Global Warming

[chrisp65]

4 minutes ago, sidcow said:

That would buy a hell of a lot of land based wind turbines plus battery storage. 

And they'd be up and running much sooner as well. 

Ah don’t forget, land based wind turbines are effectively banned in England.

[CVByrne]

We need to focus more on new scientific breakthroughs. Fusion, carbon trapping and battery technology. It's the only way we can limit or even reverse impact of climate change in a world where economic growth = increase in energy consumption. 

[blandy]

15 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

We need to focus more on new scientific breakthroughs. Fusion, carbon trapping and battery technology. It's the only way we can limit or even reverse impact of climate change in a world where economic growth = increase in energy consumption. 

I think it's more fundamental than that. If you're right (and you are) that economic growth = increase in consumption of resources, given that resources are limited - there's only one planet Earth, then we need to stop being dominated by a "need" for economic growth - that way lies extinction. It's the overarching and overriding model of much of the world, and it's plain wrong. Instead of everything being measured in terms of the economy (and nothing else), the measures should be wider, with economic activity being just one part of it. If the economy is growing, but the air is more polluted, the water more poisoned, nature more depleted, quality of life more degraded, health outcomes worse and the planet ever hotter with more extreme weather events and melting glaciers and ice caps are we really doing well?

Yes, definitely science and ingenuity and engineering and so on can help, but our Governments need to change the way they operate In a narrow field of economics driven dogma.

[CVByrne]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

I think it's more fundamental than that. If you're right (and you are) that economic growth = increase in consumption of resources, given that resources are limited - there's only one planet Earth, then we need to stop being dominated by a "need" for economic growth - that way lies extinction. It's the overarching and overriding model of much of the world, and it's plain wrong. Instead of everything being measured in terms of the economy (and nothing else), the measures should be wider, with economic activity being just one part of it. If the economy is growing, but the air is more polluted, the water more poisoned, nature more depleted, quality of life more degraded, health outcomes worse and the planet ever hotter with more extreme weather events and melting glaciers and ice caps are we really doing well?

Yes, definitely science and ingenuity and engineering and so on can help, but our Governments need to change the way they operate In a narrow field of economics driven dogma.

I don't disagree with you. I personally love nature and had a happy childhood playing in a field before we had the energy demands that came with the internet / computer energy driven Western World that we have now. I just don't see how we turn the ship around when our efforts in Europe (primarily) to reduce our carbon emissions seem divorced from the worlds ever expanding energy needs. Asia and South American economies growing has a huge energy demand and that is filled with fossil fuels and carbon. Global warming doesn't register politically in these places when the Economy and poverty etc. is the driving force of politics. 

I'm not saying we've lost but we have 100% lost if we can't make the scientific breakthroughs we need. Fusion is the only hope I can see to abundant clean energy someday. If that comes too late then our kids are the ones who have to pay the price for it. 

[blandy]

25 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

I personally love nature and had a happy childhood playing in a field before we had the energy demands that came with the internet / computer energy driven Western World that we have now. I just don't see how we turn the ship around when our efforts in Europe (primarily) to reduce our carbon emissions seem divorced from the worlds ever expanding energy needs. Asia and South American economies growing has a huge energy demand and that is filled with fossil fuels and carbon. Global warming doesn't register politically in these places when the Economy and poverty etc. is the driving force of politics. 

Just 2 things on that. Did you have a plastic bottle of water when you were playing in the field?  Now everyone has a plastic bottle of water, or some have a reusable one. Why?  Pure marketing of something for which there’s no need. Now the oceans and seas and rivers are full of plastic. It’s a single example of how we operate, under a drive for economic growth. 
 

The other comment is that in Nigeria, they know about the pollution from oil. In the Maldives they know about rising sea levels. Asia, Africa. Sunny places. They have abundant sources of clean energy by and large. We should help them use them, instead of selling them oil, or oil tankers.

I agree with you about technology, but there’s also simpler things that can be done that don’t require nuclear fission or CCS or whatever.

[CVByrne]

11 hours ago, blandy said:

Just 2 things on that. Did you have a plastic bottle of water when you were playing in the field?  Now everyone has a plastic bottle of water, or some have a reusable one. Why?  Pure marketing of something for which there’s no need. Now the oceans and seas and rivers are full of plastic. It’s a single example of how we operate, under a drive for economic growth. 
 

The other comment is that in Nigeria, they know about the pollution from oil. In the Maldives they know about rising sea levels. Asia, Africa. Sunny places. They have abundant sources of clean energy by and large. We should help them use them, instead of selling them oil, or oil tankers.

I agree with you about technology, but there’s also simpler things that can be done that don’t require nuclear fission or CCS or whatever.

To help those countries we need to make the breakthrough in battery technology so all of the solar power they have in abundance can be harnessed and stored. I think we have a moral debt to the world as 90% of all the carbon pumped into the atmosphere came from the industrialisation of the west over the last 200+ years.

Too much of our power hungry economies now are based on consumerism. Even worse completely pointless things like sitting and staring at screens, kids living lives on social media or playing FIFA instead of face to face human interaction. It's not something we can reverse, we have a younger generation who believe virtue signalling and activism is the answer instead of hard work and scientific progress. We need cold hard pragmatism and logic, need leaders who can be real with everyone carbon neutral is completely pointless if it only happens in Europe where we produce 17.5% of global emissions and the world emissions is growing at 1-2% per year. In a decade the rest of the world will have made up the entire emissions of Europe. So we are at the same place.

Climate change feels more like Veganism in the west. About a way of living and being virtuous etc. When if these people actually cared they would point out we need to have a different plan. We need more money for scientific research.

[maqroll]

There's a blizzard warning for Los Angeles!

[chrisp65]

I’m conscious that when people were protesting against the death of the environment there were quite a few, including on VT that felt actual protest that inconvenienced car drivers was a bit extreme and a jolly poor show. The feeling was that there were better ways of getting the message across. Though strangely, once those annoying protests stopped, by coincidence, so did the conversation. Like I say, coincidence.

Anyhoo, turns out your not even allowed to talk about it in your defence when on trial.

Quote

Dorset councillor Giovanna Lewis, 65, and horticultural worker Amy Pritchard, 38, had been ordered by the judge not to talk about the environment or fuel poverty in their defence during the trial.

But the pair, who defended themselves in court, broke Silas Reid's order and were found in contempt of court on Friday. They were sentenced to seven weeks' imprisonment, of which they will serve half.

Inconvenience

 

[blandy]

17 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I’m conscious that when people were protesting against the death of the environment there were quite a few, including on VT that felt actual protest that inconvenienced car drivers was a bit extreme and a jolly poor show. The feeling was that there were better ways of getting the message across. Though strangely, once those annoying protests stopped, by coincidence, so did the conversation. Like I say, coincidence.

Anyhoo, turns out your not even allowed to talk about it in your defence when on trial.

Inconvenience

 

Contrast that with the judge’s words in the Just Stop Oil trial you posted a while ago.

[chrisp65]

Just now, blandy said:

Contrast that with the judge’s words in the Just Stop Oil trial you posted a while ago.

Yep, the law, and whether you do prison time appears to depend on the mood of a 60 year old Jag driver and whether that Jag is electric.

 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

Yep, the law, and whether you do prison time appears to depend on the mood of a 60 year old Jag driver and whether that Jag is electric.

Well, yeah, but no.  Both sets of protesters got chokey. The first lot, the judge completely sympathised, accepted their motivations etc. but followed the law as it is written and on which he has to rule.

The second lot, the judge seems to have decided that the same motives etc. are not permitted to be aired in court (unlike the first judge) and then, when they did that, given them a few days in big house, for doing so.

At very face value, it looks odd. Has someone had a word with the beaks? It might be like you say, this one just a grumpy diesel jag driver. Seems not natural justice either way.

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

Well, yeah, but no.  Both sets of protesters got chokey. The first lot, the judge completely sympathised, accepted their motivations etc. but followed the law as it is written and on which he has to rule.

The second lot, the judge seems to have decided that the same motives etc. are not permitted to be aired in court (unlike the first judge) and then, when they did that, given them a few days in big house, for doing so.

At very face value, it looks odd. Has someone had a word with the beaks? It might be like you say, this one just a grumpy diesel jag driver. Seems not natural justice either way.

So it might not be grumpy old men in the justice system randomising the game, it might be a clamp down from someone higher up in the establishment than crown court judges?

Either is perfectly possible.

 

 

[sidcow]

And we've got several gigantic windfarms to come on board in the next few years, hopefully Labour get in and allow super cheap land based turbines to be built again, and more and more solar being installed daily. 

https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/03/02/uk-grid-smashes-new-green-record-with-longest-time-on-record/

UK grid smashes new green record with ‘longest time’ on record

Britain’s electricity grid ran on 100% clean power for 25 hours, according to a new report

Quote

The UK grid ran on 100% clean electricity for 25 hours in December.

Quote

The data shows that clean power, which includes renewable energy sources – biomass, hydro, wind and solar – as well as nuclear has broken the record for the volume of clean surplus power produced, an estimated 2.9GW.

Quote

Analysts added that on 30th December, Britain saw a record of 3GW of surplus clean power produced – clear power sources produced more than 26.4GW while demand was only 23.4GW.

Quote

“Electricity is the only form of energy where we produce more than we consume – in comparison to our coal and gas requirements where 60-75% are still imported from abroad.

“Completely eliminating fossil fuels during periods of high renewable output and low demand in the next two years requires significant policy and infrastructure decisions to be made now.”

 

[blandy]

10 hours ago, sidcow said:

on 30th December, Britain saw a record of 3GW of surplus clean power produced – clear power sources produced more than 26.4GW while demand was only 23.4GW.

In cases like that we lack storage capacity for the surplus. The grid also lacks cables thick enough to handle the current if all of a wind farm is going at max chat. It’s why there are tariffs which will pay people to use energy, it’s why government pays energy companies to turn off their wind farms, or part of them.

Also, while biomass counts as renewable, it’s worse than coal for CO2 and global warming. You get less energy from it per unit of emitted CO2. It shouldn’t really be called green at all.

[Davkaus]

4 minutes ago, blandy said:

In cases like that we lack storage capacity for the surplus. The grid also lacks cables thick enough to handle the current if all of a wind farm is going at max chat. It’s why there are tariffs which will pay people to use energy, it’s why government pays energy companies to turn off their wind farms, or part of them.

Also, while biomass counts as renewable, it’s worse than coal for CO2 and global warming. You get less energy from it per unit of emitted CO2. It shouldn’t really be called green at all.

This is the only good news we had  

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

This is the only good news we had  

It is good news, just not quite as good as the headlines portray. Considering where we were a decade ago, it’s terrific. But it could be better and will get better. It needs to. Other than filling in for when it’s cloudy/dark and windless, burning coal or wood (which has come from Canada and North America) is something that is “bad”.  It needs to replaced by stored energy for filling in gaps and by much more efficient homes and buildings so we don’t need so much energy to start with.

[sidcow]

50 minutes ago, blandy said:

In cases like that we lack storage capacity for the surplus. The grid also lacks cables thick enough to handle the current if all of a wind farm is going at max chat. It’s why there are tariffs which will pay people to use energy, it’s why government pays energy companies to turn off their wind farms, or part of them.

Also, while biomass counts as renewable, it’s worse than coal for CO2 and global warming. You get less energy from it per unit of emitted CO2. It shouldn’t really be called green at all.

Agree on Biomass but as the new windfarms come on board this will reduce as well. 

There are lots and lots of things ongoing to upgrade infrastructure and deal with mass energy storage.  It's going to take time but we will get there.  But mainly if the grid can be 100% green powered as often as is possible that's got to be a good thing.

I am really enthused about gravity batteries at the moment.  There is something extremely satisfying about the remains of the coal mining industry being re-purposed to make green energy work.

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by sidcow

[OutByEaster?]

Just the equivalent of 2 million extra cars a year then? Ah, well think of the shareholders.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64943603

 

Quote

 

US President Joe Biden has approved a major oil and gas drilling project in Alaska that faced strong opposition from environmental activists.

The company behind the Willow project, ConocoPhillips, says it will create local investment and thousands of jobs.

But the $8bn (£6.6bn) proposal faced a torrent of online activism in recent weeks, particularly among youth activists on TikTok.

Opponents argued it should be halted over its climate and wildlife impacts.

 

 

[sidcow]

Anyone who thinks Hydrogen has a mainstream future in vehicle technology they need to watch this video.

 

 

 

Taking aside the fact that

1) you need 4 units of electricity to make 1 unit of Hydrogen so it's always going to be significantly cheaper to just put the 4 units of electricity in the vehicle in the first place and

2) its far cheaper to transport electricity than transport and store Hydrogen. 

Added to which batteries are having billions of pounds of investment, they're only going to get more energy dense therefore cheaper or will run much further. 

But when you see this video and realise the huge cost savings of reduced maintenance and increased availability electricity brings v combustion you begin to realise batteries probably make MORE sense for large commercial vehicles than for cars. 

[Tegis]

 

11 hours ago, sidcow said:

Hydrogen

 

The golden thing with hydrogen is that we will never run out of it. But it's a damn tricky substance to store, handle, transport and most crucially, get separated from whatever it is merged to in natural conditions.

Will probably not be viable until we have some sort of almost unlimited clean energy so the 1 to 4 ratio mentioned above doesn't matter. And even then we might have some new battery tech that is not dependent on rare materials.

Still, pour research in everything and we hopefully stumble on the right avenue in the end.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Tegis
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