Bill Gates on 60 Minutes just now.

[progree]

27. Maybe you should write to Bill Gates the reasons why so-called renewables have not worked,

cannot work, and will never work

It is very, very, very, very, very popular, I concede, to claim that so called "renewable energy" is great. I've been hearing it my whole adult life, and my generation consists of entirely of old people who fucked up the world and allowed the concentration of carbon dioxide to increase by over 100 ppm in their lifetimes, all the time carrying on about how "green" they are.

And from https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127142772#post8

Guess what? Despite 50 years of wild cheering for it, and the expenditure, again, of trillions of dollars - this on a planet where more than 3 billion people lack access to improved sanitation - so called "renewable energy" didn't save the world. It isn't saving the world. It won't save the world. The reason is physics, extremely low energy to mass ratios.

I think Bill Gates can see through specious logic though, I think you have to do better than point to Mauna Loa, "despite 50 years of wild cheering" for renewable energy, that proves it doesn't work. That tiresome canard doesn't impress anyone, whether directed to renewables or nuclear.

Wind and solar didn't get to be anywhere near economical until a few years ago, so nobody was building much of anything until about a decade ago.

We have just experienced half a century of wild cheering for solar and wind energy. This result was obtained without ever considering why humanity abandoned so called renewable energy beginning in the 19th century.

I don't think that will impress Mr. Gates either.

I think if you sent him the proof that "the reason is physics, extremely low energy to mass ratios.", it would turn him and a lot of other people around. On a dime. Given that his audience is several orders of magnitude larger than that of rando message board pundits, it would probably get much more noticed if he were to speak of the shortcomings and environmental damage of so called renewable energy.

President Biden too, who has only paid some lip service to the advanced nuclear concepts, but much more to so-called renewables.

They might want to see the economics and risks of replacing everything with one technology too.