I know that America is always too big or too exceptional to do things that have been done elsewhere but let's pretend, for just a microsecond, that there exist a lonely plane of existence in the vast multiverse where something like the following may have happened in the bestest nation evah

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The Continental Europe Synchronous Area (CESA), formerly known as the UCTE grid, is one of the largest synchronous electrical grids in the world, primarily operating in Europe.
It is interconnected as a single phase-locked 50 Hz mains frequency electricity grid that supplies over 400 million customers in 32 countries, including most of the European Union.
In 2009, 667 GW of production capacity was connected to the grid, providing approximately 80 GW of operating reserve margin

"Only thing that matters is libs have found a way to profit from it"
did the shutdown make your psych meds unaffordable?

"tl;dr: coal was cooling the planet slightly, but not enough"
it was more complicated than that. a lot of the aerosol / pollutant effect is or was local and seasonal but the Asian Brown Cloud that often forms over South Asia is believed to have a global cooling effect but also causes local warming that affects the Himalayas

"For example, rising food prices is what had triggered the "Arab Spring" in 2010 onwards, which had led to several wars"
one of the side effects of high fuel prices in the 2008 - 2012 time span was that regular fresh produce was often more expensive than the organic variety

"High-voltage transmission lines over thousands of miles are not cheap"
someone has been saying that for over 100 years yet somehow distributed grids spanning continents got built

"We would have to start in the 1950s"
If we'd started in the mid-80s we'd be sitting pretty well before now

all are HDDs or spinning rust.

Or James Hoffman

I'm not usually one to scream about excessive regulation but I feel that definitely played a part in driving up costs.
I've also been told that the vast majority of nuke plants have been built as bespoke projects so have not benefited from standardization & potential economies of scale.
And then there's La France - as much as Americans love mocking the French, what they've accomplished with their nuclear deployment is nothing short of remarkable for a country that had scant energy resources yet built, managed and owned by a socialist bureaucracy & not a bastion of freedom & private sector efficiency

"I'm reminded how Firefox started as Netscape without the bloat. That was a great product"
IIRC it was Phoenix, then Firebird then Firefox.
"I wonder what happened to it"
Web 2.0 & web content bloat

i had all of that figured out long before most people alive today were even conceived.
i was a paying member of Greenpeace for 10 years until the mid-90s.
i had a side hustle way back with efficiency & environmental retrofits of residential buildings & was part of an initiative to shutter coal plants

James Hansen has been advocating for nuclear for a long time; George Monbiot completely changed from opposed to strongly in favor in 2011, Greta Thunberg opposes shutting down functioning plants and while Greenpeace is still staunchly against a lot of the younger people in the movement have been petitioning them to reconsider.

it's already begun

Wrong on all counts

My 1st Earth Day event was 1985, for years i hauled recyclables in garbage bags on public transit until curbside became available, have mostly rented since the 80s and have never had an electric bill that exceeded 300 kWh usage in a month despite sometimes having electric heat in places with very cold winters.
For most of the past 20 years, my usage has been about 150 kWh monthly, often much less.
Haven't owned a car in 20 years and only 2 in past 40 years & never a lot of driving.
I don't think my lifetime mileage as a driver has exceeded 100k miles.
For most of the late 80s and early 90s, i worked about 25 miles from home where there was no even 1/2way reasonable transit option so I would alternate between driving and cycling, even in winter as long as the roads were dry.
Very few airline flights, maybe a dozen total, last was 10 years ago, previous was 10 before that.
I recycle as much as ever but will not put any extra effort.
If you insist I have to do more, I'll insist you have to **** off.