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Ozone: The Earth's protective shield is repairing

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Re: Ozone: The Earth's protective shield is repairing

#61

Post by obpacheco »

barry-cotter wrote: post #49
tomerico wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the key part. What CPC case teaches us, is that if we could find a good alternative to Fossil fuels, we could likely eliminate their use.

We have a good alternative. France produces ~80% of its electricity with nuclear power.

I don't know if I would call that a good alternative. How many places on the Earth can you no longer go due to radiation? Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island and the list will go on. Also it seams very short sided in terms of planning for out of control cosmic events such as asteroids or coronal mass ejections which could wipe out our grid, leading to nuclear leaks worldwide. If we were to get something like the Carrington Event of 1859 [1] we would be much worse off for centuries if we rely on nuclear energy rather then finding a safer fuel source.

[1] https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-would-happen-if-sol...

Re: Ozone: The Earth's protective shield is repairing

#62

Post by mrfusion »

justinator wrote: post #58
justinator wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transportation makes up 25% of the carbon emissions worldwide. Cows make up like 8%. The US military is the world's largest polluter. Most of their most serious crime against the environment is detonation of nuclear warheads.

Here are citations to my numbers (since I seem to be downvoted): * Transportation: 28% https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-... * Livestock is 14.5% of all GHG emissions, cows are 65% of that: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/ * Stories on how the US Military is the world' biggest polluters: https://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/25/us-department-defence-on... https://www.foreignpol…

Cows just confuse the issue though since they’re mostly producing methane which although a ghg doesn’t stick around too long.

Re: Ozone: The Earth's protective shield is repairing

#63

Post by mrfusion »

decebalus1 wrote: post #35
xavierstein wrote: post #24

My father-in-law firmly believes that the hole in the ozone was caused by space shuttle reentry, and that's why it's patching now, and also that CFCs couldn't possibly make the hole because they are heavier than air. Does anyone have the data to refute these claims?

Ideally the person who claims something needs to provide the data to back it up. My father-in-law doesn't believe that the moon landings took place. All the data in the world cannot convince him otherwise. The only good strategy in the face of these types of claims is to go up the crazy scale. For example when he tells me that the moon landings didn't happen, I tell him he's naive it he thinks the moon exists. The mo…

Does that strategy work?

Re: Ozone: The Earth's protective shield is repairing

#64

Post by EGreg »

mrfusion wrote: post #62
justinator wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are citations to my numbers (since I seem to be downvoted): * Transportation: 28% https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-... * Livestock is 14.5% of all GHG emissions, cows are 65% of that: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/ * Stories on how the US Military is the world' biggest polluters: https://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/25/us-department-defence-on... https://www.foreignpol…

Cows just confuse the issue though since they’re mostly producing methane which although a ghg doesn’t stick around too long.

Methane is far more potent as a greenhouse gas

And the best case scenario is burning it somehow in which case it just has a CO2 byproduct

Re: Ozone: The Earth's protective shield is repairing

#65

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

obpacheco wrote: post #61
barry-cotter wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a good alternative. France produces ~80% of its electricity with nuclear power.

I don't know if I would call that a good alternative. How many places on the Earth can you no longer go due to radiation? Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island and the list will go on. Also it seams very short sided in terms of planning for out of control cosmic events such as asteroids or coronal mass ejections which could wipe out our grid, leading to nuclear leaks worldwide. If we were to get something like the…

> wipe out our grid, leading to nuclear leaks worldwide.

I don’t understand how nuclear leaks could be a result of grid failure.

Also, I read recently that CME could cause DC charge to occur on very long power lines, but that modern systems can handle this. There was a HN thread about this couple days ago, can anyone find it?

Re: Ozone: The Earth's protective shield is repairing

#66

Post by bzbarsky »

obpacheco wrote: post #61
barry-cotter wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a good alternative. France produces ~80% of its electricity with nuclear power.

I don't know if I would call that a good alternative. How many places on the Earth can you no longer go due to radiation? Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island and the list will go on. Also it seams very short sided in terms of planning for out of control cosmic events such as asteroids or coronal mass ejections which could wipe out our grid, leading to nuclear leaks worldwide. If we were to get something like the…

You can go to Three Mile Island just fine as long as you don't go inside the Unit 2 containment vessel itself. The meltdown was fully contained inside said containment vessel. Unit 2 has since had its core removed from the site entirely and has had its electrical generator moved to another reactor (in North Carolina), so it's not like people haven't been going in it either. Unit 1 (the other reactor right next to the one that had a meltdown) has remained a fully operational power station and is used as such today; people go there all the time.

Chernobyl and Fukushima I will grant (especially Chernobyl!) but Three Mile Island has a no-go zone that's far smaller than most people think. And it's only sort of no-go at that.

> which could wipe out our grid, leading to nuclear leaks worldwide

Sorry, but citation needed for the causal mechanism via which the grid going down would lead to "nuclear leaks".

Re: Ozone: The Earth's protective shield is repairing

#67

Post by mindslight »

tolien wrote: post #11
mohaine wrote: post #7

Ok, now that refrigerates are ozone safe can we get all the regulations removed from them? At least for the safe ones? Right now if you don't reclaim the R-134A from your car AC or fridge it is a $27k fine while you can buy cans of it to blow out your keyboard. Same goes for propane. This makes the new fridges that use propane almost impossible to work on since nobody has the reclamation equipment for R290.

R-134A has a global warming potential of 1550 over 100 years [1], i.e. about 45 times more effective than methane, so while it's not eating the ozone layer you probably shouldn't be spraying it around by the tonne either. Edit: and CO2 has a GWP of 1 (as the reference point for GWP), so R-134A is way more effective than that. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential#Value...

Judging by the duster cans I have here [0] it looks like they've switched to HFC-152a which has GWP but does not deplete the ozone layer.

But the point is that they're the same exact substances, given different designators depending on the use. HFC-134a is perfectly legal to vent into the atmosphere, yet if it's in a refrigeration system (and thus called R-134a) it is not.

R-290 is just the refrigeration name for plain propane. I don't know the GWP etc of propane, or the relative amount that would be contributed by deliberate venting of refrigeration systems. But I do know that a $27k fine for doing so is nonsensical - given gas grills, blow torches, and industrial/distribution gas leaks.

[0] I didn't buy them. I personally have never had a problem using an air compressor (the traditional worry is condensation droplets), but if you're paranoid go get something like the Metro DataVac.

Re: Ozone: The Earth's protective shield is repairing

#68

Post by obpacheco »

bzbarsky wrote: post #66
obpacheco wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if I would call that a good alternative. How many places on the Earth can you no longer go due to radiation? Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island and the list will go on. Also it seams very short sided in terms of planning for out of control cosmic events such as asteroids or coronal mass ejections which could wipe out our grid, leading to nuclear leaks worldwide. If we were to get something like the…

You can go to Three Mile Island just fine as long as you don't go inside the Unit 2 containment vessel itself. The meltdown was fully contained inside said containment vessel. Unit 2 has since had its core removed from the site entirely and has had its electrical generator moved to another reactor (in North Carolina), so it's not like people haven't been going in it either. Unit 1 (the other reactor right next to the…

I admit a little bit of that is pessimism from what happened at Fukushima from when the plant lost power to run the cooling pumps. from Scientific American

> Pushing water past the core means pumps that are generally run by electricity. What happens when a reactor gets disconnected from the grid? There are emergency diesel generators. You also have a battery system to keep instruments running, but that can also provide power to safety systems [which prevent a meltdown by cooling the reactor core]. It's all meant to provide defense in depth. First you rely on the grid. If the grid is no longer available, you use diesel generators. If there is an issue with the diesels, you have a battery backup. And the batteries usually last long enough for you to get the diesels going. [1]

All I'm saying is that we have a very short term understanding of cosmic events and extreme space weather events [2] and maybe a good percentage of nuclear power plants could withstain these types of events, but I don't see it as a viable long term option.

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-cool-a-nuc...

[2]https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/201...

Re: Ozone: The Earth's protective shield is repairing

#69

Post by theseadroid »

Retric wrote: post #29
EGreg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would think China with all that control over businesses and their population could prevent people from polluting their rivers with plastic and spewing it into the Pacific Ocean!

Systemic corruption makes the rule of law "difficult" to enforce. And by difficult I mean this is a feature not a bug for the huge interconnected web of power that actually runs the country. PS: The fact China is not a democracy which has some unpleasant results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

Thanks for the video. It's very educational.

Re: Ozone: The Earth's protective shield is repairing

#70

Post by School-Cotton »

obpacheco wrote: post #61
barry-cotter wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a good alternative. France produces ~80% of its electricity with nuclear power.

I don't know if I would call that a good alternative. How many places on the Earth can you no longer go due to radiation? Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island and the list will go on. Also it seams very short sided in terms of planning for out of control cosmic events such as asteroids or coronal mass ejections which could wipe out our grid, leading to nuclear leaks worldwide. If we were to get something like the…

Better a hundred Chernobyls than what will happen to the earth if we continue using fossil fuels at the current rate.
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