I always wonder if we could heat large blocks of salt in the desert with mirrors and then make power at night extremely expensive. Cable it all up with huge direct power cables... once the infrastructure is built sure this becomes nearly free energy?
Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change
61–70 of 118 posts
Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. huge bureaucratic hurdles 2. huge political hurdles 3. no ROI and no clean energy without billions of up-front investment and 20 years I think we should have started spending hundreds of billions on nuclear power plants yesterday, but now we have to walk and chew gum at the same time. If it really does take 20 years to build enough nuclear power plants (construction that will be fueled by carbon) we have to make s…
1 & 2 are political decisions, fueled by "nucleophobia". If it can solve global warming in 20 years, that's an easy win to take. There is no emergency forcing anything faster, and I doubt that it's even possible to find a cure (that isn't worse than the disease) that works faster anyway.
> 1 & 2 are political decisions, fueled by "nucleophobia".
You say nuclear isn't dangerous because of all the safety measures, yet here you're qualifying those safety measures as mere overreaction.
Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. huge bureaucratic hurdles 2. huge political hurdles 3. no ROI and no clean energy without billions of up-front investment and 20 years I think we should have started spending hundreds of billions on nuclear power plants yesterday, but now we have to walk and chew gum at the same time. If it really does take 20 years to build enough nuclear power plants (construction that will be fueled by carbon) we have to make s…
1 & 2 are political decisions, fueled by "nucleophobia". If it can solve global warming in 20 years, that's an easy win to take. There is no emergency forcing anything faster, and I doubt that it's even possible to find a cure (that isn't worse than the disease) that works faster anyway.
> If it can solve global warming
Not to be pedantic, but nothing is going to solve it. We're talking about efforts to mitigate it.
Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
10 years is s perfectly fine. The idea that there is some tipping point in 2030 that must be avoided at all cost is just an internet rumor.
Here's a Twitter thread discussing the significance of the 2030 date: https://twitter.com/KHayhoe/status/1104833329587806210 It's more complicated & nuanced than most blogs or stories have time for, but it's not an Internet rumor.
Thanks!
I don't think she says anything I much disagree with. I think this even restates my point, in less inflammatory language:
> and here, my friends, is where the mythical "we have 12 years to fix this or the world ends" narrative comes from. (I'm not pointing my finger at anyone in particular here; I'm just saying I've heard this. A lot.)
> Concl'n: Science does not identify a specific goal, target, or timeline. What it says is simply this: the more carbon we produce, the worse the impacts. The best thing to do is wean ourselves off it, as soon as is humanly possible. As a human I'd add: while minimizing suffering.
Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change
#65In terms of agriculture, we could use basic research into perennial staple crops. [1] It’s a promising area, but still a ways off. The result, as mentioned in the article, is less soil disturbance and more long-term carbon sequestration. From a policy perspective, Victory Gardens [2] were a successful strategy during WWII. It would be great to mobilize a similar effort to get people growing food in their own backyard…
Victory Gardens worked because they had a patriotic, pro-war, pro-America appeal. Sort of a "Keep America Great" thing. I suspect there's zero chance that this type of sentiment could be harnessed for "Hey, let's offset carbon emissions [of whom the #1 emitter is our chief political rival, China]" In fact that's the biggest problem with broadening support for decarbonization in general. The largest share of global ca…
> The largest share of global carbon is emitted by countries like India and China
India emits about 7% of global emissions. The United States emits about 16% [1].
Per capita India emits about 1/9th what the US does.
[1] https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-co2-emi...
Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change
#66Like so many other articles on this subject, the authors first identify the problem (a global scale prisoners' dilemma) and then pretend it can be solved at a local level by individual actors.
I actually find it terrifying that people think this way. It's the same intentional blindness that climate change deniers show, only with more steps and information.
The author even goes as far as parroting George W Bush's (now decade old and stupid even when it was fresh) vague hope that technology will just magically fix the problem. Of course, he is allowed to be bat shit insane because he is on "our side".
This problem is (geo-)political. It's not about technology or ideas or campaigning. It cannot be fixed by any local action (except maybe building flood defenses and watching everyone else drown?). Until people accept that they won't be able to fix this by composting more and hoping others take the bus, we will be doomed. Given that, a great article about how much Madrid could cut it's emissions is pointless and distracting.
Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change
#67In terms of agriculture, we could use basic research into perennial staple crops. [1] It’s a promising area, but still a ways off. The result, as mentioned in the article, is less soil disturbance and more long-term carbon sequestration. From a policy perspective, Victory Gardens [2] were a successful strategy during WWII. It would be great to mobilize a similar effort to get people growing food in their own backyard…
I don't know if you've ever tried growing food in your back yard to eat? It's a fine hobby if you enjoy gardening and find satisfaction in the honest simplicity and hard work of digging over soil, weeding, and spreading manure. But the truth is: supermarket food is incredibly cheap, and you'll be putting in 50 hours of labour to grow $20 worth of vegetables. If you enjoy the process and don't mind not getting much ou…
Absolutely, but in the context of this conversation we’re talking about moving away from annuals and all of the labor and inputs associated — towards perennials.
Therefore, I’m not saying we should copy the Victory Garden from WWII verbatim, but use it as a model for how every person can use their backyard to combat climate change.
The point is not to replace all of agriculture, but find ways that, collectively, individuals can make a dent in the problem. Even if it’s as simple as planting more oak trees and fruit trees.
But, some of the comments here lack imagination (to speak kindly of the some of the negativity and snark in some of the other replies) in how we could take a 20th century idea and update it for today. We have more technology available, and more knowledge.
Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
>What makes people so blind to the simple solution of the problem we have now? Chernobyl and more recently Fukushima. You might say those were caused by outdated tech or bad management. I'm someone who doesn't think my local or national government would be immune to those failings.
America has a huge problem with corporations bribing politicians to loosen "costly" regulations at the expense of our health and environment. The country is already destroying itself with fracking and coal mining. Nuclear power is orders of magnitude more devastating. So while nuclear is plenty safe when handled correctly, it's completely understandable to feel like America is not a country which can be trusted to ha…
> The country is already destroying itself with fracking and coal mining. Nuclear power is orders of magnitude more devastating.
All of this is completely wrong. Fracking has enabled us to simultaneously reduce CO2 emissions (by reducing coal mining) while reducing our reliance on foreign oil. Nuclear would be a huge leap forward, again maintaining energy independence (no reliance on Chinese solar panels) while cutting CO2 output.
You’ve got it backwards. America, and the rest of the world, has a problem with environmentalists who can’t do cost-benefit analysis. Thanks to nuclear, France hit CO2 emissions per capita of 6.5 tons back in 1990. Now it’s at 4.6. Germany is still around 9. By the time Germany gets to similar levels using wind and solar, France will have been sitting at those lower levels for 50 years. Everyone in Germany becoming vegans tomorrow won’t make up for half a century of unnecessary CO2 emissions because environmentalists were afraid of nuclear.
Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change
#69Like so many other articles on this subject, the authors first identify the problem (a global scale prisoners' dilemma) and then pretend it can be solved at a local level by individual actors. I actually find it terrifying that people think this way. It's the same intentional blindness that climate change deniers show, only with more steps and information. The author even goes as far as parroting George W Bush's (now…
Ok, it's a (geo-)political problem. So what do we do now? Besides posting HN comments that is.
Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering how much arable land is used to produce animal feed (about 50%) there is quite a lot of room for improvement, especially considering how inefficient meat production is.
That's not true in the US. Less than 15% of the feed used for animals would be edible for humans, and much of the land in the US is not suitabe for growing crops other than grass. Most of the food given to animals are farm waste products and leaves etc. Using regenerative farming, cows can even be net carbon negative, meanwhile a lot of human feed uses artificial fertilizer which is a big contributor to carbon emissi…
Oak Savanna and regenerative farming, in general, are great things. If we committed to only farming animals in these types of regenerative systems, it would _greatly_ reduce the supply. As a vegetarian, I’m all for that. As someone who really wants us to address climate change, I’m all for that.
The fact is, our current system not only ignores the negative externalities of (animal intensive) agriculture — we subsidize it. That’s why I think a carbon tax is a good idea. It would mean meat would become more expensive. This angers a lot of people. But if we get serious about measuring the actual environmental effects of agriculture, it needs to be reflected in the cost. To me, if we solve this problem the world would eat a lot more plants, and the meat that is consumed would be produced by carbon negative, regenerative practices.