Michael Shellenberger’s points (not necessarily agreeing with all of them):
Wind and solar power:
1. Unreliable. Generate energy only 10-40% of the year.
2. Have low energy density, thus require more natural resources as productive inputs.
Nuclear power:
1. Safer than widely perceived.
2. Higher energy density translates to less air pollution.
Green New Dealers fear/hate nuclear energy because they:
1. Associate it with nuclear weapons. (Wrong, they’re 2 different technologies overall.)
2. Too much cheap energy translates to overpopulation, overconsumption.
3. Want to harness energy generated by the forces of nature (wind, solar). (This is counterintuitively wrong;
the greater natural resource use required to harness these natural energies is worse for the natural environment.)
Michael’s article in Quillette is here.
1:43 am on March 1, 2019
