Global warming solutions (on topic)

[billvon 2,379]

Figured I'd start a thread to list solutions and mitigations for global warming.  This is going to be a list (that I will update) - discussions will come in follow-on posts.

Reducing CO2 emissions by switching to alternatives:
1) EV subsidies/mandates/research.  17% of US CO2 emissions currently come from light duty gas and diesel vehicles.
2) Truck replacement.  7% of US CO2 emissions come from these.  Possibilities include EVs, catenary systems and alternative fuels (hydrogen, biogas.)
3) Moving the grid to nuclear/renewables/storage/gas backup. (25% of US CO2) Nuclear for baseload, renewables for synchronous and opportunity loads, biogas as peaker.
4) Repowering thermal processes with direct solar (cement kilns, etc)
5) Support for mass transit

Reducing CO2 emissions in other ways:
1) Population control
2) Switching to a more plant based diet

Efficiency/synchronicity:
1) Standards for lighting/refrigeration/HVAC
2) Thermal storage for HVAC and refrigeration
3) "Start-stop" industrial process research (for synchronous loading)
4) Improved insulation/window standards
5) Heat pumps for domestic hot water and heating/cooling
6) More local agriculture/manufacturing/workplaces - minimize transportation distances
7) Traffic reduction projects (traffic circles, tunnels to reduce distances/travel times)

Geoengineering:
1) Increasing local albedo (white paint/asphalt/roofs basically)
2) Stratospheric sulfate injection
3) Crop choices (higher CO2 capture, higher albedo, lower water use)
4) Reforestation (in some areas)
5) Reflooding of dry lakes with seawater (Salton, Sahara, Badwater etc)

Getting more water as the climate warms:
1) Desalination with hydrostatic power storage.
2) Cover all canals with PV covers.  Reduces evaporation.  Use the power to run the desalinators.

Replacements for potable water:
1) Recycled water for irrigation, cooling and flush toilets.  Filters sewage water.
2) Seawater delivery for cooling, pools and toilets.  Also allows low intensity (i.e. solar) desalination locally.
3) Greywater for irrigation (homes and businesses.)

Conservation of water:
1) Mandated recycling/water recovery for things like waterparks, car washes and 
2) Mandates for low water use washers, dishwashers, toilets and showers
3) Crop change (from water intensive to water conserving)
4) Restrictions on large areas of grass (golf courses etc)

Humanitarian measures:
1) Resettlement of people displaced by flooding/extreme weather
2) "Cooling refuges" in the hottest environments
 

[kallend 1,618]

Traffic engineering.  Replace traffic lights with roundabouts.  Eliminate 4-way stops at intersections.

[wmw999 2,114]

Food supply & transportation:

Where possible, provide subsidized space for farmers' markets and CSA's, and make it easy for local people to participate in them.

Locally, Massachusetts has a program that subsidizes farmers' market purchases for Food Stamp recipients; it gives them better access to healthier food than many groceries, and helps the local farmers as well. This goes towards reducing transportation of foods as well. It's well-received.

The downside is that this sometimes means either a smaller variety (exactly what there was say 30 years ago), or more expensive food.

Which brings me to my second point -- the social engineering (if you want to call it that) to make buying locally-produced goods more desirable than buying the maximum amount of goods. It's so cheap to buy way more crap than you need; maybe making the benefits of buying a little less crap, but showing the advantages of buying it (more local jobs, better quality, whatever is applicable).

Wendy P.

[Phil1111 901]

Pricing, i.e taxing carbon. As much as I hate paying $1.35 a liter for gas($4.13 US per US gallon). Its the most effective way to move to more efficient, EV use and reduce carbon.

US State Gas Price Averages

World Gas Prices

[airdvr 197]

I agree with most of what you've posted with the exception of the water issue.  Lack of water is a western 3rd of the US problem.  Not a fan of having federal water conservation measures that are unnecessary for 2/3's of the country.  20% of the world's freshwater supply is a few miles north of me.  Ought to be a way to somehow utilize that to help.

Also, I've said in the past that going green without nukes is a tall order.

[olofscience 420]

4 hours ago, airdvr said:

Also, I've said in the past that going green without nukes is a tall order.

I'm a fan of nukes. But only as a technology, not as an energy policy.

It's just too expensive - waste disposal is extremely expensive and it's not really solved yet. You can't avoid waste, it's in their nature to make actinides unless you use fast neutron reactors - otherwise known as fast breeder reactors. Which are in themselves extremely expensive to design, build and maintain. Not to mention the proliferation risk. It's not even that we lack the technology to make them cleaner, it's just the laws of physics. The new reactors being developed only aim to make them safer or cheaper to maintain, not cleaner.

As already posted several times - wind and solar have achieved economies of scale and solar in particular has become the cheapest form of grid scale energy. Nuclear is a nice R&D project, I'd like to keep researching it because it's cool and potentially useful for things like space exploration. But for practical energy needs wind and solar are already here. The massive solar and wind projects ongoing actually prove that.

[Phil1111 901]

2 hours ago, olofscience said:

I'm a fan of nukes. But only as a technology, not as an energy policy.

It's just too expensive - waste disposal is extremely expensive and it's not really solved yet. You can't avoid waste, it's in their nature to make actinides unless you use fast neutron reactors - otherwise known as fast breeder reactors. Which are in themselves extremely expensive to design, build and maintain. Not to mention the proliferation risk. It's not even that we lack the technology to make them cleaner, it's just the laws of physics. The new reactors being developed only aim to make them safer or cheaper to maintain, not cleaner.

As already posted several times - wind and solar have achieved economies of scale and solar in particular has become the cheapest form of grid scale energy. Nuclear is a nice R&D project, I'd like to keep researching it because it's cool and potentially useful for things like space exploration. But for practical energy needs wind and solar are already here. The massive solar and wind projects ongoing actually prove that.

You forgot the biggest strike against nuclear. Its politically toxic. Nobody wants one in their neighborhood. Further to your point(s):

"actual average reported by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s lobbying organization. Nonetheless, Lazard’s comparison between new electricity resources is stark:

Nuclear power: $118–192/MWh (of which $29 is typical operating cost)

Coal power: $66–132/MWh (of which $33 is typical operating cost)

Combined-cycle gas power: $44–68/MWh

 Utility-scale solar power: $32–42/MWh

 Onshore windpower: $28–54/MWh"

[brenthutch 383]

35 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

"China today the world’s largest producer of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles, but it has also been the top investor in clean energy for nine out of the last ten years, according to the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management"

“China has been the world’s largest carbon emitter for 20 years. It’s been responsible for 28% of the world’s carbon emissions for the past decade. That number hasn’t budged, despite rapid growth of China’s renewable energy and clean tech industries”

Edited June 29, 2021 by brenthutch

[Phil1111 901]

"The U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords under President Donald Trump provided China an opening to seize. America’s abandonment of global leadership on the issue was thrown into sharper focus by Trump’s empty chair during a climate change discussion at August’s G7 meeting in France. “The U.S. administration is not particularly interested in renewables at home let alone overseas,” says Simon Nicholas, an analyst for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Now, China has firmly established its leading position in renewable energy output, as well as in related technologies such as electric vehicles, transmission lines and battery storage, and Beijing is managing to weaponize green technology in a way that strategic rivals like the U.S. may struggle to counter."

[wmw999 2,114]

And we can’t fix China; only China can fix China. We can fix ourselves. Cutting our per capita emissions will help, and each capita can figure out what works for them. 
Wendy P. 

[billvon 2,379]

10 hours ago, airdvr said:

I agree with most of what you've posted with the exception of the water issue.  Lack of water is a western 3rd of the US problem.  Not a fan of having federal water conservation measures that are unnecessary for 2/3's of the country.

Agreed.  And Denver won't have to deal with sea level rise, and New York won't have to consider reflooding dry lakes with salt water.

Those aren't a list of "everyone has to do these" mitigations.  It's a list of things we may have to get better at as more and more people experience the bad effects of climate change.

[billvon 2,379]

10 hours ago, airdvr said:

Also, I've said in the past that going green without nukes is a tall order.

Nuclear power will probably be have to be part of a decarbonization effort.  It will also be the most expensive form of power we could implement.  We would be wise to limit its use to no more than baseload.

[SkyDekker 1,119]

11 hours ago, airdvr said:

I agree with most of what you've posted with the exception of the water issue.  Lack of water is a western 3rd of the US problem.  Not a fan of having federal water conservation measures that are unnecessary for 2/3's of the country.  20% of the world's freshwater supply is a few miles north of me.  Ought to be a way to somehow utilize that to help.

Also, I've said in the past that going green without nukes is a tall order.

Time to start to build a dam to protect the Canadian part of those lakes.

[Bigfalls 110]

Working toward the gradual reduction in world population would help.

[piisfish 135]

Reduce global consumption. 

[JerryBaumchen 1,046]

2 hours ago, Bigfalls said:

Working toward the gradual reduction in world population would help.

Hi Big,

I think that this is the ONLY solution if we are to reach sustainability.

Jerry Baumchen

[tonyhays 86]

Space based solar power generation.  

https://spacenews.com/chinas-super-heavy-rocket-to-construct-space-based-solar-power-station/

[olofscience 420]

1 hour ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Big,

I think that this is the ONLY solution if we are to reach sustainability.

Jerry Baumchen

You know what causes steep drops in birth rate?

Educating women and giving them a higher income.

[wmw999 2,114]

7 minutes ago, olofscience said:

You know what causes steep drops in birth rate?

Educating women and giving them a higher income.

Tô go along with that, you have to figure out how to have an economy that doesn’t depend on a growing population for health. 
Wendy P. 

[billvon 2,379]

8 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

Tô go along with that, you have to figure out how to have an economy that doesn’t depend on a growing population for health. 
Wendy P. 

And that, in turn, requires to get away from debt as our primary means of wealth creation.

[Phil1111 901]

3 hours ago, Bigfalls said:

Working toward the gradual reduction in world population would help.

Sorry thats a common misconception.

Oxfam released a study that found the richest 10 percent of people produce half of the planet’s individual-consumption-based fossil fuel emissions, while the poorest 50 percent — about 3.5 billion people — contribute only 10 percent. Yet those same 3.5 billion people are “living overwhelmingly in the countries most vulnerable to climate change,” according to the report. According to the data used by the report, individual consumption — as opposed to consumption by governments and international transport — makes up 64 percent of worldwide climate emissions.

1 hour ago, piisfish said:

Reduce global consumption. 

^This,^ see above and:

Private Planes, Mansions and Superyachts: Calculating Billionaires' Massive Carbon Footprint

'We found that billionaires have carbon footprints that can be thousands of times higher than those of average Americans....

Residents of the U.S., including billionaires, emitted about 15 tons of CO2 per person in 2018. The global average footprint is smaller, at just about 5 tons per person.

In contrast, the 20 people in our sample contributed an average of about 8,190 tons of CO2 in 2018. But some produced far more greenhouse gases than others.

Brent will be along soon to explain "per capita" and blame China. Rather than personal responsibilities and individual outcomes of personal choices.

[Phil1111 901]

14 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

Tô go along with that, you have to figure out how to have an economy that doesn’t depend on a growing population for health. 
Wendy P. 

Most often defined as rising GDP.

3 minutes ago, billvon said:

And that, in turn, requires to get away from debt as our primary means of wealth creation.

Yes, debt, consumption and GDP as the symbols of success. Rather than a healthy, happy society living in balance with nature. The true carrying capacity of the ecosystem.

[wmw999 2,114]

Kind of like how the Native Americans lived before we came around? Of course, there were wars and competition and cruelty there; that's a part of human nature just like the good stuff.

Wendy P.

[olofscience 420]

45 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

The true carrying capacity of the ecosystem.

The capacity actually depends on technology - a given land area will only feed a few people if they hunt and forage, but will feed more if they farm and raise livestock, and even more if they have modern farm technology.

Prior to the development of nitrogen fertilisers, crop productivity was extremely limited by nitrogen. Famines and crop failures were quite regular. We've managed to remove that limitation in the 20th century with the Haber-Bosch process causing the boom in food production that Brent keeps attributing to CO2.

[billvon 2,379]

1 hour ago, Phil1111 said:

Yes, debt, consumption and GDP as the symbols of success. Rather than a healthy, happy society living in balance with nature. The true carrying capacity of the ecosystem.

Agree with consumption.  But debt and GDP are just abstractions that we use to get people to work.  In the end analysis, all value comes from labor, and to a large degree money, debt, mortgages and the like are just ways to get people to work (and to value that work.)

Of course that system isn't working well nowadays.  The problem is that there's no good replacement that works to accurately value the externalities that we're talking about here (resource depletion, CO2 increases, plastic trash in the ocean, air and water pollution etc.)  Carbon taxes are an imperfect way to do it, but may work.