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Comment by seltzered_ | Hacker News Reader

"Germany’s economy and climate ministry will present a package of measures to speed up the expansion of wind energy, documents reviewed by Reuters showed on Wednesday, as the country turns to renewables to cut its use of Russian fossil fuels."

A reminder that Vaclav Smil has called wind turbines 'the perfect embodiment of fossil fuels' : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkj_91IJVBk&t=2033s (Václav Smil at Driva Climate Investment Meeting 2019)

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What a brilliant take. Use fossil fuels to make wind turbines? No, let's continue using them to make some other thing, not specified here.

Refusing to build green energy because doing so consumes natural resources does not stop those resources from being exploited. It leads to more exploitation.

Thats a good point. There is a problem around critics guiding only towards a 'reentrenchment' narrative rather than offering (and applying themselves to) some other paths.

I'm not against renewables, but I bring up the above point to proffer that it needs to come with some social niche changes to facilitate less overall energy load.

Papers like http://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk/ help point out the differences between nations/cultures.

Vaclav Smil told me personally on a conference in Switzerland, Zürich (he was presenting at the european food service summit), that he does not believe in climate change. That's it for me.

Oh boy, thanks for sharing that. I had a book from him on to-read list. Not anymore!

I still recommend reading Energy and Civilization: A History if you were planning to before. It's still good historical perspective. I say that as somebody who believes that AGW is a serious problem that we aren't yet doing enough to curb.

Wow, interesting to hear. I still like some of thoughts he and others have inquiring about net EROEI of renewable energy, but distanced myself from his seeming reductionism around human energy use and blind spots around the social niches leading him in other talks to evangelize cities.

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