@drq
That's a false binary.
Germany also dismantled its solar power plan, and significantly dampened the wind power development. If it had not, one coal plant would be easy-peasy to replace. And that's not even taking into account all the gas plants which exist but are rarely used.

Building coal plants today is in direct contradiction to any plans to protect the climate.

@gretathunberg @kravietz

@Mr_Teatime Solar is never going to replace nuclear. Nor is wind. Thy are not as reliable, not as controllable, and nowhere even near its energy density.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gg9_zTlg4M

See this? This is the insides of the Electric Arc Furnace. This is the technology that lets us melt steel without using coal or gas. It is used to recycle scrap metal into useful material. Waste into new things. Every given moment the temperature inside this giant arc welder must exceed 1800 degrees centigrade when in operation.

I can see households be powered by solar or wind, probably. I want to power mine with solar and wind myself when I get a suitable one someday. I can't see solar or wind powering heavy industries like this anytime soon, save for maybe a Dyson sphere. And the stuff people use must come from somewhere, it has to be made by someone, and powered by something. I'd rather it be powered by electricity, than by coal or gas.

And we already have a way to do it.

@gretathunberg @kravietz

@drq @Mr_Teatime @gretathunberg @kravietz
How about geothermal?

@loonycyborg

To be honest, I don't know. But we're getting into more details here than necessary.
Any coal plant built today signals intention to dig up and burn coal for the next x decades, therefore it's not compatible with sensible climate policy. Nuclear power has its own issues, and I don't think any amount of nuclear energy is going to save us, either. Because no single measure is enough, and because it creates other problems for which we have no solution.
@gretathunberg @kravietz @drq

@Mr_Teatime @loonycyborg @gretathunberg @drq

You're absolutely right here. We should be adding more wind and solar, as much as possible, but since 100% is not possible, for baseline we should use nuclear which is zero emissions, rather than gas and coal.

Decarbonization is the priority now. In 30 years we might have nuclear fusion which is zero emissions and does not produce any waste, or some other completely new technology.

@kravietz

1: Nuclear power plants are not a very good match for intermittent sources because it can't vary its output very fast.
2: a large enough grid would require very little storage because there always wind (and tides, and water, and sun, and ...) somewhere.
3: the consumption side of things does not have to stay the same, either. How much energy could be used opportunistically, and why can't we effing decrease energy consumption already?

@loonycyborg @gretathunberg @drq

@kravietz @loonycyborg @gretathunberg @drq

I recently talked to an academic who works on cars. They managed to reduce the mass of a particular SUV by 400kg. When the next model came out, the manufacturer had applied all those measures, then added more servos, extras and whatnots and oncreased engine size until total mass was unchanged -- that's what's happening everywhere. Efficiency increase results in bigger, larger things with equal or bigger consumption, not same output, less consumption.

@kravietz @loonycyborg @gretathunberg @drq

If car manufacturers had used efficiency gains in engines and structures since the late 1990s to make more efficient cars, 3l/100km would be considered fairly high fuel consumption for a car these days.

And now electric cars are marketed by saying they accelerate faster. That's completely backwards. We need "all you need", not "all you can".

@Mr_Teatime

> We need "all you need", not "all you can".

That is going to be a problem. See, not everybody likes it when someone else straight-up decides what they need.

@kravietz @loonycyborg @gretathunberg

@drq

I wasn't implying that I knew what someone needs, or that it was decided for anyone by anyone else.

I AM complaining that industry and many consumers feel some strange obligation to consume as much as possible. Drive the biggest, fastest car, for example. To the point where since 1999 (which is how far I traced it), the huge improvements in engine efficiency have gone to making cars bigger and faster, and I can't buy a car which bucks that trend.

@kravietz @loonycyborg @gretathunberg

@Mr_Teatime @drq @loonycyborg @gretathunberg

> Drive the biggest, fastest car, for example

I wouldn't generalize. In the US, in less perceptive and more rich parts of the society, maybe.

In EU fuel efficiency is an important factor because fuel is bloody expensive. Adequate size is also important, because parking space is limited.

This part is all about creating the right fiscal drivers for people. If fuel is too cheap then hell yeah, why even bother?