Ken Fabian

Apart from the obvious, that if we really want a perfect government we wouldn't start from here, it does look difficult to get sufficient agreement on what such a government should be. Dodging the politicians with direct representation sounds good - ought to be popular until it leads to populist votes for policies the public won't vote the funds for or directly contradicts the other thing they just voted for, or leads to unfair persecution of unpopular minorities or for wars without regard for the complications and costs or wars that the declared enemy democratically voted not to have. Or perhaps they would vote for a massive space program, or more likely (in my case) vote down a massive space program. Bills of Rights and statutory limitations, like a lot of rights, are only as good as the ability to fight effectively for them and bigotry is undeniably popular, but popular and well thought through policy, such as requires expertise to develop can be very different things. I think there is something to be said for minimum professional standards and personal accountability for politicians and office holders. Can we ever agree on such standards? Given the importance of being well informed, minimum standards for media reporting seems necessary. How would that work? Having minimum standards for voter eligibility may be worth considering; if you don't understand an issue should you be allowed to have a say? When pushing people's buttons gets them to suspend careful, rational thought and entice them vote against their own interests is that a failure of individuals, media or political machine? But depriving anyone of the right to a say comes with it's own ethical problems. I think we are pretty much stuck with the governing systems we have and any changes will be incremental; the embedded wealth=power dynamic will probably keep changes happening that entrench rather than limit corporate influence over government but revolution, especially in an age of widely available effective weaponry, will almost certainly take an enormous toll with little likelihood of a more perfect government being the outcome. How bad does a government have to be for armed insurrection, with all the destructive fallout, to actually be preferable?

Not dark forces, just inconveniently allied to them; as long as that Conservative Right overlapping and incompatible ownership of climate action obstruction and support for nuclear - with avoiding climate responsibility and delaying effective action being every-day-every-way high priority and support for nuclear for climate being low priority - then nuclear will be deprived of real effective political backing from the part of politics where most of the support for it resides. Climate never came with a 'green only' tag - it was a politically expedient choice by the climate responsibility avoiders to frame it that way and associate it with extreme and irrational 'green politics'. Expecting "Environmentalists" to provide agreeable and acceptable options for saving commerce and industry from the costs of climate responsibility has always seemed overly optimistic. Nuclear will not have the backing it needs as long as Conservative politics puts such avoidance far ahead of promoting nuclear for the purpose; it's leading voices continue to show a willingness to support misinformation and lies to prevent climate action but will not use the truth about climate to promote nuclear as it's solution. Ed, I think we will see this trend continue; batteries and other storage systems are making up ground fast even as renewables, solar especially, continues to get cheaper. I think renewable intermittency combined with being periodically least cost will be a greater problem for fixed 'baseload' generation than for the renewables and will act, like it or not, as a kind of market force based 'natural' carbon price. In an open electricity market those intermittent renewables will increasingly own the sunny days and windy periods and fixed generation will be forced into intermittency in response. That will raise their costs for supplying outside those periods, but raising costs outside those periods adds a big incentive for storage - and the true value of storage is not reflected well by any average electricity price, it is better reflected by peak prices. Hydro operators may find it more profitable in the presence of large amounts of solar or wind power to forego continuous operation in favour of concentrating on supply outside those high renewables periods; it doesn't have to be purpose made pumped storage to fit into that role. Unfortunately (depending on POV) for nuclear it will get caught by this market 'force' much as fossil fuel plant will. My own view is that existing fixed plant should be used where possible as interim backup to renewables in a planned manner, one which builds in incentives to spend more time shut down; ironic that gas or coal plants should end up requiring subsidies to continue in a reserve (non-)operation role but it may come to that.

I've been particularly interested in what happened to nuclear after climate became an issue. I don't claim nuclear's inability to gain traction has been entirely down to Conservative politics; mainstream politics more broadly failed to step up to the climate problem to it's detriment (or more correctly losing it an opportunity), but direct opposition and undermining of public confidence in climate science largely comes via the Conservative Right and has become so entrenched as to make denying the seriousness of climate change a mark of loyalty. Despite the seriousness of the climate problem nuclear has gained little opportunity to 'have it's day' - yet pre the renewables boom and before the Fukushima disaster I saw a lot of ground shift away from opposing nuclear amongst those deeply concerned about climate change. And the choice of Conservative politics to oppose and obstruct rather than take advantage of it for a nuclear solution happened in that period and so that opportunity to push forward on nuclear was subsumed by it. The initial push within mainstream politics for a renewables had the look of populist greenwash to me. That and a case of handing the most vocal supporters of action - 'green politics' - enough rope, with no real expectation that renewable energy could drag itself into viability with it. So long as we have a large body of influential nuclear supporters devoted to the goal of not fixing the climate problem every means of doing so is impeded, but, because support for nuclear overlaps so strongly with it, the backing for nuclear as climate solution is weakened in ways that support for renewables is not. I don't know to what extent Conservative politics can extricate itself from it's choices on climate but I thinks it's desperately important that they do. I'm not convinced that any technology choices for addressing it can achieve their full potential so long as that degree of organised obstructionism persists. Whether the technology we use includes nuclear or not, they are all held back.

Just not that much. They also support (and always have) long running fossil fuel competitors to nuclear power - and since the climate issue arose, they've done so with far greater commitment and every day, every way determination, up to and including a willingness to lie (to themselves first of all) about the seriousness of the climate problem to defend them from the impacts of science revealing their climate responsibility. Is it possible to have effective policies that would favour nuclear over fossil fuels from political organisations in the grip of self imposed climate science denial? I don't think that they can lose that denial and face the climate problem head on and not risk losing support from a demographic that includes people like waitforufo, who's views they have committed so much trust capital to encourage and support. I think those alternative nuclear options - IFR, Thorium - are also held back from what potential they may have by that politically expedient choice to oppose and obstruct a transition to low emissions. The choice to fight to not accept climate responsibility and not address the problem was made when nuclear looked like the only viable alternative. If (when?) mainstream conservatives face up to the climate problem that will no longer be the case. Should Conservative support for nuclear-for-climate even be taken as assured anymore?

I dont recall saying anything about the relative merits of different approaches to emissions reductions and don't think that discussion belongs in this thread. What I want to explore is the impacts that rejection of the mainstream science on climate by mainstream politics - mostly but not entirely by the political Right - has had for this particular one. I reject that that choice to oppose and obstruct as the primary response to the climate problem had no consequences for nuclear energy - the difference between mainstream Conservatives actively seeking to address the climate problem (including real effort to convince the public of the need) and actively seeking to obstruct it (whilst trying to convince the public there is no need) looks very significant - and especially for nuclear. It looks to me more like the Conservative Right has developed a response to the noisy responses of 'Environmentalism' to the deeper understanding of human impacts on the climate system, instead of developing a response to the problem itself; I suggest it was a choice to frame the issue as 'green' and abdicate their responsibility to develop a response of their own, that presumably would centre on nuclear. It looks like a freely made choice - personally I think a very poor one - and if it was 'forced' on them I seriously doubt it could have been by "green" politics. We need to look beyond green politics to other influences on Conservative policy - the interests of commerce and industry perhaps. It may have been done with eyes closed but those making the choice to doubt, deny and delay should own responsibility for it. I suggest that had they developed a response to the problem it would have greatly favoured nuclear energy and therefore an opportunity for nuclear was impeded by the competing priorities of Conservatives that has put inaction on climate and the dominance of fossil fuels ahead of climate and nuclear. I dispute that anti-nuclear activism was ever the only or even a principle driver of energy choices that have rejected nuclear; if conservatives have broadly supported and promoted nuclear they have also supported and promoted fossil fuels that are in direct competition with it and generally, in the absence of climate considerations in any bottom lines it struggled to compete on financial terms. There is also a broad spread in the strength, quality and persistence of support, ranging from mere lip service, through anti-green rhetoric to a depth of support sufficient for mandating the replacement of existing FF plant with nuclear as a planned response to the climate problem. I suggest, from the results so far, that it has been at the lip service and commitment free rhetoric end of the scale. After climate came to the fore the support from Conservatives for fossil fuels has strengthened and even if absolute support for nuclear did not diminish the relative strength did - not even in the same league as support for fossil fuels. Conservatives look willing to blanket reject the persistent and consistent mainstream expert advice about climate risks in support of fossil fuels but refuse to use the truth of it in support of nuclear - that doesn't look like strong support for nuclear, it looks like strong support for fossil fuels to me.

I think this clearly demonstrates the essential contradiction I'm talking about - with a conservative claiming to want nuclear, but not as a solution for a climate problem presumed to be not actually serious. How does the alleged desire to use nuclear fit with a simultaneous lack of desire to replace fossil fuels? I think this kind of thinking is the nonsense and as long as the lack of motivation to transition away from fossil fuels remains, such conservatives will not fight for an energy transition, be it with nuclear or renewables. What it does is allows people like waitforufo to blame 'green' politics both coming and going - for alarming the public about climate and emissions and for not fixing this non-problem by means satisfactory to people who don't want to fix it at all. No addressing the points I've made, just blanket denying their validity and extravagant but unsupported - and extravagantly wrong - claims like "The only obstacle to expanding nuclear power is the environmental movement." and "The environmental movement won't be happy until we all return to a pre 1800's primitive state. That is why they are against not only nuclear power, but any power generation." By obstructing the transition to low emissions any plans to transition from fossil fuels to nuclear power are obstructed. That looks like an obstacle to me.

Not all advocates for climate action are 'green/left' and not all are anti-nuclear. Not all advocates for nuclear are 'conservative/right' and not all are against strong climate action or oppose renewables. Yet that divide looks strong. Open and direct opposition to nuclear is well known and broadly popular - even if I think distrust of nuclear is not so deeply held that many would abandon it were there compelling need for it. And there is compelling need for low emissions solutions and it seems unreasonable to me that somehow such advocates can have set the energy agenda in the face of it. Something else has to have been going on - or perhaps not going on - for them to have gained such extraordinary influence and for the issues to be framed in nuclear vs renewables terms, rather than nuclear and renewables vs fossil fuels. With a large proportion of those identifying as conservative being climate science denying and obstructive of the proposals of others who don't share an optimism for nuclear, can we expect they would actually commit to fixing the climate problem if "green politics" supported nuclear? Should their own commitment to nuclear as climate solution (or to fixing climate using nuclear) be dependent or predicated on such support? And, importantly, to what extent has 3 decades of commitment to preventing and delaying strong climate action by conservative right politics - which seems to also represent the greatest bloc of support for nuclear - prevented the "critical mass" of support nuclear requires being achieved, both within their own ranks and within the community at large? (Noting that the politics may have a different flavour elsewhere). Here in Australia we are most likely to hear "should use nuclear/only nuclear good enough" from people who doubt, deny or downplay the climate problem. It's a rare proponent of nuclear that has the public profile to get mainstream media notice who is unequivocally committed to fixing the climate problem. That essential contradiction leading me to the conclusion that our allegedly nuclear supporting conservatives lack the fundamental motivation to really fight for nuclear as climate solution and lack the sincerity necessary to make the politically persuasive case necessary. Crucially, their opposition to climate policies like carbon pricing, emissions caps, moratoria on new fossil fuel projects and emissions reductions by other means look to have a strong and practical "every day and every way" commitment whilst the support for nuclear is sporadic, weak and lacking needed depth of commitment. It looks a lot like their alleged support for nuclear is primarily a rhetorical exercise intended to weaken support for "green politics" - they may have no objection to, even a liking for nuclear but have no real commitment to it either. The kinds of policies that would see nuclear become a major part of climate action don't seem possible from conservatives whilst they hold such incompatible and antithetical positions. To what extent has the politically expedient choice to oppose and obstruct climate action by a large part of mainstream politics diverted and muted influential voices, like those from captains of commerce and industry, that - if addressing the climate problem were not, via political influence, being treated as optional - would strongly support it? In other words, would nuclear be in the hole it's in had mainstream conservative politics sought to strengthen community concern over climate rather than diminish it? Would commerce and industry given strong and persistent support for nuclear if they had not been enticed away from demanding effective climate action back when nuclear appeared to be the only viable option, by the least cost (short term) option of not fixing it at all?

Not true atheists or no true intention to promulgate atheism? I suspect many atrocities, including religious ones have had mixed motivations and amongst the motivations in this case there was an intention to promulgate atheism. Treating belief in God as mental illness, as one of prong of Soviet efforts to eliminate the influence of religion did, is not a big step for people who have concluded that it is indeed a form of mental disorder - which many atheists do; the lack of evidence based rigour and the ethics of involuntary treatment are other questions of course. The curative and deterrent powers of punishment are widely believed and practiced and whilst I don't doubt it can influence behaviour I suspect a large part of it's popularity is in the satisfaction and pleasure generated in perpetrators and onlookers rather than based on evidence of effectiveness. Where religion is widely seen as aberrant and damaging to society - and that is how many atheists view it - the potential of progression to the States regulating, intervening and punishing is there.

That sounds like a 'no true atheist...' type argument to me. Other kinds of 'beliefs' (or ideologies or loyalties or fears) may well have been involved but by the definitions put up by posters here the perpetrators (with absence of belief in God) appear to have been atheists - and they were persecuting theists. Earlier in the thread people called out the use of absolutes; that looks applicable to this also. I'm not sure it's logically possible to show that no atheist has ever harmed a theist over their beliefs - and there looks like evidence showing otherwise is there if we look for it. I seriously doubt that lack of belief in God, any more than the opposite, prevents bigotry or hatred. (I'd probably label myself as agnostic, leaning towards atheistic - in case my small contribution gets interpreted as something it's not.) It sounds like moderators will draw a line under this thread at any moment - no objections from me.

Soviet persecution of Christians.

The former sounds highly applicable to and desirable for renewable energy systems. The latter sounds useful for electrification of transport; approaching the energy density of hydrocarbons would mean viable electric aircraft. 2000 cycles is still insufficient working life but it's heartening to know that the well of innovation in energy storage is deep and not running dry.

If the news or opinion articles are critical of their businesses they care a lot; the power to NOT advertise there is a potent one. Business friendly editorial policy is something we should expect from big media businesses that make their money from advertising by other big businesses; editorial policy will tend to be complementary to their bigger customers. Big media companies like any businesses, don't like paying taxes so don't expect balanced reporting or opinion that may suggest they pay a greater share in taxes for example. The corporate influence over political parties and politicians is also not something we should expect big media to investigate. There is a lot of culpability when it comes to our 'informers', but who is going to inform at the broad reach and scale needed? Not being a US citizen perhaps I have a different perspective on US constitutional rights to freedom of the press - from here it looks more like it was intended that media owners are guaranteed the right to advocate politically, irrespective of truthfulness or balance.

More variants survive whilst the opportunities are there, presumably before every niche gets filled after which things aren't so 'easy'. There is never an absence of competition but being diminished means the increasing variation part of evolution gets a boost. When the niches are filled and competition is more pervasive, the natural selection, decreasing variation part of evolution comes more into play. Humans seem to be have be in a 'finding and exploiting new opportunities' and 'more variants surviving' phase and with global transport there aren't truly geographically/genetically isolated sub populations to achieve speciation. How close we are to overfilling our niches and facing a backlog of natural selection is a question, but humans are socially, technologically and otherwise variable in crucial but non-genetic ways, ways that can evolve at rates unconstrained by genetics and will likely continue to be so exceptional that normal rules of evolution won't apply.

I'm not sure I have the background to give a capable critique. As an interested layperson I would note that I expect the opportunities for variant forms to survive would be greater in the 'recovery' period, regardless of mutation rates; less competition and less predation initially even if later on those would rise. It's distinguishing the greater variation from unchanged mutation rates in a changed environment with unexploited niches from greater variation from changed mutation rates that would seem to make or break this paper. On a smaller scale this variation of mutation rate ought to be present locally and regionally wherever significant environmental change occurs - ie there ought to be observable examples. I also wonder if it's actually the case that the surviving, initial mix of species can be considered poorly adapted; certainly they were better adapted to survive the crisis period and whilst some might have gotten here by scavenging on resources that won't be replenished others may thrive in the new environment even if it's absence of competition that gives them the opportunity. Those opportunists, successfully spreading in the presence of opportunity, seem most likely to be the progenitors of new species regardless of the potential for later variants to become their greatest competition.

Some people are thinking about colonising other planets - with the numbers likely to be much higher amongst members of a forum like this than within the population at large - but I personally have serious doubts about the feasibility or benefits of such enterprises. An Antarctic colony looks a lot more achievable, with the advantage of not having to build an entire specialised high tech infrastructural foundation to launch it and support it with, yet I doubt it would work either except as an expensive experiment; it's not likely to contribute much to it's own economic viability. As an exercise in R&D by wealthier, advanced economies that can afford it, a remote base in a hostile Earthly environment may yield some benefits that other means like modelling can't deliver, but real colonies require tangible benefits and financial viability or else they fail to get the investment and other backing they require. Antarctica as a test might be affordable by an EU, or USA or China, but I'm not convinced it can really tell us much about the viability of colonies on other planets. My own view is that unless and until we see some extraordinary tech advances, human occupancy of space will only exist as outposts of an Earth economy, an economy more advanced than it is now supporting space activities that provide direct, tangible benefits to that economy. The conditions for such a future depend on sorting out some serious issues down here on Earth, or else the necessary economic base won't be there. Colonies raising their symbolic middle fingers to Earth and all that paid their way, in the style of 'Red Mars', seems unlikely fantasy based on presumptions of extraordinary technological capabilities ie that they can survive without ongoing external support. Self sufficiency, when the minimum threshold technology for basic survival is something well beyond the external supports underpinning activities in the most hostile environments on Earth, looks problematic.

Eldad Eshel, had you not mentioned psychosis this discussion probably would not be proceeding as it is. I don't think that admission is sufficient reason to disbelieve your account and being disbelieved appears to be one of the ways those who suffer from mental illnesses are often discriminated against; according to a friend who spent time in a Psych hospital, the first thing that happened was staff treated what he told them as unreliable, even what was relevant. I don't think what you are describing is less believable than some of the forms of verbal abuse I've witnessed or been subjected to; those could be described and discussed by me, probably without being suspected of being delusional. I think ordinary 'sane' lying and deception is a far more common form of unreliability than psychosis and delusion. What you are describing sounds like the sort of verbal abuse that people who are territorial might use for strangers or outsiders although you didn't indicate that was the case. My brother described visiting an ethnic part of an Indian city where the men wore traditional dress that include a big knife/small sword; at his appearance hands went to those and some kind of clasps were audibly being unclipped. Accompanied by hostile glares. What you describe could be a kind of provocative bad behaviour that has become locally popular for the same reasons and lack of reasons other provocative bad behaviours have. As disturbing as "A f**k or a fight!" addressed, with obvious sincerity, to everyone who passes by?

Daecon, if "we" are still relying on fossil fuels for the larger part of our energy needs 100 years from now and are treating availability rather than advisability as the real limit, I think "we" - our descendants - will be in serious trouble. Being so cheap that it's preferred over, and limits the uptake of low emissions alternatives may well be the very opposite of "well" or "good.

The enormous potential value of improved energy storage has become so clear it will ensure innovation gets supported. It impacts the takeup of renewables as well as electric vehicles and there is good cause to believe that significant improvements are in the pipeline. Advances in one will feed advances in the other - and right now they are on a roll and gathering momentum. I think it's unrealistic to expect manufacture of renewables or EV's or other alernatives to be anything but a reflection of the energy mix of the day; the extent that transport becomes low emissions all the way down the chain will depend on how much of the energy mix is low emissions. How rapidly that kind of change can happen isn't clear however I suggest that when options like wind, solar, wave or tidal reach and pass competitive price points the rate of uptake can be expected to accelerate; extrapolation from historic trends, from prior to passing those price points, is going to be very misleading. I don't think the price of oil is going to be a serious problem for the growth of electric vehicle use. Oil's price volatility is, by itself, a serious problem, no matter that it might be periodically cheaper. Are we, and most importantly the big investors and lenders, willing to bet on it staying cheap when we know it's capable of dramatic fluctuations? As better batteries make their way into new generations of vehicles the advantages are going to be hard to ignore; reliability, low maintenance and capability for taking advantage of low cost recharge options like oversized home PV systems or just plain old low cost off peak. In combination with smart home energy systems and management systems the storage in an EV can be utilised to maximum advantage. Grand fixes like fusion just don't look realistic to me - if it's so hard to do that the combined best efforts of the world's most technologically advanced nations are struggling to make it work then it's likely it will continue to be very difficult and expensive for the foreseeable future. Large scale, all out fixes, even with tried and tested technologies - like fission - require the kind of strong bipartisan commitment that climate science denial and obstructionism undermines; being capable of incremental deployment in an uncertain and divided political climate is one of the strengths of renewables. Unproven fusion looks unsuitable for rapid deployment in the remote parts of the world that are not technologically advanced; they need options that are usable now to avoid sinking big money into fossil fuel plant that locks in decades of future emissions growth and has high likelihood of becoming stranded assets. I think the kind of funding that fusion has got must make other energy R&D projects, many with much more widely applicable and achievable goals envious; I wouldn't like to see it abandoned but I would like to see energy storage R&D, for example, get similar levels of funding and support.

I never bought into the claim that there has been a Pause or Hiatus in global warming - it looked obvious to me that global warming overlays a lot of variability and that variability in surface temperatures is more than capable of ups and downs lasting as long or longer than a period as short as from 1998 to 2014. I think Ocean heat content shows the change in global heat balance more directly and clearly than surface temperatures and shows much less year to year, decade to decade variability. It never showed any warming Hiatus - When known causes of temperature variability were taken into account - most of all ENSO, which was dominated during the 'hiatus' period by cooling La Nina rather than warming el Nino - there was clear and sound reason to expect surface temperatures to show less warming in the post 1998 decade than the decade preceding. If warming from enhanced greenhouse had really stopped then the known conditions were there for significant drop in surface temperature - which didn't happen. That was because of an underlying trend of temperature rise averaging about 0.15 C per decade that didn't pause at all. Surface temperatures going up and down in equal measure (over a sufficient period of time, climate scientist seeming to prefer 30 years or longer) is what no warming looks like. Up with less down is what warming looks like. Up with no down at all is a lot of warming. Up without only more up - which looks like the minimum for many of those people who refuse to accept mainstream climate science to concede that there really is any global warming - is actually very rapid warming. I don't know that continuous warming year on year is likely or even possible - ENSO can change the average surface temperature by 10 times the current warming trend in a single year. ENSO's influence averages out given enough time (say 20 to 30 years). temperature adjusted for the approximate known amount that ENSO skews temperatures one way or the other looks like this (and it pushes temperatures down as much as up) and shows no post 1998 "Pause" or "Hiatus" - No Hiatus, no Warming Pause, just variability overlaying a persistent warming trend.

Clothing does have social meaning and the expectations with respect to appropriate dress are remarkably strong. Personally I find some of it mystifying - but dressing cheaply and practically, as I tend to do conveys a social message too; seems I'm unlikely to rise beyond my lowly station and show no real pretensions for wanting to. Appearances may not be everything but it seems they count for a lot; dressing inappropriately for status and venue can have real consequences, even for people who are competent and confident, so most people feel strong social pressure to make the effort. And what's with The Suit and it's essential accessory, The Tie? For more than a century this uniform for adult male respectability has prevailed, with surprisingly little change - even people wealthy and powerful enough that they should not feel bound by any dress code seem to be bound, or at least find it advantageous, to abide by that one. The smallest differences in The Suit and The Tie are treated as significant. People do change skin colour - getting tanned or avoiding sunlight are both common to maintain a preferred appearance. Then there is make-up and hair style. Which are usually carefully coordinated with clothing.

How much violence and cruelty involves people believing the victims deserve it? Consider popular television shows where quite horrific acts of violence against people that we are shown, usually clearly and unequivocally, are 'bad' are the major points of gratification for viewers. When viewers know who the perpetrator is, having a cop break in without a warrant, beat them to get crucial information, lock them in a cell with a brutal rapist, is no longer a violation of the rights of someone who should be subject to trial, with a presumption of innocence, but somehow becomes an acceptable and even an admirable act. I suspect too much of the worst violence humans have committed has been done with the conviction that they deserved it and is celebrated at least as much as it is condemned. I recall reading about a study (sorry i can't find the source) that showed people got pleasure responses when seeing a thief being punished; it was shown to be very satisfying to see the bad guy get his just desserts. Except that, in reality the thief and victim were actors. Fortunately the punishment was not real either, otherwise people would be getting pleasure from harm done to innocent actors for doing their job. Unfortunately, in reality there is no thorough investigation and weighing of evidence required for an individual to get such an emotional response; just someone saying 'they did it' can be enough. Just being the wrong ethnicity or religion and similar in appearance to such an individual can too often be enough. War and the marketing of war involves this kind of feelings of gratification from violence against people who are deemed bad and community support is underpinned by clearly portraying the enemy as deserving what happens. It makes me a firm supporter of rules of law, accountability, due process and open, public access to information. It disturbs me to see the popularising of the avenging vigilante - or secret agencies - who exacts 'justice' outside the law. And disturbed that the long lasing and societally damaging consequences of people and groups taking the law into their own hands are so rarely portrayed and examined.

MountainGarden, the enhanced greenhouse from burning fossil fuels adds something like (according to Franner 2009) 100 times more heat than the total 'waste heat' from combustion and energy use. Another study by Zhang and Caldeira puts the total heat gain over the estimated period of raised CO2 levels much higher, at more than 100,000X - I'm not sure what to make of that except to say it's surprising and disturbing. Wherever they are placed, solar power systems should reduce that enhanced greenhouse component. During a transition, and depending on where they are made, manufacture will still be adding GHG's - most likely at rates reflective of the energy mix present, so at 100,000X that could remain significant until low emissions energy is closer to 100%. And if we acknowledge the need to stabilise climate that - or negative emissions - appears to be the required goal. If there were 100% terrestrial renewables that should leave us with zero net gain from waste heat. Nuclear would continue to add heat. If space solar is in low orbit, it will shade the world below most of the time it's in sunlight, but, given some period of operation during periods when it neither shades the world below nor is shaded by it it would add some small proportion of energy that otherwise wouldn't reach the atmosphere. Higher orbits would make change the proportion. Whilst I hesitate to say waste heat is insignificant it barely rates compared to far more significant enhanced greenhouse and other problems around energy/emission/climate.

After thinking about it - - that seems improbable; such a project would far exceed total turnover of a not very profitable industry (or at least of the space element of a aerospace industry), unlike F1 which uses a relatively small portion of total turnover. An attempt to get a big, enduring commitment of government support? Pavelcherepan, given that I think the viability as well as benefits of space colonisation are vastly overstated (especially with respect to the difficulties and costs) I don't think a lunar base as a training exercise is good value. I don't doubt that there are plenty of people with unbounded optimism and enthusiasm for human expansion into space here - it seems like the sort of forum that would attract them. I'm not convinced it's based on realistic assessments of those difficulties and costs.

There isn't much science to do there apart from geology (lunology?) that wouldn't be better done elsewhere. That may lead to discovery of mineral resources beyond those already known - refractory elements like magnesium, aluminium, silicon, iron and titanium mostly and mostly not in short supply plus some potential for platinum group metals - but exploiting them involves the development of entire systems of transport, construction, mining and refining that currently don't exist, for an environment more hostile than any exploited on Earth. The requirements would be somewhere beyond current cutting edge and could be presumed to be prohibitively expensive. As a PR exercise for their aerospace industry - a bit like a formula 1 car is for an automotive manufacturer - it may have some value. Some extending knowledge for it's own sake could add some more - if they can afford such extravagances.The afficionados of space tech will get thrilled, perhaps imagining this will bring their optimistic dreams of inhabiting space a bit closer. I remain very doubtful such optimism is well grounded - an abundance of resources and opportunities are one thing, exploiting them successfully is another.

I have to begin by saying I'm very doubtful of the feasibility of space based solar as any kind of, let alone an all encompassing energy solution for terrestrial use. I admit I'm even a bit doubtful of Mike Smith Cosmos' motivations for this proposition - Mike, I would say climate change is a more compelling and urgent reason for a global energy transition than the danger of running out of energy resources. Do you accept that, rather than the danger of running our energy resources dry the need to leave the greater part of fossil fuel resources in the ground is the most immediate - and unless carbon capture and storage becomes financially feasible, permanent - constraint on those resources? Although efforts towards that energy transition are a long way from adequate, as a motivation to urgently look beyond fossil fuels, climate does have strong basis in science and evidence. Much more so in my view than any hypothetical impending energy shortage. When it comes to mobilising support for seriously big, visionary projects motivation is an essential ingredient. My own view is that failure to mobilise the support - community, government and corporate - for that essential goal has been a serious constraint and impediment to the transition away from fossil fuels; a grand and visionary approach like a Space Based Solar Power System (SBPS), much like capital intensive big nuclear, is especially vulnerable to a lack of clear commitment to that fundamental goal. There have been broad, comprehensive and well credentialled studies of our energy options and space based solar hasn't emerged as the standout best option. I'm not sure it really rates as a serious option at all. I know that such an energy transition will involve significant commitments made without future certainty but Space Based Power Systems are entirely hypothetical and to be viable, look to be predicated on a pre-investment in other entirely hypothetical technologies such as space elevators or other novel and untried launch systems. I would note that I would find it disturbing to discover that the concerns people have about the climate consequences of our energy choices are being co-opted and we are misled into commitments to unproven and potentially uneconomical energy solutions by people with unbounded optimism and enthusiasm for space projects, for whom that space capability rather than energy/emissions/climate solutions, is the primary motivation. Renewable energy options down here on Earth may have their limitations, but for the most part they are not hypothetical. Importantly they can be trialled and introduced incrementally without those very large pre-investments that a space based approach requires. They are approaching or passing price points that make them viable commercial competitors to fossil fuels even without the climate consequences and costs being factored into the economics - and it doesn't look like the well of innovation is anywhere near running dry. The intermittency issues are real and challenging but I suggest they are not uncrossable barriers. As for nuclear, I have my own reservations about rapid, massive global expansion of it's use, and whilst I have no doubt it will have a significant place in a global low emissions energy mix it has some real barriers, economic as well as security and political, that put it at severe disadvantage. Later perhaps, in an appropriate thread - not here. As far as space based energy goes, it occurs to me that any feasible means of beaming energy down from orbit would have the potential to beam energy up from Earth, over and down again someplace else. Some places have energy excesses. Siting solar or wind or tidal to maximum effect would be enhanced by better transmission methods. Proponents of SBPS might took more closely at the feasibility of such technologies for a global energy transmission grid and avoid the need for launching all the other stuff. I would note that the losses from proposed microwave systems which seem to be most favoured, are still significant and transmitting energy thrice - up, over and down - would exacerbate that. Long wave radio seems to be hypothetical and being low frequency, it intrinsically carries less power and doesn't look suitable. Laser might work better in any space to space transmission with potentially lower energy losses so it might be possible to rely on microwaves only twice for up and down. However I do remain very doubtful; wind and solar may have been unrealistic as more than a niche even a decade ago but they now comprise more than half all new generation being built. Energy storage may have been solar and wind's poor relation but that is not the case any more; we are better placed than ever to develop a combination of intermittent renewables, distribution and storage systems adequate to our requirements. These are all on something of a roll and far from hitting barriers they are gaining momentum; grand, visionary - most especially the more speculative options - have a long way to go to even get any kind of foot in the door.