Glenn Youngkin's energy solution: Nuclear and all of the above strategy.

Recently VA governor went on CNN with Jake Tapper and the issue of energy came up.

I thought Younkin did an excellent job explaining his position.

He is not "anti" green energy, he's just not abandoning other energy sources for only Green Energy.

He is open to utilizing all of our options. Nuclear, Natural gas, Solar, Oil, Wind, etc..

This is is exactly how i feel about energy, We need to utilize everything available to us.

We don't need to get rid of one to grow another. Having a more diversified infrastructure for energy is better anyway. It also makes the most sense to ease the transition to more cleaner energy in the long run anyway. An all or nothing strategy to Green will make the transition very hard and can hurt people economically.

Here's a video clip from the interview.

I like Youngkin, doing a good job.

Will vote for him again.

the US needs to invest in orbital sunshade technology to block solar radiation from hitting the countries of our enemies.

control the sunlight, control the future.

wasnt that a futurama episode?

Small modular reactors as he say, are "fast sodium-cooled reactors." They're small enough you could probably fit it inside a 2-car garage and power a city of 20,000 or more. It doesn't have to be built on, near, or anywhere remotely close to active water supplies, since they're not cooled by water. In the event of a malfunction, the fission reaction stops, making them essentially meltdown proof. But the best part is, old reactors only used about 2-3% of the energy contained in the nuclear fuel rods currently sitting in storage as "waste" where new reactors can use pretty much all of the remaining energy within them. Meaning we already have enough power in nuclear rods currently sitting in some underground facility as "waste" to power this country for generations.

The only reason previous administrations are trying to force people into "green" only solutions is because they're invested in those companies, or being lobbied by them. There's no logical reason to favor those sources and abandon all else.

@sargentd: Simpsons

@eoten: Lots of people fear radiation. Well old people in power do.

@eoten: There is plenty of money in Washington from all sorts of energy interests to counterbalance all the Big Green green. If you rember, the Obama administration was pushing to produce more nuclear energy, but then the Fukushima disaster happened and threw a wrench in the plan.

@mattbbpl: thank you!

No they don't.

@sargentd: Isn't that a very mainstream position? Indeed, hasn't that generally been the view of most policy makers in the developed world?

It is a complete fucking lie that policy makers believe you can magically move from one paradigm to another one over night. The only people who say that are rabid delusional greenies on one side and apologists for the status quo on the other side. The latter ironically trot out cost as the main reason for their objection when the future trend is the opposite end of the cost curve.

In a generic view, this is what responsible policy people advocate and are pursuing.

Focus first on electricity generation.

Kill coal.

Use NG as a bridge fuel.

Build renewables with NG as a dispatchable backup.

Focus second on light duty transport and move to electric.

Focus third on utility scale battery storage.

Adopt a mix of technologies.

Abandon large scale - old nuclear tech.

Explore SMR new nuclear tech....which is still a decade away from having any impact.

Pretty much everything above is consistently touted as the basic building blocks in all advanced economies.

The only one that still has some questions is the nuclear component which is both a legacy issue of old tech with many problems including environmental vs new promising tech which is still largely unproven (partly technical but mostly economic).

Youngkin is expressing a very mainstream view in much of the informed political world.

This same playback is already well underway in the US. Coal has been decimated for power generation. Renewable generation has grown. NG has flourished supplanting coal and being dispatchable backup. Cost per MW for renewables has plummeted due to better technology, which is still early on the curve. World wide automotive sales have hit 16% electric or hybrid and the trend is unstoppable now as the automotive industry itself has already decided the future.

It amazes me that there continues to be so much angst in the US about energy when capitalism has already decided the path. And with today's security and cost issues around fossil fuels it is obvious that this path is correct and necessary.

Glenn Youngkin wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't toeing the line with the MAGA folks on the culture war stuff and the big lie, but sadly I think that might be the price any of the true Republicans have to pay until that trend disappears.

But no, he ain't all bad: a Republican that supports alternative energy and is pro-education? I'll take it.

Simpsons.

And Futurama.

And South Park made fun of it in the Professor Chaos episode.

And they wield that fear as power.

Also NIMBY's don't want nuclear power near them.

There's a reason articles about Fukushima are beginning to look more and more like articles on chem trails. Besides, regulations against nuclear are why many countries in the west are limited to reactors of the same age and type as Fukushima. All the more reason to build better, newer, safer reactors.

@mrbojangles25

@sargentd

The Futurama plan was to go cut a giant piece of ice from a comet, and drop it in the ocean periodically lol.

That is a pretty mainstream position.

Use Nuclear Power as a bridge. It has even been promoted by Kurtzagt and Greta Thunberg. Hardly anything unique.

Thus solving the problem of global warming forever.

I think the more you invest in a specific type of energy that runs everything you do in society the more difficult it is to wean that Society off of that energy source. If we delve into nuclear technology to run everything the more difficult it will be to turn off the nuclear reactors when the time to be fully on wind, solar and any other form of clean energy in the same way that it's very difficult for people to switch from oil to nuclear as a stop gap.

And for the record there is absolutely a need to cut out oil, gas, and coal. It's called climate change.

Who or what the hell is a Kurtzagt and what makes Greta Thunberg an authority or expert on anything anywhere?

Why would it be harder to turn towards those other energy sources? You think we shouldn't use nuclear, and should stick to less convenient, more expensive forms of energy just to make switching to wind and solar more palatable?

I mean at least they aren't climate deniers.

The same reason it has been so difficult to turn away from oil. It's always about moneyed interests keeping those in power from doing what's good for others for the sake of their business.

Well there needs to be a stop gap solution before renewables energy intermittency is resolved.

But it's a hard solution to tackle. Europeans moved to natural gas to power peaker plants, but then the Russia invasion happened.

So whats a good solution?

Coals makes you pay for it in climate change and extreme weather, nuclear sounds great but it's massively expensive, other forms of energy production are location dependant like hydro, thermal, tidal.

Seems like a real difficult problem to tackle.

I think the point is if you can get an educational YouTube channel and a climate activist to back nuclear power, it's probably a safe bet you can convince a good amount of people it is a viable solution.

It's less about their approval or even seeing them as an authority, and more about who they are and what they stand for, acting as an predictor.

Side note: Kurzgesagt is a pretty cool channel, a lot of really good information and some big concepts broken down into digestible pieces. I recommend checking them out.

• Kurzgesagt is one of the most popular educational channels on YouTube. If not the most popular one.
• Greta Thunberg is the most popular environmental activist at the moment.

No one is saying these are authority, however, Greta and Kurzgesagt and tremendous reach and their positions are within the overton window. Being popular because their positions are popular, and because of their reach, helps further solidify these positions as popular.

The general consensus among scientists and engineers have been that Nuclear Power is a superior alternative to fossil fuels and a good transitional energy source, has been around before Greta Thunberg was even born. But what the experts say doesnt mean it is mainstream.

• Evolution was commonly accepted in scientific circles while politicians banned the teaching of evolution in school with popular support.
• Climate Change has been studied since the 19th century, only entering the mainstream discourse after around the 70's.
• Even a century after the controversy surrounding the validity of transfolk ended in academic circles, with experts considering transfolk valid as the gender they identify with. The topic rages on today in the mainstream society.
• Among Urban Engineers and City Planners. It is overwhelmingly accepted that a car dependant infrastructure, is woefully unsustainable and inferior to infrastructure that emphasizes pedestrians and cyclists. This was long before both Not Just Bikes and Strong Towns popularized the ideas.
• Scientists have long argued that we need to go with a plant based diet. However, it is only in the recent few years till Veganism went from the fringe to something more mainstream. Popularized by activists like Ed Winters, Veganuary and the Farm Transperancy Project.

Nobody is saying Greta Thunberg is an expert or authority figure. But what she is, is a very good indicator of what views are commonly accepted among environmentalists.

During the height of the Covid pandemic CO2 decreased by 5.4% because of less travel and use of automobiles. However the CO2 levels in the atmosphere did not decrease in fact there was a slight elevation in the levels which have confounded the individuals that conducted the research. Which now begs the question why do we have to transform to renewable energy sources which are expensive, not reliable and do great harm to the environment, and will destroy our economy. not to mention it will take a land mass the size of ten states to accommodate the wind mills and solar panel farms. Is this being done for the betterment or an agenda.

But...but... they put temperature sensors on the tarmac at airports where one should expect higher than average temperatures to make it look like the global average was higher than it really is. Surely those honest, upstanding, not at all corrupted by politics or special interest scientists aren't doing as they are told to get the grants they need to pay the bills. Right?

Besides, the solution is simple, vote democrat and they'll ban hurricanes.

Battle insanity with insanity.

Kanye 2024

Never heard his music before... Is he really THAT terrible at it?

Music is subjective. Love most music, I go from thrash metal, to classic rock, to funk, to punk, to R&B, to jam bands to grunge, to rap.

I enjoy Kanye. Hes a great producer. Not the greatest rapper, not even close. But he makes some killer beats and composures.

We can't just find solutions to fill the voids the growing scarcity of fossile fuels creates, we have to change our world to the emerging reality. This means setting new laws pertaining on everything from infrastructure development, grants, how cities are built and how their transportation and housing and zoning is done, the balance of single family occupancy lots and high density housing, etc. We can't keep the 20th century design of sprawl that was built with idea that there was a limitless supply of oil beneath our feet. Even in Germany their energy initiative isn't just in creation, but in preservation through energy efficiency, like building standards that insulate to reduce cooling/heating costs for instance.

Yeah, oil should be a solution, not so someone can indulge in a truck that gets 8 miles a gallon but to help build things like photovoltaic paneling. Let's not pretend conservatives ever humored an all approach strategy. They still thumb their noses at idea of energy bulbs and electric cars. GOP politicians will fight alternative energy solutions tooth and nail. They'll be kept in power by people who worry there's a liberal cabal of people forcing an agenda to brainwash school children to be gay.

@JimB: so you have an extremely superficial understanding of an extremely complex topic based on information that could be partial or simply incorrect but assume you understand this topic better than people who do this for a living.

I have a question, have you ever tried to approach anyone near your circle or your physical location that actually formally studied climate or works in climate related fields and ask them about their interpretations or are so sure about your superior intellect that you can have a better understanding of this topic while having devoted no time to it, having no access to direct data, instruments or an academic circle to help you understand it?

Btw, Carbon dioxide has a half life of about 120 years on the atmosphere and CO2 was still released in to the air during the pandemic, albeit at lower amounts.

So even using superficial logic, what you say doesn't make any sense.

Still you should simply go to a university and consult someone that knows what they are talking about.

The information I posted about CO2 came from a university study. Imagine that.

Why Didn't Atmospheric CO2 Fall During COVID? — Caltech Magazine

It's funny to me how no one has ever proposed abandoning all other energy sources in favor of one over another, but the goofy right has it in their gullible heads that many have. These people live in another world.

@JimB: well then you need someone to explain it to you.

I have just read the article. It is not about CO2 atmospheric levels but of growth rate. At no point anyone was expecting atmospheric CO2 to go down.

It's talking about a diminishment of emissions that don't give rise to a diminishment of growth rate of atmospheric CO2.

Those are completely different things.

Then it spends the rest of the article mentioning how other air pollutants may interact with co2 and affect the time it spends in the atmosphere.

They basically concluded that a temporary shut down of industry as it happened during covid affects too many different forms of emissions that interact with each other in unpredictable ways distorting the effects of temporarily lower CO2 emissions.

The growth rate is fairly consistent with long-predicted trends... and still, you have to ignore millions of years worth of ice core samples to push this theory that changes in atmospheric CO2 levels effect the climate, and ignore the proven inverse of that. Climate effects static atmospheric CO2 levels. At least, that's what millions of years of data says.

CO2 isn't pointed at by some cause of some alleged manmade climate change because there's anything factual to back it up, it's pointed at by the green energy lobby because it's the primary byproduct of energy derived from hydrocarbon fuel sources, meaning if you can fearmonger people on CO2, you can tie that fear to the use of oil, gasoline, natural gas, etc. and scare them into pushing for more projects and grants that subsidize big green.

@eoten: dude you should definitely bring some sources to back up your claim.

Atmospheric CO2 affecting climate is completely mainstream science.

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/

And scientist regularly use atmospheric CO2 trapped in ice to guess the temperature of earth in the past.

And no because higher temperatures increase CO2, as CO2 before humans was usually a result of either volcanic activity or variations in plant life.

Instead of trying to stop something by destroying everything else we should focus on how to adapt to the problem. As an example the French instead of destroying all the trees to prevent the English from making long bows they developed better armor. The climate change people are stuck in a rut and are not willing to do anything else.

Do anything else? Big Oil and their paid politicians aren't even trying to do anything else. They tweet go on their "news" sites and denigrate any attempt to do anything else.

So you're telling me you've never actually looked up the data on the ice core samples but simply took the narrative as "mainstream science" and left it at that? That's the problem with people today, they're far too lazy to do their research on these subjects and wait for their news of choice to put out a story telling them what to think on the matter. That's the only way people would assume CO2 resulting in a change in climate was ever mainstream science. Go look at the data recovered from ice core samples for yourself.

CO2 is ZERO point ZERO FOUR percent of our atmosphere, and doesn't exist at the high altitudes the actual gas that does give Earth it's greenhouse effect exist at. We're not Venus. We simply do not have enough CO2.

You need to look at the real science, not the politicized shit designed to fear monger you about the end of the world if we don't all throw trillions of dollars at green energy corporations.

L O L

You want to use concentration as a means to discredit CO2's impact on climate? Go ingest a microgram of botox and see if you live, it's a low concentration right?

@eoten: dude please point me to the "real science", the last time we spoke about this you posted sources that were claiming global warming was real.

I am not sure what is the poltized science... i am not a climate researcher as you correctly claim and I don't have access to raw data or the tools to correctly interpret it but show me "the real science". I am at least interested in taking a look.

Though It honestly seems to me like you are taking individual, uncontextualized pieces of data, analyzing them with zero background knowledge of the field and then reaching a conclusion based in what you would like the conclusion to be...

i see the last part of the sentence way to much

Scientists have to solve the problem not politicians. Big oil is in the energy field providing energy we need for our daily lives. As I said the climate activists are in a rut. I just read in England climate teens are going into grocery stores and pouring milk on the floor to protest milk from cows because of the supposed damage cows do to the environment. The actions being pushed by our politicians and climate activists doing more damage to the environment and our lives.

@JimB: "The actions being pushed by our politicians and climate activists doing more damage to the environment and our lives."

By your* politicians

My politicians are actually trying to help

First of all, those are vegans.

Second, what they are protesting is the animal cruelty happening at ranches. And holy hell do they have a point.

Third, even in the Vegan community, those people are criticized.

Fourth, actions pushed by politicians and activists do work. Sweden has a CO2 emission of less than 4 tonnes per capita. That is largely in part due to the success of environmentalists and left wing politicians.

You are objectively and unquestionably wrong, with ZERO doubt.

Carbon Dioxide | Vital Signs – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet (nasa.gov)

Core questions: An introduction to ice cores – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet (nasa.gov)

Fourth National Climate Assessment (globalchange.gov)

Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change (ipcc.ch)

If a majority peer reviewed studies on the topic and a majority of climate scientists are not enough, what research are you talking about? PragerU and Tim Pool?

GAS LIGHTING. Your side politicized this, with the help of the fossil fuel industry.We are citing the real science. Almost every peer reviewed study on this disagrees with you. Entire fields of science say you are wrong.

This is completley one sided. There is next to nothing to "debate" at this point. Science is on our side, while you have youtubers at best.

Trying to help themselves, sure.

Yeah, remember when NASA got called out by dozens of their own scientists for politically motivated climate related publications, and IPCC got busted passing e-mails discussing how to fake the evidence to support a pre-determined conclusion? Politically motivated "science" isn't science, it's politics. And both those sources are under the control of government interests, further proving my point. But lmfao, you probably think the guys for NOAA sticking temperature sensors on airport tarmacs were doing it for the science.

That's fake news.

'Climategate' - FactCheck.org

I'm not posting politics. I'm posting peer reviewed studies. A majority of them say you are wrong. You didn't refute my sources/links that directly show you are wrong. How does it feel to always lose debates?

This is probably one of the best pieces of evidence against Climate Change Skepticism I have ever seen.

https://clintel.org/world-climate-declaration/

There is no climate emergency

A global network of over 1200 scientists and professionals has prepared this urgent message. Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.

Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming

The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.

Warming is far slower than predicted

The world has warmed significantly less than predicted by IPCC on the basis of modeled anthropogenic forcing. The gap between the real world and the modeled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.

Climate policy relies on inadequate models

Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as global policy tools. They blow up the effect of greenhouse gases such as CO₂. In addition, they ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO₂ is beneficial.

CO₂ is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth

CO₂ is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO₂ is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth: additional CO₂ in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.

Global warming has not increased natural disasters

There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, there is ample evidence that CO₂-mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly.

Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities

There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO₂ policy proposed for 2050. If better approaches emerge, and they certainly will, we have ample time to reflect and re-adapt. The aim of global policy should be ‘prosperity for all’ by providing reliable and affordable energy at all times. In a prosperous society men and women are well educated, birthrates are low and people care about their environment.

Epilogue

The World Climate Declaration (WCD) has brought a large variety of competent scientists together from all over the world*. The considerable knowledge and experience of this group is indispensable in reaching a balanced, dispassionate and competent view of climate change.

From now onward the group is going to function as “Global Climate Intelligence Group”. The CLINTEL Group will give solicited and unsolicited advice on climate change and energy transition to governments and companies worldwide.

Especially if you look at who signed this thing. Many of whom are prominent climate change skeptics who denied the earth was even warming in the first place, or that CO2 had an impact on global warming. Now sign a petititon that argues that climate change is real and is partially caused by CO2 emissions.

The fact that they are moving the goalpost to a position that contradicts their previously held positions that they adamantly defended, implies a lack of integrity on their part, as well as a hint of desperation. That they are willing to give up their old positions, in a desperate bid to refute climate change.

Don't even think they believe anything they say, just want money from the fossil fuel companies.