While we have a socio-economic that values market and profit over social benefits we will keep this going just because it's cheaper. (and also because there is some big people gaining lots of money with it)
Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect
71–80 of 286 posts
Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect
#72Mere ~30 years after discovering the Greenhouse Effect we managed to split the atom, harnessing heretofore unimaginable amounts of energy. Yet almost 100 years later, here we are - Oil and gas dependent, boasting an energy and climate crisis, all the while fooling regulators with worthless climate certificates, unaccountable off-shore factories and just plain rampant fraud when it comes to CO2 emissions.
Unfortunately, nuclear seems to get a bad rep from a lot of people. I suspect this is because of a mixture of things: 1. The rare instances of it going wrong look catastrophic, while the many times it does better than coal/oil/gas go ignored. Kinda like how people fear plane travel more than driving, despite the former being far safer than the latter. 2. It's more expensive to setup, so there's an economic incentive…
Isn't the number one reason that nuclear gets a bad rep because there is no compelling solution for getting rid of the waste?
Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect
#73Mere ~30 years after discovering the Greenhouse Effect we managed to split the atom, harnessing heretofore unimaginable amounts of energy. Yet almost 100 years later, here we are - Oil and gas dependent, boasting an energy and climate crisis, all the while fooling regulators with worthless climate certificates, unaccountable off-shore factories and just plain rampant fraud when it comes to CO2 emissions.
Fossil fuel is a cheat code because you neither have to pay to create it nor pay for the consequences of using it, nature is dealing with both of these. Everything you use from roads to shampoo, toilet paper, clothes, computers, buildings, bicycles, it's all either enabled by fossil or a fossil fuel derivate At planet scale nothing will ever get better than: dig hole, pump oil, burn oil
Getting it out of the ground is expensive in both dollar terms and the cost to lives.
Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect
#74For people on phones, https://m.xkcd.com/2889/
And for those on RSS readers that don't like having to hover for alt-text... https://xkcdwat.joshka.net/
Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect
#751975: The first cancellation of a planned nuclear power plant occurred in Wyhl, Germany due to protests from "environmentalists".
That's good news, take it further!
Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
You need carbon (coal) to make steel from iron. Cement needs lots of heat to make it - from coal too. Also, cement is made from CaCO3 (limestone, the shell of ancient microorganisms). It releases the CO2 it contains when transformed into cement.
> You need carbon (coal) to make steel from iron. Carbon in form of coal is currently used for three purposes in steel production: 1) Heat up the ore to high temperatures 2) Reduce iron oxide to iron. 3) Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. Only for the third of these carbon is essential, and that requires some tens of kilos carbon per ton of steel as opposed to more than 2 tons carbon per ton of steel. The two firs…
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Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect
#77I 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…
Our governments are so dysfunctional and corrupt our only hope is that AI will actually be benevolent and can help guide us and solve problems. Because, as the comic, and thousands of other examples show, our governments aren't actually capable of leading and solving problems, even when the problems are blatant. Same when the solution is easy, but it will cause the wealthy to lose money, see US health care and taxation systems.
Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fossil fuel is a cheat code because you neither have to pay to create it nor pay for the consequences of using it, nature is dealing with both of these. Everything you use from roads to shampoo, toilet paper, clothes, computers, buildings, bicycles, it's all either enabled by fossil or a fossil fuel derivate At planet scale nothing will ever get better than: dig hole, pump oil, burn oil
Getting it out of the ground is expensive in both dollar terms and the cost to lives.
Depends on where you are Saudi Arabia pumps it for $4 a barrel... Compared to some fracking happening at around ~$35 to $40 a barrel.
Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fossil fuel is a cheat code because you neither have to pay to create it nor pay for the consequences of using it, nature is dealing with both of these. Everything you use from roads to shampoo, toilet paper, clothes, computers, buildings, bicycles, it's all either enabled by fossil or a fossil fuel derivate At planet scale nothing will ever get better than: dig hole, pump oil, burn oil
Getting it out of the ground is expensive in both dollar terms and the cost to lives.
It's getting expensive but it used to be extremely cheap, in the middle east or even in the US you had natural oil springs where petroleum literally flowed out of the ground, same for coal before that, if we somehow fuck it up and go back 200 years in the past tech wise there will never be a new industrial revolution
Cost to lives is free here, same as cost for the future or cost to the environment. If we had to pay for these we'd be in deficit. The simple issue of old oil fields leaking methane would already render most of their operators bankrupt if they had to fix the problem
Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect
#80I 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 can’t just shut down the fossil fuel industry before you have alternative green energy infrastructure in place, this is a multi decade project. Otherwise the price of oil shoots up and you get inflation which affects most people’s ability to get by. “Populist anger” might be justified if people have a hard time paying their bills.