Says exec of company that has objectively caused more environmental harm to the world than any others

  • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    big energy independence drive

    This is a great weasel word. “Energy independence.” Like we’re going to hook cables up to George Washington and run on carbon-neutral Freedom Juice.™

    “Energy independence” still means using fossil fuels. Just maybe different ones like natural gas instead of coal. There’s less emissions, sure, but it’s not anything like what Carter envisioned: Solar power stations in LEO, beaming gigawatts of carbon neutral power down from space.

    • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Carter also embraced nuclear energy, IIRC. Meanwhile, you’ve got California trying desperately to shut down Diablo Canyon but kicking the can down the road every two years because, surprise surprise, energy demand went up and they can’t afford to take DCNP offline. As I recall, DCNP’s reactor core was due for decommissioning twelve years ago, we just keep stringing it along like “c’mon bro, just two more years, I swear I’ll shut you down then. We won’t need your 2,000 gigawatts by then, bro, I promise, c’mon bro, please don’t fuck up on me, just hold on for two more years”. It’s stupid. We could’ve replaced the goddamn reactor by now, but we gotta play stupid games and win stupid prizes.

      • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Carter also embraced nuclear energy, IIRC.

        Carter specifically avoided nuclear energy. He was involved in a nuclear accident, so he knew the risks and favored building massive solar panels.

        To quote the linked article: “The project was not continued with the change in administrations after the 1980 United States elections.”

        That fucker Reagan also took Carter’s solar panels off the White House.

    • jasory@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      If this was truly what Carter envisioned, then he was an unbelievable moron. “Sunsats”, are not practical or environmentally efficient. The mere fact that you have to place and maintain them via spacelaunch is a huge penalty, then you have to account for radiation loss to the atmosphere.

    • bioemerl@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      “Energy independence” still means

      It also meant reducing imports of oil by being more efficient and investing in green tech by lots of parties across the country.

      • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        green tech

        Green tech like clean coal? Green tech like fracking to get natural gas? Which “green” tech are we talking about here?

        • bioemerl@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Green tech like wind, hydro, solar, and geothermal. The big deal was the fact you don’t need to import oil to run them.

          • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            The US is the largest producer of both crude oil and natural gas in the world. That’s what they mean when they say “energy independence:” Not importing foreign oil.

            • bioemerl@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              It is today after a massive fracking boom that largely happened independent of the big oil companies (they’re starting to go gobble up the fracking pioneers nowadays).

              But up until then nobody was sure of what to do and every independence was a pipe dream. That effort absolutely came with investment into green energy.