171–180 of 196 posts
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The carbon needed for steel as an alloying element is a small fraction of the carbon needed for reduction of iron ore. The latter is replaceable with renewable energy (hydrogen or direct electrolytic reduction). Also, note that 70% of steel production in the US isn't from ore at all, but is from scrap metal. Most of the steel used in renewable energy infrastructure will not be consumed, but will be recycled.
> The carbon needed for steel as an alloying element is a small fraction of the carbon needed for reduction of iron ore. And also, that carbon is not going into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide — it's going into the steel (as iron carbine and graphite IIIRC).
I think there are at least two ways to make lime without CO2 emission. The first is normal limestone calcination, but with CO2 capture. The other is to use calcium silicate. This means dissolution of the silicate with hydrochloric acid, separation of silica, then high temperature reaction of calcium chloride with steam to produce lime and hydrogen chloride. I understand there's a company trying to commercialize this latter process.
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Cats rarely kill large raptors.
They kill the prey of large predatory birds. If we stop hunting them down ourselves and they have enough food, wind turbines are no threat to their population. There are areas where wind turbines have been put up near population of eagles (Smøla in Norway for instance) and the population is increasing. Even though we know some of them are killed by the wind turbine. Giving them a good habitat and not hunting them or…
Raptor hunting has been illegal for decades in the US.
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It’s totally different from the noise a wind turbine makes. Watch a video of what it’s like on YouTube. Road noise can also be mitigated in many ways and in many areas it is - based on the surface, walls, etc. But also consider that we expect that urban areas have a degree of noise, but we also generally expect that serene natural spaces are free of those things to a greater extent.
Road noise is almost never mitigated. Low speed limits could mitigate some of it, but many people drive faster than the speed limits.
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I think the whole point is that in cases of aesthetics, we built a bunch of eyesores for utilities and industries in the past anyway. Also I'm sure the next guy is going to say "does my land-ownership not mean anything? Why could my neighbor build an oil field in the past but I can't put up a big wind farm?" It's not black and white like that and trade-offs get made all the time.
There was never a time when an oil field faced less opposition then a wind farm.
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The goal of building washing machines, highways, etc. is not a cleaner environment. The point of windfarms is, but it defeats the purpose if producing them emits more carbon than they save.
It would defeat the purpose if windfarms made more pollution than they removed, but they don’t . By orders of magnitude. With current processes. They don’t .
Green energy sources like wind and solar don't remove emissions. They add less.
> Energy transition aspirations are similar. The goal is powering modernity, not addressing the sixth mass extinction. Sure, it could mitigate the CO2 threat (to modernity), but why does the fox care when its decline ultimately traces primarily to things like deforestation, habitat fragmentation, agricultural runoff, pollution, pesticides, mining, manufacturing, or in short: modernity. Pursuit of a giant energy infrastructure replacement requires tremendous material extraction—directly driving many of these ills—only to then provide the energetic means to keep doing all these same things that abundant evidence warns is a prescription for termination of the community of life.
It is rather ridiculous to fret about the very minor emissions of manufacturing wind turbines and solar panels compared to sticking with fossil fueled energy sources! We don't see similarly breathless studies of the carbon emissions of all the other manufactured things we need to run our civilization. Where's the emissions involved in making washing machines? Highways? Primary schools? Oh dear, let's not make those t…
Yeah, these objections are always obviously made in pure bad faith. But it's still worth taking the time to refute them, because not doing so just gives them ammunition.
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I think it's fun to imagine that this solution you're miming at is closer to soylent green rather than only-viable-through-subsidies nuclear.
Every one of these types of threads pulls out the pro-nuclear folks. I get that nuclear is really cool, but I don't get why anyone loves paying billions for projects that take 10+ years to complete. And sometimes they don't even complete! In the meantime you could've setup many different alternative energy solutions, not just wind, could've done it in the fraction of the time and probably under-budget.
Because nuclear will never happen for the exact reasons you stated, but if people think it's a viable option and argue for it, it can be used to delay renewable transition, so that legacy Oil and Gas based producers can reap their insane revenue for an extra few years. It's literally just a delaying tactic.
If nuclear was even remotely economically viable, it would be part of a robust future energy mix. People abandon nuclear because it's not worth the effort when you can literally place a glass panel in unused land and get 1 KW/m^2 for 20 years with minimal intervention. Nobody would have to "vouche" for nuclear if it was economically meaningful. Look at Texas; Politically and economically, you would expect it to be very against renewables, as Texas has always been a fuel behemoth, with significant amounts of it's political establishment literally being oil barons, and now with using wind turbines being """woke"""
But they are still building out wind energy like no tomorrow, because it's so goddamned cheap and profitable.
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This is actually why I tell people recycling is mostly bad. The impact of some plastic in the landfill is less than the extra carbon emissions.
I straight up do not care a about plastic use at all anymore. Specifically: provided the plastic is going to well-managed landfill, and not being washed into the oceans or waterways, then really, what is the problem? Once in landfill it's CO2 which won't end up in the atmosphere, or water, or really doing much of anything while it just sits there. And every bit of it is oil production which won't be burned.
And more importantly, the people who actually DO pollute by the ton want you to be more worried about your straws than the laws that allow them to do it. Don't fall for it.