The Core
Why We Are Here => Water Cooler => Topic started by: rcjordan on August 17, 2019, 07:22:25 PM
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https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/wind-power-prices-now-lower-than-the-cost-of-natural-gas/
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Related.
And Now, the Really Big Coal Plants Begin to Close (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/and-now-the-really-big-coal-plants-begin-to-close/)
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We'll save the world now ...because renewables are cheaper. hhh
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We'll save the world now ...because renewables are cheaper. hhh
Well, that's always been the only viable game plan. Now if they would just price in the externalities of carbon, wind would look really cheap.
But here's the nasty little secret very few people are talking about - saving the world is going to require negative emissions (not necessarily *net* negative, but some carbon capture). In the Paris negotiations, they generated 1,000 scenarios for different levels and schedules for emissions reductions and carbon sequestration. It was something like 16 that actually kept us below 2 degrees and 14 of those require massive carbon capture.
The good news, though, is that carbon capture tech is already invented. The bad news is that it's super expensive right now. About $600/ton. And one of the more promising technologies can't build a full-scale prototype for want of $20,000,000.
Sorry... but I was afraid RC was at risk of becoming optimistic and was afraid his sense of identity was at risk.
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>RC was at risk of becoming optimistic
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Fake news!
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>fake
You made me do a little digging...
https://qz.com/817354/scientists-have-been-forecasting-that-burning-fossil-fuels-will-cause-climate-change-as-early-as-1882/
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So we have earlier articles, but is that particular one proven fake?
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No, it is referenced in that article I linked to and archived here:
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ROTWKG19120814.2.56.5
I think the coloring and formatting was a touch up most likely, but the text is legitimately from a New Zealand paper published in 1912.
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So we have earlier articles, but is that particular one proven fake?
No... it is believable, if not verified. Katherine Hayhoe put out a video a few years ago on the "discovery" of climate change due to greenhouse gasses starting with observations by Fourrier in 1820.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpqBto89i38
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Hayhoe
Katherine Hayhoe first blew me away with her answer (alluded to in this video) to the question: "How much of current warming is due to human activity?" The answer, it turns out, is something *over* 100% because, based on the Milankovitch cycles, we should be in a mild cooling period, but instead we are heating up. Thus we are causing more than 100% of warming.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
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And... yes, that newspaper clipping is authentic
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
https://www.iflscience.com/environment/theres-more-to-that-1912-news-article-linking-coal-to-climate-change-than-you-think/
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https://thesolutionsproject.org/2018-impact-report/
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https://thesolutionsproject.org/2018-impact-report/
I notice the Catholic Reporter mentioned. I've always felt that the pope making climate change a fundamental issue, saying that all Christians need to be concerned about the impacts of climate change on the least fortunate of the world, was a bit of a turning point. I noticed that prior to that my father (a very committed Catholic - daily communicant - 90 years old, surrounded by a lot of old very Catholic men) would often allude to some of the standard denialist tropes and when I would press him, he would admit that he didn't believe it (i.e. didn't believe in the denialism). But they were standard tropes among conservative Catholics. So when the pope said, "No, climate change is a Christian issue," a huge swath of conservative Catholics suddenly had not just license, but encouragement, to talk openly about it and admit that it was a problem.
Before 1992, it was not a conversation that divided sharply along partisan lines. With the 2020 election looming, it is shaping up to be highly partisan in the US for a couple more years, but hopefully we will get past that. The actual solutions will remain partisan, much like any budget discussion, but the fact of the need to do something should not be partisan.
Definitely the conversation is changing. Will it change fast enough? as Bill McKibben says, "This is the first timed exam in the history of humanity."
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> Will it change fast enough?
No.
IMO, yet-to-be invented tech is the only shot we have. Boundless, nearly-free energy from solar, fusion, or nukes may be the key, 'cause we're going to need a shitload of cheap power to reverse this.
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IMO, yet-to-be invented tech is the only shot we have. Boundless, nearly-free energy from solar, fusion, or nukes may be the key, 'cause we're going to need a shitload of cheap power to reverse this.
We will need that, but we first need modest amounts of money. There is promising tech, for example, that is basically self-powering. But currently would cost $600/ton to remove carbon from the atmosphere. They need to build a full-size prototype (size of a shipping container), but for lack fo $20,000,000 are unable to do so.
http://www.elephantpodcast.org/episodes/would-you-offset-your-emissions-for-10000-a-year-money-controversy-and-the-many-challenges-of-co2-removal
With existing tech, you could offset your emissions for $10,000/year, except even at that price it's not available, for lack of the $20M.
$10,000 is more than most of us would spend (tragedy of the commons problem). But honestly, if they got this down to $1000, I would sign up tomorrow, tragedy of the commons problem or not. But, in all honesty, $10,000/year would be a really tough nut for me even though I believe that the stakes are high enough to warrant giving up a lot of comfort to make it happen.
Thus far, though almost every scenario deemed possible to succeed in the Paris negotiations runs up against the money obstacle. The Koch brothers lackeys say it's too expensive and won't fund it. The hardline environmentalists say it causes "moral hazard" and won't fund it. The researchers say "Damn your politics, we better get going now or we're screwed." Bill Gates is funding some. But for half the price of a star quarterback, we could make a Rev 1 version of Klaus Lackner's machine.
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> at risk of becoming optimistic
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Wind and solar power, I say bring it on. We've been pooping in our own sandbox with coal for too long and natural gas, while it lasts, is better used heating homes.
I keep hearing the objection that wind power turbines are ugly on the landscape but I've driven through West Virginia, with every mountain top, once wooded and green, now a flat and barren moonscape from mountain top removal coal mining and there is no comparison as to which is more ugly and damaged.
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Wave energy is another source. They've been testing tech in Scottish waters for a while. The bonus with waves is that it's predictable unlike wind and solar - much more so in our climate.
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>wind power turbines are ugly on the landscape
It's weird how perceptions can be so different. Louise & I find them to be elegantly soothing. (My town is home to the Southeast's largest turbine farm. Goes on for miles out in the crop fields.)
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>soothing
I don't really have a problem with the looks of them either. They are better looking than high tension wires.
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ugly on the landscape
FUD and NIMBYism. FUD often from those with vested interest in stopping wind, so they talk about the large number of bird deaths which 1) is not true with new slower turning turbines and 2) is still small compared to the number of birds killed in the long term due to pollution and other environmental issues caused by other fuels.
NIMBYism... well, there's always that.
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I'll add that many of the farm families around here are openly belligerent toward wind and solar panels --particularly the panels. They see them as a threat to available land. I can see that with panels, but the turbines really have a pretty small footprint and the ones around here have crops within 100 feet/33 m.
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It's nice additional and diversified income for the owner of the farm land. One turbine with access lane takes out about 1 acre, but you earn way more on that acre than you would get in rent for crops.
For the person actually farming the land it can be annoying because you have those access lanes interrupting the rows.
Other costs:
Sometimes broken drainage tiles.
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https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/green-new-deal-preview-texas-town-environmentalism-chuck-devore
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https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/green-new-deal-preview-texas-town-environmentalism-chuck-devore
Well it's Fox News. The thing is there is always a learning curve, pain and mistakes in adopting a new technology but that does not mean we shouldn't try and also learn.
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I never see Fox News where I live, nor read it online.
Is it always that bad?
What a stunning disservice to humanity!
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https://www.statista.com/statistics/373814/cable-news-network-viewership-usa/
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>Is it always that bad?
It gets much worse.
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Texas Grid Operator Reports Fuel Mix Is Now 30% Carbon-Free (https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/a-snapshot-of-texas-growing-appetite-for-wind-and-solar-power)
Wind > Coal