Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "ReasonTV" channel.

@robinsss Yeah right - build this in America where there's at least part of the government still functioning. Don't panic the Libertarians have a plan to make this happen in America.
5
I'm an aerospace engineer by training and I will grant anyone that there is a section of the community who think that science and technology will magically do anything and everything they can think off. We call that ideology "scientism." These are people who usually have NO scientific or engineering or technological training. I can't stand them because all they do is confuse people over what engineers can and can't do. I particularly hate those who call themselves futurists who peddle science fiction from movies as if tis real. HOWEVER Aaron Brown is also just as deluded as the far left. He is NOT a climate scientist and it only takes seconds to find his bio via google at Reason Magazine. His initial claim that he can find nobody who has refuted Steve Koonin's claims on scientific grounds is EXACTLY the same cherry picking that he's saying people have claimed about Steve Koonin. For starters he points out that Steve Koonin worked in the Obama Administration but leaves out Steve Koonin was BPs Chief Scientist. It took only seconds to find out that Steve Koonin based a lot of his work from a narrow set of data which is what people have pointed out. So Aaron is either incompetent at fact checking or just another liar in a debate full of liars. And that's the problem with any discussion on climate. There are cranks on BOTH SIDEDS.
3
DW News did a really great short doco on Gain of Function a few months ago. Alina Chan was one of the experts interviewed as part of it.
3
@gzoechi Very valid question, but also NOT a straight forward answer because it depends on the battery type. ceticum's original statement just said "batteries are very toxic to the soil" NOT sodium batteries. Its a vague and ambiguous comment typical of social media clowns who just type vague crap they think is smart. So here's a couple of points: 1) the lead in lead acid batteries is toxic. Also the acid isn't good for anything other than being used as an acid. This is why the disposal of lead-acid batteries has always been problematic. 2) the cadmium in Nickel-Cadmium batteries is a heavy metal and is toxic. 3) the sodium in sodium batteries can be incredibly dangerous in its raw metallic form because of how reactive it is BUT once in solution or a compound like it is in salt water its reasonably harmless unless you ingest a lot of it. 4) Lithium like sodium is also highly reactive in is raw metallic form and dangerous to handle but like sodium once in solution or in a compound like a salt then its like sodium reasonably harmless. That's the problem with vague blanket statements. Nobody knows WTF your talking about unless you explain it. FYI - I'm an engineer and I see this in STEM related commentary all the time.
2
@gzoechi That's a good summation of the problem. I keep seeing tech story after tech story and the people speaking are journalists, economists, people in the street and ANYBODY else who is NOT an engineer. Its infuriating to watch them make mistake after mistake.
2
My way of describing libertarian ideology is: "We demand the liberty to strip others of their liberty!" Mark Blyth the Political-Economist at Brown pointed out in an Economic History lecture to one of Stephanie Kelton's classes pointed out that at their core these minimalist government types want the government to do 1 thing and 1 thing only - protect their property rights or the right to protect their property by any means. It has its roots in nonsense of the American robber baron era where they just took what they wanted and cared nothing for the consequences to other people, but includes crap from people like Ayn Rand's and her philosophy of self interests before any one else. Its a sort of extreme Machiavellian concept of "if I get what I set out to get then nothing that happened getting there matters." Things like ethics and consequences mean nothing to these people. There's a great video by Simon Clarke (here on YT) about the lost decade where the interference by Libertarians was actually what cost us the battle with climate change when a couple of them in the Whitehouse scuttled all of George (the first 1) Bush's plans to battle climate change. It had little to do with fossil fuel and an awful lot to do with "the government shall not regulate" ideology of Libertarians.
1
@spacescatatford Bullshit you're in science because the first thing anyone learns about any facet of science or engineering is that we DO NOT know everything and NOBODY is ever taught math, physics, chemistry or engineering in blind faith. Science is about EXPLAINING things and getting people to understand. Blind faith does not include explanations or understanding.
1
@spacescatatford You are very close but not 100% correct that everything in the consumer world has been touched by science and engineering. As an engineer who has worked across a number of industries I looked at this a few years ago. It took a bit effort to find something that DOES NOT involve science and engineering. Anything made of metal or plastic or is packaged or involved any type of machinery or used electricity involved engineering. I'm Australian and the one group of products available here I know of that DO NOT involve engineering are traditional arts and craft from our first nations people. Its not all of what they make either. Its only the very traditional stuff using native materials. The world famous popular dot paintings are done on canvas and that canvas is engineered. I only know of a few places where the genuine traditional carvings on native timber and paintings done on charred bark are available. I suspect among other artist using traditional materials and techniques there are also some products that are not engineered or involve engineering but I do not know of any specific examples.
1
@spacescatatford If you want to talk about "scientism" which is an idiotic ideology that is SEPARATE from science and technology that's promoted by clowns who claim science will solve everything then maybe you have a point. I absolutely hate that crowd. The amount of time I have to spend undoing all the false narratives they promote is incredibly frustrating. They also make it unbelievably easy for bad faith actors like Steve Koonin, Richard Linzen, Alex Epstein, and many others to convince people of EQUALY BAD SCIENCE. The Hypocrisy of BOTH SIDES of the Climate debate is DISGUSTING. I hate the Greenies almost as much as I hate the Steve Koonins. They all cherry pick data and confuse people with it. Right now as I type this there is a thumb nail titled "Richard Lindzen exposes climate change as a politicised power play motivated by malice and profit." There's another one with Alex Epstein titled "Neither an energy transition nor climate crisis exists..." BOTH CLAIMS ARE UTTER BULLSHlT. FIRST: The climate denial campaign came from the same people who denied tobacco causes cancer and other things. It was and still is 100% politically motivated. It was started by a small group of extremist Libertarians from the Reagan/Bush era. They have the fundamental belief that Governments can do nothing right and should not regulate anything. It has nothing to do with science and never did. SECOND: Humanity has gone through numerous energy transitions. Without an energy transition we would never have had the Industrial Revolution. Without another energy revolution we'd never have transitioned from horse & buggy to cars. Without further transitions we would never have had the jet age, the rocket age or nuclear power. Its just such a ludicrous claim.
1
@bobmister250 Actually so far very little (almost zero) lithium is recycled from lithium-ion batteries. That's one of the major issues that needs to be overcome because right now there's just NOT ENOUGH Lithium in known reserves to do 1/3rd of the cars on the planet let alone the trucks, motor cycles, mobile phones, laptops and all the other things we use Lithium-Ion batteries. Don't be fooled by the claims there's plenty. You can only go by what's in known reserves. Almost any pile of dirt on the planet has a few atoms of anything. To make a give deposit worth mining it has to be above a certain level that makes mining practical. That's what we call known reserves, which are the deposits that have been shown to have viable amounts to mine.
1
@nomdeguerre7265 Yes they are all EPR 2s of which 2 are now running (1 in France and 1 in Finland) with 2 under construction in Britain (Hinkley Point C). The ones in France and Finland took 17-18 years each to build but they were also the first 2 on the new design. The ones in Britain started in 2018 and are expected to be running by 2028 (10 years). They have a design lifetime of 70 years, which on one hand is a huge bonus to the end users because the incredible cost to build gets spread out over a long time. On the downside that time frame makes them impossible for anyone in the private sector to build. The Brits have made a ridiculous blunder because they are trapped by the ideology of free market economists who claim that the government MUST NOT invest in anything because the private sector does everything better. The problem with that ideology is that when there is no viable business case for the private sector NOTHING happens. The actual investors in Hinckley Point are the French and Chinese governments through a couple of corporations that are 100% owned by the French & Chinese governments. The basic rule on investment is 1 in 2 out, as in for every dollar that goes in you have to get 2 out. The first dollar out recovers the investment and the second is the profit. With really long projects it can be 1 in 3 out, 4 out, 5 out,.... depending on the time frame. So the British people via their energy bills will end up returning over those 70 years a giant pile of money. In fact it will be enough money to cover the costs of several of the reactors (up to 14 EPR 2s) the French are building. That's also the answer to deathgun3110's question on the costs.
1
@deathgun3110 see the answer I gave nomdegure it covers his comment and your question.
1
@bobmister250 Buddy sorry if I am an engineer who knows his stuff and your just another clown repeating ignorance. FIRST I work as an industrial control system engineer and spent over a decade in the auto industry before moving to the mining industry where I've been for most of the last 20 years. So please don't try and tell me what I do and don't know about manufacturing cars and mining minerals when all you're doing it repeating other people's talking points. 1) NOBODY is recycling Lithium batteries because compared to digging new lithium out of the ground its not economical. Recycling cars does NOT mean recycling all of it. We don't recycle the paint, the plastics, the cloth trims or many other parts to cars. 2) Of course GM is buying into Lithium reserves because there's NOT ENOUGH Lithium in the known reserves. There's only 28 million tones in the reserves according to the US Geological Survey and we need over 94 million tons to replace the 1.5 Billion cars in the world with EVs if they use a similar amount to what Tesla S uses. So if you want to either restrict what your competitors can access or simply make sure you can make cars the of course you buy into the reserves. 3) You like so many others DO NOT understand the difference between reserves and resources. Go look at the Wikipedia page for Lithium and scroll down to "Production." You'll see where I get the 28 million from at the bottom of the table. That column with resources it what people think is there NOT what can be actually mined and extracted. Resources are what people can actually get. The figures for the Salton Sea fall under the category of RESOURCE not reserve. If that changes and the companies involved can actually develop the means to extract the Lithium form the Salton then it would be a massive step in the right direction, but from the figures I have seen it would only double the Lithium reserve when we need to at least Triple it. 4) THE SINGLE BIGGEST BREAK THORUGH that has to be made is NEW battery chemistry. We either have to make Lithium batteries that are better or use another chemistry. I know there's a lot of effort in that area with things like Sodium instead of Lithium as well as liquid battery systems like the Sadoway battery. The Sadoway uses liquid layers of magnesium and antimony separated by a layer of molten salt. BUT the Sadoway battery is only good for stationary applications but then that would free up Lithium for automotive. 5) Don't try an explain engineering subjects to an engineer when you aren't an engineer.
1
Yeah there's actually a hell of a lot that can be said. Like WTF about the staggering transfer of wealth from working and middle class people across the developed world to the upper class? The Rand Corporation put out a study several years ago that said the Top 1% of America had made $47 Trillion since the start of the Reaganomics revolution. That number is well past $50 Trillion now. The Congressional Budget Office Report on Family Wealth says that the people who caused the 2008 GFC and then got bailed out with $4 Trillion from Bush and another $4 Trillion form Obama have never paid it back despite being over $20 Trillion wealthier than they were before the GFC while the people hardest hit by the GFC have still NOT RECOVERED. Can you explain why those people who were bailed out don't have to pay back the money? Meanwhile everyone else has to pay their debts back. My criticism of people like Stephanie Kelton and Bob Murphy is they harp on about their theories while REAL FACTS are being dumped on REAL PEOPLE. Economists have answers to everything and solutions to nothing.
1
Being utterly ignorant of reality is even worse. ANY CHANGE (Up or Down) in a currency has ZERO effect on things produced and services provided INTERNALLY to that nation. It only affects how that nations trades with EXTERNAL markets.
1
Listen to these people - everything is market dynamics. Its utter nonsense that's driven western society to the brink of revolution due to wealth disparity. It favors a particular class of trader and ends up as a form of market driven feudalism where there are those who have power through finance and those who have no power through poverty. It has its roots in the nonsense of the American robber baron era where they just took what they wanted and cared nothing for the consequences to other people, but includes crap from people like Ayn Rand's and her philosophy of self interests before any one else. Its a sort of extreme Machiavellian concept of "if I get what I set out to get then nothing that happened getting there matters." Things like ethics and consequences mean nothing to these people.
1