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

[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.
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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.
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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....