Bernie Sanders unveils $16 trillion ‘Green New Deal’ plan

[samoyed]

I don't know why some on the left have gone against nuclear energy. In any of my science books, it's always just very basic fact that nuclear is more efficient and good for the environment. Just need to tighten up on regulations and have engineers design better fail safe or modernize existing plants.

Click to shrink...

Chernobyl and the Cold War. Left-environmentalism spent a long time being against nuclear and it has unfortunate echoes.

 

[Jimrpg]

Guys this man is A REAL ONE. And America voted for Trump, unbelievable isn't it?

Don't make the same mistake twice.

Sad thing might be Bernie won't be around in 2050 to see his completed plan.

 

[Ichthyosaurus]

You start off strong. Why compromise before needing to compromise? It doesn't matter what you come up with, Republicans are going to be anti-science and fight against it. Same with bought politicians or moderates who feel they need to cater to anti-science constituents.

Click to shrink...

This isn't just about Republicans, it's about getting the entire party to sign off on this. The Republicans won't need to do anything to kill this bill if Bernie can't manage that stage. If you think the last sentence is true this bill is already dead in your eyes. Without those Democratic moderates, and conservative politicians Bernie's got nothing.

Yep, we need to shift the overton window left. Bernie is the start of that. And I think compromising before we even get elected is incredibly foolish. It's like people don't realize we need to keep putting pressure on politicians to make the world better.

Click to shrink...

Going this far left isn't putting pressure on anybody, pressure comes from leverage and Bernie hasn't any to push this against politicians who risk losing their jobs with constituents who hate this sort of bill. These are politicians votes he badly needs to pass this bill.

Why is it that we always have to compromise, but Republicans don't?

Click to shrink...

Because they have a dedicated party unified with their agenda, and they're ok watching the world burn. The left and the Democrats don't.

 

[Steel]

While thinking this through, one thought that came to mind is that we could lead with renewables and then build more nuclear. Quick first wave to drive emissions down while minimising storage challenges, then using the time gained to build more nuclear, hopefully developing a mass market liquid metal fast breeder, or whatever the new hotness is.

Click to shrink...

Maybe. Also, since we were talking about the opportunity cost thing, here's a back and forth between Jacobson et al and Clark et al on the subject:

#14 Jacobson et. al claim
[1] claims [22] didn't rely on consensus data for CO2 lifecycle estimates although [22]'s nuclear estimate was 9-70 g-CO2/kWh, within IPCC's [17] range, 4-110 g-CO2/kWh. [1] claims falsely that [22] didn't include a planning-to-operation time for offshore wind, even though P. 156 states 2- 5 yr.

Click to shrink...

#14 Response
As stated in the Clack et al. article: "The life-cycle GHG emissions for nuclear power generation in [ref. 22] include the emissions of the background fossil-based power system during an assumed planning and construction period for up to 19 y per nuclear plant. Added to these emissions, the effects of a nuclear war, which is assumed to periodically reoccur on a 30-y cycle, are included in the analysis of emissions and mortality of civilian nuclear power." (Emphasis added). In the almost 60 years of civilian nuclear power (two of the assumed war cycles), there have been no nuclear exchanges. The existence of nuclear weapons does not depend on civil power production from uranium. Whether the values cited happen to fall within the range of IPCC or not is in this case irrelevant, since nuclear and other potentially contributing sources to the system were excluded from consideration, based on what can only be described as a highly "selective assessment" of its merits. No opportunity costs related to planning and construction time of offshore wind farms were included in the [22] study. The only operational US offshore wind farm (the 30 MW Block Island Wind Farm) had a planning, permitting & construction period well above the upper limit of Jacobson et al. values (7+ years). The largest proposed off-shore wind farm (468 MW Cape Wind) is now in its 16th year of planning and permitting – it is not yet operational.

Click to shrink...

Wind farms, and solar farms are not immune to years long delays, but their energy density is far less for the delays. Over 7 years for a 30 MW farm (Oh, and that farm ended up being scrapped). 16 years for a 468 MW farm.