By Emmet Penney, Nuclear Savage — September 4, 2024 — 550 words/4-5 minutes [Reposted with the author’s permission].
At that moment, I knew I would never step foot into a casino without being tricked by my own brain: a psychologist went on the air to explain the cognitive differences between those who might be addicted to gambling and normal people.
She told the interviewer, Imagine you're at a slot machine and you pull the lever. The wheel spins and then stops: you see two 7s and a cherry.
If you were a normal person, you would say, “Oh, I lost.”
If you have a gambling addiction, you say, “I almost won!”
I knew it then. Because I said loudly to myself in the car: “That's because of you did Almost won!
Intellectually, I understand like a normal person that loss is loss, but in some twisted corner of my brain, there is a small but powerful voice saying: “But…two 7 seconds… almost there…”
This is what most pro-renewable energy modellers think.
Let me explain.
Over the past week or so I’ve seen this chart circulated, with comments like: “Wow, wind and solar are seasonally balanced on the grid. That’s great news!
Don't they have a point? See how on a monthly level, whenever the winds subside, the sun rises and vice versa? Maybe Europe just needs more wind and solar! Maybe if we can build the right model, we can find a way to get there!
But let's take a closer look at Germany.
Note where both wind and solar fail. At these moments you will need full backup, which means you will need a capacity at least equal to the demand at these moments to be able to survive the random moments of renewable energy failure. Otherwise there will be a power outage.
So the dream of seasonal balance is two sevens and a cherry – “almost” but actually “not at all”.
So how do smart people get attracted to this idea? Maybe they are a little bit brainless like me. While that may be the case, I don't think it's a sufficient explanation. Instead, I think some well-intentioned, smart people fall into this trap for a series of interrelated reasons:
- Not only do they believe they are smart, but that being smart makes them good people.
- Applying their wisdom to issues like decarbonization allows them to demonstrate both their ingenuity and their kindness.
- Smart people tend to be attracted to complexity, not simplicity, because challenges feel rewarding.
- So, in order to be recognized for their cleverness and kindness (recognition we all crave), they will try to solve this puzzle in the most sophisticated way possible: using non-schedulable, intermittent resources like wind and solar.
That's why they can look at the first picture and say, “Man, if I were smart enough and worked harder, we could make it!” while ignoring the harsh reality of the second picture. From a psychological point of view, they are more attracted to a theoretically complex and practically unfeasible solution (decarbonization through renewable energy) than a theoretically simple and practically demanding solution (building a nuclear power plant).
If I pull the lever one more time, I might get a third 7…
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Kip Hansen's Notes: I found this article at nuclear barbarian And thought readers here might like it. Unfortunately, Emmet Penny is unable to reply to your comment. You'll have to bear with me – I'll try to answer your questions.
Personally, I found out at the age of 22 that Penny and I had the same disability and if I went to a casino to gamble, I would stay until I lost every dollar. The more I lost, the more I believed that if I just gambled a little more, I would win back, and more. It took only two gambling adventures for me to wake up to this delusion. I haven't gambled since then.
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