What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans • Hacker News Board

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#51

Post by cpprototypes » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 7:26 AM UTC

andrewwhartion wrote: post #40

cpprototypes wrote: post #27

I wish some billionaire would start a chain of carbon neutral gas stations. I wouldn't mind paying more for gas if I knew it was carbon neutral. There are several ways the gas could be carbon neutral, either through production (solar/wind into fuel creation) or offsets (plant trees or carbon sequestration). Instead of slowly trying to change our transportation infrastructure to EV, which will take decades, this could…

Quick 'back of the envelope' (literally) calculations: Toyota Camry [0] Dual VVT-i engine gets 7.9L/100km and 183gm/km emissions. That roughly works out as 2.3kg CO2 per 1L petrol. Therefore, a tonne of CO2 is produced for every ~430L petrol. Petrol is around AUD $1.40/L, so about AUD $600 of petrol. Carbon credits [1] are worth about $14 euros per tonne of CO2, which is say AUD $19. Therefore 'carbon neutral' petrol…

This is a lot lower than I expected. I wish governments would just add this as a tax directly. But seems almost impossible in the current political climate.

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#52

Post by jacobush » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 7:34 AM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #23

mathattack wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As societies get richer, they have less kids. And each child has more capital. This isn't a bad outcome.

That has been the trend so far. But I would be cautious about extrapolating too aggressively from that. A situation with rich people that aren't breeding is not evolutionarily stable.

What does that even mean?

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#53

Post by erik » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 7:34 AM UTC

andrewwhartion wrote: post #40

cpprototypes wrote: post #27

I wish some billionaire would start a chain of carbon neutral gas stations. I wouldn't mind paying more for gas if I knew it was carbon neutral. There are several ways the gas could be carbon neutral, either through production (solar/wind into fuel creation) or offsets (plant trees or carbon sequestration). Instead of slowly trying to change our transportation infrastructure to EV, which will take decades, this could…

Quick 'back of the envelope' (literally) calculations: Toyota Camry [0] Dual VVT-i engine gets 7.9L/100km and 183gm/km emissions. That roughly works out as 2.3kg CO2 per 1L petrol. Therefore, a tonne of CO2 is produced for every ~430L petrol. Petrol is around AUD $1.40/L, so about AUD $600 of petrol. Carbon credits [1] are worth about $14 euros per tonne of CO2, which is say AUD $19. Therefore 'carbon neutral' petrol…

Your comment sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole. I was confused about how burning 1L of fuel, which weighs ~1kg, could possibly produce ~2.3kg of CO2.

(This page confirms Toyota's number: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=307&t=11 )

The answer, which took me far too long to realize, is that the oxygen pulled from the air makes up the bulk of the mass of the CO2. Oxygen has an atomic mass of ~16 to Carbon's ~12, which means that 1kg of pure carbon can be combined with oxygen to produce ~3.7kg of CO2.

So yes, your calculations sound about right. Contrary to my first impression they do not violate the law of conservation of mass.

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#54

Post by arvidj » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 7:41 AM UTC

D_Alex wrote: post #49

weq wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make all plastic based on petroleum illegal. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

That is a terrible idea, for many reasons, and it would not reduce CO2 emissions... probably the opposite. A much better idea would be to reserve petroleum and natural gas for production of high value products such as plastics, instead of using it as an energy source now that renewable energy is competitive on cost.

Is that so? I recently bought some fake-plastic bags made out of plant matter (not fossilized mind you) in the hope that they would be more environmentally sustainable. As I remember it, googling did not turn up any conclusive evidence to the contrary. Why do you think banning plastics would be a bad idea?

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#55

Post by 7952 » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 7:49 AM UTC

anotherturn wrote: post #16

greglindahl wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[ I have no idea why people are downvoting me, so I'll just remove this comment. ]

I think you missed the point of the comment... "fear and shock tactics" have been applied to me wrt climate change, vegetarianism, etc. But all they seem to have done is desensitize me. Hence my saying that they do not work. I'm exploring whether there are things that I (and the rest of the HN audience) can do to make a dent. Right now my measure of effectiveness and productivity is almost exclusively related to dev…

Fear and shock dont work. Shame is the solution. Work to make bad actions socially unacceptable.

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#56

Post by snowwrestler » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 7:53 AM UTC

danvdragos wrote: post #42

Reading this struck me: What is the difference between primordial volcanoes and human pollution? During the dinosaur age it was a lot hotter [0] and there were really extraordinary organisms. Further reading seems to go down a rabbit hole [1],etc. [0] http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2014/07/11/what-geology-has-to-... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/apr/21/ice...

The difference is that during primordial times, we did not have all our infrastructure built out across the globe.

Although global warming is often talked about in "bad for the Earth" terms, really, the Earth will be just fine. It's been through worse.

Global warming is scary because it's bad for human societies. We built our cities and farms and national boundaries in certain places based on the climate we have had. Significant shifts in sea level, precipitation, temps, etc. will cause massive costs and unrest.

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#57

Post by peteretep » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 7:59 AM UTC

danvdragos wrote: post #42

Reading this struck me: What is the difference between primordial volcanoes and human pollution? During the dinosaur age it was a lot hotter [0] and there were really extraordinary organisms. Further reading seems to go down a rabbit hole [1],etc. [0] http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2014/07/11/what-geology-has-to-... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/apr/21/ice...

From a human perspective, there weren't 8 billion humans whose lives dependent on the status quo.

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#58

Post by andrei_says_ » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 8:02 AM UTC

anotherturn wrote: post #10

It's not really enough to read and upvote, but I'm at a loss as to what I can personally can do about this. So in the spirit of the askhn "how would you turn around Twitter" - let's apply the same thinking to this: "how would you fix the oceans "? There must be some practical steps that one or many of the hn audience can execute?

Elect people who are willing to take science-supported reality in consideration when creating policy.

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#59

Post by MrQuincle » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 8:03 AM UTC

anotherturn wrote: post #10

It's not really enough to read and upvote, but I'm at a loss as to what I can personally can do about this. So in the spirit of the askhn "how would you turn around Twitter" - let's apply the same thinking to this: "how would you fix the oceans "? There must be some practical steps that one or many of the hn audience can execute?

Technically.

+ Instead of hunting on the seas we should perform aquaculture. Establish diets that can use sea vegetables. Create methods to harvest on sea. This can reduce CO2 in the oceans and reduces the burden on land.

+ Accelerating research into reducing the CO2 footprint of our food. Lab grown meat and fish needs to be on wafer scales.

+ Create market places that reduces friction between CO2 producers and CO2 reducers. Make it easier to share solar panels or to share roofs. Make it easier to provide clean energy to Indian or Chinese households. Make it easier to find locations for wind mills. All these things can be accelerated through digital communication.

Re: What fossil fuels are doing to our oceans

#60

Post by anticodon » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 8:05 AM UTC

anotherturn wrote: post #12

greglindahl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Become a vegetarian. Not only will you not contribute to the fish market, but you'll also reduce the amount of fertilizer flowing into the ocean.

To make a dent I suspect becoming a vegetarian isn't enough - you'd have to become an effective-evangelical vegetarian. So, given that fear and shock tactics are failing - how do I convince the world (or a sizeable portion of it) to become vegetarian? I heard a podcast recently about a guy working to produce real meat from plant matter. This would probably be an effective solution. By spending time otherwise used for…

I'm a vegetarian myself, although for another reason: I don't want living beings to be tortured and killed for my food.

But I find is that vegetarian propaganda is many times so disgusting and based on lies that it's probably going to turn people away from vegeterian food. Some vegeterians and vegans are obnoxious bigots and their efforts are generating opposite result - people start hating vegeterians and vegeterian food.

So I don't evangelize vegeterian. Besides, my reasons are too complex for most people to understand: "But chicken and cows were created for us to eat! They are not suffering!".