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Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

unenvironment.org

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Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#121

Post by endymi0n »

dantheman wrote: post #79
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #54

I think it should be somewhat obvious that it will be impossible for us to avoid the absolute worst of global warming. Humans simply don't have the capability to act in the coordinated, political way that is necessary. Somehow holding out hope that we'll all come to our senses and things will change is like holding out hope that we'll never have any wars again. It is just not compatible with human nature. I'd love it…

We can and act that way... Unfortunately, for most people on earth their CO2 consumption will have to go up significantly for them to have an improved quality of life. The large swath of population that doesn't believe in global warming is far less important than the large swath that is anti-nuclear. China, India, etc will need substantial energy to improve their quality of life and their populations are so large rel…

I used to be pro-nuclear as well, but I‘m not anymore. If you look at fully externalized cost including the consequences of uranium mining and storage of isotopes, renewables plus storage are close to breaking even.

Except that even the minimum reactor size (for technical, security and proliferation reasons) mandates extremely large investment in terms of capital and space, which in turn leads to ownership by large intransparent conglomerates, bickering by NIMBYs, clearances, costly audits and years of planning and validation.

Renewables plus storage on the other hand just get cheaper by automation and are relatively affordable. Any larger company can afford cash and space for solar on the roof plus a PowerPack in the backyard.

Knowledge and learning rate for that track advances at an order of magnitude faster rate than for fission or fusion.

In terms of scaling up as quickly as needed, nuclear is dead in the water.

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#122

Post by jesperlang »

Isn't this ultimately going to end up being a rationing issue? OK, rationing it's a forbidden word today but maybe we could have carbon credits divided by person and they are free to use them however they want. Even trade them to others. I know this is _super_ simplified but perhaps we need to start thinking in those terms sooner or later?

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#123

Post by jdnenej »

nsporillo wrote: post #117
blondie9x wrote: post #74

To all, because governments have mostly failed us on quick action I created a climate pledge. It is open to feedback but I think starting with individual commitments and sustainable lifestyles will help us move society forward as a whole. Governments are not moving quickly enough on climate change with small incremental changes over time. However, people and organizations who champion these efforts can pressure gover…

Call me cynical, but suppose 300 million westerners decided to stick to this pledge. What is stopping those newly freed up resources from being consumed by the remaining 7.4+ billion? Cratering energy prices makes it more affordable for developing nations to rapidly industrialize which is a one way street towards massive emissions until a sustainable solution is realized. Climate Policy is a classic example of how th…

America loves blowing up stuff. They can just threaten to destroy anywhere that doesn't meet the environmental targets

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#124

Post by mlyle »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #101
mlyle wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not? https://www.nrc.gov/waste/decommissioning/finan-assur.html We also have a nuclear waste fund that previously received $750M in fees per year and sits at a balance of $44B, but that's been paused since there has been no effort to actually use the funds to dispose of waste.

Accumulating funds for an activity you can't or won't undertake isn't properly accounting, it's aspirational accounting. Talk is cheap. https://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/nuclear-waste-fiasco-... "Doing nothing often has a cost — and when it comes to storing the nation’s nuclear waste, the price is $38 billion and rising. That’s just the lowball estimate for how much taxpayers will wind up spending because of the…

Moving goalposts to advance a different broken argument.

Your original assertion:

> but then we're also not costing decommissioning of nuclear generators or the waste disposal either.

But we are costing and accumulating funds for that purpose.

> the final price will be higher unless the government starts collecting the waste by 2020, which almost nobody who tracks the issue expects.

You're now complaining that costs are accruing to utilities because the other money we've collected isn't being spent. This means we're effectively double costing the storage/disposal.

I disagree with that precise statement, BTW. The final price in current dollars for final disposal will decrease the more time the waste has sit in spent fuel pools and cooled. Not that this is a great thing to be doing.

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#125

Post by john_moscow »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #54

I think it should be somewhat obvious that it will be impossible for us to avoid the absolute worst of global warming. Humans simply don't have the capability to act in the coordinated, political way that is necessary. Somehow holding out hope that we'll all come to our senses and things will change is like holding out hope that we'll never have any wars again. It is just not compatible with human nature. I'd love it…

I'm not sure how many people are skeptical about the global warming itself, but there are definitely good reasons for skepticism about the proposed political solutions. I have yet to see a quantifiable and accountable proposal in a format "let's allocate $X billion, implement measures A, B and C, so with the probability of Y%, the point where Earth becomes uninhabitable due to global warming will shift by N years into the future". Instead far too many people who haven't tried running even a lemonade stand, are talking about raising billions by taxing things most of us enjoy with a very hazy perspective of having some great outcome way past their own political lifespan. Given that everyone else manages to cooperate in a completely unprecedented way.

To give an example, I personally hate commuting and believe that spending hours sitting in traffic every day is a major waste of time. However, if a politician came by and promised to raise gasoline prices by 50% in order to invest $X billion into WeWork so that they could solve the commute problem once and for all, I would never have voted for them. Not because I love commuting, but because I don't believe this will solve the problem at all, given the track record of WeWork. Of course, people with a financial interest in WeWork would gladly label me a commutist and would try to make sure my arguments are not heard.

There are plenty of ways to reduce the emissions that are much easier to quantify and implement: making nuclear power safer, improving biodiesel, even a national standard for replaceable EV batteries so you could switch one out not much slower than filling in a gas tank. But instead we keep hearing the original sin [0] rhetoric on how we should eat less, not buy a big house and give up on having kids.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#127

Post by PaulHoule »

CodeSheikh wrote: post #92
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #54

I think it should be somewhat obvious that it will be impossible for us to avoid the absolute worst of global warming. Humans simply don't have the capability to act in the coordinated, political way that is necessary. Somehow holding out hope that we'll all come to our senses and things will change is like holding out hope that we'll never have any wars again. It is just not compatible with human nature. I'd love it…

" where we have never had as much access to information, large swaths of the population don't even believe global warming is _real_" I completely agree. In this age of broadband internet, social media where information is at your disposal, we are not matured enough to handle this, speaking from micro-evolutionary perspective. And where we can not digest/process/retain information, we conveniently convince overselves…

Not true. An overwhelming majority of Americans believe climate change is real:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/most-americans-suppo...

The actual roadblocks to action are: (1) lack of a realistic plan (not like "we're going to subsidize renewables" but "we expect to reduce solar radiation by 0.25%, reduce emissions from power productions by 25%, ..." where the numbers add up to a real change) and (2) the conspicuous inability of the government to demand sacrifices from Elites (Macron's tax cuts), and (3) ordinary people feeling overwhelmed and that any sacrifice is the "last straw" (e.g. Yellow Shirts riot when they try to raise the price of gas)

(2) and (3) are linked because the government needs legitimacy to demand sacrifices and if it can't get them from those that have, how can it get them from anybody else?

If you want something to happen start a Kickstarter to rent a plane and seed the upper atmosphere with SO2 -- that avoids the 'collective action' problem.

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#128

Post by jdnenej »

andbberger wrote: post #104
blondie9x wrote: post #74

To all, because governments have mostly failed us on quick action I created a climate pledge. It is open to feedback but I think starting with individual commitments and sustainable lifestyles will help us move society forward as a whole. Governments are not moving quickly enough on climate change with small incremental changes over time. However, people and organizations who champion these efforts can pressure gover…

I mean if it makes you feel better... but the culpability for climate change does NOT lie with individuals. Sweeping systemic changes are our only way out of this mess.

Individual action is the only thing you have direct control over. Yes, governments need to change for success but it's better to do everything in your ability to improve rather than sit around and wait for change to happen.

I think if everyone was doing their best to conserve, they would be a lot more upset when they see others and corporations undoing their good work. Right now it's hard to judge others for doing the same thing we do but on a bigger scale.

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#129

Post by tick_tock_tick »

endymi0n wrote: post #121
dantheman wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can and act that way... Unfortunately, for most people on earth their CO2 consumption will have to go up significantly for them to have an improved quality of life. The large swath of population that doesn't believe in global warming is far less important than the large swath that is anti-nuclear. China, India, etc will need substantial energy to improve their quality of life and their populations are so large rel…

I used to be pro-nuclear as well, but I‘m not anymore. If you look at fully externalized cost including the consequences of uranium mining and storage of isotopes, renewables plus storage are close to breaking even. Except that even the minimum reactor size (for technical, security and proliferation reasons) mandates extremely large investment in terms of capital and space, which in turn leads to ownership by large i…

We are closing in or have hit peak renewable in several states and countries around the world. Unless we figure out a massive improvement to battery technology renewables are not going to help us in the same way they been.

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#130

Post by TomMarius »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #19
TomMarius wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems weird to me. Would that be on the roofs or are you forgetting to count for all that land? But I am European and land is way more valuable here, so that might be the case, I don't know - perhaps you do?

There is a lot of worthless land where utility solar can be installed in the US, not to mention folks who want it on their roof (rooftop solar is cost competitive in most states over 25 years). Europe has enough wind potential to power the world [1]. "Taking into consideration socio-technical constraints, which restricts 54% of the combined land area in Europe, the study reveals a nameplate capacity of 52.5 TW of unt…

What about the opposition because of worsened living standard of people around and because of the environmental impact, also hazardous maintenance etc? There is a wind farm being blocked in Germany over these concerns now. Same applies for solar and water (river/nature based) power plants in Europe.
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