...an exercise for a junior high school science class that is, to make a distinction between a Watt and a Joule.
It also makes a difference when the energy is produced, but if we're on a junior high school level here, perhaps any education with respect to that will be irrelevant.
The fact that trillions of dollars have been squandered on solar energy for a trivial result, no result in fact with respect to the now observed extreme global heating, should also point to economic efficiency, but understanding as much may again call for a high school level of economics.
Twenty years ago, when the antinuke assholes had their way, they engaged in soothsaying that claimed if as much money was spent on so called "renewable energy," as nuclear, the nuclear industry would disappear. The amount of money squandered on so called "renewable energy" dwarfs the amount spent on nuclear, with the observed result that the planet is in flames, and the nuclear industry is still here, doing far less than it might have done were it not for rank stupidity.
The amounts so squandered on solar and wind are in the report by the way, if one is literate enough to grasp cost vs. result. The IEA also has a real time web page with the updated expenditures on solar and wind vs. nuclear. The numbers are absolutely appalling given the result.
Sophisticated LCA papers, of which there are thousands in the literature, make a clear representation of the relative external costs, costs to the environment and human health, but these papers are beyond, almost certainly, the intellectual reach of people who cannot distinguish between a Joule and a Watt.
A disinterest in attacking fossil fuels, on which the solar and wind industries depend is duly noted. I have yet to meet an antinuke who is seriously interested in attacking the fossil fuel industry with the same intensity with which the raise specious attacks on nuclear energy.
The results of these attacks on sustainable energy, of which there is only one form, nuclear energy, are in unambiguously. The planet is literally burning.
= new reply since forum marked as read