Comment by medlazik
Comment by medlazik 11 hours ago
>What do you mean?
I mean it's not clean
>one of the lowest impact mining of resources we have
Not the point. It's not clean, it shouldn't be called clean end of the story.
Comment by medlazik 11 hours ago
>What do you mean?
I mean it's not clean
>one of the lowest impact mining of resources we have
Not the point. It's not clean, it shouldn't be called clean end of the story.
Citation needed.
I will save you the trouble because I already know where your numbers come from: the Quadrennial Technology Review by the US Department of Energy from around 10 years ago. These numbers have been thoroughly debunked [1]. They are simply wrong, likely out of laziness more than malice.
But the people that spread this around do it out of malice to dupe people and influence opinions. You've been duped.
[1] https://xcancel.com/simonahac/status/1318711842907123712
Ok, well by this definition, all human development activity is unclean. This is a perfectly valid point of view but is pretty distinct from the modern definition of clean.
The problem in my mind with a "clean is clean" litmus test is that it eliminates the word "clean"'s ability to differentiate between sustainable and unsustainable human development.
Using systematic metrics to annoint something as clean so it can get clean energy credits so that people can invest in activities considered cleaner is valuable and useful even if none of the options are 100% perfectly in impactful to the natural world.
Then what is clean? By that definition Solar and Wind aren't because copper and iron mines aren't clean.
Do you think rare earth minerals for batteries and photovoltaics grow on trees?
Nuclear power uses around 1/10th the resources of intermittent renewables per kWh of electricity produced.
So if nuclear isn't clean, renewables are downright filthy.