by sensanaty | 2026-03-09 22:42:42+00:00
Now this is just moving goalposts. The comment I replied to stated that the problem with renewables was that they too pollute and cause waste that isn't easy to dispose of, and they also affect the environment in a negative light. I didn't even dispute that point, as I said renewables aren't a silver bullet and we should be pursuing as much variety as we can with our energy production & grids, whether it be fossil fuels, renewables or especially nuclear. But we should preferably be moving more towards the latter two and away from fossil fuels except in situations where they make the most sense, and also considering all the facts that usually get conveniently ignored when discussing fossil fuels, like their disastrous effects on the environment.

> The EROEI of renewables is 4

Saying "renewables" have an EROEI of 4 is disingenuous at best. "Renewables" isn't one technology, it covers everything from wind to solar to geothermal to hydro. That 4 figure comes from worst-case transitional modelling of buffered wind specifically, and even then it's a temporary system-wide dip, not a measurement of what these technologies actually deliver[1]. Wind and solar individually come in at >=10:1 and rising as the tech matures[2]. Geothermal actually is in the hundreds, but that obviously isn't globally applicable. Lumping all of that together and slapping a "4" on it is either ignorant or deliberately misleading.

And the "hundreds" figure for fossil fuels is pure fantasy. Conventional oil sits at roughly 18-43:1, and US fossil fuel discovery EROI has cratered from ~1000:1 in 1919 to about 5:1 in the 2010s[3]. A paper in Nature Energy last year took it further and showed that when you measure EROI at the useful energy stage - accounting for all the waste heat from combustion - fossil fuels drop to about 3.5:1, while wind and solar beat the equivalent threshold even with intermittency factored in[4]. So "the laws of physics" are actually making a pretty strong case for renewables here.

> If you want solar PV to help with AGW, they must be sited somewhere with an solar albino > .25

I think you mean albedo. And that claim has been tested[5], a satellite study of 352 solar sites found the actual albedo reduction was much smaller than what's typically assumed, and the warming effect was offset by avoided emissions within roughly a year at most sites. A separate study of 116 solar farms found a net cooling effect on land surface temperature[6]. The idea that solar north of Barcelona is "making AGW worse" just doesn't survive contact with the data.

> ...but they don't care about your politics (or mine)

What a deeply unserious tone to take in a discussion like this. Where in my comment did I mention politics of any kind? Is any mention of renewables in a positive light political to you, or is it where I questioned whether the same scrutiny gets applied to fossil fuels? Because that's not politics, that is just reality which you seem to care so much about.

Newsflash, you don't need to be a leftist (which is what I assume you're insinuating) to realize that relying solely on a very finite, heavily polluting fuel source that has already caused disastrous effects to the Earth is maybe not the smartest long-term play. That's not politics, that's just common sense and basic risk management. Not to mention the decades of propaganda, lies, bribery and other bullshittery that big oil has wrought upon us. You'd think people who call themselves true conservatives and free-market capitalists would be the first ones evangelizing against all of that, but apparently not.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09218...

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09218...

[3] https://westernresourceadvocates.org/publications/assessment... and also just the wikipedia page on the ROI of various energy sources

[4] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-024-01518-6

[5] https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01619-w

[6] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038092X2...