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Comment by FunnyBadger | Hacker News Reader

Complete BS.

Green Energy has radically lower thermodynamic efficiency and energy density than ANY other currently used energy source (especially fossil and nuclear). These two qualities of an energy source have a direct relationship to economic efficiency and utility. Economics and Energy are 1:1 causal - economic growth ONLY occurs with energy growth. Lowering the quality of energy means lowering economic productivity, efficiency and activity.

When they say it will result in "trillions of net savings", this is PRECISELY the same as saying that you can increase profits by driving all costs to zero. It's either fraud or ignorance to claim such a thing.

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No. Fossil fuels may be more energy dense But they need to be extracted, refined, transported and warehoused. The costs of greenhouse gas emissions through their environmental side effects are not even part of that calculation.

In the meantime, a wind turbine keeps generating energy as long a there is wind. We can't deplete wind or ocean waves as a resource.

The more we invest in renewable energy, the more efficient per follar speny it becomes.

I downvoted because the first paragraph is dead wrong and needs correcting.

Carbon accounting for fossil fuels absolutely includes extraction, refinement, and transportation costs. Saying that it doesn't undermines everything else you say, because this is easily checked.

The thermodynamics and energy density is irrelevant. The external costs of fossil fuels in a scenario without a green transition is so enormous that it can literally crash the current civilization. That means the net savings could also in the worst case scenario be the entire world economy plus all future growth for thousands or even more years.

Ah, the energy density canard. It's becoming a dog whistle for identifying people who don't know what they're talking about.

Energy density doesn't matter; cost does. It's possible to have a high energy density and a high cost -- for example, nuclear fission.

The sun has lower energy density than a sandwich :P I guess it's useless!

The sun has lower power density than a compost pile. But the energy density of the sun is pretty high. In the Sun's core, the thermal energy of a cubic meter is about the same as the yield of a 5 megaton bomb. The energy that could be liberated by complete fusion of the hydrogen in that cubic meter is even larger.

> Lowering the quality of energy means lowering economic productivity, efficiency and activity

So you have single glased windows, no insulation and a hole im your roof?

After all, reducing the amount of energy you waste makes you poorer.

If not, the building to passivehouse dtandard would save billions

Please do not post falsehoods seeking to mislead readers. You have been corrected on this point several times before.

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