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According to the AP, NY Times and a boat load of other AP carriers, the country boasting the loudest about how much of their energy needs are fulfilled by renewable sources, coal may be about to win out over one of the oldest forests still standing in Germany:
BERLIN (AP) — A court in western Germany says an ancient forest near the Belgian border can be chopped down to make way for a coal strip mine.
Cologne's administrative court ruled Friday against a legal complaint brought by the environmental group BUND that wanted to halt the clearance of much of the Hambach forest.
Hambach forest has become a focus of environmental protests against the expansion of a vast mine that supplies much of the coal used in nearby power plants.
The coal, a light brown variety called lignite, is considered one of the most polluting forms of fossil fuel.
Meanwhile their reactors are being systematically shut down and dismantled. But dirty coal use shows almost no decline.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @01:22AM (18 children)
Costa Rica Runs Entirely on Renewable Energy for 300 Days [commondreams.org]
...and though Germany is the cloudiest place in Europe, solar is still cheaper and better than digging up stuff and burning it to produce electricity.
The coal thing is dead technology.
The only people who think it isn't are fossils.
...and nukes remain the most expensive way ever devised to boil water.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:13AM (7 children)
Don't be such a fanboy. There are significant problems with solar and wind also. You have to account for all of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:26AM
Mr. van Winkle's concerns have already been addressed in the (meta)thread.
Do make an effort to keep up.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:46AM (1 child)
Don't be so rude. Mr. Original enjoys being a fanboy. If you disillusion him, he may have nothing to live for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @10:00AM
And that's a bad thing how?
(Score: 2, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:27AM (1 child)
We need all the energy. Believe me, we need all the energy we can get. And so does Angela. But wind is the worst, the absolute worst. Windmills are great but a lot of times the wind doesn’t blow, folks. But that's not the worst part. It kills all the birds. I don’t know if you know that. Billions of birds are lying on the ground. And the eagle. There are places for wind but if you go to various places in California, wind is killing all of the eagles. They’ve killed so many eagles and birds and you know, things. You know, if you shoot an eagle, if you kill an eagle, they want to put you in jail for five years. And yet the windmills are killing billions and billions of eagles. One of the most beautiful, one of the most treasured birds, and they’re killing them by the billions, and nothing happens. So wind is a problem. In California, where are the eagles? You don't see them like you used to. In New York City, you have plenty of eagles. I had one on my desk. But Calfornia, where are they? You don't see them, and it's not a "guns" thing. Not many guns out there. It's a "wind" thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @06:14PM
Oh yeah! a reply from RealDonaldTrump. And i just happen to be in California, haven't seen one eagle. You are the funniest.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @07:57AM (1 child)
Informative? Really?
[citation needed]
Are you posting AC and then modding yourself up with a logged-in account? Not that I'd expect anything less from a lying, cheating conservatard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @06:32PM
No, i do not have an account here or slashdot and i'm not that kind of a person that would do that.
You really need a citation to the problems of wind and solar? Just for your info, nothing is perfect, wind and solar are not some savior that have no negatives. I'm not against wind and solar, provided they are not installed where they are in your face. I worry about the costs of producing and maintaining the farms, the environmental effects, the scalability etc. I just want that all the negatives are accounted in all energy producing forms.
I'm definately against coal and fanboysism. Germany needs to be ashamed. Need a citation for that? Nice input by the way, very much related to the topic.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 26 2017, @03:41AM (3 children)
And, have you factored in the costs of digging up stuff to turn into batteries with which to store your energy? A recent article suggests that there isn't enough material on earth to supply all the batteries you visualize.
https://www.scribd.com/document/35979345/Lithium-Shortage [scribd.com]
So - what other methods are there of storing energy aboard a mobile power source? Oh yes, certainly, there are other methods, but how economical are they? And, how much of the earth do we need to dig up to obtain whatever minerals and elements and metals necessary to produce them?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by WalksOnDirt on Sunday November 26 2017, @04:15AM (2 children)
There's plenty of lithium for cars, and the best thing about it is how easy it is to get. It's already in solution or very easy to get it there. It's even affordable if you get it from the oceans, and there is a lot there.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday November 26 2017, @04:26AM
Furthermore lithium is not consumed in batteries. Take an old battery, strip it down, new electrodes repackage and good as new again.
Still waiting for all those newly discovered technogies to appear though.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday November 26 2017, @05:54AM
Our nuclear arsenal, at one time, was awesome. Until President Reagan came along. Who was so smooth and so effective a performer that he completely won over the American people. Only years later, did people begin to question whether there was anything beneath that smile. There was a demeanor to him and a spirit that the country had under Ronald Reagan that was really phenomenal. But our nuclear capacity fell very far behind. He was a disaster for our nuclear. Right now we have so many nuclear weapons, I want them in perfect condition, perfect shape. Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a “tenfold” increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal. That's pure fiction. When they said I want 10 times what we have right now, it’s totally unnecessary. I know what we have right now. We won’t need an increase, but I want total modernization and I want total rehabilitation. It’s got to be in tip-top shape, the strongest. We're going to be at the top of the pack. And for that we need cobalt. For what's called a cobalt bomb, and many things for our military. But we also need cobalt for the cars, for the electric cars. And we only have so much cobalt. We don't have much, Africa has most of it. Niger, Nambia, those places.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by crafoo on Sunday November 26 2017, @06:02AM (5 children)
Correction, insane, anti-science nuclear regulation put in place as sabotage efforts by "green" activists has made building and operating a nuclear plant more expensive than the alternatives. The technology isn't actually more expensive. It is the cleanest, greenest, cheapest technology available. It's safer, it's greener, and it makes anti-science people stomp around like petulant children.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @07:32AM (3 children)
More apt word: waivers.
If the nuke industry had to buy insurance on the open market, no nuke plant would ever have been built.
N.B. Vehicle operators have to carry insurance and, unlike a nuke plant, a driver can't irradiate an entire region.
anti-science
Deny. Deny. Deny.
Chernobyl. Fukushima. Three [stanford.edu] Mile [googleusercontent.com] Island. [counterpunch.org]
Willful ignorance is one thing.
Shilling for an irresponsible industry is quite another.
cheapest
You are woefully ignorant and more than a year behind the curve.
Renewables are now the cheapest.
...and nukes have ALWAYS been the most expensive--despite the industry propaganda.
greener
You have managed to omit the of tons of radioactive waste that sits beside each nuke plant--tens of thousands of tons in total since 1943, with none of it EVER permanently dealt with.
Quit repeating the propaganda.
It makes you look foolish.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @03:27AM (2 children)
Insurance companies happily sell insurance with things with a greater probability for disaster, but they don't sell insurance for things that would require payout that exceeds the worth of the insurance company. Basically, you need a larger insurance company. Find a company worth a $trillion, and you can buy insurance. If no such private company exists, the government can do the job.
Chernobyl was a fuckup of Soviet proportions, playing around with a known-bad reactor design in known-bad ways. Fukushima was absurdly bad luck with an obsolete 1960s reactor, and it really wasn't bad compared to all the other damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami. The "disaster" at three mile island hurt exactly nobody; American containment worked as designed.
We do have a problem: opposition has made us unable to modernize. We can't replace the nuke plants because of protesters and lawsuits. We really need to do this.
The radioactive "waste" is there because of President Carter's ban on reprocessing. It isn't really waste. Roughly 95% of the fuel is unused, but it can't be used without removing the 5% that has been used. President Carter banned this, effectively throwing away 95% of our fuel and increasing fuel costs by a large factor. (should be about 20x depending on relative costs of reprocessing and mining)
Meanwhile, coal plants emit far more radiation. Coal contains thorium, uranium, radium, and other awful things. This all goes up the smokestack to be spewed across the land. If we apply the radioactivity regulations of nuclear plants to coal plants, all the coal plants must shut down due to being in violation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @05:51AM
> Coal contains thorium, uranium, radium, and other awful things. This all goes up the smokestack to be spewed across the land. If we apply the radioactivity regulations of nuclear plants to coal plants, all the coal plants must shut down due to being in violation.
Unless, you know, the flue gases are filtered.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 27 2017, @06:57AM
You have missed (or, more likely, evaded) the point.
Nukes have been given waivers on liability by gov't so that they can go ahead and produce material for bombs.
Chernobyl was a fuckup
You'll get no argument from me on that.
...but if that place had used renewables as the source of energy, the worst that could have happened would have been completely benign.
That technology is now available and, for a year now, it's been as cheap as what's in second place, and more recently passed that for cheapness.
There will never again be any viable excuse to build a terrestrial nuke that PRODUCES waste.
Fukushima was
...built on The Ring of Fire. [google.com]
There was a magnitude 9 event on The Ring of Fire in 1964 (Alaska; the ground shook for 20 fucking minutes).
Locating a nuke anywhere near the Pacific plate was just plain stupid.
...and they put it on the side of the island that faces the ocean where a tsunami could clobber it.
It's like these people got their engineering degrees out of a Cracker Jack box.
...then they had a Capitalist company running it, cutting every corner to maximize profits.
Anyone with half a brain would look at all of that and say "a disaster waiting to happen".
...and, again, had that place used renewable technology, the worst that could have happened would have been benign.
Nukes are obsolete.
Another should never be allowed to be built.
Shut down all the existing crap as soon as possible.
really wasn't bad
Real estate in Fukushima is now extremely cheap.
Got a photocopy of your deed for the "bargain" property that you bought there?
Put up or shut up.
three mile island hurt exactly nobody
Already rebutted by experts, shill.
It isn't really waste
When Capitalists start building plants that CONSUME that shit, THEN we'll have a starting point for a discussion.
Not holding my breath on that.
Again, nukes remain the most expensive way to boil water and renewables are where investment is going these days.
coal plants
...are obsolete.
Renewables are cleaner and cheaper.
The only bozos who mention coal are shilling for (obsolete) nukes.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday November 26 2017, @07:14PM
Our regulations are a DISASTER. I'm going to cut regulations by 75%, maybe more. To UNLEASH our nuclear, frankly, our nuclear power. Like the world has never seen. 🇺🇸