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Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

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Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#271

Post by state_less »

Johnny555 wrote: post #268
state_less wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree there is more complexity, but it may be worth it. Making electricity buys a good deal of versatility. If you have a bit extra, you can run an inductive burner, charge your phone/laptop or charge a house battery (if/when you can afford one). I think in either system, teaching the locals to setup the system and maintain it themselves is important for keeping the costs down.

But my question is, what's the cost benefit? $1000 would buy a pretty large solar still and you can spend the extra $4000 on a solar phone charger if that's something the locals need. Meanwhile there's little that can go wrong with a solar still and if something does go wrong, they can likely fix it (even if temporarily) with duct tape. Losing their cell phone charger and cooktop to electrical failure sounds like les…

I wouldn’t discount people’s ability to do some basic electrical repair. And maybe the neighbors can lend you some water till you get back up and running.

You might be right though, if it’s remote enough and you have room, perhaps a solar still is the cheapest and simplest option. It seems like it would have to be very large to give comparable amounts of water. Do you know someone selling such kits?

In any event, maybe this gives folks some ideas for lowish cost options.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#272

Post by dillondoyle »

TiberiusC wrote: post #258
dillondoyle wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think about 40% of the country has been 'signaling' pretty hard. 30% are actively pushing for more emissions/denial. And the rest are sick of the infighting. Take the bipartisan infrastructure 'agreement' (not final). Republicans refused to do anything but support more cars...

Economic empowerment is the single greatest strategy to improve the climate and that is the entirety of the Republican platform.

How so?

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#273

Post by runarberg »

NDizzle wrote: post #105
TremendousJudge wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US voters didn't become climate change deniers by chance

How do US voters go about changing climate policy in China and India?

International agreements is one of the solutions which climate advocates are calling for. USA voters probably have more power then anyone in calling for such agreements and that they would be enforced.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#274

Post by runarberg »

misiti3780 wrote: post #132
paxys wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to blame political leaders, but they are (mostly) elected by the general population. Here in the US ~50% of the people vote for climate change deniers, so they are the ones you need to convince.

I hate to rain on your parade, but any solution that doesnt lean heavily on nuclear is not a solution. 50% of the population may be climate deniers (need a reference though), but there is a large group of progressives that loved the green new deal also, which did not include nuclear energy, so there is blame on both sides.

I hear this kind of rhetoric all the time. 15 years ago it was “any solution to world hunger that doesn’t lean heavily on GMO is not a solution.”. The lack of food security was/is not a problem of production but of distribution. GMO may produce more nutrient rich food, but has failed to do so at scale (also so does better soil management and more crop variety).

Today, people are instead advocating nuclear power as the unproven solution to a real crisis. The problem is not of technology, but of policy and political will. Renewable energy has been a real option since the 80s. Lithium Ion batteries were invented in the 90s, and proliferated less then 15 years later (and are arguably the wrong solution for large scale energy storage). If we would have gotten behind renewables in the 70s—like we should have—the technology would be even more favorable. However in the 70s we went all in on nuclear and it failed. Nuclear has failed to scale to be the dominant power generation method in the past despite political will and ample funding, and we have no reason to believe it will be different this time around.

There is also more to the climate disaster then just polluting power generation. There is a genuine lack in green infrastructure. Highways and airports are the favorable transportation infrastructures, even though they are the most polluting. Buildings keep being made out of polluting cement, water is wasted on inefficient agricultural practices to grow unessisary crops in arid places, etc. It is as if there is a genuine lack of interest from the political class in tackling the climate crisis. As if the climate crisis is not a problem of technology but something else, like say policy.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#275

Post by fulafel »

paxys wrote: post #67
andrei_says_ wrote: post #4

Maybe it’s time to signal political leaders that climate collapse is an urgent issue.

It's easy to blame political leaders, but they are (mostly) elected by the general population. Here in the US ~50% of the people vote for climate change deniers, so they are the ones you need to convince.

Unless things have changed recently, 41% of USA inhabitants (58% of white evangelicals) believe the second coming of jesus will happen by 2050 [1] [2]. Such a belief would also seem to cancel voter motivation to combat climate change.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2010/07/14/jesus-chris...

[2] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/climate-change-study_n_320405...

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#276

Post by _ph_ »

scraptor wrote: post #241
_ph_ wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar doesn’t provide nearly as much energy and for desalination you need a surprising amount. That statement doesn't make any sense to me. If you need more power, install more panels. Space certainly isn't an issue in like northern Africa. It is cheaper to order a gigawatt or more of solar panels than building a new nuclear reactor, and faster to set up too. Even Germany today has way more solar capacity than it eve…

> Even Germany today has way more solar capacity than it ever had in nuclear That's because it never had much nuclear capacity, not because it now has a lot of solar

I don't know what you mean by "much", but Germany has a peak power capacity of 56 GW of Solar. On good days the output comes close to the nuclear output of France, which is mostly nuclear in power production. German wind power occasionally eclipses French nuclear power production.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#277

Post by _ph_ »

akiselev wrote: post #250
_ph_ wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar doesn’t provide nearly as much energy and for desalination you need a surprising amount. That statement doesn't make any sense to me. If you need more power, install more panels. Space certainly isn't an issue in like northern Africa. It is cheaper to order a gigawatt or more of solar panels than building a new nuclear reactor, and faster to set up too. Even Germany today has way more solar capacity than it eve…

The vast majority of our freshwater comes from sources that cost us effectively zero in energy: the water cycle moves water towards higher elevations and it flows down towards our populations. Worst case scenario, water in ancient underground reservoirs is pumped to the surface. If we had to desalinate all that water and actively distribute it instead, it'd be a significant fraction of our current global power consum…

I have never claimed, that we would replace all fresh water used on this planed by desalinated water. This certainly is neither feasably nor necessary. At best, it can be an important contribution to water supply in many regions.

I was only answering to the original post which suggested we would build nuclear power plants to desalinate water. There I commented that solar would be cheaper (and more environment friendly) for the same task.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#278

Post by Avamander »

thesh4d0w wrote: post #74
Avamander wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you acclimated yourself to 20C/86C using AC that 25C/80F is uncomfortable?

Nobody here has AC to acclimate themselves to that, 20C is a more normal temperature for Vancouver.

I don't live that far up north but I'm just a bit surprised 25C is considered uncomfortable, especially if it's only a short way from usual room 22C.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#279

Post by nextweek2 »

Someone wrote: post #156
neaanopri wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People dying in Algeria won't realistically get the US, French, or Chinese governments to significantly cut fossil fuels supplied to their citizens.

France would react. If people start mass dying in Algeria, many of them will try to get to Europe. Algeria being a former French colony, being close by, and already having a large population of Algerian descent ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerians_in_France says there are 10 million people of Algerian origin in France. That’s over 10% of the population), France probably will be a major destination.

Before The Brexit vote, the UK prime minister David Cameron went to Europe to get a "better deal" for the UK. What he came back with didn't answer the people's problems with sudden mass migration.

What should have been proposed was a unified Europe border force. Where each member state takes its share and also send resources to help manage the southern border.

Leaving the problem to Spain, Italy and Greece is the worst approach. The 1 million migrants in 2015 really was a dry run for what will happen when Africa is too hot.

The EU needs to plan now for receiving these people, because you can't send them back.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#280

Post by kzrdude »

fragbait65 wrote: post #140
kzrdude wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are half right. The earth isn't dying, it will be fine. We should have a human focus, because it's a global common ground. We should bother because this is all about what kind of life we will have in the future. Some will die, some will always survive. That doesn't really change. But if we can stop climate change in a good way it can give us a better quality of life. Less conflict, less resource scarcity.…

I agree with everything you say. It's actually not a science/technology problem. The problem is human nature, and that's not solvable with technology. If it was, then everything would be rather simple...

I think it's a problem of politics, just like you say, it's not about technology, of course. But it's an issue at the cross section of science and politics.

Maybe you can also see why the young climate activists use banners with "system change, not climate change": They don't believe, either, that our current sociologial systems are capable of solving this, the "system" needs to change.

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