CONTEXT
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@paneerakbari @benroyce @anthropy @blogdiva
If we look at the actual recycling of PV, they turned out to be about as bad as general plastic recycling.
Recycling is contingent on cost structure. It's cheaper to throw the stuff away and build from scratch that it is to recycle. Economically you know how that ends up.
But in addition to this, you can't 100% recover anything and often if you try to recover one thing, it concludes the possibility of recovering the other materials.
@paneerakbari @benroyce @anthropy @blogdiva
There is no magic bullet. There is no silver bullet to any of this.
Consider, for a moment, the possibility that the mining sector of the world is lying to you about renewables about green aluminum about green copper about green silver or green lithium or green nickel, or hydroelectric.
Or that those PV panels require chopping down and burning old growth forest for the carbon.
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I repeat and will continue to repeat the only way to step off the path of destruction is the immediate reduction of all energy use, and resource use. The equation that you and I get told repeatedly is a false one..
Renewables come with a permanently destructive permanently, toxic permanently, life ending legacy.
In order to build it, we have to kill the planet.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @benroyce @blogdiva What's your source on permanent destruction and toxicity? I'm pretty sure that isn't true.
Batteries can renewable capture equipment (wind and solar) can be recycled. Relatively easily, in fact; for batteries, we can grind them and re-extract the useful elements easier than we can pull them out of the ground, and for generators, we can tear them down and refurb them.
I don't dispute that initial extraction costs money and lives (though I compare it to fossil fuel extraction in that regard). But we can't recapture the output of a fossil fuel reaction and turn it back into fossil fuel; we can grind a battery and make a new battery, over and over, for a very long time before the elements stop cooperating.
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@benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @anthropy @blogdiva completely absent from the discussion is that the PV panels and batteries are - with existing technology - nearly entirely recyclable back into service as improved-efficiency versions of the same general products. Fossil fuels, hydroelectric, nuclear... no one's making any new uranium or petroleum, but the sun will keep shining for another couple billion years
These things exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
You can make more fuel than you use (I know it sounds like fiction but it's actually scientifically sound and has been demonstrated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and elsewhere)
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@GhostOnTheHalfShell I also cringe at greenwashing, and roll my eyes at increased renewable percentages. Show me the absolute numbers (spoiler: fossil fuel emissions are still going up, even or especially in China--that's how they're powering the electric grid).
BUT it is not feasible to take cars away in the US unless you put in alternatives like public transportation. That's not happening right now. For those who must drive, an EV is a good solution IF you can afford it.
@dnkboston @benroyce @blogdiva
The challenge in the US is ultimately dealing with the suburban land use pattern. The very shortest form of this is that suburbia is economically insolvent. Cities are driven over the cliff of financial insolvency.
Even without the climate or pollution crises, America has to move away from suburbia and reconfigure itself into walk ability in order to maintain financial viability. There is no other choice if cities don't want to go bankrupt.
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@GhostOnTheHalfShell I think they're calling you a nihilist because you keep saying "the only solution is "reduction"" which btw is a pretty nice word in isolation, but in the current state of things means basically a lot of people dying. What do you intend by it? Because "The only solution is reduction" is a very easy thing to type, but pretty much ten times more impossible than the alternatives proposed here. @anthropy @benroyce @blogdiva
@adriano @GhostOnTheHalfShell @anthropy @blogdiva
the arguments of toxic perfectionists like GhostOnTheHalfShell are not just foolishness in isolation
the real problem is how like here they go after EVs
they have to attack *better* because it's not *perfect*
!?
you see this constantly all over the left
these people are rat poison
in pursuit of purity, they fight better
thereby helping the status quo: the fossil fuel industry
they are an agent provocateur shill or a moron
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@GhostOnTheHalfShell @benroyce @blogdiva and if your instinct here is "we need to shrink the population" you're starting to understand exactly what I mean by nihilism.
Again, no offense. I get the idealism that's behind all this. But the version you picked up is the one that came from the fossil industry, that argues we just need to e.g recycle plastic or whatever. But you're not going to recycle towards sustainable systems. Renewables however, are, and are also recycle-able on top of that.
You were going down a chain of presumption I reject. The idea that we're going to be able to support more people on a system that's destroying the productive capacity of the planet is ridiculous.
That the only way to preserve the planet is to continue to use the system already killing the planet.
Bluntly put, I reject your assertion of idealism and point out I am arguing it is necessary to devote resources to eliminating the use of cars.
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@GhostOnTheHalfShell @benroyce @blogdiva and if your instinct here is "we need to shrink the population" you're starting to understand exactly what I mean by nihilism.
Again, no offense. I get the idealism that's behind all this. But the version you picked up is the one that came from the fossil industry, that argues we just need to e.g recycle plastic or whatever. But you're not going to recycle towards sustainable systems. Renewables however, are, and are also recycle-able on top of that.
@anthropy @GhostOnTheHalfShell @benroyce @blogdiva I've been ruminating as of late on how close Malthusian nihilism is to racism. This is not to cast aspersions or make accusations regarding thread participants; it's just a thought.
Malthusian math (which is disproven, or at least, claims to prove more than it can because several of its assumptions were upended by new technological breakthroughs) indicates some people have to die or the entire population dies.
But then you're left with the problem that nobody wants to die, and racism steps in to provide a framework that lets people rank the quality of other human beings to let them square that cognitive dissonance off.
It may be an interesting dynamic, but I haven't done nearly enough thinking or research on the subject to endorse it as anything more than a thought.
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You were going down a chain of presumption I reject. The idea that we're going to be able to support more people on a system that's destroying the productive capacity of the planet is ridiculous.
That the only way to preserve the planet is to continue to use the system already killing the planet.
Bluntly put, I reject your assertion of idealism and point out I am arguing it is necessary to devote resources to eliminating the use of cars.
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As I have pointed out to a different sub thread in this post, suburbia is economically insolvent. We can completely ignore the issue of the climate in this discussion and simply point to the economic insolvency of the global supply chain and of suburbia, which is child of the global supply chain.
Communities across the United States have to remove car-centricity in order to not go bankrupt.
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@dnkboston @benroyce @blogdiva
The challenge in the US is ultimately dealing with the suburban land use pattern. The very shortest form of this is that suburbia is economically insolvent. Cities are driven over the cliff of financial insolvency.
Even without the climate or pollution crises, America has to move away from suburbia and reconfigure itself into walk ability in order to maintain financial viability. There is no other choice if cities don't want to go bankrupt.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell Many people fled the cities for the suburbs over racism and classism. Many now move out of the urban core because they can't afford to live there. And many cities lack meaningful public transportation infrastructure, but residents still need to get to work.
Lobby local politicians to put more buses on the road as a start.
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As I have pointed out to a different sub thread in this post, suburbia is economically insolvent. We can completely ignore the issue of the climate in this discussion and simply point to the economic insolvency of the global supply chain and of suburbia, which is child of the global supply chain.
Communities across the United States have to remove car-centricity in order to not go bankrupt.
And if you're going to then say oh, but you're gonna leave the disabled to die because they can't move. I want to cut off that argument in advance and saying that the disabled in Amsterdam have no mobility issues the city has solve that problem, so don't even try or if you're beginning to think that way, please go look at how the Dutch handled mobility for the disabled
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@nikatjef @dnkboston @GhostOnTheHalfShell
so what is your argument? stay on fossil fuels?
i think you would say no
and thus do you see the foolishness of this constant insistence on perfectionism?
obviously EVs result in less fossil fuel use
that is the point
we iterate and move to even better, EVs without the problem you describe
we can't do that until we get off fossil fuels
that is all we can do: better, then iterate
stop reading and believing shilled fossil fuel industry arguments
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These things exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
You can make more fuel than you use (I know it sounds like fiction but it's actually scientifically sound and has been demonstrated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and elsewhere)
@ChuckMcManis @benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @anthropy @blogdiva Breeder reactors don't output more uranium than what is fed into the system, they make more *fissible* material than they are supplied with
"Orange juice from concentrate" isn't more oranges than it took to produce
Our world's matter-system is all but a closed loop, we're not getting - or making - more of it. But our is bombarded by all the energy we could use and we let it just slip away because there's no gold-pressed latinum
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@benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva Also, "stop using energy & live off the land" is completely unrealistic and, if enforced, even worse than the technofascists.
Why? Because in order to get there, literally billions of people have to die - there's no way the current Earth population can all sustain ourselves by growing a fucking veggie garden.
Pre-industrial world population was less than 1bn, so who is to be condemned to starve to death, or euthanized, maybe...?
@jwcph @benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva it is one reason why we should not encourage people to have children, and should not discourage contraception.
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And if you're going to then say oh, but you're gonna leave the disabled to die because they can't move. I want to cut off that argument in advance and saying that the disabled in Amsterdam have no mobility issues the city has solve that problem, so don't even try or if you're beginning to think that way, please go look at how the Dutch handled mobility for the disabled
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @benroyce @blogdiva I don't live in a car centric country actually, and I still can assure you that you can't remove them all, because even IF you'd turn everything into public transit, what do you think that public transit is? what are you going to build the trains from? what electricity are you going to run them on?
and if your answer to that is 'we need less' then I again want to point to the answer heading towards nihilism.
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@nikatjef @dnkboston @GhostOnTheHalfShell
so what is your argument? stay on fossil fuels?
i think you would say no
and thus do you see the foolishness of this constant insistence on perfectionism?
obviously EVs result in less fossil fuel use
that is the point
we iterate and move to even better, EVs without the problem you describe
we can't do that until we get off fossil fuels
that is all we can do: better, then iterate
stop reading and believing shilled fossil fuel industry arguments
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@anthropy @GhostOnTheHalfShell @benroyce @blogdiva I've been ruminating as of late on how close Malthusian nihilism is to racism. This is not to cast aspersions or make accusations regarding thread participants; it's just a thought.
Malthusian math (which is disproven, or at least, claims to prove more than it can because several of its assumptions were upended by new technological breakthroughs) indicates some people have to die or the entire population dies.
But then you're left with the problem that nobody wants to die, and racism steps in to provide a framework that lets people rank the quality of other human beings to let them square that cognitive dissonance off.
It may be an interesting dynamic, but I haven't done nearly enough thinking or research on the subject to endorse it as anything more than a thought.
@mark @anthropy @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
nihilists on the left are the same as sadists on the right. in the intentional or unintentional effects of their arguments
if not merely their arguments being slight tweaks on the arguments racist mass murderers make on the right, when you examine the substance of their arguments
which makes you wonder about such empty turds supposedly "on the left"
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@jwcph @benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva it is one reason why we should not encourage people to have children, and should not discourage contraception.
@ArchaeoIain @benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva What the fuck are you talking about!?
You think we can population control ourselves back to a few hundred million people - and do you think handing out condoms will make it happen fast enough to be ANY help at all in the fight for a better environment on Earth?
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@nikatjef @dnkboston @GhostOnTheHalfShell
so what is your argument? stay on fossil fuels?
i think you would say no
and thus do you see the foolishness of this constant insistence on perfectionism?
obviously EVs result in less fossil fuel use
that is the point
we iterate and move to even better, EVs without the problem you describe
we can't do that until we get off fossil fuels
that is all we can do: better, then iterate
stop reading and believing shilled fossil fuel industry arguments
@benroyce @nikatjef @dnkboston @GhostOnTheHalfShell
I like to think that 185 millions years from now, when a civilization of octopuses rise, they'll use our human remnants as fuel for their vehicles.
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@ChuckMcManis @benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @anthropy @blogdiva Breeder reactors don't output more uranium than what is fed into the system, they make more *fissible* material than they are supplied with
"Orange juice from concentrate" isn't more oranges than it took to produce
Our world's matter-system is all but a closed loop, we're not getting - or making - more of it. But our is bombarded by all the energy we could use and we let it just slip away because there's no gold-pressed latinum
Yes, but the point of the Oak Ridge demonstration was a nuclear fuel cycle that ran "forever." Not trying to divert this wonderful discussion, just noting that 'nuclear' can be 'renewable'
. I too rage against folks who just want to go back to living in caves with 99% of the current population gone. -
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @anthropy @blogdiva
you're a toxic idealist
a whiny useless perfectionist
of course mining for solar and batteries sucks
*and* a smaller footprint than fossil fuel extraction
*and* far better for climate change
you fucking purists are an enemy of the real left as bad as MAGA
ALL YOU GET IN THIS WORLD IS BETTER
PERFECT IS NOT ON THE MENU
are you shilling for the fossil fuel industry or are you just that fucking stupid and blind?
stop following me, you stupid asshole
@benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @anthropy @blogdiva As to the battery issue, the good news is that lithium batteries are recyclable so over time lithium mining can get greatly reduced once we reach “peak battery.” Recycling batteries could provide a majority of the lithium needed, though there would always be a need for lithium mines.
Compare to oil which isn't recyclable and always needs to be replaced as we use it.
