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Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

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Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#131

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #80
olddustytrail wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who exactly are going to be paying for these ruinously expensive nuclear power stations for the poorer countries? Is it you and rayiner? Or perhaps you want your government to fund it through increased taxes on you? I'm sure you wouldn't want the poor countries to pay for it themselves.

The point is that if everyone in the developed world had built more nuclear in the 1960s like France did, we wouldn’t be in such a dire situation now. France’s CO2 emissions per capita are right around the world average. That means the rest of the developed world had done the same way as France half a century ago, we would have room to bring the whole developing world up to the same level as France while still being…

[deleted]

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#132

Post by fuzzfactor »

zamfi wrote: post #62
chinchilla2020 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this kind of black-and-white thinking has no place in climate change mitigation. This is not black-and-white thinking. He is pointing out that infeasible miracle cures are not the solution. We need to focus on realistic possibilities, not Elon-Musk jesustech.

No one thinks infeasible miracle cures are the solution, so he's doing much more than "pointing that out": he's making an argument about the infeasibility of carbon capture. In particular, he's saying it's impossible to capture enough carbon at scale in a cost-effective manner, so therefore we should not even be looking at this option until we've exhausted the alternatives. But he's wrong: it's not impossible, it's m…

There will be better physical, chemical, environmental, cost, and overall economic advantages resulting from efforts at source reduction than air capture.

This will always be what matters when resources need to be deployed most efficiently for abatement.

When you do the math, unless resources become unlimited, source capture is the better use of limited infrastructure.

It's really kinda-sorta completely impossible to fool Mother Nature on things like this.

The problem is not enough effort is going into source removal since the responsible source would be the only one that would be facing the added cost above what they are doing now.

With remote air capture the much less efficient and costly process can be spread among huge numbers of different but smaller payers whether they know it or not.

If that makes significant progress occur sooner that should make DAC be good to go forward with in the short term, but eventually people will be able to do the math at scale and most will say WTF were we spinning our wheels so long for?

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#133

Post by fuzzfactor »

philipkglass wrote: post #45
inpdx wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon capture is cleaning up dog shit in the kitchen with a toothpick instead of training it to go outside.

The dog has been dirtying the kitchen floor for long enough already that we're also going to need that toothpick. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change AR6 fact sheet on carbon dioxide removal: "Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) refers to technologies, practices, and approaches that remove and durably store carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. CDR is required to achieve global and national targets of net zero CO2…

>The dog has been dirtying the kitchen floor for long enough already that we're also going to need that toothpick.

And the dogs (pollution sources) are standing by to provide as many toothpicks as it takes to discourage anyone from bringing in a shovel any time soon.

Especially if the toothpicks cost so much it ends up with shovels remaining out-of-reach.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#134

Post by fuzzfactor »

shkkmo wrote: post #50
hutzlibu wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I would like to see the research, which is what the article is about." The article is about how big oil changed Standford's research focus. And their interest is simply to leave everything as it is and stall any further oil limitations, so they can profit, like they used to, without having to fundamentally change. But yes, they are totally free to fund research that is in their interest and if they happen to find a…

Different areas have different power availability from different sources at different times of the year. We have limited capacity to move and store that energy. If the price of re-extracting released carbon is baked into into burning fossil fuels, then carbon capture will only be viable in places where energy is cheap, such as places with good conditions for solar, wind or hydro. The economic viability of carbon capt…

>If the price of re-extracting released carbon is baked into into burning fossil fuels, then carbon capture will only be viable in places where energy is cheap, such as places with good conditions for solar, wind or hydro.

The same math could be used to determine those would be the only places it would be viable to burn fossil fuels to begin with.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#135

Post by rayiner »

runarberg wrote: post #127
rayiner wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in the developing world will not make any sacrifice to their standard of living, which is already low. To the contrary, they will insist on increasing their standard of living. For the developed world to bankroll the green infrastructure of the developing world--at a scale that allows the developing world to continue improving its standard of living, and while continuing their own green energy investment--will…

Why are you so sure that people wouldn’t agree to that? Do you see consistent polling data across generations indicating this trend? Is the popular opinion against climate relief funds in Europe? Are people in Denmark opposed to revenue from their garbage disposal/ski-hill going to climate relief in other countries? I don’t think so. And more importantly to your point, does polling suggest people are more willing to…

Your argument is so painfully disingenuous it hurts. Everyone from Germany to America to Denmark has democratically elected governments, and you think that the reason they prioritize businesses is “corporate profits,” rather than the things people like that are associated with corporate profits (jobs, material goods, comfortable lifestyles)?

I’m from a third world country. My family that has moved to the developed world has pretty much universally pursued a high carbon footprint lifestyle (big house in the suburbs, SUV, etc., as soon as they could afford it.

If you poll Americans, you’ll see they’re willing to spend an average of $10 per month to mitigate climate change: https://apnews.com/article/8e6baa6c2d3badeb4e91b6e6d078a5c0. Maybe it’s a little higher in Europe but not much.

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#136

Post by olddustytrail »

rayiner wrote: post #115
olddustytrail wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really have no idea of costs. Nuclear is by far the most expensive. Well, ok, gas became equally expensive with the Ukraine war but it had to quadruple in price to get there.

If nuclear was more expensive China wouldn’t be building it. It’s stupid western regulations that make nuclear expensive.

China builds it because they are putting government money towards it, rather than allowing private companies to build infrastructure that can make themselves a profit.

Now, I do understand why China works that way, and I also get why Western companies can use this to funnel taxpayer money to their friends, but I don't get why someone like you would support either of these ideas?

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#137

Post by thehappypm »

kwere wrote: post #125
thehappypm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Japan can’t do it, responsibly, why should we expect any other country to?

fukushima plant was obsolete and built in a not great area (probably due to local political squabble), but it was in the process to slowly (backroooms deals between energy provider and gov) be modernized to current standard, thing that contained the disaster as other reactors had already moved their generators on the roof instead to keeping it at ground level. Japan is not a great example for corporate behaviour

Dodging the question, no?

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#138

Post by CamperBob2 »

thehappypm wrote: post #137
kwere wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fukushima plant was obsolete and built in a not great area (probably due to local political squabble), but it was in the process to slowly (backroooms deals between energy provider and gov) be modernized to current standard, thing that contained the disaster as other reactors had already moved their generators on the roof instead to keeping it at ground level. Japan is not a great example for corporate behaviour

Dodging the question, no?

No. Do you know much about TEPCO?

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#139

Post by SuoDuanDao »

If one simply gasified wood to run generators, then buried the residual charcoal to make tera preta, every kilowatt used to generate electricity would sequester a significant amount of carbon with minimal change to current infrastructure. One could use it first in disaster relief where there are a lot of downed trees anyway, then move to a fast-growing crop like hemp or bamboo. All that would be needed is more widely available wood gasifiers. Anyone want to invest in a company doing that?

Re: Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

#140

Post by idiotsecant »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #139

If one simply gasified wood to run generators, then buried the residual charcoal to make tera preta, every kilowatt used to generate electricity would sequester a significant amount of carbon with minimal change to current infrastructure. One could use it first in disaster relief where there are a lot of downed trees anyway, then move to a fast-growing crop like hemp or bamboo. All that would be needed is more widely…

The output of commercial scale wood gassification plants is not charcoal? It's ash. The whole point of wood gassification is complete combustion, so turning as much of the carbon into combustible fuel as possible.
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