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UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

bbc.co.uk

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Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#151

Post by doublerabbit »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #97
doublerabbit wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no alternative to replacing fossil fuels. At some point the public will realize the lie of solar/wind as a replacement. What lie exactly? Scotland had produced enough to power itself twice on Wind alone. [1] How is nuclear a better alternative than Wind or Hydro when - Nuclear is extremely dangerous with toxic waste needing special storage facilities. Criminal & Environmental contamination risks. - Disaste…

> Nuclear is extremely dangerous with toxic waste needing special storage facilities. I don't think this is true. Nuclear power plants generate relatively little waste and we know how to store it safely.

We may how to store it safely, but still doesn't stop it from being a risk. Only takes the contracted company get lax on the upkeep of the facility.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#152

Post by pclmulqdq »

Ninjak8051 wrote: post #20

Such pathways require global cooperation and will fail unless all major nations are on board. In particular, Russia is making no effort, and has no incentive or motivation to make any effort due to their vast tundra landscape. Step 1 is to get Russia on board by some means, without Russia any of these goals are senseless.

No post body was provided.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#153

Post by anamexis »

Sharlin wrote: post #140
jameshart wrote: post #109

Let me just leave a Unicode ‘degree’ symbol here for anyone who needs one: ° (on iOS and possibly MacOS you can get one of these by pressing and holding ‘zero’ until the alternate characters appear)

On macOS's US and US International layouts it's alt+0 – on many European layouts it's shift + the button below esc (eg. §).

On the US layout, alt+0 gives me º (U+00BA : MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATOR). To get the degree sign, it's alt+shift+8 for ° (U+00B0 : DEGREE SIGN)

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#154

Post by gitfan86 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #139
HPsquared wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would things look if batteries were 90% cheaper?

Still too expensive by at least 10x.

No, batteries are already replacing peaker plants at TODAY'S costs

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/12/battery-storage-syste...

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#155

Post by aww_dang »

zb1plus wrote: post #8

I wish humanity could discard narrow-minded nationalist/short-sighted capitalist tendencies and unite against this threat. Imagine a climate pact between the US, EU, China and India where each society placed a similar focus on pivoting to renewables and developing reliable fusion energy as the Allies devoted to winning ww2 and developing atomic weaponry. Amusingly, the end of our dependency would also resolve many ge…

When the problem can only be solved with global governance and the "proper morals and intelligence", I think it is worth questioning the premises.

How much more apocalyptic fear mongering do we need to rationalize increased governance? When is enough enough?

Cold war, drug war, war on terror, financial meltdown, pandemic emergency powers, nuclear apocalypse and of course climate doom. All used to rationalize further erosion of personal autonomy.

Is no one else burnt out on the constant doom mongering from our betters? Is it because I lack the proper morals and intelligence that I feel skeptical?

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#156

Post by scohesc »

canadiantim wrote: post #33
pjc50 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument might be valid in Brazil but definitely isn't in Canada.

Canada is tripling its carbon tax meanwhile residents e.g. in Newfoundland are suffering extremely under the cost of fuel prices for heating their home, so much so that even liberal mps are voting to exempt home heating from the tripling of the carbon tax. So this argument definitely still valid in Canada, though I do agree that it is more valid is more developing countries.

The weird looks I get for even suggesting bringing manufacturing back home so we can have western-made goods, with low-carbon manufacturing regulations just shows that people don't understand how hard we're getting fleeced for our money. Bring these things home, we can regulate, control, and promote cleaner manufacturing practices - or at least control industrial waste output instead of "pipe the waste chemicals into the river beside us, who cares!".

I really find it a big problem that we're putting "the climate" as a higher priority than the people that are living here, right now, suffering because of multiple factors - one of which is governmental mismanagement, along with inflationary monetary policies, the sudden removal of all economic activity with Russia (a whole separate issue).

I have no doubt in my mind that the Liberal MP who voted for exempting home heating from the carbon tax will be conveniently replaced during the next election cycle - given the current Liberal party culture of "follow us in lockstep or you're gone".

I also have no doubt in my mind that because the western world decided to lower domestic production of energy sources like natural gas and oil products that we're going to see a an unexpected amount of people dying from freezing to death in their homes. Canada, USA, or Europe.

Extremely frustrating that the Canadian government continues to insist raising carbon taxes on everybody during one of the most unstable economies, during the aftermath of a pandemic with harsh actions that wouldn't have needed to be so harsh if they didn't have a dilapidated healthcare system propped up by good feelings and government-sponsored marketing campaigns to "thank a nurse!"

I'd rather support someone who takes care of people _now_ instead of fear-mongering us to give up more of our money for "the future" - which we'll never see because we'll already be dead of old age anyways.

It seems so idealistic and faith-driven to me - just an excuse to take more of your money away from you with no meaningful return on your forced "investment".

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#157

Post by tialaramex »

jameshart wrote: post #109

Let me just leave a Unicode ‘degree’ symbol here for anyone who needs one: ° (on iOS and possibly MacOS you can get one of these by pressing and holding ‘zero’ until the alternate characters appear)

This is a technical forum, you can just write K.

The degrees Celsius are deliberately the same size as the Kelvin unit, but you don't need (and shouldn't write) degrees for an absolute system.

We're fucked because 1.5K was already a lot, and there's still barely enough political will to avoid 3K. It is going to get bad.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#158

Post by cmrdporcupine »

user3939382 wrote: post #136

We are too politically polarized to solve problems in this class, which requires political unity because of the scale, cost, and speed requirements. All of our major political forces play games, constantly make moves in bad faith, talk out of both sides of their mouths publicly vs privately, so we are screwed. The reality is that IF climate change science were a big hoax (sadly, it's not) there WOULD be a team using…

I think you're editorializing it in a way that is making it far more politically neutral or "pox on both your houses" than it actually is. It's not about warring world views. It's just about money.

The simple reality is: almost all wealth on the planet is tied up with fossil fuels.

This being the case, the more wealthy you are, the more "polarized" in a certain direction you will be.

Might makes right. Or at least attempts to make right. And right now, "might" = "money" = "capital" = "energy"

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#159

Post by Schroedingersat »

ElectronCharge wrote: post #88
zzzeek wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

other than the giant one staring at us 93 million miles away beaming massive amounts of energy directly at us all day, fusion reactors otherwise don't exist. Maybe not throw away all the other approaches until they do?

Solar and wind have many issues. Intermittency, the need for rare earths, and low energy density leading to ecological impact are some. It’s also under-recognized that as those technologies are built out beyond a few percent of global power, supply issues will likely lead to large cost increases and potential scarcity. Then there’s the waste/recycling problem, which is worse than nuclear. I also was clear that fusion…

Please stop. The raw materials for any type of nuclear reactor are vastly scarcer than renewables.

Iron flow batteries exist at grid scale for $200/kWh (enough to beat nuclear total system cost where 90% of people live with higher uptime) and dropping.

Copper metallized PV uses a manageable amount of copper and nickel (100s of kgs per MW net) and less silver than the control rods in a fission reactor. The dopants are measured in mg per MW and the rest is fancy sand. Inverters tend to be GaAs, but the amount is minimal and they don't need high performance power electronics to outperform nuclear.

Multi megawatt wind turbines with no copper windings and no permanent magnets exist at commercial scale, and all Aluminum cabling is ready as a dropin replacement as soon as the few dollars per MWh maintenance burden can he justified. Concrete and steel per MW is still significantly higher for wind, but a mix is approaching parity.

> also was clear that fusion is a future solution.

It really isn't. Helion is a moonshot that might work (but requires large amounts of rare metals for exotic superconductors). Anything thermal will be 10s of times more expensive and more materials than fission.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#160

Post by JumpCrisscross »

gitfan86 wrote: post #121
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Manufacturing, refining, and AI improvements are going to reduce the price of batteries by another 90% This is a pipe dream. Battery demand will be astronomical for decades to come. That means ramping up supply and prioritising deployment via price signals.

Your logic is backwards, it is the demand for batteries that will make them cheap. Just look at the actual data https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline

> it is the demand for batteries that will make them cheap

This isn’t how supply and demand work. Demand can induce scale efficiencies in production, which lowers costs. That’s what’s happening in your link, which tracks through 2018.

In 2019, electric car sales shares rose globally and non-linearly [1]. We persist on that path. As a result, battery costs are spiking [2][3].

[1] https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/ad8fb04c-4f75-42fc-... page 15

[2] https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-to-an-a...

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