The wheels are falling off the Net Zero bandwagon

NSW is subsidising a coal fired power station to keep going after its scheduled shutdown.

Air NZ has cancelled its Net Zero by 2050 pledge.

NY is relying on some magic technology (DERFs) which hasn't been invented yet to be deployed at scale by 2030 to get them on the path to Net Zero.

UK is also relying on unproven technology to store its unreliable green energy.

Australia wide the amount of solar, wind, transmission lines and storage being installed is a fraction of that needed to hit 80% co2 reduction for electricity by 2030 or whatever the target date is.

EV sales are falling in many countries, as their rich early adopter market dries up.

CO2 emissions of course continue to increase.


Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

Greg -

The reason why this is failing is because the governments don't have sufficient CONTROL over their people to force it down our throats. The question is will governments be granted this control, or will people revolt from it?

I see evidence that people are revolting from this. Look at the farmers in Europe that have been protesting all these draconian EU policies. This is what happens when bureaucrats in ivory towers that have never been to a farm listen to academics (who also live in ivory towers and have never been to a farm) about what sort of polices they should implement for these uneducated hicks to stop them from polluting or something.

Josh,

You are right that governments will not be granted that degree of control. Even in totalitarian countries like China, they can't do it. You just can't do the impossible.

The unelected California Air Resource Board has achieved that level. They answer to nobody and anything they say becomes law.

What level? Who is doing the measurements, and the definition, for that matter.

It's all over the place. They just arbitrarily make rules.

They set phase our dates for nearly new engines.

They mandate smoke testing, mandate existing automotive test standards that cannot be performed on marine or constant speed engines, then allow such an absurdly high opacity that no engine can fail.

They are requiring replacement of nearly new engines requiring millions of dollars per vessel and months of downtime in order to add SCR. Our engines run at a 15% lifetime load factor so there is zero benefit to adding SCR to our systems.

The only check so far is that they're trying to mandate DPF which puts them at odds with EPA and US Coast Guard publicly refuses to enforce the rule due to fire hazards. Due to our low load profile we're going to have to add duct burners to support DPF and most of our boats don't have the fuel capacity to support it.

Hydrotreated vegetable oils have introduced some unexpected problems that will likely be learned about the hard way. I caught the first one.

I know that California regulation is out of this world. I thought you were saying that by these draconian means, they had achieved 'Net Zero', which is the subject of this thread.

I would argue that their draconian measures have achieved net zero emissions reduction and in fact have caused the opposite. One of our engine suppliers wants us to operated our engines at full power for an hour every 8-12 hours to clean out our SCR units ($$$ from our pockets). That nearly doubles our daily fuel consumption because we have to do it outside of our normal activities. We're also not able to put 6000-7000 horsepower to the water everywhere in the harbor so we have to transit to areas we can burning additional fuel and crew hours.

TugBoat said:

The unelected California Air Resource Board has achieved that level. They answer to nobody and anything they say becomes law.

Click to expand...

So, they (california regulators) are pretty successful on draconian regulations that affect utilities, oil refining and that sort of thing. It's one of the main reasons why the cost of living in CA is so dang high.

That being said, they TRY to do the same thing with cars. But, it always fails. They pass laws that take effect 10 years down the road. They virtue signal and pat Then 8 years later the either completely repeal the law or push it down the road another 10 years..... Because even the uber-leftist (pun intended) California voter rebels against these measures when they see how they affect real life.

Last night the ABC - perhaps the greatest champion of Net Zero transition - had an expose on “demand” metering. Heartstrings images of little old ladies freezing due to lack of affordable power.

Not a single word from our national broadcaster that punitive demand metering, ie peak usage restrictions, is precisely what you can expect in a grid that increasingly unable to meet peak demand.

For those is other parts, Tomfh is referring to ABC Australia, the federally funded broadcaster and socialist promoter of the Labor Party.

Even Labor is a little too right wing for auntie. They’ll definitely take labor over the coalition, but their hearts lie in green/teal land.

Also known as fairyland.

I don't why there seems to be so much glee here?

I also don't know what the storage issue in the UK is??

I understand there are those who don't believe that the earth is warming up at a frightening rate causing all manner of climate changes very rapidly or that simply because what ever we do is going to involve change and higher process, that we actually have any real option if the generations after us will survive and prosper in the same way we have, which was made possible by low priced energy (mainly oil and gas). There are consequences for every decision and action and now IMHO, we need to act to reverse or at least slow the use of fossil fuels.

So yes, Tug may be being caught out by rules designed for ships engines which run continuously, but this is essentially small change when looking at the bigger picture.

Doing nothing is not an option IMHO.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

People enjoy being right, even if it's an I told you so.

LittleInch, I suggest you study "meltwater pulse 1a".

So what?

The climate is changing extraordinary rapidly at present.

Are we just supposed to do nothing??

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

As I said, you should look into meltwater pulse 1a. If you do, you'll learn that there is nothing extraordinary about the rate climate is changing today. Sea level rise has occurred at 100x the rate it is today and within the history of modern humans.

Yes, doing nothing consumes much less energy and resources contributing less to climate change.

The climtae is changing very slowly at the moment. It warmed just as rapidly in the 1910s, far more rapidly in the years after the little ice age, and in paleohistory has regularly been warmer than this. Hurricanes are down, tornadoes are down, really we are just seeing a slow warming as we come out of the last ice age. There may be (I think there is) a slight increment of warming caused by man's activities, and the scary high temperatures you see are pretty much caused by the siting of thermometers in large cities, which are measurably 6 degrees F warmer than the surrounding countryside.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

LittleInch said:

There are consequences for every decision and action and now IMHO, we need to act to reverse or at least slow the use of fossil fuels.

Click to expand...

Aren’t you in the petroleum industry?

I don't disagree with cutting back on fossil fuels, at least for my home country. But I don't think that global warming over-hype is the driving rationale, either. I think we can cut our usage, and dependence to whatever extent on foreign supplies and the strategic problems that go along with it, to our net benefit. We'd employ a lot more people in the construction, maintenance and repair of solar, wind, hydro, and mostl of all nuclear power plants.

I think Greg's posts are less glee than pointing out the transparency of the emperor's new clothes. You don't need to be a genius to see that Net Zero is not something than can be forced to happen, yet, at least not without something more substantial than carbon taxes and political speechifying. I'm saying we need a realistic plan, with realistic costs and realistic construction schedules, and then the political will of our leaders to drive the implementation. With all the left-most and right-most nut jobs hogging the limited bandwidth of the typical party members, I don't know if it can happen. Yet.

I would say that Greg's thread title is somewhat misleading, i.e. I don't think the wheels were ever fully installed on the bandwagon, they were just sketched in with the equivalent of a whiteboard marker.