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Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

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Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#931

Post by notJim »

PoignardAzur wrote: post #926
notJim wrote: post #890

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon taxes are political suicide in the US. In fact, we know that oil companies push for them exactly because they know how unpopular they are. In Washington state, one of the more progressive states, they've failed over and over again to pass a carbon tax. Nothing they can do makes it work politically. In France, a carbon tax kicked off the yellow vests movement. Like it or not, the Green New Deal framing works be…

I think Washington state did manage to pass a carbon tax? https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/washington-states-...

That's great news, looks like my info was out of date.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#932

Post by kortex »

c7DJTLrn wrote: post #927

There's a lot of nonsense in these comments that doesn't hold up to the most basic scrutiny. >Humanity is going to go extinct There's no evidence for that. A temperature rise of 2 degrees celsius is by no means a threat to the human race. It is a problem, but not an extinction event. >We should invest in nuclear Nuclear is extremely expensive and prone to going wrong. It's not a valid argument to state that "nuclear…

>>Humanity is going to go extinct

People aren't worried about the climate or the environment changing enough to directly cause humans to go extinct. More like climate change (plus our huge population) leading to increased resource contention, leading to increased conflict, leading to a superweapons conflict, ergo it's an existential threat.

> Nuclear is extremely expensive and prone to going wrong.

This has been debunked in this thread and countless others. It's a solvable problem, but we in the US lack the will.

> To grab that carbon you need to spend at least as much energy as you got from the combustion.

Eh. See solutions involving olivine. It's best to not release it in the first place. Which is why...

>>We need to use electric cars

>...this solves nothing.

... is bupkis. The fewer ICEs releasing carbon, the better. EVs can be powered by renewables. ICEs cannot (economically) be powered by renewables. EtOH is trash, biobutanol and Fischer-Tropsch gasoline are too expensive and likely will stay so.

Addendum on nuclear since it keeps coming up. Five tips from HN's favorite lightning rod mogul would dramatically improve the nuclear industry:

1. Make your requirements less dumb. How much design and regulatory cruft and holdover do we have from the beginning of the atomic age? Not suggesting "move fast and break things" but I am suggesting iterate at the small scale and never stop trying to improve safety, cost, and speed, in that order.

2. Try to delete processes and steps. Smaller, more modular reactors. Use fewer parts, and more off the shelf for what you need.

3. Simplify.

4. Accelerate cycle time. This goes hand-in-hand with Simplify.

5. Try to automate it. This is least essential, and doesn't mean just robots, but more jigwork and assembly line, vs nonrecurring engineering, the better.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#933

Post by malwarebytess »

Aerroon wrote: post #154
malwarebytess wrote: post #116

At some point we need to consider ramping down mass production no matter the consequences. This is getting out of hand.

And do what? Cause even more human suffering by preventing others from reaching a better standard of living? What do we ramp down? Electronics? Clothes? Food? Transport?

Yes. We managed before mass production and we will manage again.

It's either the inevitable collapse of civilization or a deliberate controlled ramp down, globally. There will not be some magic technology to fix this and we clearly are not going to be able to finesse this.

It's time to start considering and planning for a global slowdown of production and a radical shift in the way we live.

If we don't do it the biosphere is going to do it for us.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#934

Post by malwarebytess »

keewee7 wrote: post #302
malwarebytess wrote: post #116

At some point we need to consider ramping down mass production no matter the consequences. This is getting out of hand.

Yes only America and Europe should be wealthy.

Meaningless thought terminating cliche you have there.

I'm talking about a global change. And if we don't do it the biosphere will do it for us.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#935

Post by elihu »

merpnderp wrote: post #720

If anyone actually believed it was "code red for humanity" they'd be pushing nuclear power. There is zero chance of moving off carbon energy sources without causing catastrophic mayhem, unless we use massive amounts of nuclear. For instance, the last 4 years my state has averaged 37% production of total possible installed wind generation capacity. This is a very windy state which is in the top 2 for installed wind ca…

I'm tentatively in favor of more nuclear power plants, but I'm not convinced it's the only solution. We definitely need more electricity that comes from non-carbon-emitting sources, but solar and wind seem to be winning on cost.

In order to rely more heavily on wind and solar, we will need either enormous batteries or better power distribution across the grid.

Lithium iron phosphate cells should be pretty cheap in mass quantities, and they don't require nickel or cobalt. They can also last a very long time, so cost is amortized over many years. If the batteries cost $100 per kwh and a typical household needs 30 kwh to get through a 24 hour cycle, then that's $3000 worth of batteries per household. The real cost would be higher when you add in battery management systems, chargers, inverters, and so on, but if it's centrally managed it doesn't seem like the manufacturing, installation, and operation cost would be insurmountable.

In terms of the energy grid, I think it would be a good idea to look into constructing major transcontinental high voltage DC lines so the United States can buy solar power from, say, Algeria when the sun is shining there and sell surplus power to Europe and Asia when it's daytime in the U.S..

To sum up: I think nuclear could be a part of the solution, but it isn't the only option. We do have alternatives.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#936

Post by bertil »

3pt14159 wrote: post #641
habosa wrote: post #621

Just. Tax. It. We have warmed the earth because we love comfort and money. We will never stop loving those things. So instead let's use the same systems to fix this (or at least slow things down). As an individual my largest carbon impact is air travel. I like to go places, it's one of the main things I work to afford. Every single plane ticket I take should have a tax which is used to offset or capture the carbon em…

I've been saying this for years, but I finally get why "Just. Tax. It." doesn't work. The voters. They turn out in droves when it comes to taxes on something as visible as the price they pay at the pump or when it comes to the oil patch in Alberta. It's politically easier to create import duties or to go into debt and subsidize things. The level of taxation we need to stop a complete catastrophe is higher than people…

I agree with you for cars, which is why I think the appropriate approach is to:

1. tax flying, or rather shame airlines who do not compensate aggressively until they all do, and monitor compensation schemes because at the moment, too many are non-sensical blackmail-like counter-factual arguments around cutting forests;

2. ban industrial releases of CO2: all has to be captured and stored; storage is cheap now, so industrials will rather do that than lobby (until storage price go up, but at that points, things will have gotten much uglier);

3. ban new ICE cars, or make those excessively expensive to build: second-hand cars price will explode subsidising current car owners, and opening a wider gap for electric cars. Guarantee loans on electric cars to make them unaffordable cheaper, until the resell value takes over. No need to make gas more expensive: electric cars are cheaper to maintain today. You just have to make it more obvious to buyers.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#937

Post by jussij »

city41 wrote: post #686
jussij wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone concerned about climate change, the most important thing you can do is cast a vote for a political party that the issue seriously.

In the US, any party that takes the issue seriously does not get elected in an meaningful capacity. Maybe a city representative, even state representative here and there, but that's about it.

And until that changes there will be very little in the way of action on climate change as the problem is just kicked down the road.

However all that delay just makes the problem harder to fix.

So the choice really is simple.

Find a way to make your government representatives take the issue seriously, or accept the 'catastrophic train wreck' that is just some decades away.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#938

Post by lutorm »

bpodgursky wrote: post #749
ptkd wrote: post #740

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this take a lot, and it’s kind of misinformed. The primary drawbacks of nuclear are: 1) incredible slow to build. A typical plant takes ~20 years from decision to productionized 2) extremely expensive, with a massively frontloaded cost. By contrast, solar and wind are fast to install and now cheaper. > wind power can be zero at some parts of the day There are a few solutions to this actually. First, having a mo…

If it was actually code red, we would waive literally all safety regulations and environmental policy reviews, and break ground on new plants tomorrow. And cost would be no object.

Cost being no object doesn't mean you should choose unnecessarily expensive solutions...

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#939

Post by lutorm »

FabHK wrote: post #827
h1fra wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree Nuclear is the most probable solution it's not easy to build and fuel is very sparse. France who is leading the way is 100% depend on other countries, I'm not sure it will play well in the coming years > 85% of uranium is produced in six countries: Kazakhstan, Canada, Australia, Namibia, Niger, and Russia. And the second issue is to focus on electricity production, while there is a ton a other things cr…

> You won't save the planet if you still have thousands of ships on the sea and planes in the air Aviation contributes only 2% of global air pollution, though maybe 5% of global greenhouse effect (due to the high altitudes airplanes operate at). Textile production, indeed, contributes more to climate change than aviation and maritime shipping combined [1]. However, with abundant electricity you can switch many transp…

According to these guys, industrial process heat accounts for larger emissions than electricity and transportation: https://www.absolicon.com/

The nice thing is that it's easy to make heat with higher efficiency than going through electricity.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#940

Post by omegaworks »

notJim wrote: post #890
habosa wrote: post #621

Just. Tax. It. We have warmed the earth because we love comfort and money. We will never stop loving those things. So instead let's use the same systems to fix this (or at least slow things down). As an individual my largest carbon impact is air travel. I like to go places, it's one of the main things I work to afford. Every single plane ticket I take should have a tax which is used to offset or capture the carbon em…

Carbon taxes are political suicide in the US. In fact, we know that oil companies push for them exactly because they know how unpopular they are. In Washington state, one of the more progressive states, they've failed over and over again to pass a carbon tax. Nothing they can do makes it work politically. In France, a carbon tax kicked off the yellow vests movement. Like it or not, the Green New Deal framing works be…

Exactly. America is structurally dependent on cars. The working poor have been forced into increasingly long commutes to find affordable housing. We need big structural changes: densification, massive investment in sustainable transit systems and urban design.
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