The debate here is NOT about coal. The argument is about destroying the land and water permanently!!!!!! It is about wealthy interest who make our land uninhabitable for quick money. Underground mining if fraught with dangers (mostly when large $ hungery corporations don't follow safety guidelines) but it does NOT cause the unbelievable devistation that Mountaintop removal strip mining does. This is about human survival.
Environmentalists care more about the poor mountain and the tree, than the man that's feeding his family by working at a coal mine. The last time I asked a tree what it thought of mountaintop removal, it had NO OPINION. People are what matters. We need the jobs, we need the revenue it creates for other businesses when coal miners spend their money, and we need the electricity that these men and women are producing.
the problem is that your arguments are based on ignorance, because the fact that you ignore is: we actually do need nature to survive more than we need most jobs and most of the energy we produce. most jobs are not as important as it is to feed all the people in your nation. most energy isnt being used efficiently or for something really useful anyway, you dont need it as much as you need ecosystems that can sustain the life of hundreds of millions of US citizen.
do you have children? or do you maybe have brothers or sisters that have children? do you care about their future?
then why do you only think in a timeframe of maybe 1-2 years, why do you promote behavior that will have clear overall negative effects once you look at a timeframe of 20-30 years?
dont you realize that what we do needs to be so sustainable that the next generation can have the same amount of freedom that we have in order to be fair?
Timeframe of 20-30 years? Don't you think we've been mining coal for that long? And has it created any disasters? I do have children...and I have an obligation to support them. When you talk about sustainable for generations, mining has been done for generations, and will be done for generations to come.
and wouldnt you call what you see in this video a disaster?
coal mining wont last much longer because we are running out of coal. exponential growth in consumption of a finite resource has that consequence. the question is: how much more damage will we cause to our planet before we stop using coal?
First, we are in NO danger of "running out of coal" any time soon. Second, two weekends ago, it was the coldest in history on record, and this past winter was the coldest it's been in years, so I wont talk to you about global warming. Third, I would call nothing in this video a disaster, because I'm around to see the finished product. Ever see an open heart surgery? It's not pretty, at first, but sure is helpful.
some of the things you say, and apparently seem to believe in, are just disgusting.
you are in denial of lots of facts and proud of it. you dont understand exponential growth, this means that you are unaware of calculus. you dont know about the facts behind climate change. you compare a dangerous but in the context potentially livesaving surgery to avoidable largescale destruction of areas of wild nature and poisoning of streams.
Let's just say coal mining is here to stay, no matter how much some complain about it, and it's not just the US. The company I work for was just bought out by a very wealthy man from Russia, to help supply coal for his steel mills.
so your job involves destroying nature for future generations?
thats terrible. you should kill yourself or get a different job. people like you are the people that people like me need to stop. you want to destroy the planet that im living on and that i would like to protect. and you are too uneducated (or brainwashed by your company?) to even understand the problem.
@kurtilein3 It's interesting that you are typing your replies on a computer that uses electricity and was made using mineral products that had to be dug out of the ground the refined. I'm not sure of the extent to which you use products that are mined.
your assumption is interesting, but wrong to a degree. while different energy suppliers send their energy over the same grid, it does get sort of mixed up, but i buy my electricity from a supplier that only sells alternative energy sources and nuclear, no fossil fuels. so you statement is wrong to a degree. in some countries, that option of changing your supplier doesnt even exist, and many people also dont do it based on ignorance, because they dont know they can.
@kurtilein3 You cannot seriously believe that all your power comes from an alternative energy source. There is not enough power produced by 'alternative' energy producers to supply the people who want it. And this is why it will not work. All you are doing is paying more for your power. The power companies must love you.
Also what was your pc made from? No mining products used in it?
also, your comment implies that just because im using electricity, lets say i would live in a country where you cannot decide what kind of energy you buy, that would then take my right away to criticize any CO2-emissions due to energy production anywhere on the internet? because i cannot use the internet without electricity?
if freedom of speech and common sense would actually work that way, it would be great for the energy suppliers, but its not the world we live in.
I think the hardcore environmentalists shoud be the first to do without power, or pay twice to three times the price for the alternative power. Let the rest of us have our coal. Anyone have any idea what the unemployment rate in WV would be if not for coal mines? What percentage of West Virginians work for a coal company or coal powered plant? Somebody please research that, and see what would happen if we take coal mining away from WV.
"I think the hardcore environmentalists shoud be the first to do without power, or pay twice to three times the price for the alternative power."
thats just irrational.
you realize that the second world war created lots of jobs? so if you would have been a german politician or soldier at the time, you would still consider the second world war to be a good thing because it creates and keeps so much jobs, until you personally see how all collapses over you?
Where do you see most mining? In the most mountainous regions. I know that flat land is a rarity in WV, and I would like to see more of it. It's funny that nobody talks about blasting and moving mountains to build interstates, or shopping malls, or even the local WalMart. Isn't that the same thing (except without as much electricity being produced)?
1.: you dont do mountaintop removal and you dont destroy streams for shopping malls or highways. you maybe build a bridge here and a tunnel there.
2.: if it would be true, and the same would be done for shopping malls and highways, then the united states would be destroying even more nature, and there would be even less hope that the north american people will NOT suffer on an incredible scale once nature in that region collapses.
Mountains always grow back. How do you think they got there in the first place? We are such assholes as a race that we know very little of our surroundings. The Earth is not static, it is very dynamic. Mountains grow back suddenly during worldwide upheaval, when all of the 14 tectonic plates move at the same time, when the Earth stops spinning, when we have a pole shift. There have been 16 poleshifts in the Earth's past and perhaps more.
normal people think in a timescale of maybe one lifetime, some people dont think about the future at all, and people that have children and are educated consider a timescale of maybe a few centuries. in all of those mindsets, it is obvious that mountains, once destroyed, do not come back.
im trying to consider a timeframe of 10000 years into the future as often as possible. in this framework, its still clear that the mountains are gone when we destroy them.
These mountains will grow back in less than 3 years. When mountains grow, it is sudden and violent and involves massive movement of all 14 tectonic plates. Oh, stay out of the mountains, get away from the ocean and volcanos and be well above sea level, if you want to be a survivor.
you are just like a child, uneducated about science, doesnt know much about reality, makes up its own stories and starts believing in it and telling it as truth.
grow up. or are religious beliefs behind this, are you one of those young earth creationists? in this case my message stays the same: grow up.
then maybe you could make some videos aboutthis local global problem. i mean, what the global problem of coal being used for energy causes locally in your area. do you hear the explosions sometimes, or is it too far away?
where they are doing the strip mining is a couple hundred miles away. north of here, so i dont see it or hear it. im in tennessee, they are a little north in kentucky. But, im still concerned. im a hardcore environmentalist.
there are those big protests in washington DC now, and im sure that there are local protests as well, it seems to be quite a big movement that got started here. watch democracynow! episodes from monday and tuesday for more about this.
you could support those protests against coal mining or mountaintop removal or for clean energy, and maybe do coverage of the protests, bring a camera, im sure you could also meet other youtubers there.
just a suggestion for the hardcore environmentalist ;)
i would love to do that stuff. Washington DC is like 10 hours away tho. i live way out in the country, in a small town. not much protesting here. im in the bible belt, everyone is unquestioning sheeple. I hope to be moving in the relative near future. i hope to go somewhere more relevant.
In the old days, my great grandparents tunneled into the mountains, but that caused acid mine drainage that will continue for 1000s of years to come. Some smartie pants decided early in the 20th century that it would be more efficient to strip mine, and it put the people out of work and the mountains out of shape. Now they talk of wind turbines and carbon, but we lost our windy ridges to strip mines and the mine soil won't grow trees. I guess we will have to use less.
without those windy ridges, if you want wind turbines, youll probarbly end up buying the german products. those new re-power wind turbines with a rotor size of 125 metres in diameter, thats about 417 feet, are quite popular. you can build them higher than the mountain ridges were before. and maybe you can get some trees growing if you try hard enough.
but the most important thing still is that any destruction of nature on this scale needs to stop, no matter where and why people do it.
They don't 'destroy' mountains out of fun -- you can stop, if you want to go back to live in a cave (an existing one -- don't create a new cave, because this would 'destroy' the mountain of course!).
Otherwise -- stop compaining until you have a better way to get to the resources!
so theres no reason to stop complaining, because there are many better options.
basically, practically every way to produce energy is better than this kind of coal mining.
we just dont need coal. not anymore. better options are available. people just dont want those better alternatives because they are apathetic, and because they dont care, and because there is no shortage in energy so why should we need more clean energy?
MAYBE TO REPLACE DIRTY METHODS LIKE COAL WITH THOSE CLEAN METHODS?
If there is a really better but practical solution, I am all for it. Solar energy is not the way to go (for the most part of the first world at least), nor is wind energy. Which leaves us with water power plants (very limited, because it depends on the location and you just exchange 'destroying mountains' with 'flooding large areas').
coal wont last forever anyway. a few decades then its gone, and what then?
wind, solar, fermentation of biological waste, nuclear fission, maybe one day nuclear fusion, we still have some oil left, but most importantly:
the energy we currently use is being used inefficiently in such a way that our grandchildren will NOT be able to understand why we destroyed nature to get that coal. they will point at the energy we are wasting, and conclude that we really didnt NEED the coal.
And as for CO2 reduction you could also use more nuclear fission power plants (I am for that, at least until we have fusion plants working). But then people come and compain about the problem of the final disposal of the waste (which is not a real problem, but this lousy text messages are not a proper way to explain why) -- and our lousy last Green/Red government (I am from Munich myself btw. ;) ) commited itself to the stupid idea of abandoning this form of energy production alltogether.
i think if we would stop using coal on a global level, there would be an energy crisis. but not a big one. we will learn which devices to switch on and which devices arent worth the energy they consume, compared to the result.
if we make a transition away from coal within lets say 3-5 years, there probarbly wouldnt even be major shortages. and even if: thats a small price compared to a destroyed planet. its like a drug addiction, addiction to energy.
... das der trittin den FRM2 ziemlich kaputtgemacht hat indem er sie jetzt zwingt ne uransorte herzunehmen für die der reaktorkern nicht ausgelegt ist stört mich am meissten. die wissen noch nicht wie sie nach der umstellung noch ne kettenreaktion hinbekommen sollen. die wissenschaftler sind stinksauer, sollen jetzt das unlösbare problem mit dem zu kleinen reaktorkern lösen. hätte man von anfang an für niederangereichertes bauen müssen, aber hochangereichertes war ja genehmight.
i agree that nuclear fusion is a likely future solution, but i dont think helium3 will be any part of that solution.
it will probarbly be magnetic confinement fusion reactors built in the tokamak or stellerator design, running on a mixture of deuterium and tritium. like ITER or wendelstein 7-X, just a bit more advanced.
Whilst I have my own reasons for opposing clean coal. This issue is a matter of mining regulation not clean coal. This would happen whether they were looking for coal, uranium, copper, iron, granite, gold or anything else.
I think here in Aus we have fairly good environmental policies towards the mining (although it could be better).
yes, mining for other things often causes similar problems. but coal will never be clean. you cannot mine for those massive amounts of material without causing damage, you can only choose between extreme damage, massive damage, and a lot of damage. but i think the quantities are way too big to avoid the destruction of landscapes when it comes to coal mining. you will never need this amount of granite for example. and then theres the coal ash, smoke, and CO2 on top of it.
I can't adequately argue with this. But I think there are way better ways of expressing this. I think the greens or labor here (can't remember who) were talking up the idea of taxing coal based on environmental pollution. Most industies here for instance must restore an environment like for like when mining. I think a combination of these initiatives will have one of two effects:
if you really want to cut emissions, you need to get a market for carbon licenses going, then government has direct control over the maximum quantity that is being emitted, and can start turning the knob.
or for destroying areas currently covered with nature: enforce licenses and a market for those licenses, and then start cutting it.
at first you give out a little bit more licenses/permits than necessary, and then you start cutting the amount of licenses emitted to the market.
the idea is that you set up licenses that basically say "this license allows you to emit 1 ton of CO2 into the atmosphere". they get auctioned and can be traded, the quantity is limited but higher than required. now everyone that emits any CO2 without having and using a licenses to cover it gets punished.
its awesome: cutting the amount of licenses being auctioned by 20% translates into a 20% CO2 emission reduction +flexible tax for polluting.
yes, and, i mean, emission trade or license trade is the way to tax it, and outlaw it gradually.
basically you set up a trap and let it snap: you sell licenses for, lets say, the destruction of 100 square metres of natural landscape, at first enough licenses for what they currently do, make it absolutely illegal to do it without using up a license, and then cut down the amount of licenses. until you can still get one of those for 5 million dollars if you really really need it.
I did a flight over the tar-sands once. Made my stomach lurch—and not from the turbulence. Kilometer after kilometer of wasteland. I can understand our dependence on fossil fuels, but we should only be looking to these extreme landscape altering projects as a last resort.
yes, but, a last resort for what? does energy safety or however they call it justify this at all?
what happens if we refuse to accept that its time to make use of such a last resort? i mean, our refrigerators are still running. maybe the price we pay for guaranteed luxury lifestyle, in all developed nations, is just too high. as long as we dont use energy efficiently, i dont see how such a last resort could ever be justified anywhere on our planet.
the point is that our grandparents will simply reject all notions of a crisis or a last resort if all we are struggling for is to keep outdated, inefficient technology afloat, and while refusing to get into clean alternatives that are already available. im not sure that i could ever buy into this, but our grandchildren definitively wont buy it.
Back when peak oil was topical there seemed to be a common sense that people will use what is available until it is made unavailable. Sadly we must wait for a tipping point. When these fuels become more expensive than clean technology we will see the transition. Of course, we should do what we can to hasten the day.
no, why not go cold turkey and start actively trying to stop coal mining and coal-based energy production in a "we, the people" kind of action?
why not push for drastic political solutions like license trade? its possible. then we will make the transition before doing the maximum possible damage, i think we really need to stop before we run out of options to destroy nature for profit. and its a global problem.
Licenses seem like a very good idea, but the major culprits operate in countries where either industry has great influence or where development is the first priority. Of course I understand that its not so bleak as all that. If a few nations have the will things may change very quickly. I just think North America and the developing world are useless on this issue right now.
yes, you are right, right now most of the developed nations seem to be far too slow.
its about opening our eyes to the fact that destruction of nature is inherently unsustainable and not in the interest of the people, so this is something where developing nations can actually be much faster and then more successful in some cases.
this idea needs to reach the public on a bigger scale, i dont think that this will be difficult once people are informed. raising awareness is the difficult part.
The debate here is NOT about coal. The argument is about destroying the land and water permanently!!!!!! It is about wealthy interest who make our land uninhabitable for quick money. Underground mining if fraught with dangers (mostly when large $ hungery corporations don't follow safety guidelines) but it does NOT cause the unbelievable devistation that Mountaintop removal strip mining does. This is about human survival.
ruralpotter 1 year ago
this film is so old ! stop stiring up global warming bullshit !
zakaslam1 2 years ago
Environmentalists care more about the poor mountain and the tree, than the man that's feeding his family by working at a coal mine. The last time I asked a tree what it thought of mountaintop removal, it had NO OPINION. People are what matters. We need the jobs, we need the revenue it creates for other businesses when coal miners spend their money, and we need the electricity that these men and women are producing.
WV24985 2 years ago
the problem is that your arguments are based on ignorance, because the fact that you ignore is: we actually do need nature to survive more than we need most jobs and most of the energy we produce. most jobs are not as important as it is to feed all the people in your nation. most energy isnt being used efficiently or for something really useful anyway, you dont need it as much as you need ecosystems that can sustain the life of hundreds of millions of US citizen.
kurtilein3 2 years ago
wv24985:
do you have children? or do you maybe have brothers or sisters that have children? do you care about their future?
then why do you only think in a timeframe of maybe 1-2 years, why do you promote behavior that will have clear overall negative effects once you look at a timeframe of 20-30 years?
dont you realize that what we do needs to be so sustainable that the next generation can have the same amount of freedom that we have in order to be fair?
kurtilein3 2 years ago
Timeframe of 20-30 years? Don't you think we've been mining coal for that long? And has it created any disasters? I do have children...and I have an obligation to support them. When you talk about sustainable for generations, mining has been done for generations, and will be done for generations to come.
WV24985 2 years ago
"And has it created any disasters?"
what do you know about climate change?
and wouldnt you call what you see in this video a disaster?
coal mining wont last much longer because we are running out of coal. exponential growth in consumption of a finite resource has that consequence. the question is: how much more damage will we cause to our planet before we stop using coal?
kurtilein3 2 years ago
First, we are in NO danger of "running out of coal" any time soon. Second, two weekends ago, it was the coldest in history on record, and this past winter was the coldest it's been in years, so I wont talk to you about global warming. Third, I would call nothing in this video a disaster, because I'm around to see the finished product. Ever see an open heart surgery? It's not pretty, at first, but sure is helpful.
WV24985 2 years ago
some of the things you say, and apparently seem to believe in, are just disgusting.
you are in denial of lots of facts and proud of it. you dont understand exponential growth, this means that you are unaware of calculus. you dont know about the facts behind climate change. you compare a dangerous but in the context potentially livesaving surgery to avoidable largescale destruction of areas of wild nature and poisoning of streams.
please grow up, get educated.
kurtilein3 2 years ago
Let's just say coal mining is here to stay, no matter how much some complain about it, and it's not just the US. The company I work for was just bought out by a very wealthy man from Russia, to help supply coal for his steel mills.
WV24985 2 years ago
so your job involves destroying nature for future generations?
thats terrible. you should kill yourself or get a different job. people like you are the people that people like me need to stop. you want to destroy the planet that im living on and that i would like to protect. and you are too uneducated (or brainwashed by your company?) to even understand the problem.
kurtilein3 2 years ago
@kurtilein3 It's interesting that you are typing your replies on a computer that uses electricity and was made using mineral products that had to be dug out of the ground the refined. I'm not sure of the extent to which you use products that are mined.
franktbird 1 year ago
@franktbird
your assumption is interesting, but wrong to a degree. while different energy suppliers send their energy over the same grid, it does get sort of mixed up, but i buy my electricity from a supplier that only sells alternative energy sources and nuclear, no fossil fuels. so you statement is wrong to a degree. in some countries, that option of changing your supplier doesnt even exist, and many people also dont do it based on ignorance, because they dont know they can.
kurtilein3 1 year ago
@kurtilein3 You cannot seriously believe that all your power comes from an alternative energy source. There is not enough power produced by 'alternative' energy producers to supply the people who want it. And this is why it will not work. All you are doing is paying more for your power. The power companies must love you.
Also what was your pc made from? No mining products used in it?
franktbird 1 year ago
@franktbird
also, your comment implies that just because im using electricity, lets say i would live in a country where you cannot decide what kind of energy you buy, that would then take my right away to criticize any CO2-emissions due to energy production anywhere on the internet? because i cannot use the internet without electricity?
if freedom of speech and common sense would actually work that way, it would be great for the energy suppliers, but its not the world we live in.
kurtilein3 1 year ago
@kurtilein3 Unfortunately in the real world your right to free speech just means that everyone else can see how ill informed and gullible you are.
I suppose you like the idea of tidal farms.
The interesting thing is that if we all used tidal power we would irrevocably alter ocean currents and ruin the weather.
franktbird 1 year ago
I think the hardcore environmentalists shoud be the first to do without power, or pay twice to three times the price for the alternative power. Let the rest of us have our coal. Anyone have any idea what the unemployment rate in WV would be if not for coal mines? What percentage of West Virginians work for a coal company or coal powered plant? Somebody please research that, and see what would happen if we take coal mining away from WV.
WV24985 2 years ago
"I think the hardcore environmentalists shoud be the first to do without power, or pay twice to three times the price for the alternative power."
thats just irrational.
you realize that the second world war created lots of jobs? so if you would have been a german politician or soldier at the time, you would still consider the second world war to be a good thing because it creates and keeps so much jobs, until you personally see how all collapses over you?
kurtilein3 2 years ago
Where do you see most mining? In the most mountainous regions. I know that flat land is a rarity in WV, and I would like to see more of it. It's funny that nobody talks about blasting and moving mountains to build interstates, or shopping malls, or even the local WalMart. Isn't that the same thing (except without as much electricity being produced)?
WV24985 2 years ago
1.: you dont do mountaintop removal and you dont destroy streams for shopping malls or highways. you maybe build a bridge here and a tunnel there.
2.: if it would be true, and the same would be done for shopping malls and highways, then the united states would be destroying even more nature, and there would be even less hope that the north american people will NOT suffer on an incredible scale once nature in that region collapses.
kurtilein3 2 years ago
They are about to make a comeback. Stay tuned.
rollsthepaul 3 years ago
mountains dont just grow back like ripped-out fingernails. those wounds in the landscape will stay forever.
kurtilein3 3 years ago
Mountains always grow back. How do you think they got there in the first place? We are such assholes as a race that we know very little of our surroundings. The Earth is not static, it is very dynamic. Mountains grow back suddenly during worldwide upheaval, when all of the 14 tectonic plates move at the same time, when the Earth stops spinning, when we have a pole shift. There have been 16 poleshifts in the Earth's past and perhaps more.
rollsthepaul 3 years ago
normal people think in a timescale of maybe one lifetime, some people dont think about the future at all, and people that have children and are educated consider a timescale of maybe a few centuries. in all of those mindsets, it is obvious that mountains, once destroyed, do not come back.
im trying to consider a timeframe of 10000 years into the future as often as possible. in this framework, its still clear that the mountains are gone when we destroy them.
kurtilein3 3 years ago
These mountains will grow back in less than 3 years. When mountains grow, it is sudden and violent and involves massive movement of all 14 tectonic plates. Oh, stay out of the mountains, get away from the ocean and volcanos and be well above sea level, if you want to be a survivor.
rollsthepaul 3 years ago
you are just like a child, uneducated about science, doesnt know much about reality, makes up its own stories and starts believing in it and telling it as truth.
grow up. or are religious beliefs behind this, are you one of those young earth creationists? in this case my message stays the same: grow up.
kurtilein3 3 years ago
the low views might have something to do with the cryptic title
bcosten2007 3 years ago
its a sad thing. i live in Appalachia, and it sux what they are doing!
cozmikzen 3 years ago
oh, you are living there?
then maybe you could make some videos aboutthis local global problem. i mean, what the global problem of coal being used for energy causes locally in your area. do you hear the explosions sometimes, or is it too far away?
kurtilein3 3 years ago
where they are doing the strip mining is a couple hundred miles away. north of here, so i dont see it or hear it. im in tennessee, they are a little north in kentucky. But, im still concerned. im a hardcore environmentalist.
cozmikzen 3 years ago
there are those big protests in washington DC now, and im sure that there are local protests as well, it seems to be quite a big movement that got started here. watch democracynow! episodes from monday and tuesday for more about this.
you could support those protests against coal mining or mountaintop removal or for clean energy, and maybe do coverage of the protests, bring a camera, im sure you could also meet other youtubers there.
just a suggestion for the hardcore environmentalist ;)
kurtilein3 3 years ago
i would love to do that stuff. Washington DC is like 10 hours away tho. i live way out in the country, in a small town. not much protesting here. im in the bible belt, everyone is unquestioning sheeple. I hope to be moving in the relative near future. i hope to go somewhere more relevant.
cozmikzen 3 years ago
In the old days, my great grandparents tunneled into the mountains, but that caused acid mine drainage that will continue for 1000s of years to come. Some smartie pants decided early in the 20th century that it would be more efficient to strip mine, and it put the people out of work and the mountains out of shape. Now they talk of wind turbines and carbon, but we lost our windy ridges to strip mines and the mine soil won't grow trees. I guess we will have to use less.
InReasonWeTrust 3 years ago
without those windy ridges, if you want wind turbines, youll probarbly end up buying the german products. those new re-power wind turbines with a rotor size of 125 metres in diameter, thats about 417 feet, are quite popular. you can build them higher than the mountain ridges were before. and maybe you can get some trees growing if you try hard enough.
but the most important thing still is that any destruction of nature on this scale needs to stop, no matter where and why people do it.
kurtilein3 3 years ago
They don't 'destroy' mountains out of fun -- you can stop, if you want to go back to live in a cave (an existing one -- don't create a new cave, because this would 'destroy' the mountain of course!).
Otherwise -- stop compaining until you have a better way to get to the resources!
mrmagmrmag 3 years ago
so theres no reason to stop complaining, because there are many better options.
basically, practically every way to produce energy is better than this kind of coal mining.
we just dont need coal. not anymore. better options are available. people just dont want those better alternatives because they are apathetic, and because they dont care, and because there is no shortage in energy so why should we need more clean energy?
MAYBE TO REPLACE DIRTY METHODS LIKE COAL WITH THOSE CLEAN METHODS?
kurtilein3 3 years ago
If there is a really better but practical solution, I am all for it. Solar energy is not the way to go (for the most part of the first world at least), nor is wind energy. Which leaves us with water power plants (very limited, because it depends on the location and you just exchange 'destroying mountains' with 'flooding large areas').
mrmagmrmag 3 years ago
mrmagrmr:
coal wont last forever anyway. a few decades then its gone, and what then?
wind, solar, fermentation of biological waste, nuclear fission, maybe one day nuclear fusion, we still have some oil left, but most importantly:
the energy we currently use is being used inefficiently in such a way that our grandchildren will NOT be able to understand why we destroyed nature to get that coal. they will point at the energy we are wasting, and conclude that we really didnt NEED the coal.
kurtilein3 3 years ago
And as for CO2 reduction you could also use more nuclear fission power plants (I am for that, at least until we have fusion plants working). But then people come and compain about the problem of the final disposal of the waste (which is not a real problem, but this lousy text messages are not a proper way to explain why) -- and our lousy last Green/Red government (I am from Munich myself btw. ;) ) commited itself to the stupid idea of abandoning this form of energy production alltogether.
mrmagmrmag 3 years ago
oh, you are from munich too? cool ^^
i think if we would stop using coal on a global level, there would be an energy crisis. but not a big one. we will learn which devices to switch on and which devices arent worth the energy they consume, compared to the result.
if we make a transition away from coal within lets say 3-5 years, there probarbly wouldnt even be major shortages. and even if: thats a small price compared to a destroyed planet. its like a drug addiction, addiction to energy.
kurtilein3 3 years ago
... das der trittin den FRM2 ziemlich kaputtgemacht hat indem er sie jetzt zwingt ne uransorte herzunehmen für die der reaktorkern nicht ausgelegt ist stört mich am meissten. die wissen noch nicht wie sie nach der umstellung noch ne kettenreaktion hinbekommen sollen. die wissenschaftler sind stinksauer, sollen jetzt das unlösbare problem mit dem zu kleinen reaktorkern lösen. hätte man von anfang an für niederangereichertes bauen müssen, aber hochangereichertes war ja genehmight.
kurtilein3 3 years ago
die Kommentarfunktion hier ist mir etwas zu nervig -- daher meine Antwort per PM. ;)
mrmagmrmag 3 years ago
Helium3 based nuclear reactors are the way to go.
KasparHauser4 3 years ago
i agree that nuclear fusion is a likely future solution, but i dont think helium3 will be any part of that solution.
it will probarbly be magnetic confinement fusion reactors built in the tokamak or stellerator design, running on a mixture of deuterium and tritium. like ITER or wendelstein 7-X, just a bit more advanced.
kurtilein3 3 years ago
Hang on.
Whilst I have my own reasons for opposing clean coal. This issue is a matter of mining regulation not clean coal. This would happen whether they were looking for coal, uranium, copper, iron, granite, gold or anything else.
I think here in Aus we have fairly good environmental policies towards the mining (although it could be better).
thorungal 3 years ago
yes, mining for other things often causes similar problems. but coal will never be clean. you cannot mine for those massive amounts of material without causing damage, you can only choose between extreme damage, massive damage, and a lot of damage. but i think the quantities are way too big to avoid the destruction of landscapes when it comes to coal mining. you will never need this amount of granite for example. and then theres the coal ash, smoke, and CO2 on top of it.
kurtilein3 3 years ago
I can't adequately argue with this. But I think there are way better ways of expressing this. I think the greens or labor here (can't remember who) were talking up the idea of taxing coal based on environmental pollution. Most industies here for instance must restore an environment like for like when mining. I think a combination of these initiatives will have one of two effects:
-offset the harm caused by existing industry.
-drive the industry to inviability.
Both of these are fine by me.
thorungal 3 years ago
if you really want to cut emissions, you need to get a market for carbon licenses going, then government has direct control over the maximum quantity that is being emitted, and can start turning the knob.
or for destroying areas currently covered with nature: enforce licenses and a market for those licenses, and then start cutting it.
at first you give out a little bit more licenses/permits than necessary, and then you start cutting the amount of licenses emitted to the market.
kurtilein3 3 years ago
maybe i should explain this a little bit more...
the idea is that you set up licenses that basically say "this license allows you to emit 1 ton of CO2 into the atmosphere". they get auctioned and can be traded, the quantity is limited but higher than required. now everyone that emits any CO2 without having and using a licenses to cover it gets punished.
its awesome: cutting the amount of licenses being auctioned by 20% translates into a 20% CO2 emission reduction +flexible tax for polluting.
kurtilein3 3 years ago
one of the benefits here is that it can be directly ported to other polluting industries and help clean up the mining industry as a whole.
Or if they just want to pay the tax then it can be put into offseting programs.
Of course major irrepairable damage may simply need to be regulated against.
These measures of course only effect modern progressive nations though so steps may be nessisary to introduce import tarrifs along similar lines.
thorungal 3 years ago
yes, and, i mean, emission trade or license trade is the way to tax it, and outlaw it gradually.
basically you set up a trap and let it snap: you sell licenses for, lets say, the destruction of 100 square metres of natural landscape, at first enough licenses for what they currently do, make it absolutely illegal to do it without using up a license, and then cut down the amount of licenses. until you can still get one of those for 5 million dollars if you really really need it.
kurtilein3 3 years ago
Truth =) Green is the Way to go.
Peace
czarwright 3 years ago
I did a flight over the tar-sands once. Made my stomach lurch—and not from the turbulence. Kilometer after kilometer of wasteland. I can understand our dependence on fossil fuels, but we should only be looking to these extreme landscape altering projects as a last resort.
VeritasVoce 3 years ago
yes, but, a last resort for what? does energy safety or however they call it justify this at all?
what happens if we refuse to accept that its time to make use of such a last resort? i mean, our refrigerators are still running. maybe the price we pay for guaranteed luxury lifestyle, in all developed nations, is just too high. as long as we dont use energy efficiently, i dont see how such a last resort could ever be justified anywhere on our planet.
kurtilein3 3 years ago
the point is that our grandparents will simply reject all notions of a crisis or a last resort if all we are struggling for is to keep outdated, inefficient technology afloat, and while refusing to get into clean alternatives that are already available. im not sure that i could ever buy into this, but our grandchildren definitively wont buy it.
kurtilein3 3 years ago
Back when peak oil was topical there seemed to be a common sense that people will use what is available until it is made unavailable. Sadly we must wait for a tipping point. When these fuels become more expensive than clean technology we will see the transition. Of course, we should do what we can to hasten the day.
VeritasVoce 3 years ago
no, why not go cold turkey and start actively trying to stop coal mining and coal-based energy production in a "we, the people" kind of action?
why not push for drastic political solutions like license trade? its possible. then we will make the transition before doing the maximum possible damage, i think we really need to stop before we run out of options to destroy nature for profit. and its a global problem.
kurtilein3 3 years ago
Licenses seem like a very good idea, but the major culprits operate in countries where either industry has great influence or where development is the first priority. Of course I understand that its not so bleak as all that. If a few nations have the will things may change very quickly. I just think North America and the developing world are useless on this issue right now.
VeritasVoce 3 years ago
yes, you are right, right now most of the developed nations seem to be far too slow.
its about opening our eyes to the fact that destruction of nature is inherently unsustainable and not in the interest of the people, so this is something where developing nations can actually be much faster and then more successful in some cases.
this idea needs to reach the public on a bigger scale, i dont think that this will be difficult once people are informed. raising awareness is the difficult part.
kurtilein3 3 years ago