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Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

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Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#261

Post by Winse »

justsid wrote: post #223
Winse wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't live in Alberta you insensitive clod, and while I said those things somewhat tongue in cheek, you can choose to be disgusted or learn to stop worrying and love the change.

And that’s it? Just sink or swim, don’t even try to mitigate anything? That’s such a wild attitude.

The world is a wild place in reality. Life isn't really fair. Sometimes seeds fall on rocks or clay and will never sprout. If you set your sights on what could go right, things might go better for you. Life isn't about what happens to you, but what you actually do about it. As an individual, I can show the world I care by being somewhat responsible in my consumption, but I can't really control the rest of the world and their choices. If I did live in Bangladesh and I knew the ocean is rising in the next 50 years, I would consider other options.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#262

Post by Tar90 »

konschubert wrote: post #87
dougmwne wrote: post #52

I worked in climate policy for awhile. I got out of it because I lost hope. I believe our governments have lost hope also. Covid taught us that if they inflict the necessary pain to control carbon, our governments will be consumed by populist anger. Only the Chinese system appears to have any hope of controlling people’s behavior that much without riots. And what a terrifying system! Even their control began to slip…

You are right that degrowth is not a politically viable path to saving the climate. Additionally, it is not effective unless you want to return to pre-industrial society. What works is: Changing the source of the energy we consume. Solar is the cheapest source of energy now. Wind is good in some areas. Nuclear can be useful too. The amazing thing is that solar is so cheap now, there is basically no way stopping it. W…

Degrowth is really about scaling back on the over-the-top way we live. It's about finding a sweet spot where people live well but not at the expense of everything else. It’s cool and useful that solar is cheap, but degrowth means chill on the endless buying and using and discarding stuff, be sustainable and make sure everyone gets a fair shake, not just those who can afford it.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#263

Post by vimbtw »

cesarb wrote: post #198
atonse wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know though, Chernobyl and Fukushima had completely different reasons and don't really clump together apart from "both were meltdowns" Chernobyl was entirely a product of design compromises due to cost savings, combined by a totalitarian system suppressing the known impact of those design decisions. It was also a much older design. Fukushima also seemed like a design mistake (I remember reading it that th…

> As far as I know though, Chernobyl and Fukushima had completely different reasons and don't really clump together apart from "both were meltdowns" A glass-half-empty view of that would be that there isn't a single reason which could be fixed to avoid all future issues. Fukushima AFAIK didn't have the design and operational mistakes which led to the Chernobyl incident, but that wasn't enough to prevent it from havin…

But nuclear power starts to look even better when you look up the death tolls and realize that as long as you are halfway competent (i.e. not Chernobyl) even the worst disasters have led to vanishingly few deaths. What is more dangerous is the irrational fear of nuclear power that led to the dangerous evacuation of Fukushima.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#264

Post by tim333 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #126

I find it surprising that the 1896 answer of warming estimates closely match modern estimates. Back then: - They didn't have electronics, radio was barely being discovered - They didn't have airplanes, they just discovered the upper atmosphere, with the very first weather balloons - They knew about atoms, the periodic table was 30 years old, but nucleus wasn't discovered yet Climate science is a notoriously difficult…

I read somewhere that if you take a simple model based simply on the extra heat trapped by CO2 in the atmosphere and the black body emission from earth to space as a function of temperature it comes as close to reality as all the elaborate models. Or probably closer as the elaborate models can easily produce extreme results if you assume a lot of positive feedback and so far the real world results have been closer to feedback free results.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#265

Post by tim333 »

dougmwne wrote: post #52

I worked in climate policy for awhile. I got out of it because I lost hope. I believe our governments have lost hope also. Covid taught us that if they inflict the necessary pain to control carbon, our governments will be consumed by populist anger. Only the Chinese system appears to have any hope of controlling people’s behavior that much without riots. And what a terrifying system! Even their control began to slip…

I've tended not to worry about the warming much partly on the basis that AI/acc and similar tech will fix it all.

Reasoning: Intelligent robots and AI will be able to build all sort of stuff and even without that solar + wind nuclear will probably overtake fossil fuel shortly. We can have the bots cover the Sahara with solar and run carbon capture. Also fusion may work although I'm not so sure about that one.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#266

Post by konschubert »

Tar90 wrote: post #262
konschubert wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right that degrowth is not a politically viable path to saving the climate. Additionally, it is not effective unless you want to return to pre-industrial society. What works is: Changing the source of the energy we consume. Solar is the cheapest source of energy now. Wind is good in some areas. Nuclear can be useful too. The amazing thing is that solar is so cheap now, there is basically no way stopping it. W…

Degrowth is really about scaling back on the over-the-top way we live. It's about finding a sweet spot where people live well but not at the expense of everything else. It’s cool and useful that solar is cheap, but degrowth means chill on the endless buying and using and discarding stuff, be sustainable and make sure everyone gets a fair shake, not just those who can afford it.

Consuming more thoughtfully is cool and all, but it's not going to save the climate.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#267

Post by ben_w »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #215
saywhanow wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The waste problem is solved. As with the rest of the nuclear discussion, it’s mostly hysteria. Here’s a guy kissing nuclear waste. It’s a bit tongue in cheek on the surface, but he’s PhD and there is quality information in the video. https://youtu.be/lhHHbgIy9jU?si=wE0FvscMgBpLUZ0g

The waste problem is pretty much not solved. Neither on the technical, nor the political front. That doesn't mean nuclear isn't an option. Try to list the countries with a permanent nuclear storage site. Pretty short list.

The political front, sure.

The technical front, however, really is fine.

All the high-level nuclear waste on Earth would fit in a 21m cube. The lower level stuff is substantially greater in volume, but overall this is one of the (IMO few) cases where nuclear proponent's arguments about energy density do actually matter.

And that means it's fine for the list of countries with a permanent nuclear storage site to be pretty short.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#268

Post by doetoe »

atonse wrote: post #149
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Unfortunately, nuclear seems to get a bad rep from a lot of people." Well, there was Chernobyl. Then Fukushima. I'm all for Nuclear. But I think humans have shown repeatedly they can't really handle it. So think the trepidation is justified. But, I am hoping with all the technology advances in last 50 years, maybe Nuclear can be made safe. If we do learn from past.

As far as I know though, Chernobyl and Fukushima had completely different reasons and don't really clump together apart from "both were meltdowns" Chernobyl was entirely a product of design compromises due to cost savings, combined by a totalitarian system suppressing the known impact of those design decisions. It was also a much older design. Fukushima also seemed like a design mistake (I remember reading it that th…

> Chernobyl was entirely a product of design compromises due to cost savings, combined by a totalitarian system suppressing the known impact of those design decisions.

This sounds exactly like what could happen when a private for-profit company would exploit nuclear, which is already happening

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#269

Post by smegger001 »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #259
smegger001 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is in Chernobyl there were mechanical safety systems to stop a meltdown. current designs are such that physics prevents it from being able to melt down. While its possible to improperly maintain safety systems causing them to fail, physics doesn't need maintenance.

Do you have link? I am curious what this design is. If I just randomly search, it is just hundreds of designs, everyone has a 'theory' on some design that is safe and effective. Hard to filter out the 'crack-pot' from the actual physicists. Do you have one in-particular. (edit, also. I ask because Chernobyl was also deemed impossible by 'physics'. Technically it did not melt down first, the reactor didn't 'fail', som…

pebble bed reactors.

to quote wikipedia which expalins it better than i can;

"When the reactor temperature rises, the atoms in the fuel move rapidly, causing Doppler broadening. The fuel then experiences a wider range of neutron speeds. Uranium-238, which forms the bulk of the uranium, is much more likely to absorb fast or epithermal neutrons at higher temperatures. This reduces the number of neutrons available to cause fission, and reduces power. Doppler broadening therefore creates a negative feedback: as fuel temperature increases, reactor power decreases. All reactors have reactivity feedback mechanisms. The pebble-bed reactor is designed so that this effect is relatively strong, inherent to the design, and does not depend on moving parts. If the rate of fission increases, temperature increase and Doppler broadening reduces the rate of fission. This negative feedback creates passive control of the reaction process."

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#270

Post by grey_earthling »

idiotsecant wrote: post #24
grey_earthling wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy isn't the hard problem; it's materials. We're still consuming materials that we can't (yet?) make without fossil input.

Its OK to use fossil fuels as chemical feedstock in manufacturing. As long as we don't literally light it on fire for energy we can deal with the resulting reaction gasses. In 500 years the idea that we ever burned our most valuable manufacturing chemical to keep warm is going to seem crazy. Petrochemicals are incredibly useful for making things.

Until they run out. We can't recycle anything 100%. Eventually we'll have to learn to do without.
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