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Europe's fires are just the start

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Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#151

Post by palata »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #98
palata wrote: post #4

There is no "new normal", we are in a slope. As long as we emit CO2, the climate will get worse. Year after year. With effects like fires accelerating it, or the loss of the Amazon (it's pretty much lost already, isn't it?) that will just result in more CO2 being released. We don't have to adapt to the situation as it is now , because it is pretty much the best scenario. We have to adapt to the fact that it will get…

> (it's pretty much lost already, isn't it?) Not even close. Look at satellite imaging. Not only is the Amazon far from lost, the jungles in Africa/Borneo/PNG all look to be doing surprisingly okay.

The theory is that it can reach a point where it won't be able to survive, and therefore it will die. We are around that limit. It may well be that it has already passed it and therefore it will die.

I didn't mean "it is not there anymore", I meant "we won't be able to preserve it, it may already be too late for that".

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#152

Post by palata »

jl6 wrote: post #41
palata wrote: post #4

There is no "new normal", we are in a slope. As long as we emit CO2, the climate will get worse. Year after year. With effects like fires accelerating it, or the loss of the Amazon (it's pretty much lost already, isn't it?) that will just result in more CO2 being released. We don't have to adapt to the situation as it is now , because it is pretty much the best scenario. We have to adapt to the fact that it will get…

> the loss of the Amazon (it's pretty much lost already, isn't it?) No, it’s not lost already. We should attempt to preserve what remains, not assume failure is inevitable.

Agreed. I was just mentioning it because people don't seem to realise that we are on the verge of losing it (and it may actually be that it is too late).

Of course we should fight to preserve as much as we can. Nobody wants to live in a bunker on mars. Almost...

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#153

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

adrianN wrote: post #86
boringg wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This gets repeated again and again. They are not in conflict with each other - both need to be done in tandem. It is not a this or that strategy - it is an all of the above strategy. Nuclear is critical for long term generating power. Batteries and solar are good not able to maintain the same level of power quality and duration though are definitely incredibly important.

Nuclear is a high-capex source of electricity. It doesn’t do well economically in a grid where power if essentially free on sunny or windy days but you need a lot of backup power for a few hundred hours per year.

> Nuclear is a high-capex source of electricity. It doesn’t do well economically in a grid where power if essentially free on sunny or windy days but you need a lot of backup power for a few hundred hours per year.

Fair enough, but it's still incredibly helpful as a source of no-carbon electricity.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#154

Post by boringg »

adrianN wrote: post #86
boringg wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This gets repeated again and again. They are not in conflict with each other - both need to be done in tandem. It is not a this or that strategy - it is an all of the above strategy. Nuclear is critical for long term generating power. Batteries and solar are good not able to maintain the same level of power quality and duration though are definitely incredibly important.

Nuclear is a high-capex source of electricity. It doesn’t do well economically in a grid where power if essentially free on sunny or windy days but you need a lot of backup power for a few hundred hours per year.

All power projects have to look at economic viability. Every project has different needs and market dynamics. THERE IS NOT A ONE TYPE OF PROJECT WORKS FOR ALL LOCATIONS. Resources mixes vary as do the demands of the power.

I can't stress this enough solar and battery dont work everywhere and they dont provide indefinite power quality. Nor does nuclear. They all need to be resourced where appropriate.

FWIW - there aren't a lot of grids that have the resource mix you described.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#155

Post by [deleted] »

piva00 wrote: post #129
AlexandrB wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They already produce power much cheaper, and cost efficiency keeps increasing. Yet France, which invested heavily in nuclear[1], has energy prices that are 40% lower than Germany's[2]. Something isn't adding up about the repeated claims that renewables are cheaper than nuclear. [1] https://montel.energy/resources/blog/two-different-energy-sy... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

Germany still has expensive thermal power plants which dictate the price of electricity given the bidding system used for pricing it. Sweden and Norway have very cheap electricity while mostly being renewables.

[deleted]

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#156

Post by czinck »

BurningFrog wrote: post #122
s_dev wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Prescribed burns are a good way to clean forests! Burn the debris every 10-20 years rather than let it accumulate and become unstoppable disaster fires once a century. This tends to be very hard hard to do in a democratic system though. People really don't like their forests burning.

Prescribed burns are a good tool, but they're not a silver bullet. Because of the decades without fires, there's so much debris that fires burn incredibly hot, so you either need people to go in and thin the debris (this is actually a thing they do, as ridiculous as "cleaning the forest" sounds), or deal with the extra damage and risk of a very hot fire. Then you need a decent amount of personnel to make sure the fire doesn't get out of hand (and they regularly do), and do it when the weather is right (wet season, low winds). A prescribed burn is still a forest fire, with all the risks, it's just one that's started at a time and place we control.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#158

Post by mrspuratic »

bluGill wrote: post #76
Carrok wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Portugal has about 10% forested land, of which an estimated 25% is non-native eucalyptus (an active pyrophyte), and over 50% in some areas. I've seen the aftermath of eucalyptus forest fires while travelling through Alentejo.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#159

Post by looperhacks »

spwa4 wrote: post #142
trescenzi wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 plane…

> If we did that, meltwater water supply would essentially stop (in somewhere between 8 months and 2 years), everywhere on the planet

How? Why? Meltwater comes from the temperature difference between summer and winter, how does it have anything to do with this?

> Any variable that depends on the temperature delta that we depend on will rapidly become problematic if we stop accelerating global warming.

What variable depends on a temperature _delta_?

> Now I live in Europe. I don't expect water problems here (or only temporary).

We have water problems right now. Agriculture has problems, nuclear reactors have to shut down because of too warm(France) or missing (Romania) water. Dry forests leading to more fire.

> I know the theory behind green parties is "let's just stop doing what humanity is doing, and nature will save us".

I have never heard of this, I have a hard time that anybody relevant claims this.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#160

Post by looperhacks »

markvdb wrote: post #139
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…

Just replacing expensive fossil energy with cheap renewables and storage doesn't help. The problem is Jevons paradox. Cheaper energy means more consumption. A sensible global policy could be: - Tax carbon positive energy consumption to death. I.e. coal, oil or natural gas. - Tax (close to) carbon neutral energy consumption at a fixed high rate, e.g. solar, hydro, nuclear or wind. Tax nuclear separately because of its…

Jevons paradox is often claimed, but largely irrelevant in this case, imo. If the demand rises, the price rises again, as well. It doesn't force anybody to keep using fossil energy
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