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There Is Gas Under the Tundra

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Re: There Is Gas Under the Tundra

#21

Post by DennisP »

makomk wrote: post #12
_Microft wrote: post #3

... and it better stays there. Building up more capacity to extract fossil fuels is not what we should be doing right now.

In practice, the shift to renewable electricity and the focus on reducing emissions means more demand for natural gas, since gas generators produce less pollution than coal and are better at responding to changes in demand caused by variation in the renewable energy supply.

But they still produce half as much CO2 as coal, and if you count methane leaks they may be even more damaging to the climate.

If renewables plus storage aren't enough to get us to zero emissions, we need nuclear.

Re: There Is Gas Under the Tundra

#22

Post by eej71 »

eksemplar wrote: post #13
makomk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice, the shift to renewable electricity and the focus on reducing emissions means more demand for natural gas, since gas generators produce less pollution than coal and are better at responding to changes in demand caused by variation in the renewable energy supply.

Is that really practical though? I mean, it makes sense financially and in terms of how we usually do transition, but we’re frankly running out of time, and maybe we need to be radical rather than practical. I’m old, I’ve seen how we’ve ignored the warnings for the past 30 years. Worse yet, if you ask people on when sollutuons can be ready, they say 10-20 years, and we only have one decade left to stop our own destru…

I'm old too and I truly believe that we will continue to be here 10-20 years from now with roughly the same world we've always had.

Re: There Is Gas Under the Tundra

#23

Post by throwaway12iii »

thrower123 wrote: post #20
eksemplar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really practical though? I mean, it makes sense financially and in terms of how we usually do transition, but we’re frankly running out of time, and maybe we need to be radical rather than practical. I’m old, I’ve seen how we’ve ignored the warnings for the past 30 years. Worse yet, if you ask people on when sollutuons can be ready, they say 10-20 years, and we only have one decade left to stop our own destru…

The radicals fucked us all over by agitating against nuke power in the 70s. Free love and climate change, man.

The ocean is filled with nuclear waste world wide from one plant leaking. You can't eat food grown in huge areas of Europe.

The last generation plants were a military money hack. The plants that got funded interestingly were good at producing materials used for bombs. Not good designs that are financially viable without military money. Or even designs that are safe.

They are too expensive to close down properly. That's why not one has been closed down in the USA. That's not a safe design.

If the military jerks didn't hijack things so the power plants were designed wrong we would probably have had better designs made and more research going into the right directions. Instead we have a sea of toxic waste and bullshit plants to clean up.

Blaming environmentalists is fucking stupid.

What's your counter argument? Something like...

War is peace, hate is love, ignorance is strength?

Bullshit.

Re: There Is Gas Under the Tundra

#24

Post by goatlover »

eksemplar wrote: post #13
makomk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice, the shift to renewable electricity and the focus on reducing emissions means more demand for natural gas, since gas generators produce less pollution than coal and are better at responding to changes in demand caused by variation in the renewable energy supply.

Is that really practical though? I mean, it makes sense financially and in terms of how we usually do transition, but we’re frankly running out of time, and maybe we need to be radical rather than practical. I’m old, I’ve seen how we’ve ignored the warnings for the past 30 years. Worse yet, if you ask people on when sollutuons can be ready, they say 10-20 years, and we only have one decade left to stop our own destru…

Why is it destruction and not just it will be more costly to adapt? Why suppose that we can't figure out a way to scrub C02 from the atmosphere, or offset it some other way? Why can't humanity, who managed to survive an ice age with stone aged tools, figure out a way to survive a warmer planet with modern tech?

Re: There Is Gas Under the Tundra

#25

Post by thrower123 »

throwaway12iii wrote: post #23
thrower123 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The radicals fucked us all over by agitating against nuke power in the 70s. Free love and climate change, man.

The ocean is filled with nuclear waste world wide from one plant leaking. You can't eat food grown in huge areas of Europe. The last generation plants were a military money hack. The plants that got funded interestingly were good at producing materials used for bombs. Not good designs that are financially viable without military money. Or even designs that are safe. They are too expensive to close down properly. That…

We effectively stalled development at those shitty plutonium makers because the greens got a hair across their ass and protested so much that they made it impossible to build better designs.

Re: There Is Gas Under the Tundra

#26

Post by nradov »

goatlover wrote: post #24
eksemplar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really practical though? I mean, it makes sense financially and in terms of how we usually do transition, but we’re frankly running out of time, and maybe we need to be radical rather than practical. I’m old, I’ve seen how we’ve ignored the warnings for the past 30 years. Worse yet, if you ask people on when sollutuons can be ready, they say 10-20 years, and we only have one decade left to stop our own destru…

Why is it destruction and not just it will be more costly to adapt? Why suppose that we can't figure out a way to scrub C02 from the atmosphere, or offset it some other way? Why can't humanity, who managed to survive an ice age with stone aged tools, figure out a way to survive a warmer planet with modern tech?

Cold is easier to survive than heat. Humans can't do any useful work outside or even survive once the web bulb temperature reaches a certain point. For example at 90% humidity the temperature limit is 35℃. Some tropical areas will become essentially uninhabitable.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02082017/heatwaves-deadly...

Re: There Is Gas Under the Tundra

#27

Post by krisdol »

eej71 wrote: post #22
eksemplar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really practical though? I mean, it makes sense financially and in terms of how we usually do transition, but we’re frankly running out of time, and maybe we need to be radical rather than practical. I’m old, I’ve seen how we’ve ignored the warnings for the past 30 years. Worse yet, if you ask people on when sollutuons can be ready, they say 10-20 years, and we only have one decade left to stop our own destru…

I'm old too and I truly believe that we will continue to be here 10-20 years from now with roughly the same world we've always had.

10-20 years ago places I lived and remembered being quite heavily snowy in the winter just get a bit of dusting at best now.

New England has lost over 600 ski areas. There are fewer and fewer places with good enough conditions to grow coffee (a shame as I feel like the culture around fine coffee is just now coming into existence in the US). Enjoy oysters, clams, and scallops while you can as ocean acidification is killing them in droves. As soil heats due to global warming, it releases carbon dioxide, accelerating these effects.

I don't think the world is the same for anyone working in these industries or in tourism. Folks on HN are also generally isolated from the effects of the kinds of droughts that caused the Arab Spring, or from having to home refugees of climate change whose islands are disappearing to the rising sea levels.

Re: There Is Gas Under the Tundra

#28

Post by paganel »

thrower123 wrote: post #25
throwaway12iii wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ocean is filled with nuclear waste world wide from one plant leaking. You can't eat food grown in huge areas of Europe. The last generation plants were a military money hack. The plants that got funded interestingly were good at producing materials used for bombs. Not good designs that are financially viable without military money. Or even designs that are safe. They are too expensive to close down properly. That…

We effectively stalled development at those shitty plutonium makers because the greens got a hair across their ass and protested so much that they made it impossible to build better designs.

As things stand right now nuclear power is a single point of failure because (as the OP rightly points out) it has been used and is still being used by different military organizations in order to build nuclear bombs, which nuclear bombs can literally wipe us all at this very moment, not in 10 years’ time, not in 20 years’ time, now. Yeah, I know the whole talk about how nuclear bombs have stopped a possible WWIII in its tracks (which is only proof of how schizoid we are as a species at this stage of our societal development) but I also know that single point of failures are really, really bad.

Re: There Is Gas Under the Tundra

#29

Post by thrower123 »

paganel wrote: post #28
thrower123 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We effectively stalled development at those shitty plutonium makers because the greens got a hair across their ass and protested so much that they made it impossible to build better designs.

As things stand right now nuclear power is a single point of failure because (as the OP rightly points out) it has been used and is still being used by different military organizations in order to build nuclear bombs, which nuclear bombs can literally wipe us all at this very moment, not in 10 years’ time, not in 20 years’ time, now. Yeah, I know the whole talk about how nuclear bombs have stopped a possible WWIII in…

I can make a truck bomb from commercial fertilizers, or I can grow a whole bunch of wheat and corn. Just because you can fuck things up with a particular technology isn't a great reason for disallowing the positive usages of it.

Re: There Is Gas Under the Tundra

#30

Post by fooker »

nradov wrote: post #26
goatlover wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it destruction and not just it will be more costly to adapt? Why suppose that we can't figure out a way to scrub C02 from the atmosphere, or offset it some other way? Why can't humanity, who managed to survive an ice age with stone aged tools, figure out a way to survive a warmer planet with modern tech?

Cold is easier to survive than heat. Humans can't do any useful work outside or even survive once the web bulb temperature reaches a certain point. For example at 90% humidity the temperature limit is 35℃. Some tropical areas will become essentially uninhabitable. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02082017/heatwaves-deadly...

>For example at 90% humidity the temperature limit is 35℃.

This seems weird. A lot of tropical places are both hotter and more humid than this limit, and people seem to have adapted.

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