Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear
- Thread starter Hillhater
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sendler2112
100 kW
Hockey sticks everywhere. All highly correlated
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https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/the-unacceptable-collateral-damage-of-overconsumption-c04729ebe3b6
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https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/the-unacceptable-collateral-damage-of-overconsumption-c04729ebe3b6
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jonescg
100 MW
sendler2112 said:
Well that makes for a depressing read...
sendler2112
100 kW
Flip it around. Look at as being alive during the most important time in human history. Learn, Think. Talk. Spread essential knowledge so that everyone will start to realize there are limits to growth. Use your online media. Stand on the street corner with a sign and talk to people. As Hagens told us, "it's time to stick your neck out". We will need a whole new way. Everything has to change.jonescg said:
jonescg
100 MW
Yeah it's hard to overcome the tragedy of the commons. There was a time when the number of humans was so small that there was no way we could out-compete nature. But technology sure fixed that.
I've always said the cheapest watt is the one you don't need. So with better planning we can reduce the West's energy demands substantially, while sourcing alternatives for the energy we can't do without.
The other hockey stick graph is high school education, live birth rates, and life expectancy (for the most part). So there is hope.
I've always said the cheapest watt is the one you don't need. So with better planning we can reduce the West's energy demands substantially, while sourcing alternatives for the energy we can't do without.
The other hockey stick graph is high school education, live birth rates, and life expectancy (for the most part). So there is hope.
jonescg said:
Limitless energy fixed that.
Not to split hairs but I think it's an important differentiation. We are basically monkeys with i-phones. It's an interesting debate on whether the Renaissance or the Industrial Revolution put us on to that path. They're similar in some regards, the Renaissance was a period where out big brains got put to use by wealthy benefactors. So basically the energy we need to survive was offset by someone investing in us. The Industrial Revolution did the same thing by concentrating wealthy and giving the general population more time to pursue frivolous endevours like combustion engines.
Ianhill
1 MW
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Frivolous endeavours like the combustion engine have radically changed this earth forever and a day your missing the point, The energy source was oil the machines we burn it in are just a stepping stone in the conversion factor to get the useful work out at the end which we needed.
With out these stepping stones and means of energy production we would not be anywhere but in a cave with animal skin fur coats.
With out these stepping stones and means of energy production we would not be anywhere but in a cave with animal skin fur coats.
sendler2112
100 kW
Ianhill said:
And liquid fuel, on which all the big projects and food production of current civilization that has grown to 7.6 billion, will be leaving us soon. We can argue whether that will be 20 years or 50, but it will leave us long before( never without a big simplification) we are ready to leave it.
Ianhill
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I think we are more ready now than we ever have been before, life never has been smooth sailing it's nothing but an extreme long line of chance events the odds are highly stacked against us and we love an underdog that at least gives us a false illusion of a chance of foreverness.
Evolution has not finished with us yet and if we have any chance we will try and be the first to defy evolution and progress our own body's with analog to digital implants feeding our brain it's thirst for more information what happens from there will be messy it's like a guy from an old western salon talking about the stock exchange not a clue.
Evolution has not finished with us yet and if we have any chance we will try and be the first to defy evolution and progress our own body's with analog to digital implants feeding our brain it's thirst for more information what happens from there will be messy it's like a guy from an old western salon talking about the stock exchange not a clue.
sleepy_tired
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'Soon' in terms of geological sense of time, but chances are we have another 200 years at the current growing rate before we really start to hit a decline in availability. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be using alternatives, though. It's just that if you are predicting that some sort of cataclysmic event will occur in our lifetimes that to force everybody to switch away from oil.. you are probably wrong.
For solar and/or nuclear and/or other alternatives to replace petroleum products they are going to need to complete on price. They are just going to need to put coal/petroleum industry out of business just because they are better. This is not something that is going to happen through 'fate'.
Right now self-sufficient solar is _just reaching_ the point were it's affordable for small/medium businesses and home. Grid-tied solar power is a dead-end because the power industry can't cope with people feeding power back into the grid in large numbers. The pivotal technology needed to make it viable is energy storage...
jimw1960
10 kW
sleepy_tired said:
The cataclysmic event won't be running out of oil. It will be storm surges wiping out coastal cities, tens of millions of people seeking refuge due to flooding, crop failures, desertification, and wildfires. This has already started happening, but in 10 or 20 years, it will be a lot worse. Look at all the turmoil in the world the past 10 years from just a few million refugees. What will it be like when there are a billion refugees? Unless we develop alternatives and leave the remaining coal and oil in the ground, large parts of the planet will be essentially uninhabitable within the next 100 to 200 years. The people seeking refuge from those places won't be stopped by any wall. The good part is that we already have the knowledge and technology to prevent that from happening, but we just need to be able to be willing to pay a bit more for the energy we use.
sendler2112
100 kW
jimw1960 said:
Rebuildable energy will not replace what we are using now at anywhere near the same scale. Solar and wind is currently just 2% of total world energy. There will be a big shortfall and things will need to be much simpler again.
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sleepy_tired said:
When did "better" exclusively mean "cheaper"?
My experience of industrial and consumer products is that cheaper usually means emphatically worse. I do not buy cars built in a 3rd World jungle clearing nor the cheapest sausages I can find. Low price does not mean good value.
Hillhater
100 TW
What “proof” or even “vague evidence” can you cite that demonstrates anything we do to change our energy sources, will alter the future climate impact ?jimw1960 said:
What impact has the massive investment in RE, over the past 20 years, had on the increase in CO2 or sea level change ?
Or are you simply relying on your “faith” in Al Gore etc ?
sleepy_tired
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Punx0r said:
In a properly operating economy the costs associated with producing a good reflects both the priorities of the customer and the costs that go into producing the good.
It's the best possible mechanism available to human-kind right now to estimate actual impact versus benefit. But it only works in a market that is relatively free from governmental interference.
Competing on price doesn't always mean 'cheapest possible', but if you are dealing with fungible commodities like electricity it often is. This isn't true for all goods... like if you are a engineer and you pick a metal that will last 6 months versus another slightly more expensive metal that might last 12 years, then you are ignoring the costs unless you are designing something specifically to be disposable after 6 months.
People will naturally gravitate to better and cleaner solutions even if it's not the absolute cheapest, but it has to be affordable. It has to be competitive.
Basically: People are not going to do the right thing if doing the right thing lands them in the poor house. In many countries 'being poor' means 'being unable to feed yourself or care for your family'. You can't frock the economy up and expect to save the planet. If governments take that approach then it's going to be extremely counter-productive and will probably destroy any possible path to a healthy solution. People need to be wealthy enough to afford to care. Otherwise they _can't_.
This is why you can't treat alternative energy as something that is inevitable. It needs to actually be competitive and not through government subsidizes or some bullshit carbon tax scheme. It just plain has to get better.
The key to all of this is energy storage.
.. or nuclear.
sleepy_tired said:
You are correct that many people don't like paying extra for something they perceive to be no better. I wouldn't count on the free market getting the planet out the mess it got us into.
Nuclear is one of the most expensive forms of electrical energy even before the usually-forgotten decomissioning costs so falls foul of your argument you make against RE.
Carbon taxation is not a "bullshit" scheme. The comparitively cheap fossil fuel energy you refer to is subject to government subsidies, both direct and indirect. The external costs are not accounted for. Carbon tax goes *some* way to accounting for externalities. Ignoring human costs, there are attributable financal costs to AGW. That still ignores the air pollution and associated chronic and fatal diseases it causes.
sleepy_tired said:
Actual impact of what? Environmental impact? Nope. Personal finanical impact? Not really. Even under very simple scenarios most people do not make rational finanical decisions that maximise benefit to them personally. Let alone benefit society or the planet at large.
Large corporations also do not necessarily produce what the market (i.e. consumers) desires. That is an extremely naive view. If it were there would be no such concept as "marketing".
Hillhater said:
What proof do you have that it didn't or it won't?
You can't have it both ways.
Even if you claim to be sitting on the fence, the pollution from burning fossil fuels is PLAINLY evident in any major metropolitan area. Even if you're dumb enough to believe the CO2 being released is nothing compared to all of the CO2 in the carbon cycle, the pollution is undeniable, even for you. So there's an obvious reason to consider a move (push) to electric vehicles.
It's not a quantum leap in logic to see that offsetting the use of fossil fuels in ICE's mean increasing electricity generation, which again primarily relies on fossil fuels. Which again, aren't exactly free from harmful emission other than CO2.
So even if you're dumb enough to believe burning fossil fuels is having no effect on the climate, they are finite and they are dirty.
Regardless of whether or not reducing CO2 emissions will have an effect on the climate, it's an inevitability we will have to do so. So the onus of proof really should be on you to show how these investments aren't doing anything and won't have any impact on the future.
I have to say for the most part I'm finding your arguments lack any critical thinking. Forget the science for a second. Let's just talk about the impact humans have had on the environment. Pretty much everything we've done in the last 200 years has had a negative effect on the environment. Farming, roads, cities, fishing, hunting, all of these human activities have had a negative impact on the environment.
Knowing this, you've somehow come to the conclusion that the activity of burning fossil fuels is having little or no impact on the environment? Doesn't that seem odd to you?
FFS, you're from Australia you should be aware of how the smallest things humans do have had ridiculous impacts on the environment. Some guy let go a couple furry little bunnies in your country and just about wiped out the whole ecosystem. I'd rather get caught smuggling a pound of crystal meth into Australia than get caught smuggling a puppy dog.
You do know this right? Like you're aware of how fragile the ecosystem and nature can be. Australia isn't alone, and foreign invaders aren't the only things we've done to upset this delicate balance. The drugs we take, even the soap we use has found its way into the water and has had crazy unintended consequences.
So how can you see all of that and not be just a little bit suspicious of what the consequences of digging up hydrocarbons and burning them, for 200 years, is having on the planet? Like I said, forget the science, just by using your brain a little you have to see that if we aren't doing anything to the environment with burning fossil fuels it's the craziest exception to the rule. It would be the 1% of the 99% of things humans do that don't have a negative impact on the planet.
Sorry, but you just don't make sense hill.
Hillhater
100 TW
Please learn a different discussion technique beyond answering a question with a opposing question.
Its just a pathetic “student grade” trick to avoid the question......which you obviously cannot answer.
PS: i didnt bother reading beyond that first line !
Its just a pathetic “student grade” trick to avoid the question......which you obviously cannot answer.
PS: i didnt bother reading beyond that first line !
furcifer said:
No, no, no. You forget that it's unique in having a positive effect on the environment. Remember: "CO2 is plant food, dummy!". Continued CO2 emissions are the only thing that will boost crop yields enough to prevent mass starvation and therefore burning fossil fuels is not only a good idea, it's our moral duty in order to help those in the 3rd world.
Then again, a different flavour of denialist would claim anthropogenic CO2 emissions don't raise atmospheric CO2 levels, so IDK...
Hillhater
100 TW
More accurately stated as ... there is no proof that the increase in CO2 levels are the result of anthropogenic activity. :wink:Punx0r said:
sendler2112
100 kW
Hillhater said:
But there is proof that we are doing it.
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"One way that we know that human activities are responsible for the increased CO2 is simply by looking at historical records of human activities. Since the industrial revolution, we have been burning fossil fuels and clearing and burning forested land at an unprecedented rate, and these processes convert organic carbon into CO2. Careful accounting of the amount of fossil fuel that has been extracted and combusted, and how much land clearing has occurred, shows that we have produced far more CO2 than now remains in the atmosphere. The roughly 500 billion metric tons of carbon we have produced is enough to have raised the atmospheric concentration of CO2 to nearly 500 ppm. The concentrations have not reached that level because the ocean and the terrestrial biosphere have the capacity to absorb some of the CO2 we produce.* However, it is the fact that we produce CO2 faster than the ocean and biosphere can absorb it that explains the observed increase.
Another, quite independent way that we know that fossil fuel burning and land clearing specifically are responsible for the increase in CO2 in the last 150 years is through the measurement of carbon isotopes."
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http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/how-do-we-know-that-recent-cosub2sub-increases-are-due-to-human-activities-updated/
jimw1960
10 kW
Hillhater said:
So, in your esteemed opinion, what has happened to the 30 billion tons of CO2 that fossil fuel burning has added to the atmosphere every year for the past several decades? Or, is it your contention that burning fossil fuels does not produce CO2?
sleepy_tired
100 W
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If you destroy the economy you destroy any ability to save the environment.
Nuclear is fantastically inexpensive if it's allowed to be inexpensive. Which it is not.
It's a bullshit scheme because the point of it is not to save the environment. The point of it is to create vast new financial markets to make certain individuals massive amounts of money.
There is literally nothing that the human race can do that does not result in carbon releases. If you tax that then you impose a tax on every single possible thing that can be done to save the environment as well as create massive opportunity for control and regulation, all of which are how major profit centers are controlled for the sake of 'big corporations' you complain about.
There is no such thing as 'big government' versus 'big corporations'. You literally cannot have one without the other. The feed on each other and protect one another. The government isolating these businesses from the consequences of their actions is one of the reasons why we are in this mess.
Just look at the massive and continuous warfare going on for the past 100 years. A major portion of this is to protect petroleum companies from the countries they are exploiting. If the governments of the world are willing to murder hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people... and thousands of their own people to protect the profits of these companies, what else do you think they are willing to do?
Actual impact to people.
The naive view is thinking that this is a problem that can be solved simply be declaring some new law or tax.
sleepy_tired said:
Strawman. No one is advocating destroying the economy. Whichever type of economy it is you're referring to.
sleepy_tired said:
Reference, pls. Nuclear has never been cheap, even when it was totally unregulated.
sleepy_tired said:
It's actually to disincentivise fossil fuel use by leveling the playing field for all energy sources. But then if you fear some illuminati-style conspiracy then the environment is understandably going to be low on your list of priorities.
sleepy_tired said:
Technically true, as our very respiration produces CO2. So, another strawman. There are things we can do which do not release damaging levels of CO2, or at least less-catastrophic levels. It's about improving things. The "if the immediate option isn't absolutely perfect there's no point abandoning the status quo" argument doesn't wash.
sleepy_tired said:
Strawman again. I don't necessarily have a problem with big corporations and didn't say I did.
sleepy_tired said:
Yep. CO2 tax goes some way to preventing big corps from absolving themselves (via governmental lobbying or no) of responsibility for the external costs of their product.
sleepy_tired said:
Haven't really got time for "blood for oil" rants. Governments via their militaries act to defend the interests of their country. Oil, as a vital fossil fuel is a strategic resource and worth fighting over. Another advantage of renewables is they potentially lessen this.
sleepy_tired said:
Another strawman. Who said the solution to the problem was simple or that it could be achieved solely by carbon pricing. Make no mistake the problem is difficult and the solution will be HARD and require a multi-pronged approach. Think Industrial revolution + WW2 + moon landing levels of effort and human endeavor, all rolled into one.
So now it's 99.99%?
https://www.theguardian.com/science...us-on-humans-causing-global-warming-passes-99
Apparently nature is now conspiring to prove AGW.
https://www.theguardian.com/science...us-on-humans-causing-global-warming-passes-99
Apparently nature is now conspiring to prove AGW.
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