tuesday report #12 // germany dismantles clean, abundant source of power in the middle of an energy crisis; platform wars intensify; a few good white pills, AI, and black cleopatra
good morning, comments section is for subscribers only (open today for free subs). thoughtful pushback welcome, but a preference for insight and humor. haters and losers will be banned. with love.
The tragic thing is that nuclear is even better for the environment when we look at the whole picture. It has by far the lowest land usage per unit of energy, and requires the least amount of mined materials thanks to uranium's energy density. The negative impact of damns is well documented, wind power kills millions of birds a year, including highly endangered species like the Californian condor, and solar takes up an ungodly amount of land and minerals.
Solar in particular makes little sense unless its up in orbit. You are mining huge amounts of material (causing massive ecological damage) to produces something that at best is going to work 50% of the time, rarely at maximum capacity, and needs to be fully replaced every two decades. In theory this might be worth it if it was all concentrated in deserts but that's not how it actually works.
In my home state of MA there are massive subsidies for solar. I've personally witnessed in my town alone, hundreds of acres of forest cleared, and productive local farmland converted into solar power. Even more amusingly, we are supposedly in a housing crises, but vacant lots in our downtown were converted to an "urban solar farm" rather than prime working class housing.
Whats worse for an ecosystem, climate change, or the entire ecosystem being destroyed to make room for solar panels? Nuclear (and maybe orbital solar satellites) is the only way.
Less clean sources of energy will be used to replace capacity which increases pressure to roll out approved and prescribed clean alternatives wind and solar.
I think the influential people who push for this know exactly what they’re doing and then the unthinking mob gloms on. Also wouldn’t be surprised to see the anti-nuclear brigade benefit financially or with more power when solar and wind expand.
I live in Grays Harbor county Washington and whenever I drive down the freeway there are two giant cooling towers from a reactor that never went in.
That and the spotted owl give me negative regard for the Ferngully Left. People who are willing to sacrifice the lives of others to make themselves feel better. When you don’t buy into the delusion they don’t know how to respond.
>> We’re also living in the long shadow of the Cold War, with legitimate concerns of nuclear war. That word nuclear is a key part of both concepts, and therefore, I guess, bad. <<
You have just glossed over the answer to your question. I can confirm from personal experience that the Venn diagram of anti-nuclear activism and nuclear peace activism is a circle. I am old enough to remember what the inside of antiwar and anti-nuclear activism during the Cold War looked like and I even got to see the Greenham Common women in action. Peace activists I met in the 2010s still explicitly ruled out a distinction between peaceful and military nuclear infrastructure. Likewise, the overlap of "peace and justice" activism with climate emergency activism is close to perfect. That non-nuclear "sustainable future" is also supposed to be a world without war. Someone will write the definitive history Substack one day and I shall post it to Notes.
Is there a trick to getting all of the pirate wires pieces to show up in the Substack app inbox automatically? I just checked the archive page and saw several posts that apparently skipped the feed.
Wait, am I missing something? I'm a total Ferngully environmentalist and most ppl in my circle are most definitely pro-nuclear (including me)? Is the anti-nuclear brigade perhaps an older cohort that still thinks its the 60s and 70s? Honestly I worked as a sustainability consultant (masterplanning engineering) in Europe for 5 years and literally none of my colleagues were anti-nuclear. So confused.
"The ground floor goal is not just triumph over nature, but triumph over nature for every person on the planet..."
I don't know how the hell Western civilization lost this spirit, but I'd like it back please.
I don't want to bike to work and eat quinoa. I want to commute across the planet at Mach 20 and 3d print bluefin tuna from a food synthesizer for lunch.
My only problem with portrayals in the nuke section are "bad Soviet engineering" - Chernobyl was an old design; 8 others of it's ilk are still operating, we assume, without any problems.
The meltdown was a result of management stopping by and basically saying "hey - let's see how much we can break this reactor before it, you know, breaks." And break it they did.
Totally agree with statements to the effect of 'we go nuclear or we're not taking your green credentialism seriously.' Literally the only viable option.
Also worth mentioning, some fisheries management types are pretty convincing (to me at least) that dismantling existing hydro capacity would help restore salmon populations, which seems like something "greenies" would want. I want - salmon is delicious.
“Anti-human” is the key theme here. These hysterics don’t care about solving the so-called climate crisis... they just hate humans and want humans to impact the earth less. Nuclear is the litmus test: if they claim to be pro environment but are also anti-nuclear, they are not serious people and are fundamentally anti-human.
Succinctly put “Is it incapable of sufficiently fueling the global population at western levels of consumption, and possibly assembled from materials mined and processed by slaves? Sure. . .”
Thank you for writing this. The insanity and irrationality surrounding nuclear power is truly one of hmanity's biggest own-goals.
I discussed this with Mark Nelson on a 2-part podcast that covers Germany but also Europe and the whole Amory Lovins' anti-nuclear movement. You may enjoy it:
“Safetyism, most recently incarnated in the ferocious anti-AI brigade, creates hidden risks far more consequential than the risks it attempts to mitigate….”
The risk isn’t inherently AI, it’s the fact that dunces believe what it generates. The parallel is the famous P. J. O’Rourke quote: “Giving money and power to Congress is like giving alcohol and car keys to teenage boys.”
good morning, comments section is for subscribers only (open today for free subs). thoughtful pushback welcome, but a preference for insight and humor. haters and losers will be banned. with love.
The tragic thing is that nuclear is even better for the environment when we look at the whole picture. It has by far the lowest land usage per unit of energy, and requires the least amount of mined materials thanks to uranium's energy density. The negative impact of damns is well documented, wind power kills millions of birds a year, including highly endangered species like the Californian condor, and solar takes up an ungodly amount of land and minerals.
Solar in particular makes little sense unless its up in orbit. You are mining huge amounts of material (causing massive ecological damage) to produces something that at best is going to work 50% of the time, rarely at maximum capacity, and needs to be fully replaced every two decades. In theory this might be worth it if it was all concentrated in deserts but that's not how it actually works.
In my home state of MA there are massive subsidies for solar. I've personally witnessed in my town alone, hundreds of acres of forest cleared, and productive local farmland converted into solar power. Even more amusingly, we are supposedly in a housing crises, but vacant lots in our downtown were converted to an "urban solar farm" rather than prime working class housing.
Whats worse for an ecosystem, climate change, or the entire ecosystem being destroyed to make room for solar panels? Nuclear (and maybe orbital solar satellites) is the only way.
Here’s the steel man for dismantling nuclear:
Less clean sources of energy will be used to replace capacity which increases pressure to roll out approved and prescribed clean alternatives wind and solar.
I think the influential people who push for this know exactly what they’re doing and then the unthinking mob gloms on. Also wouldn’t be surprised to see the anti-nuclear brigade benefit financially or with more power when solar and wind expand.
I live in Grays Harbor county Washington and whenever I drive down the freeway there are two giant cooling towers from a reactor that never went in.
That and the spotted owl give me negative regard for the Ferngully Left. People who are willing to sacrifice the lives of others to make themselves feel better. When you don’t buy into the delusion they don’t know how to respond.
Excellent analysis of the stupidity of most humans
“So get in, loser. We’re building nuclear power plants.”
YES!
>> We’re also living in the long shadow of the Cold War, with legitimate concerns of nuclear war. That word nuclear is a key part of both concepts, and therefore, I guess, bad. <<
You have just glossed over the answer to your question. I can confirm from personal experience that the Venn diagram of anti-nuclear activism and nuclear peace activism is a circle. I am old enough to remember what the inside of antiwar and anti-nuclear activism during the Cold War looked like and I even got to see the Greenham Common women in action. Peace activists I met in the 2010s still explicitly ruled out a distinction between peaceful and military nuclear infrastructure. Likewise, the overlap of "peace and justice" activism with climate emergency activism is close to perfect. That non-nuclear "sustainable future" is also supposed to be a world without war. Someone will write the definitive history Substack one day and I shall post it to Notes.
Is there a trick to getting all of the pirate wires pieces to show up in the Substack app inbox automatically? I just checked the archive page and saw several posts that apparently skipped the feed.
Wait, am I missing something? I'm a total Ferngully environmentalist and most ppl in my circle are most definitely pro-nuclear (including me)? Is the anti-nuclear brigade perhaps an older cohort that still thinks its the 60s and 70s? Honestly I worked as a sustainability consultant (masterplanning engineering) in Europe for 5 years and literally none of my colleagues were anti-nuclear. So confused.
"The ground floor goal is not just triumph over nature, but triumph over nature for every person on the planet..."
I don't know how the hell Western civilization lost this spirit, but I'd like it back please.
I don't want to bike to work and eat quinoa. I want to commute across the planet at Mach 20 and 3d print bluefin tuna from a food synthesizer for lunch.
My only problem with portrayals in the nuke section are "bad Soviet engineering" - Chernobyl was an old design; 8 others of it's ilk are still operating, we assume, without any problems.
The meltdown was a result of management stopping by and basically saying "hey - let's see how much we can break this reactor before it, you know, breaks." And break it they did.
Totally agree with statements to the effect of 'we go nuclear or we're not taking your green credentialism seriously.' Literally the only viable option.
Also worth mentioning, some fisheries management types are pretty convincing (to me at least) that dismantling existing hydro capacity would help restore salmon populations, which seems like something "greenies" would want. I want - salmon is delicious.
This is what happens when you eat plutonium for lunch. Didn't anybody tell you?
“Anti-human” is the key theme here. These hysterics don’t care about solving the so-called climate crisis... they just hate humans and want humans to impact the earth less. Nuclear is the litmus test: if they claim to be pro environment but are also anti-nuclear, they are not serious people and are fundamentally anti-human.
Succinctly put “Is it incapable of sufficiently fueling the global population at western levels of consumption, and possibly assembled from materials mined and processed by slaves? Sure. . .”
Thank you for writing this. The insanity and irrationality surrounding nuclear power is truly one of hmanity's biggest own-goals.
I discussed this with Mark Nelson on a 2-part podcast that covers Germany but also Europe and the whole Amory Lovins' anti-nuclear movement. You may enjoy it:
https://www.libertyrpf.com/p/going-deep-on-the-energy-crisis-and
Cheers 💚 🥃
“Safetyism, most recently incarnated in the ferocious anti-AI brigade, creates hidden risks far more consequential than the risks it attempts to mitigate….”
The risk isn’t inherently AI, it’s the fact that dunces believe what it generates. The parallel is the famous P. J. O’Rourke quote: “Giving money and power to Congress is like giving alcohol and car keys to teenage boys.”