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Europe's fires are just the start

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Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#141

Post by bluefirebrand »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #133
bluefirebrand wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Enough sunlight falls on the Earth in 30 minutes to power humanity for a year Sure, the sun is incredible, but our capacity of actually using that power is the bottleneck. We still have to have energy to dig up the materials and manufacture the panels and batteries and deploy them and such.

China is the top user of energy globally, and they are electrifying everything while moving rapidly to renewables for generation. This is the blueprint the rest of the world will eventually follow. China's clean energy generation will be used to spin the clean tech manufacturing flywheel up faster (which will lead to more global clean tech exports to the world). The sun will power the end to end supply chain for maki…

China is also building more nuclear than anyone else

https://globalenergymonitor.org/research/china-building-half...

:)

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#142

Post by spwa4 »

trescenzi wrote: post #137
spwa4 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The fundamental reason that climate change is an issue is because it happens over timescales which the ecosystem and human society struggle to keep up. No one reasonable believes we can cool from where we're headed, minus some extreme technical approaches, slowing it down is the goal. You don't seem to be denying human caused, or maybe you'd say accelerated, climate change. If we could flip a switch and spread the fu…

> You don't seem to be denying human caused, or maybe you'd say accelerated, climate change. If we could flip a switch and spread the future warming over a millennium instead of half a century I think everyone would take that deal.

You know, that's yet another major problem. You're wrong. If we did that, meltwater water supply would essentially stop (in somewhere between 8 months and 2 years), everywhere on the planet. Big, highly populated areas of our planet will dry up (Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Ganges valley in India depends significantly on meltwater. That's easily 2 billion people)

In the past century, humanity has adapted itself to constant climate change. Any variable that depends on the temperature delta that we depend on will rapidly become problematic if we stop accelerating global warming.

Now I live in Europe. I don't expect water problems here (or only temporary). I do however expect problems. I'm not even sure what but there is a fuckton of things that will change back if global warming slows and I highly doubt that will just go down smoothly.

I know the theory behind green parties is "let's just stop doing what humanity is doing, and nature will save us". I'm kind of hoping people will realize that that, too, is bullshit. We will need to decide and agree what we want the climate to do, and then make it happen. No matter the choice made, this will have existential consequences for a bunch of places on this planet, and nothing can help that.

"Let's stop global warming" is not a solution to ecological problems, and not necessarily a better solution than continuing it. We WILL need to take control of the climate, and that includes dealing with the consequences of whatever decision we make. "stop CO2" is as much a soundbite, and as stupid, as "drill, baby, drill". Thunberg is as problematic as Trump, it's just harder to realize that that is the case.

Not that I think there's a chance in hell that global warming will stop or even just slow down whatever we decide to do in the west. Getting China, South Asia, and now more and more India and in the future Africa to agree to not use fossil fuels is not politically feasible. There is no solution there either.

So my vote? Aerosols to cool the planet. Which one, and how to spread? TBD. And, yes, that may mean the planet cools again BUT ALSO parts of the planet become uninhabitable. We'll need to agree and deal with that.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#143

Post by toomuchtodo »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #141
toomuchtodo wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is the top user of energy globally, and they are electrifying everything while moving rapidly to renewables for generation. This is the blueprint the rest of the world will eventually follow. China's clean energy generation will be used to spin the clean tech manufacturing flywheel up faster (which will lead to more global clean tech exports to the world). The sun will power the end to end supply chain for maki…

China is also building more nuclear than anyone else https://globalenergymonitor.org/research/china-building-half... :)

~110GW of nuclear capacity targeted by 2030. I respect their attempt to diversify, iterate, and drive down the cost of nuclear, but it pales in comparison to renewables (~90-100GW of solar installed per month, on average).

Lets see what 2030 looks like.

China’s Nuclear Energy Priorities Under Its 15th Five-Year Plan - https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-nuclear-energy-prioriti... - May 11th, 2026

> China continues to view nuclear as an electricity source that advances its energy security while also reducing reliance on fossil fuels, as noted in the latest FYP (Part II, Chapter 7): “Promote the safe, reliable, and orderly replacement of fossil fuels with non-fossil energy sources; pursue a multi-pronged approach that combines wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power; and implement the ten-year plan to double non-fossil energy capacity.” The remarkable growth of renewable energy sources and coal’s continuing preeminence have shaped nuclear energy’s role as a non-carbon-emitting baseload in China’s power generation portfolio (Table 1). Nuclear energy seems to serve as a versatile power source that supplements coal’s role as an energy security enforcer as well as the role of renewables as clean energy boosters. By 2030, China targets 110 gigawatts (GW) of installed nuclear power capacity. If realized, the installed capacity in China will surpass that of the United States unless U.S. capacity—currently the world’s largest—grows substantially from 102.5 GW (gross) in 2025.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#144

Post by BurningFrog »

wongarsu wrote: post #81
modo_mario wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fires don't accelerate it much. That wood and shrub would either burn or rot down the line and release methane and co2 anyway. Forests don't sequester much at all despite what people seem to believe. Consequentially running a fireplace is a lot more climate neutral than driving a car, taking a flight, utilising the myriads of high carbon footprint goods or having a gas heater or so. On the other hand the bogs tha…

If we assume that the forests will regrow to their former strength then the fires are indeed not all the consequential. The trees release the stored CO2 when they burn, and new plants will take up an equivalent amount of CO2 again when they grow. The CO2 sequestered in a forest is more or less just the biomass in it (some is in the soil, but not that much) But if climate change leads to permanently losing those fores…

If we figured out how to store chopped down trees somewhere where the wood doesn't break down, that would be a really effective way to get CO2 out of the air!

Easier said than done, of course. Sinking millions of trees to the bottom of the ocean might be the most practical way.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#145

Post by bluefirebrand »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #143
bluefirebrand wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is also building more nuclear than anyone else https://globalenergymonitor.org/research/china-building-half... :)

~110GW of nuclear capacity targeted by 2030. I respect their attempt to diversify, iterate, and drive down the cost of nuclear, but it pales in comparison to renewables (~90-100GW of solar installed per month, on average). Lets see what 2030 looks like. China’s Nuclear Energy Priorities Under Its 15th Five-Year Plan - https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-nuclear-energy-prioriti... - May 11th, 2026 > China continues t…

My point is that China realizes that their energy goals should include a nuclear plan too

If you're going to point at them and say "we should be doing what they're doing" then part of that includes doing nuclear.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#146

Post by palata »

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…

One problem with renewables is that they rely a lot on electronics, which relies a lot on petrochemicals (just to build them) and on globalisation. In a world without abundant oil, can we keep producing and maintaining as many solar panels as we need?

Nuclear is different in that regard.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#147

Post by toomuchtodo »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #145
toomuchtodo wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~110GW of nuclear capacity targeted by 2030. I respect their attempt to diversify, iterate, and drive down the cost of nuclear, but it pales in comparison to renewables (~90-100GW of solar installed per month, on average). Lets see what 2030 looks like. China’s Nuclear Energy Priorities Under Its 15th Five-Year Plan - https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-nuclear-energy-prioriti... - May 11th, 2026 > China continues t…

My point is that China realizes that their energy goals should include a nuclear plan too If you're going to point at them and say "we should be doing what they're doing" then part of that includes doing nuclear.

I disagree, but I'm not the decision maker so it's irrelevant. Nuclear is throwing good money after bad imho (based on current and projected levelized cost of energy [LCOE]), I think the next five years will prove that out.

Lazard Levelized Cost of Energy+ 2026 - https://www.lazard.com/media/kcfconhf/lazards-lcoeplus_vf.pd... [pdf]

> Renewables Remain Lowest Cost New-Build Generation; All Generation Faces Increasing Cost Pressure: Despite rising and inflationary cost pressures across all generation technologies, renewables remain the most cost-competitive form of new-build generation on an unsubsidized basis and will account for the majority of near-term capacity additions in the U.S. Continuous upward revisions to demand projections have driven a sharp increase in announced new-build gas generation despite a 15-year high LCOE, which is expected to continue to rise, and historically long development and equipment delivery timelines.

China Keeps Beating Renewable Targets And Missing Nuclear Ones - https://cleantechnica.com/2026/07/25/china-renewable-targets... - July 25th, 2026

> China set a 2020 wind target of 210 GW and finished the year with about 282 GW. Its solar target was 110 GW, while delivery reached roughly 253 GW. The later commitment to reach at least 1,200 GW of combined wind and solar by 2030 was crossed in 2024, six years early. By the end of 2025, China had about 640 GW of wind and 1,202 GW of solar, for a combined 1,842 GW. Nuclear moved in the other direction: about 50 GW against a 58 GW target in 2020, and about 62 GW against a 70 GW target in 2025. The current goal of 110 GW by 2030 may still be achieved, but the previous record gives no reason to convert it directly into a forecast.

> This is not evidence that Beijing has quietly abandoned nuclear power. China has the world’s largest reactor construction programme, continues approving new units and is building an increasingly domestic supply chain around designs such as Hualong One. The divergence lies between approval and operation. Another difference is that when renewables blow past targets China set much bigger targets, but when nuclear misses targets, the targets don’t change. That difference is harder to explain than the results.

Certainly sounds like China's nuclear goals are aspirational, based on the data. The construction and messaging gives nuclear proponents hope, but construction is not generation. At some point, you have to deliver.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#148

Post by palata »

pornel wrote: post #65
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.

We've ran out of time. Even if political will shifted immediately, getting new nuclear plants on the grid is going to take a decade or more. In the meantime batteries + solar or wind can be built quickly and hooked up pretty much anywhere. Even if we had nuclear fusion , solar+batteries could still win on cost and time to deploy!

> Even if we had nuclear fusion, solar+batteries could still win on cost and time to deploy!

In a world with abundant fossil fuels on which globalisation relies.

The question is: what happens when it stops? Can renewables win in a world without abundant oil? We don't know, we haven't tried.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#149

Post by gmuslera »

This year Europe's fires are not the start. Few years ago we had very extended Australia fires, US/Canada fires, and other not so put in the spotlight fires in other countries around the world. At some point they diverged enough from normal to reach a scale that raised enough eyebrows.

And it is not just forest fires. Floods caused by extreme rainfalls, running out of letters in hurricane seasons, once in a century/millenia extreme weather events happening several times in a decade are increasingly noticeable, and they are just symptoms of bigger but harder to directly perceive global trends like that the global yearly average temperature increased a few tens of degrees or that the ocean is winning heat at a rate of 6 Hiroshima bombs per second.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#150

Post by tremon »

dolmen wrote: post #107
jrflo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hydro is renewable, can deal with peaks and not directly dependent on weather. Use its power down when in need of electricity. Bring water up hill when too much electricity is available.

Hydro is not renewable when the basins are being refilled by glacial melt as is the case for most of Europe, and precipitation is also becoming more erratic. For example, Iceland is currently relying on hydro power for 70% of its electricity, but current models predict that glacial runoff will peak around 2060 (or earlier, if the arctic temperature continues its upward trend). After that, the potential power to be generated from hydro will gradually decrease, which is why Iceland is now diversifying towards geothermal and wind.
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