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Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

thetyee.ca

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Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#121

Post by cgh »

8bitsrule wrote: post #110
jandrewrogers wrote: post #22

The crux of the matter is that we need to drive thermodynamics backward at planetary scale. This is a fancy way of saying that we need to increase electricity generation by an integer factor beyond current global demand without producing net CO2. The list of existing energy sources capable of scaling like this that don't rely on burning carbon is extremely short: nuclear fission. I don't see any possibility of the re…

> we need to increase electricity generation by an integer factor As in India, which is nearly finished building from ~ 40GW to 170GW of renewable energy. And you skip past the powers of conservation. We don't need more power, we need less CO2. > capable of scaling ... nuclear fission The CO2 problem needs to be addressed promptly, and efficiently. Renewables build -much- more quickly, and the immediate cost of hundr…

Did you read the articles (there are two)? They address renewables in depth.

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#122

Post by cyrksoft »

flukus wrote: post #94
cyrksoft wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having kids is not a social norm (at least not in every case). Who are you or any politician to decide how many kids can a couple have? Even if it only is fear mongering, I bet you this will be a political discussion in some years.

> Who are you or any politician to decide how many kids can a couple have? I'm someone who subsidizes families having children, my taxes are paying for their healthcare, their schools, their childcare, etc. And while I'm happy to do that because maintaining society is important I'm not happy to do it for someone pumping out 15 kids. > I bet you this will be a political discussion in some years. I bet you it won't, re…

How many 15 kids family are there out there? Besides, they also pay their tax share...

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#123

Post by omgwtfbyobbq »

mdorazio wrote: post #2

Lots of assumptions baked in here. Chief among them is that renewables deployment will continue to be slower than new energy demand. If you look at the charts, this is pretty unlikely since the renewables trend is a consistent exponential increase year over year while the demand curve is very lumpy and mostly linear when averaged. Next is the assumption that renewables have to be deployed at grid scale, with the mate…

Even 25-30 years is starting to look pessimistic.

https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/testing-a-thirt...

https://global.kyocera.com/news-archive/2009/0805_jeao.html

My feeling is that most significant degradation comes from problems with assembly weather sealing, connectors, and/or electronic components. The cells themselves should last for a long time with modest degradation.

Inverters on the other hand seem to be closer to consumables in PV installs, but even those should last 10-20 years depending on the model, and refurbishment is possible.

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#125

Post by guelo »

duahncjak wrote: post #17

I think solutions to climate change that require global coordination are doomed to failure. When things start getting rough it’s going to be some entity independently pursuing a geoengineering solution, with whatever risk that entails. It’s not the best approach, but it’s something that someone can impose on the whole world without conquering them and shutting down their coal plans.

The United Nation was effective in the mid 20th century at global coordination, but nationalist and anti-government attacks on it have rendered it ineffective. But it can be restored, climate change is global problem we need global coordination.

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#126

Post by Merrill »

greglindahl wrote: post #32
jandrewrogers wrote: post #22

The crux of the matter is that we need to drive thermodynamics backward at planetary scale. This is a fancy way of saying that we need to increase electricity generation by an integer factor beyond current global demand without producing net CO2. The list of existing energy sources capable of scaling like this that don't rely on burning carbon is extremely short: nuclear fission. I don't see any possibility of the re…

> The list of existing energy sources capable of scaling like this ... solar and wind are scaling much better than every prediction, for many years now, yet somehow that's not good enough for the people who claim to be realists. Odd.

The problem with wind and solar is that they both require extensive spatially distributed energy collection systems, storage to overcome intermittent generation, and complex transmission networks to collect, manage, and distribute the electrical power. It seems unlikely that such can be secured in a world where conflict is steadily increasing, and where a tiny, but significant, percentage of the population is bent on disrupting or destroying infrastructure.

On the other hand, nuclear fission and fusion plants are spatially compact and can be located in secured areas near the industrial and residential users connected by short transmission lines. Nuclear plant heat and power can also be harnessed to generate synthetic fuels for transportation and chemical feedstocks as required for military and civilian purposes.

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#127

Post by xyzzyz »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #98
xyzzyz wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So where do we get energy from in case we get a windless week in winter, if not fossil fuels or nuclear?

> So where do we get energy from in case we get a windless week in winter, if not fossil fuels or nuclear? It isn't actually unreasonable to just say fossil fuels here. If we had to burn natural gas for a week every two years it would still represent a 99% reduction in carbon emissions. And on top of that, suppose we keep a week's supply of biofuels. They're not cost-competitive on a normal day, but you're not using…

A week's supply of biofuels, given our current energy use of 101 quadrillion BTU/year, and assuming 100% efficiency, is 2 quadrillion BTU. At the peak of our production, we produced around 0.2 quadrillion BTU worth of biodiesel. This means that a week's supply of biofuels is around 10 years of production.

Of course, in practice, if you overbuild renewable energy generation to a large enough multiple that will greatly increase the average cost of produced kWh, and if you keep most of the fossil fuel infrastructure on standby, then at the immense expense, and greatly increased energy prices, you could reduce CO2 emissions by switching to renewables. The real question is, why would you do so, if it would be much, much cheaper to just build enough nuclear plants to cover your needs. France managed to do it in the 70s., why can't we do it 50 years later?

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#128

Post by nostrademons »

cyrksoft wrote: post #35

"11. A global population strategy to enable a smooth descent to the two to three billion that could live comfortably indefinitely within the biophysical means of nature." Part 2: https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/11/12/Climate-Crisis-Realis... This is highly disturbing. With the 11,000 scientist warning the other day they proposed something similar. I find it very worrying. Who will decide who lives? Or who has kids a…

So far the best possible situation is playing out: people are voluntarily choosing not to have kids (or not to have as many kids), as they respond to economic incentives. Kids are expensive and a huge time suck, and with the continued development of very fulfilling hobbies and pastimes for urban professionals without kids, many people are independently making the conclusion that it's not worth it.

I don't have very high hopes for us getting out of this demographic crunch without a world war, but so far Millenials are not letting us down, though they aren't exactly happy about it. Let's hope that we can remain on the "mildly disgruntled" side rather than the "shooting war".

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#129

Post by jandrewrogers »

graeme wrote: post #64
Scaevolus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still need baseload power plants, and the economics of battery-based storage plants aren't there yet. Hydropower is a nice solution, but highly geography-dependent. China is attacking this problem by investing heavily in ultra-long-range HVDC power transmission from dams in the west to cities on the east.

For using power to suck carbon out of the air, would you need baseload power, or could you have a machine that ran whenever cheap solar electricity was available. Removing CO2 is important, and urgent in the medium term, but it isn't urgent in the "must happen this second" sense. Intermitten removal would be fine if the removal tech could be power intermittently.

Most steps of an industrial process will work with intermittent power, albeit with substantial loss of process efficiency that will therefore require building more infrastructure for the same effect than if you were using baseload power. Some steps of an industrial process may effectively require non-stop baseload power because restarting it is prohibitively slow and costly.

It may be possible to do atmospheric CO2 removal with intermittent power, I haven't attempted any kind of chemical engineering deep dive into what that process entails, but that is likely to incur a significant loss of productivity. Given that it is already an extremely expensive proposition, we will probably need to maximize process efficiency, which means reliable continuous power.

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#130

Post by dwd »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #22

The crux of the matter is that we need to drive thermodynamics backward at planetary scale. This is a fancy way of saying that we need to increase electricity generation by an integer factor beyond current global demand without producing net CO2. The list of existing energy sources capable of scaling like this that don't rely on burning carbon is extremely short: nuclear fission. I don't see any possibility of the re…

Unfortunately there are no realists in a position to really affect Government investment.

Why is every nation not committing an investment on the scale of the Apollo/Manhattan Projects? Politically it should be sell-able as a near-term investment (jobs) and future prosperity (cheaper renewable energy).

Governments should be putting billions into fusion, wave/tidal generation (nothing should be too expensive), upgrading all hydro to pumped hydro as well as developing more.

Ideas like this: https://www.arup.com/projects/bendigo-underground-pumped-hyd...

should be fully supported and funded. As each of the dozens of 400m+ deep underground coal mines around the world are wound down and replaced with wind or solar generation, convert them to pumped hydro, providing jobs for displaced coal miners and saving their communities in the process.

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