity must take' and this is the crucial link back to the first sentence, because people are stuck in this view 'despite the costs of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations.' 'technical progress' here is dependent on the nuclear reactors of the first sentence.

This does not argue against all technical progress, it argues against ignoring the cost to future generations.

to be more specific: This does not argue against all technical progress, it argues against ignoring the cost of nuclear reactors for future generations.

It's really telling that you berate me for ignoring Andi's comments while I go to look at them, when at the same time saying my claims have no support(in what way - you never said what part is unsupported?) and then informing me that you are probably going to leave the conversation altogether, and ignore my reply to you completely.

To reiterate: there is no forced binary choice to be made between living as luddites, and ignoring the cost of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations. Do you disagree with this statement?

>>This does not argue against all technical progress, it argues against ignoring the cost to future generations.

Creative way of reading Andi's comment. Congratulations. I can see how someone could formulate a position like that, given that he/she is used to argue with people with certain opinions.

The problem, as I noted twice above, is that the other comments shows that Andi is a crazy Luddite which argues against cities. No facts, no references -- lots of claims. (There is a lower environmental impact with half the population in cities than if you spread them out all over the countryside. At leasts without doing a Green Khmer reorg...)

Here is a link:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2601330

Now I have repeated that point three(?) times. You have acknowledged it without touching it twice. I've given a link. Enough.

And yes, it is theoretically possible that the Chinese commit a country-wide economic suicide by not starting to clean up e.g. pollution from coal. But stupidity is not the common sin of the Chinese leaders... (Strip mining and destroying inner Mongolia is another matter.)

Or are you claiming it is economically efficient to not clean up and accept health problems for a large part of the work force? Sure, the Chinese leadership is competent and would be cynical enough... That would be interesting -- do you have references?

Thanks for your reply. I spell out in no uncertain terms how the comment proves what I'm claiming, and you think I'm getting creative? At what point do you think I got creative? How well do you score in reading comprehension? I have a feeling we would get along just fine if we were communicating on the same level, or as native speakers of the same language. Andi's other comments don't show anything of the sort, and are irrelevant, you can point it out as much as you want - you won't get any marks for it. I think you've typecast Andi as a crazy luddite very unfairly. You are putting quite a lot of extra words into his mouth.

Andi did not argue against all technical progress, he argues against ignoring the cost of nuclear reactors for future generations.

One more time: there is no forced binary choice to be made between living as luddites, and ignoring the cost of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations. Do you agree with this statement or not?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine I can get a lot more references, more recent but that just about sums it up!

>>I spell out in no uncertain terms how the comment proves what I'm claiming

Here is another weird Andi comment, which relates to his original claim -- and show you to be wrong.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2601341

>>This kind of technical view is religious but is usually not called religion.

So you are wrong -- Andi really meant what he said.

So much for your claim of proof.

(I accept that, given enough strange people to argue with, a reasonable person -- a non-Luddite/-econazi -- might have written what "Andi" wrote. Even if it seems unlikely. But "Andi" is not reasonable...)

>> Andi's other comments don't show anything of the sort, and are irrelevant

See above -- Andi is just plain weird, your guess is very unlikely. Also, you made that claim without touching that I've commented on his weird comments three times, even gave a link.

My troll detector isn't sensitive enough.

>> ignoring the cost of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations

And for nuclear power -- you haven't show that there is a net cost to future generations (not just creation of useful materials for their accelerator reactors).

Note also that the present humanity do research and infrastructure now, which will make future generations' lives better. (Which certainly is a religious view, according to Andi.)

(Also, there are lots of radioactive materials in nature. See my proof-of-principle solution.)

Excuse my lack of a reply this evening, I've been busy today - I'll respond tomorrow. If you have time could you please tell me what your proof of principle solution refers to, Thanks.

>>This kind of technical view is religious but is usually not called religion.

This poorly constructed sentence shows me to be wrong does it? It somehow refutes my claim? How exactly? Have you ever heard the phrase quasi-religious? Perhaps you should have some sympathy for someone with Andi's dearth of vocabulary. It adds nothing to his earlier comment and takes nothing away from it either.

You are making Andi out to be the unabomber, he does seem like a reasonable person - you are completely overreacting to all of his comments for some utterly bizarre reason. His comments are irrelevant to what we are talking about. Your whole basis of argument now is that Andi is some sort of certifiable nutcase. Time and again I've said his comments are not relevant, nor do they show anything of the sort, what has you so agitated about the one in the link you provided?

Even if you were somehow magically correct in delivering a devastating psychoanalysis of Andi, over the internet based on some comments, you can't argue with this: there is no forced binary choice to be made between living as luddites, and ignoring the cost of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations. But you continue to. Do you disagree with this statement? It's what I'm calling you out on, and you seem to have a massive problem with it.

What proof of principle solution? Your oil well suggestion is no solution to anything. Are you referring to something else perhaps?

I'm sure they have pulled and will continue to pull lots of useful materials out of the areas and people near e.g. Fukushima and Chernobyl that our past, current and future research will make useful for future generations: cancerous thyroid glands, contaminated milk, water and aquatic life with 2Sv of radiation in it, irradiated metal and farmland.

To demonstrate that there is a net cost of nuclear power to future generations: accept that nuclear plants are supported by tax breaks, and the cost of shutting down nuclear plants is so great that it cannot be undertaken by their owners and caretakers. This must be undertaken by the state taxpayer. After they have been shut down, the waste cannot be processed by current technology and must be stored and protected by the taxpayer. When the plants are no longer generating profit - the vain hope for the enterprise to benefit future generations is that someone invents some way of processing their waste. This is the same vain hope those had when they built these reactors in the the 50s/60s/70s. Sure, they produced power for a few decades - the waste however will cost taxpayer money for millennia.

I will repeat myself again, perhaps you may notice this time: there is no forced binary choice to be made between living as luddites, and ignoring the cost of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

>>Time and again I've said [Andi's] comments are not relevant

I argued against what "Andi" wrote, which was hard to read differently than being Luddite.

You gave a strained explanation of what "Andi" wrote.

Then you claim it isn't relevant that Andi wrote other strange things that supports "Andi" being stupid &&/|| Luddite.

Sigh...

You also ignored my points about R&D investments with cheap energy building future ... never mind, I've been trolled enough.

I gave a perfectly clear explanation of what he wrote in case you had any difficulty in reading it. Which, as it turns out you did. When confronted with this, you accuse me of getting creative and now say the clear explanation is strained. I will remind you that earlier you accepted the explanation as something a reasonable person might say (you qualified it saying it would be unlikely). They are two very simple sentences and the logic as I demonstrated is quite easy to follow. I think that perhaps you have misread them the first time, and are now just being stubborn.

You then moved on to trying to make Andi out to be some sort of miscreant to justify your argument. Andi didn't write other strange things. What Andi wrote in the first place wasn't strange either, Andi has not shown himself to be a stupid luddite.

In future if you are going to quote what I write or anyone else writes you would do well to include in full the part of the sentence you are responding to:

>>Time and again I've said [Andi's] comments are not relevant, nor do they show anything of the sort, what has you so agitated about the one in the link you provided?

I've said that the other things that Andi wrote were not relevant, and that they aren't strange. You can't say that I accepted he wrote other strange things, again we are back to you trying to put words into other peoples mouths.

You made no points about R&D, I asked you twice about your proof of principle solution and can find no comments by you referring to them, you are being extremely cheeky accusing me of ignoring things.

At the risk of repeating myself, I'm getting deja vu here: there is no forced binary choice to be made between living as luddites, and ignoring the cost of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

I'll just add another comment by "Andi", after the previous where he saw technical progress as a "religion"... This is also hardly coherent, but obviously anti-research and Luddite.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2601354

And here is the first: "This is the classical view of people who see technical progress as a kind of god given fact or as the natural direction humanity must take."

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2599193

So he obviously meant exactly what he wrote. Not about nuclear technical progress.

The other comments shows that "Andi" really has those opinions was "irrelevant", yes? :-)

For the rest: Copying links here made me tired of repeating arguments. Bye.

Pasting links does not an argument make, it also does not take a lot of effort. You've made few if any valid arguments, throughout the course of this discussion. To repeat an argument - first you have to make an argument.

Again I will help you with your obvious difficulties in reading comprehension, although I cannot help you with your stubbornness.

In the link you pasted Andi makes a short comment about education being more important than technical progress (especially technical progress at all costs). This is not anti research, and this is not Luddite. It's pro education! It's very important to read those last three words 'at all costs'.

If you have a look here at a comment in the same thread:

>> Of course it is OK and important - especially for the poorer countries - to make power cheaper. But NEVER at all costs.

See the phrase 'at all costs' he used in the later comment you refer to? Nowhere does he make an argument against all progress, he's arguing against ignoring the the cost ('at all costs') of nuclear reactors for future generations. He even argues for making power cheaper for people in poorer countries. Hardly the behaviour of a Luddite, don't you think?!

So these comments are irrelevant to our discussion, and they do not show Andi to have Luddite opinions.

Here's the question that you have gone to enormous lengths to ignore - one more time, and strangely, I amn't tired asking you again:

There is no forced binary choice to be made between living as luddites, and ignoring the cost of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

>> You've made few if any valid arguments

I made fun of a guy that wrote anti-technological arguments about expecting technical solutions to problems as being a "religion".

The guy wrote the same thing in multiple other comments.

You call me on that -- and write WALLS of text, insisting that the first comment was only about nuclear tech and that the other comments (note, pluralis) are irrelevant for other unlikely reasons.

If you didn't put time into writing well, I'd be certain you're a troll.

So congratulations, you got another comment out of me. I must assume that is your motivation into writing possible explanations for what "Andi" really means, when he wrote the same thing multiple times.

If you are going to make fun of people, make sure to read what they write carefully. Otherwise you might make yourself to look less intelligent than you are. It's not persuasive to try to make out that the person you have a disagreement with is crazy.

Andi really didn't write what you say he did, and he certainly didn't write "anti-technological arguments about expecting technical solutions to problems as being a "religion"." in one comment or multiple other comments. It's really pointless to try and put words into people's mouths like that.

I'll take your admission about how you 'made fun of a guy' as you agreeing that is no forced binary choice to be made between living as luddites, and ignoring the cost of nuclear reactors for nature and future generations.

Sigh, I have only myself to blame if I let myself be trolled by an account with karma 50.

I agree. Computers used to be extremely expensive and unwieldy compared to other calculation devices. But they developed past that and their potential is mind-blowing. A similar argument could be made for renewable energy technology.

it's got bugger all to do with any gods or deities.

I can't help noticing that the natural tendency of the human species is to expand and adapt - that is what we are. I also notice that the various movements that advocate more basic living patterns have never really caught on.

So you are going to have two options:

1) Refuse to do anything about power, let it get more and more expensive until enough people die that you have a solvable problem

2) work on making it cheaper

I am sure the greens would say also:

3) everyone chooses to live a more basic quieter life against our natural instincts. Oh and all those nice rich and powerful people will also be joining in and not just taking advantage

and I will say

good luck with that (oh and if you try to achieve 3 without peoples buy in but rather through legislation you effectively are back to option 1)

it's 1 or 2 - and 1 is going to be f@#king awful so let's get working on cheap power

The time of cheap power is over.

The challenge will be to have enough power at all.

>>The time of cheap power is over.

The time of cheap oil seems to be over.

For the rest: You know that you don't know what will happen. So why do you make blanket statements like that?

For example: Some analysts claim that solar energy will solve all energy problems in ten years. Maybe some of the small fusion projects will work? Thorium? And so on.

Edit: Yeah, since Germany has panicked like a herd of cattle, the time limit is so short that there is very little to do. But the way the electricity prices will go, solar will become attractive earlier.

That solar energy is cheap in ten years, does not mean that it is suddenly deployed everywhere. It will take decades to roll that out.

Germany plans to roll out the whole set of renewables (wind, hydro, solar, biomass, geothermal, ...) over the next FOURTY years to get from 16% (actually currently it may already be at 20%) near to 100%.

Thorium is providing a contribution to generating electricity in an amount worth mentioning when? In fifty years? Thirty? How many Thorium reactors will be online within the next ten years? One? Two? Three? That's nothing that would be contributing to the energy needs we have in 2020.

I'm not totally sure about that. There is a lot of investment in this area (albeit tossed and blown on the winds of political trends). Things like photovoltaics are only a few years off being viable on a large scale (at current levels of investment which turns out to be the biggest problem).

But I agree it's going to be a struggle and one that may go badly wrong for a while.

But the key thing here is that we have to get the knee jerk politics out of it. It doesn't matter if there is global warming or not because if we stay dependant on fossil fuels there are just going to be endless conflicts over the them, if the greens can persuade everyone in the whole world to live a life of abstinence that's cool - but we need to bet that they can't - because their failure mode is that we all die horribly.

"everyone chooses to live a more basic quieter life against our natural instincts."

Serious? That's a huge claim. yet, so many people do live this "quieter" life. I am striving to live that life. There is quite a growing community (at least in British Columbia) of people concerned with things like food security and climate change.

Ever since I was young, I was disgusted by the City. Yes, this is not a popular view, but I am in no way choosing to live "a more basic quieter life against our natural instincts." The city was never meant for me.

Though, I'm not really sure what movements you are referring to? Do they include those that suggest consuming less? Or are there some movements somewhere suggesting you start living by candle light?

Sorry, if this comment is off-topic from the article, but it seems wildly bold for you to claim that a way of life is against natural instincts. I strive to live a life combining the joy, satisfaction and security of producing my own food, and living with the land as well as benefiting and perhaps contributing to advancements (particularly with water and power management).

it's not a bold claim at all.

Look around at the planet. Humans are everywhere it is possible to be. Something drove us to do that. And given it is quite unlikely that there was a meeting 100,000 years a go in Africa where we as a species decided - "let's give overrunning the whole planet a go" I think that "instinct" for want of a better word is what drives that. Living in a sustainable way does not come naturally to humans - I'm betting you are well educated and have reasoned long and hard about it.

Yes there are people like you who chose to be sustainable. But unless you get everyone to do it then we are screwed. Because it's an all or nothing plan. And you may love making your own food but by the same token I am really glad someone else is doing it for me. I find it boring and a waste of my time - I want to just be able to get food when i need it without thinking about it. My interests lie elsewhere.

Likewise the global trend is too the city. Every bit of research points to massive urbanisation http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/aug/18/percenta...

We has a species do have the ability to overcome our animal urges but if you don't solve the power problems you are doing to need everyone to do it and the failure mode of that is massive suffering. There are various sustainable living and back to nature and even so called luddite movements and have been for quite a while but I still don't see them being a significant force.

There is nothing wrong with what you are doing at all but do you think you can convince everyone you know outside of your community to join in?

I think you are right. But, I'm not sure.

Perhaps it's better to look at "destroying our planet" (or whatever) as a byproduct? Like you said, we didn't decide this in Africa, it's just a result of our drive to advance our way of life. But, now preserving our environment and adopting more sustainable practices is the next frontier in advancing our way of life.

Also, isn't the basic animal instinct to survive? Scientists claim with the 2C threshold (I think this covers it slightly, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8023072.stm) that we are at a time where without change, we may not survive (in large numbers at least, and in some years)? Maybe the instinct doesn't act on a tribal or global scale, but only personal. Like when a tiger is coming after you.

And, of course, I don't expect everyone to grow their own food. But, there are people who love farming, and if we help these young people get into it, they can provide on a smaller scale, within each community.

I suppose my point is, sure humans have the instinct to advance their way of life, but that does not necessarily go against producing ones own food, or living a quieter and simpler life.

So I do agree that the tipping point will be when the danger is in our collective faces. I also agree there is a good chance it might be pretty bad indeed with as you say large numbers dying.

I don't believe that sustainable ways of life will prevail before any fall. Look at the fishing in the North sea - despite the stocks being pretty much destroyed the fishermen who have taken the fish continue to argue their case to take the very last few because they don't want to change their way of life. This is sadly all too common.

There are people who can see all this working on tech - I think the best bet (ie the one were more of us survive) is if there are some decent breakthroughs. Knowing what I do about projects in progress and the work being done I think there is a good chance this will work out. The reason is that this isn't just a stopping us dying scenario this is making lots of money for lots of people scenario.

If we have to sort ourselves out after a fall - well you may be right. But only for a while. It is almost certain that sooner or later some person or other will look at the next valley or over a sea and think: "hmm what would happen if I went over there. I guess I'll need X Y Z" where X Y Z is some bit of basic tech that doesn't exist yet. and the human race will be off again.

We're tenacious buggers us humans. I don't think it's time to give up and sit quietly by the fire just yet....

(oh and also the very diversity - look at what you are into and what say, I am into - an entrepreneur, a technologist and an optimist - and our different views. That very difference means that we have a "portfolio" strategy as a species. Our eggs are in millions of baskets. There may be a catastrophe and you with your abilities to cope on your own resources will just carry on trucking. Something else my happen and some other group may thrive. It will be a damn hard job killing the lot of us - even for something as resourceful as the human race itself)

We CANNOT overcome our animal urges. NEVER. Don't try it. Which does not imply that we cannot be intelligent and civilized. But the animal in us wants to live and no technology can change that fact.

I don't like cities either. Who tells us that we need to live there? We tell it to ourselves, and probably we fail. We are not coming from a world of traffic noise, air pollution, overproduction, overarousal by all kinds of sensual stimulus. And I am sure that this life can destroy the human species on the long run. HOW do we know if we are made for this life, for this artificial Lebenswelt that we create for ourselves? Evolution is running slowly. This is the problem of tech: that we can totally adapt the environment to us. But what are we? We are living creatures that needed to adapt to the environment in the past. Never the other way round! How will we look like after many generations of as we live today. We are NOT going to look as we look today, and one thing is sure: Living in a world where every ressource is just some steps away, we will not live healthier. The huge thirst for energy is corresponding to this lifestyle, that Stanley Kubrick wants to critizise in "A Clockwork Orange". So your view of disgusting cities - for me it's totally justified! And so your comment is less off-topic than one could think, because needing less energy to live will mean that we surround ourselves more with an environment that is healthy for us and the future generations. This goes hand in hand.

This kind of technical view is religious but is usually not called religion. Of course it is OK and important - especially for the poorer countries - to make power cheaper. But NEVER at all costs. The problem with renewable energies is that they need itself rare materials that will not be available for all times. We need a circular flow of recycable materials. The way companies are looking for cheap energy is predisposed to come to a dead-end, because they exploit materials that can be exhausted and so will cause new - global - conflicts.

So explain why it is a "religion".

I am looking at human nature and saying that you are not going to change it and therefore you are going to need to work around it.

"We need a circular flow of recycable materials" is a technical solution too. And perhaps is the right answer.

Then only thing I am saying is that this lovely green view of us all living in harmony with the planet is complete rubbish. Because it does not take into account human nature. Yes I agree that some people can live like that - some very well indeed. But you can not make all do so.

You also have a very fixed idea of what cheap energy involves: "because they exploit materials that can be exhausted". I had in mind things like photovoltaics, wind - I live surrounded in all directions by wind farms and there is an immense amount of investment going on, modern nuclear tech - have you seen Bill Gates talk on this?

This is not a dogmatic view. If you came to me and could show that you could genuinely do it in a different way without relying on mass education and changing the way people normally behave then cool - I'll be on board.

Your idea that my views are a religion is a dogma in itself

What is worse is that this is why we are likely to be more screwed than we should be this problem: for a lot of solutions they some how need to stop all of the other solutions because they don't match ideals. I am not advocating a single solution - I want as many people as possible trying. I am not even saying don't try to get everyone living in a sustainable way - I recycle, when I finally get round to buying a house I have every intention of having a crack at doing my own power generation. All I am saying is that any plan that involves changing the behaviour of every single human being on this planet is not going to work under any circumstances - and when the failure mode of that being your only plan is so serious then people need to be pointing this out.

This is the classical view of people who see technical progress as a kind of god given fact or as the natural direction humanity must take.

It has seemed to be a pretty "natural direction" for humanity so far, at least, and technical progress continues to give humanity so much while costing us so little.

To me it seems no more bizarre a view that technical progress is a good direction for humanity to take as believing that education should become better over time, our life expectancy should continue to go up over time, or that, one day, it'd be kinda nice to travel to the stars. All those things need technical progress.

Did you see Kubrick's "2001"? Probably no other film gives a better example of the fact that education will be more important than technical progress (especially how it is today: at all costs) at any time. No human being wants to live on a star after he/she has lived there for some generations. Wanna bet?

The funny thing is that some of the German nuclear power plants are owned by the Swedish Company Vattenfall.

Two actually. They are currently off the grid due to technical problems.

They won't go online again. The Bundesregierung has just annouced that both Brunsbüttel and Krümmel will not go online again.

What I suspect will happen is more power will be imported from nations that flagrantly pollute the environment.

The Chinese might be on to something with putting the engineers in charge. Sometimes the public really doesn't know what the fuck they're doing, and should be completely ignored.

China has stopped waterfront nuclear power station approvals:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-suspends-waterfront-n...

and suspended all other development: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/16/china.nuclea...

Don't believe everything the nuclear power fans tell you. Sometimes the engineers really do know what they are doing.

They're halting approvals until the safety standards have been revised. That's hardly the same thing.

Have you spent any significant length of time in China?

> and should be completely ignored.

How about: "and should be educated" (from ground up).

Ignored until they're educated.

Look at it from a different perspective: The engineers failed to convince society and have only themselves to blame.

With that reasoning, doctors only have themselves to blame for all the people who refuses vaccines because "it gives autism" ...

That's how it works in a democracy. If you want other people to do what you would like to do you have to convince them.

I don't think Germany is surrounded by countries that flagrantly pollute the environment.

What is more likely is that more power will be imported from France, which massively use nuclear energy (>75% of the national electricity production), and doesn't intend (so far) to move to something else.

Um, have you SEEN what goes on in Eastern Europe?

It's inefficient to carry electricity over long distances, so I don't see Germany buying energy from say Ukraine. That said it seems that Poland is big on coal and crude oil...

My point exactly. From what I understand, reliance on Poland's (exceedingly dirty) coal-burning capacity is a big part of Germany's plan to wean itself off nuclear power.

Look on the bright side! :-)

German coal plants have better cleaning after DDR, so the extra German coal plants won't generate lots of environmental problems with acidic rain over Sweden...

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