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Europe's fires are just the start

economist.com

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Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#71

Post by modo_mario »

OKRainbowKid wrote: post #19
cbmuser wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as major countries like Germany are keeping their ban on nuclear power, climate change cannot be that urgent.

This gets repeated again and again, but wouldn't the money required to build/maintain nuclear plants be much better invested in building out renewables and battery storage? They already produce power much cheaper, and cost efficiency keeps increasing. Meanwhile power from nuclear plants are very expensive, comparatively. So why should we invest in nuclear energy? I have the impression a lot of the debate about nuclea…

Nuclear is proportionally expensive for one because we build a lot less and lose insititional knowledge and manufacturing capacity. Secondly because of ridiculous legislation and europes extreme ability to fuck with it politically. Thirdly because we don't count the gas plant to cover the intermitency of the renewables as part of the cost and if they'd take those out they'd find they run out of options for the cheap storage options as they become a larger share of the grid nor did they drew out the lifetime cost over the full length of a nuclear plants lifetime (shit gets replaced in the meantime)

At this point it may very well be better to go for renewables for much more of the grid coverage (after they fix their damn grid connections) But those pushing the cost picture have been everything but honest over the past 2 decades. I still remember repeatedly getting that Lazard LCOE report thrown at me by germans with absolutely fantasy numbers for storage and such and a nuclear cost based on one unfinished american plant.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#72

Post by grey-area »

jrflo wrote: post #49
OKRainbowKid wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This gets repeated again and again, but wouldn't the money required to build/maintain nuclear plants be much better invested in building out renewables and battery storage? They already produce power much cheaper, and cost efficiency keeps increasing. Meanwhile power from nuclear plants are very expensive, comparatively. So why should we invest in nuclear energy? I have the impression a lot of the debate about nuclea…

There will always be a need for on-demand power. Renewables are great, but cannot deal with peaks as easily and capacity is dependent on weather.

That’s why they mentioned batteries.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#74

Post by sobkas »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #16
cbmuser wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Who is opposing nuclear power? Or are you trying to imply that advocating for renewables is “opposing nuclear power”?

Water: https://www.dw.com/en/danube-water-levels-hungary-romania-cu...

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#75

Post by s_dev »

world2vec wrote: post #40

"Being better at fighting fires, though, is not enough." Yeah, it's nowhere near enough. We need to seriously revamp how we manage forests. They must be regularly cleaned, huge fire breaks between fenced areas and roads must be created and maintained. Prescribed burns on a regular schedule. Houses cannot be too close to the trees, no matter how pretty it looks. A huge clean radius must be maintained between houses an…

>They must be regularly cleaned

People keep reiterating this probably because Trump keeps reiterating but it just sounds ridiculous.

How do you clean forests? The debris is part of the forest, not all areas of a forest are easily accessible or feasible to transport debis out of there. A dead tree is actually an ecosystem of fungi and insects. Cleaning it may make it more fire prone as broken sticks and leaves shield the ground from the sun allowing the soil to hold on to moisture a little longer. There is plenty of room for nuance here.

I would need to listen to actual experts on this, the correct solution is probably something akin to resorting wetlands and beavers which act as fantastic self maintaining fire breaks.

However when you suggest things like this you see the actual issues pop up, local farmers protest and others using NIMBY laws to block so they get payouts.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#76

Post by bluGill »

Carrok wrote: post #48
world2vec wrote: post #40

"Being better at fighting fires, though, is not enough." Yeah, it's nowhere near enough. We need to seriously revamp how we manage forests. They must be regularly cleaned, huge fire breaks between fenced areas and roads must be created and maintained. Prescribed burns on a regular schedule. Houses cannot be too close to the trees, no matter how pretty it looks. A huge clean radius must be maintained between houses an…

> All this work must be done in the winter and everything must be prepared for the summer. Every year. Everywhere. Good luck doing any work in the winter in places like, oh say, the Rocky Mountains.

Every forest has different needs. OP is in Portugal, I don't know much about forest there, but the plan seems reasonable for there. The Rocky Mountains need a different plan, but it isn't much different.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#77

Post by jmclnx »

So Economist is now stating Climate Change is an issue. Where was that magazine in the 80s and 90s. Oh, the were writing how fossil fuels are still a good investment and are still the future. And I expect they stated Trump was the better choice in 2020 and 2024.

So in 2026, this magazine (and others) are reporting how +2C will be far worse than +1.5C. How about reporting stopping at +2C is a pipe dream. We are heading straight to +3C and probably +4C.

Time to start reporting on how we need to stop using fossil fuels now, not later. But even doing that really will not stop us from reaching +2.5C due to inaction by world Gov. over the last 50 years.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#78

Post by magicalhippo »

nancyminusone wrote: post #13
toasty228 wrote: post #2

As Macron said in 2023: "Who could have predicted the climate crisis?" The people in charge a either clinically retarded or willingly ignoring the problem, either way we're fucked, the point of no return is behind us now, this is the new normal, and it'll only get worse

In some ways I wonder if these timescales are "beyond comprehension" for most people. You can tell people the temperature will go up in 20 years, but you can't make them feel what it will be like. In the same way you can tell a 10 year old what it's like to be age 35 but they don't get it, and I've heard what it's like to be age 80 but I don't really know and won't for some time.

> You can tell people the temperature will go up in 20 years

I think the biggest issue with the climate change communication is that the scientists decided to focus on a temperature delta.

There is no meaningful temperature delta, it's just something that you get after a lot of aggregation and averaging.

Sure it makes sense for scientists running their models and such, but it should never have been the primary communication tool to politicians and laymen.

I think it would have been significantly better if they invented some new scale, like the Richter scale or the hurricane severity scale, which instead incorporates the effects of the average temperature rising. A scale which directly communicates a sense of how many more fires will we see per year, how many more severe storms, flash floods etc.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#79

Post by foobarian »

OKRainbowKid wrote: post #19
cbmuser wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as major countries like Germany are keeping their ban on nuclear power, climate change cannot be that urgent.

This gets repeated again and again, but wouldn't the money required to build/maintain nuclear plants be much better invested in building out renewables and battery storage? They already produce power much cheaper, and cost efficiency keeps increasing. Meanwhile power from nuclear plants are very expensive, comparatively. So why should we invest in nuclear energy? I have the impression a lot of the debate about nuclea…

I wonder how much battery you could install in a typical nuclear site. Maybe even stacked; if we make an apples-to-apples comparison in materials and say we can use the same amount of concrete and metal, could probably have several levels of batteries. Except no water needed, and no waste risks.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#80

Post by newaccount670 »

teh64 wrote: post #53
cbmuser wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as major countries like Germany are keeping their ban on nuclear power, climate change cannot be that urgent.

Which major countries other than Germany and Italy have a ban on nuclear power?

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