Global warming solutions (on topic)

[billvon 2,392]

1 hour ago, ryoder said:

To locate charging stations, just pull up Google Maps, and search for: ev charging stations

Plugshare is another good app to help you find them, and allows you to filter by connector type.

[ryoder 1,381]

On 10/28/2021 at 9:03 AM, billvon said:

Plugshare is another good app to help you find them, and allows you to filter by connector type.

I just learned about this site from the DOE. It searches for 7 different types of alternative fuels, and lets you filter electric by charger type and connector type:

https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html#/find/nearest?fuel=ELEC

[timski 80]

On 6/28/2021 at 5:23 PM, billvon said:

 

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.

 

Look into the huge debacle that's taking place at the Dead sea.  Learn from that mistake.  

[timski 80]

On 6/29/2021 at 4:33 AM, 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.

Most recent in the wind problem is that it literally effects the weather. PROBLEM. Not to mention the needless killing of precious wildlife.  

[timski 80]

On 6/29/2021 at 1:45 PM, Bigfalls said:

Working toward the gradual reduction in world population would help.

Silver lining of covid?  What's the current global body count? 

[timski 80]

On 7/5/2021 at 9:31 AM, brenthutch said:

Two things,

1. Haber-Bosch uses fossil fuels

2. The observed greening of the planet is also occurring in areas that are not fertilized

More food, more population. See the problem? Not directed at you Brent. 

[timski 80]

Bezos and the Amazon problem aren't helping. What's the count on his fleet of vehicles??? 

[wmw999 2,120]

26 minutes ago, timski said:

Most recent in the wind problem is that it literally effects the weather. PROBLEM. Not to mention the needless killing of precious wildlife.  

Well, except for where the ocean life is building reefs and life is proliferating. Article in Oceanography

They do make it clear that it's not one-sided, and that more needs to be learned as this develops. There isn't much in a complex system that's wholly good or wholly bad.

Wendy P.

[kallend 1,622]

I drove to Midway Airport to pick up my wife on Thursday.  It took me 50 minutes for a 10 mile journey.  15 minutes of that time was spent waiting at traffic lights  (my GPS keeps track of stops). 

Almost all of the intersections involved unsynchronized, "dumb" lights with no sensors for traffic conditions, and most of them could well have been replaced by roundabouts which are well proven to improve traffic flow.  Most of the vehicles on the roads continue to emit CO2 when stopped at lights, and most have no regenerative braking so every unnecessary stop causes more fossil fuel to be burned.

 

We have engineered-in this wasteful and damaging congestion.

[gowlerk 1,904]

Just consider yourself lucky to be using Midway and not O’Hare.

[billvon 2,392]

On 11/5/2021 at 2:04 PM, timski said:

Most recent in the wind problem is that it literally effects the weather. PROBLEM. Not to mention the needless killing of precious wildlife.  

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

[metalslug 31]

On 6/29/2021 at 6:33 PM, olofscience said:

...wind and solar have achieved economies of scale and solar in particular has become the cheapest form of grid scale energy.

How much longer then until this can truly become a cheaper energy than fossil fuels for the average bill-paying user ?  The technologies are still heavily subsidised in most places, the consumers' utility bills are higher and the net-zero push includes proposed future taxes or bans on carbon emissions of fossil energy types. If  'green' technologies are an economic winner then why not allow them to compete fairly with other energy types? Users will surely gravitate to the cheaper energy on their own.   When Henry Ford started making cars he didn't call for a tax or a ban on the horse & cart....

On 11/7/2021 at 9:12 AM, 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

What is this showing exactly ?  Regardless of 'green' technologies we're always going to have domestic cats, glass buildings and power lines for quite some time. More turbines might logically imply more bird deaths but surely this should be compared to bird deaths caused by other energy types, if it's a specific criticism of wind turbines.

[brenthutch 383]

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

It’s not just the number, it is the type of bird killed. Cats kill sparrows, wind turbines kill eagles, hawks and other large raptors.  With the proliferation of wind turbines and their accompanying power lines these numbers will only continue to rise.  It’s not just birds, hundreds of thousands of bats are slaughtered each year in North America alone by wind turbines, threatening to disrupt entire ecosystems.

Edited November 8, 2021 by brenthutch

[olofscience 420]

46 minutes ago, metalslug said:

How much longer then until this can truly become a cheaper energy than fossil fuels for the average bill-paying user ?  The technologies are still heavily subsidised in most places, the consumers' utility bills are higher and the net-zero push includes proposed future taxes or bans on carbon emissions of fossil energy types. If  'green' technologies are an economic winner then why not allow them to compete fairly with other energy types? Users will surely gravitate to the cheaper energy on their own.   When Henry Ford started making cars he didn't call for a tax or a ban on the horse & cart

Brent has made this exact same argument several times, and you're using the exact same strawmen and goalposts that he did.

Strawman: that they're still heavily subsidised. They're not - read the IEA report.

Competing "fairly": all taxpayers have to deal with the costs of climate change, so why should fossil fuel companies get away with not including that cost into their energy? Not including that cost actually acts as a subsidy. Coal plants emit mercury into the air, for crying out loud. They got away with it for decades while getting to undercut all other competition because they didn't have to clean it up. Now that they do have to clean it up, they're actually more expensive, and now they're crying "unfair".

Edited November 8, 2021 by olofscience

[Phil1111 910]

12 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

It’s not just the number, it is the type of bird killed. Cats kill sparrows, wind turbines kill eagles, hawks and other large raptors.  With the proliferation of wind turbines and their accompanying power lines these numbers will only continue to rise.  It’s not just birds, hundreds of thousands of bats are slaughtered each year in North America alone by wind turbines, threatening to disrupt entire ecosystems.

Holy smoke Batman I didn't realize you were a humanitarian at heart. Your lifetime history of posts confused me.

Nothing has as much effect on wildlife as warming and the fires that result." Australia’s bushfire crisis was one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history. The fires killed or displaced nearly 3 billion animals."

[wmw999 2,120]

20 minutes ago, olofscience said:

Coal plants emit mercury into the air, for crying out loud. They got away with it for decades while getting to undercut all other competition because they didn't have to clean it up. Now that they do have to clean it up, they're actually more expensive, and now they're crying "unfair".

This. It's an example, not the whole. We've been paying in other ways for the costs of fossil fuels since their inception. That we didn't understand the dangers at the time doesn't mean that the downstream costs are negligible. All those roads that the government built to support the gasoline economy -- doesn't that count as a subsidy?

Consider lead in gasoline. And now, babies have more plastic in their poop than most adults. I'm sure it's good for them to be ingesting all that plastic. We have to protect the industry, after all.

Wendy P.

[Phil1111 910]

2 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

This.

Wendy P.

Minamata disease is just part of collateral effects for coal proponents.

[olofscience 420]

1 hour ago, metalslug said:

How much longer then until this can truly become a cheaper energy than fossil fuels for the average bill-paying user ?

I can also make your water bills cheaper by starting a sewage company that simply dumps all that sewage into the nearest river or coastline and not bother about the cost of building a sewage treatment plant.

Because forcing me to increase costs by building a sewage treatment plant would be "unfair competition".

Or a garbage disposal company who just dumps the garbage into any public land. Why should I care about leaching, smells, or wrecking public land? It'll make your municipal taxes so much cheaper.

[brenthutch 383]

32 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

Holy smoke Batman I didn't realize you were a humanitarian at heart. Your lifetime history of posts confused me.

Nothing has as much effect on wildlife as warming and the fires that result." Australia’s bushfire crisis was one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history. The fires killed or displaced nearly 3 billion animals."

“The gradual drying of the Australian continent over the last 15 million years has produced an ecology and environment prone to fire”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia

Australia burned long before the industrial revolution and it IS due to climate change, natural climate change.

[olofscience 420]

BH argument cycle:

• climate change isn't happening
• ok it is happening, but it's perfectly natural and humans have nothing to do with it <-------- we are here
• it is happening but there's nothing we can do about it, because China
• if renewables were so great why do they need subsidies* to compete with fossil fuels?
• rinse, repeat ad infinitum

[metalslug 31]

46 minutes ago, olofscience said:

Competing "fairly": all taxpayers have to deal with the costs of climate change, so why should fossil fuel companies get away with not including that cost into their energy? 

I take your point, although you're really saying that wind and solar should be cheaper (in consumer utility bills) than fossil, or will be cheaper than fossil once the taxes take effect. Alternatively worded you're saying wind & solar are cheaper clean energy than fossils (albeit not cheaper energy, period). I think it's rather important to include that qualifier in statements.

The comparisons you've made in your second post (fossil power vs public land dumps, sewerage in rivers) are hyperbole, unless you've had no faith at all in the EPA and related legislation for the last 50 years. I could make a comparable absurdity by saying that Bentley vehicles are cheaper than Dacia's because the latter 'get away' with not using Connolly leather and titanium. 

[gowlerk 1,904]

6 minutes ago, metalslug said:

The comparisons you've made in your second post (fossil power vs public land dumps, sewerage in rivers) are hyperbole, unless you've had no faith at all in the EPA and related legislation for the last 50 years.

So if you have faith in the EPA, which is just another branch of government that enforces policies for the common good why do you object to government policies that encourage less carbon emissions? Neither clean air and water, or reductions in climate change will happen without  organization. Individuals will tend to take the easy and cheap way of dumping sewage. We have been there and done that.

Edited November 8, 2021 by gowlerk

[olofscience 420]

8 minutes ago, metalslug said:

The comparisons you've made in your second post (fossil power vs public land dumps, sewerage in rivers) are hyperbole, unless you've had no faith at all in the EPA and related legislation for the last 50 years.

No they're not hyperbole, because they're dumping gases into the atmosphere that everyone breathes. And creating legislation (or empowering bodies like the EPA) to regulate that has been opposed by, no offense, people like you.

8 minutes ago, metalslug said:

I take your point, although you're really saying that wind and solar should be cheaper (in consumer utility bills) than fossil, or will be cheaper than fossil once the taxes take effect. Alternatively worded you're saying wind & solar are cheaper clean energy than fossils (albeit not cheaper energy, period). I think it's rather important to include that qualifier in statements.

They're already cheaper in most western countries. IEA report showing that is here and shorter article describing that is here.

Edited November 8, 2021 by olofscience

[brenthutch 383]

15 minutes ago, olofscience said:

 

6 minutes ago, olofscience said:

They're already cheaper in most western countries. IEA report showing that is here and shorter article describing that is here.

“Power prices in Germany are among the highest in Europe. The high costs partly are due to the mandatory support for renewable energy sources”

Edited November 8, 2021 by brenthutch

[metalslug 31]

7 minutes ago, olofscience said:

They're already cheaper in most western countries. IEA report showing that is here and shorter article describing that is here.

So which is it then ? You can't have it both ways. Either power from green is already cheaper than fossil, without subsidies, taxes or penalties for either, or it's not. If the former applies then my earlier comment about energy types competing fairly (and naturally drawing consumers to green) in the market should apply, or do the examples you've linked apply to countries that already penalise fossil power?