How do we cut down on emissions from steel, cement, and plastic?
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Re: How do we cut down on emissions from steel, cement, and plastic?
#2> Some industrial processes can’t easily be electrified because they require too much heat. One possible alternative is to get the heat from a next-generation nuclear plant.
Glad to see this. I take any future large-scale green energy initiative as unserious if it doesn’t take an honest look and consideration at new nuclear energy power plants.
Re: How do we cut down on emissions from steel, cement, and plastic?
#3Unpopular opinion: adaptation is best (only?) solution.
Re: How do we cut down on emissions from steel, cement, and plastic?
#4> "Whenever I hear an idea for what we can do to keep global warming in check—whether it’s over a conference table or a cheeseburger"
You're discussing global warming prevention and eating meat??
Re: How do we cut down on emissions from steel, cement, and plastic?
#5Unpopular opinion: adaptation is best (only?) solution.
Unpopular opinion: adaptation at +4C is genocide
Re: How do we cut down on emissions from steel, cement, and plastic?
#6> "Whenever I hear an idea for what we can do to keep global warming in check—whether it’s over a conference table or a cheeseburger" You're discussing global warming prevention and eating meat??
You're discussing global warming prevention and using a computer??
Re: How do we cut down on emissions from steel, cement, and plastic?
#7Unpopular opinion: adaptation is best (only?) solution.
Adaptation is key to any solution, but there is a wide spectrum between "prevention only" and "adaptation only." There's no reason not to have both, and they complement each other. And, if nothing else, adaptation has to be funded somehow, and most modern solutions aimed at prevention generate revenue. Some or all of that revenue can be used to fund adaptation efforts.
One issue with adaptation is that the people being asked to adapt aren't the same as the people being asked to prevent. It's all fine and good for the USA to say, it's most economically efficient to adapt, because prevention is expensive! But you don't see the USA dedicating a large portion of that profit stream enabled by their externalities to fund adaptation efforts in Bangladesh.
Re: How do we cut down on emissions from steel, cement, and plastic?
#8Unpopular opinion: adaptation is best (only?) solution.
There's no such thing as adapting to runaway climate change.
Re: How do we cut down on emissions from steel, cement, and plastic?
#9Unpopular opinion: adaptation is best (only?) solution.
Adapting to +8C will be a lot more expensive than reducing moderately to hit +4C and adapting to that.
And the only way to limit to +4C IMO is to try and limit to +2C and inevitably missing.
Re: How do we cut down on emissions from steel, cement, and plastic?
#10He says that Steel (and some other materials) are the most important issue because we don't yet have any proven good or easy way to reduce the CO2 impact of their production.
That leads me to the opposite of Gates' conclusion.
At this point there are many low hanging fruit, so until we have a good way to address steel production, we should keep the focus on those other measures.
We should certainly be doing research on the issue that he is focused on, but we shouldn't let ourselves get distracted by it.
Getting to zero carbon emissions overall (the goal he brings up to justify his focus) is a great long-term goal but I think our success in this challenge will be determined in the short and medium term.