An environmentalist says only nuclear can do what the GND asks
Although I think the GND can never pass (because it is too radical, too expensive, too fast, and unneeded) the only way that part of it can work is too use lots of nuclear power.
Read the rest at the link. The video is good too.Calling climate change an existential threat to humanity, congressional Democrats have proposed a policy package called the Green New Deal. It would mandate that 100 percent of U.S. energy production come from "clean, renewable and zero-emission energy sources" like wind and solar by the year 2050.
But some environmentalists say Green New Dealers are neglecting one obvious source of abundant clean energy already available: nuclear power, which the Green New Deal FAQ wants to phase out along with such fossil fuels as oil, gas, and coal.
"It's when the conservationists became environmentalists that everything went bad," says Michael Shellenberger, founder and president of Environmental Progress, a pro-nuclear research and advocacy nonprofit based in Berkeley, California. "It stopped being about the environment. It became about controlling society."
Shellenberger started his career in energy advocating for more government subsidies to wind and solar. He pushed for a new Apollo Project of $300 billion in federal research and development funding to make renewable energy sources cheaper than coal within a decade.
From 2009 to 2015, the Obama administration took up that call and put billions of dollars into renewable energy subsidies. That, Shellenberger says, opened his eyes to the fact that no amount of government funding can overcome the inherent drawbacks of renewables.
When California invested heavily in wind and solar, Shellenberger says it led to energy price increases at a rate about six times faster than the national average, despite the falling cost of solar panels.
Shellenberger says that the allure of nuclear power is its "energy density"—he estimates that the energy consumption of the average human being from birth to death can be provided by a single 12-ounce soda can's worth of uranium. He believes a nuclear renaissance could unlock a world of clean energy abundance, an idea he explores further in a document he co-authored, titled "An Ecomodernist Manifesto."