The Green New Deal just got whitewashed

Author: fauxlaw

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#1
fauxlaw
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Congratulations, greenies. You've just had a setback of monumental proportion, by nothing more menacing than your own, misguided "science." Who knew that in Texas, and, likely elsewhere, anywhere in which the temperature goes south, that your holy GND has failed so miserably. You need... what? to bail you out?

Answer: That other renewable energy resource we have had for almost 200 years and is, contrary to your misguided claims, r-e-n-e-w-a-b-l-e. The Earth has been making it for more than a billion years, and likely two, or more, and still does to this day. Isn't that what renewable is? You do not countenance it, but I don't care what you countenance. You're wrong. Petroleum sourcing is renewable sourcing and it will continue as long as living things die and decompose on planet Earth, including your sorry flesh and bone, and mine, too. At least I recognize the source of the first renewable energy on Earth. You? Wind? Commercial wind and solar power? Sure, it has a place, but, as we have now seen, it is not entirely dependable, is it? So, what is it, again, that is saving your hide? Black gold.

Net zero, my ass!
#2
Theweakeredge
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@fauxlaw
Renewable and Non-renewable resources refer to how quickly or slowly a resource is "refueled by the earth", the sun, or solar energy, for example; is called a renewable resource. That isn't quite accurate is it? The sun is losing energy, and more isn't being made, so then.. why call it a renewable resource? For a really simple reason really, because whether a thing is renewable or not isn't why it's actually called renewable. You see, yes, petroleum is remade at extremely slow rates, oil starting to be made millions of years ago, so the relative amount developed compared to the amount used is not sustainable. 

The formation of oil takes a significant amount of time with oil beginning to form millions of years ago. 70% of oil deposits existing today were formed in the Mesozoic age (252 to 66 million years ago), 20% were formed in the Cenozoic age (65 million years ago), and only 10% were formed in the Paleozoic age (541 to 252 million years ago). This is likely because the Mesozoic age was marked by a tropical climate, with large amounts of plankton in the ocean.[2]


This is a fairly basic principle, one I learned in 8th grade, funny how you seem to misunderstand it. Furthermore, would you like to support any of your claims with evidence, any kind of citation? Considering the fact that you don't seem to understand the difference between renewable and nonrenewable resources I have a hard time believing your claims. In case you still don't believe me, I have a source that should explain it again, just in case you don't accept the other sources. For whatever reason, you seem to have a hard time accepting sources which disagree with you, regardless of their validity. 

Nonrenewable energy resources, like coal, nuclear, oil, and natural gas, are available in limited supplies. This is usually due to the long time it takes for them to be replenished. Renewable resources are replenished naturally and over relatively short periods of time. The five major renewable energy resources are solar, wind, water (hydro), biomass, and geothermal.
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#3
fauxlaw
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@Theweakeredge
You see, yes, petroleum is remade at extremely slow rates, oil starting to be made millions of years ago, so the relative amount developed compared to the amount used is not sustainable. 
Better to know what you're talking about than making broad, sweeping statements that don't hold water, let alone oil.  https://money.cnn.com/2016/07/05/investing/us-untapped-oil/index.html : "All told, the world has 2.1 trillion barrels of untapped oil, or 70 times the current global annual production rate, Rystad estimates. ... That's a big deal given the fact global oil demand continues to grow, even in today's sluggish economy."

That quoted 2.1T barrels is just what we know about. As Mark Twain once said, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble; it's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

M. King Hubbert, a Shell Oil geologist who likely never read Twain, predicted in the 50s that we would exhaust our oil reserve by the 70s. He was dead wrong, and he is also dead, period. Yes, oil/nat gas/coal take millions of years to produce, but that does not mean the process has been going on merely millions of years. The Earth is over 4 billion years old. That's 4,000 million years. And, once begun, the process of making continues, unabated for as long as there are living organisms on earth to make the stuff.

Your 8th grade experience notwithstanding, you were duped by an agenda that continues to this day. Teachers are not gods, and most of academia is led by the nose without applying much critical thinking to what they are taught and vomit to you.

The same problem occurred with teaching you about over-population. We do not have an over-population problem, we have a resource [including food and water] distribution problem that is fed mostly by greed. Why aren't we using more agricultural land to actually grow crops [we use about 14% of available land, worldwide, for that purpose]? Why aren't we desalinating ocean water? It's a grammar school tech level. Why haven't we built aqueducts from the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers toward the southwest of the U.S. to provide water there, and to lessen the flooding further south? Why am I limited, by law, in my state, to having a fresh water cistern of underground storage of only 2,500 gallons [which I have], when I could triple and quadruple that storage amount, and more? Greed, my friend, is your problem, not over-population. There are resources in abundance available to us, even in a greater population, but politics trumps science.
#4
oromagi
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@fauxlaw
That goes something like:

P1:  Polar Vortex blackouts in Texas are the fault of unreliable wind power
P2:  A 2019 proposal to ameliorate climate change that never made it out of committee endorsed wind power
C1:  Therefore, the 2019 proposal was misguided

Is P1 true?  Nope.  The Washington Post gives that lie the maximum 4 Pinocchios- as shitty a lie as a Governor can tell his people


FACT CHECK:

Conservatives like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) have been falsely blaming renewable energy as the cause of the state’s massive power outages.

“So this shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America. Texas is blessed with multiple sources of energy, such as natural gas and oil and nuclear, as well as wind. But you saw … our wind and our solar got shut down and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid and that thrust Texas in a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis.”

— Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Feb. 16, 2021

The video above proves once again that a falsehood can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still tying its shoelaces.

As of Tuesday, 4 million households in Texas had lost electrical power amid a blast of cold weather. Fossil fuel interests and their allies in the Republican Party immediately blamed renewable energy sources and trashed the Democrats’ proposed “Green New Deal,” warning that it could produce similar outages nationwide if implemented.

The Facts

On Fox News, the hosts and Abbott claimed that frozen wind turbines had brought the Lone Star State to an icy standstill. Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Dan Crenshaw (R-Tex.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) made similar claims on Twitter. Some turbines did freeze — though Greenland and other northern outposts are able to keep theirs going through the winter.

The real culprit? Texas relies mostly on natural gas, and its power grid was poorly prepared to deal with severe winter conditions after years of deregulation, as energy experts told The Washington Post.

“Wind accounts for just 10 percent of the power in Texas generated during the winter. And the loss of power to the grid caused by shutdowns of thermal power plants, primarily those relying on natural gas, dwarfed the dent caused by frozen wind turbines, by a factor of five or six,” The Post reported. “At a moment when the world is awash in surplus natural gas, much of it from Texas wells, the state’s power-generating operators were unable to turn that gas into electricity to meet that demand.

“In the single-digit temperatures, pipelines froze up because there was some moisture in the gas. Pumps slowed. Diesel engines to power the pumps refused to start. One power plant after another went offline. Even a reactor at one of the state’s two nuclear plants went dark, hobbled by frozen equipment.”

Wind turbines may be “winterized” to operate in very low temperatures, but experts said Texas, which rarely confronts very low temperatures, did not invest in such preparations.

“It’s estimated that of the grid’s total winter capacity, about 80% of it, or 67 gigawatts, could be generated by natural gas, coal and some nuclear power. Only 7% of [the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’s] forecasted winter capacity, or 6 gigawatts, was expected to come from various wind power sources across the state,” the Texas Tribune reported.

When Abbott was challenged on his claim the next day, he tried to recast his remarks. “What I made clear was that the fact that if we relied solely on green energy, that would be a challenge. But in Texas, we do not rely solely on green energy. We have access to all sources of energy,” he said. (This is a false premise, as wind turbines in much colder places can be winterized, notwithstanding Texas’s inaction with theirs.)

The Pinocchio Test

That Fox News hosts and Republicans such as Abbott immediately began to falsely blame “frozen wind turbines” for a massive power outage in Texas shows yet again how quickly misinformation spreads on right-wing media. They all earn Four Pinocchios.
Four Pinocchios

fauxlaw's been letting Tucker Carlson do his research for him again.   Whether or not the failed 2019 climate legislation was misguided,  the Texas blackouts are entirely the failure of Greg Abbott's cheap-ass,  corrupt government.  Whether Republicans chose wind or gas they were obligated to prepare for extremes and have backup plans in response to failures. Secret greenie gremlins did not sneak in and buy of bunch expensive equipment without bothering with the expense of weatherizing.  We run wind  turbines in some of the worst weather in the World- Mt. Washington, SIberia, McMurdo, South Pole (since 1985!)

The problem in Texas is not unreliable wind technology.  The problem is government by people who don't like government or people.



#5
Theweakeredge
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@fauxlaw
Well.. untapped oil that has to be, you know paid for, and considering we use 100 million of old a day or so, and that number is rising (LINK) , 60 years of total more oil at a maximum does not seem very renewable to me does it to you? Considering that 90 million gallons are made a day or so, it seems like we're at a net loss, no? That's what, a loss of 10 or so million gallons a day? The point is, this will not last forever, but even furthermore, even if it did, so what? It massively affects the environment. This is a simple simple thing, I don't think it really matters if it was renewable or nonrenewable, the point is we shouldn't use it.
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#6
fauxlaw
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@oromagi
Most syllogisms are erroneous, as is yours, and you admit it yourself. So, why post it?

Since 10% of TX power grid is green energy sourced, and they lost that power power source,  while oil/gas/coal are being used to greater capacity to overcome the loss, the grid is being replenished even as windmills continue to be frozen, and solar panels are not being shined upon. The last month, I paid over $100 dollars on my power bill when, even in typical winters, it is about $8. I was not being shined on, either. Face it, weather still has much to do with the success of green energy, and always will until y'all develop another source. But to cancel oil/nat gas/coal, as Biden wants, before you have that reliable additional source, online and producing to replace o/n/c, is utter madness. But, no one said Biden had all his gears greased.
#7
zedvictor4
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@fauxlaw
Broad sweeping statements that don't hold water.
The pot calling the kettle black, as my old Mum used to say.


Burying one's head in the sand is another saying that springs to mind......Or perhaps....Having the luxury of being able to bury one's head in the sand, would be more appropriate.



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#8
fauxlaw
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@zedvictor4
Mum wasn't so creative, now, was she?
#9
zedvictor4
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@fauxlaw
Mum and Dad  were of their generation, and just fine.
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fauxlaw
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@zedvictor4
Fine for their generation. We live in the now.
#11
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@fauxlaw
Exactly...But nothing is permanent....And things will inevitably change.