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

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

#181

Post by jeffreyrogers »

cogman10 wrote: post #144
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter how cheap it is. No sun and no wind means no power, which means using coal and other fossil fuels. Increasing use of natural gas has reduced emissions more than switching to renewables.

Increased natural gas usage has been primarily pushed because of the rise renewables. Natural gas is currently the peaker plant solution to renewables. The fact that more of these plants exist is primarily driven by the fact that larger portions of the grid are being pushed towards renewables.

I think it's more because gas is cheap because of fracking. And the timing between the rise in gas use and the rise in renewable deployments is mostly coincidental. If gas were expensive it wouldn't be used. As it is, gas is cheap and has 1/4 the emissions of coal (IIRC).

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

#182

Post by rossdavidh »

altacc wrote: post #111
rossdavidh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No amount of tree planting..." is a strong statement. Not "we won't do enough", but "No amount..." will work? I find that hard to imagine. Is there a reason you say this?

Two reasons: trees are part of a carbon cycle, most of the carbon returns to the atmosphere eventually, and we don't have an infinite sized planet to keep planting forests at the same rate which we're producing CO2. New growth forests are good at capturing carbon short term, but established forests aren't as good as the rate of growth is slower and there is more tree decay & decomposition of organic matter releasing…

I'm not able to evaluate the truth of it myself, as it's outside my area of expertise, but at least some who do make a living studying this sort of thing believe it's feasible: https://www.livescience.com/65880-planting-trees-fights-clim...

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

#183

Post by elihu »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #113
elihu wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, trees can store a lot of carbon while they're alive. When they die, they release a lot of that back into the atmosphere as they decompose. So, trees are medium-term carbon storage. I expect we'll eventually need to figure out some way to store carbon long-term (for example, put it back in the ground in a way that it'll stay there).

Trees are medium-term carbon storage. Forests are long-term carbon storage (the trees that die get replaced by new trees).

Once the forest is mature, though, it's mostly just storing the carbon, rather than acting as an effective sink. So maybe you need to cut some trees down from time to time, and store that wood somehow where the carbon will be locked up for a long time without taking up valuable land area.

The problem is that we keep pulling carbon out of the ground and introducing it into the ecosystem. If we don't have a corresponding method of removing it from the ecosystem, we'll eventually run out of room for forests that we can use to store it. Some of that happens by natural means, but we'd have a bit more breathing room if we could figure out how to make it happen faster.

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

#184

Post by makapuf »

DennisP wrote: post #83
toomuchtodo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you break ground today on a nuclear generator, you will not see your first kwh generated for at least a decade, and that kwh will not be cost competitive with anything else on the spot market. At the same time, you could replace all nuclear in the US currently operating in around three years (even compensating for capacity factor), solely from PV manufacturing capacity in the US. It is plainly obvious why nuclear…

From that Lazard report, PV with four hours storage costs 10 to 13 cents/kWh. That's "in front of the meter" which is the wholesale cost. For retail cost, commercial/industrial pays 22 to 38 cents/kWh, and residential pays 45 to 66 cents/kWh. That's with only four hours storage. That's a convenient amount since it's the excess typically generated by solar installations during the day, but to actually get through a wi…

What night base consumption is absolutely vital ? I understand that some of the consumption is necessary to function and that some other is made possible by the fact that fossil energy is as expensive to generate at night and that it's cheaper to function 24/7. But sometimes it can be cheaper to shut down widget X factory at night not to double storage capacity. Maybe this effect will be important, I don't know.

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

#185

Post by ng12 »

hackeraccount wrote: post #173
ng12 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of American toothbrush manufacturers which already compete on price (I use Preserve, made from recycled material in America for $3). It's mostly the big guys (Colgate + OralB) who are trying to maximize profit by outsourcing to China. > Who is going to pay to build the local factories for everything your local drug store stocks The manufacturer is going to pay for it by selling their products to drug…

What's the margin on making toothbrushes? If you have a pile of money and you want the best return is it really going to be on a toothbrush factory in the U.S.? I have no idea what the answer to those questions are but it seems like "not much" and "something else."

What's the argument -- that if China stopped making toothbrushes we would stop buying them? A US factory might struggle to compete with a Chinese factory on price, but that's exactly my point. Global capitalism does not account for the human cost and environmental cost necessary to make the Chinese factory cheaper.

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

#186

Post by pgsandstrom »

john_moscow wrote: post #125
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 int…

When I hear people say that making nuclear power safer is easier than eating less meat, it kind of feels like people are just promoting the solutions that dont involve them making any sacrifices.

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

#187

Post by foobiekr »

tzs wrote: post #170
foobiekr wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I just don't understand the claim that the developing world should be allowed to have higher emissions. If we could go back in time and the US had the option at the time of using today's technology, and they chose not to, we would condemn them.

> I feel like I just don't understand the claim that the developing world should be allowed to have higher emissions Pick some maximum acceptable total level of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Fair would be for each country to be allowed to emit greenhouse gases up to the point that their share of the total in the atmosphere is equal to that total acceptable level divided by the country's population. Even if you decide…

The per-capita argument only makes sense if one expects the carbon footprint of the citizenry to be relatively equal. What this creates, instead, is that in really large countries the allocation will be taken by the people living really energy-intensive lives while letting the bulk of the population live poorly.

The other problem is that this incentivizes population increases since energy is the limiting factor for a developed nation's GDP and they can effectively raise their limit by having more children. That's not a good thing either and goes directly against the fertility declines that are about the only good news we have.

Per capita is one way to slice it, but it's not the definition of "fair."

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

#188

Post by nec4b »

pgsandstrom wrote: post #186
john_moscow wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 int…

When I hear people say that making nuclear power safer is easier than eating less meat, it kind of feels like people are just promoting the solutions that dont involve them making any sacrifices.

And why should people make sacrifices if you could solve the problem without making sacrifices? This smells of a religious dogma that people should suffer because of the original sin.

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

#189

Post by kilotaras »

john_moscow wrote: post #125
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 int…

> 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,

Than you should like carbon fee and dividend scheme[1]. Tax emissions, divide equally between all citizens. The end result is unchanged populations spending power, but redistributed towards less carbon-intensive products.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fee_and_dividend

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

#190

Post by marcosdumay »

whatshisface wrote: post #64
marcosdumay wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add to the two very insightful replies you've already got, yes, nuclear power could have been a great contributor on the fight against Global Warming, 30 years ago. And yes, it is a shame that "environmentalist" movements made so much noise that they ensured we took the most harmful possible path. Those movements should be shamed, and very loudly so because they still didn't give up on fighting improvements a…

> So, today pushing for nuclear does more harm than good. You made the case for why you don't think nuclear can do any good (because it's too late), but what's the case for harm?

It is not only a distraction, but pushing a non-viable technology reduces the credibility of everybody that is trying to solve the problem with technology.
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