You can always invent a distraction when you really need one!
One way of winning an argument is to distract the person from the real point, leading them up the garden path of a side issue or something completely irrelevant to the real subject. The main argument may thus never reach a logical conclusion, especially if agreeing with the side issue can substitute for the real agreement.
Appeal to Authority: Referencing an 'expert'.
Appeal to Emotion: If it feels good, it must be true.
Appeal to Ridicule: Mocking the other person's claim.
Attack the Person: Distracting them from their argument.
Complex Question: two questions, one answer allowed.
Conspiracy Theory: Reframe refutation as further proof.
False Compromise: Extreme views are wrong. The middle way is right.
False Effect: A is assumed to cause B. B is proven wrong, so A is wrong.
False Dilemma: Choice is A or B. Rejecting A is selecting B.
Insignificance: Making a minor cause seem major.
Many Questions: overloading them with lots of questions.
Poisoning the Well: Discrediting the person before they speak.
Red Herring: Distracting with an irrelevancy.
Reductio ad Absurdum: A false X is silly, so X is true.
Repetition: Repeating something makes it more true.
Strawman: Attack a weak argument used by the other person.
Style over Substance: An attractive presentation makes it more right.
In my view, the development of alternative energy supplies should focus on nuclear technology, and the improvement of batteries that don't rely upon expensive and limited resources.
Hopefully, windmills and solar farms will eventually be replaced with nuclear power, because they are a blight on the environment, killing birds, using huge areas of land, and creating huge waste recycling problems at the end of their lifespan.
Hopefully? So we’ve seen: yes, windmills and solar farms are not a blight on the environment, kill relatively few birds, and do not create huge waste-recycling problems at the end of their currently young lifespans: both solar and windmills can be recycled. So much for that distraction-based opinion based on insufficient data. Windmill and Solar production are the least expensive means to generate true renewable energy. They take the least time to construct. Those are cold, hard facts.
Summary of Economic Factors:
"The main barrier is that the cost of dismantling, transporting, and separating materials often exceeds the value of the materials that are recovered. While technology is advancing to make this more feasible, currently, many of these items require specialized, expensive processes to avoid being landfilled."
Indeed, the main barrier (distraction). With nuclear. While proponents argue it makes nuclear energy more sustainable, it is currently more costly than using fresh uranium. While reducing high-level waste volume and enhancing energy security, it is technically complex, expensive, and poses proliferation risks!
But for Ray, Nuclear is the winning method, despite the recycling barrier, the costs, and the time to build, and that lovely, nasty radioactive waste. Oh, and the cost barrier distraction of transmission lines, according to Ray. Oh, and the bird distraction? Bird deaths associated with nuclear power occur through two primary pathways:
•Collisions Birds may collide with structures at the power plant itself, such as elevated cooling towers.
• Uranium Mining Impacts The mining of uranium for fuel can create contaminated water bodies (pit lakes) high in elements like selenium, which can poison and kill hundreds of aquatic birds. Yeah, like Wind generation, minutia, and a distraction. Take that seriously? Not I folks.
FWIW, I am not anti-nuclear energy if done safely, cost-effectively, and quickly. Compared to Wind and Solar + BESS, it's not there by a mile.
Hopefully, Ray's readers will notice that nuclear energy is vastly more expensive to build a facility, takes far longer to build, produces waste that, while it can also be recycled, is expensive, and that good ol' proliferation issue. Sure makes wind turbines look attractive.
Not sure about Ray, but I can tell you that over the past 12 years, I've generated more clean, renewable energy with my solar system than I've used, sending the excess back to my neighbors. I wonder if Ray gets any of his power otherwise, has a cat, a home with glass windows (people with glass houses shouldn't throw rocks), powerlines nearby, or is pleased that studies indicate nuclear power generation is significantly lower than that of fossil fuel power generation and many common non-energy-related human activities.
