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From: William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Whoops! The Atlantic Makes Trump Look EPIC In Cover Intended as a
 Smear
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2024 15:53:36 -0400
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <vd1td8$3qtr8$1@dont-email.me>,
> William Hyde  <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>>> The adamant opposition to nuclear power by the people who
>>> are most gung-ho on the "Global Warming" thing unalterably
>>> convinces me that they do not belive it themselves.
>>
>> Actually I am strongly pro-nuclear power, as are most climate
>> scientists I know.
> 
> Good. You make ... what, the third? ... that has come to my
> attention.  In the past, when I've said this, what I've gotten
> from the global warming folks in the conversation is "Noooooo,
> nuclear is teh evulzzz!!!"

The people who speak in public about global climate change are seldom 
the people who work at the science. The same as with any other major issue.

We are not in general a charismatic bunch, we do not wow the audience 
with out speaking abilities (with a few exceptions like Asimov).  So the 
public face of the cause is people who are political.  And among that 
crowd, "nuclear" is almost an obscenity.

Half the power I am using is nuclear, and this has been the case for 
decades.  I've yet to see anyone around here who glows in the dark.


> 
> One of several reasons I took "Science Friday" off of my
> podcast download was that in several years of listening
> to it, they had many, many overheated (heh) stories about
> global warming, but never once could bring themselves to
> mention nuclear in that context.  The only mention of
> nuclear power I recall was one "nuclear is bad" story.

The older I get the less I can bear watching "scientific" programming, 
(or history programming, but that's a different story) as popular 
narratives intrude on that which should be objective.

> 
> (The main reason being that Ira Flatow's questions were those
> of a scientific *tabula rasa*; I don't think he was as ignorant
> as the questions made him seem, but I think he was asking
> the questions he expected a scientifically ignorant audience
> to ask.  "The Naked Scientists", "Quirks and Quarks", and
> the Science Magazine podcast cover all the same territory far
> better.  The host of "The Naked Scientists" asks intelligent
> questions, often the question I would have wanted to ask.)
> 
>> I am also pro-hydro, which most greens oppose, though it has to be
>> carefully done (poorly placed reservoirs for dams can emit C02 and CH4
>> to such a degree that the power is only as clean as non-fracked natural
>> gas.  Better than coal, but not good enough).
> 
> Hydro is great, but as has been pointed out, all the good
> sites have been taken.

I am not at all sure this is true.  And yes, some dams were put in the 
wrong place and should be demolished (most of those do not produce power 
anyway).

But I think that if we take things seriously, with an actual plan as 
opposed to the occasional spasmodic development, that we will find there 
is a great deal of untapped hydro out there.



   (And the greens, of course, are
> clammoring to have even existing dams torn down.)
> 
>> Fossil fuels will continue to be burnt for a very long time.  There is
>> no conceivable way of shutting them down rapidly. We don't currently
>> have a carbon capture system worth anything, but I can't believe it's
>> beyond our abilities. Put Lynn on the job.
> 
> Apparently, phytoplankton could absorb a lot more CO2 if it
> weren't for lack of the limiting nutrient, iron.  Some experiements
> should be done (*CAREFULLY*) along these lines, but they aren't
> One group did try something along these lines, and were roundly
> condemned for doing it.  (I did get the impression that their
> experiment wasn't particularly well controlled, so perhaps they
> did deserve some criticism, but it's been years, and nobody else
> is even looking into this as far as I know.)


Quite a number of experiments have been done, which are summarized in 
the wikipedia article.

Results have been mixed at best, but I'd be happy to see more work done 
on this.  So far it seems as if it will require vast amounts of iron, 
with side effects not yet known in full, to achieve relatively little.

But in a world where the debt-ridden province of Ontario is considering 
spending 40+ billion on an underground highway, a few million for a more 
extensive experiment on this doesn't seem too much to ask.

We really can't afford to neglect anything that might be part of the answer.

> 
> Any solution that doesn't involve shutting down fossil fuel
> use *right now* generally gets shouted down with chants of
> "Technofix!" as if that's a bad thing.

People love to point out apparent contradictions.  "You can't solve the 
problems of technology with technology".

Some of the people mouthing this slogan also believe in homeopathy.  Now 
if you could put that irony into the ocean ...


William Hyde