John, you made a mistake in this one. In Germany we are not paying triple, we are now paying 6x for electricity compared to the US! The 36 US Cent figure is from last year, the average currently is at approx 74 US Cent per kilowatt-hour. The highest price for electricity anywhere in the world.
California asked electric car owners to go easy on recharging because it was causing strain on the power grid! Let's see how it will all work out once everyone has an electric car.. 🤣 😂
Hasn't California banned the sale of portable generators? I guess too many folks power their homes with generators when the state does its rotating power blackouts each summer/fall. An EV in every driveway ain't happening in Cali without a electric grid rebuild.
In EU, only Germany took the decision of stopping nuclear plants after Fukushima. But... They have way more solar panels on their roof than the French, and windmills offshore. 40% of EU electricity is produced by renewables. Spain uses many solar plants. We can't go further with hydroelectricity. Every spot where you could put a dam is used. Problem. With heatwaves, reservoirs get dry, and rivers don't have enough water to cool nuclear plants. And when you can't cool a nuclear plant, you shut it down. Prudence is the intelligent attitude, like reducing our greenhouse gas emissions to slow down global warming. Judith Curry's logic is absurd. And she pulls a conspiracy theory, where is the evidence ? Oops, I forgot. This is a right wing channel, most people watching it don't care for that.
Don't forget Hydroelectric energy. It is not "renewable" too (or not "green"). Whatever, it's bad. Nuclear, actually, consumes fossil fuel, so it is not really renewable. But it should be considered "green", but it isn't. It's laughable, but one of the most "renewable" and "green" energy source is ...wait for it ... firewood !
I used to work for Vestas (Danish wind turbines). The amount of petroleum based products used in the turbines was insane! You can't recycle them ether, they become obsolete, it takes years to plant them down with all the surveys you have to do; all the legal red tape. Plus they cost 100's of thousands of dollar. Most of the people that want to do away with oil don't know that. Putting people like that in charge of energy is l like expecting a 3 year old child to run a country.
I'm a former mechanical engineer and have crunched the numbers both on the energy and the financial side for wind and solar and there is no conceivable scenario where they make sense as a replacement for fossil fuels, even when you consider any "pollution." Nuclear power and hydro remain the two most viable long term energy sources based on the physics and economics by a huge margin. Most economic analyses do not take certain physical realities into account (like the lack of throttleability of solar/wind) or they don't consider how subsidies make solar/wind appear more favorable and they don't consider how public hysteria over nuclear makes it disproportionally expensive when it doesn't need to be.
@@Sugarsail1 Additionally our electrical infastructure is no where near capable in any semi-heavily or greater populated area to handle the elctrical load the loss of natural gas and fossil fuels would induce (california is experiencing brown outs on the regular because their power grid is like 30 years out of date as it is). This along with the absolute crap efficiency of even the best battery today does not support going 100% renewable in the next hundred years much less in 10.
Another issue the wind turbines caused is erroneous Doppler radar readings, due to reflection off of the turbine blades. Not sure if a solution to this has been developed or not, but I recall it being an issue early on.
She actually crushed her own argument with the "2 year old running a marathon" analogy. Using her own analogy, why would you be pushing for a 2 year old to take over an entire industry?
And then there’s nuclear. Nuclear is like taking a car. Yes every couple hundred thousand miles you have a breakdown or an accident, but all things considered it’s a complete no-brainer in safety and reliability.
I was in college in the 1970's. In those days, we were just weeks from running out of oil, or so they said. I was studying engineering and took several courses on the potential for solar power. What no one ever seems to talk about is that solar is extremely limited. Best case is that the sun's energy at the earth's orbit is just a kilowatt per square meter. And that is only during the day. If we assume we can totally convert that energy (not possible, see the second law of thermodynamics) and store at 100% efficiency that energy until it is needed (not possible, ebit), then we would still need acres of solar panels to replace the neighborhood gas station. This is not about energy else we would be building nuclear power plants. This is about certain people in the government trying to exercise control over people.
When I was in school in the 1970's we were just 30 years from running out of oil. That was worrying enough. Have you lived your entire life wonderring when the gas station will shut? Solar power is "extremely limited". All of our power comes from the sun and alwayas has done. There is enough insolation to power our current greedy energy demands many times over. The second law of thermodynamics is about energy transfer, n ot effficiency. When i was at school they taught us science and how to differentiate it from bullshit.
Agreed that solar power is limited, when the sun sets, guess what -- no power! So, at best, you have 12 hours of electricity. Imagine trying to power an entire city the size of Tokyo where I live with solar panels...total fantasy. Aint gonna happen.
If you had ANYTHING to do with the renewable energy industry, you would know that energy storage is what they have been working on for years. And guess what? Electric vehicles have very large amounts of energy storage -and many EVs allow you to tap that. It's known as V2G ("vehicle to grid"). With all those kWh of storage PARKED and PLUGGED in MOST of the time, we'd be foolish NOT to make use of them to store energy from the grid, while we also add as much stationary storage as we need - which will use less expensive technology that does not need to be light and energy dense.
@@nickwinn7812 If you had any clue about the second law of thermodynamics then you would understand what the op meant. To transform solar energy to electric energy through solar panels you are transferring energy. Thus you can't achieve lossless transfer as the op mentioned. Besides energy transfer rates aren't what is important. It is capacity rate EROI.
@@daveconna6271 Good Luck with that. Show us at least one state or country where V2G has worked. The only thing you will manage with this is to wear down your car's battery much faster than normal. Not to mention that we are already facing the problem of too many EVs and not enough power generation (due to our focus on solar/wind). More EVs is just gonna make the situation worse as it is now.
"Saying renewables are not yet powering our electricity grid, Is like critiquing a 2 year old for not being able to run a marathon". I can agree with that. So why are we trying to force this two year old, that clearly isn't ready, to run marathons by throwing taxpayer money at it?
I know it's not popular, but the best option is nuclear energy. Very energy dense, reliable, constant, available 100% of the time, smaller physical footprint than wind or solar. And with more modern technologies than earlier nuclear plants it can be made much safer than with older reactors.
Nuclear energy has a ironic history, because of the fearmongering against it, most of the reactors running today are based on the older technology that isn't on the same level as newer technology, but trying to touch them causes people to lose their minds and such projects get put on hold or are cancelled, the fear with the safety of nuclear energy is causing it to be less safe than it could be now.
@@ronwest7930 Standard uranium ones could be the answer, the issue is less about the type of reactor but that they are barely being developed outside of China and India.
@@gatzmajortz5033 I live among the hippies and the lefties and the greenies here in Santa Cruz, California. When you drive into SC down Graham Hill Rd from the valley, there's a sign posted by the city that's been there for decades proudly proclaiming Santa Cruz as a "Nuclear Free Zone". It is truly astonishing how absolutely ignorant people are about the safety, efficiency, and cleanliness of nuclear energy. Hell, coal plants release far, far more harmful radioactive isotopes than any nuclear plant does.
@@1queijocas Thing is, the government before that did little to improve things either. Let's not forget who shut down almost all nuclear power plants overnight.
Her own example shows how silly all of this is. Do we expect two year olds to run marathons? Should we force them to, because politicians say they should? Or do we behave like rational adults, & wait until the "children" get older, develop, & can actually do the task at hand?
She's delusional, says that to criticize renewable is like criticize a 2 year old, but she wants 2 year olds to do it across the world 100%. That doesn't make any sense.
@@k-ozdragon I remember reading a story about a kid who ran marathons. I don't remember his exact age, but I think it was in the 6-13 range. He was told to stop by his doctor after the doc noticed the stress was causing permanent damage to the kid.
I live in a sunny place (South Carolina). Solar panels here only make 17% of their rated capacity. This is due to cloud cover, night time, and tree pollution which covers panels. If you put in a 10,000 watt system this means on average, you are gonna get 1700 watts. That is not gonna heat your hot water, power your AC, let alone even remotely charge your car. Do the math people! It doesn’t work. On top of that, you gotta be an electrical guru in both DC/AC power just to manage it all. Also, count on at least 2 major component failures a year, ie, inverter, charge controller, bad panels, bad battery banks, etc. Plus, about 90% of solar companies go bankrupt within 28 months…..so any warranty you got is 90% worthless. For the ordinary consumer, it is ridiculous to go solar unless you need to virtue signal to your neighbors. If you just need to virtue signal, you can buy blown panels for almost nothing, bolt them in place, and nobody knows better….plus drive a Prius or some other Hybrid that can charge itself from gasoline when needed…..you will still be in the club.
You are correct. My system in Michigan puts out about 1/4 of rated power in the best summer months, and 1/32 of rated power in the worst winter months.
@@JayVal90 The wind will blow in the right conditions and if it blows at night, as it did here last night of VERY heavy gusts, that means a storm is coming. Wind is created via thermal drafts that are created via heat, and cool, and the sun etc... Many a sailor would sit for days on end waiting for the wind to pick up when sail was all there was. They had many a mutiny, or damn close to it, if the wind didn't come back soon enough. This woman talking about wind on the ocean needs to go study nautical history to know wind can just go poof for sometimes a week, or more, at a time out there.
Listen my friend, If they'd put Biden and his friends infront of a windmill, the energy crysis would be solved in an instant! ....because let me tell you, this administration BLOWS HARD.
I've been doing this for a few years already. Here's a few tips that I learned the hard way. 1) Don't put the panels on your roof. They're harder to access: cleaning, snow removal, connections, longer wires... 2) Tip the panels in the winter. They'll drop the snow very quickly if tilted. 3) Up the voltage. Run either 24V or 48V. It takes thinner wires and will push power on longer wire runs. 4) Run the panels directly into the appliance being driven. The less conversion and gadgets, the better. 5) Surround the wind turbines with an air foil. It will focus the wind onto the prop much better. 6) Insulate the heck out your home. If you can't produce more heat, do better at insulation. I could give advise all day, but if nobody does these things, I'm just wasting my time. I'd be better of just working on MY systems. Ask questions. I'll try to help.
People like AOC Elizabeth Warren Bernie Sanders and these green activists have no idea what they're talking about we've been using fossil fuels for over 100 years now
"We can't get rid of fossil fuels until we have some kind of miracle energy source." We already have it: nuclear energy. Uranium has 5,000 times the Energy density of Coal. Including Chernobyl and Fukushima, Nuclear has fewer casualties than any other power plant type. It can operate 24/7 regardless of weather, can work in any location, is scalable and produces no carbon pollution.
to power the whole world by nuclear would require at least 25,000 full sized nuclear power stations in every country in the world. Third would, war zones, Afghanistan, earthquake areas, flood areas etc. Look at the mess the world has made with only 500 nuclear power stations.
@@kevwalker5714 Just dump it on the third world. No, they don't want it? Save it up in leaky ponds for your great,great, great.............................great grand children to deal with. What's not to like!
Thank you for talking about this! As a younger person, I see so many people in my generation get caught up in emotional climate alarmism. Sure, they are well intentioned in wanting a cleaner planet, but they are delusional in thinking we can just turn our power grid around on a dime. Many fail to consider the immense scale and complexity of providing a whole country with energy and often ignore any tradeoffs or consequences associated with forms of renewables. My brother is an electrical engineer who focuses on alternative energy. After working on solar systems for a year, even he admitted solar is not all it's cracked up to be. Besides from the poor efficiency, many solar products use heavy metals such as lead, take up large areas of land (which has led to deforestation or destruction of fertile farmland), and the lifespan of panels are relatively short and the issue of disposing and recycling them needs to be addressed. To be clear, I'm not against clean energy. I'm all for a cleaner, healthier planet, but crazy mandates and subsidies forcing us to rely on inferior systems that are in the infancy stages of their development are not going to be sustainable for humanity and the economy.
I am 40 and very disappointed that the hole in the ozone layer didn't kill us all in 20 years like it was supposed to when I was in 6th grade. They've been pulling this grift for decades.
@@icestationzebraassociates2460 They were still talking about the ozone layer when I was in elementary school in the 2000’s. It was only in high school (2010’s) when it was admitted to us students that the ozone layer was fixed.
Very well stated the issue is that if you try to have that same conversation with a lefty/SJW your told you don't know what your talking about and eventually they'll pull the old "You must be a R". What you say is absolutely right the issue is your preaching to the choir those who should get it won't.
Lady " renewables are clearly better". Things that are clearly better sell themselves and replace what isn't as good without government force and subsidy bribes needed.
Climate is always changing. Only today we are arrogant enough to believe we are affecting it. When someone talks about global warming, I ask the question, "What temperature is the planet supposed to be." Today we are cooler than what was called the medieval optimum.
Remember when we had to switch from paper to plastic in the 80’s and 90’s? The chemical companies had a big push to “save a tree, go plastic”. Didn’t work out so well. Maybe we can learn from these types of things?
These "green" people are insane. The market will create new energy sources. They would be great to have, but we're not there yet. It's OK to admit that.
Solar and wind are NOT green .. they create MORE pollution then coal (before you add the enviro cost of toxic batteries) and use more land to produce the same level of power Solar lifespan is 14-30yrs (quality depending) to 50% production so If you need max 4 you need to install 5 then replace 1 every 3.5-7yrs to keep power gen level plus battery replacement cycle
@@darunealbane One would think these people understand the basic laws of physics. You cannot create energy. There is always a cost. Maybe one day we figure out how to beat the system, but we're not even close. It's almost like a two year old running a marathon....
My municipal electric provider is replacing two old coal plants from the 50s and 80s with a new natural gas generating station at about half the capacity. I guess they figure they’ll buy the excess they need from the larger regional grid. But all their forecasts at development anticipated coal getting more expensive while natural gas got cheaper as more fracking came online. Two years ago, our gas infrastructure was so close to its limit that the governor declared a state of emergency and told people to turn their thermostats down. So now, we’re on a fuel source that’s less reliable and getting more expensive while we tear down the power stations that could be offsetting some of those cost increases.
Corrupt china gave their (mostly autonomously ruled) regions free reign to profit from coal mining. What do they do? Everyone opens coal mines to make mad profits (part of which into private bank accounts) and then the coal price drops below operation costs. What do they do? They open lots of coal power plants. God, I hate china and anyone defending/denying/ignoring it.
I remember taking a course in energy when I was in college. I wrote a paper on geothermal energy. Iceland powers its grid with geothermal energy. They have used the volcanoes to turn water into steam and run steam turbines. I was surprised by the pushback from environmental groups over using volcanic heat to generate electricity. The amount of pollution from that is less than the average volcanic eruption. I get the feeling that these people just don't want us to have power. By volcanic eruptions, I am referring to the volcanoes in Iceland and Hawaii.
It's okay to push wind and solar energy. What is NOT okay is to ban everything else in their name. When someone pushes for "Tougher Restrictions" to Oil, Gas, Nuclear, Geothermal, Etc. they don't want green energy, they want no energy at all.
Iceland is so blessed in a way while the ultimate curse is coming for them. That same geothermal energy that is free right now the piper will eventually want payment and BOOM.
The southern shore of the Salton Sea in Kalifornia hosts three or four geothermal powerplants. The northern areas of the state especially around Mount Shasta is geothermally active but no attempts at GTPs have been proposed. There is plenty of potential all around, however, regulations seem to keep everything from starting.
Canada or California and eventually Venezuela. The Venezuelans were promised that Bid Daddy Government was going to take care of them, well it did kinda, it ruined EVERYTHING equally for everyone, except the cronies in Government of course. Same will become of the U.S. as it would take an Act of Government to impose the complete overhaul of America's Energy sector and the complete Government control of all American Industry, Logistics and Construction as an indirect result of getting ALL other sectors of American Business and Society in compliance of their ridiculous "Green" Energy Policies and Programs.
We have absolutely no first amendment protections in this country. You can't technically be jailed for it (though Jan 6th proved that's not true) but you can be fired from your job, blacklisted, and censored from every form of communication in existence. We have ZERO free speech protections in this country
Here in California, there is an entire ad campaign aimed at getting Californians to NOT use electricity from 4PM to 9PM, as that is when solar and wind power production fails to keep up. Like Germany, California closed its nuclear power plants.
"keep it in the ground" okay, so what about the copper in windmill generators and gear boxes / cables??? What about lithium and cobalt from Africa and south America that aren't "green", those are used for electrical cars and solar panels... Can't "keep it in the ground" little girl.
It's so frustrating to watch nuclear energy sitting alone in a corner only because a couple of over-hyped disasters took away its credibility forever. Guys, unless you have Soviet style corruption or a literal 100 feet tsunami wave crashing on your front door, nuclear power plants are THE safest, most reliable, inexpensive and clean sources of energy you can ever hope to find.
It's even worse than that. People died in the response to the Fukushima incident. Trying to move people in critical condition out of hospitals caused many of them to not survive when they would have had they stayed put. And incident that was never a serious threat to human health or safety. There were safeguards in place. It was a dicey situation, but it was not nearly as close to a meltdown as was claimed the thing was under control the entire time. The panic surrounding the incident killed people when the incident itself did not. That's absurd.
An already obslolete reactor when it was build with well known safety issues and a plant's crew pretty much fucking around with it, or a tsunami AND you have your fucking backup generators in the fucking basement as well as a literally not big enough anti-tsunami wall (the anti tsunami wall in Fukushima-D was already deemed too small), wich is prone to get flooded by said tsunami. . Fukushima Daiichi could in theory not have a single issue if the power plant just kept working (so the turbines-generators would power the water pumps). Those issues i mentioned were already flagged way before the 2011 Tohoku EQ as well
@@AlldaylongRock I;ve heard this argument before: at Fukashima, the nuclear plant ONLY failed because of the oversight of not protecting the backup generators...which leads to the very logical next question: WHAT will the simple oversight be that causes the NEXT failure?
1:31 The most ridiculous of green energy products is a solar panel farm. We have huge building complexes all over the place, schools, hospitals, strip malls, actual malls, big-bix stores etc with these vast rooftops and you're going to waste land for a farm? What was this land before the solar farm, a forest or fatmland growing food? Look how manicured that ground is too, is a gas mower keeping that nice? Does that get factored in when calculating how green this is? Sorry but solar paels belong on rooftops and that's it
Agrivoltaics is an interesting phenomenon. Essentially they take farms that get too much sun and use solar panels to thin it out. Reduces sunlight and heat on the plants, lowering damage and water requirements. It is an interesting idea that should definitely be explored further. But just mowing down productive forests or fields to put in PV panels seems pretty stupid.
Excellent points! Maybe could put it on massive grazing farmland, but all that shade would slow down grass growth too. The logistics of maintenance & granting permission for 1,000 different rooftop owners is prohibitive until free market encourages everyone to want to get their own solar panel & be responsible for all the related maintenance. I read about a solar cell paint that could be applied right on the building... about 10yrs ago. Guess that never worked out either.
@@TwilightMysts Do not forget they are also using those not just for shade, but they are actually using the heat variation to collect potable water in places like the desert. Very interesting project they have.
Here in Florida solar is growing a lot, and its very common to see panels on houses. I've considered it, and if I did I would likely sell the energy produced during the day instead of saving it to batteries. A lot of energy-demanding devices are no longer so demanding. I really lke LED bulbs and noticed the drop they caused, plus I like the sunlight-colored light vs the Instagram-yellow of incandescents. TVs used to demand a lot of power too, but now they dont.
Solar is only good for small closed electrical systems. We should only use it in applications that actually make sense because they drive up the cost of value resources.
I like how stossel contradicts and pokes holes in the arguments of both interviewees. Truly a sign of a journalist who searches for truth instead of trying to push an agenda.
this moral grandstanding combined with wishful thinking is going to be the end of us. People that fell asleep in math and physics are telling us math and physics are going to save the planet.
It's not "moral" though. It's evil. When you do something that literally kills people, and makes the lives of millions of not billions worse -- All while self-aggrandizing and earning big bucks -- You don't get to pretend like it's a sincere and honest mistake. It's evil.
Don't forget we now have micro nuclear reactors that can produce 20 mw. A smaller reactor can help shrink and isolate faulting reactors. We literally can provide nuclear energy on the small town level and decentralize the power grid. This I think is most important. If Ukraine tells you anything, it is that centralized power grids can disable entire regions.
The people in charge are saboteurs who want everything centralized and easy to shut off at any time. A revolt is coming, and today's supply chain issues are a test to see how well people adapt to being cut off.
Yeah if people had not gotten so freaked out about nuclear power global warming would be significantly lower than it is now and we would be getting to closer to Zero net emissions much faster. We would be sending way less money to the worst of regimes humanity like Russia or Iran. And our energy would be cheaper than 100% fossil fuel economy. But nuclear is bad because they admit radiation and 1/100 the rate of coal power plants. And there is a melt down risk that has killed a tiny fraction of the people that pollution for other energy sources has. And is basically 0 risk of happening with modern reactors. And don't forget the nuclear waste that we can safely is sites like the Yucca Mountain, provided politicians who know as much about science as I know about tween fashion stop blocking it from being used.
If we had 100% solar/wind capacity, we might as well have no World. What we need more than anything is honesty about this so called green energy, we've had nothing but kneejerk reactions since the 70's. We're going to have to start acting responsibly instead of being happily ignorant of the facts. We always speak of how fossil fuels are our greatest threat, because of the impact on environment and we will eventually run out. We have much more to be concerned about in natural population increase than we will ever have in fossil fuels running out. Small steps have been made in clean coal technology and the removal of coal, why haven't we concentrated on something we can actually do to improve instead of idiotic pipe dreams. If we spent a third of the time on improving what is available instead of spewing lies about wind/solar/battery we would have already been ahead of the curb. Once again we have chosen to follow instead of lead, are we admitting we have no faith in our education system and have to rely on outside sources to create relevant ideas? European countries have supposedly came up with a new source of nuclear fuel that is safer than the old standard and still they shut down nuclear plants and went with solar/wind. Now these countries go back to coal because it is still the most readily available and quickest to place in service. If we subsidized these existing plants and built new clean coal plants, phasing out the older ones as the newer ones come on line as we should have been doing all along we could stop subsidizing stupidity that only makes the elite richer and further harms the environment. Are we never going to grow tired of feeding the elite money for nothing and only continue to add to the environmental issues instead of actually trying to correct what we have.
@@justme6621 Improving fossil fuels plants and maybe building completely clean ones as a bridge technology sounds reasonable but sticking to fossil fuels as a long term energy strategy is retarded. First we had coal which is already pretty good then oil which was better then gas which is yet better than oil and then we found out how to tap the power of the atom. Going nuclear long term is the only logical and responsible path we can go.
@@mrkokolore6187 You can’t actually pair nuclear with wind and solar because nuclear can’t speed up / slow down fast enough. Only natural gas and oil plants can do that (even coal has issues). There is NO place for intermittent energy supply in our future. Solar will work when it’s in space. Wind will never work because it’s retarded (maybe paired with hydroelectric, that’s it)
@@JayVal90 Yeah I'm not a fan of wind either. Solar is pretty cool but is obviously not able to "survive" alone. I doesn't matter if we overproduce electricity because we can use the energy to create hydrogen, synthetic gas and fuel, desalinated water etc.. There is no reason not to go nuclear. Long-term we might even be able to use fusion energy instead of fission but until then there is no better energy source than fission energy.
If Stossell wasn't so liberal he would get a lot more fans. It's very hard to make a living in media trying to ride the middle like he does. He should just pick a side already. He reminds me of Tulsi Gabbard; the left hates you so why are you still catering to them? Take the red pill already.
Really good video as always Stossel. Will you do a secondary video that goes into how implementing green energy infrastructure is actually detrimental to the environment? Ex: Clearing hundreds of acres for wind farms that have less than 5% return to coal plants etc
He makes the false statement "global warming is threat" when it is not. And regardless of that THE solution is MODERN nuclear power, not the dangerous antiques still being used. Small nuclear reactors and other "walk away safe" reactor technologies.
@@winstonsmith478 completely agree. If those who are proponents of "green energy" were serious, they would be staunch advocates for Nuclear. You likely know of him but I like Michael Shellenberger's journey to this conclusion
Watch the documentary, Planet of the Humans. That's the Michael Moore doc he made a couple years ago. The green crowd now hate him. Yes, he's a liberal, but he points out that green energy is actually a financial scam. It's free here on TH-cam
1. Never take anyone in this debate seriously who is against nuclear power. 2. Do you get the sense that climate alarmists sort of love the pain caused by lack of energy independence and skyrocketing energy costs?
I was IBEW for 12 years and a good chunk of that was working on solar farms. I can tell you that we are 20 years away from using only that due to the efficacy of our current technology. I'm sure we can get there sooner but what people don't realize is we need to cut down 10s of thousands of acres of forests just to make grids to support a city. These dummies act as if energy companies aren't dumping millions of dollars a year in research for clean energy. Too many people have watched that documentary "Gasland" and instantly became an expert on the topic lol
One of my professors at university was working on the liquid salt thorium reactors. The biggest issue they have is nobody is willing to foot the bill to try and actually built a working prototype. They would rather spend on "green energy" and waste money that way. He complained that he couldn't even get it from the programs looking to develop nuclear energy, because those grants are saved for conventional plants because you can use them to build nukes.
@@cp1cupcake as long as a nuclear reactor is maintained properly, you have virtually unlimited energy. Where I live now, there are tons of reactors and my energy costs are minimal. The progressive idiots don't care about using fossil fuels as long as they don't come from here, which I find comical.
@@cp1cupcake Correct. I live near DOE-Hanford. Although weapons-grade plutonium is no longer being produced, I lived here when it was. An interesting side bit: I knew a guy that worked at Energy Northwest (formerly WPPS), and he would tell me when shutdown procedures were in progress- they were simply because they were producing excess electricity. Now, consider this is near the convergence of the Snake, Yakima, and Columbia rivers. So hydro is the main source of electricity here, and it's CHEAP. Still is. But nuclear still remains a big secondary source, but yes, Energy Northwest is still using older tech.
Here's a rule of thumb: If it works and is profitable, someone will realize it to make money. If Green energy isn't choice Nr.1 for energy companies even after oil and coal get sanctioned, then green really isn't good enough yet. You can apply that logic to any tech.
I personally don't want to rely on getting my power from a source only available for half of the day. And as far as battery storage, just think how many times in your life batteries have let you down.
Just up the street I must have seen a couple dozen truck's fully loaded with tree's to put up a solar farm that will last 20 years.... The trees took a hundred years to grow.... How's this green?
I love how Neumann attempted to play gotcha on Stossel by asking him about his solar panels, and then was forced to admit to their shortcomings John mentioned them.
Economics 101 - a slow shift in supply and demand is healthy, but a quick shift is an economic crysis. Biden's policies decrease the supply of oil (damaging the entire logistics of the US) and skyrocketed the demand for tin and alu for his renwables. ...what a moron.
@@nolan122 newest research showing oil is a renewable resource The amount of oil and coal proven in the ground is bigger then plant life needed to make it
I love how Stossel always disagrees with whoever he's interviewing, and only makes his point in voice overs after the interview. He gets so much better information from people this way.
@@googleuser9383 Helps people TRY to atleast explain their point of view, regardless of how dumb, understand where they come from, and then hit them with the facts.
This is how someone who does not know what he is talking about responds: he can;t answer in the moment so he goes home and thinks up something 'clever', inserts it - and then the person being interviewed never has a chance to respond about what BS Stossel is putting out. it is even more horrifying that commenters actually don't have the critical thinking skills to recognize this phony 'interview' technique!!
@@googleuser9383 No, it is the VERY OPPOSITE of "real, unbiased journalism". Rather, it lets Stossel have the last word in his studio, after the fact, when the person being interviewed can't even expose his BS. Which this hit piece is simply full of - Stossel is simply a populist jackass, who has cynically figured out what will sell so he can make MONEY!
@@paulmoore7064 Yeah, but in this case, it the meaning was obvious to readers who assume the commenter is of at least average intelligence. English lends itself nicely to comedy because of its numerous homonyms.
@@ben_1 Thanks for sticking to nuclear energy. We will soon be completely dependant on countries like yours to carry us through dark lulls. I admire Beznau demonstrating how old a nuclear power plant can actually become.
@@mrkokolore6187 Well, I've got bad news for you... We're also on our way out, it just takes longer than elsewhere, because everything here does (I've never been more happy about that). Building new nuclear power stations is not allowed, and once the existing ones go offline they can't be replaced. I'm still hoping that until then the world has come to their senses about this and the ban will be reversed...
@@mrkokolore6187 I find Germany's closure of their nuclear plants to be baffling and senseless. It gets even worse when you realize their plan after Fukishima was to build more nuclear power plants to supply electricity to the European countries like France who vowed to close their own plants. If you guys hadn't closed your plants and built more instead, then the Syrian civil war would probably have ended years beforehand, Europe would not be looking to Russia for power, and so on. The amount of death and corruption from the loss of those plants is staggering. Because the biggest concern Europe has is its tsunami season.
Well, if you manage to filter the co2 out of the air and compress it back into coal, we could talk about that. It's not impossible mind you. Just very cost ineffective.
I grew up in Tehachapi, so I am very accustomed to seeing windmills on a daily basis. I have no grudge held against them, but I have to say: wind is very unreliable. I mean, there's a reason why we ditched sails for engines!
What a great video with tons of great points. And while he did talk about the cost of greatly expanding battery power, he didn't even mention one of the other biggest issues: mining the materials to construct the batteries and also how to dispose of the batteries once they no longer work. Until the green energy activists start discussing this issue honestly I will refuse to take them seriously.
Can't we just put them in the same place we keep nuclear waste? Where is that again? Do you also not take nuclear energy seriously? Where do we put the exhaust from coil and oil burning power plants,? Can we dispose of the batteries there? Until you discuss this honestly,... Damn, I would make a good liberal, lol.
@@nickwinn7812 I feel much better because the green energy weenies are "discussing" the issues of mining, refining and disposal/recycling of batteries. I'm sure this will cheer the 8 year old kids in the Congo who are mining this stuff that green energy weenies love so much.
I work for a major electric company. The company's goal is to be 100% renewable by 2042. About 60% of that hinges on storage technology that doesn't even exist yet. And the materials used in batteries are far dirtier than coal or oil.
@@ellisjk1409 I hope they do and switch back to nice cheap, and after spending over $1.5 billion a piece on a catalyst system for 2 plants, clean coal. Everyone that works in the bottom 9/10ths of the company thinks this is ignorant. We already have been having the occasional brown out. Wait until 2042, we'll be lighting and heating our homes with wood again.
Been following Alex Epstein for a few years. Glad to see him getting more push, now with Stossel. Hes on point. If you care about humans, you should want MORE fossil fuels, not less.
And that's just it - the green energy fanatics don't care about people. They see humanity as a virus to the planet, nothing more. They need to be chastised as the anti-humanists they are.
@@lowegule135 yeah yeah..... they been saying were gonna run out of oil since the 1940s. Guess what, we keep finding more and more. We currently have enough in existing well to run the world for hundreds of years. We will definitely shift away from fossil fuels over time. But it takes just that. TIME! Honestly, we have the tech now if climate activists will pull their heads out of their asses. Nuclear is where we should be focusing our energy if youre so concerned with CO2 emissions.
@@lowegule135 I don’t believe fossils will run out, I’ve also look at Alex and he also says that there’s no such thing as limited resources. We can make other energy if they do.
@@lowegule135 Right? We need to be ready to switch and should attempt to gradually do so. I still think nuclear should be a greater percentage of the worlds energy production.
Ive been 100% solar since 2012 as i refused to pay 1000s of dollars to string power lines the 1/2 mile to my property. I can tell you solar isnt perfect, its a lifestyle thing.
John, I have an idea for a future video. Look into how much energy is consumed to manufacture solar materials and try to find someone that can answer the question of whether or not a solar panel ever produces as much energy as it consumed. I retired from a major chemical company that makes the materials the panels are made from and worked with some of the R&D scientists developing that stuff and they didn’t know. They said that nobody they knew of ever studied it and that since we made the products, we probably don’t want to know. In addition to the energy use there is the environmental side. The chemical processes to make this stuff produces hazardous chemical waste as well. And all the battery storage isn’t without consequences either. They use hazardous chemicals, produce hazardous waste, are dangerous to work around, and they only last a few years before they have to be disposed of, not to mention they are not 100% efficient. Every time you charge and discharge a battery you lose energy that you’ve paid to produce. I’m not anti wind and solar but nothing is a cure all.
Exactly. Just like that crazy lady's 2-year-old analogy, all technology starts off immature and gradually develops over time. I haven't done a ton of research on it, but everything I've heard regarding the new technology behind nuclear power makes it much more efficient and much safer. Maybe "green energy" will continue to develop and reach a point where it becomes the best choice over all other options, but for now I think nuclear is the way to go, at least in the near future.
@@justineld4905 Safer? "Irradiated Thorium is more dangerously radioactive in the short term. The Th-U cycle invariably produces some U-232, which decays to Tl-208, which has a 2.6 MeV gamma ray decay mode. Bi-212 also causes problems. These gamma rays are very hard to shield, requiring more expensive spent fuel handling and/or reprocessing."
John, please do an episode regarding large-scale batteries. You know the kind of batteries needed for this kind of task, electric vehicles, etc. I'd really like to better understand how the production of such batteries is currently effecting the environment and how that might change in the future. • Do we even have enough raw materials to meet the demand? • Where is the mining of raw materials happening? Compare impacts to coal mining if possible. • How difficult is it really to recycle a battery? • How effective is a large-scale recycled battery?
the best batteries don't require mining lithium. Energy can be stored in many ways and that lady was extremely short sighted. Hydro plants could receive electricity from highly unreliable solar and wind farms to pump water up into the reservoir and then go back to the turbines to regenerate electricity (at a loss).
I love how simultaneously these environmentalists say that climate change is irreversible but we will eventually figure out the battery problem. Why are we optimistic about our ability to solve the energy problem but so pessimistic about our ability to reverse climate change?
CO2 is beneficial anyway; another lie peddled by the propagandists is that it's bad. CO2 rises AFTER temperature rises, it doesn't cause it, any more than wet streets cause rain!
@@googleuser9383 That’s a dandy. Frau Merkel apparently has her fans, but I’ve yet to meet one in person and every German I know despises the woman with the vitriol of a leftist with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Germany was in the top 5% of electricity costs in the world, and they shut down the nuke plants. It was on purpose, and angela merkel was kneecapping her own country.
The technology to store the amount of energy necessary in batteries isn't there. Not even remotely. Outside of a technological leap forward in energy storage abilities (far beyond what current tech is capable of delivering) this will ALWAYS be a pipe dream!
We're literally closer to cold fusion than we are the battery technology that would be required to make wind/solar a viable core energy source. The sheer idiocy from green groups on this is pure and utter nonsense. Nuclear is the only real viable "green" solution given our current technological level as a replacement for fossil fuels, and they are doing everything in their power to destroy that industry.
I would love to see you do a show, or short series, on the true cost of "going green," meaning the cradle-to-grave impact of alternative energy. This could include battery production, wind turbines, solar panels, geothermal, nuclear, etc. The full truth needs to emerge before we can make a rational decision about cost (cost = impact as well).
The defenders always respond with the same answers. "People want clean energy." If they did, they would pay for it voluntarily. "It pays for itself." If it did, it would only need an investment at the beginning, then make a profit on its own. "It works very efficiently." Then we wouldn't have all the failures to deliver from them, or coal mines reopening everywhere to cover their lack of energy. "We want to avoid a global climate disaster." Given that virtually every prediction so far has been dead wrong, this is clearly not the way to go. We are not just good at adapting, but at transforming our environment. "We just need to invest more." Only private individuals invest; these are resources taken by force and moved into programs that have never been demonstrated to make any difference.
@@thomasm9552 Absolutely. It strikes us deep in our wallets, but that is nothing compared to the truly impoverished in third world countries, who need to be able to use fossil fields to survive and get ahead, like we did. The green movement is fine with just letting them starve in the cold and we should all condemn that as immoral. Let them make their own progress and they can afford better, cleaner technology.
I've worked in solar for 5 years, I know all it's pros and cons. Solar may be a great solution for individual households, but I say this with all my heart...... *NUCLEAR IS THE BEST OPTION FOR CIVILIZATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE!!!*
I'm all for nuclear, and hydro, and natural gas, and coal. The first two are the best choice for emissions, but when something goes wrong with either of them, well....Still waiting on that first NG/coal plant disaster.
to power the whole world by nuclear would require at least 25,000 full sized nuclear power stations in every country in the world. Third world, war zones, Afghanistan, earthquake areas, flood areas etc. Look at the mess the world has made with only 500 nuclear power stations.
When I was a kid and first heard the term "fossil fuel", I knew it was all a hoax or junk science. How many dinosaurs and sea creatures would it take to make all that oil? I knew then that liberals were either crazy or big fat liars, or more likely, both.
@@googleuser9383 Co2 will never become coal again, all coal generation cessed 300 million years ago, when fungi evolved to devour rotting wood. So once we burn all coal, no replacement ever!!!!!!
"The problem with nuclear power is that it doesn't dismantle systems of oppression, it just plugs into the current system and provides clean sustainable energy"
There was a wind storm where I was yesterday (steady at 30-50mph winds with strong gusts). There are lots of windmills but winds were too strong so none were running. Thats a ton of energy not being able to be put onto the grid. I'm sure coal fire plants fired up.
@@ellisjk1409 We wish you would just go away! Oil and gas are finite, and will run short in most peoples life time, the would has to build an alternative, while we can! One fossil fuels are goon, we will have no means to build a replacement!
Everyone seems to be 100% discarding any particular solution because it has a downside but every solution has a downside. You don't have to pick one or two, you can pick them all.
we all can agree that renewable innovation is great, the problem is the correct balance, it's a problem when it becomes an ideology, ideologies are utopian, blind and narrow minded
John, you made a mistake in this one. In Germany we are not paying triple, we are now paying 6x for electricity compared to the US! The 36 US Cent figure is from last year, the average currently is at approx 74 US Cent per kilowatt-hour. The highest price for electricity anywhere in the world.
Wahhh, we are in a remote area of the Philippines...paying $.57 usd per kilowatt hour... qe thought we were paying the highest per kwh...
Johanna Neuman is a fool
It was insane for Germany to close it's nuclear plants.
Holy shit. Hopefully they start waking up and see better ways of making energy
Holy crap!
California asked electric car owners to go easy on recharging because it was causing strain on the power grid! Let's see how it will all work out once everyone has an electric car.. 🤣 😂
Politicians don't think of consequences of their policies, they only think of the headline they get.
@@BillC-64 so true !! I feel like as a country we are going backwards
Hasn't California banned the sale of portable generators? I guess too many folks power their homes with generators when the state does its rotating power blackouts each summer/fall. An EV in every driveway ain't happening in Cali without a electric grid rebuild.
Look what happened to Texas when we all plugged in heaters a year ago
@@scharfys yes I remember 😆
"We want renewable energy! ... Except nuclear."
"Oh my god wind and solar isn't enough! Quick, we need coal!"
Absolutely brilliant logic.
Except that isn't the logic at all.
In EU, only Germany took the decision of stopping nuclear plants after Fukushima. But...
They have way more solar panels on their roof than the French, and windmills offshore.
40% of EU electricity is produced by renewables. Spain uses many solar plants.
We can't go further with hydroelectricity. Every spot where you could put a dam is used.
Problem. With heatwaves, reservoirs get dry, and rivers don't have enough water to cool nuclear plants.
And when you can't cool a nuclear plant, you shut it down. Prudence is the intelligent attitude, like reducing our greenhouse gas emissions to slow down global warming.
Judith Curry's logic is absurd. And she pulls a conspiracy theory, where is the evidence ?
Oops, I forgot. This is a right wing channel, most people watching it don't care for that.
@@daveconna6271amazing argument!
Don't forget Hydroelectric energy. It is not "renewable" too (or not "green"). Whatever, it's bad.
Nuclear, actually, consumes fossil fuel, so it is not really renewable. But it should be considered "green", but it isn't.
It's laughable, but one of the most "renewable" and "green" energy source is ...wait for it ... firewood !
I used to work for Vestas (Danish wind turbines). The amount of petroleum based products used in the turbines was insane! You can't recycle them ether, they become obsolete, it takes years to plant them down with all the surveys you have to do; all the legal red tape. Plus they cost 100's of thousands of dollar. Most of the people that want to do away with oil don't know that. Putting people like that in charge of energy is l like expecting a 3 year old child to run a country.
A 3 year old is running this country
I'm a former mechanical engineer and have crunched the numbers both on the energy and the financial side for wind and solar and there is no conceivable scenario where they make sense as a replacement for fossil fuels, even when you consider any "pollution." Nuclear power and hydro remain the two most viable long term energy sources based on the physics and economics by a huge margin. Most economic analyses do not take certain physical realities into account (like the lack of throttleability of solar/wind) or they don't consider how subsidies make solar/wind appear more favorable and they don't consider how public hysteria over nuclear makes it disproportionally expensive when it doesn't need to be.
@@Sugarsail1 Additionally our electrical infastructure is no where near capable in any semi-heavily or greater populated area to handle the elctrical load the loss of natural gas and fossil fuels would induce (california is experiencing brown outs on the regular because their power grid is like 30 years out of date as it is). This along with the absolute crap efficiency of even the best battery today does not support going 100% renewable in the next hundred years much less in 10.
Another issue the wind turbines caused is erroneous Doppler radar readings, due to reflection off of the turbine blades. Not sure if a solution to this has been developed or not, but I recall it being an issue early on.
Sugarsail1
How about geothermal?
She actually crushed her own argument with the "2 year old running a marathon" analogy. Using her own analogy, why would you be pushing for a 2 year old to take over an entire industry?
Lol... I've seen how 2yr olds act, I imagined her and others running around arms flailing bumping into each other...lol.
Hey lady libtard can you run a marathon??
Stossel 2024
And then there’s nuclear. Nuclear is like taking a car. Yes every couple hundred thousand miles you have a breakdown or an accident, but all things considered it’s a complete no-brainer in safety and reliability.
@Sun Is Rising meanwhile nuclear, which would be a great teammate, is being forced on the bench and not allowed to play
I was in college in the 1970's. In those days, we were just weeks from running out of oil, or so they said. I was studying engineering and took several courses on the potential for solar power. What no one ever seems to talk about is that solar is extremely limited. Best case is that the sun's energy at the earth's orbit is just a kilowatt per square meter. And that is only during the day. If we assume we can totally convert that energy (not possible, see the second law of thermodynamics) and store at 100% efficiency that energy until it is needed (not possible, ebit), then we would still need acres of solar panels to replace the neighborhood gas station. This is not about energy else we would be building nuclear power plants. This is about certain people in the government trying to exercise control over people.
When I was in school in the 1970's we were just 30 years from running out of oil. That was worrying enough. Have you lived your entire life wonderring when the gas station will shut? Solar power is "extremely limited". All of our power comes from the sun and alwayas has done. There is enough insolation to power our current greedy energy demands many times over. The second law of thermodynamics is about energy transfer, n ot effficiency. When i was at school they taught us science and how to differentiate it from bullshit.
Agreed that solar power is limited, when the sun sets, guess what -- no power!
So, at best, you have 12 hours of electricity. Imagine trying to power an entire city the size of Tokyo where I live with solar panels...total fantasy.
Aint gonna happen.
If you had ANYTHING to do with the renewable energy industry, you would know that energy storage is what they have been working on for years.
And guess what? Electric vehicles have very large amounts of energy storage -and many EVs allow you to tap that. It's known as V2G ("vehicle to grid").
With all those kWh of storage PARKED and PLUGGED in MOST of the time, we'd be foolish NOT to make use of them to store energy from the grid, while we also add as much stationary storage as we need - which will use less expensive technology that does not need to be light and energy dense.
@@nickwinn7812 If you had any clue about the second law of thermodynamics then you would understand what the op meant. To transform solar energy to electric energy through solar panels you are transferring energy. Thus you can't achieve lossless transfer as the op mentioned. Besides energy transfer rates aren't what is important. It is capacity rate EROI.
@@daveconna6271 Good Luck with that. Show us at least one state or country where V2G has worked. The only thing you will manage with this is to wear down your car's battery much faster than normal. Not to mention that we are already facing the problem of too many EVs and not enough power generation (due to our focus on solar/wind). More EVs is just gonna make the situation worse as it is now.
"Saying renewables are not yet powering our electricity grid, Is like critiquing a 2 year old for not being able to run a marathon".
I can agree with that. So why are we trying to force this two year old, that clearly isn't ready, to run marathons by throwing taxpayer money at it?
It’s an excuse to steal money!
Stossel 2024
First nuclear power plant was 6 years after WWII's bomb drop.
We're 44 years on with renewables with less to show for it.
Because it's a wise investment. Do you have any idea how much other things are subsidised?
Exactly what I thought after hearing this
I know it's not popular, but the best option is nuclear energy. Very energy dense, reliable, constant, available 100% of the time, smaller physical footprint than wind or solar. And with more modern technologies than earlier nuclear plants it can be made much safer than with older reactors.
Nuclear energy has a ironic history, because of the fearmongering against it, most of the reactors running today are based on the older technology that isn't on the same level as newer technology, but trying to touch them causes people to lose their minds and such projects get put on hold or are cancelled, the fear with the safety of nuclear energy is causing it to be less safe than it could be now.
We need to bury the stigma of nuclear energy. We need people to recognize that if you're against nuclear energy, you're against clean energy. Period.
Molten salt reactors are the answer.
@@ronwest7930 Standard uranium ones could be the answer, the issue is less about the type of reactor but that they are barely being developed outside of China and India.
@@gatzmajortz5033 I live among the hippies and the lefties and the greenies here in Santa Cruz, California. When you drive into SC down Graham Hill Rd from the valley, there's a sign posted by the city that's been there for decades proudly proclaiming Santa Cruz as a "Nuclear Free Zone".
It is truly astonishing how absolutely ignorant people are about the safety, efficiency, and cleanliness of nuclear energy.
Hell, coal plants release far, far more harmful radioactive isotopes than any nuclear plant does.
They're lying grifters, can we please stop beating around the bush and call them what they are?
As a German I am glad you are talking about this issues. Many people can hardly pay their bills
The Green Party really fucked up Germany by shutting down nuclear power plants and by denying Ukraine weapons (before the war started)
Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz. Hail the green party and socialists. Hail Schulz and EU. Forced Unification for all! Ein Reich, Ein Folk, Ein Fuhrer!
@@1queijocas Thing is, the government before that did little to improve things either. Let's not forget who shut down almost all nuclear power plants overnight.
@@GeorgWilde
Aren’t poor people part of the common good?
Are you being facetious? ( that’s not always clear in text)
Mama Merkel really broke Europe, huh
Her own example shows how silly all of this is. Do we expect two year olds to run marathons? Should we force them to, because politicians say they should? Or do we behave like rational adults, & wait until the "children" get older, develop, & can actually do the task at hand?
She's delusional, says that to criticize renewable is like criticize a 2 year old, but she wants 2 year olds to do it across the world 100%. That doesn't make any sense.
@@mantaspauza526 Leftist logic at its finest. Idk man, maybe you're just discriminating against two year old marathon runners...
@@k-ozdragon I remember reading a story about a kid who ran marathons. I don't remember his exact age, but I think it was in the 6-13 range. He was told to stop by his doctor after the doc noticed the stress was causing permanent damage to the kid.
Not Politicians, 'Leftist Politicians' say that they should......
They expect a two year old that was born with no arms or legs to run a marathon in a few years and set the all-time marathon record.
I live in a sunny place (South Carolina). Solar panels here only make 17% of their rated capacity. This is due to cloud cover, night time, and tree pollution which covers panels. If you put in a 10,000 watt system this means on average, you are gonna get 1700 watts. That is not gonna heat your hot water, power your AC, let alone even remotely charge your car. Do the math people! It doesn’t work. On top of that, you gotta be an electrical guru in both DC/AC power just to manage it all. Also, count on at least 2 major component failures a year, ie, inverter, charge controller, bad panels, bad battery banks, etc. Plus, about 90% of solar companies go bankrupt within 28 months…..so any warranty you got is 90% worthless. For the ordinary consumer, it is ridiculous to go solar unless you need to virtue signal to your neighbors. If you just need to virtue signal, you can buy blown panels for almost nothing, bolt them in place, and nobody knows better….plus drive a Prius or some other Hybrid that can charge itself from gasoline when needed…..you will still be in the club.
You are correct. My system in Michigan puts out about 1/4 of rated power in the best summer months, and 1/32 of rated power in the worst winter months.
2:59: “Offshore wind is remarkably consistent” - Stossel: “no it isn’t” …haha great editing. That cracked me up.
Well, hello there. :) Grew up on Stossel and still watching him today.
Lol, what else can he say... when someone's argument is "the thing i like is great". "No" is as valid of an argument 😂
Its great because He is right!
It's rather ironic that in most cases as the sun goes down, so does the wind.
CHEP She has that same blank look in her eyes that all useful idiots have.
The sun goes down and the coastal winds blow? This lady blows at truth-telling.
When the sun goes down in MY area (we have big wind farms) it gets completely winstill
@@JayVal90 The wind will blow in the right conditions and if it blows at night, as it did here last night of VERY heavy gusts, that means a storm is coming. Wind is created via thermal drafts that are created via heat, and cool, and the sun etc... Many a sailor would sit for days on end waiting for the wind to pick up when sail was all there was. They had many a mutiny, or damn close to it, if the wind didn't come back soon enough. This woman talking about wind on the ocean needs to go study nautical history to know wind can just go poof for sometimes a week, or more, at a time out there.
Listen my friend, If they'd put Biden and his friends infront of a windmill, the energy crysis would be solved in an instant!
....because let me tell you, this administration BLOWS HARD.
I've been doing this for a few years already. Here's a few tips that I learned the hard way.
1) Don't put the panels on your roof. They're harder to access: cleaning, snow removal, connections, longer wires...
2) Tip the panels in the winter. They'll drop the snow very quickly if tilted.
3) Up the voltage. Run either 24V or 48V. It takes thinner wires and will push power on longer wire runs.
4) Run the panels directly into the appliance being driven. The less conversion and gadgets, the better.
5) Surround the wind turbines with an air foil. It will focus the wind onto the prop much better.
6) Insulate the heck out your home. If you can't produce more heat, do better at insulation.
I could give advise all day, but if nobody does these things, I'm just wasting my time. I'd be better of just working on MY systems. Ask questions. I'll try to help.
Renewables still need fossil fuels to work and nuclear is a much smaller percentage then it should be
Short term fossil fuels is the only game in town and long term nuclear energy is the only provably working alternative.
People like AOC Elizabeth Warren Bernie Sanders and these green activists have no idea what they're talking about we've been using fossil fuels for over 100 years now
Yep
Facts brother facts.👌💯💯🇺🇲
The answer is nuclear. Game over…
I hope to see feasible fission in my lifetime
"We can't get rid of fossil fuels until we have some kind of miracle energy source."
We already have it: nuclear energy. Uranium has 5,000 times the Energy density of Coal. Including Chernobyl and Fukushima, Nuclear has fewer casualties than any other power plant type. It can operate 24/7 regardless of weather, can work in any location, is scalable and produces no carbon pollution.
to power the whole world by nuclear would require at least 25,000 full sized nuclear power stations in every country in the world. Third would, war zones, Afghanistan, earthquake areas, flood areas etc. Look at the mess the world has made with only 500 nuclear power stations.
Whats the radioactive half life like ? What u gonna do with that waste ?
@@kevwalker5714 Nuclear waste can be easily managed.
@@Ignisan_66 For 10,000 years? That's a real hoot.
@@kevwalker5714 Just dump it on the third world. No, they don't want it? Save it up in leaky ponds for your great,great, great.............................great grand children to deal with. What's not to like!
Thank you for talking about this! As a younger person, I see so many people in my generation get caught up in emotional climate alarmism. Sure, they are well intentioned in wanting a cleaner planet, but they are delusional in thinking we can just turn our power grid around on a dime. Many fail to consider the immense scale and complexity of providing a whole country with energy and often ignore any tradeoffs or consequences associated with forms of renewables. My brother is an electrical engineer who focuses on alternative energy. After working on solar systems for a year, even he admitted solar is not all it's cracked up to be. Besides from the poor efficiency, many solar products use heavy metals such as lead, take up large areas of land (which has led to deforestation or destruction of fertile farmland), and the lifespan of panels are relatively short and the issue of disposing and recycling them needs to be addressed. To be clear, I'm not against clean energy. I'm all for a cleaner, healthier planet, but crazy mandates and subsidies forcing us to rely on inferior systems that are in the infancy stages of their development are not going to be sustainable for humanity and the economy.
I am 40 and very disappointed that the hole in the ozone layer didn't kill us all in 20 years like it was supposed to when I was in 6th grade.
They've been pulling this grift for decades.
@@icestationzebraassociates2460 They were still talking about the ozone layer when I was in elementary school in the 2000’s. It was only in high school (2010’s) when it was admitted to us students that the ozone layer was fixed.
@@orppranator5230 Lol good to know. I've been living under my old sixth grade desk since then.
Very well stated the issue is that if you try to have that same conversation with a lefty/SJW your told you don't know what your talking about and eventually they'll pull the old "You must be a R". What you say is absolutely right the issue is your preaching to the choir those who should get it won't.
100%
Lady " renewables are clearly better". Things that are clearly better sell themselves and replace what isn't as good without government force and subsidy bribes needed.
No one had to be forced to change over to the automobile from the horse and buggy. People will flock to what makes
their life better.
Climate is always changing. Only today we are arrogant enough to believe we are affecting it. When someone talks about global warming, I ask the question, "What temperature is the planet supposed to be." Today we are cooler than what was called the medieval optimum.
Remember when we had to switch from paper to plastic in the 80’s and 90’s?
The chemical companies had a big push to “save a tree, go plastic”. Didn’t work out so well. Maybe we can learn from these types of things?
It's funny how we went back to paper bags.
@@googleuser9383 I researched that plastic movement and found that it used up oil contaminants. Not that I'm a oil hater I just followed the money.
Yeah, the lesson is not to trust those with veted interests.
Yeah exactly, more reason not to trust fossil fuel companies who lied to us before
@@firstnamenonapplicable5138 So you don’t agree with solar or EV?
These "green" people are insane. The market will create new energy sources. They would be great to have, but we're not there yet. It's OK to admit that.
Solar and wind are NOT green .. they create MORE pollution then coal (before you add the enviro cost of toxic batteries) and use more land to produce the same level of power
Solar lifespan is 14-30yrs (quality depending) to 50% production so
If you need max 4 you need to install 5 then replace 1 every 3.5-7yrs to keep power gen level plus battery replacement cycle
I have never found a research paper on man made climate change that did not invalidates itself due to bad methodology
MMCC is fake
As much of a renewables guy that I am that woman is living in what could be not what really is.
@@darunealbane One would think these people understand the basic laws of physics. You cannot create energy. There is always a cost. Maybe one day we figure out how to beat the system, but we're not even close. It's almost like a two year old running a marathon....
@@generalawareness101 renewables are a total scam untill we have a massive tec change on energy storage
My municipal electric provider is replacing two old coal plants from the 50s and 80s with a new natural gas generating station at about half the capacity. I guess they figure they’ll buy the excess they need from the larger regional grid. But all their forecasts at development anticipated coal getting more expensive while natural gas got cheaper as more fracking came online.
Two years ago, our gas infrastructure was so close to its limit that the governor declared a state of emergency and told people to turn their thermostats down.
So now, we’re on a fuel source that’s less reliable and getting more expensive while we tear down the power stations that could be offsetting some of those cost increases.
I wrote a paper about this back in college. You can't expect third world nations to go green. Their economy, at best, would stagnate. No progress.
How was the reaction to it?
@@Zach-ju5vi not very well received tbh.
Corrupt china gave their (mostly autonomously ruled) regions free reign to profit from coal mining.
What do they do? Everyone opens coal mines to make mad profits (part of which into private bank accounts) and then the coal price drops below operation costs.
What do they do? They open lots of coal power plants.
God, I hate china and anyone defending/denying/ignoring it.
This is what happens when you base policy on ideology instead of reality.
Exactly.
When the sun goes down the wind picks up! 😂. Every time I got California and drive by a wind farm most are OFF!!
I remember taking a course in energy when I was in college. I wrote a paper on geothermal energy. Iceland powers its grid with geothermal energy. They have used the volcanoes to turn water into steam and run steam turbines. I was surprised by the pushback from environmental groups over using volcanic heat to generate electricity. The amount of pollution from that is less than the average volcanic eruption. I get the feeling that these people just don't want us to have power. By volcanic eruptions, I am referring to the volcanoes in Iceland and Hawaii.
It's okay to push wind and solar energy. What is NOT okay is to ban everything else in their name. When someone pushes for "Tougher Restrictions" to Oil, Gas, Nuclear, Geothermal, Etc. they don't want green energy, they want no energy at all.
@@federicocaputo9966 BINGO.
Iceland is so blessed in a way while the ultimate curse is coming for them. That same geothermal energy that is free right now the piper will eventually want payment and BOOM.
The southern shore of the Salton Sea in Kalifornia hosts three or four geothermal powerplants. The northern areas of the state especially around Mount Shasta is geothermally active but no attempts at GTPs have been proposed. There is plenty of potential all around, however, regulations seem to keep everything from starting.
How the fuck is using the Earth's own natural heat not eco friendly enough?
What would this country be like without First Amendment protectors and independent journalists like John Stossel
Canada or California and eventually Venezuela. The Venezuelans were promised that Bid Daddy Government was going to take care of them, well it did kinda, it ruined EVERYTHING equally for everyone, except the cronies in Government of course.
Same will become of the U.S. as it would take an Act of Government to impose the complete overhaul of America's Energy sector and the complete Government control of all American Industry, Logistics and Construction as an indirect result of getting ALL other sectors of American Business and Society in compliance of their ridiculous "Green" Energy Policies and Programs.
We’d be like Europe
China, by now
We have absolutely no first amendment protections in this country. You can't technically be jailed for it (though Jan 6th proved that's not true) but you can be fired from your job, blacklisted, and censored from every form of communication in existence. We have ZERO free speech protections in this country
You would be like Canada
Here in California, there is an entire ad campaign aimed at getting Californians to NOT use electricity from 4PM to 9PM, as that is when solar and wind power production fails to keep up. Like Germany, California closed its nuclear power plants.
"keep it in the ground" okay, so what about the copper in windmill generators and gear boxes / cables??? What about lithium and cobalt from Africa and south America that aren't "green", those are used for electrical cars and solar panels... Can't "keep it in the ground" little girl.
Ask he if she's willing to give up her smart phone to "save the planet".
In the Netherlands we know that you can have max 10% of the energy demand from wind and solar panels. So nuclear energy is what we are aming for
Brilliant and CORRECT.
It's so frustrating to watch nuclear energy sitting alone in a corner only because a couple of over-hyped disasters took away its credibility forever. Guys, unless you have Soviet style corruption or a literal 100 feet tsunami wave crashing on your front door, nuclear power plants are THE safest, most reliable, inexpensive and clean sources of energy you can ever hope to find.
It's even worse than that. People died in the response to the Fukushima incident. Trying to move people in critical condition out of hospitals caused many of them to not survive when they would have had they stayed put. And incident that was never a serious threat to human health or safety. There were safeguards in place. It was a dicey situation, but it was not nearly as close to a meltdown as was claimed the thing was under control the entire time.
The panic surrounding the incident killed people when the incident itself did not. That's absurd.
IIRC Fukushima didn't have the proper disaster level security it legally required.
So, it was a corruption and a 100 feet tsunami.
Fukushima was an obsolete reactor, kept in service because no one wants to build newer, safer plants.
An already obslolete reactor when it was build with well known safety issues and a plant's crew pretty much fucking around with it, or a tsunami AND you have your fucking backup generators in the fucking basement as well as a literally not big enough anti-tsunami wall (the anti tsunami wall in Fukushima-D was already deemed too small), wich is prone to get flooded by said tsunami. . Fukushima Daiichi could in theory not have a single issue if the power plant just kept working (so the turbines-generators would power the water pumps). Those issues i mentioned were already flagged way before the 2011 Tohoku EQ as well
@@AlldaylongRock I;ve heard this argument before: at Fukashima, the nuclear plant ONLY failed because of the oversight of not protecting the backup generators...which leads to the very logical next question: WHAT will the simple oversight be that causes the NEXT failure?
1:31 The most ridiculous of green energy products is a solar panel farm. We have huge building complexes all over the place, schools, hospitals, strip malls, actual malls, big-bix stores etc with these vast rooftops and you're going to waste land for a farm? What was this land before the solar farm, a forest or fatmland growing food? Look how manicured that ground is too, is a gas mower keeping that nice? Does that get factored in when calculating how green this is?
Sorry but solar paels belong on rooftops and that's it
Agrivoltaics is an interesting phenomenon. Essentially they take farms that get too much sun and use solar panels to thin it out. Reduces sunlight and heat on the plants, lowering damage and water requirements. It is an interesting idea that should definitely be explored further. But just mowing down productive forests or fields to put in PV panels seems pretty stupid.
Excellent points! Maybe could put it on massive grazing farmland, but all that shade would slow down grass growth too.
The logistics of maintenance & granting permission for 1,000 different rooftop owners is prohibitive until free market encourages everyone to want to get their own solar panel & be responsible for all the related maintenance.
I read about a solar cell paint that could be applied right on the building... about 10yrs ago. Guess that never worked out either.
@@TwilightMysts Do not forget they are also using those not just for shade, but they are actually using the heat variation to collect potable water in places like the desert. Very interesting project they have.
Here in Florida solar is growing a lot, and its very common to see panels on houses. I've considered it, and if I did I would likely sell the energy produced during the day instead of saving it to batteries.
A lot of energy-demanding devices are no longer so demanding. I really lke LED bulbs and noticed the drop they caused, plus I like the sunlight-colored light vs the Instagram-yellow of incandescents. TVs used to demand a lot of power too, but now they dont.
Solar is only good for small closed electrical systems. We should only use it in applications that actually make sense because they drive up the cost of value resources.
I like how stossel contradicts and pokes holes in the arguments of both interviewees. Truly a sign of a journalist who searches for truth instead of trying to push an agenda.
This is why we should begin making nuclear energy less taboo.
Yes, I hate taboo energy.
Tell everyone that sunshine is nuclear energy too. They would all go hide in their cellar and never come out in daylight.
And they'd avoid skincancer and become troglydites.
this moral grandstanding combined with wishful thinking is going to be the end of us.
People that fell asleep in math and physics are telling us math and physics are going to save the planet.
It doesn't have to end us.
It's already a huge thorn with it's 7.9%.
It's not "moral" though. It's evil. When you do something that literally kills people, and makes the lives of millions of not billions worse -- All while self-aggrandizing and earning big bucks -- You don't get to pretend like it's a sincere and honest mistake. It's evil.
I love real journalism.
John, I've been listening to you for as long as I can remember. I'm now 47 and still thoroughly enjoy your content. Thank you and God bless
Don't forget we now have micro nuclear reactors that can produce 20 mw. A smaller reactor can help shrink and isolate faulting reactors. We literally can provide nuclear energy on the small town level and decentralize the power grid. This I think is most important. If Ukraine tells you anything, it is that centralized power grids can disable entire regions.
The people in charge are saboteurs who want everything centralized and easy to shut off at any time. A revolt is coming, and today's supply chain issues are a test to see how well people adapt to being cut off.
20 milliwatts? That truly is a MICRO reactor! [even 20 MW is small, probably too small to bother with for powering the electric grid]
@@georgepelton5645 20 MW might not be that bad for a small town, though it depends on what your definition of 'small town' is.
@@caedenw Because it doesn’t actually work. They’re fine pushing decentralized “solutions” that still leave you dependent on the Grid.
Pro tip:
Big M is megawatts, (1 mil watts) little m is 1/1000th of a watt.
LOL- Off shore wind doesn't mean much when most of the US is in land!
Nuclear energy will still be needed even when we have 100% solar and wind capacity.
Yeah if people had not gotten so freaked out about nuclear power global warming would be significantly lower than it is now and we would be getting to closer to Zero net emissions much faster. We would be sending way less money to the worst of regimes humanity like Russia or Iran. And our energy would be cheaper than 100% fossil fuel economy.
But nuclear is bad because they admit radiation and 1/100 the rate of coal power plants.
And there is a melt down risk that has killed a tiny fraction of the people that pollution for other energy sources has. And is basically 0 risk of happening with modern reactors.
And don't forget the nuclear waste that we can safely is sites like the Yucca Mountain, provided politicians who know as much about science as I know about tween fashion stop blocking it from being used.
If we had 100% solar/wind capacity, we might as well have no World. What we need more than anything is honesty about this so called green energy, we've had nothing but kneejerk reactions since the 70's. We're going to have to start acting responsibly instead of being happily ignorant of the facts. We always speak of how fossil fuels are our greatest threat, because of the impact on environment and we will eventually run out. We have much more to be concerned about in natural population increase than we will ever have in fossil fuels running out. Small steps have been made in clean coal technology and the removal of coal, why haven't we concentrated on something we can actually do to improve instead of idiotic pipe dreams. If we spent a third of the time on improving what is available instead of spewing lies about wind/solar/battery we would have already been ahead of the curb. Once again we have chosen to follow instead of lead, are we admitting we have no faith in our education system and have to rely on outside sources to create relevant ideas? European countries have supposedly came up with a new source of nuclear fuel that is safer than the old standard and still they shut down nuclear plants and went with solar/wind. Now these countries go back to coal because it is still the most readily available and quickest to place in service. If we subsidized these existing plants and built new clean coal plants, phasing out the older ones as the newer ones come on line as we should have been doing all along we could stop subsidizing stupidity that only makes the elite richer and further harms the environment. Are we never going to grow tired of feeding the elite money for nothing and only continue to add to the environmental issues instead of actually trying to correct what we have.
@@justme6621 Improving fossil fuels plants and maybe building completely clean ones as a bridge technology sounds reasonable but sticking to fossil fuels as a long term energy strategy is retarded. First we had coal which is already pretty good then oil which was better then gas which is yet better than oil and then we found out how to tap the power of the atom. Going nuclear long term is the only logical and responsible path we can go.
@@mrkokolore6187 You can’t actually pair nuclear with wind and solar because nuclear can’t speed up / slow down fast enough. Only natural gas and oil plants can do that (even coal has issues).
There is NO place for intermittent energy supply in our future. Solar will work when it’s in space. Wind will never work because it’s retarded (maybe paired with hydroelectric, that’s it)
@@JayVal90 Yeah I'm not a fan of wind either. Solar is pretty cool but is obviously not able to "survive" alone. I doesn't matter if we overproduce electricity because we can use the energy to create hydrogen, synthetic gas and fuel, desalinated water etc.. There is no reason not to go nuclear. Long-term we might even be able to use fusion energy instead of fission but until then there is no better energy source than fission energy.
I'm happy to see John is finally getting some of the attention he deserves on his channel
what?
Finally?
Stossel 2024
If Stossell wasn't so liberal he would get a lot more fans. It's very hard to make a living in media trying to ride the middle like he does. He should just pick a side already. He reminds me of Tulsi Gabbard; the left hates you so why are you still catering to them? Take the red pill already.
Of course he's getting attention on his channel. It's his channel.
Germany is actually dismantling a wind farm to make way for coal strip mining.
Good, easier to charge my car with coal power than wind and solar.
@@Edwardo-e7j Yes of course, but the Greenies have vowed to do away with coal and other fossil fuels.
Really good video as always Stossel. Will you do a secondary video that goes into how implementing green energy infrastructure is actually detrimental to the environment? Ex: Clearing hundreds of acres for wind farms that have less than 5% return to coal plants etc
Also the damage to wildlife and the nasty chemicals used to create some renewables, specifically solar.
He makes the false statement "global warming is threat" when it is not. And regardless of that THE solution is MODERN nuclear power, not the dangerous antiques still being used. Small nuclear reactors and other "walk away safe" reactor technologies.
@@winstonsmith478 completely agree. If those who are proponents of "green energy" were serious, they would be staunch advocates for Nuclear. You likely know of him but I like Michael Shellenberger's journey to this conclusion
Watch the documentary, Planet of the Humans.
That's the Michael Moore doc he made a couple years ago. The green crowd now hate him. Yes, he's a liberal, but he points out that green energy is actually a financial scam. It's free here on TH-cam
1. Never take anyone in this debate seriously who is against nuclear power. 2. Do you get the sense that climate alarmists sort of love the pain caused by lack of energy independence and skyrocketing energy costs?
Thank you John for always telling the truth.
I was IBEW for 12 years and a good chunk of that was working on solar farms. I can tell you that we are 20 years away from using only that due to the efficacy of our current technology. I'm sure we can get there sooner but what people don't realize is we need to cut down 10s of thousands of acres of forests just to make grids to support a city. These dummies act as if energy companies aren't dumping millions of dollars a year in research for clean energy. Too many people have watched that documentary "Gasland" and instantly became an expert on the topic lol
One of my professors at university was working on the liquid salt thorium reactors. The biggest issue they have is nobody is willing to foot the bill to try and actually built a working prototype. They would rather spend on "green energy" and waste money that way.
He complained that he couldn't even get it from the programs looking to develop nuclear energy, because those grants are saved for conventional plants because you can use them to build nukes.
@@cp1cupcake as long as a nuclear reactor is maintained properly, you have virtually unlimited energy. Where I live now, there are tons of reactors and my energy costs are minimal. The progressive idiots don't care about using fossil fuels as long as they don't come from here, which I find comical.
@@cp1cupcake Correct. I live near DOE-Hanford. Although weapons-grade plutonium is no longer being produced, I lived here when it was. An interesting side bit: I knew a guy that worked at Energy Northwest (formerly WPPS), and he would tell me when shutdown procedures were in progress- they were simply because they were producing excess electricity.
Now, consider this is near the convergence of the Snake, Yakima, and Columbia rivers. So hydro is the main source of electricity here, and it's CHEAP. Still is. But nuclear still remains a big secondary source, but yes, Energy Northwest is still using older tech.
Here's a rule of thumb:
If it works and is profitable, someone will realize it to make money.
If Green energy isn't choice Nr.1 for energy companies even after oil and coal get sanctioned, then green really isn't good enough yet.
You can apply that logic to any tech.
I personally don't want to rely on getting my power from a source only available for half of the day. And as far as
battery storage, just think how many times in your life batteries have let you down.
Just up the street I must have seen a couple dozen truck's fully loaded with tree's to put up a solar farm that will last 20 years.... The trees took a hundred years to grow.... How's this green?
They did the same thing on the Air Force base I was stationed at. And I asked that exact question. So we cut down 100 year old growth to “go green” 🙄
That's agenda driven progress. Just like lock downs. Lives saved? No way to even measure if any. Lives lost?
Thousands provable.
I love how Neumann attempted to play gotcha on Stossel by asking him about his solar panels, and then was forced to admit to their shortcomings John mentioned them.
She got stumped for sure, and laugh out loud watching her try to turn it back on him. I felt embarrassed for her just watching her fail.
The switch to cleaner energy should be done, AFTER the world has enough clean energy to run on, not before
It's like putting the cart before the horse
Economics 101 - a slow shift in supply and demand is healthy,
but a quick shift is an economic crysis.
Biden's policies decrease the supply of oil (damaging the entire logistics of the US) and skyrocketed the demand for tin and alu for his renwables. ...what a moron.
Nothing but the facts and John delivers.
Thank you
Thanks John
No such thing as “renewable energy” once energy is spent it’s gone!
Nuclear power
Facts
Yes but the production of the energy is a renewable process.
Green energy is a conspiracy theory.
@@nolan122 newest research showing oil is a renewable resource
The amount of oil and coal proven in the ground is bigger then plant life needed to make it
I love how Stossel always disagrees with whoever he's interviewing, and only makes his point in voice overs after the interview. He gets so much better information from people this way.
*Devil's advocate is called what stossel does.
Some people don't like it, but it helps you doing real, unbiased journalism.
@@googleuser9383 Helps people TRY to atleast explain their point of view, regardless of how dumb, understand where they come from, and then hit them with the facts.
This is how someone who does not know what he is talking about responds: he can;t answer in the moment so he goes home and thinks up something 'clever', inserts it - and then the person being interviewed never has a chance to respond about what BS Stossel is putting out.
it is even more horrifying that commenters actually don't have the critical thinking skills to recognize this phony 'interview' technique!!
@@googleuser9383 No, it is the VERY OPPOSITE of "real, unbiased journalism".
Rather, it lets Stossel have the last word in his studio, after the fact, when the person being interviewed can't even expose his BS.
Which this hit piece is simply full of - Stossel is simply a populist jackass, who has cynically figured out what will sell so he can make MONEY!
Our leaders need to be committed, all of them.
Sadly, most of them already are committed...to running our country off into the ditch!
@@jmccoomber1659 I meant, of course, to the appropriate institutions.
@@paulmoore7064 I know, I was trying - apparently badly - to make a joke :-)
@@jmccoomber1659 Tone of voice doesn't show up in text. A common problem.
@@paulmoore7064 Yeah, but in this case, it the meaning was obvious to readers who assume the commenter is of at least average intelligence. English lends itself nicely to comedy because of its numerous homonyms.
As a German I say please other countries don't follow our path. Exiting nuclear energy is ruining us.
As a Swiss, can I just say thank you for all the free energy that we get from your overproduction of green energy.
@@ben_1 Thanks for sticking to nuclear energy. We will soon be completely dependant on countries like yours to carry us through dark lulls. I admire Beznau demonstrating how old a nuclear power plant can actually become.
@@mrkokolore6187 Well, I've got bad news for you... We're also on our way out, it just takes longer than elsewhere, because everything here does (I've never been more happy about that).
Building new nuclear power stations is not allowed, and once the existing ones go offline they can't be replaced. I'm still hoping that until then the world has come to their senses about this and the ban will be reversed...
@@mrkokolore6187 I find Germany's closure of their nuclear plants to be baffling and senseless.
It gets even worse when you realize their plan after Fukishima was to build more nuclear power plants to supply electricity to the European countries like France who vowed to close their own plants.
If you guys hadn't closed your plants and built more instead, then the Syrian civil war would probably have ended years beforehand, Europe would not be looking to Russia for power, and so on. The amount of death and corruption from the loss of those plants is staggering.
Because the biggest concern Europe has is its tsunami season.
@@cp1cupcake Don't tell me, tell my government. I'm on your side here. The nuclear phase out is a gigantic mistake that has to be stopped ASAP.
John Stossel is a hero and American Legend
Yes, thank you for being objective on this.
Especially when he pisses off a professional wrestler!
Let's not get carried away. He still a liberal.
John Stossel is one of the few *real* journalists.
Coal and oil is technically "renewable".
Well, if you manage to filter the co2 out of the air and compress it back into coal, we could talk about that.
It's not impossible mind you. Just very cost ineffective.
@@googleuser9383 Or just wait a few thousand years :P
I grew up in Tehachapi, so I am very accustomed to seeing windmills on a daily basis. I have no grudge held against them, but I have to say: wind is very unreliable. I mean, there's a reason why we ditched sails for engines!
Gone are the days where elected officials have one whit of common sense.
We have the best politicians money can buy.
@@k-ozdragon The worse ones believe their own bs.
What a great video with tons of great points. And while he did talk about the cost of greatly expanding battery power, he didn't even mention one of the other biggest issues: mining the materials to construct the batteries and also how to dispose of the batteries once they no longer work. Until the green energy activists start discussing this issue honestly I will refuse to take them seriously.
You should just laugh whenever they open their mouths. seriously.
Bonus points if it's greta.
Can't we just put them in the same place we keep nuclear waste? Where is that again? Do you also not take nuclear energy seriously? Where do we put the exhaust from coil and oil burning power plants,? Can we dispose of the batteries there? Until you discuss this honestly,... Damn, I would make a good liberal, lol.
What universe are you living in? The green energery activists are discussing the issues of mining, refining and disposal/recycling of batteries.
@@nickwinn7812 I feel much better because the green energy weenies are "discussing" the issues of mining, refining and disposal/recycling of batteries. I'm sure this will cheer the 8 year old kids in the Congo who are mining this stuff that green energy weenies love so much.
Stossel for President
I work for a major electric company. The company's goal is to be 100% renewable by 2042. About 60% of that hinges on storage technology that doesn't even exist yet. And the materials used in batteries are far dirtier than coal or oil.
Well, my goal is to celebrate their demise when they go broke trying.
@@ellisjk1409 I hope they do and switch back to nice cheap, and after spending over $1.5 billion a piece on a catalyst system for 2 plants, clean coal. Everyone that works in the bottom 9/10ths of the company thinks this is ignorant. We already have been having the occasional brown out. Wait until 2042, we'll be lighting and heating our homes with wood again.
Been following Alex Epstein for a few years. Glad to see him getting more push, now with Stossel. Hes on point. If you care about humans, you should want MORE fossil fuels, not less.
And that's just it - the green energy fanatics don't care about people. They see humanity as a virus to the planet, nothing more. They need to be chastised as the anti-humanists they are.
But if you don't have renewable in the future once fossils runs out or become so rare... You'd be screwed.
@@lowegule135 yeah yeah..... they been saying were gonna run out of oil since the 1940s. Guess what, we keep finding more and more. We currently have enough in existing well to run the world for hundreds of years. We will definitely shift away from fossil fuels over time. But it takes just that. TIME! Honestly, we have the tech now if climate activists will pull their heads out of their asses. Nuclear is where we should be focusing our energy if youre so concerned with CO2 emissions.
@@lowegule135 I don’t believe fossils will run out, I’ve also look at Alex and he also says that there’s no such thing as limited resources. We can make other energy if they do.
@@lowegule135 Right? We need to be ready to switch and should attempt to gradually do so. I still think nuclear should be a greater percentage of the worlds energy production.
Very true
So glad that stossel is still around
Nuclear
Ive been 100% solar since 2012 as i refused to pay 1000s of dollars to string power lines the 1/2 mile to my property. I can tell you solar isnt perfect, its a lifestyle thing.
Putting carbon in the air that comes from coal that came from plants that extracted it from the air sounds incredibly irresponsible.
John, I have an idea for a future video. Look into how much energy is consumed to manufacture solar materials and try to find someone that can answer the question of whether or not a solar panel ever produces as much energy as it consumed. I retired from a major chemical company that makes the materials the panels are made from and worked with some of the R&D scientists developing that stuff and they didn’t know. They said that nobody they knew of ever studied it and that since we made the products, we probably don’t want to know. In addition to the energy use there is the environmental side. The chemical processes to make this stuff produces hazardous chemical waste as well. And all the battery storage isn’t without consequences either. They use hazardous chemicals, produce hazardous waste, are dangerous to work around, and they only last a few years before they have to be disposed of, not to mention they are not 100% efficient. Every time you charge and discharge a battery you lose energy that you’ve paid to produce. I’m not anti wind and solar but nothing is a cure all.
It's already been done of course. For heavens sake all you demyers - at least do your basic research!
Excellent! Well done 👏
John Stossel basically has no videos without TH-cam trying to flag him for something
If only there was this fancy thing called thorium that could easily power everyone... But you know, nuclear is "scary"
Exactly. Just like that crazy lady's 2-year-old analogy, all technology starts off immature and gradually develops over time. I haven't done a ton of research on it, but everything I've heard regarding the new technology behind nuclear power makes it much more efficient and much safer. Maybe "green energy" will continue to develop and reach a point where it becomes the best choice over all other options, but for now I think nuclear is the way to go, at least in the near future.
@@justineld4905 Safer? "Irradiated Thorium is more dangerously radioactive in the short term. The Th-U cycle invariably produces some U-232, which decays to Tl-208, which has a 2.6 MeV gamma ray decay mode. Bi-212 also causes problems. These gamma rays are very hard to shield, requiring more expensive spent fuel handling and/or reprocessing."
Excellent reporting again!
"Global warming is a threat." So is global cooling 😀Pick your nightmares.
A few decades ago the climate activists were actually demanding more fossil fuels be burned because of the planet was cooling.
John, please do an episode regarding large-scale batteries. You know the kind of batteries needed for this kind of task, electric vehicles, etc.
I'd really like to better understand how the production of such batteries is currently effecting the environment and how that might change in the future.
• Do we even have enough raw materials to meet the demand?
• Where is the mining of raw materials happening? Compare impacts to coal mining if possible.
• How difficult is it really to recycle a battery?
• How effective is a large-scale recycled battery?
the best batteries don't require mining lithium. Energy can be stored in many ways and that lady was extremely short sighted. Hydro plants could receive electricity from highly unreliable solar and wind farms to pump water up into the reservoir and then go back to the turbines to regenerate electricity (at a loss).
Thank you!
I love how simultaneously these environmentalists say that climate change is irreversible but we will eventually figure out the battery problem. Why are we optimistic about our ability to solve the energy problem but so pessimistic about our ability to reverse climate change?
Shutting down nuclear power stations is insane. They’re the most reliable way to get power without CO2 waste.
CO2 is plant food.
CO2 is beneficial anyway; another lie peddled by the propagandists is that it's bad. CO2 rises AFTER temperature rises, it doesn't cause it, any more than wet streets cause rain!
"insane"? Tell me, how did you know Angela Merkel's middle name?
@@googleuser9383 That’s a dandy. Frau Merkel apparently has her fans, but I’ve yet to meet one in person and every German I know despises the woman with the vitriol of a leftist with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Germany was in the top 5% of electricity costs in the world, and they shut down the nuke plants. It was on purpose, and angela merkel was kneecapping her own country.
The technology to store the amount of energy necessary in batteries isn't there. Not even remotely. Outside of a technological leap forward in energy storage abilities (far beyond what current tech is capable of delivering) this will ALWAYS be a pipe dream!
Wonder how much this woman is getting from Putin???
We're literally closer to cold fusion than we are the battery technology that would be required to make wind/solar a viable core energy source. The sheer idiocy from green groups on this is pure and utter nonsense. Nuclear is the only real viable "green" solution given our current technological level as a replacement for fossil fuels, and they are doing everything in their power to destroy that industry.
@@brandoncomer6492 LOL
I would love to see you do a show, or short series, on the true cost of "going green," meaning the cradle-to-grave impact of alternative energy. This could include battery production, wind turbines, solar panels, geothermal, nuclear, etc. The full truth needs to emerge before we can make a rational decision about cost (cost = impact as well).
Thank you
The best figure I can find is that it takes 5too10years to recoup the energy needed to make a solar panel.given that it doesn't fail first
The rising fossil fuel costs are part of the renewable replacement play book.
Well done.
The defenders always respond with the same answers.
"People want clean energy." If they did, they would pay for it voluntarily.
"It pays for itself." If it did, it would only need an investment at the beginning, then make a profit on its own.
"It works very efficiently." Then we wouldn't have all the failures to deliver from them, or coal mines reopening everywhere to cover their lack of energy.
"We want to avoid a global climate disaster." Given that virtually every prediction so far has been dead wrong, this is clearly not the way to go. We are not just good at adapting, but at transforming our environment.
"We just need to invest more." Only private individuals invest; these are resources taken by force and moved into programs that have never been demonstrated to make any difference.
If you want a constant output, then it pays for itself around as often as you need to replace all of the components.
Their push to avoid a non-existent climate disaster is going to bring on a real humanitarian disaster.
@@thomasm9552 Absolutely. It strikes us deep in our wallets, but that is nothing compared to the truly impoverished in third world countries, who need to be able to use fossil fields to survive and get ahead, like we did. The green movement is fine with just letting them starve in the cold and we should all condemn that as immoral. Let them make their own progress and they can afford better, cleaner technology.
I've worked in solar for 5 years, I know all it's pros and cons. Solar may be a great solution for individual households, but I say this with all my heart...... *NUCLEAR IS THE BEST OPTION FOR CIVILIZATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE!!!*
I'm all for nuclear, and hydro, and natural gas, and coal. The first two are the best choice for emissions, but when
something goes wrong with either of them, well....Still waiting on that first NG/coal plant disaster.
to power the whole world by nuclear would require at least 25,000 full sized nuclear power stations in every country in the world. Third world, war zones, Afghanistan, earthquake areas, flood areas etc. Look at the mess the world has made with only 500 nuclear power stations.
Give that young man a medal.
I love how they are called "fossil fuel" when its the second most abundent liquid on the planet.
but unlike water we do actually "consume" it.
co2 takes a very long time to become coal again.
The greatest discovery.....ever
When I was a kid and first heard the term "fossil fuel", I knew it was all a hoax or junk science. How many dinosaurs and sea creatures would it take to make all that oil? I knew then that liberals were either crazy or big fat liars, or more likely, both.
@@googleuser9383 Co2 will never become coal again, all coal generation cessed 300 million years ago, when fungi evolved to devour rotting wood. So once we burn all coal, no replacement ever!!!!!!
"The problem with nuclear power is that it doesn't dismantle systems of oppression, it just plugs into the current system and provides clean sustainable energy"
Why are these politicians so delusional?
There was a wind storm where I was yesterday (steady at 30-50mph winds with strong gusts). There are lots of windmills but winds were too strong so none were running. Thats a ton of energy not being able to be put onto the grid. I'm sure coal fire plants fired up.
You know what works no matter the weather or time of day? All other sources EXCEPT wind and solar.
I like the idea of renewable energy. But, the technology underperforms and will require a long time to transition.
Sucks for you then. I don't care one bit about renewable energy and I wish it would go away.
@@ellisjk1409 We wish you would just go away! Oil and gas are finite, and will run short in most peoples life time, the would has to build an alternative, while we can! One fossil fuels are goon, we will have no means to build a replacement!
Everyone seems to be 100% discarding any particular solution because it has a downside but every solution has a downside. You don't have to pick one or two, you can pick them all.
we all can agree that renewable innovation is great,
the problem is the correct balance,
it's a problem when it becomes an ideology, ideologies are utopian, blind and narrow minded
Forced innovation always fails.
Intelligent people who lack wisdom are too smart to see where they’re ignorant. It’s a vicious, perpetual cycle.
Always great news Mr. Stossel 👍👍