Molten-salt/thorium reactors ARE mature tech; they been around since the 60's.
It's just you cannot get any weapons grade material out of them, so they weren't valued during the Cold War.
Conservatism and the Environment
- Thread starter Bacle
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It's just you cannot get any weapons grade material out of them, so they weren't valued during the Cold War.
LindyAF
Well-known member
There was one demonstration reactor in the 60s, then a number of research reactors in the 2000s and 2010s, and some existing plants which can use it.
Probably a factor, but there were also a number of other issues, primarily to do with efficiency and fuel cost.
While I am very conservation-minded in the tradition of TR and anti-pollution, I would not adopt any of the climate-change bullshit from the greens which are based in lies, bad science, and only exist to serve globalist agendas. This move by younger members of the GoP only shows how effective the propaganda has been.
Except not all the stuff the Left goes on about, with regard to the environment, are lies.
That's a brainbug that has continued to hinder the Right on subjects relating to the environment.
A lot of the environmental problems talked about by the Left are real; however thier ideas to address said issues are often...either more ideological than practical, rely on acting like humans are Vulcans, or boil down to large scale depopulation desires.
The Right getting into the arena, to offer different ideas and methods to haddle issues, is the best way to keep rad-green idiocy in check.
Not engaging on this topic just means having little to no control over anything that results from it.
No, they aren't. More often than not, the things they try to get us topanic over come down to that the climate is changing, and apparently not being able to grasp the fact that climate does indeed change. They seem to labor under the impression that the climate should be static. Meanwhile, the magnetic poles are on the move and the magnetic field around the planet has massively dropped off in the just the last decade or so.
Being against their bullshit is still engaging on the topic.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
Some of them may be real, but they're often exaggerated and/or misrepresented to the point that it's understandable many people have come to believe that they don't actually exist.
Yes, the climate was never static, and the Left often don't think about that or just look past it. That is part of why I want the Right to enter the arena on this, because they are the only one who can actually call out that sort of thing.
However, there are more issues than just 'climate change'; ocean acidification, biodiversity loss, bioaccumulation of chemicals fucking with biological systems in other animals (Alex Jones was right about the frogs turning gay), and ocean salinity concerns are all legit.
Yes, call out what is actually BS, because some shit is (whenever 'race' is tossed into the mix, for example).
But do not dismiss it all as BS just because the Left cares about it.
Yes, this is the real crux of the problem; the Left have been less than stellar in how they've communicated on this stuff, and that fucktard Gore turned it into a partisan issue as revenge for lossing in 2000.
The Left has burned a lot of people on this subject, because they often use it to excuse things that help thier donors more than the environment, and now when they've started to mix SJW stuff into it, it's made it even harder to bridge the gap.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
It's one of the many reasons I don't bother trying to find out what's true, and what isn't when it comes to which disasters are looming on the horizon environmentally speaking; because in the end, all we can really do about it is the same thing I was taught to do when I was a kid. Reduce, reuse, and recycle; up until we manage to develop materials and technologies that help to negate our environmental impact. Like, for example, using Mycelium as an alternative to plastic and Styrofoam in certain applications:
Terthna
Professional Lurker
It's all because planned obsolescence is the business model corporations have stuck with for generations; they want to force you to keep buying new stuff every couple of years, and being able to repair your old stuff gets in the way of that.
Heck, the only reason the right to repair has become such an issue, is because corporation have been steadily eroding that right over the course of decades to try and increase profits even further.
What the rad-greens want is for the producing companies to own thier products through thier whole life cycle, and thus be on the hook for all environmental impacts they cause, while only leasing or renting products to the end user.
I had a prof go on about this in the Masters of Environmental Management program I was in.
They want a 'zero growth, steady-state' society that...well, imagine the Migrant Fleet from Mass Effect, where there is no real personal property, how many kids you have is controlled by the state, and no one has any 'advantage' over others.
Stuff like using mycelium instead of plastic, or using nuclear power instead of rather environmentally unfriendly stuff like conventional solar or wind, and looking at...off planet options (think O'Neill Cylinders used as nature preserves) for protecting species on the brink. All of those are good options to deal with environmental issues that are rather taboo to the Left.
Most Lefty options/ideas try to look to the dirt and more primitive cultures for solutions, instead of harnessing the tech we have and are developing and looking to the stars for the future.
And this part of their bullshit is but one example of how empty their words are. Because the fact of the matter is, they just dump all these high-tech "green" technologies out in a field and bury it, and the stuff they're made out of isn't exactly friendly to the environment. Hell, getting the materials to make solar panels and batteries and the processes to create them are actually very unfriendly to the environment as well. And attempting to dispose of or recycle these materials is a very messy, toxic endeavor. It just goes to show how little they actually care about the environment themselves.
As for the other stuff, yeah, the concept of "sustainability" was pushed very hard on engineering students when I was going to school, as well as the idea that you had to design stuff with its entire life cycle in mind, including its disposal.
Yet again, here you list out issues that are mostly global, and as such, other than virtue signalling and begging/bribing other, usually not even very friendly countries to prioritize environment over developing their more or less (usually less) functional economies, there is not much any western country can do. And if there are people who care about the environment so much that they are eager to pay for such bribes, there's private organizations for that.
However, the left's electorate loves to do exactly that, or just virtue signal, or have massive, heavy handed campaigns over slightly reducing the already small contribution of highly developed western countries to the problem given (see: plastic straw bans vs sources of the bulk of plastic garbage in oceans).
The left has done exactly what it wanted to achieve in that regard.
That completely fails to explain the lack of a thorium reactor boom with all the countries that abide by INF and aren't supposed to make nuclear weapons anyway, in turn even using uranium fueled reactor designs that aren't good for it.
16 Big Thorium Reactor Pros and Cons
A thorium reactor is a form of nuclear energy, proposed for use as a molten
vittana.org
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Oh, I agree many 'green tech' solutions the Left has pushed are actually horrible for the environment.
Solar panels are fucking toxic as shit to make and dispose of, and the solar panels have usually only a 7 year effective life before needing to be replaced.
Wind turbines, at least the massive commercial kind, create a lot of emissions during production and cannot be recycled.
It's part of why I'm such a big nuke power advocate.
But things like ocean acidification are something where I think the Left doesn't really have many real solutions the can agree amongst themselves on. The Right has a relatively easy way in pointing out that if we do carbon capture on land using the process that creates calcium carbonate, we could in turn dump said calcium carbonates in the oceans to help reduce acidification.
It deals with some atmospheric CO2 issues and ocean acidification in one go, but relies on tech and concepts the rad-greens hate because it doesn't really force massive social changes.
Robovski
Well-known member
Let's look at a couple of what I'll call "environmental theater" measures here in California, land of the leftist idiot.
1. Disposable plastic bags. So these are banned here in California for your grocery shopping (but not for your hot food delivery or other shopping) and so you can buy heavy reusable bags for your shopping. Bags that represent at least 100 of the disposable plastic bags and are almost never used 100 times before they themselves are trash as they are also not readily recyclable. You do have to pay for these bags generally, and good luck reusing these during the pandemic. So the net benefit is that the store get's money for what was a free item and loads more plastic is used in general. Well done.
2. Water is not given without request in restaurants. Because this will help with the drought. Not because it will drive drink sales, not at all. Need that water for all those goddam almonds and all the other produce that is forced to grow in the desert.
Meanwhile since China won't buy their garbage anymore, most "recyclable" plastic goes straight to landfill here now. I'm trying hard not to rant, but by god is this place run by shitheads.
1. Disposable plastic bags. So these are banned here in California for your grocery shopping (but not for your hot food delivery or other shopping) and so you can buy heavy reusable bags for your shopping. Bags that represent at least 100 of the disposable plastic bags and are almost never used 100 times before they themselves are trash as they are also not readily recyclable. You do have to pay for these bags generally, and good luck reusing these during the pandemic. So the net benefit is that the store get's money for what was a free item and loads more plastic is used in general. Well done.
2. Water is not given without request in restaurants. Because this will help with the drought. Not because it will drive drink sales, not at all. Need that water for all those goddam almonds and all the other produce that is forced to grow in the desert.
Meanwhile since China won't buy their garbage anymore, most "recyclable" plastic goes straight to landfill here now. I'm trying hard not to rant, but by god is this place run by shitheads.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
And let's be honest; most regressive left "environmentalists" are really only in it for the social implications of what they're advocating for. They don't give a crap about the environment, they just want to be able to tell you what you can and can't do.
Some, very much yes.
Others...genuinely care for the environment, and simply want to keep our biosphere livable.
A lot of times the second sort have a good heart, but are..more ideological than practical.
Some are more like Roosevelt Republicans who just hate the GOP sucking Big Oils tit, or the appearance of such.
Megadeath
Well-known member
That kinda tribalistic, us vs them false dichotomy is a big underlying issue for much of what's worst in modern politics. Is it so impossible to accept that people on the other "side" could ever be right in any way about anything? As for why people might want the "diet" version, what if in every other way they perfectly support the GOP party line, but do think that democrats are right, at least in part, on environmental issues? Should they then go and vote against every other core value, to support the one issue? The idea that whatever one party believes or supports, the other party then has to take the diametrically opposed view, or at least a radically different one, without regard for the reality of the situation is a big part of why good faith compromise is now largely replaced by the ascendant party ramming through whatever they can only for the country to swing radically against that one or two elections down the line, and also why there's a great deal of infighting in both major parties. I mean, it's patently absurd to believe that one's opinions on birth control or religious freedom are inextricably linked to environmental concerns, or immigration issues. But because they're all hot topics, the parties have drawn up their battle lines, and a large majority of people are caught somewhere in the no man's land, forced to choose between two imperfect options.
It is a passionate, ideological subject we are talking about here, not whether VAT rate should be 6% or 8% or a compromise 7%.
If you accept the leftist narrative of climate change being as catastrophic and important as they make it seem, that stipulates certain trust to clearly left controlled institutions, and in turn certain quite strong policy preferences to be taken. Doing this stuff half assedly is just nonsensical, it is an ultimately unstable policy with no support. It is, barring minor details, all or nothing, other options are just hypocritical and irrational to both sides. If you believe it is literally an existential threat, you act accordingly. If you believe that it is no threat or a minor threat, you mostly chill, and the former group will protest your lax attitude all the time. If you chill slightly less in the name of compromise, the former group is still going to be very unhappy with you, so what's the bloody difference.
It is very similar in other debates regarding such highly ideological subjects - for example, abortion, one side believes it to be murder, other not at all, in fact they consider it a right that should be funded as part of public healthcare. What is the compromise to be had here?
That's why the debate there is also had over the big question mentioned, not whether first or second trimester abortions should be legal and publicly funded and the rest banned as a compromise.
How many people are willing to trust the media who are supporting the green policy on climate change, but at the same time turn around and say that these same sources are a bunch of leftist wackos in regard to all other political questions and they would rather listen to Fox News instead?
The confusion is that some of the issues are not as ideological, or have more than just 2 main public stances on them with their own dramatically ideological lines of thinking supporting them. Compromises in such matters are more viable politically and logically.
But if they are so ideological, just dig down and consider the what is the ideological basis of that thinking, and then which party is more friendly to it. If its western cultural traditionalism, its gonna be GOP. If it is pursuit of economic equality of "protected groups" as defined by left leaning academia or similar socialist impulses, it is gonna be DNC, no doubt about it. If it is raw national self interest being promoted over foreigner's, especially poorer ones, you know the modern western left is allergic to that kind of argumentation (see: debates of refugees, NAFTA, UN), so GOP it is.
Where does climate change policy, which like it or not, is the hot topic that dominates environmental policy on both sides, more or less eclipsing other concerns (besides, many of the other concerns are naturally stuck in a similarly international idealism oriented corner, like anything to do with world scale biodiversity, or oceans), lie in that calculus?
Its very status as an important, severe and immediate concern is based upon trusting the line of left leaning institutions, including international ones, and the drivers of related actions are also naturally internationalist institutions, who choose to do it with a lot of leftie impulses in mind - China and third world countries getting major exemptions, increasingly common "climate justice" talk, distribution of carbon indulgences and so on.
That kind of stuff is just repulsive to right wingers of all kinds, from establishment GOP to libertarians and nationalists alike.
Nevermind the general theme of this policy implying lots of internationally controlled petty regulation of matters large and small and being against economic growth, and you know well GOP likes its economic growth, even the establishment kind, they are even willing to lock horns with the more ideological nationalistic wing in immigration debate over that.
You know what, I want to thank you @Marduk.
You've helped me realize that this sort of thread is pointless on a forum like this, because very few people are on the American Right seem to get or care that the environment doesn't just stop at international borders. Most of you are just the mirror side ideologues of the Left, and care more about continuing the narrative that the Left is always lying or wrong, because admitting otherwise is a betrayal of the narrative you've wrapped yourself in.
@Staff, would one of you go ahead and close this thread, since it's become obvious it will never truly serve it's intended purpose given the ideological atmosphere of this forum.
You've helped me realize that this sort of thread is pointless on a forum like this, because very few people are on the American Right seem to get or care that the environment doesn't just stop at international borders. Most of you are just the mirror side ideologues of the Left, and care more about continuing the narrative that the Left is always lying or wrong, because admitting otherwise is a betrayal of the narrative you've wrapped yourself in.
@Staff, would one of you go ahead and close this thread, since it's become obvious it will never truly serve it's intended purpose given the ideological atmosphere of this forum.
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