Comments by "josh fritz" (@joshfritz5345) on "Hoover Institution" channel.

  1. some would say the same about those who are anti fracking. the only thing we can really be sure of is that there are too many people with too many agendas and that it's hard to know for sure who is telling the truth anymore.
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  2. fracking does have some downsides, but the dangers are overblown to some extent. the problem is that finding hard statics backed by reliable studies are hard these days since so many people have their own agendas. i'm not saying that fracking is good, it's not, but it's certainly not as bad as some other methods of obtaining energy. just look at china's smog problem for proof of that. natural gas (obtained by fracking) burns a lot cleaner than coal or oil, and may be an environmentally safer source of energy in the long run than the alternatives... albeit not as environmentally safe as nuclear, wind or solar. all in all... fracking is bad, but no one really knows how bad. scientists on both sides of the argument are intentionally botching their findings because they are paid to do so.
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  3. Hope Forpeace well, at least you recognize that your opinion may be clouded to some extent. most people are shockingly close minded about ideas that contradict their own. you're not entirely wrong, natural gas definitely does cause damage to the environment. the thing is, it's less harmful overall than most other fossil fuels, and while making the transition to more plentiful and less destructive forms of energy, we do need some sort of middle ground that balances the quantity available with both economic viability and environmental impact. natural gas obtained via fracking, for all it's risks, is still probably the best bet to be that middle ground. in the long term, solar energy is a decent small scale solution, but it is better suited for powering individual homes and businesses as a supplementary source of energy. larger scale solutions would likely have to be consistent high output sources such as hydroelectric or geothermal. unfortunately, both of the previously mentioned sources of energy are situational, and hydroelectric does have some localized environmental disruption. overall, the best source of energy available to us in the long term would be nuclear energy. there are three ways we could harnass nuclear energy that would be effective at powering large cities. first would be to use our current reactor designs to power cities the way we always have. the drawbacks come in the form of a small but terrifying risk of catastrophic failure, as well as the difficult to dispose of toxic waste produced by them. the second way we could harnass nuclear energy would be to use other forms of equally effective and overall safer methods of harnessing it, molten salt reactors being one of the most promising methods. molten salt reactors are dozens of times more efficient at using their nuclear fuel, using an estimated 98% of the potential energy of nuclear material as opposed to around 1%. because of this, the waste they do produce is already nearly spent of radioactive material, and is much safer than the waste produced by current reactor technology, fully degrading into a virtually harmless state after only a few decades. the downside to molten salt reactors is shared with just about anything that has the word nuclear in it: people are afraid of it, and many people immediately assume it must be dangerous. the third method is nuclear fusion. it's a nearly limitless supply of clean and safe energy, and it's only drawback is that science hasn't yet managed to find a way to make it a viable source of energy yet, as we're still barely breaking even on the amount of energy produced by fusion reactions.
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  4. ***** hm... interesting. it doesn't seem to give a lot of details however... who is backing that plan financially? even renewable sources of energy do have their drawbacks however. hydroelectric can cause damage to the ecosystem of a river. wind farms have been accused of disrupting local wildlife, and if it's located too close to populated areas has also been known to produce a particular frequency of noise that is irritating to residents (supposedly some cases have actually resulted in severe sleep deprivation.) that wouldn't be a problem for ocean wind or current farms, but these would obviously be restricted to coastal areas, and while their output is high, so are the maintenance costs. solar energy only has one significant drawback... it only really works well on sunny days, and storing energy for later use is very expensive. i find it a little bit irritating when people championing green energy completely ignore nuclear power. for all of it's bad reputation, it is actually one of the safest and most reliable sources of electricity we have. new reactor designs such as molten salt reactors are smaller, cheaper, safer and generate less harmful waste that has a half life hundreds of times shorter than the half life of waste produced by old reactor designs (which removes the need to bury nuclear waste in a giant hole.)
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  5. i've actually been quite curious about fracking, both it's potential as an energy source as well as it's potential risks. i actually did some research about it (looking for unbiased sources such as popular mechanics) and found that, long story short, fracking for natural gas and using it as a fuel source is all around less environmentally harmful than either coal or oil, but still not as harmless as solar or nuclear energy. as a short term solution, fracking actually appears to be a good choice overall, but it does have some environmental consequences. these consequences are not as severe as other forms of energy, and thanks to the vast supply of natural gas available to us, it would be viable to use it as our primary source of energy until we can start switching over to nuclear and renewable forms of energy.
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  6. finally someone asking the right questions. unfortunately, i don't have the answers. while there is a lot of anti fracking hype, i wouldn't be at all surprised if the risks were extremely overblown. it wouldn't be the first time that overblown panic led to a useful source of energy being overlooked. sure, some people say that they are willing to pay more for heat and gas... but not everyone can afford to. so many organizations are run by people with agendas that it's hard to know for sure what facts are true and which are fabricated.
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