Do you support fracking, or coal?

[Recursion]

I'm disappointed DU has the "refuse not to answer" option, because people will. You can refuse in an Internet poll. You can't refuse in real life. We can either meet our current power generation needs with natural gas, which means more fracking, or coal.

Both have real problems.

Which do you support?

You want renewables? OK, if we dedicate trillions of dollars to building out that infrastructure, then in about 2 decades we could (conceivably) meet a large portion of our power generation needs with renewables. The question remains, for the next two decades, do you support fracking or coal?

You want nuclear? OK, if we dedicate trillions of dollars to building out that infrastructure, then in about 1 decade we could (conceivably) meet a large portion of our power generation needs nuclear. The question remains, for the next decade, do you support fracking or coal?

You want to make the grid more efficient? OK, again, trillions of dollars, and probably about two decades, and then we can drastically cut fossils. The question remains for the next two decades or so, do you support fracking or coal?

There's not an answer that lets you feel good about yourself or keep your hands clean, and part of being adult is recognizing that life often presents you choices like that.

3 votes, 33 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	I support fracking
	1 (33%)
	I support coal
	2 (67%)
	33 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[Electric Monk]

1. Solar

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/solar-developers-undercut-coal-with-another-record-set-in-dubai

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/18/11415510/solar-power-costs-innovation

http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/04/18/solar-is-now-cheaper-than-coal-says-india-energy-minister/

[Recursion]

2. Head in the sand

It would take two decades to get solar built out enough, if in fact there are enough rare-earths on the planet for us to strip mine to do it.

In the interim, do you support fracking, or coal? Or do you not actually care about the environment, and just like to feel smug about the issue?

[Electric Monk]

5. My parents already have solar at their cottage, and it works great. Totally off the grid.

DC lights (inside and out), computers, fans, pretty much everything except heating.

It's not 20 years from now, it's already here. Look at what Germany is doing already, for example.

http://www.seia.org/research-resources/solar-energy-support-germany-closer-look

[Recursion]

9. And that's awesome, particularly at low densities

That's great for your parents, and I'm all for more people doing that who are in places where they can.

Now, in the 15 years or so it would take to get solar available to everyone for our current power needs, do you support fracking, or coal?

[Electric Monk]

16. What part of "solar is already cheaper than coal" are you having trouble understanding? nt

[Recursion]

27. Why does the cost matter?

What makes you think this is about the cost of energy?

There's X tons of the metals needed to make solar panels already strip mined, and it's not enough to power everybody or even that many more people than are already powered by it. Hell, solar isn't even terribly "renewable" in that sense, because those metals get used up in the process of releasing the energy, and it takes more energy to re-extract them from the waste than the panel gave out to begin with (thermodynamics and all).

It's possible enough of those metals exist on the planet, and that we can strip mine them from wherever they are, but that first off ignores the environmental effects of that extraction, and secondly avoids the question of what to do in the decade it takes to get them dug up, processed into panels, and the grid modernized to accept them.

[JDPriestly]

51. Wind and hydro are not practical in my area of the Southwest. We have wind, but

it will never produce enough energy for Los Angeles.

We do need solar here. But solar should not be wasted in areas in which there is less sunlight. It should be used in the sunny Southwest. Economically, it makes sense here. Fracking does not make sense here because of our serious water shortages and the fact that we should not risk the contamination of our water.

Hydro won't work here. We don't have enough water.

Coal has to be shipped here at some cost, and it is very dirty. Coal is not good in Los Angeles because of our air quality problems which are due in great part to the way air gets trapped in our valleys.

So we need solar with some wind.

[Recursion]

63. Which are great arguments for not building a megacity on a desert

However, since we already have...

[JDPriestly]

68. Very true. And since we already have a megacity here, we need to switch to solar and

bring in wind energy from areas in which there is wind.

Fortunately, the desert is warm and we don't use a lot of heat compared to other parts of the country. My husband and I only heat less than half or our house in the winter. We sleep in an unheated room. We don't need air conditioning most summer days because we have trees that shade our house, and the desert cools off at night.

So, as individuals, we spend less on heating and cooling and use less energy than people in, say, the Northeast or colder parts of the country and parts of the country that do not naturally cool off at night.

[Recursion]

70. Could be worse: Dubai

3 million people on what was pristine desert 20 years ago. Every day convoys of trucks take sewage out of the city and dump it out in the dunes.

Side thought: back in the day Garfield the Cat would try to get rid of Nermal or Odie or somebody by putting him in a box and mailing him to Abu Dhabi. It struck me last time I was in the Emirates how much has changed since then: the city that was just 30 years ago the literal exemplar of the middle of nowhere is now one of the most connected cities in the world...

[JDPriestly]

73. Amazing! How do they keep cool?

Or do they just deal with the heat?

It gets hot in September in Los Angeles, but as I have said, the climate here is pretty good, and we probably don't use as much energy for heating and cooling here as people do in other parts of the country. We waste a lot of fossil fuels on automobiles. We need a better, more energy efficient public transportation system. We are slowly working on that. Bicycles would be great, but they are impractical for most of us who are aged over 50. We don't have the physiques for it -- at least most of us don't.

I love to walk and do whenever possible. I like to knit and wear layers in the winter.

We actually probably are pretty energy efficient out here. But a lot of people have air conditioning. And some keep their offices at very low temperatures on hot days.

[Recursion]

75. It's a mix. There's a lot of air conditioning and (even more) heat pumps

And then there's a lot of "just deal with the heat", too. Though even the bus stops are enclosed and air conditioned, mostly as a "look at how opulent we are" thing.

[Baobab]

132. You cannot replace heat in the winter in apartment buildings- Hillary's TTIP fracking deal

is a huge mistake that will make millions of renters homeless.

They want to frack and export it to Asia where they get five times as much, until its gone.

Giving real estate developers an opportunity to get rid of their tenants in cities and rent stabilization laws.

Many of the people who will be displaced don't even drive. They wont survive out in the boonies.

[JDPriestly]

56. We may yet develop new materials that will substitute for the materials we now use for

solar. Computers use different materials now than the computers of the '50s relied on -- not entirely but in good part. These issues involve investing in technological research. We should keep investing a lot in solar research because it is very clean.

[unapatriciated]

134. The problem they have is they haven't figured out yet how to profit from it

[Silver_Witch]

122. What do they use for heating?

[LanternWaste]

138. One might think providing allowing for merely two solutions to a complex problem is the very illustr

One might think providing allowing for merely two solutions to a complex problem is the very illustration of smugness. Not me though-- I see that particular bit of shirt-sighted mental buffoonery as little more than willful blindness masquerading as cleverness.

Which is certainly not smug.

[TheBlackAdder]

143. The plan is to ship most of the LNG & Coal to foreign markets, not for domestic consumption anyway!

.


Someone's head is really in the sand on this thread.


That's partly why the Panama Canal is being expanded, and the multitude of LNG ports being built.


.

[Recursion]

3. Five minutes in, and two DUers already don't care about the environment

"Refuse to answer" means "I don't care about the environment" because you refuse to make a decision about the actual choices we face right now. Disappointing.

[inchhigh]

79. False choice

Wind, solar, geothermal

[Recursion]

80. Real choice. I mentioned them. In 10-15 years they can supply our power generation needs

If we spend the next 10-15 years single-mindedly building out their capacity.

In the interim, which do you support: coal, or fracking? There is not another option. There is no answer that will make you feel good about yourself, but this is an actual choice we face.

[inchhigh]

112. We built the most powerful military

in the history of the world in about a year and a half. If we really wanted to we could do this in about the same time.

[Juicy_Bellows]

137. Exactly.

We could put solar panels on every government building for starters but there isn't the political will because there are too many damn lobbyists for dirty power.

[Loudestlib]

117. Stupid poll.

[beedle]

139. Check the results again and be embarrassed ...

... that you really believe that more than 4 times more people on DU "don't care about the environment' because they refused to respond to one of the stupidest polls ever created ... a '3rd way Democratic' poll designed to attempt 'guilt' people into supporting the destruction of the earth for profits.

[Recursion]

140. And yet the results prove it

DUers prefer keeping their consciences clean to improving the environment.

It's disappointing.

[beedle]

141. Improve the environemnt by supporting

coal or fracking??

Which 'environment' are you trying to improve? The boardrooms of the fossil fuel industry?

what's disappointing is 3rd way democratic bullshit .. they should just call it what it is .. 'Republican corporatism'.

[Recursion]

142. Yep. You have a choice of one or the other for the next decade. Which do you choose?

Actual environmentalists can answer that.

[beedle]

146. Really? "Actual environmentalists"?

Such as?

I await your list of AstroTurf 'environmental' groups claiming this bullshit.

[TheBlackAdder]

168. The refuse option is a catch all for when someone puts up dumb-assed options with zero nuance.

[Silver_Witch]

4. We have waited so long, now we need action

Coal till we get the infrastructure and Wind Farms going...everyone walking when they can - and getting out of their cars!

[Recursion]

7. Great idea

This is the kind of thinking we need, thank you!

[JDPriestly]

47. Yes. Walking would not only help our environment. It would make inroads on our obesity

crisis.

I love walking and public transportation which is sorely lacking and not well funded in Los Angeles.

[Recursion]

71. Blame Judge Doom

"I bought the Red Car, Mr. Valiant, so I could dismantle it..."

[JDPriestly]

74. Thanks for raising this issue, but the way. It is so important for us to be thinking

about this. We are not going to change our reality unless we consider the alternatives.

[Recursion]

76. At least for the next 7 weeks I still live at sea level in the tropics

Climate change is something it's hard not to think about here...

[JDPriestly]

77. Same here in Southern California.

Now that I am retired, I like to garden. The seasons are not at all like they were when we moved here in the 1980s. It's quite troubling.

We need to be a lot more realistic about our lifestyles when it comes to energy. But just what we should be doing is very unclear. Having lived in extremely cold climates in the Midwest, it is, as you point out, pretty foolish to think that people are going to be able to just turn off the oil, gas or coal heaters in the winter. But here in California, we should be living without fossil fuels. It just isn't that cold or that miserably hot here (as it is in say Alabama or Mississippi in the summer).

This issue is going to take a lot of cooperation, and a higher tolerance for a little discomfort.

[Adrahil]

99. Coal is MUCH worse for the long-term health of the environment. NT

[Recursion]

110. Well, it's a "which knee do you want to get shot in?" question

I agree that ultimately air is a more immediate priority than water, but it isn't exactly easy...

[Adrahil]

118. I can agree with that, but....

It IS possible to better protect water when fracking, and it is easier to clean localized water contamination than it is to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Natural gas produces more methane than coal, and methane is an even worse green house gas than CO2, but methane does not stay int he atmosphere the same way CO2 does. I agree. It's what is called a "wicked problem." There is no obviously correct choice, but I think it represents the best long term path as we transition to sustainable, green energy alternatives.

[Silver_Witch]

121. So you choose fracking to sustain us during the trasistion?

[Adrahil]

124. Based on what I know now.... yes. But....

It's not like I think it's great. It's simply better than the alternative. But we need a serious and immediate transition to green energy.

[uppityperson]

6. Neither. I support most hydro, with more building up and usage of wind.

Let's see if you choose to reply civilly or insultingly as that will show whether you want a discussion or an audience to lecture disdainfully.

[Recursion]

8. I support them too, and if we spend a lot of money, in about 15 years they could be enough

In the interim, do you support fracking or coal?

[uppityperson]

10. No, I do not. Do you?

[Recursion]

11. It's one or the other

Right now, for at least the next 10 years, we have the option of fracking or coal.

Like I said, you can refuse an Internet poll, but this isn't a choice the country can actually refuse because for at least the next decade (if we start working today on Grid 2.0) we can either use natural gas (which means fracking) or coal. Which do you support us using?

[uppityperson]

12. No, I do not. Do you?

[Recursion]

13. It's not a "yes or no" question, it's a "which one" question

A) Until renewables are sufficient to meet power generation needs, I support coal

B) Until renewables are sufficient to meet power generation needs, I support fracking

Which of the two statements do you choose? Those are the two options.

I suppose there's also

C) I prefer to just shut down the power grid until renewables are built out.

[uppityperson]

14. Which do you choose?

[Recursion]

17. Fracking, because groundwater contamination isn't as bad as greenhouse gases and particulates

Maslow, I guess, ultimately: air comes before water.

[A Little Weird]

95. Fracking and greenhouse gases

They got by with touting it as a way of producing fewer greenhouse gases by not bothering to count methane and relying on self-reporting. So at best, you can say that the science is unclear on fracking's impact on greenhouse gases but what I've read indicates that it is much worse when it comes to greenhouse gas production.

“The EPA approach continues to rely on self-reporting by industry on their emissions, with no independent verification by EPA or by others,” Howarth said. “Since the industry has a vested interest in having emissions be low, this provides a strong bias towards under-estimation.” http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/epa-moves-to-count-methane-emissions-from-fracking/

If the leakage rate were 5.4 percent, replacing a fleet of coal plants with gas plants would be worse for the climate for 5 decades. If the leakage rate were 7.6 percent, fracked gas is worse for a century!

But it’s even worse than that for fracking. Alvarez et al. used old figures for the global warming potential (GWP) of methane. Last year, the IPCC determined that the 100-year GWP of methane is 40 percent higher than previously estimated.

And it’s even worse than that for fracked gas, which, in the real world, doesn’t just displace coal, it also displaces nuclear power, renewable energy, and energy efficiency. Recent studies have confirmed that — even if methane leakage were zero percent — “increased natural gas use for electricity will not substantially reduce US GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions, and by delaying deployment of renewable energy technologies, may actually exacerbate the climate change problem in the long term.”

Bottom line: fracking speeds up global warming and has no net climate benefit whatsoever in any timescale that matters to humanity. Perhaps it is time to stop squandering tens of billions of dollars on it while rendering billions of gallons of water unfit for human consumption.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/10/22/3582904/methane-leaks-climate-benefit-fracking/

Their policies are based on the fact that gas emits only half as much carbon dioxide as coal when it is burned – but do not take into account the leakage of methane and other greenhouse gases during the process. When these are added in, studies show, shale gas can create even more pollution than coal.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/fracking-to-prompt-sharp-rise-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions-study-says-a6928126.html

[womanofthehills]

162. Not so sure about that

That groundwater contamination is getting into our food supply. North Dakota is particularly disgusting with lax regulations and low fines for sleazy companies dumping their fracking water along roadsides and in farmer's fields. Radon also comes with fracking.. Dakota wheat probably now has fracking chemicals and radioactivity along with its glyphosate. Yum.

[JDPriestly]

38. How about supporting increasing our efforts to switch to renewables maybe hundreds

of thousands of times. (We really aren't moving very fast in that direction now.)

But in the meantime, using both fracking and/or coal in areas in which they make sense.

It makes not sense to be using coal or gas in the Southwest where we have an unbelievable amount of sunshine. On the other hand, using solar panels in rainy climates is perhaps not the best use of our resources. Maybe fracking or coal are better there for the moment depending on the geology.

We need to be somewhat flexible, but we need to make a much bigger effort to move toward renewable energy, clean energy. It is a matter of life or death for our children and grandchildren.

The free market is not going to fix our energy problem. We need to cooperate and plan a bit when it comes to moving toward renewable energy. See my posts below.

[Agschmid]

113. Yup.

[thesquanderer]

156. There are more options than you provided.

Most obviously, you have no option for "both." There's an argument to be made for that, because some of each might be better than a lot more of one.

Another option is to raise prices/lower demand. If you don't frack, okay, maybe the price of oil doubles back to where it was not that long ago, and that, in turn, depresses consumption. Is it a great choice? No, but like you said, there are no great choices here.

Also, what exactly do you mean by "coal"? Do you mean building new coal facilities, or slowing the rate of phasing out old ones? (I don't think anyone is proposing shutting all of them down on their first day in office.)

Really, no matter how you look at it, there's going to be more to it than A or B, Yes or No.

[Electric Monk]

163. The 4th Largest Economy In The World Just Generated 90 Percent Of The Power It Needs From Renewables

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027822443

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/05/09/3776629/germany-renewable-generation/

"SNIP................

On Sunday, for a brief, shining moment, renewable power output in Germany reached 90 percent of the country’s total electricity demand.

That’s a big deal. On May 8th, at 11 a.m. local time, the total output of German solar, wind, hydropower, and biomass reached 55 gigawatts (GW), just short of the 58 GW consumed by every light bulb, washing machine, water heater and personal computer humming away on Sunday morning. See the graph below, courtesy Agora Energiewende, a German clean energy think tank. (It’s important to note that most likely, not all of that 55 GW could be used at the time it was generated due to system and grid limitations, but it’s still noteworthy that this quantity of power was produced.)

[JDPriestly]

40. Hydro is good if you live in an area with a lot of water, but in Southern California, it

is not realistic. We need solar. On the other hand, in many areas of the country, solar is not the most efficient or economical energy source. We need to be flexible but organized.

[JonLeibowitz]

15. I support Nuclear. As a scientist-in-training it is baffling to me that we do not use it more

I understand the NIMBY problems, and the environmentalists, but when you compare to Fracking and Coal, is the comparison even of the same scale? Well, they say that the waste is a problem: people in other labs at my university and colleagues at other universities tell me that the nuclear waste problem can be mitigated with future reactors which burn leftover fuel. Thorium technology is ready to be explored, with the potential ability to go online in 10-15 years. It is stunning to me that we do not make more use of Nuclear, and instead use coal or do fracking.

In the interim, there are no real solutions other than use the current power mix available to us. However, domestic fracking has significant issues and I cannot support the destruction of lands and natural resources; people's water supplies are being contaminated -- it is a classic tragedy of the commons. I want to see our candidates talk more about addressing these problems.

Still, I doubt you will find any serious disagreement that in the next 10 years we will still need to use natural gas. The question is how we focus our energies (heh) for the next 10 years to have sustainable power sources after that. My vote is with Nuclear (and ultimately solar, but that is longer term).

[Recursion]

18. Nuclear definitely has a role in our future, I agree

It is stunning to me that we do not make more use of Nuclear, and instead use coal or do fracking.

Agreed, but that's where we are

[JonLeibowitz]

26. Yep, but I hope you don't take from this that our candidates are equal on the issues.

In energy systems we need radical change and bold vision, so that in 8 years we don't find ourselves in the same place. I find Clinton's equivocation disturbing and wonder how beholden she will be to oil and gas interests. It is difficult for me to trust her on this.

At the same time, Sanders declaration that we will ban all fracking may be unrealistic (not sure whether there are alternative extraction methods) and do him no credit.

[Recursion]

31. We support different candidates?

I voted Sanders. I don't like or trust him, but same is true for Clinton... I just think he's entirely wrong on fracking, and at least seems to be unable to admit that choices like this, today, actually exist.

[JonLeibowitz]

41. No I don't think we support different candidates.

Just stating that my admission that the next decade of energy production will be, well, unclean, doesn't mean I think there aren't differences between them here that can make a significant difference.

I plan to vote Sanders on June 7. Wish there was another reasonable and ethical candidate like O'Malley to keep things interesting and have a real debate of ideas (Sanders likely would come up short I such a debate, even though he never seems to vote in a way I disapprove of; at the same time I recognize good judgement is different from bold vision). I don't see Clinton as adding anything to the substance of debate in this primary. In fact since O'Malley dropped out the debates have become more useless.

[JDPriestly]

32. Tell that to the people in Portland, downwind and downstream from Hanford.

Tell that to the people of Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Nuclear energy is very dangerous, and it is not just a matter of the waste. We are human and therefore we err. When we err with nuclear energy, devastation can result.

[Recursion]

37. And particulates from coal kill millions of people every year (nt)

[JonLeibowitz]

43. +1

My understanding of possible nuclear technologies using molten salt reactor designs and possibly Thorium as a source, is that We can do much better than our current 1970s era reactor designs we have now.

[JDPriestly]

59. Let's hope. We need to invest in moving toward more sensible technologies.

Chernobyl, Fukushima, Hanford . . . . Terrible risks. Frightening risks for future humans and animals on our earth who may not have the technological understanding that we have.

[JDPriestly]

54. True. Especially in highly populated areas like Los Angeles in which we have problems

with pollution due in part to our geography.

[JonLeibowitz]

135. I grew up downwind of the Salem NJ nuclear plant. I was scared as a kid.

I don't begrudge them the right to protest, but I still think it is the best energy source we have now.

[RKP5637]

103. Agree!!! n/t

[Recursion]

20. But if you oppose fracking you're supporting coal

It's a binary thing. You either want more natural gas (which means more fracking) or you want more coal. Which do you choose?

[Recursion]

23. No, you're burying your head in the sand

In 20 years we could supply the country's power with renewables, maybe (if there are enough lanthanides on earth for us to go strip mine, which isn't clear to begin with).

In the intervening 20 years, since you oppose fracking, that means you want more coal to be used.

[JDPriestly]

29. We have to allow that we are constantly making new discoveries.

Here in California, we have a problem with a serious water shortage. On the other hand we have an unending supply of sun. We should not have fracking here. Our groundwater system is too fragile for that.

We need to move to solar. It makes sense here. Other parts of the country might be better off with other forms of energy. I think this is a regional issue, but the entire country needs to work together to resolve it. If we could just get the very sunny, Southwestern states to switch to solar it would make sense. I am not sure whether solar makes good sense in some of the other parts of the country. So this is a regional issue.

[JDPriestly]

60. We also should not have fracking in Southern California because of the proven increased

risk of earthquakes. We have a serious earthquake fault here, the San Andreas fault.

Other areas of the country may be more appropriate for fracking, but not Southern California. We have a very different environment here than they do in New York State or Ohio.

[Recursion]

62. Those are perfectly valid reasons to oppose fracking, which means using more coal

Sometimes life gives you bad choices.

[JDPriestly]

65. Coal is not good here because of the fact that due to the mountain ranges that

surround us, pollution collects in our air. I cannot explain this from a technical point of view, but all of us who live in the Los Angeles area are very aware of the smog. Fossil fuels cause it, and it causes illnesses.

Solar and wind are practical here. Other forms of energy are not. It's just the reality. We are changing, but we need to move toward more solar and where wind is available, wind much, much more rapidly.

Coal and fracking in our area are impractical. Hydro -- we don't have that kind of water. We import it already. And our air quality has to be protected as well as our earth. We probably are not a very good place to have such a large city, but that cannot be changed either.

Solar and wind are the only realistic choices in Southern California in the long term.

[Recursion]

66. For the long term, definitely

But people need electricity between now and the long term.

[JDPriestly]

69. We already have some solar and we have wind farms out in the Eastern part of the state

on high mountain ridges. Solar is being encouraged and is increasing.

Our energy needs are, I believe, not as great as they are in colder parts of the country.

[Bluenorthwest]

119. Right now, California gets 5.5% of its energy from hydro, 6.4% from coal. 20.1% is from renewables

such as solar, geothermal, wind and biomass. 44.5% is from natural gas. CA produces virtually no coal.

Oregon currently 42.88% Hydro, 33.65% coal, 13.55% natural gas. Oregon also produces no coal.

These are regional and questions with regional answers. But it is fairly clear that the options are not 'coal or fraking' but far more numerous and nuanced, about combinations and processes of elimination and replacement. Oregon is working on tidal forces for energy production, both States have long coasts. Other States, they have no coast, no tides to harness. CA is too gas dependent, Oregon too coal dependent each State has different ways to address their different issues.

California should not be fraking, seismically too risky. They can excel in solar and wind production, tidal and geothermal.

[womanofthehills]

159. Why can Germany do it but not us?

On Saturday, July 25, Germany set a new national record for renewable energy by meeting 78 percent of the day’s electricity demand with renewables sources, exceeding the previous record of 74 percent set in May of 2014.

According to an analysis by German energy expert Craig Morris at the Energiewende blog, a stormy day across northern Europe combined with sunny conditions in southern Germany led to the new record, the exact figures of which are still preliminary. Morris writes that most of Germany’s wind turbines are installed in the north and most of its solar panels are in the south.

[Recursion]

160. We can too. They started about 20 years ago

If we can convince Congress to spend a lot of money starting right now, in about a decade and change we can have that too. Until then, reducing fracking means increasing coal, and vice versa.

[Onlooker]

22. Probably fracking of those two, but fracking certainly isn't good ...

... I know there are those on the side of climate change who believe that fracking and nuclear energy are transitional energy sources en route to a truly renewable energy future. Hillary's stand on fracking is quite reasonable -- it's up to the local communities, it can't pollute groundwater, and the chemicals used to frack must be made public. The reason I'm not sure is that while scientists may support fracking to provide a lower greenhouse gas transitional source of fuel, environmentalists oppose fracking (and nuclear energy), so have to read more about it before I fully make up my mind.

[Recursion]

24. Who the hell said fracking was "good"?

I feel like a large section of DU has simply never processed the fact that a lot of times life presents you a finite set of problematic choices.

[Onlooker]

61. No one said it's good, but ...

at various times the IPCC and other international energy groups have stated that fracking is better than coal and has helped reduce our use of coal. Like nuclear energy, it is seen as a transitional solution until such time that we have fully developed (and made affordable) renewable energy sources. Fracking produces natural gas, which is better for the environment than coal. Coal still leads natural gas in terms of electricity production, but because of fracking that is beginning to change.

[JDPriestly]

64. I met a man on a train who builds power plants.

He supports nuclear energy as does an environmentalist that I know. But then, as one of the DUers has pointed out, we need to move to newer technology if we are to rely on nuclear energy.

Nuclear energy may not be suitable for Southern California because of our vulnerability to the rising oceans and earthquakes. Solar is the best solution for us combined with some wind. Our environmental situation is rather unique. And I think that the local environment should determine what energy source is used.

We are not going to switch away from coal, oil, gas, nuclear, our current energy forms overnight. But we need to make a much greater effort to move away from those forms of energy that harm our environment. One size, one solution, does not fit all areas of the country.

[JDPriestly]

25. I live in Southern California and would like to have a lot more solar.

We could be completely relying on solar for our daytime energy and perhaps even our nighttime energy. There is no excuse for using coal or gas in Southern California other than the investment in upgrading to solar is left up to the individual home or building owners who often cannot afford the upgrade.

Either we care about the environment or we don't.

Today I canvassed in my neighborhood in Los Angeles. So many of the houses are in bad condition, bad paint, bad sidewalks, a lot of trash around them. People work hard and can't afford to keep up their houses much less pay for the upgrade to solar.

Changing our energy sources is a problem for our entire society. We need to start that change where it is easiest and will be most successful. For solar that means starting in the Southwest in my opinion. I am unaware of any other part of the country that could produce as much energy from solar as our area could.

Once solar has replaced gas and coal and oil for electricity production in the Southwest, we can move to changing the way we produce energy in other parts of the country.

Let's do what makes sense first. Immediately replacing coal and gas will be difficult, but replacing them according to a sensible plan over time will work well. Let's put solar to work in the areas with the most sun first. Same for wind area. Some areas have a lot more wind generally than others. Use the wind area in the regions in which it makes the most sense first. Then move on to update the energy sources in other parts of the country. That strategy will also lessen the blow on those areas of our economy that produce coal and oil and gas and give them time to refocus on environmentally friendly ways to produce energy.

[Recursion]

30. Solar cells require fairly rare metals that are oxidized by the power generation process

It's why I hesitate to call solar "renewable". I'm not against it, but it replaces a fairly immediate extraction problem with a long-term one (which in itself is better, but still avoiding the bigger problem). Hydro and geothermal and wind are renewable in a more realistic sense. That said, definitely, in the interim build out solar as much as we can.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. Excellent Graphic. Never seen that one before.

In answer to your question, I want scalable compact fusion. That's what I want.

[Recursion]

35. The rejection rate from power generation and transport is stunning

We could solve a lot of problems by just fixing that....

[Warren DeMontague]

42. Yeah, that jumped out at me, too.

Like 60% of the total, right?

[Recursion]

44. Or (ironically) equal to the entire output of coal and natural gas, roughly

I know for transport a lot of that is how crazily inefficient the ICE is, and so moving to electric motors will help.... except that the electricity for those motors has to be generated. Sigh.

[Warren DeMontague]

52. Which is why I suspect decentralized generation schemes will have to be part of the answer

As you say, it's pretty expensive to fix the grid. But if you could get some forms of generation capability out to the masses; like when people have solar panels on their roof.

If everyone is generating some or all of their own power, a lot of problems are solved, it seems to me.

[Recursion]

57. Hugely agree with the decentralization

If everyone is generating some or all of their own power, a lot of problems are solved, it seems to me.


Yeah. It's only been recently that the control systems existed to really allow that, but it's at least feasible now.

[JonLeibowitz]

48. LLNL does great research (not going to say anything else to avoid identifying myself)

Unfortunately the kinds of nuclear research I understand them to be doing will only pay off in 50+ years. The lab to look to for nuclear reactor research is Oak Ridge (as well as the Chinese and Indians).

[Warren DeMontague]

55. That's been the line- Fusion is 20 years away. Always... 20 years away.

I had thought the announcements Lockheed Martin made a couple years ago were interesting, if perhaps a bit overoptimistic. Maybe that'll pan out, but it's been quiet since then.

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.html

[JonLeibowitz]

58. I mean, the nuclear research that LLNL is so far from production I wouldn't put a timetable on it.

They're literally focusing lasers to try to stabilize bits of plasma and sustain a nuclear fusion reaction. I don't hold up much hope that the results of this research will help us before climate change is resolved, one way or the other.

I am much more optimistic about alternative nuclear fission technologies with various fuel cycles.

[Blue_In_AK]

33. I support wind, sun, geothermal and tidal,

and some hydro, as long as it doesn't impact the salmon.

[Recursion]

34. And for the 20 years it takes to build those capacities out?

Seriously, you can't claim that's an unfair question. Do you want coal or natural gas to supply the electricity until then?

[Blue_In_AK]

50. Since you're giving me a binary question,

I guess natural gas, but there are already communities even here in my cold state that are running almost exclusively on renewables.



https://www.greenbiz.com/article/how-one-alaskan-island-went-100-renewable

As most Alaskans can attest, energy in The Last Frontier is expensive.

The average residential electricity rate of more than 18 cents per kWh is a full 50 percent higher than the national average, ranking among the highest in the country. That’s in part because outside the 50 hydro plants throughout the state, most of Alaska’s rural communities rely on imported diesel for their electricity.

But the folks of Kodiak Island (pop. 15,000) in southern Alaska — powered almost 100 percent with renewable energy — have a different story to tell.

Although Kodiak Island, the second-largest island in the United States, relied on hydropower for 80 percent of the electricity production, it was also burning 2.8 million gallons of diesel per year, at an annual cost of $7 million.

In the face of climate change and high electricity costs, the board and managers at Kodiak Electric Association (KEA) set a goal of producing 95 percent of the community’s electrical needs with renewable energy by 2020.

They actually arrived there well ahead of time, and are now 99.7 percent renewably powered by wind and hydro.

<snip>

[Recursion]

82. And that took them 15 years to do, didn't it?

You're proving my point.

[Cheese Sandwich]

36. I'm against both of them and so are a lot specialists and experts.

What if I gave you a list of 25 PhD level experts who are dead set against fracking, and obviously against coal?

Would you insist they are all not acting like "adults".

You've got a lot of nerve implying that anybody who disagrees with you about using methane as fuel is not acting like an adult.

[Recursion]

39. Too bad! Which do you want us to use?

What if I gave you a list of 25 PhD level experts who are dead set against fracking, and obviously against coal?

Would you insist they are all not acting like "adults".

Yes, if they think there's a way to decrease fracking without increasing coal use, or decrease coal use without increasing fracking. There isn't, and won't be for at least 10 years.

[Cheese Sandwich]

49. There is a way. Use less energy and put more renewables into the mix

Nobody is saying this change can happen overnight.

10 years? That's like now. If you want something 10 years from now you need to fight for it like it was due yesterday.

[Recursion]

67. Yep. And in those 10 years we need power generation

For that, do you support coal or fracking?

[Cheese Sandwich]

78. I don't agree with your framing of the question.

You're being extremely simplistic because you're focused on the very short term.

But you're ignoring the deeper reality that if we want to prevent or mitigate catastrophic climate change then we need massive coordinated emergency action right now.

The argument that you are making is the same argument used to delay emergency measures.

Imagine if all the multi billions of dollars that was used to build up the fracking infrastructure for the past 10 years, laying all the pipes, the waste disposal, the drills, the jobs, just imagine if all that money had been invested in wind and solar instead. Or even half of it.

That's where our focus should be. Fracking is a massive investment in a dead end fuel. It isn't the future and it isn't a bridge. It's a distraction and an excuse to avoid facing the emergency.

It is possible to create a green energy future and we're not going to get there by entrenching the methane industry.

This is the type of path we need to be on.



http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/14/1716851/can-the-empire-state-go-green-new-study-says-new-york-state-can-be-100-renewable-by-2050/

You're saying people who reject methane as a fuel are not acting "adult" but to me you're framing of the issue seems kind of juvenile and naive, like trying to force people to choose between two shitty choices when they are telling you they prefer some third better choice.

The bottom line is when you have a pile of money, like the wealth of the US treasury and the energy companies, and you have to choose where to spend it, that's the real choice we are faced with, we would be better off investing in renewables than we would in building up more entrenched fossil fuel interests. It's a better investment.

[Recursion]

83. Too bad, because that's the actual question we face, today

You're being extremely simplistic because you're focused on the very short term.


Yeah, I crazily don't want millions of people to die because we stopped generating electricity. Short-sighted, I know.

You're being myopic by refusing to admit that the short term exists. But the short term has a way of asserting itself.

[Cheese Sandwich]

84. Short term thinking is what got us down this road. You have to look ahead, decades ahead.

Building up the methane industry without investing in renewables is a disaster.

Consider all the multi-billions of dollars that were poured into the natural gas industry, building up its infrastructure and operations over the last 10 years.

Can you imagine if that had been invested in wind and solar instead? In research, and also in efficiency and energy conservation. And in building the new infrastructure. Or even if half the money had been used like that.

What do you imagine? Do you think we would be sitting here in the dark not able to use our computers because there's no electricity? Because that's what you just said. So I guess that's what you think. Burn methane or we have no electricity and millions of people will die? You actually believe there is no other way to generate electricity?

Why did we invest multi billions more in infrastructure for fracking instead of for wind and solar?

I'll spell it out: because the industry thinks gas is more profitable and they're probably right. You're being sorely naive as to what drives these decisions.

We have most of the technology we need to move forward to a sustainable energy solution. We can work on closing the gap with research. The main obstacles are political, not technological.

[senz]

45. Should have listened to this guy 40 years ago.

You know, an old-fashioned Democrat, back when the label meant something.

[Recursion]

46. Yep. I wish we had (nt)

[wundermaus]

72. You make the ad nauseum declaration that the choice is coal or fracking...

Which you pronounce are the only viable options within the next 10 to 20 years.
That is false premise and a false choice with a resulting false conclusion.
The question is how do we transition rapidly from fossil based energy to renewable and sustainable based energy?

There may be other solutions to this problem but coal or fracking are not going to allow us to transition to an energy sustainable civilization before we snuff ourselves out of existence. We do not have 10 or 20 years to continue adding excess CO2 to the atmosphere. We need to act yesterday... actually decades ago. The inevitable will be delayed by throwing more particulate up into the atmosphere by using coal but it will not save us. i will only delay the catastrophic results of our denial. Fracking is an immediate and devastating ecological disaster. There is no reason the technology exists except for greed.

The only solution I see to resolve this global emergency is rapid reductions in the use of fossil fuels combined with dramatic increases in efficient use of what we do use on the order of 80 to 90% reduction within this decade - before 2020. Actually, I think it is already too late but it is better to do something and hope that something better is discovered to solve the crisis than to do nothing or make it worse.

There are no easy answers to to what we are facing. Hell, there may not be ANY solution at this point, but I do recognize insanity. And that is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. So go ahead and make your choice:

[Recursion]

81. Because the choice is coal or fracking and pretending we can magically build out renewables tomorrow

is juvenile.

You either support coal, or fracking, right now, by which I mean your political choices are responsible for one or the other of them increasing. There's not a third option, and won't be until we actually do that work to build out renewables.

[pat_k]

85. It's not either/or. Depends on region.

A shift to the widespread use of residential solar panels can be accelerated by increases in incentives/rebates/grants. Significant decreases in consumption requirements can be brought about relatively quickly. This "distributed approach" can complement the longer term development of more centralized infrastructure.

Fracking in regions where water resources are limited should be banned. But of course, whether or not that happens will be up to local governments.

Not all fields require fracking. Production has shifted away from the slower, steadier production of coal bed methane wells in favor of techniques that push the gas out as fast as possible. Where fracking is banned, CBM wells start looking attractive again. So, it's not always "coal vs. fracking," in some areas it's "fracking vs. CBM."

Where fracking is permitted, a far more aggressive program of monitoring groundwater, wells, etc., for contamination must be put in place, with the cost born by the gas corps. Federal limits need to be set. When those limits are exceeded, production stops. That's a big incentive to develop the "cleanest" processes possible. Levels of escaped methane must also be constantly monitored. Standards for minimizing escape must be put into place. Otherwise, we're just trading one greenhouse gas for another. Furthermore, restrictions on the carbon footprint associated with the diesel and gas driven drilling and production processes are needed, with surcharges to encourage a shift to cleaner processes.

The gas boom will be slowed by the additional regulation, but it will move forward with greater assurance that contamination and carbon footprint is minimized.

The current focus is on shifting from coal to natural gas. That needs to change. The focus needs to be on shifting from coal to renewables. In the current "gas boom" legislatures seem to be forgetting that. If fracking is curbed, the focus can get back on increasing the contribution of renewables. No, we won't be replacing coal overnight. But aggressive targets can be set for increasing the contribution of renewables annually, and decreasing consumption, so that in a few decades we reach the levels we know are possible. A slower "ramping down" of coal enables the coal industry, and the people in it, to adapt.

My two cents.

[NeoGreen]

86. False choice and it completely ignores...

...conservation, whether by intent or otherwise.

[JonathanRackham]

87. Solar and wind.

We need to rethink hydro too. Damn it.

[Android3.14]

88. And you have a pretty graphic.

Meh. Another oil addict explains why he will always be an addict.

You are overestimating cost, underestimating time, and ignoring industrial and government R&D.

Imagine if we tried to get to the Moon using 1962's technology.

[Recursion]

89. And the moon landing took almost a decade

Again, until renewables are actually there, not just "they would be great", you either support fracking, or you support coal. There's not a way out.

[B Calm]

90. I'm surprised you didn't include nuclear, lol.

[Recursion]

91. I mentioned it. Same problem as renewables: it would take a decade or so

to get it built out to the level our power generation needs (and that's not counting if we massively move to electric cars, which our grid isn't remotely ready for at this point).

[B Calm]

93. Why is it America is not ready? I remember a time when America led the world, now

days we are just followers.

[Recursion]

94. Same reason we weren't ready to go to the moon in 1962?

That took 7 years. This is an even bigger program we're talking about.

[B Calm]

100. So in the mean time we should invest all our energy in supporting gas and coal?

[Recursion]

101. It's that or see a massive drop in available energy

So, yes, there are three options:

1. Burn more coal, which has to be mined

2. Burn more natural gas, which has to be fracked

3. Use less energy

3 has been the holy grail for a while now, and we've made a little progress, but I'm curious how far you think we could take that?

[B Calm]

102. Maybe Trump is right when he says we are not great anymore. .

[Recursion]

104. Nah. I live in the third world right now, remember

Seven more weeks.

The US has a load of problems but it beats most of the world hands-down.

[B Calm]

106. 5 other countries are leading the way to renewable energy.

http://ecowatch.com/2015/01/09/countries-leading-way-renewable-energy/

[B Calm]

164. Burlington, Vermont disagrees. They are now at 100% renewable energy for it's residents.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/vermont-city-come-rely-100-percent-renewable-energy/

[Recursion]

166. Exactly: it took them about 20 years to get there

That's true everywhere.

[B Calm]

167. I've reread that article and for the like of me can't figure where you pulled that 20 years out of,

but. .

[hellofromreddit]

96. You don't have an option for reducing personal energy usage

That's something that can be achieved without any new infrastructure and can displace both NG and coal, so it is a perfectly viable option.

I don't run A/C and I rarely run the heat. I get around by bicycle, and a lot of the food I eat doesn't require cooking. The electric service I do use is wind-generated and has been for years.

For people who must choose between coal and NG, coal has lower secondary effects, though we do need to find a much better way to dispose of the ash than the current leave-it-in-a-heap method.

[womanofthehills]

161. Actually, I do run my computer

on solar.

[Adrahil]

98. Well, like MOST things, it's complicated.

I prefer a transition to sustainable energy. BUT.... we have energy needs NOW, and right now, the real choice for power generation is coal vs. natural gas from fracking. Fracking, of course, has its own set of environmental concerns, but coal is FAR worse for the long term health of the environment. We should do all we can be doing to stop the use of coal for power generation and the environmental disaster that is mountain top removal coal mining. And yes, that means coal miners will lose their jobs. We need to work on realigning the economies where they live to support the green energy economy and other long-term job opportunities.

[Agschmid]

105. Interesting how many don't get the question.

Or don't want to choose.

Of course long term both have huge negatives, unfortunately we have a demand for power and renewables do not yet meet that demand.

[Recursion]

107. In retrospect the language is ambiguous

But I don't know of a way in English to make it un-ambiguous.

Hindi and Bengali have two different kinds of "or", which renders that confusion impossible. They also distinguish between a "we" that includes the listener/reader and a "we" that doesn't. Both great ideas.

[Agschmid]

108. Thread is worth the time to read it, thanks for posting.

[Recursion]

109. Who's that between the Zakim bridge and the BU Citgo Sign in your sig?

I've wondered that for a while.

[Agschmid]

111. Kiiara

She is a musician, this is one song I like...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiiara

[Recursion]

114. Love it, thanks!

This is the thread that keeps on giving....

[Bluenorthwest]

120. What's missing from your OP verbiage is a timeline, you seem to be saying 'coal or fraking forever'

rather than 'which should we use as we transition to better things, knowing that the transition will take a good deal of time'. You seem to be arguing as if people who want cleaner energy are demanding that we stop all coal and gas burning this afternoon when people are talking about a long process. You seem to be portraying anyone with the objective of developing clean and sustainable energy as calling for instant adoption of the new and instant rejection of the old.

You seem to be saying 'Dinner is not ready, so do we eat dirt or shit' and others are saying 'why not just snack on leftovers while we get the table ready'. It's not ready now, but it will be eventually. Can't every have dinner get done if you don't start chopping and simmering hours ahead of your hour of actual need.

What's the best thing to do while we fix our problems is a good question. But your presentation is more like 'we can't fix it so which bad thing should we call good and use forever and ever'. That's probably not what you mean, but it is how you sound. This is not because English lacks the proper word for 'or'. It's a function of your style. A function of choice.

[Recursion]

123. No, I specifically said "now" and mentioned a decade+ time frame (nt)

[Bluenorthwest]

125. And yet your polling verbiage is 'do you support coal or do you support fracking' and

you add a complaint that DU allows respondents to reject both options. If the options are two things I do not care for, do not ask me to support one of them if your question is actually 'which are you more prone to accept as stop gap'.
Your verbiage is aggressively personal, and demands not an acceptance of a reality but that respondents declare support for the two options we are in fact going to have to move away from eventually. What I accept as the only possible current option is not necessarily what I support or seek as objective. It's what I'm stuck with.
But your poll and thread says 'Declare your support for one of these two things or you are stupid'. You preclude nuance, process, regional differences, progress being made and insist on people stating they are happy with the very things we seek to bring to an end, be that in a few years or several or many, fossil fuels come to an end one day. What I support is not being left holding an empty energy bag when that happens. That means not putting all our eggs into your fossil basket.

[My Good Babushka]

115. I think both will be needed for another twenty years

But I favor coal over fracking because I think the risks are better known. The natural gas industry needs to submit to real regulation and they shouldn't be allowed to hide the substances they use as proprietary secrets. Any subsidy to the gas industry should come with a second prong of research funds for water treatment and rehabilitation. And they should work in tandem to reach water rehabilitation goals, which could also have a great impact worldwide, as water pollution is a problem in lots of places. It would be a great humanitarian outreach and show that we are still leaders in technology, we care about human rights, and are not anti-science.

[Recursion]

116. Thanks, that's a really good answer (nt)

[leeroysphitz]

126. Whichever one Clinton likes is clearly the best. n/t

[lagomorph777]

127. Well, there's a nice false dichotomy, courtesy of the American Petroleum Institute

We will be spending trillions on energy in the coming decades. The question is whether we will spend that money responsibly, or (as the OP suggests) in a way that ignores the realities of worsening climate change and improving economics for alternatives.

[NorthCarolina]

128. Wind, solar, and ocean currents are the future. The sooner the better. -nt-

[doc03]

129. What about a both box? n/t

[Baobab]

130. No I do not support the TTIP fracking deal thats going to push millions out on the street

and heating and electricity prices through the roof IRREVERSIBLY, kill lots of jobs and lead to massive dislocations of poor and middle class people from older apartment buildings (postwar or earlier) in cities at the delight of real estate developers.


Many of those people will literally have no place to go. Most of them do not even drive or own cars. The dumbest thing we can do is export LNG when we have so many Americans living in older RENTAL housing who cannot afford to suddenly move.

Hillary's support of the TTIP LNG export deal is well known in the EU, and lots of people are drolling about its hidden backstory, massive evictions of people who are currently living in rent stabilized apartments that have rent tied to the CPI and a single apartment, so no legal method exists to get them a home in the cities they live in now if they lose theirs.

It woud be insanely expensive.

But these million dollar PR firms cover this up, mark my words, that will kill the Democratic party, that energy DEAL is a huge mistake, that is going to be one of the worst mistakes of a Clinton Administration.

And it will be a stab in the back to the very people who are helping her get elected.

[LWolf]

131. Neither.

I support clean, sustainable, environmentally responsible energy choices.

And I've done so for 45 years, which has been plenty of time to achieve building the infrastructure to generate and deliver that energy, so I am truly not impressed with more suggestions for "someday."

If we'd invested the $$$ we have poured down the black hole of the MIC and the fucking "war" on "terror" in clean, safe, sustainable, environmental energy, we'd be there.

[unapatriciated]

133. nope, enough said.

[Sparkly]

136. Magic.

People support MAGIC that makes renewable energy a reality right this minute, not decades from now.

Why wasn't MAGIC in the poll?

(It is also what makes it possible for a president to pass any legislation he/she wants to without Congress, or to make Congressional Republicans disappear!)

[Xyzse]

145. You're kidding right? One does not need to support those things to let them keep going.

I am more concerned on where you would want to allocate most of your funds.

Even if I prefer not to deal with coal or fracking, existing infrastructure and operations will have to keep going in the interim, but lessen their funding and capacity, concentrate resources to building the renewables.

The issue is not that we have to get rid of coal or fracking, the issue really is that there is too much of a concentration on them, when it needs to lessen.

It is idiotic to keep advocating for those two industries and keeping it at the same level of support and funding as they are being given now.

Currently, the US allocates a disproportionate amount to current established industries while those particular industries stifle the innovation and ability to improve by emerging industries. I don't see why we can't cut both of their funding and ability to expand while putting more concentration on those renewables.

Which is why, merely asking which one do you support tends to be pointless. Of course most people would have to accept that coal and fracking will stay around for years to come but it does not mean that they should be getting as much support as they are getting now, and it really needs to get cut, and place a greater share on renewals. Continuing the status quo is not an option.

[pdsimdars]

147. Why didn't you put an option for "neither"??

[Recursion]

148. Because reducing fracking means more coal gets mined and burned

And reducing coal use means more natural gas gets fracked.

[pdsimdars]

149. Well, unless you focus on switching . . like we switched all those auto factories into making planes

[Recursion]

150. Which, as I said in the OP, could pay off in a decade or so

Whereas we have to breathe the air and drink the water now, and right now decreasing fracking will increase coal use (and vice versa).

[tularetom]

151. WTF is a quad?

I don't accept your premise that we must turn to either or both fracking or coal as an interim energy source until we can get online with renewable sources.

But if it turns out that these are our only options, I support coal. Why? Purely selfish reasons. I do not live within several hundred miles of any identified coal deposits. We have in the past had producing gas wells within 20 miles of here and I suppose it is conceivable that it could happen again.

I like your graphic, it lays it all out there. It also shows how much of the energy we produce is essentially wasted. By the way, WTF is a quad?

[Recursion]

154. A quadrillion BTUs, or roughly an exajoule

It's a large-scale unit of energy.

[tularetom]

155. Its been many years since I knew this stuff but I recall that a million BTU's = 300 kwhr =/-

So a quadrillion BTU's would be a billion times that or 300 billion kwhr.

And from the chart it appears that the bulk of those 300 billion kwhr is heat that escapes to the atmosphere.

How many (quads, BTUs, kWhr) does it take to raise the temperature of the atmosphere 1 degree?

[Recursion]

157. With the caveat that thermodynamics was about a decade ago, 5 Zottajoules, or 5000 quads.

The mass of the atmosphere is (to a cocktail-napkin level of precision) 5 * 10²¹ g.

The specific heat of air is (again, roughly) 1 J / (g K)

Delta T in this case is 1 (let's stick with Kelvin just to keep this easy)

E = C * m * Delta T, or 1 * 5 * 10²¹ * 1 = 5 * 10²¹ J = 5 Zottajoules (I had to look that up; I only know the prefixes through exa-).

(Also only a portion of the rejected energy is heating the atmosphere; some of it is making the atmosphere more humid.) But it's definitely a contributor to warming, if a small-ish one relatively.

[Matariki]

152. Solar. Wind

Research and government grants. Killing the planet really shouldn't be an option.

[basselope]

153. Neither.

We can meet our current energy needs without either.

[CentralCoaster]

158. Not enough options, this is a push poll.

I get the point, and I appreciate the energy flows Sankey diagram, I use this in many presentations.

My response would be that I support both under the conditions that we work hard to phase them out, institute carbon taxes yesterday, and ramp up renewable source generation and storage technologies. We also have to regulate the hell out of fracking and require disclosure of fracking chemicals and compounds.

Most people don't have enough information about the energy sector to have an informed discussion so your poll is a bit unfair.

But, again, I get the point.

[riderinthestorm]

165. Neither. We built the bomb in @ 3 years iirc. Our WWII military in half that time

I believe we could similarly apply ourselves to a national effort to wean ourselves off coal, fracking and nuclear within 5 years if we wanted it.

Solar, hydro, wind, geothermal all have solid platforms now and are just waiting for cash and momentum.

FWIW, if pressed, I'd choose coal over fracking since we have a longer history with it and more ability to regulate it and its effects but honestly I don't see this as a binary choice.