Huge Megadam planned! not in South America or Asia but in the USA

[Aquaplant]

How does solar power cause massive environmental damage?

[Clarke]

Rare earth mining for all the electronics?

[Dognik]

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

How does solar power cause massive environmental damage?

If we talk about replacing nuclear-/gas-powerplants then i mean in case of solar-power-plants areas like the following example

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

How does solar power cause massive environmental damage?

In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment: Pollution on a disastrous scale | Mail Online

It's the daily mail, so obviously there's an agenda as with most papers, but you still can't exaggerate something like that much . It talks primarily about wind, but the same rare earth industry is critical to solar too.

Renewable power is often just as destructive as fossil fuel or more so, and things like this are the only way for people to realise that. More sustainable versions of hydroelectric are necessarily small-scale, especially if it isn't going to interrupt a river's flow. It's possible, but needs a lot more design and engineering for a lot smaller return.

While obviously, ever single thing needs some resources mined, the type varies, as does the degree of processing required - of course, people sometimes just go for the cheapest option when more expensive ones would have a lower impact.

[Theorist]

Originally Posted by Human No More

In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment: Pollution on a disastrous scale | Mail Online

It's the daily mail, so obviously there's an agenda as with most papers, but you still can't exaggerate something like that much . It talks primarily about wind, but the same rare earth industry is critical to solar too.

Renewable power is often just as destructive as fossil fuel or more so, and things like this are the only way for people to realise that. More sustainable versions of hydroelectric are necessarily small-scale, especially if it isn't going to interrupt a river's flow. It's possible, but needs a lot more design and engineering for a lot smaller return.

While obviously, ever single thing needs some resources mined, the type varies, as does the degree of processing required - of course, people sometimes just go for the cheapest option when more expensive ones would have a lower impact.

That was indeed a very interesting article. Never knew that was going on.

It seems like taking all the bad stuff and hiding it where we don't see it, which is very sad.

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by taylorcraftbc65

OK guys, this is coming from an aerospace engineer. There is not one single method of generating power that is totally clean and without side effects.
[...]
They need the power, and they are going to GET the power, one way or the other.
The ONLY way to reduce our footprint, is to DRASTICALLY reduce DEMAND, and the ONLY sure fire way to do that, over several generations, is NEGATIVE POPULATION GROWTH, on a TOTAL Global scale.
[...]
we need to pick the "littlest Demon" and harness it as best we can.

I think the same, that all of these means to "generate" power produce destruction in some way.

I do however keep saying that the statement "they/we NEED the power" is wrong. The power "we/they need" is actually a lot less, the majority is power that "we/they" WANT. This may not look like an important difference, but it is one. Of course people seem to be willing to defend their perceived need to power as much as if it would be a real need, defend their "right" to have TVs and electric light and icecream machines and air conditioning as much as if it would be about food, water or warmth.
Which leads to the next point on how to DRASTICALLY reduce energy demand. Your option of negative global population growth is a possible one, but it will happen only over many decades while action is required now. Also population is not really the issue but consumption is - population of course drives consumption but even if we'd cut the world population in half by tomorrow, the demand for energy would rise way beyond what happens now - because of the inertia of population and technologcal assimilation.
But I agree that we need to drasically reduce energy demand. But we cannot afford to wait for population decline to solve this. We can cut down demand very rapidly, because as I said, most of it is a WANT and not a NEED. So in the end it is not about needing the energy but to wanting all the stuff - and people will only consider the options that reduce demand but do not affect their lifestyles in the slightest. That is impossible.
I do not want to choose the "lesser evil" - I think we cannot afford even the lesser evil because that lesser demons also will eat our souls in the end. So this is not really an option.

People keep asking me about this issue in particular - asking me if I am against nuclear I have to be for coal and if I am also against coal I have to be for wind and solar (but they cannot work, right?). The assumption of all of these options is that energy output has to increase or at least be stable whatever happens. That is the limitation in the degrees of freedom of this social system - the fence that this culture put down and from that it cannot move away. So if you are on a road that leads into disaster in both directions you can travel, maybe its time to leave the road and find a new path....

[Niri Te]

I should have placed "they need the energy" within quotation marks, denoting the fact that those words were what the people and State Government believed.
Ateyo le Syaksyuk and I live on 80 acres out in extremely remote Hudspeth County Texas, where there are only six paved roads, (one of them being Interstate 10 running through the extreme southern section) of the second largest in land mass, yet least populated County in the State.
I am typing this on a nuclear powered notebook. It is nuclear powered, by a fusion reactor that is 93 million miles away, which powers both our solar panels, and our wind generator.
Our wind generator has never killed a bird out here, nor have any of the six wind generators that I know of that power the homes of my neighbors. The reason id that each of us runs a wind plant that uses props that are between
2 1/2, and 6 feet in diameter, NOT the huge ones that are used in the white forests of them in the commercial wind farms.
THAT is what I believe that we, as a nation should do, as much as possible, EACH of us disconnect from the grid, and generate our OWN power, in a manner that is as environmentally neutral as is practical, given their monetary ability.
Our place is 100 percent energy self sufficient, and we do that just from my V.A. disability checks, so I know that you DON'T need to be wealthy to do it,
you just need to be WILLING to do it.
I may be returning to Samoa, bringing ma yawnetu with me for her first view of Pandora on earth. We moved out to this incredibly poor County with one of the lowest population densities in the entire lower 48 states, only to have a government sponsored company find RARE EARTH METALS underneath three mountains in the County. The are starting exploratory drilling under the mountains this coming Spring.
There is a particular lizard that lives in the area, that is endangered, and we will try to USE this fact to shut down the mines, but were already told that because this is practically the only known deposit of the R.E.M.'s, NONE of the Environmental laws will apply as these mines "Are in the interest of National Security".
Well there are only 3,000 people living in the county of 8'000 square miles, and 2,000 of them live in Fort Hancock, which is at the extreme southwest corner of the County. The rest of the County has a population density of one person per 7 square miles. Most of these people speak little or no English, and are Very poorly educated, dirt poor, and have ZERO ecological sensibilities at all. This is one fight that "RGA" will win.
In THIS fight, Eywa will NOT come to our aid, and ANY use of force on the part of whatever few people in this area will be viewed as "Eco Terrorism" and put down quickly with whatever force is viewed necessary by the Government.
A good Tsamsiyu knows the fights that they can win, and avoids the ones where they would be both throwing their lives away, AND strengthening the public relations hand of their enemy.
We will probably be in Samoa late next year, NEVER to return. I speak the language, and have many connections on the islands.
Niri Te (known as Tai Tae Ao in Samoa)

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

We can cut down demand very rapidly, because as I said, most of it is a WANT and not a NEED.

Fair enough if you've got an almost transhuman ability to make people think what you want them to, but I doubt that. I don't think significantly reducing energy demand is a viable option at all; you need to be able to spread the idea far, far, far more effectively than even the best PR firms have been able to do. It's functionally impossible, hence the next best thing being to generate tons of power as economically as possible.

Originally Posted by taylorcraftbc65

THAT is what I believe that we, as a nation should do, as much as possible, EACH of us disconnect from the grid, and generate our OWN power, in a manner that is as environmentally neutral as is practical, given their monetary ability.

I dare you to try any of that in Scotland.