Thread by @ShellenbergerMD

Marketing can’t change the physics of solar, which takes 450x more land than nuclear, or wind, which takes 700x more

The transition to renewables was doomed because modern people, no matter how Romantic they are, do not want to return to pre-modern life

forbes.com/sites/michaels…

Nor do environmentalists want the industrialization of rural life. From Germany to Vermont they resist the imposition of industrial wind turbines

As a result, the deployment of renewables in Germany is slowing rapidly. Half as many wind turbines were installed in 2018 as in 2017

The only wind farm built in Vermont over the last decade took 8 years to build because it was built in critical black bear habitat

At that rate of deployment, it will take until the year *2491* for it to replace its killed nuclear with wind turbines

forbes.com/sites/michaels…

In 2017, scientists warned that industrial wind turbines will make the hoary bat, a migratory species, go extinct if they continue to spread across landscapes.

And scientists warn wind could result in the extinction of the golden eagle in the western US

forbes.com/sites/michaels…

After you realize that the energy density of the fuel determines its environmental impact, and that solar & wind threaten endangered species with extinction, you’ll realize, perhaps to your horror, that we’re killing nature *without* saving the climate:

I used to believe innovation could reduce the massive ecological impacts of solar & wind farms

Then I realized that we can't make the sun/wind more energy-dense, or reliable

quillette.com/2019/02/27/why…