Colin's Last Stand, Episode 21: Solving Global Warming the Moderate Way

A friend of mine suggested if only they could take the waste to the bottom of the ocean and insert it under a fault line, it would be sucked into the earth's core from whence it came - renewable uranium!!

Ian Denno

Thank you for your video Colin, The Most Reasonable Man on the Internet. I'm wondering what your take on nuclear waste is. My understanding of it currently is that they still have no idea what to do with it. They have it stored away in canisters and might think of ways to reduce the waste and extract reusable elements from it, but until that happens all they might have is putting it underground for 50,000 years. There are even stories of canisters expanding and buckling due to build-up of gases inside! I'm optimistic that one day it will all work out, but it seems like at the moment it hasn't been transferred out of the too-good-to-be-true category.

Ian Denno

<a href="https://www.patreon.com/sexywomen">https://www.patreon.com/sexywomen</a>

Thank you very much!

Colin Moriarty

=)

Colin Moriarty

Great video as always Colin. Very well thought out and reasoned. Like you, I've always been a proponent of taking a basket of many different solutions and trying them to see which "stick". Thanks for the episode. Hope you and Erin enjoyed a brief vacation to LV

Josh in Tampa

Aw yes, two of my favorite things. A) lé earth B) lé colin

Jackson

I thought that's what you were trying to get at (and I agree, for the United States at least), but people are often concerned about radiation getting into our water. That simply doesn't happen unless you accidentally dump something from the reactor into some body of water; in other words, putting a power plant near water should never contaminate our water. It now seems you understand that, but I just wanted to be clear. Thanks for being engaged, and I hope you're enjoying Vegas!

Drew Packard

Agreed. I shouldn't be so pessimistic and strongly believe you are fighting the good fight.

Will Caldwell

1) P Chem. You made a vague reference to nuclei and I went with it. 2 &amp;3) just emphasizing your ideas. I work in the energy industry and studied Chemical Engineering. Just feel like you'd like to know.

Ryan Berry

Thank you for watching!

Colin Moriarty

Fair point. I wasn't very clear. As I said on Reddit and YouTube, "near water" to me means "the ocean." Lakes, rivers, and reservoirs (artificial or natural) in the middle of the country, away from fault lines and tsunami risks, could certainly supplement an ocean's water. In other words, I could have been way more clear. Thank you for your feedback!

Colin Moriarty

Thanks ma!

Colin Moriarty

1.) I have no idea how you drew that out of what I said, but okay. =) 2.) We have to get this country on robust nuclear power, away from oceans and fault lines. 3.) I don't disagree. Like I said in the video, I'm talking about the exact opposite: Tax incentives and breaks.

Colin Moriarty

Perhaps! Not sure how glamorous a subject that is, but then again, I'm not out for the views, so...

Colin Moriarty

I don't know that the government has to get involved with actual funding, as I spoke about in the video. But tax incentives are totally fine with me, and -- like with other industries -- can help ease the monetary burden of funding such amazing and ambitious initiatives until they become fiscally viable. To me, even though the problem doesn't seem to manifest itself now, science makes it clear that the effects will be (and are) latent. If we cut off CO2 emissions now, as an example -- like, completely -- the planet would still warm for decades. Anyway, it's a complicated series of issues, issues I'm sure I'll return to in future episodes.

Colin Moriarty

The more partisan and polarized everything becomes, the more "moderate" will be the only viable way forward. I'm ready to help lead the charge in whatever way I can.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you!

Colin Moriarty

We gotta bring the argument back down to a basic, human level, where some questions are unanswered, some things are unknown, and some issues raise more questions than answers. All of that is okay, and part of the process.

Colin Moriarty

I'm wishing you luck in your academic pursuits.

Colin Moriarty

Well, that's the idea!

Colin Moriarty

I'm glad you liked it!

Colin Moriarty

Thank you.

Colin Moriarty

I've been asked about this by some other folks, and I'll certainly consider it. Then again, I was asked by MANY folks to do something on global warming, and this is the worst-performing video to date. So... I need to keep my gut in the action, too. The video, if I do it, won't be any time soon. Maybe when there's more than a symbolic vote. Like, if Congress actually starts to debate the issue.

Colin Moriarty

Fantastic thoughts, thank you for another awesome episode.

Andy

Hey Colin! Nuclear engineer here. I'm not trying to pick your video apart (because it was great!), but in the interest of learning, it is often rather beneficial to build nuclear power plants near water. Like coal plants, nuclear reactors work in a closed loop by heating up cool water and sending it to a turbine to generate electricity. When that water returns to the reactor, it needs to be cool again. That's accomplished by exchanging heat with the environment, so they often suck water from a river and make it so the power plant water can dump heat into the river water. The river water then goes back into the river a bit warmer. If you don't have a river, lake, or ocean to work with, you usually need a big cooling tower, which adds to the cost of building a plant. Keep on learning!

Drew Packard

I. Love. This! You said so much - all making perfect sense. And you're so right about introducing something simple that we can all wrap our heads around, where even small 'contributions' in remedying the situation can become 'part of life' in just a few years (like recycling!), yet can have a huge positive impact on all of us - in general terms. Well done.

BettyAnn Moriarty

A couple things: 1) you can't know how an electron goes around a nucleus; you can only know the distribution of possibilities of how the electron might be going around the nucleus, but not where it is; or precisely where the electron is, but not where it is going. n00b. 2) I agree on nuclear power: there's a fear of what it could turn into that's unrealistic. The US has more regulations on utility operations than any country I know of, and we can leverage that oversight into safe operation of a nuclear power grid. 3) working in the energy industry, taxing current products hurts the consumer while artificially trying to make it a better business proposition to produce less-effective methods, and government subsidies cause the government to make uneducated choices about what the "future solution" is going to be. Exhibit A: biofuels, which have mostly been abandoned because growing corn takes water (an increasingly-valuable commodity). The only legitimate approach I've seen is people like Elon Musk taking huge risks on potential solutions that may or may not pan out, and spending money on the greater good, rather than a smart financial investment.

Ryan Berry

Wow! This video hit me. It seemed like every question I had was answered in your next sentence. I know it sounds strange, but would you consider doing a video on proper recycling? It seems silly but if you look into it, the majority of us are doing it wrong. Either way keep up the good work this episode was great!

jeff rogers

Great Video Colin! I'd love for you to dive deeper into your reasoning for supporting tax payer funding in this area as well as others like NASA. It's a complex area, but I feel like you fall into the "Other People's Money" trap when it comes to funding. Subsidies are literally robbing the economy to fund that which may otherwise be funded voluntarily, by the free market. I think this is a critical consideration when evaluating the validity of climate sciences research as well. I am not saying their wrong, but they have financial incentive to conclude a certain way. The seemingly obvious reason why it's always an "Imminent threat" is because that drives $. We seem to want to treat science (especially publicly funded science) and scientists as though they are above the influence of economics, and I'd argue they deserve the same skepticism as anyone else, if not more. When you insert government into anything, the importance of the economic reward (power) seems to corrupt with impunity. While I understand the "trust science" mentality, it wasn't that long ago science concluded unanimously things like "Smoking is safe" or "eggs will kill you"....You are spot on though that moderation is the key.

Chris Holtzer

"moderate approach" unfortunately just doesn't sell.

Will Caldwell

Wonderful video - I really appreciate your even handed approach and not playing partisan with something that impacts everyone. Side note - with the negativity that seems to permeate most conversations on global/domestic issues I wanted to thank you for having such a hopeful, not naive, and confident tone and view of the country and the world when it comes to tackling these issues.

Eric Gee

Think it's really hard for people to say "I don't know" - We have such a human desire to be right about everything. Scientists and people who love to act like they understand science, they HAVE to be right. Just like people who deny things like climate change, HAVE to be right. - Think that's a big thing with some of this, more people need to say "I don't know..." so that we can actually want to know, and to figure it out.

Owen

Climate change is the sole reason I am in school right now. I'm studying Electrical Engineering and Economics, because WE NEED TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM. I refuse to put the solution solely on governments, they didn't cause this problem nor do I believe they can resolve it with legislation (not that it couldn't hurt to try), i'm sick of the fighting about whether it is caused by us or not, I just want to preserve the natural world that I grew up in and LOVE more than I love more than the people in my life(sorry mom and dad).

What are the odds that the solution to climate change is an overcorrection that makes things worse?

Jeremy Meyer

Are environmentalists against the colonization of other worlds, knowing the level of disruption that humans introduce into the ecosystems we move into?

Jeremy Meyer

How do climate scientists model the singularity into their 100-year forecasts?

Jeremy Meyer

You sure know how to make a fella ponder.

Jeremy Meyer

Powerfully centered, radically moderate. One of your best vids yet.

Steven Camilo

Balanced moderate thoughts as always , can't fault you

George Newton

Hey Colin, would you consider doing a video on how states are incorporated into the union? This in regards to the Puerto Rico statehood referendum. Thanks and keep up the great work.