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Things are Starting to Heat Up - Part VII 21

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dik

dik

Structural
Apr 13, 2001
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-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
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We'll see. So far most of the alarmist predictions have failed. Unless the models take a big step forward in accuracy then they're as much use as ChatGPT's simulation of a bouncing ball which got higher on successive bounces. When I pointed out that that was impossible it suggested adding damping to improve the fit - just like a climate 'scientist'. The actual correct solution was more complicated.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
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Greg... we're not out of this, yet... We'll have to find out if there is anything to be alarmed about.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
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Since we aren't doing anything effective then CO2 will rise and rise, and even with the laboratory value of climate sensitivity due to CO2 (1.2 degC/2CO2), we'll see 1.6+/-0.6 of temperature increase by 2100 if the CO2 rises at 4ppm/y on average. If you can keep it to 2.8 ppm/y then you get about 0.2 less.

So whatever happens it is going to get warmer, adaptation will be both cheaper and less painful than any serious and politically impossible reduction in CO2 production. Silly targets like 50% net zero by 2030 are just politics, they aren't achievable, and attempts to meet them without proper planning will just cause waste and chaos.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
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The climate will change, always has. Perhaps we are having an effect on it. But we can adapt to whatever happens. Adaptation is the answer, not the foolish demolition of the world economy in the name of "doing something".
 
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Good points. But, I will point out the following:
a) There are relatively cheap and easy methods to slow down the increase by taking measures today. They won't stop the warming. But, slow it down to the point where it's easier to adapt to as it occurs. I'm talking about eliminating coal power plants. I'm talking about switching to nuclear, etc.

b) Adaptation will likely be cheaper for most places. But, that may not be feasible in some areas. Some places will become unlivable. Maybe because they're just too hot in the summer months. Maybe because of rise in sea levels.

c) We're also not the only ones on the planet. We might really damage the rest of the animal populations which, in general, would not be able to adapt in that time frame. It is possible that many animals will have to migrate to other lands, may die off or greatly reduce in number. Whole eco systems could be dramatically affected. All of these things could affect our ability to mass produce food at a rate to support our population.

I'm not predicting "the end of the world" like the AOC types tend to. I'm not even saying that this is a true "existential crisis" like the Gen Z folks have been led to believe. But, there is a middle ground here that exists between "there's nothing to worry about, we're better off ignoring the whole concept" and "we're all going to die in 20 years if we don't cripple our economy today".
 
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Like a carnival, "...round and round, she goes... where she stops, nobody knows." The downside is that we are in new territory and no one knows how this will end. The last few years could be a precursor to the future, and it could get a lot worse.



-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
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They won't stop the warming. But, slow it down to the point where it's easier to adapt to as it occurs.
Click to expand...

It's speculation, not fact, that slowing our output of CO2 will slow the warming of the planet. There's also only hypotheses predicting that the warming will continue, as opposed to the current warming being part of a cycle that could take a downturn at any time.

I'm talking about eliminating coal power plants. I'm talking about switching to nuclear, etc.
Click to expand...

Those are not cheap and easy methods, certainly not in the short term. shuttering a coal fired power plant that still has many years of service life left, and building a new plant of some other type, is a huge waste of resources and a significant cost to the customers of the utility.

I agree with building nuclear power plants. We have to get past the fearmongering about nuclear power plants. All the major incidents with nuclear power were at plants built in the 70s (or before) with mostly 60s era 'electronics' in the control and monitoring systems. Modern plants, especially the Thorium reactors coupled to breeder reactors, are very safe, in all aspects. That includes not only making nuclear waste from the reactor that could be used in a dirty bomb inaccessible, but also providing the ability to reprocess existing nuclear waste, drastically reducing its volume and radioactivity.

Rod Smith, P.E., The artist formerly known as HotRod10
 
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"They won't stop the warming. But, slow it down" ... "It's speculation, not fact, that slowing our output of CO2 will slow the warming" ...

I agree, IF CO2 is driving the climate change, then lowering it is "better".

I think it's reasonable to think that our CO2 is having some impact on the environment, so reducing it is "better".
But making everything more expense (as the cost of energy goes up) isn't helping the bulk of humanity

But I see the current situation as an agenda for a subset of humanity to impose control over the rest. And if their measures don't change the climate trajectory significantly it won't be "I guess we were wrong, sorry" but "we were too late, if only you had listened".

"Hoffen wir mal, dass alles gut geht !"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.
 
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Those are not cheap and easy methods, certainly not in the short term. shuttering a coal fired power plant that still has many years of service life left, and building a new plant of some other type, is a huge waste of resources and a significant cost to the customers of the utility.
Click to expand...

Actually, it is pretty cheap and easy. Shutting down a coal plant is really easy. It emits something like 10 times the amount of CO2 as gas turbines do (per mega watt of power produced). So, just shutting one down an replacing it with a combined cycle gas turbine would be pretty darn quick and easy. I should point out the lead time to engineer and build a gas turbine plant is not very long (less than 1/10th the time it would take nuclear plant to get built).

And, the power from gas turbines is no more than a coal plant. Probably less.

The idea of expanding nuclear takes political will, which we don't really have right now. But, if we had the will to do it then it's cheap, clean, CO2 free and very, very safe. The biggest problem is the lead time and the politics of it. The green extremists (the same ones most concerned about global warming) will fight it every step of the way.

But, all of these expenses when added together will be fractions of what our government spends subsidizing solar panels on rich people's homes, or giving rebates to rick people when they buy a Tesla. And, the benefit goes to everyone, not just the virtue signaling, latte sipping rick liberals.

My biggest complaint is that we are wasting all kinds of tax payer money on programs that are VERY inefficient in terms of their ability to reduce CO2 emissions per dollar spent.
 
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I think the problem is shutting down the CFPP means shutting down the coal mines ... which means employment, unions, politics, ...

"Hoffen wir mal, dass alles gut geht !"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.
 
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Sorry Josh, the carbon intensity of gas turbines is about half that of coal plants. I'm not saying a 50% reduction isn't worth having but itisn't the easy complete solution either.


The political issue is that the first world is practically irrelevant, the increase in CO2 output is driven by China, India and other 'developing' nations (Indonesia is big and has lots of poor quality coal, for example, so when they industrialise what are they going to use?), so you have to put your nukes there.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
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Coal will remain a part of the power mix for years to come. Maybe not in all countries, but some.

Take the case of Australia, for example. A large emitter of CO2 per capita, as dik likes to point out, but an insignificant emitter globally.

Australia has an almost limitless amount of quality coal which is easily mined, and depends mostly on coal for its power. It also has gas, mostly coal seam gas, but not so much.

So a mixture of power sources, including coal, gas, wind, solar. What's notably missing? Nuclear, for a variety of reasons, but mostly because the same types (Extinction Rebellion and others) who call for all coal plants to be shut down immediately are the very ones who protest so heavily against nuclear power. Politicians listen to the squeaky wheel, so no nuclear plants will be built in Australia for the foreseeable future.

Then there are countries which have to import their power feedstock. Japan, China, India, etc. They get it from the most reliable and economical source, Australia. The market will rule, in spite of government intervention or international protocols.

 
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The "green extremists" don't like natural gas either, and if they succeed in getting rid of oil drilling, natural gas will get much more expensive, because much of the natural gas production is a 'by-product' of oil drilling. Of course, many of the 'greenies' don't realize how many things they use every day that come from oil, including most of the materials used to make the wind turbines and electric cars they love so much. Guess what they're using to heat the generators on the wind turbines right now so they don't get damaged from the cold? You guessed it - fossil fuels.

Rod Smith, P.E., The artist formerly known as HotRod10
 
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I think part of the problem is that adversarial countries such as Russia and China do not have their own large industrial gas turbine manufacturers. The market is dominated by Siemens and GE. We saw how that affected one of Russia's gas compressors recently.

Perhaps a turbine manufacturer could license the technology to China so they can steal it and start building their own units instead of coal.

That would be an indirect way to cut the world's CO2 production.
 
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The "green extremists", with their gallon or so a second jet planes, are worried about exhaust gases? Sure
 
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Greg -

I recall looking this up awhile ago and finding out that the difference was huge. But, I can't find the sources I read back then.

However, the following article suggests it's more like 7.5 to 1.0 . However, that's with post production carbon capture.... maybe that's not implemented yet? And, closer to the 2 to 1 that you suggested without carbon capture for the gas turbines.


Also, the numbers I looked at recently suggest that China (while rapidly increasing their CO2 emissions) actually has a lot of low CO2 emission power as well. I certainly agree that places like China (as well as India and others) are a major issue with slowing down CO2 output. That's mostly because of a rapidly expanding economy. Not because their power is any less clean than ours. It's more because their economy is expanding so quickly that power demand is increasing so dang fast.



Hokie -

Take the case of Australia, for example. A large emitter of CO2 per capita, as dik likes to point out, but an insignificant emitter globally.
Click to expand...

Australia, as I understand it has dramatically moved away from coal power in recent years. And, plans to do even more of that over the next decade. Though they are still extracting their coal and selling it to other nations for power.

This is some of the goofiness of these policies. So, their energy prices will go up (because coal is so plentiful in Aus) when they shut down those plants. But, they will digging up the same amount of coal (probably more) and shipping it off to other countries instead. The result will be a net increase in the CO2 emissions per ton of coal extracted.... because of the cost of shipping that coal to china or india or where ever. I think the Australian government (if they're really serious about reducing CO2 emissions) needs to tax that coal extraction to subsidize their cleaner energy. Reducing the costs for the consumers of clean energy and increasing the costs for consumers of coal energy.

 
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China's per capita carbon is half the US and India's is about 1/10. They get blamed because their larger population yields a greater footprint. It's the political thing to do... and is an excuse for not doing anything. No one seems to be doing much about climate change, and we'll likely have to see how things will change. Once they start changing, there may be no turning back.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
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dik,

Your LP is stuck.

Josh,

Don't worry about that. Australian governments, both at national and state level, have never seen a tax they didn't like. Queensland, where I live and where most of the coal is extracted, has just increased its royalty/tax so that the highest value coal will be taxed at 40%.

 
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This is what happens when power supply becomes unreliable. The article implies corruption and poor management, not necessarily due to transition to other energy sources. They have apparently recently built two big coal fired power plants which don't work.


Another report:

 
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