Climate Change

[abraham]

Existing nukes are fine and shouldn't be retired early. Building new nukes is wildly fucking expensive. On a per-mw basis, utility-scale wind and solar are the cheapest power plants we can build right now. Nukes are the most expensive. But we should continue to have r&d there to see if we can get costs down.

Where does the electricity come from for the electric dryer? Increasingly, the answer to that question is wind and solar. Wind and solar are very cheap to build right now and they continue to get cheaper.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

If you have time there's some interesting discussion about the process design choices and how they impact nuclear plant costs.
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR...NDk0MmQ4?ep=14

[Sirshredalot]

Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite EV CEO takes 200 cross country flights a year and enjoys liquid methane fueled space travel…

But sure, swap out your NG range for induction… that’ll make a difference.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

I'm not sure what your point is, other than to insult Mary Barra.

Does Musk suck? Yes. Are EVs good? Also yes. Should we make rich guys pay a bunch of money towards carbon mitigation when they makes those lifestyle choices? Absolutely.

I'm not sure what you're driving at. I don't think anyone here is suggesting that one person dumping a gas range is going to make a big difference.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

[Core Shot]

I own 150 Mwh of solar.

I’m not against it.

But Nat gas is not evil. Its clean burning and efficient. And better burned locally in your high efficiency boiler or water heater than being run through a peaker to generate electricity miles from your home, with transmission losses.
Or more likely, your Tesla is running on coal

[Sirshredalot]

I own 150 Mwh of solar.

I’m not against it.

But Nat gas is not evil. Its clean burning and efficient. And better burned locally in your high efficiency boiler or water heater than being run through a peaker to generate electricity miles from your home, with transmission losses.
Or more likely, your Tesla is running on coal

Nat gas has been a very useful bridge fuel, but it is both marginally more expensive and meaningfully dirtier to burn at utility-scale than it is to use renewables. And it's probably going to need to be phased out of residential use eventually.

I like my gas appliances too, but I, personally, wouldn't design new construction to rely on them. I think building codes are going to end up phasing it out eventually. It will be a hard lift to move the country to something more efficient for home heating. There are still big parts of this country where oil boilers in poorly insulated houses are common.

Even the Teslas plugged in to a dirty grid are still wildly more efficient than an equivalent gasser and the grid is getting cleaner every day. The future is here, dude.

I'm with you that biodiesel is an interesting technology!

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

[WMD]

Core Shot, I think your numbers are off on your solar system. My home system is 9.86kW, which is producing over 50kWh's today, and will produce somewhere around 13.6 mWh's in a year.

Natural gas is mostly CH4, or methane, which is a fossil fuel. Burning it emits co2, although less than coal. But it is pretty well documented that methane leaks at drill sites, in transportation and processing and methane is 80+ times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2 over 20 years.

Scientists have measured big increases in the amount of methane, the powerful global warming gas, entering the atmosphere over the last decade. Cows or wetlands have been fingered as possible sources, but new research points to methane emissions from fossil fuel production—mainly from shale gas operations in the United States and Canada—as the culprit.The “massive” increase in methane emissions occurred at the same time as the use of fracking for shale gas took off in the U.S., says Robert Howarth, an ecologist at Cornell University and author of the study published Aug 14 in the journal Biogeosciences.
“We know the increase is largely due to fossil fuel production and this research suggests over half is from shale gas operations,” Howarth says in an interview.
This big methane increase matters because methane heats up the climateover 80 times more than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the first 20 years after it is released into the atmosphere, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. After 20 years most of the methane becomes CO2, which can last for hundreds of years.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/e...ths-atmosphere

Electrify everything. Including your car. An internal combustion engine wastes about 80% of the energy in gas as excess heat, leaving only about 20% to propel the vehicle. EV's are much more efficient, with 80% of the energy going to propel the vehicle.

There is no way to get to net zero emissions while still burning gas.

[Core Shot]

Oops. Yeah. It’s 150kWh. Two commercial systems. Mwh would mean I have a mini nuke plant.

Good point about efficiency and energy waste in EV vs ICE.
A coal or Nat gas power plant is more efficient than a car.
But biodiesel is better than gas. Especially compared to the frick fracking nightmare

Just drove halfway across the country. Could not imagine that in an EV unless it was an RV and self driving. Waiting for a recharge would suck.

[k2skier112]

Existing nukes are fine and shouldn't be retired early. Building new nukes is wildly fucking expensive. On a per-mw basis, utility-scale wind and solar are the cheapest power plants we can build right now. Nukes are the most expensive. But we should continue to have r&d there to see if we can get costs down.

Where does the electricity come from for the electric dryer? Increasingly, the answer to that question is wind and solar. Wind and solar are very cheap to build right now and they continue to get cheaper.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

Over 50% of the US's CO2 output is from transportation and electricity. These 2 are easy and reachable soon

Until a permanent safe storage place is found for nuclear waste, which is impossible (unless we blast it into space) , we should be getting away from the most toxic form of electric generation there is

A large gas tax is the only thing that will make a long overdue gas mileage mandate possible. Commuting in v8 trucks is moronic & high HP muscle cars will be dinosaurs

[Falcon3]

The OKLO-Aurora projects are 1.5mW mini-nukes that take spent fuel from the big nuclear plants and reuse it. If we can figure out the enrichment/recycling process and security issues from having these spread out around the country, it’s a big step toward greening the nuclear field.


Also, just replacing traditional turbine energy plants with solar and wind isn’t enough to provide the grid stability we need.

USA runs on 60hz AC current. Regardless of the voltages, pretty much everything is cycling 60 times per second.

When you have a large turbine running, that generator is literally spinning at 60 revs per second. Then the electric motor attached on your end is also spinning at 60 revs/second. Basically every generator in your interconnection (the entire west half of US or east half, then Texas/ERCOT) are all running synchronously, which provides a massive amount of physical inertia stabilize frequency.

Too much load on the system will cause the turbines to slow down. Too little will cause them to speed up. We have giant interconnected software systems called Automatic Generation Control that keeps the frequency within .3 hertz (in reality it’s potentially dangerous to be .05hz out of 60). If frequency falls out of this range up or down, it has massive, potentially catastrophic consequences to the whole interconnection.

Unfortunately, wind and solar don’t provide this physical spinning grid stability, and we’re still a ways away from figuring out how to keep the grid safe and supply power consistently without the benefit of the giant physically spinning turbines.

[Bunion 2020]

^^^ I think the most telling and interesting point that you raise is that no one solution will be the one solution.

Thanks for that post.

[old goat]

Replace your stove, your heat and AC, your car. All good ideas.
Half of Americans in this "wealthy" country live paycheck to paycheck.
We have easy tech solutions to global warming--so just do it. We have an easy tech solution to Covid. How's that working?
Technology has always been touted as the answer to every problem with no thought to the consequences down the road. No one saw any problem with the internal combustion engine--which is what we're dealing with now. Do you know that there won't be serious consequences from the technologies you are touting?

What you technology-focused people don't understand is the social and political implications and obstacles. You ignore them as if they can just be swept away. I shouldn't have said "lie" earlier. Delusion is more accurate. And the reports you cite are part of the delusion.
Mark Zuckerberg is a smart tech guy. Look what he's one to this world by ignoring the social/political implications.

Don't get me wrong--old as I am I still am all for doing everything possible to stop global warming, but right now the focus needs to be on community organizing and the ballot box. The technology may be improving every day but the political situation is getting worse and the prospect for meaningful government action on climate change is as far off as it's ever been.

[The SnowShow]

Siracusa Sicily broke the Europe temp record...120° 🤯🤯

[MagnificentUnicorn]

I was talking about this the other day at the pub. We were reminiscing about the ‘90s, post Reagan/Bush, and how it seemed there was more hope for the future in regards to the planet and society. What happened? I think in large part it was the tech revolution.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[chicken feathers]

^that, the politicalization of the topic, and a misinformation campaign among other things.

[liv2ski]

The internet gave every uniformed dumb ass a platform where other dumb asses could support their dumb ass view points. And here we are now. Science is scorned and likes are king.

[WMD]

Replace your stove, your heat and AC, your car. All good ideas.
Half of Americans in this "wealthy" country live paycheck to paycheck.
We have easy tech solutions to global warming--so just do it. We have an easy tech solution to Covid. How's that working?
Technology has always been touted as the answer to every problem with no thought to the consequences down the road. No one saw any problem with the internal combustion engine--which is what we're dealing with now. Do you know that there won't be serious consequences from the technologies you are touting?

What you technology-focused people don't understand is the social and political implications and obstacles. You ignore them as if they can just be swept away. I shouldn't have said "lie" earlier. Delusion is more accurate. And the reports you cite are part of the delusion.
Mark Zuckerberg is a smart tech guy. Look what he's one to this world by ignoring the social/political implications.

Don't get me wrong--old as I am I still am all for doing everything possible to stop global warming, but right now the focus needs to be on community organizing and the ballot box. The technology may be improving every day but the political situation is getting worse and the prospect for meaningful government action on climate change is as far off as it's ever been.

Please don't equate me with the tech-focused people. I show that we have the tech to cut emissions because so many, like Montana Senator Jon Tester, say what we need is more "research and innovation" to "solve" climate change. There has been incredible research and innovation already - enough to cut emissions enough to allow us to avoid the worst effects of climate change. What we need is the political will to use them and to stop deflecting by saying we need more. Showing that we have the tech is an attempt to dismantle the political argument that we can't do it.

Change is inevitable. Justice is not. Many want to split addressing climate change from addressing economic, racial, and enviro justice. I say why should people try to save a livable planet if it just makes their personal lives more unlivable? But different arguments work for different people.

The Green New Deal caught shit from old white environmentalists who say that by including social justice the climate goals are diluted and nothing will change. The argument from the GND people is that by understanding that the same causes of injustice, that people and the planet are treated as disposable in creating wealth for the few, are the causes of the climate crisis, allows us to address the root causes and improve people's lives while addressing climate change. The argument is that by making the movement inclusive, a bigger tent so to speak, there are more people pushing for change and it is more likely. The Democrat's $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package is all about this. But centrists will try to split it up - Sinema will say it is too big and should only focus on climate. Manchin will argue it is too big and should cut many of the climate provisions. You may not know it, but many are organizing and pushing to accomplish all of it. It is not being ignored, and there is community organizing going on that is focused on the ballot box.

Meaningful government action is closer than it has been since 2009 -- but you are right, realistically it is also as far off as it has ever been as our elected officials are unlikely to really pass it. If you support climate action, contact your elected officials and urge them to pass this once in a generation legislation to protect the climate. In particular we need: The Clean Energy Standard (really clean energy payment program), the Civilian Climate Corps to put millions of people to work on the clean energy transition, an end to fossil fuel subsidies, and lots of money for clean energy and EV tax credits.

Edit to add: How do you suggest we address the political and social problems so that we can take on serious issues like climate change? Serious question, not meant as snark.

Also, how do I know there won't be serious consequences from the technologies I'm touting? I am absolutely certain there will be serious consequences. Mining for lithium and cobalt for batteries is terribly destructive, for example, and there will be many other problems that come up. But we know that if we continue burning fossil fuels for heat and power, we will make the planet unlivable. I'm for using what we have available to stop that. If I propose de-growth and simpler lives with less consumption (which ultimately is what we need) it is unlikely to make any headway right now, so I'm proposing what can help avoid imminent catastrophe.

[WMD]

The internet gave every uniformed dumb ass a platform where other dumb asses could support their dumb ass view points. And here we are now. Science is scorned and likes are king.

Yes, and the first change was when cable allowed a ton of new tv stations and stations were no longer required to be impartial or present both sides of a topic. This allowed for highly partisan and dishonest "news" stations to spread ever wilder misinformation in order to get more viewers.

To any who haven't seen it, I highly recommend the documentary "The Social Dilemma." It shows how crazy it is that we do not get the same news or "facts," and this will lead to the downfall of civilization.

[k2skier112]

I was talking about this the other day at the pub. We were reminiscing about the ‘90s, post Reagan/Bush, and how it seemed there was more hope for the future in regards to the planet and society. What happened? I think in large part it was the tech revolution.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

If a Republican came up with the idea of taxing a colorless and odorless gas, taxing CO2 would already be a thing. But the oil industry and it'd lobbyists would put up a hudge fight

[The SnowShow]

Speaking of changing out things, are there any hybrid trucks or SUVs to look at?

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Speaking of changing out things, are there any hybrid trucks or SUVs to look at?

The new hybrid Wrangler Rubicon


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[The SnowShow]

^^^has Jeep’s reliability improved? All I hear are complaints about poor hwy drivability and things breaking.

[Core Shot]

The internet gave every uniformed dumb ass a platform where other dumb asses could support their dumb ass view points. And here we are now. Science is scorned and likes are king.

I need a uniform.
Does it come with epaulettes?

[old goat]

Tahoe area towns at risk of future flooding
https://www.sacbee.com/news/californ...ainstage_card4
Increasing winter rain instead of snow likely to result in frequent overtopping of the Lake Tahoe dam and flooding downstream, as has happened in the past.
In addition to the loss of water stored as snow which we all know about, and of course the end of skiing in the area.

I wasn't going to say more on the subject but since I was challenged to say what I would do about it I would say this--
1) organize get out the vote, ala Stacy Abrams. Convince people, especially young people, that it matters. (We've got a recall election in CA coming up, voters are apathetic, we could easily wind up with a right wing ideologue with 15% or less of the vote as governor, due to CA's stupid recall law. It will make a huge difference for the next couple of years and beyond if people don't vote.)

2) repeated, massive protests

3) based on success in 1) and 2), pass a stiff carbon tax, subsidies for carbon free energy,

4) emphasize reduction in consumption, change in lifestyle over tech solutions. We will still need solar, wind, batteries, etc. to eliminate carbon based electricity, but we need to limit the new infrastructure as much as possible to minimize the negatives. All this will take time--which we don't really have--but we need to make it increasingly unfashionable to jet to Europe or import food from abroad, and then from across the country. We need to make people reconsider migrating far from their families. We need to transform our lives to be simpler, less consumptive, and closer to home. The best tool to accomplish that is social pressure to change attitudes over time. We need to mandate dense, transit oriented communities and eventually enact policies which will eliminate development in energy intensive parts of the country. Phoenix should not exist. We need to emphasize building in ways that reduce the need for heating and cooling. We can't continue to live in single family houses on large lots long distances from work. All of this and more is what I mean by the need for changing people's lives in dramatic fashion. We cannot build enough green energy to allow us to keep living the way we live now. And we need to stop telling people we can.


That's enough for now.

[The SnowShow]

Tahoe area towns at risk of future flooding
https://www.sacbee.com/news/californ...ainstage_card4
Increasing winter rain instead of snow likely to result in frequent overtopping of the Lake Tahoe dam and flooding downstream, as has happened in the past.
In addition to the loss of water stored as snow which we all know about, and of course the end of skiing in the area.

I wasn't going to say more on the subject but since I was challenged to say what I would do about it I would say this--
1) organize get out the vote, ala Stacy Abrams. Convince people, especially young people, that it matters. (We've got a recall election in CA coming up, voters are apathetic, we could easily wind up with a right wing ideologue with 15% or less of the vote as governor, due to CA's stupid recall law. It will make a huge difference for the next couple of years and beyond if people don't vote.)

2) repeated, massive protests

3) based on success in 1) and 2), pass a stiff carbon tax, subsidies for carbon free energy,

4) emphasize reduction in consumption, change in lifestyle over tech solutions. We will still need solar, wind, batteries, etc. to eliminate carbon based electricity, but we need to limit the new infrastructure as much as possible to minimize the negatives. All this will take time--which we don't really have--but we need to make it increasingly unfashionable to jet to Europe or import food from abroad, and then from across the country. We need to make people reconsider migrating far from their families. We need to transform our lives to be simpler, less consumptive, and closer to home. The best tool to accomplish that is social pressure to change attitudes over time. We need to mandate dense, transit oriented communities and eventually enact policies which will eliminate development in energy intensive parts of the country. Phoenix should not exist. We need to emphasize building in ways that reduce the need for heating and cooling. We can't continue to live in single family houses on large lots long distances from work. All of this and more is what I mean by the need for changing people's lives in dramatic fashion. We cannot build enough green energy to allow us to keep living the way we live now. And we need to stop telling people we can.


That's enough for now.

I’d love to think we could accomplish all this but I pessimistically just don’t see if happening, when we can’t even come together and wear a fucking mask during a pandemic.

This makes my head hurt.

[Bunion 2020]

^^^

Opinion by
Fareed Zakaria


To understand the tension in the United States’ energy policy, consider the events of this week. On Monday, the United Nations released a new report warning that climate change is coming faster than predicted and that the world is losing time to act. President Biden tweeted in response, “We can’t wait to tackle the climate crisis.” Two days later, his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, urged Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers to increase production of petroleum beyond the agreed-upon targets. Biden backed him up. The Financial Times wrote this headline: “Biden to OPEC: Drill, baby, drill.”

America’s energy policy reflects one of the oldest attitudes in human history. As Saint Augustine once prayed to God, “Make me chaste and celibate — but not yet.”

The White House this week illustrated the central reason U.S. energy policy is failing. It promises that we can get to a carbon-free future without imposing real costs on the American people, and without having to make some very difficult trade-offs.

Let’s start by recognizing some basic facts. In 1990, fossil fuels made up about 85 percent of U.S. energy consumption. That number today? Around 80 percent. And according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2050, under current policy, that percentage will have dropped to about 75 percent.

The reasons for this are not simply that oil companies are influential. Fossil fuels are amazingly abundant and versatile. They are powerful and portable, providing energy whenever and wherever it’s needed. That is why we use fossil fuels to run our cars, power our factories, cook our food and heat our homes. Plus, we use them to make everything from plastics to textiles to aspirin.

This is not an argument to do nothing. On the contrary, it’s an argument to do much more. The only rational way to lower the use of fossil fuels in all of these varied applications is to make them all more expensive. That means a carbon tax, so that everything that emits greenhouse gases becomes more expensive and everything that is clean becomes more affordable.

But that’s not enough. We keep proclaiming lofty climate goals and yet never meet them. In 2015, President Barack Obama announced targets for reducing U.S. emissions by 2025. Many regarded those goals as not nearly ambitious enough. Thanks to President Donald Trump, we are not on track to achieve them. Now Biden has set even more ambitious goals.

The biggest problem in U.S. energy policy is climate denialism from the right. But on the left, there is another potent danger: magical thinking. Too many believe we can lower emissions with no hard choices.

The University of California at Berkeley released a report last year that says we could feasibly get to a 90 percent clean electricity grid by 2035, reducing coal consumption to zero and natural gas by 70 percent. But note — that wildly optimistic scenario is based on the assumption that the United States would quickly and massively upgrade its power grid to become smart and responsive, build new transmission lines, expand storage dramatically, and change the way power systems operate across the 50 states. In reality, just building a single new transmission line has often proved an impossible task. One recent effort to build lines from renewable energy projects to population centers collapsed after 10 years of battles over permits. There is another continuing battle over a line to bring Canadian hydropower into New England.

We should continue to subsidize renewables. We should fund new technologies — from hydrogen fuel to electricity storage — that, in a decade or two, might prove extremely effective substitutes for fossil fuels. There are ways to expedite upgrading the grid. But meanwhile, we need to reduce emissions sharply, and now. Here’s what we could do right away.

First, stop retiring nuclear power plants and start building new ones. Nuclear power is a zero-emissions fuel that is always on.

Second, we need to get coal — the dirtiest fuel — from 20 percent of our electricity supply down to zero. Where possible, we should replace it with wind, solar or biomass. But the easiest, quickest way will often be to use natural gas, which still produces half the carbon emissions. We should also get the developing world to stop building coal-fired plants, many of them Chinese-sponsored, and instead help them build power plants to run on U.S. natural gas.

Third, electric cars have come of age and can replace internal combustion vehicles, and we should speed this transition by building out thousands of charging stations.

Fourth, industry releases about a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and is hard to decarbonize. (Very high heat is often needed, and some chemical processes unavoidably release carbon dioxide.) So we should require the use of currently available carbon-capture technologies, including a massive expansion of the oldest one we know of: trees.

Yes, I know there are problems with all of these approaches, but there are problems with every solution. (Producing solar energy on an industrial scale requires massive use of plastics, i.e. petrochemicals, as well as the mining of many raw materials, including scarce minerals.) But the actions I describe here would all cut emissions tomorrow. Not 10 years from now, and not after development and research. Tomorrow.

Fucked is the word I was reaching for....

[old goat]

I’d love to think we could accomplish all this but I pessimistically just don’t see if happening, when we can’t even come together and wear a fucking mask during a pandemic.

This makes my head hurt.

No argument here.