WolfStock1
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Posts posted by WolfStock1
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12 hours ago, etudiant said:
The Vogtle costs reflect the super long construction time, punctuated by the bankruptcy of Westinghouse, the reactor designer.
Vogtle is the only nuclear power plant built in the US in the past two decades, so a good part of the workforce was not nuclear experienced, which resulted in mistakes.
Imho, the work force issue is the primary road block to any nuclear renaissance in the US. Perhaps we could import the workers from China, as we did for building the railroad through the rockies.
Perhaps Vogtle is an outlier, but it's still clear that costs are way above where they should be, based on the skyrocketing trend in the late 80's; and noting that that was generally for just completion of plants whose initial planning and design was done *before* TMI.
Not sure what you mean by "the workforce" being the primary road block. Workforce expertise is flexible - if we started getting serious about nuclear energy and ramping it up, the workforce would follow, just like it has always done for so many other things (e.g. look at the explosion in AI recently, the explosion of the internet in the late 90's, etc. etc.). Demand creates the workforce - the workforce doesn't create demand.
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BTW w/regards to the US and renewable - we have in fact been trending strongly on that recently. This year about 3/4 of our new generation capacity was solar.
- As it has for most of the past two years, solar continued to dominate new generation resources, accounting for 2.7 GW out of 4 GW brought online in August alone, and 19 GW — about three-quarters — of generation capacity additions this year.
(Not sure if that capacity is peak or average; average on solar is of course a fraction of peak)
There's a new field being done near me (at Dulles airport). Unfortunately these things take tons of space - this will be about 100 MW peak on 835 acres. By comparison there's a 774 MW natural gas plant down the road on 100 acres. So it takes about 200x the land area per unit of energy. If we can find the space great - just please don't use areas that otherwise could be forests. (not sure about this area since it's airport property)
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3 hours ago, chubbs said:
I'm open to any non-fossil energy source, let the market decide. In the case of nuclear, the US will need to lower cost to deploy significant volume.
100% agree - and thanks for the chart. (though I would quibble with the China trendline - having it slope down IMO is a stretch - it appears the downslope is based solely on those couple of early 90's extreme outliers; in reality the trend is flat, if it were based on median not mean).
That's a good illustration of how badly skewed the American view on nuclear energy risk is. We need to fix that. Much as I dislike Trump, he's at least taken some steps in that direction on this issue; though I think it's a drop in the bucket to what really needs to be done.
The cost #'s for the two new Vogtle units are simply shocking; especially given the location - in a state that's generally been more friendly to nuclear power. NY recently announced intent to pave the way for one new unit, and I had to laugh, knowing that state's history. Good luck with that.
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When I say "cheap labor" I'm not just talking about menial things. Even though a lot is automated - it still takes a lot of people to run those factories, the mines, do the installation, maintain the installation, etc. The average wage in China is still 1/3 what it is in the US. Throw in the government overriding any NIMBYism and your average large solar installation for instance is probably 1/4 or even 1/10 the cost of what it is in the US. (it's hard to get a true comparison because China doesn't typically publish their costs.)
If the US were to do what it takes to implement the policies that China has - the outcry from the left could be heard from Mars. Environmental destruction, wages below minimum (or even below "living wage"), etc. etc.
Are they eating our lunch with regards to the volume of renewable energy implementation? Yes. Is that a good thing? Not so much, for the above reasons, and because they are still emitting tons more carbon, with way less respect for human rights.
We really, really need to focus on nuclear. That is the best solution. Unfortunately it probably won't happen due to willingness of policymakers to bend to the demands of those who don't properly understand risks.
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1 hour ago, chubbs said:
Yes, China is a good news, bad news story. China has gone from undeveloped under Chairman Mao to the dominant manufacturing country in the world. That takes energy and the main local fossil-fuel energy source is coal. In part, the developed world has outsourced their emissions to China through the import of manufactured goods.
On the flip side, China has rapidly scaled non-fossil clean-energy technology. Driving costs below fossil fuels in many applications and thereby providing a clear path forward to a non-fossil future. It was a gamble on their part and it paid off big time. Now China exports of clean energy equipment provide a large boost to their economy and are reducing emissions around the world. For better or worse we have largely ceded our climate future to China.
https://x.com/JessePeltan/status/1989006026520080519
https://bsky.app/profile/laurimyllyvirta.bsky.social/post/3m2jgeqa4es2z
You don't seem to understand that *the* key ingredient for China's growth - including the growth of their energy industry (both renewables and fossil) is an abundant supply of cheap labor. That is something we simply do not have.
It's not an issue of attitude, priorities, or policy - it's an issue of resources.
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On 11/12/2025 at 2:43 PM, donsutherland1 said:
COP30 is on track to become yet another farce in the process to address climate change. Its agenda contains no items on mitigation. It contains no discussion of a phase-out of fossil fuels. At the same time, it punts the discussion of the Paris climate goal and progress toward that goal to COP31. It is yet another ratification of a status quo that is the primary driver of climate change.
Priorities.
Discussion of gender as it relates to CC is of course much more important, thus why topic 14 wasn't deferred.
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On 11/11/2025 at 11:58 AM, chubbs said:
Yes, China's nuclear generation is increasing rapidly. They are also adding large amounts of hydro and wind. However their biggest source of their new non-fossil power is solar. The solar they are installing this year is roughly equivalent to the entire US nuclear fleet.
Looking at the bigger picture though - China still has a *long* ways go to catch up with the US in terms of their general energy mix. E.g. the biggest source by far (unlike the US) is still coal, and fossil is still 1, 2, and 3 (coal, oil, and gas) in their energy sources.
People tend to highlight China's growth in renewables - but the fact is that all their energy sources - including fossil - are growing rapidly.
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8 hours ago, chubbs said:
New paper on the de-stabilization of the Thwaites ice shelf over the past 20 years. Video, linked below, provides a good overview of the changes to the ice shelf over the past 10 years. Other papers have projected the ice shelf's complete collapse by 2030.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025JF008352
https://phys.org/news/2025-11-antarctic-doomsday-glacier-ice-shelf.html
10-year videoIs there land under the bottom-left tip there? Interesting that that area remains stationary while the rest of the shelf continues moving.
Based on the movement there it does look like it could break free at any time; the connection with that non-moving section looks very weak now.
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On 10/29/2025 at 4:16 PM, GaWx said:
Hey Roger,
I’ve noticed what seemed like a (slight?) partial correlation between high sunspot months (say 130+) and low ACE with possibly a couple of weeks of lag. One hypothesis is that the increased solar energy heats up the upper atmosphere more than the lower, which if true could lower instability in the tropics.
Is there actually increased solar energy during the peaks of the cycle? From all I've seen those peaks are the peak of *activity* (magnetic fluctuations resulting in sunspots), not actually energy peaks. Wouldn't the actual solar energy received by the earth be *lower* during periods of peak sunspot activity? (Given that a sunspot is a "cool spot" where less energy is being output)
I know there are more CMEs during the peaks, resulting in more-frequent aurora peaks; but it seems like that would be just noise in what might otherwise be a general lower level of overall energy from the sun.
Not an expert on the subject - just putting out a "seems to me" theory.
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1 hour ago, Typhoon Tip said:
In one school of philosophy ... this is actually a good thing -
"Climate change inaction costs millions of lives each year, report warns"
( https://phys.org/news/2025-11-climate-inaction-millions-year.html )
It's always been about population. Too many human beings. It's callous perhaps to put it in such terms, but reality and math and logic ...? they are dispassionately true like that. When there are 8 and some odd billion in population pumping out Industrial volatile chemistry as exhaust... it overwhelms the Earth's physical processes. If our species is going to survive by producing all that exhaust, there needs to be far fewer of us. It's interesting that we are being forced to make a choice between inaction and death, vs action when part of that action requiring less births/controlling population. Either way, less people
The population correction is already begun, folks - it's just not striking everyone's streets at the same time.
Some of which is happening unwittingly, by the way. It is now either too socially disadvantageous for younger child rearing, or there's gamete potency problems manifesting in general male population - the latter is cited/scienced. Birthing rates are empirically dropping at an alarming rate around the world. Whether it is socioeconomic, environmental, or some aspect of both ( probably both..) it seems the ultimatum cannot be escaped. And while that spectrum of causes isn't related to climate change, exactly, again ... too much population.
And yet worldwide life expectancy continues to rise.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/805060/life-expectancy-at-birth-worldwide/
Something doesn't jive. Methinks it's the information in these "reports".
(So much for the "good thing" of mass die-off)
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14 hours ago, TriPol said:
Hats off to Jamaica for taking Melissa on the chin like that. There aren’t hundreds or thousands dead like I feared.
Unfortunately the end toll will probably come in that high. It's early.
Saving grace is they had lots of warning. However unlike the US most people just don't have the ability to evacuate, at least in terms of going somewhere hundreds of miles away in another state that's safe.
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16 hours ago, Hotair said:
And add to the fact that this isn’t a large country with thousands of roofing companies willing to travel to a disaster area. The workforce there is limited as are the tools (cranes, materials, etc). Many of those places will not be rebuilt for at least 3 years or longer.
Now also consider that the percentage of homes covered by insurance in Jamaica is roughly under 5%.
Yeah very sad situation there; and good points about being an island. Saving grace perhaps is that the most-built areas of the island - around Kingston - was not as hard hit. But yeah as you say it's not like Katrina etc. where people can be driving there from other states to help with cleanup and rebuild; it's a much harder thing on an island like that, even for people that have a vested interest.
I would encourage everyone to donate some $ - there are already charities collecting funds for use for Jamaica.
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15 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:
Must have been some poor group of vessels in the path of it?
Reading up - it does seem like a vessel or two - including S.S. Phemius and the schooner Abundance - that got caught in it and I guess got accurate enough measurements. Poor sods. Though it seems like they had to do a lot of extrapolating to come up with the 78-hour number.
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50 minutes ago, FPizz said:
The ones above it on the list encountered land too or they could have been longer as well. It's what happens
Nah - most of those went below Cat 5 before being affected by land - e.g. the other 4 besides Melissa over the last two years.
What I'm wondering about is how they knew the 1932 was Cat 5 for so long. We didn't have satellite or even radar back then; nor did we have C130's to do fly-throughs. Can't do post-hoc damage analysis on the water. So how did they know?
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17 minutes ago, adk said:
Two things - one, you are likely seeing a lot shells. Everything inside is shredded and there is no confidence the shell isn't damaged. Two, what isn't / wasn't concrete is gone. So you might be seeing 30% of the pre-existing structures.
Yeah this. Despite having the look of most-structure-still-standing - I would venture those videos are showing well over 90% actual destruction. When you include the cost of cleanup - it may cost more to clear-out-and-rebuild those areas than it cost to build them in the first place.
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Yeah wow - rapid re-formation:
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4 minutes ago, GaWx said:
We’ll see. There has been video of catastrophic floodwaters coming off the mountains this afternoon in many places in Jamaica including Mandeville.
Hurricane Mitch, the 2nd deadliest Atlantic basin hurricane on record, caused 11-18K fatalities, mainly from catastrophic flooding and landslides due to epic rainfall amounts.
Well - Mitch made landfall with 80 mph winds; Melissa of course was over double that. Orders of magnitude more damage from 180 mph wind.
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26 minutes ago, RaleighNC said:
There is no other place to build there, and Helene's flood was orders of magnitude bigger than any prior flood, so it reached areas that had been assumed to be safe. Much like what is about to happen to Jamaica.
And landslides happen where you never think a flood will happen. To say Helene didnt have any "wiped off the map" damage as one poster said, is just wrong. Ask Chimney Rock and Bat Cave and Minneapolis and any number of other communities. When the mountainside comes down, everything is gone.
I pray for these poor people in the way of this one.
Here's the thing - I've driven through Chimney Rock, which was probably the worst-hit place, just a few months ago. Roughly half the downtown was wiped out. But generally that's about it; and it's a quite-small downtown actually. I have relatives that live right there in Lake Lure, and they - along with about 95% of the area - were relatively unaffected, aside from lost power, some downed trees, and some road washouts. The vast majority of structures were generally unaffected. You see the spectacular devastation of the areas hardest hit and assume that's the majority of places, but it's not; it's media selection bias.
Contrast with the eye wall of a hurricane - of this force - which will wipe out almost everything; leaving almost no structure at least undamaged, and completely destroying a high percentage.
Part of the reason I say that is due to the poverty of Jamaica - they just don't have the hurricane wind standards that the US does.
(Just to reiterate - not trying to understate the fact that there will be massive rain-flood damage; I'm just asserting that I think the wind damage will likely be worse, along with the storm surge flooding.)
Edit to add: the "wiped off the map" verbiage was mine - but I specifically qualified it with "large areas"; what I meant was for instance miles-wide swaths. In Chimney Rock's case, for instance, the swath was roughly 300-500 ft wide (you can see on google maps). Melissa's eye wall is about 300x that wide.
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Definite eye breakdown / contraction going on.
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Just now, gallopinggertie said:
Not sure about this. In the geology video I linked to, the geologist actually compares Jamaica during Melissa to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Helene…and he says that this situation is actually worse. Jamaica’s river valleys are smaller but more prone to landslides because the rock is actively being uplifted by a fault, making the rocky slopes steeper and more fragile/prone to crumbling. The rock itself collapses - versus in the Blue Ridge, the slides are soil and debris. Also he says that the rivers in Jamaica are really large in terms of flow, despite not being very long.
True enough - I wasn't really addressing landslides, just flooding water volume. In that respect yeah - the landslides will certainly be worse.
River flow is a direct function of land area X rainfall rate/level right? While the normal flow might be higher on a per-land-area-served basis; presumably that's due to Jamaica getting more rain during normal periods than NC; given an equal amount of heavy rainfall though they both would flow the same of course.
That said - one key difference here may simply be the very *fast* dumping of rain in certain areas; moreso than Helene where the rate of rainfall wasn't as fast as Melissa. So tributaries will probably be worse-off for short periods than Helene.
FWIW - I've driven through a lot of the Helene areas. While the damage was really bad; it wasn't "wipe large areas off the map" bad. The bad thing about Helene was that the damage was spread over a *huge* area - like several dozen Jamaicas.
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9 minutes ago, MonumentalNole said:
This is simply not true. Michael was strengthening right up until landfall and got to cat 5 as it was making landfall (160mph). Andrew in 1992 did the same.
Yeah there have actually been over a dozen Cat 5 landfalls. So - asserted stat is just wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Category_5_Atlantic_hurricanes#Landfall
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12 minutes ago, SnoSki14 said:
Again the rain will be the story. Core of strongest winds will impact a small area.
Perhaps, but in both case total destruction generally only happens in a small area; in the case of winds it's around the eye; in the case of rainfall it's low-lying areas - along rivers and such. River damage is only a couple hundred yards wide typically though; this eye is 20 miles wide. A house that's not along a creek or river will see no damage from rainfall but tons of damage from wind.
Reality will be both of course.
Bad hurricane flooding typically comes from storm surge. Helene was an exception last year of course - but that's mostly because the watershed areas are quite large for the rivers that did the big damage. E.g. the watershed for the French Broad in NC is about 10,000 sq miles. In Jamaica the watershed for say the Black River is about 100 sq miles, so even twice the rainfall as Helene would result in only 1/50 the flow. It's one of the advantages of being an island - it'll drain better.
Not saying there won't be some catastrophic flooding - the will be, but I think wind will probably cause more overall damage.
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17 minutes ago, NeonPeon said:
Straight line winds.
OK then follow-up - why would non-straight-line winds be more destructive than straight-line? Same force isn't it?
Perhaps it's that tornadoes' winds tend to swirl upward, and thus tend to lift more debris, than hurricane winds?
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6 minutes ago, TheSnowman said:
No Storm, Not Camile, Not the Labor Day of 1932, Not Allen, Not Andrew, Not Michael - Has ever OFFICIALLY Recoded Category 5 Sustained Winds in a Landfall Before. So TECHNICALLY, There has NEVER BEEN a Category 5 Landfall. THIS may be it.
Labor Day was Cat 5 when it made landfall. And it was 1935 not 1932.
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Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change
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