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Gigantic heat caverns in Mustikkamaa have now been filled with water (2021)

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Re: Gigantic heat caverns in Mustikkamaa have now been filled with water (2021)

#71

Post by nightfly »

nikanj wrote: post #55
Reason077 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a cool project, and I'm sure it has many benefits beyond just carbon savings. But 21,000 tonnes per year is surprisingly little in the scheme of things. Equivalent of about 150 or so long-haul 777 flights?

That tells you how pointless all the at-home energy savings are when everyone and their dog flies to a weekend getaway every month

But "everyone and their dog" doesn't do that. About half of Americans never fly and a quarter fly once a year. Only 7% fly as much as you say or more

Re: Gigantic heat caverns in Mustikkamaa have now been filled with water (2021)

#72

Post by lazide »

quacked wrote: post #60
nikanj wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That tells you how pointless all the at-home energy savings are when everyone and their dog flies to a weekend getaway every month

I know people who attend sit-in protests at Chase Bank locations over fossil fuel divestment who also fly internationally 3-4 times per year for pleasure. The cognitive dissonance and lack of engineering intuition among the general populace is staggering.

Or they want to look like they care, while having as much fun as possible?

Re: Gigantic heat caverns in Mustikkamaa have now been filled with water (2021)

#73

Post by SECProto »

dharma1 wrote: post #68
SECProto wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1% reduction from one project seems pretty decent to me. Especially when it's just from reusing pre-existing caverns from oil storage to decrease the district heat emissions. Heating emissions for a city at 60° North are a big challenge to reduce, and combined heat and power is a huge efficiency gain - the heat is otherwise wasted, and thermal emissions are an environmental issue in their own right. The emissions cou…

Heating is perhaps unsurprisingly a large part of overall energy consumption in the Northern hemisphere. Helsinki shut down one coal plant used for district heating this spring and is shutting down the last remaining one next spring, well ahead of schedule. https://www.hel.fi/en/news/helen-phases-out-coal-more-than-f... I personally am bullish on deep geothermal - there was a pilot project near Helsinki which was unf…

Yep, deep geothermal would be cool, but not as mature. Was specifically advocating nuclear as it is basically a drop in replacement for fossil fuel in existing CHP plants. SMRs might work, though I am somewhat skeptical of anyone proposing "this brand new nuclear tech!" as a solution to difficulties constructing proven nuclear tech - we have decades of examples showing they basically swap one issue for another

Re: Gigantic heat caverns in Mustikkamaa have now been filled with water (2021)

#74

Post by dharma1 »

SECProto wrote: post #73
dharma1 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heating is perhaps unsurprisingly a large part of overall energy consumption in the Northern hemisphere. Helsinki shut down one coal plant used for district heating this spring and is shutting down the last remaining one next spring, well ahead of schedule. https://www.hel.fi/en/news/helen-phases-out-coal-more-than-f... I personally am bullish on deep geothermal - there was a pilot project near Helsinki which was unf…

Yep, deep geothermal would be cool, but not as mature. Was specifically advocating nuclear as it is basically a drop in replacement for fossil fuel in existing CHP plants. SMRs might work, though I am somewhat skeptical of anyone proposing "this brand new nuclear tech!" as a solution to difficulties constructing proven nuclear tech - we have decades of examples showing they basically swap one issue for another

agree, I think it could take 7-10+ years for either (deep geothermal or SMRs) to be viable at scale. But once they are, it should hopefully solve carbon neutral heating for good - in areas with district heating at least.

Steady Energy is a spin-off from VTT (Finnish state technical research centre) - I haven't followed it too closely but they are legit. https://www.ldr-reactor.fi/en/development/

Can't be much worse than building another large scale nuclear plant with the French :D (which is what we did with the last one - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#... - 4x over budget and 14 years behind schedule)

Re: Gigantic heat caverns in Mustikkamaa have now been filled with water (2021)

#75

Post by dylan604 »

kortilla wrote: post #69
ForHackernews wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there were less investment in fossil fuel exploration, prices for fossil fuels could rise and airfare might be priced more appropriately. They would fly less because it cost more, or trains and boats might become more competitive. Moaning about individual "cognitive dissonance" is absolute nonsense when talking about global scale problems that require policy solutions. The activists' intuitions are more correct th…

Protesting Chase doesn’t stop investments. It just pushes them elsewhere. Those activists are morons and stopping their flights would do far more to help than to protest a single bank. If they were protesting the government to massively increase oil taxes then you might have a point. Alas, they don’t have any economic intuition.

If those protestors did not have tickets on those flights, somebody else would be able to purchase them. It's not like the plane isn't going to fly that route because of this. So whether the protesters fly or somebody else, the plane is still make the emissions you're concerned about.

Re: Gigantic heat caverns in Mustikkamaa have now been filled with water (2021)

#76

Post by SECProto »

dharma1 wrote: post #74
SECProto wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, deep geothermal would be cool, but not as mature. Was specifically advocating nuclear as it is basically a drop in replacement for fossil fuel in existing CHP plants. SMRs might work, though I am somewhat skeptical of anyone proposing "this brand new nuclear tech!" as a solution to difficulties constructing proven nuclear tech - we have decades of examples showing they basically swap one issue for another

agree, I think it could take 7-10+ years for either (deep geothermal or SMRs) to be viable at scale. But once they are, it should hopefully solve carbon neutral heating for good - in areas with district heating at least. Steady Energy is a spin-off from VTT (Finnish state technical research centre) - I haven't followed it too closely but they are legit. https://www.ldr-reactor.fi/en/development/ Can't be much worse t…

Yep, the EPR design has had major constructability issues with every site (except the one in China, but there may be a lack of transparency with any issues/solutions that were done with them). EPR2 looks specifically to address the issues they've faced at Hinkley, Olkiluoto, and Flamanville ... we'll see how it turns out, hopefully it isn't just another example of throwing out one set of issues for a different set.

Most large construction projects suffer when there is too great a separation between design and construction. There needs to be feedback from one to the other, and when it takes 30 years to go from conceptual design to operational reactor, that feedback loop just isn't there. One big promise of SMRs is for components to be prefabricated - if you're building multiple of an object, the connection between design and construction will be much closer.

Re: Gigantic heat caverns in Mustikkamaa have now been filled with water (2021)

#77

Post by zmmmmm »

quacked wrote: post #60
nikanj wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That tells you how pointless all the at-home energy savings are when everyone and their dog flies to a weekend getaway every month

I know people who attend sit-in protests at Chase Bank locations over fossil fuel divestment who also fly internationally 3-4 times per year for pleasure. The cognitive dissonance and lack of engineering intuition among the general populace is staggering.

there are other ways to look at it though

Is it more or less hypocritical than someone who pays lip service to climate change, flies 3-4 times a year and doesn't go to sit ins? Their total overall alignment of their actions and their words are probably greater than vast majority of people who also don't even consider emissions from flying but say they care about climate change.

It's legitimate to agitate for change at a higher level while maintaining individual behaviours that align with status quo.

Re: Gigantic heat caverns in Mustikkamaa have now been filled with water (2021)

#78

Post by dharma1 »

nikanj wrote: post #55
Reason077 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a cool project, and I'm sure it has many benefits beyond just carbon savings. But 21,000 tonnes per year is surprisingly little in the scheme of things. Equivalent of about 150 or so long-haul 777 flights?

That tells you how pointless all the at-home energy savings are when everyone and their dog flies to a weekend getaway every month

Aviation is 2-3% of global CO2 emissions, while not insignificant there are bigger fish to fry

Re: Gigantic heat caverns in Mustikkamaa have now been filled with water (2021)

#79

Post by macinjosh »

dharma1 wrote: post #78
nikanj wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That tells you how pointless all the at-home energy savings are when everyone and their dog flies to a weekend getaway every month

Aviation is 2-3% of global CO2 emissions, while not insignificant there are bigger fish to fry

Everyone's favorite thing is a small percentage. Frequent flyers need to sacrifice too.

It also benefits a tiny part of the global population so per user it's actually not that small of an impact.

Re: Gigantic heat caverns in Mustikkamaa have now been filled with water (2021)

#80

Post by I_Am_Nous »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #41
BurningFrog wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a first approximation, Finland is on average a swamp. Thousands and thousands of lakes everywhere.

The Finnish name for Finland, Suomi, literally means "Land of Swamps". And it is awesome here.

It makes sense that Finns love rally so much then, if all the roads are weaving around swamps!
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