With climate change looming, it seems so completely backwards to go back to using it again.

Is it coal miners pushing to keep their jobs? Fear of nuclear power? Is purely politically motivated, or are there genuinely people who believe coal is clean?


Edit, I will admit I was ignorant to the usage of coal nowadays.

Now I’m more depressed than when I posted this

  • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    10
    ·
    1 year ago

    I don’t understand this comment.

    How is the sun not renewable?

    Renewable energy means using renewable resources. Meaning things that either replenish themselves within a short enough period or things that produce massive amounts of energy over long periods of time.

    • Swiggles@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Because the sun is also a depleting source of energy. I question the definition of renewable that’s all.

      I would have never considered nuclear energy being renewable, but I guess a similar argument could be made.

      • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        The sun will exist for hundreds of thousands of years after humanity has gone extinct. The sun will exist for millions of years before it burns out. Humanity will thrive diminish and die before the sun dies.

        It is by all intents and purposes an infinite resource for a finite species.

        • floofloof@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          The sun will exist for hundreds of thousands of years after humanity has gone extinct. The sun will exist for millions of years before it burns out.

          Your timescales are off. Even if humanity lasts a very long time, which seems unlikely, the sun will last for billions of years after humanity is gone. In one billion years the sun will have become hotter so that life becomes impossible on Earth. There will be four billion years of a lifeless Earth before the sun expands into a red giant and either swallows up or cooks the Earth. One billion years after that the sun will kick off its outer layers into a nebula and become a white dwarf. At that point it’s not reacting any more so it just gradually cools down over billions more years until it’s just a cool lump.

        • TopRamenBinLaden
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Technically speaking, it does not renew itself. It is being slowly depleted. You are right in saying that we can treat it as a renewable source as far as us and our technologies are concerned.

        • Kalash@feddit.ch
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I’m quite certain we can manage to stop existing before nuclear fuel runs out as well.

          • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Is lemmy just stupid?

            Like seriously?

            The sun is an infinite resource to humanity. This isn’t a debatable fact. Yet I seem to be receiving downvotes despite this.

            The sun will outlive humanity a million times.

            We can either harness it’s energy and other sources like it or run out of energy.

            It seems people just don’t like the word “renewable”

            That just makes those people stupid.

            • floofloof@lemmy.ca
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              Is lemmy just stupid?

              Like seriously?

              Lemmy at this point is the same as Reddit for quality of discussion.

              • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                1 year ago

                The sad part is it seems like this has become a recent problem. As in the past few days.

                I deliberately switched from sh.itjust.works to lemmy.world because I was sick of hexbear users starting fights and just being disingenuous with their arguments.

                Now it seems that’s normal everywhere…