this essay makes a very important point - that embracing nuclear power could have given us so much more runway on climate change, and the campaign to fearmonger on nuclear power was bad - but it's hard to take in his point because it's nearly incomprehensible at times.
"RMI’s Basalt headquarters makes 114,000 kilowatt-hours of rooftop solar a year, sparing about 40 tons of CO2 (net-zero premium for the building: $1.34 million). At that pace, 115 billion tons takes 2.7 billion years. Or every building on Earth, all 2.75 billion, matching RMI’s best work (built in 2015, not 1976) for a year, spending a mere extra $3.7 quadrillion. To pay for one essay."
What the hell does this mean? It's a bunch of numbers in a row seemingly measuring stats of different units against each other? And then this disconnected rhetorical flourish, 'to pay for one essay?' what?
"RMI’s Basalt headquarters makes 114,000 kilowatt-hours of rooftop solar a year, sparing about 40 tons of CO2 (net-zero premium for the building: $1.34 million). At that pace, 115 billion tons takes 2.7 billion years. Or every building on Earth, all 2.75 billion, matching RMI’s best work (built in 2015, not 1976) for a year, spending a mere extra $3.7 quadrillion. To pay for one essay."
What the hell does this mean? It's a bunch of numbers in a row seemingly measuring stats of different units against each other? And then this disconnected rhetorical flourish, 'to pay for one essay?' what?