9 Comments

Nuclear plant technology has enabled the production of small power plants designed to be fail safe. That's the future. For now we need to oppose shutting down nuclear power plants.

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Anti-nuclear radicals funded by dirty energy money are an old story. The Brown dynasty in California is a chief offender... Michael's charity (Environmental Progress) has discussed Jerry Brown's subversion of the Sierra Club, which once favored Diablo Canyon.

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These are preety old EROI values, from 2014. I can't find anything more recent. I suspect that solar looks better now.

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The Bhadla Solar park in India produces 2.25 gigawatts of power on 56 sq km of desert. How did it work out? Were they able to shut down any coal plants with the cheaper power?

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Micheal is 100% correct that we need more nuclear power. I think he is too pessimistic about renewables, especially solar. Technological advances have made it 10x cheaper to produce in the last decade. There is no reason to think that this march of progress has slowed down.

But we will need more reliable sources of energy for some things, and for those nuclear is the best way to go.

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Michael; I recall that Dr. Peter H. Gleick was not too happy with your pro nuclear stance. Your followers should know that his comments can be found with other comments on your book EN.

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There are plenty of people from Berkeley whose ability to reason and analyze is short-circuited by false consciousness. They are capable of following Michael's analyses, but when their "heresy!" alarm goes off, they stop reasoning and start rationalizing. A former therapist of mine said her colleagues USED the word "heresy" to describe comparisons between their own school of therapy and other schools of therapy. Take the idea of a fish that knows that it is swimming in an ocean and of a fish that denies that non-piscine life is possible or relevant... which one is more likely to reason and analyze correctly about non-piscine life?

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As a student of the history of science and technology, I have learned just how lamentably common it is for very intelligent people to be ignorant outside their primary areas of interest. If they haven't been asking "why" about everything since toddlerhood, they're behind people who have been. I'm one of those people and I'm pretty sure Michael is too.

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When I ask true believers to explain how 400 ft of ocean water ended up in the ice caps without a lot of heat, they either ignore the question or blow a fuse. They can't face the possibility that the remaining ice caps may be increasing because of heat.

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