Things are Starting to Warm Up. 21

[dik]

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-...mothers-bear-brunt-climate-change-2022-06-14/

a sign of things to come... hold on to your hats, folks.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Do you feel any better?

-Dik

 

[IRstuff]

The "impossible" goals are possibly bigger motivators; the world thought that getting a man on the moon within 8 years in 1962 was "impossible," when we weren't even sure that the astronauts wouldn't just die from radiation exposure.

Not saying this is comparable, but human nature is such that incremental goals are not particularly motivating.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[Tomfh]

True. There's a psychological aspect to targets.

The moon target? Very ambitious for sure. That said, we'd already put men into orbit and got them back, so it was a logical extension. We haven't managed to cut fossil fuel use at all in 40 years. Our annual emissions have doubled in that time. And somehow we're going to suddenly cut to zero? How exactly? It makes zero sense. It's completely incoherent. And yet it's the only acceptable position to have. If you question the notion of Net Zero you're deemed a denier. It's just insane.

The reality is Net Zero is complete nonsense. We will continue to emit well past 2050. It'd be an astonishing achievement to be emitting less in 2050 than we are today.

 

[TugboatEng]

If the alarmists get what they want we'll be emitting more. 25 years to replace 125 years of energy infrastructure is going to greatly increase carbon emissions in that term.

IM has made it clear that his goal is not about reducing climate change but reducing humanity.

I don’t know what the solution is (or if there is an adequate one), but I do know that carrying on the way we have has a 100% probability of compound failure. Humans didn’t always burn coal, spread forever chemicals, walk the streets with loaded guns or elect psychopaths you know.

Let's turn this thread positive. Can anybody think of a broadly known policy or product that has reduced real world CO2 emissions? This must include start to finish CO2. We had a great debunking of Energy Vault here. What policy or projects have produced great CO2 reduction. I know there are a few. Maybe that will help motivate us.

I'll start, I believe variable frequency drives have contributed to a reduction in CO2 emissions. I also believe they're over-hyped.

 

[GregLocock]

A proper carbon tax is where I'd start, including on imports, and refunded on exports. My model would be a VAT, that is it gets passed along the food chain, so the ultimate consumer pays for all the incremental carbon use/sequestration as it moves from raw materials to end user. However this is meaningless unless it is global.

Pumped hydro is I think the poster boy for proven tech that works. All the good sites are gone.

On a much smaller scale LED lights and domestic heat exchangers help a bit.



Cheers

Greg Locock


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[rb1957]

"The outright failure to meet that will force them to accept that the Field of Dreams approach won't work." ...

greg, I never took you for an optimist !

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[rb1957]

There is a difference between ambitious goals and impossible ones ! Going to the moon was IMHO mostly a political statement, national prestige, countering the Soviet's in the Cold War, and not for overtly scientific reasons.

Greg is right (wow!) in that it'll take a lot of planning and a lot of spending before we're able to make significant reductions. And in that time the opposition will be bitching about spending without impacting the goal, and undercut any progress. For example ...
1) stop coal exports (wow !!) (keep the CO2 in the ground)
2) stop burning coal in power stations. Before this what alternate fuel stocks are there ? is fracking an option ? should fracking be an option ??
3) If no good alternative fuels, then alternative power stations ... solar, nuke, wind will take time to get online.

IMHO a modest strategy would be to plan to stop burning coal in power stations. To do this, plan to replace a limited number of power stations in four years. This'll give time to build some alternative (solar and wind for now, start planning for nukes in the future). This would set up the national strategy and show progress before the next election.

A really brave government would also reduce coal exports 50% in this term (ok, 10% might just be politically viable).



another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[LionelHutz]

I'll start, I believe variable frequency drives have contributed to a reduction in CO2 emissions. I also believe they're over-hyped.

Mostly over-hyped. VFDs are for process control. Using a VFD to reduce the work being done per period of time typically means both that the work is being done less efficiently and that it takes longer to do the total work you wanted done.

 

[dik]

Another thing going in the wrong direction...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/06/27/methane-emissions-rising-report/

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

-Dik

 

[dik]

That might be a place to start, but it has to be a 'sliding' tax, with everyone given an initial 'base' deductible, and it has to increase exponentially for those 'added' values. It has to address personal output, not industry output. Normally carbon taxes are just a means of avoiding the problem.

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

-Dik

 

[rb1957]

the problem I see with carbon taxes is that they just get swallowed into the government coffers.

Maybe if the money collected was spent on some carbon reduction program, like building solar farms ?

Don't know how to implement a "sliding scale". How do you measure "personal output" ?
You could make it less for truck diesel, which has dedicated pumps, to lessen the impact of transportation costs.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[TugboatEng]

We already have a carbon tax in a sense. There are two fundamentals factors that contribute to "cost". That's energy and labor. In our modern automated society energy is by far the largest determining factor in cost for most things. As the overwhelming majority of our energy comes from carbon, we may as well assume that the cost of something is driven by it's carbon footprint. That's a big reason why I'm skeptical of renewable energy projects. They're all very high "cost". Building a solar panel or a battery certainly isn't high labor.

 

[dik]

I'm not sure how a personal carbon output would be used. Carbon tax has to include people that have an unnecessarily high carbon footprint and they have to pay more... also events like Formula 1, etc. have to be 'hit' heavily. The carbon tax has to work on the output value beyond a reasonable personal limit. People need a basic amount for heating, travel, etc... anything more, gets 'hit' hard... and the more, the harder. That's why it has to be sliding.

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

-Dik

 

[IRstuff]

A carbon tax would exact a higher toll on the poor and disadvantaged, since they are most likely to be using the cheapest fuel available, which is FF. The better financially positioned have the luxury of using renewables because they can afford to do so.

So, a carbon tax would need to be progressive, but that would essentially turn a mandate into a goal, again.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[TugboatEng]

In my experience, the better financially positioned you are the more power you need which excludes the option of renewables. They can't keep up. Remember Al Gore's house?

 

[dik]

True there is a psychological influence on small targets vs big goals.
There are 1000 little things that on aggregate could have a big mitigation impact if governments would put little incentives in place. Things like various kinds of insulation, more efficient computer power sources. Things that do not cost taxpayers but save consumers money. But then beyond that leaders must show leadership by heavily taxing or outright banning the worst offending vanity items, like monster pickups and gasoline lawnmowers. Sadly Westerners would revolt over those impositions on their ‘rights’ and ‘freedoms’, and leaders are mostly cowardly.
We are stuck with reptilian politicians tuned to a 4 year election cycle (we have electoral politics, not direct democracy). They prefer big announcements that will ‘save the planet’ over the hard, unsexy work of improving 1000 small things. Also the American mantra of personal rights and freedoms works strongly against progress. (FYI TBE, that is not endorsing Marxism as you so ridiculously like to claim. If you even know what that is.)

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

[dik]

That's why I noted, "The carbon tax has to work on the output value beyond a reasonable personal limit."

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

-Dik

 

[TugboatEng]

The attack on "monster trucks" never made a lot of sense to me. Is it more wasteful to have a commuter car that you regularly use and a truck that you occasionally use or just a truck that you use all of the time?

As for the "monster" part? Customizing your truck is no more wasteful than an artist building a sculpture or a philosopher publishing a book. All of these things consume unnecessary resources without providing benefit to society.

 

[dik]

More whataboutery and point missing, TBE.
‘Monster pickup’ is merely representative of environmentally egregious, gratuitous consumer products that satisfy our need to be that actor we see in commercials.

You’re always either overthinking or underthinking, or moving the goalposts.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

[Tomfh]

I'll start, I believe variable frequency drives have contributed to a reduction in CO2 emissions. I also believe they're over-hyped.

Is my variable speed pool pump one of those? That unit has saved a bunch of electricity, (and the associated carbon emissions). Not as much of course as not having a pool at all. But it certainly works in terms of reducing the power the pool uses.

 

[dik]

Pools are mostly made using concrete

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."