Electrickery is coming. GULP!

[tintin]

Originally Posted by moltuae

Very true. But what are the long term effects of renewables like solar if we've got it wrong? We could be causing environmental damage that might take much longer than 20,000 years to recover from, if recovery is even possible.

And while even one death is a death too many, nuclear is still statistically the safest, so I don't think we should be deterred by the disasters of the past. We should learn from disasters such as Chernobyl and move on. Similarly, despite over 1 million deaths caused by road traffic accidents worldwide each year, nobody would suggest we ban all motorised vehicles. Instead we learn from accidents and strive to make roads safer through research and technology.

Interesting thread this one: what are the likely long term environmental damages for more than 20,000 years from solar that you're thinking of Mark? Or extending that slightly, I'd also be interested in the same likely potential long term damages from other renewables - e.g. wind and wave. They're not obvious to me.

[moltuae]

Originally Posted by tintin

Interesting thread this one: what are the likely long term environmental damages for more than 20,000 years from solar that you're thinking of Mark? Or extending that slightly, I'd also be interested in the same likely potential long term damages from other renewables - e.g. wind and wave. They're not obvious to me.

If you watch the TED talk I posted, he puts forward a very credible argument about the damaging effects of renewables. I'm not saying that I fully agree with his point of view (I would need to do some research first); I was just posting the talk because I think he makes some plausible points that are worth discussing here. I'm completely open to any counter-information that invalidates his claims.

What he says does make a lot of sense I think though. When you consider the vast amount of land, materials, manufacturing energy, transportation, hazardous materials, etc, etc that would be required to produce sufficient wind and solar generation units to power the entire planet, there will certainly be a price to pay, especially when you consider that those type of renewable energy sources produce miniscule amount of power relative to their size.