Global warming solutions (on topic)

[SkyDekker 1,123]

45 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

How many large predatory birds or bats do cats kill? 

“Unprecedented numbers of migratory bats are found dead beneath industrial-scale wind turbines during late summer and autumn in both North America and Europe,” says Paul Cryan, a research biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “There are no other well-documented threats to populations of migratory tree bats that cause mortality of similar magnitude to that observed at wind turbines.”

For tree bats. Not for bats, there is certainly a well-documented threat to bats outside of structures.

[brenthutch 383]

1 hour ago, SkyDekker said:

For tree bats. Not for bats, there is certainly a well-documented threat to bats outside of structures.

“Although migratory species are among the most numerous casualties, resident bats are also killed in substantial numbers, particularly in forested areas.”

Edited November 10, 2021 by brenthutch

[SkyDekker 1,123]

11 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

“Although migratory species are among the most numerous casualties, resident bats are also killed in substantial numbers, particularly in forested areas.”

Yup, but they are getting killed more by white-nose syndrome. When you start advocating for the federal government to seal of old mines and caves and mandate decontamination procedures for those who do gain access, then I'll start believing you actually care about the bats.

[billvon 2,400]

3 minutes ago, SkyDekker said:

When you start advocating for the federal government to seal of old mines and caves and mandate decontamination procedures for those who do gain access . . .

Not sure what you are saying here.  How will that hurt wind power and provide a chance for coal power to make a resurgence?  I mean, all that will do is save bats.  It's like you're talking nonsense.

[brenthutch 383]

3 minutes ago, SkyDekker said:

Yup, but they are getting killed more by white-nose syndrome. When you start advocating for the federal government to seal of old mines and caves and mandate decontamination procedures for those who do gain access, then I'll start believing you actually care about the bats.

“there have been widespread cave closures on federal lands in the eastern United States, where the disease has been most prevalent,”

Looks like it is being addressed, now on to wind turbines.

[metalslug 31]

10 hours ago, billvon said:

So: If people keep putting high altitude aerosols in the stratosphere, "in the next 50 years" that could cause a significant drop in temperature.  Then, if that temperature drop is "sustained over 5 to 10 years, such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age."

I agree with all that.

Did people keep putting high altitude aerosols in the stratosphere?

Yup, for the most part I expect they did.  'aerosols' is a rather widely-encompassing term and from the Washington Post article I expect they are referring to the kind of solid particles from fossil burning that obscure sunlight.  The only remediation that I've read about was  along the lines of "Coal-fired power stations in the US, Europe and Japan are compelled to fit bag filters to control particle emissions, flue gas desulfurisation to control sulfur dioxide emissions and selective catalytic reduction to control emissions of oxides of nitrogen." , and I'm aware of legislation for vehicles, catalytic converters and similar, but it's not global. That still leaves a significant portion of the world exempt and one may fairly assume there has been a lot more particulate-emitting fossil burning since 1971 proportionate to industry & population growth. Therefore, we've somehow shifted from '6 degrees lower within 50 years' (therefore expected now), to actually being around 1.5 degrees warmer.  It stretches credulity if you're saying that a handful of nations legislating and remediating their 'high altitude aerosols in the stratosphere' since 1971 have offset the predicted outcome by 7.5 degrees globally. Based on that, the article was alarmist IMO.

10 hours ago, billvon said:

I did say that if your goal is reducing bird deaths, then going after the larger causes first makes the most sense.

Then I expect you won't be criticising BH for deflecting emissions concerns to China. Fair enough.

[billvon 2,400]

27 minutes ago, metalslug said:

Yup, for the most part I expect they did. 

Nope.  Sulfate aerosols in the US (what everyone was worried about) have dropped by a factor of 20 since the 1970's due to environmental regulations on coal power plants.  The same SOx emissions causing problems in the stratosphere were not only causing breathing problems directly, but were also converting to H2SO4 (hydrochloric acid) in the lower atmosphere, and we decided that that's not the best thing to breathe.

And it's not just the US.  China's SOx emissions are dropping as well, although they are seeing more like a 3-4x decrease, since they worry about it less.  (And have been keeping records for a shorter time than we have.)

Indeed, people are even talking about spreading sulfate aerosols again in the stratosphere to try to counter the effects of AGW.

Quote

Then I expect you won't be criticising BH for deflecting emissions concerns to China.

It's a pity you stopped reading there.

In any case, please keep this thread on topic.  It's about global warming solutions, not global cooling.  (Of which aerosol injection is one.)

 

[JoeWeber 2,299]

5 hours ago, billvon said:

Not sure what you are saying here.  How will that hurt wind power and provide a chance for coal power to make a resurgence?  I mean, all that will do is save bats.  It's like you're talking nonsense.

Not really. Bats have few natural predators. Hence, nature provides diseases like white nose syndrome to control populations. Maybe more wind turbines equals less disease over time. In any case each wind turbine is killing +/- 10 bats per year. Science should be able to sort that out long before we run out of tree bats.

[olofscience 422]

4 hours ago, metalslug said:

Then I expect you won't be criticising BH for deflecting emissions concerns to China. Fair enough.

So nothing about my arguments why billvon's argument is valid while BH's isn't?

And by the way, while China has the highest emissions, they have less than 50% of the emissions per person compared to the US.

[brenthutch 383]

3 hours ago, olofscience said:

So nothing about my arguments why billvon's argument is valid while BH's isn't?

And by the way, while China has the highest emissions, they have less than 50% of the emissions per person compared to the US.

Please explain how the planet’s climate systems can discern emissions per capita vs overall emissions. If per capita emissions are worth mentioning, we should be talking about Montenegro (25.9 tons) not the US (15.5 tons)

[wmw999 2,123]

16 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Please explain how the planet’s climate systems can discern emissions per capita vs overall emissions. If per capita emissions are worth mentioning, we should be talking about Montenegro (25.9 tons) not the US (15.5 tons)

We can't fix Montenegro (well, other than by invading, a la The Mouse that Roared). We can work on ourselves. It's a rather powerful thing, to understand that one isn't perfect, or even that if one is perfect, one isn't in a perfect environment, and therefore can still improve things by changing.

Wendy P.

[olofscience 422]

16 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Please explain how the planet’s climate systems can discern emissions per capita vs overall emissions. If per capita emissions are worth mentioning, we should be talking about Montenegro (25.9 tons) not the US (15.5 tons)

You're not engaged in honest debate, as you don't actually care about bats.

But anyway, with a population of 0.6 million, compared to the US' 325 million, their total emissions aren't very significant. 

Before 2005 the US had the largest total emissions, but probably even then you'd find other ways to deflect, because again - you're not engaged in honest debate.

[brenthutch 383]

6 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

 

4 minutes ago, olofscience said:

You're not engaged in honest debate, as you don't actually care about bats.

 

You have no idea of what I care about 

“Bats are something of a one-species stimulus program for farmers, every year gobbling up millions of bugs that could ruin a harvest. But the same biology that allows the winged creatures to sweep the night sky for fine dining also has made them susceptible to one of Pennsylvania's fastest-growing energy tools.

The 420 wind turbines now in use across Pennsylvania killed more than 10,000 bats last year -- mostly in the late summer months, according to the state Game Commission. That's an average of 25 bats per turbine per year, and the Nature Conservancy predicts as many as 2,900 turbines will be set up across the state by 2030…Bats are nature's pesticide, consuming as many as 500 insects in one hour, or nearly 3,000 insects in one night…In all of Pennsylvania, bats saved farmers $277.9 million in estimated avoided costs.”

Pennsylvania is where I live, don’t tell me I don’t care.  This situation is only going to get worse as PA plans to increase the number of turbines X6.  

[olofscience 422]

2 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Pennsylvania is where I live, don’t tell me I don’t care.

You don't care about bats, brent.

Yes, I'm quite sure how dishonest you're being. Because in another thread you actually started arguing against grid-scale batteries as "renewable energy" when they weren't - the slightest link to Tesla triggered you.

You can lie to yourself that you care about bats, but several posters here already expressed scepticism.

Anyway, getting back to the topic - there are possible mitigations for avoiding bat deaths from wind turbines, are you aware of any of those?

[brenthutch 383]

37 minutes ago, olofscience said:

You don't care about bats, brent.

Anyway, getting back to the topic - there are possible mitigations for avoiding bat deaths from wind turbines, are you aware of any of those?

Of course, as I said I care.  “feathering” the blades during peak feeding hours for one however this greatly reduces the power output of the turbines and further contributes to the problem of intermittency 

[billvon 2,400]

3 hours ago, olofscience said:

Anyway, getting back to the topic - there are possible mitigations for avoiding bat deaths from wind turbines, are you aware of any of those?

In Norway, an experiment that painted a single turbine blade black reduced bird deaths by 70%.

In the US, an experiment run by Texas State University used an ultrasonic emitter that emitted ultrasound between 20 and 50KHz (above the range of human hearing.)  This tends to annoy bats since it uses the same frequencies they use for echolocation.  A two year experiment ended up reducing bat deaths by 54%. 

[olofscience 422]

Just to lay to rest the common myth about "global cooling" being the main thing scientists were saying in the 70s:

A study was done counting the papers published between 1965 and 1979:

• 7 articles predicting cooling
• 44 predicting warming
• 20 that were neutral
• 

Source, because I'm not brent: https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf

An easier to read article discussing the same strawman: https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-did-climate-science-really-call-for-a-coming-ice-age/

Edited November 10, 2021 by olofscience

[wmw999 2,123]

Oooh  - data!

Wendy P.

[SkyDekker 1,123]

2 hours ago, olofscience said:

Just to lay to rest the common myth about "global cooling" being the main thing scientists were saying in the 70s:

A study was done counting the papers published between 1965 and 1979:

• 7 articles predicting cooling
• 44 predicting warming
• 20 that were neutral
• 

Source, because I'm not brent: https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf

An easier to read article discussing the same strawman: https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-did-climate-science-really-call-for-a-coming-ice-age/

Unless you can turn it into a meme, that shit means nothing!

[brenthutch 383]

4 hours ago, wmw999 said:

Oooh  - data!

Wendy P.

Not data, just guesses.

[brenthutch 383]

https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/

[wmw999 2,123]

The data was the count of papers. When the topic includes the amount of discussion on a subject, then the number of papers published in a period would constitute data. 
Wendy P. 

[billvon 2,400]

Two of the more important solutions to the problem of CO2 emissions are solar and storage; they will both go a long way towards reducing/eliminating CO2 emissions from power plants.  And there's some more good news on that front.  NREL has new cost per watt numbers for systems installed in 2021 to date.

 

$2.65/watt for residential PV  (down 3% from last year)
$4.50/watt for residential PV + one day energy storage

$1.14/watt for grid scale PV   (down 12% from last year)
$1.60/watt for grid scale PV + 4 hours energy storage

Overall residential storage is down 10%, grid scale storage is down 3%.

Solar is already the cheapest form of power we have.  The problem is that it's intermittent.  Solar plus 4 hours of storage is now cheaper than nuclear, coal and turbine natural gas (i.e. peaker plants.)  Still not cheaper than natural gas combined cycle plants, due to their greater efficiency.  But since they can be ramped almost instantly and built within about a year (instead of a decade) they are going to be the answer to a lot of utility's short term problems.

 

https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy22osti/80694.pdf

https://cleantechnica.com/2021/11/13/solar-pv-pvstorage-costs-keep-dropping-new-nrel-reports-show/?fbclid=IwAR3aq5Y6GuA10X_5Xeooa3WewXWPfYpCbTld8D_9jmlsy1sDgDOvJfZOBL8

[Phil1111 911]

9 hours ago, billvon said:

Two of the more important solutions to the problem of CO2 emissions are solar and storage; they will both go a long way towards reducing/eliminating CO2 emissions from power plants.  And there's some more good news on that front.  NREL has new cost per watt numbers for systems installed in 2021 to date....

Excellent info as usual.

[timski 80]

On 11/6/2021 at 6:12 PM, billvon said:

Wind turbine bird deaths: 234,000
Powerline bird deaths: 25,000,000
Glass building collision bird deaths: 600,000,000
Domestic cat bird deaths: 2,400,000,000

See the trend? It's US!!!