368 karma · joined November 26, 2008
The only difference to academics is that normal people don't try to create a consistent theory. We merely pick from whatever is available in to our moralistic toolbox.
1. Are you talking about global electricity? Or just the West?
2. How much nuclear power do you want? 20%, 50%, 70%, or 100%? Or something else?
3. What nuclear technology? Traditional, Molten Salt, SMRs, or something else?
4. What institutional setting do you image for your nuclear power plants? Private ownership, or nationalized plants like in France?
Just curious...
The politically accepted goal is to prevent dangerous levels of climate change. For this, we need to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2050, according to the climatologists. Since there is no way to reduce emissions to zero until then (or possibly ever), we need negative emissions.
Right now, getting a metric tonne of CO2 out of the atmosphere costs about US$ 600 per tonne (with a sufficiently long or large contract). These costs may drop in the future if scaled-up but US$ 600 per tonne is the best estimate we have right now.
This is what emitters need to pay. Something around US$ 175 per tonne (+/- 75) would only buy about 30 percent of the negative emissions needed to reach net-zero. In other words, it's insufficient.
And of course this applies to everybody, not just rich people.
The shutdown of the economy during Covid-19 provided a case study for the costs of reducing emissions by reducing consumption and production. According to the Rhodium group [1]:
> the emission reductions achieved this year as a result of COVID-19 are incredibly costly. We estimate the US will spend between $3,200 and $5,400 of lost economic output per ton of emissions avoided, depending on the shape of the recovery scenario.
In my opinion, only a market for CO2 emissions can find the least-cost solution for a net-zero society (both terms should be understood within the capabilities of human beings). As long as the revenue is actually used to pay for actual negative emissions (not offsets, or hypothetical social costs), climate change will stop (getting worse) as soon as supply equals demand, and a market clearing price is reached.
Let's say, this turns out to be about US$300 per tonne. If so, the article only demonstrates that there's money to be made using carbon capture from the air.
[1] https://rhg.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Taking-Stock-2020...
That's because without the opposition to nuclear, the motivating reason to build up renewables would have been gone, so it wouldn't have happen. Which means Germany would have continued with about 10 % (of primary energy) nuclear and the rest would have been fossil fuels.
Currently I'm looking at GravCMS [1] as an alternative. It's free initially, but it can become somewhat expensive with many official plugins. But it's file format is Markdown, and one can combine multiple files into a so-called modular page. It has a backend for editing, forms and e-mailing of form submissions. Seems perfect for small and mid-sized company web site.
Another option I considered was Kirby [2]. Its backend UI is configurable. That's nice in theory but the documentation is somewhat lacking, in my opinion. I've used the starterpack and it took me hours to find the one command to be able to add new pages. Its content format is also custom, not Markdown. Finally, it's €100 per site.
Also, a few days ago, I stumbled upon Typemill [3] which I will check next week.
This is a misconception.
Germany invested in renewables because we wanted to get rid of nuclear, not to save the climate. Germany has a population of about 80 million. That's a sufficiently large sample, so one cannot expect Germans to be psychologically or morally different to any other large population in the world. And none of those countries has managed to do something about the climate in any meaningful sense. Consequently, neither would have Germany.
Without a nuclear phase out, there would have been almost no investments in wind & solar from Germany. Consequently, neither wind nor solar would look as impressive as they do now because today's prices would have been reached only in a decade or so.
The level of coal power would have been mostly unaffected.
People may say that they worry about the risks, but that's just a rationalization presented to others.
Also, in the German climate and with its many 'old' buildings, merely switching the heat source won't do. One also needs additional isolation, and new radiators.
[1] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/heating-40-millio...
This is not quite correct.
The first decision to phase-out nuclear was made around the year 2000 [1]. Its initial date for the shutdown of the last nuclear reactor was set to be 2022. The plan was agreed upon by the owners of these plans.
Around 2010, this first decision was taken back, and a few months later, Fukushima happened. This led to the second decision to phase-out nuclear.
Only then, eight of 17 reactors were turned off quickly. But this had no major impact, because the switch to renewables was already under way for ten years.
Compare Germany's coal consumption after Fukushima with Japan's, and you'll noticed the difference.
[1] https://wiki.energytransition.org/the-book/policies-for-clea...
In fact, the kind of argument used by the authors is more in line what human paleontology looks like.
Biochar as a soil amendment is not a reliable means to increase yields. Depending on the produce and the soil, it decreases yields. Sometimes, it seem to have no effect, at all. So far, the most reliable results have been observed in tropical areas. People there don't have the money to invest in farm land, yet.
Refining syn-oil is hard, because its quality is low -- comparable to bunker oil. Tar is one of the few products that can be made out of it, successfully.
Therefore, burying both seem to be the best option. After all, there should be quite a few depleted oil fields and coal mines in the world, so space is not a problem.
Try exporting the nationalization of the energy supply to the U.S..
By the way, they are still driving gasoline cars in France. Obviously, they didn't 'solve' carbon emissions.
So, I'd suggest the following for any nation or country:
1. Create an independent institution (like the European Central Bank) with the goal to get to carbon neutrality until, say, 2040 or 2045.
2. Give it the right to tax carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases. This should include tariffs for imported goods, and reimbursements for exported goods, and other means to make some special industries pay (airplanes and ships, mostly).
3. Give it the right to perform auctions for negative carbon emissions.
If the world wants a chance to fix the problem, it'll need negative emissions, as far as I know. This is missing in your suggestion. It may also be faster to create new industries than change existing ones.
My suggestion would also follow a well-known, although maybe no uncontroversial principle of "polluter pays". In the end, the price is determined by the goal, not by political considerations.
If I'm not mistaken, such a carbon tax would rise until (positive) carbon emissions equal negative carbon emissions. At this point, carbon neutrality should be reached. Whatever else needs to be done is then up to future generations.
France had a nationalized electricity grid when it build its nuclear fleet. So, the demand side was nationalized (EDF), and they made sure to nationalize the supply side of nuclear as well (Areva).
This was probably the main reason why Nuclear is cheap in France: They standardized the design on the supply side (only two designs in 30 years) and they could deploy top-down without having to pay anyone to shut down the pre-existing plants (since they already owned them).
In a free market setting, nuclear is not going to be cheap.
[1] http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/4080/beyond--the--hype
Biochar would be suitable [1]. However, wood is probably not the best feedstock, due to its slow growth compared to other plants.
However, we do not know how long biochar lasts when used as a soil amendment [eg. 1]. Also, it's only useful in this way when loaded and applied to poor soil in the tropics [2].
For long term storage of CO2, it might be better to just bury the main products of pyrolysis (biochar and pyrolysis oil) where hard coal and the oil once used to be - deep in the earth. Burying both products should also make it cheaper (from a carbon mitigation point of view), since it's hard to make useful products from the pyrolysis oil. The biochar also doesn't need to be as clean as when used for soil. One can even pyrolyse old tires (and possibly plastic).
The problem is, of course, that there are no long-term studies about the stability of biochar (and the bio-oil) in deep layers.
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcbb.12266 [2] http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa67bd/m...
The usual way to lower costs is to specialize, and to have a diverse network of suppliers. The Gigafactory is meant to do everything under one roof, so it's the opposite of specialization (and low costs).
The advantage of something like a Gigafactory, however, is the ability to coordinate actions in-house. Transactions costs are lower, and Tesla is able to "upload" innovations rather fast (compared to a diverse specialized network of companies).
Only a few Japanese and Korean car companies are pushing the fuel cell. Car companies in Europe are rather reluctant about it, including Renault and VW.
[1] http://phys.org/news85074285.html
[2] http://cleantechnica.com/2014/12/01/fuel-cell-economics-vs-b...
Unfortunately, women tend to be attracted to relatively rich men, which can result in a lower "supply" for relatively poor men if a rich man can attract several women (for instance, by using serial monogamy). It's been suggested that this leads to a larger amount of violence in poor neighborhoods (due to increased competition among men).
Which leads to another problem: Being relatively poor may not be a problem, provided the level of wealth is secure. Due to the lack and inefficiency of social safety nets in the US, however, being relatively poor can always turn into being poorer still.
Since being relatively poor often means living in a relatively poor neighborhood with a higher prevalence of violence, there's a good reason for feeling insecure all the time. Your son may get killed in a drive-by shooting, while your daughter may get raped. Meanwhile, you may get robbed.
Even if one's situation is not as critical, it's always possible to become critical. For instance, one may simply loose one's job, and thus the means to provide for a family. Or one becomes ill. The number one reason for declaring personal bankruptcy in the US are medical bills. A large percentage of these people were health insured, by the way.
These are just a few examples on the top of my head.
Anyway, there's also a difference, in my opinion, between the more fuzzy term "very young" and the more concrete term "13 years old".
For instance, consider the depictions of Mary throughout the centuries. In most, Mary is depicted to look like a young woman, but not as a 13 year old kid. I guess, a comparison of the different Bible translations could also produce some evidence. In general, more literal minded Christians seem to prefer ignorance about many details discovered by scholars in the last 100 years or so.
Another indicator is the look of actresses playing Mary in movies and documentaries [1]. More "realistically looking" actresses appear only rather recently, for instance in BBC1's 'Nativity' [2]. Still, even the young actresses act mature; for instance, in this short clip from the U.S. TV series "The Bible" [3]. Whether maturity can be expected in such a culture is open to debate, of course, but I have my doubts.
[1] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/filmchat/2006/09/who-is-the-you... [2] http://biblefilms.blogspot.de/2006/05/script-review-for-nati... [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwqt8_Vz-JY
Tell a Christian that Jesus' mother, Mary, was probably 13 years old when she became pregnant, and they freak out as well.
Background:
* "In biblical times, people were married in early youth…" [1] * "Until late in the Middle Ages, marriage consisted of two ceremonies which were marked by celebrations at two separate times, with an interval between. First came the betrothal [erusin]; and later, the wedding [nissuin]. At the betrothal the woman was legally married, although she still remained in her father's house." [1] * "During the first century, however, it appears to have been the general rule that young people who were "of age" could arrange their own marriages. A girl was considered of age at twelve years and one day." [2] * "The betrothal period was fixed by law. For a maiden, it was from ten months to a year; for a widow, three months." [2]
Sources:
[1] http://www.myjewishlearning.com/life/Relationships/Spouses_a... [2] http://www.gospelgazette.com/gazette/2005/may/page20.htm
The common answer is information asymmetries. The seminal paper is Akerlof's "The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism". [1]
Simply speaking, consumers can't determine quality before buying which makes buying low price the better decision, economically speaking. Suppliers can use branding or guarantees to counter this. Unfortunately, the first is also open to deterioration; and the second has high transaction costs for consumers.
In fashion, however, there are other causes as well. Clothes are not just bought for protection and comfort, but for communication as well, ie. advertising. In my opinion, this is why clothes signaling status work well for older men, clothes signaling aggression work well for younger man, while clothes signaling youth work well for women. Especially the latter drives the fashion market, and thus the need to cheap, disposable clothes.
Let's face it: Physics is easy! It's objects are often cheap to study, and usually doesn't react to the behavior of the observer. Additonally, the observed behavior is often regular and easy to model with maths. There are millions of research grants, and job opportunites because its findings are often economically useful. Also, people in general don't think they 'know' its findings in advance, so it's much easier to overcome your own biases, and opinions. In most cases, there is often no politics involved about the results.
In contrast, the social sciences are really hard. Lots of causes make research harder: Objects often react to the researcher, or the setup. They want to get payed for their time. Sometimes, they react to the experimental setup due a political stance. There are ethical constraints for experiments. The shere variability of human behaviour makes it hard to use mathemathical models to describe theories. Its findings are not as useful economically, because they cannot be impletemented on a large scale. Potential users of the research often think, they 'know' how people react, anyway (folk psychology). For some findings, many people are also motivated to question the results because it conflicts with their political opinion.
Overall, the barriers are much higher for the social sciences to make progress. I think these fields deserver the label 'hard', for finding the truth is really hard here.