Communism. Good or bad. What do you really know about Communism?

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

Check out this oil consumption chart.

https://www.indexmundi.com/energy/

Slowly rises, even as cars become more efficient over time.

That's the move of hundreds of millions of people from abject poverty to some wealth.

Its not a terrible thing that people who once were terribly poor now have something more.

The energy intensivity of the world economy -- that's the amount of energy it requires to produce one unit of GDP-- has fallen dramatically in that time. Here's that chart for the EU
https://picload.org/thumbnail/doladc...ntensity-1.jpg

You're correct that the movement of large numbers of people from poverty to the middle class drives enormous environmental challenges, but the Chinese in particular are aware of this, and doing a lot about it, with giant nuclear and solar programs -- larger than the rest of the world combined.

France currently gets most of its electricity from nuclear, which Germany has massive programs in renewables.

In other words technology offers reasonable answers to these challenges.

[bowlinggreen]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

You're correct that the movement of large numbers of people from poverty to the middle class drives enormous environmental challenges, but the Chinese in particular are aware of this, and doing a lot about it, with giant nuclear and solar programs -- larger than the rest of the world combined.

France currently gets most of its electricity from nuclear, which Germany has massive programs in renewables.

In other words technology offers reasonable answers to these challenges.

But will all this be enough?

And in the matter of nuclear power, what happens when one of France's reactors goes burp for whatever reason and a third of France is suddenly covered in glow-in-the-dark radioactive poo? Over a long enough timescale, that is going to happen.

It has already happened twice.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

But will all this be enough?

I don't know. You can see worrying data, and you can see more hopeful data.

I don't know that it _won't_ all end badly, but I don't start with that assumption.

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

And in the matter of nuclear power, what happens when one of France's reactors goes burp for whatever reason and a third of France is suddenly covered in glow-in-the-dark radioactive poo? Over a long enough timescale, that is going to happen.

It has already happened twice.

France has an excellent record of nuclear safety. I assume you're talking about Chernobyl and Fukushima. In the case of Chernobyl, you're talking about an ancient reactor design, operated incompetently . . . in the case of Fukushima, you had the difficulty that Japan is seismically very active, and was operating a lot of very old reactors in a very confined area.

None of those are considerations in France -- not seismically active, much more modern reactor fleet. One presumes that over time France's reactor fleet will improve further, there are all kinds of modern designs which are passively safe, that is, in the event of failure they automatically shut down, a kind of dead man's switch.

Its not impossible that something bad will happen, but I don't assume that it will. Its certainly better than burning coal.

[Roubignol]

Why capitalism is unsustainable ?
Because it follows an exponential function (economical growth) and is confronted by Gauss functions (raw materials, non renewable resources) relied by the fact that we live in a finite world.

Until today (and probably for the next century) nothing was more convenient than oil.
A drop of oil was easy to transport, easy to use.
Renewable energies are far less convenient to use.

Sadly we (according to the most positive calculation) get for 50 to 70 years of oil and 100 to 200 years of coal.

Today liberal priests have no idea of the physical constraints.
When we listen to liberal economists, that's shocking to observe how weak they are educated in mathematics, physics laws and environmental processes.

Originally Posted by deepsepia

France has an excellent record of nuclear safety. I assume you're talking about Chernobyl and Fukushima. In the case of Chernobyl, you're talking about an ancient reactor design, operated incompetently . . . in the case of Fukushima, you had the difficulty that Japan is seismically very active, and was operating a lot of very old reactors in a very confined area.

Germany tries to decabonise its economy without nuclear plants.
It's 10 times more expensive and that's not sure that they will achieve the challenge. (Even if here in Europe we hope that they will reach it.)

Chernobyl and Fukushima were not the unique accidents in nuclear plants.
They also were in USA, UK, Switzerland, USSR, but with less impacts.


Feel free to googletranslate this list.

Listes des accidents nucléaires

Sadly when we observe the numbers of accidents in.... 60 years, that's quite too much with a powerful and contaminating energy like nuclear power.

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

But will all this be enough?

And in the matter of nuclear power, what happens when one of France's reactors goes burp for whatever reason and a third of France is suddenly covered in glow-in-the-dark radioactive poo? Over a long enough timescale, that is going to happen.

It has already happened twice.

Fessenheim is on a sismic area. It will be closed in Summer 2019.

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Why capitalism is unsustainable ?

It's done pretty well overall so far

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Because it follows an exponential function (economical growth) and is confronted by Gauss functions (raw materials, non renewable resources) relied by the fact that we live in a finite world.

Until today (and probably for the next century) nothing was more convenient than oil.
A drop of oil was easy to transport, easy to use.
Renewable energies are far less convenient to use.

Sadly we (according to the most positive calculation) get for 50 to 70 years of oil and 100 to 200 years of coal.

Capitalism will find a way, always has. Hydrogen which is a close to infinite as we can get for powering cars and so on, some company will make the cars powered by batteries, some company will make the solar panels..... where there's a will to make money there will be way just gotta keep developing the technology and pump money into it, but for now we'll just use what is reliable.

Then there is that Elon Musk greedy capitalist environmentalist building the worlds biggest lithium ion battery right here in South Australia

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/1/1...outh-australia

And while on South Australia, in 2016 the whole state was without power for almost an entire day all due to thunderstorms (don't blame global warming for that, we get them here frequently and will be bad when the cold Antarctica air clashes with the warm inland air). Anyway, there was a cascade effect on the power grid, but here's the thing, South Australia is the state here that relies most heavily on renewable energy sources and it could not handle it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_S...alian_blackout

Guess what's happened since, there was a left state government in power that cuddled up to the green party that was for 16 years , well at last state election which wasn't long ago the left party was voted out, the green party had less support, the public really didn't like the whole state being without power and parts of the state having blackouts now and then since.
I think South Australia has about 40% of it's energy come from renewable sources, I'm just too lazy to look it up guess that's my fat capitalist arse

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by Estreeter

Capitalism will find a way, always has.

No... Mathematically and physically speaking, that's impossible.

An exponential growth confronted at finite resources will crash on the brutal wall called: reality.

Do not forget, Capitalism only is 200 to 300 years old.
Take you clothes, go to your nearest university and ask questions to environmental professors, physics professors...
Sadly they will not tell you nice stories as you would like to hear.

Originally Posted by Estreeter

I think South Australia has about 40% of it's energy come from renewable sources, I'm just too lazy to look it up guess that's my fat capitalist arse

Total renewable energy consumption in Australia in 2015 was 346 petajoules (9.6×1010 kWh) (PJ), 5.9% of Australia's total energy consumption

Reading that on wikipedia, I've followed the link and here we are:

Australian Energy Update 2016





Sorry guy, but that will be not that easy to live like you live without fossile energy. There are politicians telling "blabla" (mainly liberal centrists, rightists and even leftists, I admit) and physicists using equations.

On this planet more than 80% of the energy used are thanks to the fossile energies. In 2040 (in 22 years) they hope to decrease the fossile fuels of... 5% (still 75%) thanks to renewable energies.... Still 75%.

In 22 to 30 years we will be half dead, but what will you bequeath to your nephews ?
I can tell you: massive dirts. Because of democracies, our laxist politicians are leaving massive dirts to the next generations.
Now you are informed.

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Reading that on wikipedia, I've followed the link and here we are:

Australian Energy Update 2016

And since then we've closed some coal fired power stations

Originally Posted by xyzde69

thanks to renewable energies.... Still 75%.

That capitalist pig companies are pumping money into for research, that isn't cheap or easy to find a solution to you might find an efficient wind powered generator with Siemens stamped on it but you won't find one with Anarchy Pty Ltd stamped on it

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Why capitalism is unsustainable ?
Because it follows an exponential function (economical growth) and is confronted by Gauss functions (raw materials, non renewable resources) relied by the fact that we live in a finite world.

Your complaint is with material culture generally, not capitalism

Communists _worship_ material culture. They measured progress in tons of coal mined, in miles of railroads built and pig iron. Their currencies were adorned with factories belching smoke.

They routinely produced the worst environmental disasters — the State owned the factories and their interest in regulating those factories was small

So material culture does pose challenges, but communism isn’t any kind of solution.

[bowlinggreen]

^ All that is quite true. But they did practice an anti-material culture for the average individual. I doubt that very many workers flats had such mundane things as working microwaves and dishwashers in them when the USSR fell, let alone more exotic appliances like hi-fi stereos and computers. Those that did obtain such things probably got them on the black market, smuggled in from the west.

Of course, if you were a Party member of reasonable status, obtaining such things was no problem.

In the matter of renewable energy, aside from the fact that sunlight and wind can be fickle in their availability, you must also take into account that we can build such things as wind towers and vast solar panel arrays BECAUSE we have an advanced petroleum economy.

It takes a lot of juice to make a ton of steel. And coke. Which is made from... coal.

When the oil and coal are gone, making fancy tech stuff is going to be much more difficult, period.

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

but communism isn’t any kind of solution.

Could be OK for personal ad's in local newspapers to meet others

Personal ad: Communist with a knife and fork seeks capitalist with bacon and eggs.