Transition Issues

I attended a zoom last night where the presenter was Dr James Conca - he's been closely connected with power generation and transmission issues for many years - I'll put a link to his presentation below - lengthy but worthwhile. Basically he made the case that we can't transition to a reliable carbon free energy system without nuclear. If we don't have a baseline of power from something reliable like nuclear, we'll have brownouts when the electricity is most needed - very high or very low temperatures. And lives will be lost as a result.

He made one point that was new to me - there are hundreds of dams across the US that don't produce hydro electricity but could be modified to do that.

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/Ip2yV61tlEvEv4UESUzkE8Vz3QCuiEW8vvt7-cnCP3jT_2lXQWNMWwR75Np7RDim.7IG1nOl_H6GnjH1r

The Electric Car Future is Coming fast, but the power grid isn't ready

Many challenges ahead of us for sure.

Plans to Dig the Biggest Lithium Mine in the U.S. Face Mounting Opposition - Inside Climate News

Does the benefit of EV’s outweigh the environmental degradation and EJ of the affected communities? A good look at the issue...

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07112021/lithium-mining-thacker-pass-nevada-electric-vehicles-climate/

Disturbing. Here's a quote from the piece that seems to go right to the heart of what we are confronting: "The flawed assumption behind the 'clean energy transition,' they argue, is that it can maintain levels of consumption that are inherently unsustainable."

I think a case can be made that one way or the other we as a species are going to have to reduce our consumption. Whether we do that by design or whether it's forced upon us by the environmental consequences of our industrial and technological practices.