I think you’re making a solid point, but I think the basic problem is a fundamental lack of the willingness to listen and digest someone else’s point of view. Sources of information are important to a debate, but they’re ultimately irrelevant if either side isn’t willing to even consider the possibility that there’s more to learn than what they already know.

Agreed. Lemmy has exactly one political opinion, and woe betide any poor soul of another persuasion.

Otherwise the community is pretty great. Lots of good conversation with intelligent commenters.

There’s nothing to be done about it. Legally there’s no such thing as “hate speech” in the US, and there won’t be unless we get around to changing the first amendment.

Hence people falling back to “I don’t care” as a defense mechanism. The world is too big, and there’s too much awful happening, to emotionally invest in all of it. Not and stay sane. It’s so much easier to narrow focus to your own life and pursuits, and let everything else be what it is.

And so we get these useless platitudes, because “I don’t care about that” can be both true and socially unacceptable at the same time.

New socially acceptable ways to say “I don’t give a crap”.

You can be absolutely sure they’re selling it to every company and national government that will pay for it.

If you’re part of a marginalized group that some government would like to commit a human rights violation against in the last decade, chances are Google was a gleeful enabler on the government side.

I remember when my oldest sister bought her first AR-15 at the hardware store, for cash. They didn’t so much as ask for ID. It wasn’t locked up or anything, just take it off the shelf and go check out, no big deal.

This was in 1991.

It kind of sort of is, in some places, as of very recently. During Covid this was a pretty common story.

NLRB is going to have to convince a court (probably several) that their stance is the correct one before that ruling becomes at all real, though.

Long range transmission of AC power is limited to about 40 miles. DC can be transmitted much farther, but the infrastructure is substantially more expensive (because it’s more dangerous), so that’s only done for extreme need.

We aren’t getting away from having many power generators all over the place, so one location-dependent storage solution isn’t going to solve all the problems.

Absolutely. Coal has remained consistent as demand for power has risen steadily. Renewables are growing, but remain a tiny slice of the whole generation picture.

Natural gas has become a cheap and reliable replacement for coal over the last 10-15 years as it’s become less expensive to transport. Many coal plants have been converted, even. So as demand has risen, it’s natural gas, not renewables, that is filling the gap.

It works very well, not disputing that.

But, like geothermal power generation (which is also very good), it’s extremely dependent on location. Most populated areas don’t have the altitude differential (steep hills) and/or water supply to implement pumped hydro storage.

Where it can be used, it should be (and largely is - fossil fuel generation does better with some storage as well, since demand is not consistent), but it’s hardly something that can be deployed alongside solar and wind generators everywhere.

Storage. Coal, natural gas, and nuclear generate power regardless of weather, day and night.

Solar generates plenty of electricity (with enough panels installed), but it slows down significantly under cloudy skies and stops entirely at night.

Wind generates plenty as well…unless the wind stops blowing.

The grid needs power all the time, not just when it’s sunny and windy. For renewables to actually compete, the excess power they generate during sunny and windy times needs to be stored for use when it’s dark and still.

As much as we applaud lithium batteries, our energy storage technologies are abysmally inefficient. We’re nowhere near being able to store and discharge grid-scale power the way we’d need to for full adoption of renewables. The very best we can do today (and I wish I were kidding) is pump water up a hill, then use hydroelectric generators as it flows back down. Our energy storage tech is literally in the Stone Age.

It never stopped. Hasn’t even really slowed down.

People need electricity. Renewables are great, but they don’t provide for the full generation need. Coal and natural gas power generation will continue unabated until a better (read: lower price for similar reliability) solution takes their place.

In my opinion, fossil fuel generation won’t take a real hit until the grid-scale energy storage problem is solved.