Environment & Energy

...of Thermodynamics, capital "L" and capital "T." Although I certainly couldn't hold a candle to the guy who demonstrated the equivalence between mass and energy that led to the finest minds of the 20th century to discover and develop nuclear energy, I certainly am inclined given my limits, to agree.

The problem is not whether nuclear energy can save very much at this point or restore that which might remain subject to restoration. Although I often express contempt for soothsaying, regarding it, including and especially soothsaying about energy, I'm inclined to agree with any gloating antinuke taking pleasure in this state of affairs - which includes a burning planet. I tend to agree that nuclear energy will not save very much at this point, while it is true that those things that might have been subject to restoration are vanishing more quickly than ever. It's far too late for nuclear energy to address this catastrophe.

This said, I have never, by the way, considered that the bourgeois carrying on by antinukes about their fucking cars all the time, this on a planet where over a billion people lack access to even primitive sanitation systems, paints them as anything but myopic malcontents embracing what is clearly a very hollow ethical system of consumption, one I personally regard with disgust. My view is that the car CULTure is not sustainable under any circumstances.

Of course, there are no crocodile tears shed by antinukes about the fact that fossil fuels remain the dominant source of energy on this dying planet, other than insipid mutterings that show up here reporting, lazily, on what Hansen and Kharecha, may have said, as if the writer evoking their work actually gives a shit about their work on the collapse of the planetary atmosphere, now no longer merely possible, but now directly observed.

We live, of course, obviously in the age of the celebration of ignorance, but ignorance of the Laws of Thermodynamics, capital "L" and capital "T," will not make them invalid. Ignorance does not produce results, but, in research - in which two of the three members of my family now employed in academia are employed - ignorance impedes results.

The thermodynamics of batteries is rather complex and depends on conditions under which they operate in discharge and charging, as I noted citing not yet another cheering press release from a university about a "breakthrough," but an actual scientific discussion, which I did here: Pesky Thermodynamics: The Mathematics of Wasting Energy by Storage in Li Batteries. The obvious point - the point that applies no matter how much bullshit is handed out by antinukes claiming that there is so much so called "renewable energy" operating that we need to store it - is that the world is not so awash with magical so called "renewable energy" that storing it either with batteries, or worse, hydrogen matters.

As for their obviously fraudulent claim that so called "renewable energy is 'cheap'" they are not bright enough to have ever asked themselves Why, if it's so "cheap" are people still building and operating gas and coal plants? It strikes me as an obvious question.

Today is 8/21/2025. Below is a graphic downloaded at roughly 21:00 hours PST for the energy supply in that "renewables will save us" magic State of California, a state where antinukism has surely triumphed although it has thus far failed to destroy the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, yet:



CAISO Supply 08/21/25 (Accessed 08/21/25, 11:36 EST US)

The brown line represents the amount of power being generated by the dangerous natural gas about which gloating antinukes couldn't care less; the purple line represents the charging and discharging of batteries, the former represented by negative values (energy withdrawn from the grid to charge batteries) and positive values represent stored energy returned to the grid by discharging batteries. One can download this data as a *csv file and use it, recognizing that the datapoints represent 5 minute period averages, and calculate the thermodynamic losses associated with batteries - excluding, to be sure, those that burned a few months ago at Morro Bay spreading "God knows what" all over that beautiful area - today. It works out to a loss of 60 billion Joules roughly, as of this hour. I note that this can hardly be claimed to be representative of the average situation associated with batteries on average over a year of fluctuating temperatures and conditions, as one can understand if one were to actually read the paper I referenced in my past post linked above.

At no point today, however, did California, where thousands of square miles of wind turbines have trouble matching the power output of Diablo Canyon's two reactors on a 12 acre footprint, stop burning natural gas, and from 6h55m to 15h20m, some of this power, a lot of it actually, was being provided by dangerous natural gas, about which gloating and cheering antinukes couldn't care less. That gas did not need to be burned, but it was, because California foolishly invested in unreliable energy at the expense of reliable energy.

Again, I hold soothsaying in contempt, generally, but I'll suspend my said contempt briefly, to say that I agree that it is far too late at this point for nuclear energy to save anything. The successful attack on the work of the finest minds of the 20th century, who developed nuclear energy - at first for warlike purposes - but eventually, as expiation, to offer humanity essentially unlimited clean and safe energy in the form of heat converted to electrical power, has succeeded at making it far too late for nuclear energy to do very much. What little it is doing, helps, as noted by the sometimes evoked [link:Hansen and Kharecha but it is hardly enough.

I would congratulate the whining antinukes here who cheer for this outcome and express no interest in the fact that it has led to the continued reliance on fossil fuels, the waste of which is choking the planet to death, but I actually am grieving for what has been destroyed. I care, even if, clearly, they don't.

We live in the age, obviously, of ignorance triumphant. This said, ignorance of the laws of thermodynamics will not make them go away.

The greatest "battery breakthrough" of all time, the work leading to the development of the lithium ion battery, was worthy of a Nobel Prize. The wonderfully coincident name of that winner, Dr. Goodenough, John B. Goodenough, did not prove good enough to prevent the planet from bursting into flames, as it is now. Batteries are convenient for mobile devices, but they waste energy. It's a law of physics and a pile of Nobel Prizes for battery "breakthroughs" will not change this fact.

The glee expressed by antinukes here that ignorance has irreversibly destroyed whatever possibility that nuclear energy might have saved more, and might have restored some of what was destroyed by the ever rising use of fossil fuels, doesn't inspire much joy in me, to be honest. I regard it as tragic.

But, as Lady Macbeth put it in Shakespeare's play The Tragedy of Macbeth, Act 5, scene 1, "What's done cannot be undone."

Ignorance has triumphed, and as we see on the national political level, those who worked for ignorance and still work for ignorance cannot suppress their joy at celebrating it, either in soothsaying that their triumph will continue - and I agree it will with respect to nuclear energy as it is already too late - or by acknowledging what is happening now, the rapidly accelerating destruction of the planetary atmosphere.

Antinukes couldn't care less about fossil fuels. They never have. They never will. No matter how many times they mutter the name of James Hansen, whose views on nuclear energy match my own to pretend they give a shit, they don't give a shit. It's pretty clear to me.

Still, the laws of thermodynamics are not subject to repeal by gloating, nor are they subject to repeal by deliberate ignorance of them. They operated well before they were discovered, and will continue to operate on the cinders and ashes of the planet long after the gloating purveyors of ignorance are dead, and all their so called "renewable energy" junk is debris, mixed with the ashes of once magnificent ecosystems, spread across a ruined landscape.

Have a wonderful day tomorrow.