Nice, let's start with China and India.
HOW DARE YOU CHINA AND INDIA!
Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C
171–180 of 221 posts
Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if that happens, are you going to take the win, or are you going to cut off your nose to spite your face?
Oh, I'm sure liberals will gloat and be happy the grumpy conservatives are at the table, and everyone will agree on the importance of the problem. Then both sides will fight over who funds the solution. Liberals say big oil creates the problem and must fund the solution, conservatives will say the public demands the oil and is affected by the problem and must fund the solution. Nobody will agree to anything and the w…
Most of the CO2 is produced in China and India so I doubt the conversation in the USA will be even relevant.
Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a big "if" though. "If" our infrastructure is good enough that oil+CCS is more efficient and no more destructive than alt energy methods, then is there still a need for alt energy?
> That's a big "if" though. No, that's pretty much how the CCS debate has been going. Norway announced a big project to cleanup a gas plant with CCS used for an oil refinery. The plant was built, but without CCS. When Germany built its last wave of new coal power plants a common argument was that "the CO2 emissions are no big problem, we'll add CCS later". Which never happened. The promise of CCS as an excuse for con…
I always wonder how one could enforce CCS via forestation. How can you be sure that the forest won't be cut down and never replanted? After all the idea behind capture certificates is to buy and forget.
Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually boomers are quite anti-nuclear as a generation. Millennial and younger are far more into it largely driven by the seriousness of climate change. The fact I stated is true.
I'm sure it is and apologies to the fellow HNers who didn't find my comment funny. If you prefer a more serious answer, Nuclear is overpriced garbage. Sure, the industry keeps promising cheap and plentiful energy but what they deliver is Hinckley C.
Nuclear is extremely low-carbon baseload energy with very low land, waste, death, and raw material footprints. In a world of increasing carbon-related challenges, it's very challenging to write off.
We're currently building high-carbon fracked gas plants like crazy because they're cheap. Put some kind of price on carbon emissions and instantly fracked gas is expensive and nuclear is cheap. Nuclear's low-carbon nature is not valued in markets, and that's a great shame.
Look to the Koreans and Chinese if you want to see economical and effective nuclear projects.
Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, I'm sure liberals will gloat and be happy the grumpy conservatives are at the table, and everyone will agree on the importance of the problem. Then both sides will fight over who funds the solution. Liberals say big oil creates the problem and must fund the solution, conservatives will say the public demands the oil and is affected by the problem and must fund the solution. Nobody will agree to anything and the w…
Most of the CO2 is produced in China and India so I doubt the conversation in the USA will be even relevant.
CO2 doesn't decay in the short term so talking about current production is meaningless. You have to consider cumulative emissions [0] if you want to talk about fairness.
[0] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Cumulative-CO2-tr...
Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
No viable way? All it takes is a single generation to have 50% less children to cut the world population (and therefore carbon emissions) in half. Not only is it viable, it the solution that will be forced upon humanity if humanity doesn't embrace it on its own terms.
> All it takes is a single generation to have 50% less children to cut the world population (and therefore carbon emissions) in half. This is not how demography works. Even an instant and global halving of the birthrate, holding all else equal, would not even begin to reduce total population. In 2016, global birthrate exceeded deathrate by a factor of ~2.4 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthrate ). There is also se…
Holy nitpick, batman.
It's an outcome. "Solution" depends on the goal. If the goal is to have a planet so choked with humanity that almost everything else dies, then no, it's not a solution.
Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C
#177CCS technology is uneconomic. Like incredibly uneconomic. Like, the last thing you would pay for after doing all other possible things. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/stock/files/gillingham_sto... https://ourworldindata.org/how-much-will-it-cost-to-mitigate...
Indeed, CCS is the inherently, a-priori, the least efficient possible way to prevent carbon from being in the atmosphere. That's basic thermodynamics. But things are sounding really bad and carbon capture technologies may be necessary once ordinary methods of reducing carbon production are exhausted. But geeks getting excited about carbon capture now reminds me of a guy eating a burger and saying "sure, the cholester…
A better analogy would be this. You have very limited mobility, your head is immovable, and your feed is a conveyor belt which slowly brings to your mouth hamburger pieces. You've been doing this for a while. Your hands have some mobility, so you can affect what's on the conveyor, but rather slowly.
In this situation you suddenly realize that cholesterol is bad. Remember, you've been doing this feeding for quite a while and, while knowing about cholesterol, weren't that concerned - things didn't notably change for you. Now you start feeling some inconveniences and decide to do something about the cholesterol, as doctors recommended. Now you still have to eat regularly, and can't stop the conveyor, and can change what's on the conveyor only rather slowly - so what would you do?
Among other things you'd probably think "sure, the cholesterol is bad but if things would go too bad I can at least get a heart bypass". I think it's a usable model of the current situation.
Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C
#178CCS technology is uneconomic. Like incredibly uneconomic. Like, the last thing you would pay for after doing all other possible things. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/stock/files/gillingham_sto... https://ourworldindata.org/how-much-will-it-cost-to-mitigate...
CCS is definitely less economic that not putting the carbon into the air in the first place.
The problem is that we can't pass an arbitrary policy and expect it to be dutifully followed from day one. So, economists would put a cost on a policy - say, how much money would some oil user require so he'd stop polluting? Remember if you just order him to stop, he can vote you out of policymaking. Or he may happen to live in a jurisdiction where your order turns into something more optional.
Taking that into account, I think CCS considerations make a lot of sense.
Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree completely. We are all responsible as consumers, in every country. People like to blame the western world or "corporations" - no, it is your (our) fault as individuals. Corporations only emit when consumers demand their product/service. We are all humans: anyone who can help make the future better, should.
> blame the western world or "corporations" - no, it is your (our) fault as individuals. Hmm, here I diverge. I can demand a long lasting, repairable, sustainable appliance (and most products) until I am blue in the face, no corporation is willing to make and sell me one. In fact they're going the opposite way and products are less sustainable, shorter lasting, and subject to far more "fashion" replacement than ever.…
> I can demand a long lasting, repairable, sustainable appliance (and most products) until I am blue in the face, no corporation is willing to make and sell me one.
I can't tell if this is ideology or a mistake, but this is not true. Firstly, if you demand something that can be reasonably built, somebody will sell it to you for the right price. Remember: corporations are just regular folk trying to make money, like everyone else in modern society.
Second, if your argument is "Well, it would be so much more expensive" then this is kind of your own problem, not theirs. Corporations have achieved incredibly affordable production through economies of scale in massive markets. They cater to the demands of large groups of consumers who are willing to pay what it takes for their needs and luxuries. If nobody else wants what you want, nobody will build it for you except you.
Claiming that corporations won't make you a 'long lasting, repairable, sustainable appliance' means (a) you haven't asked or looked, or (b) you aren't willing to pay for the qualities you demand.
> it requires government to regulate to get corporations to all do their bit.
I agree with you here.
> Lets also not forget ... makes you feel worse.
I agree here too - you're right. Advertising is awful, and I don't know what we should do about it, I haven't put enough thought into that issue.
Re: Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
I very much doubt nuclear is going to be necessary, or even viable. And this is particularly the case if CCS is viable, because that means we can keep pairing renewables, plus fossil (with CCS) to fill in the gaps.
Nuclear is already viable in countries with sane regulatory environments (France, and hopefully China, given how fast they’re ramping up). The fact that the US market structure and regulators led to unsafe and unprofitable power plants has little to do with the underlying technology.
Nuclear is viable in non-competitive markets where saps can be forced to pay for it. In competitive markets anywhere in the world, it is a failure.
The blaming of regulators is mere excuse making.