211–220 of 364 posts
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Look at the size of those excavators--the bulldozer in the lower left of the image looks like a forgotten child's toy by comparison! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garzweiler_surface_mine#/media...
That is bagger288, it weighs over 10Gg and it's like 100m tall or something
Every time there's a thread on the topic, I like to share this fantastic realtime map of the carbon intensity of electricity production in various countries : https://www.electricitymap.org/map As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. This is better than the worst European offender (coal-loving Poland : 652g) as well as Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Germany…
>As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. Yeah, that's true, but you've taken a reading there at the worst time of day whilst it's not windy here. The other week we achieved the second lowest carbon intensity daily average ever (the lowest was in the summer last year). Here's what the UK carbon intensity of electricity looks over a larger time scale (8yrs) https://e…
[1] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 [2] http://electricityinfo.org/real-time-british-electricity-sup...
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I don't know how any German in their right mind can continue supporting coal (especially lignite) even if you were to ignore all the fancy carbon emission calculations. Lignite is won using strip-mining here, and by here I mean in the most populous state of Germany between the major Ruhr area and Düsseldorf/Cologne, all major population centers. From where I live, I have to drive straight through these mines whenever…
Quickest and most straightforward would be to convert those coal plants to natural gas. But that gas has to come from somewhere, and I don’t think they like knowing that “somewhere” is Russia.
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Quickest and most straightforward would be to convert those coal plants to natural gas. But that gas has to come from somewhere, and I don’t think they like knowing that “somewhere” is Russia.
Well there is the hope than soon enough, that methane is made from atmospheric CO2, water and renewable energy. That would be pretty awesome as the infrastructure to store and move methane is already there.
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Sure. Vanity as grid-scale power source. If you want to charge your phone battery while camping, solar is great.
Solar is currently close to being the cheapest way of generating a unit of electricity that has ever been existed. Very strange definition of vanity. Anywhere near the equator the technology is going to totally replace all other generation within 20-30 years.
>Anywhere near the equator the technology is going to totally replace all other generation within 20-30 years
20 years away in perpetuity..just like cold fusion.
Every time there's a thread on the topic, I like to share this fantastic realtime map of the carbon intensity of electricity production in various countries : https://www.electricitymap.org/map As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. This is better than the worst European offender (coal-loving Poland : 652g) as well as Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Germany…
Minor nitpicks here - battery storage is already reaching deployment ready maturity (its not as far away as you think), but the key attribute that needs solving is not 'baseload' power, but rather 'dispatchabilty'. Baseload power in the traditional sense (its always on) isn't always a great think either, what you really want is the ability to have it on, or off, or in between depending on the gap in demand that chang…
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The UK already has around 12,000 sq miles of forest, which is about 13% of the area. Half of the UK's land is owned by 1% of the population - a mix of aristocrats, wealthy individuals, and corporations. There is no practical issue with mass reforestation contributing to energy self-sufficiency, but there would be huge political issues.
We need the land for people not trees. The UK has a food deficit. Nut trees would be better than pine. Offshore wind and storage is the way forward. We need to press on with getting that sorted and save the land for other uses.
Does the UK produce enough food to feed herself, but chooses not to in exchange for foreign 'delicacies' from bananas to olives?
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> Coal-related air pollution causes an estimated 10.000 extra deaths each year across the continent. Radiation caused one direct death in Fukushima. What's the rationale for comparing indirect deaths from coal to direct deaths from radiation?
When they start repeating again that radiation didn't killed anybody, or only one people, or whatever... they lose any credibility. If they makeup the second part of the statement, I assume that the first is also embellished and that the "but estimated 10.000 deaths" part is also false. Why they still try such silly strategy first with Chernobyl and now with Fukushima, is a mystery to me. It does not work.
I guess Wikipedia doesn't have any credibility left then. Most of the casualties were from the tsunami : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
> "but estimated 10.000 deaths" part is also false.
Actually you are right on this one, my mistake. It's 23.300 premature deaths each year across Europe, not 10.000 : https://endcoal.org/health/
And here's the source for German plants : https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-lignite-plants-e...
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No, it's considered neutral because you plant more of it to replace the trees you cut down (not because you are trying to save the world, just because you have some land that's suitable for growing a sustainable commercial forest). Over the life cycle of the tree from planting to burning, it's carbon neutral, though the shape of it for any given tree is 20 years of carbon sequestration followed by 20 minutes of carbo…
The issue with that is two-fold: 1. Not nearly enough trees are being planted to offset the ones being cut down. 2. Neutral on a scale of 30 years doesn't much matter when we have to reduce the degree to which we're accelerating a highly non-linear climate change process right now.
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> Sure we have. Basically we just bury it and hope for the best, it will be someone else's problem anyway. > The Onkalo repository is expected to be large enough to accept canisters [...] until around 2120.[13] At this point, the final encapsulation and burial will take place, and the access tunnel will be backfilled and sealed. We go from "dig it out" to "dig it in". Very sustainable. /s
How much volume are we talking here and how frequently would it need to be disposed of? I recall reading somewhere that it’s a very manageable amount.