[conspire] (OT) Peter Zeihan, geopolitics writer

[Nick Moffitt]

On 13Dec2022 03:26pm (-0800), Rick Moen wrote:
> HERE FIRST:  But where I recommend you give him a try _first_ is an
> online interview Zeihan did a week ago for the Commonwealth Club of San
> Francisco (1 hour):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSpT0yEtFBY

This is a pretty interesting talk, but I must take issue with his position on solar and wind at this time index:

	https://youtu.be/BSpT0yEtFBY?t=1357

He's correct in that Germany has made some bone-headed political decisions on energy (notably about retiring perfectly functional nuclear plants) that it has slowly (perhaps too slowly) begun to reverse.  And it is true that the biomass fuel nonsense is a carbon-intensive scam (hence why I hate the term "renewables": give me something actually renewed, not something you *could* renew if you made the effort!).

But the notion that wind and solar are only good for "places with a lot of sun and wind" is misguided.  Solar technology has advanced to the point where a modern panel does better in London on a cloudy day than the panels of the 1990s did in San Diego under direct sunlight.  And while you can talk about the logistical problems of intermittent generation sources, you'd be a fool to throw away the power from our far-northern summers, when we have only a couple hours of actual darkness.  You're likely to get far more hours of useful generation, and if these fossil fuel shocks really are coming, then that will get more and more cost-effective.

His conclusions about the broken energy policies of Germany are pretty sound, but his rather pat brushing off of wind and solar rings of propagandistic perfect-as-enemy-of-good status-quo lobbying.  But I suppose the premise of the talk is "The Cold War was the best and we miss it!" so it may just be a product of that framing.