patrick.net

jazz_music says

By focusing on the choices in less overblown terms we can get closer to some practical solutions.

The problem is that "solutions" are proposed by people who are scientifically illiterate AND have self-interest in solutions they are peddling. Not different from "solutions" proposed by Big Oil. Just saying that solar or cellulosic ethanol is "green" does not make it green or practical in any way.

The only practical solution that involves cutting CO2 emissions to nearly 0 and does not decrease life quality of "deplorables" of all races and nationalities is nuclear power, which none of the "green whatever" people like. A rational solution thus would be to advance and research Th reactors, to re-burn nuclear waste a few times so that it gets really radioactive with short half-life, to build new, modern and safe nuclear reactors, and so on. Unfortunately, the trend-setting Hollywood celebrities, who are individuals we are supposed to turn to for "wise guidance" think that "green" involves things that are mostly not green in reality. Neither side of politicians discussing this shows any brain waves as well. Ms. Cortez is beyond any criticism in her lack of education and stupidity, to the point that it is not even worth discussing. This is conveniently combined with her self-righteousness and lack of ability to process new information on scale not seen before. Other side of discourse is in pocket of oil companies and Saudi Barbaria (which may be the same pocket).

I get that Step 1 with any problem is to admit that we have one. I am not 100% sure that we have a problem; having said that, even if chance of having that problem is 20%, we should do something as not doing anything has possible catastrophic results; furthermore, screwing over dictatorships such as Russia and Saudi barbaria is a worthwhile goal by itself. Step 2 is however even more important - what we do should mitigate the issue and not kill life quality of billions to make few select new oligarchs very rich. The Green new Deals I have heard about will not work and will benefit select few politically connected rich people to the detriment of everyone else.

Diversity has crippled the US ability to reach consensus on anything. Gone are the days that we could plan out grand projects to help future generations. Globalists have used diversity to divide our once great western civilization into tribalism that is easily manipulated.

'The Art Of The Deal'. Maybe Trump can fool Denmark into giving us Greenland by telling them they can have Germany in exchange.

jazz_music says

There are other choices, windmills don't really cause cancer, hydro not just from rivers but from ocean waves, tidal power, solar may fit into the picture too, perhaps the best is a blending of choices.

We need to look seriously at what the Europeans are doing that is working for them, instead of letting the rest of the world leave us behind so our rich pricks can keep their rate of returns optimal.

Wind kills bats in millions, other than that it may be OK - but it does not run all the time. Solar works in desert climates and covers up too much land - again, it may be a niche solution in some places. Hydro in rivers is the only currently realistic carbon neutral source besides nuclear, but it screws up eco-systems of rivers and can not work everywhere. Tidal I do not know much about.

The most successful Europeans are Icelanders with geothermal (not applicable everywhere, again a good niche solution), French with nucular, and Norwegians with hydro which is not applicable everywhere as well. Germans are doing worse WRT to emissions since they started their own Green deal.

If you look at link in #4 you will see that only countries with nuclear or hydro are extremely low-CO2 emitters.

Windmills dude, how many you gonna build? That’s a lot of fields to cover, and they don’t always work. How do you connect it all? How do you manage VAR? You can’t!

That’s fantasy land thinking with windmills, only nuclear can solve this problem.

jazz_music says

6rdB says

The only practical solution that involves cutting CO2 emissions to nearly 0 and does not decrease life quality of "deplorables" of all races and nationalities is nuclear power,

There are other choices, windmills don't really cause cancer, hydro not just from rivers but from ocean waves, tidal power, solar may fit into the picture too, perhaps the best is a blending of choices.

We need to look seriously at what the Europeans are doing that is working for them, instead of letting the rest of the world leave us behind so our rich pricks can keep their rate of returns optimal.

6rdB says

In short, poor people will be fucked because some scientifically incompetent utopians will make energy 5x more expensive, while not decreasing carbon emissions. One special interest - fossil fuels - will be replaced by another, so called "green" or "sustainable" or "clean" energy, whatever it means.

The Energiewende!

Fortwaynemobile says

Windmills dude, how many you gonna build? That’s a lot of fields to cover, and they don’t always work. How do you connect it all? How do you manage VAR? You can’t!

Most of the renewables under the Glorious Energiewende came from highly subsidized ethanol. Half of all of Germany's "Renewable" power. Of course, ethanol is grown with fertilizer using diesel powered tractors... plus the smoke belching diesel trucks hauling the fertilizer and the oil.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/05/06/the-reason-renewables-cant-power-modern-civilization-is-because-they-were-never-meant-to/#39129823ea2b

6rdB says

If you look at link in #4 you will see that only countries with nuclear or hydro are extremely low-CO2 emitters.

One of the tricks the Greenies play is to look at German Domestic Gross Capacity, rather than Gross Consumption. So it looks good they built so much Wind and Solar, until one realizes they've been importing electric from France and Poland to make up for the unreliability of wind and solar - those countries are running on Nuclear and Coal Plants.

Germany's share of renewables isn't impressive at all, in fact it's below the EU average. And that's counting biogas as "renewable".

To get there they doubled the average Residential/Commerical (but not Industrial, exempt) electric bill in Real Euros over the past decade or so, just to get a teeny increase in renewables.

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says

You are FREE! to worship the FUHRER!

Sorry to do this AF but I'm putting you on ignore. Your hatefilled passion is simply too much. You are too emotional and add nothing to a rational persons thinking. Good luck to you.

Sounds like a pretty awesome deal to me: show up for work, but don’t work, just hang out with your buddies and get paid well to listen to Trump. I don’t actually watch any of his rallies or speeches, but I would for $700!

As for unions...Trump is used to paying union men to do the work on his properties. I think he recognizes that unions have a place in America and are good for the working class and the economy.

Cheer, or we light the mother up!

jazz_music says

So do you think we maybe should heed all that wisdom of the ages???

@jazz_music,

BTW I am not downvoting you - even though I disagree with you, we are having a reasonable conversation without any insults.

jazz_music says

The old rules of politics no longer apply. The only language understood by Donald Trump and his coterie of con artists, billionaires, generals, misfits and Christian fascists—and a Democratic Party that has sold us out—is fear.

Is TDS about to turn violent? (again?)

Chris Hedges DOES have the most punchable face, though.

Press whores started seeding the Trump mental decllne scenario as soon as he announced his candidacy. And yet, IHLlary, Bernie, stoned immaculate Obama and Biden are their darlings?

6rdB says

I am not downvoting you - even though I disagree with you, we are having a reasonable conversation without any insults.

Thank you! I wish every user were like that.

I'm sure it's as unbiased and science driven as gender fluidity

TLDR

jazz_music says

is that bio-diesel?

No, right?

Anyway because of the positive impact on the infrastructure and all, we should throw bio-diesel into the trade-off studies.

Bioethanol can be made from corn (very bad ecologically) or waste cellulose (just bad or at best neutral). I read up about it a few years ago, and at that time only ethanol made from sugarcane in tropical countries such as Brazil made any environmental/economic sense. May be there is something new today, but I doubt.
Biodiesel in Europe is made from rapeseed, in US from soy. I do not think this is OK - burning food makes food prices go up, thus starving CHILDREN! and UNDERPRIVILEGED POPULATION GROUPS! Seriously though, I have not seen calculations on biodiesel - how much energy is gained (or lost, like in production of corn ethanol in US), and if it is environmentally friendly or not. I suspect not, since one needs craploads of pesticides. Without pesticides and intensive agriculture, we will need to put in more energy into biodiesel than we will get out of it for sure.

jazz_music says

The solutions must come from the same top systems integrators that design all the other complicated systems we enjoy as a society.

Alternatively, if we decentralize power production systems, we can screw over corporations/Big Oil/etc. Suppose we have a small but relatively efficient and non-polluting power generation system which we can install in our houses. Then most of oil-, coal-, etc lobby will disappear. I would be perfectly willing to have my own power generating system if I can hose Big Business and City Government. I would choose it even it is somewhat more expensive than power I have now. However, if I am FORCED to buy expensive power from Ms. Ocasio-Cortez/Al Gore power company, I might start rioting. That would not be MY choice anymore.

Unfortunately we do not have technology for efficient, small-scale power production yet.

jazz_music says

So there is no need to consume organic material that can be otherwise useful as food or something.

Turning McDonalds and other waste oil into biodiesel makes perfect sense - but this again would be a niche solution, although a very good one. Volume, unfortunately, will not be sufficient to replace diesel or gasoline significantly unless we all start consuming hamburgers on daily basis like our tweeter in chief.

At present they make most biodiesel from food, unfortunately.

6rdB says

Solar works in desert climates and covers up too much land

There are plenty of arguments against solar, but "covers too much land" is definitely not one of them. 5% of Arizona could be covered in solar panels and produce as much energy annually as is currently consumed in the entire country annually. Of course, we wouldn't run 100% on photovoltaics because of storage issues, distribution, cost, load balancing, etc. I'm just saying that the amount of land needed for solar is TINY !

Here's my calculation...

Total electrical use in the USA is about 4 trillion kilowatt hours per year.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/201794/us-electricity-consumption-since-1975/

A square meter solar panel can generate about 250 kilowatt hours per year with existing technology. That's conservative for optimum locations.
https://www.quora.com/How-much-solar-energy-can-be-tapped-in-1-sq-meter-on-a-roof

Sooooo..... 4e12 / 250 = 16 billion square meters = 16 thousand square kilometers . (remember, 1 square kilometer is 1000*1000 = 1 million square meters) . = 6150 square miles. It's about the area of Hawaii. It's a square 78 miles on each side.

If we placed ALL of that in the Arizona desert, it would consume about 5% of Arizona. That's a big area, but there's way more open desert space in and near Arizona.
https://state.1keydata.com/states-by-size.php

SunnyvaleCA says

Sooooo..... 4e12 / 250 = 16 billion square meters = 16 thousand square kilometers . (remember, 1 square kilometer is 1000*1000 = 1 million square meters) . = 6150 square miles. It's about the area of Hawaii. It's a square 78 miles on each side.

I've seen several times larger numbers
https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/calculating-ivanpahs-solar-sprawl
http://rameznaam.com/2015/04/08/how-much-land-would-it-take-to-power-the-us-via-solar/

6rdB says

SunnyvaleCA says

Sooooo..... 4e12 / 250 = 16 billion square meters = 16 thousand square kilometers . (remember, 1 square kilometer is 1000*1000 = 1 million square meters) . = 6150 square miles. It's about the area of Hawaii. It's a square 78 miles on each side.

I've seen several times larger numbers
https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/calculating-ivanpahs-solar-sprawl
http://rameznaam.com/2015/04/08/how-much-land-would-it-take-to-power-the-us-via-solar/

In post 31 above, I used 250 kilowatt hours / square meter / year for my generation figure. (kWh/m2/year) That was conservative. It corresponds, for example, to 1500 kWh/m2/year insolation and 17% efficiency. "Insolation" refers to total amount of sunlight energy falling; multiply by solar cell efficiency to get amount of usable energy generated. 250 kWh/m2/year is basically off-the-shelf solar cells in a decent, but not great, location (maybe Portland Oregon, with its highish latitude and a bunch of cloudy days).

That first article is self-inconsistent. First paragraph says location of SEGS installation has 2.7 kWh/hour/year insolation (total energy) and SEGS has 31% efficiency. 2.7 is about right for Arizona desert — the best we can do in the USA. 31% efficiency would, as the paragraph states, be truly excellent (and entirely possible). That means 800 kWh/m2/year — nearly 3x my figure (so only 1/3 of that 5% of Arizona needs to be covered) Then later there is a chart saying SEGS operation delivers 0.31 GWh/acre/year, which equates to 76 kilowatt hours per square meter per year. That is about 0.30 what I used in my calculation... so 17% of Arizona would be needed.

My guess is that their headline paragraph, which is touting currently-attainable efficiency is the correct figure, and the SEGS installation would only need to scale to less than 2% of Arizona to produce 100% of USA electricity. (caveats about storage and night time, etc., apply)

SunnyvaleCA says

Of course, we wouldn't run 100% on photovoltaics because of storage issues, distribution, cost, load balancing, etc.

Sure we could.

Convert the power to ethanol and use the existing infrastructure to ship it.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a23417/convert-co2-into-ethanol/

OK, it would introduce another step and another loss of efficiency, but I'm willing to give up another 5% of Arizona, no problem.

jazz_music says

plant system uses less than 50kWh per ton

Does this include energy required to grow plants? Or just oil processing energy?

6rdB says

SunnyvaleCA says

Sooooo..... 4e12 / 250 = 16 billion square meters = 16 thousand square kilometers . (remember, 1 square kilometer is 1000*1000 = 1 million square meters) . = 6150 square miles. It's about the area of Hawaii. It's a square 78 miles on each side.

I've seen several times larger numbers
https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/calculating-ivanpahs-solar-sprawl
http://rameznaam.com/2015/04/08/how-much-land-would-it-take-to-power-the-us-via-solar/

Second article seems to go with 70 to 80 kWh/m2/year. Still, that's only 16% of Arizona! If the south facing half of 20% of the houses in the USA were covered in panels, would that do it?

Another issue with solar panels is that they are by no means carbon-neutral. And they emit much more of some heavy metals than nuclear. See Fig 3 in the paper.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es071763q

Solar is 50% worse than nuclear for lifetime CO2 emissions per kilowatt-hour. Nuclear and wind tie for the best.

The study finds each kilowatt-hour of electricity generated over the lifetime of a nuclear plant has an emissions footprint of 4 grams of CO2 equivalent (gCO2e/kWh). The footprint of solar comes in at 6gCO2e/kWh and wind is also 4gCO2e/kWh. The best solar technology in the sunniest location has a footprint of 3gCO2/kWh, some seven times lower than the worst solar technology in the worst location (21gCO2/kWh). If we were running a civilization on ground based solar we would use a lot more bad locations.

In contrast, coal CCS (109g), gas CCS (78g), hydro (97g) and bioenergy (98g) have relatively high emissions

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/04/nuclear-energy-is-50-better-than-solar-for-lifetime-co2-emissions.html

6rdB says

Another issue with solar panels is that they are by no means carbon-neutral. And they emit much more of some heavy metals than nuclear. See Fig 3 in the paper.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es071763q

Solar is 50% worse than nuclear for lifetime CO2 emissions per kilowatt-hour. Nuclear and wind tie for the best.

The study finds each kilowatt-hour of electricity generated over the lifetime of a nuclear plant has an emissions footprint of 4 grams of CO2 equivalent (gCO2e/kWh). The footprint of solar comes in at 6gCO2e/kWh and wind is also 4gCO2e/kWh. The best solar technology in the sunniest location has a footprint of 3gCO2/kWh, some seven times lower than the worst solar technology in the worst location (21gCO2/kWh). If we were running a civilization on ground based solar we would use a lot more bad locations.

In contrast, coal CCS (109g), gas CCS (78g), hydro (97g) and bioenergy (98g) have rela...

My statement was that there were a bunch of problems (as you mention), but "not enough land" is certainly not one of them.

SunnyvaleCA says

"not enough land" is certainly not one of them.

Probably true for US - we have enough sunny desert land for solar panels. Solar definitely makes sense in sunny desert climates such as CA, AZ, etc - it does not make sense in N. Dakota where most energy is consumed in winter with short days and cloudiness, or Sweden, Germany, Canada. For those countries much more area would need to be covered.

6rdB says

SunnyvaleCA says

"not enough land" is certainly not one of them.

Prob true for US - we have enough sunny land for solar.

I wonder, what would be the efficiency and costs of high-voltage power delivery from Arizona to Canada? Does 80% of the world's population live with 1000 miles of a place with 2000 kWh/m2/year insolation? I'm guessing ... yes!

Where does the energy come from at night?

Batteries are helluva polluting. Batteries to cover night across the USA would be pollution crazy; and they don't last forever.

Don't forget their CO2 emissions in refining the materials they're made from, transporting them, or the land space they'd take up. And the constant rate of replacement. Also not very scaleable!

One of the biggest waste products of Rare Earth Mining for batteries and electronics is... Thorium. Why not use that waste, which is currently buried at big cost.

HonkpilledMaster says

Where does the energy come from at night?

Batteries are helluva polluting. Batteries to cover night across the USA would be pollution crazy; and they don't last forever.

That's why I mentioned "Of course, we wouldn't run 100% on photovoltaics because of storage issues, distribution, cost, load balancing, etc."

Check out salt water batteries. Check out pumped-storage hydroelectricity. If you don't care about portability then a whole lot of alternatives are available.

But ask yourself this... wouldn't it be potentially useful to get the low-hanging-fruit of solar power harnessed? Right now, households and businesses are encouraged to shift their electrical usage to night time to balance load. What if we could generate 20% electric needs during the day and balance the load that way. Then maybe we could even generate 40% of electric by solar and actively encourage people and business to use electricity during the day instead of night (think: charge your car during the day instead of 3:00 AM).

Yay! Let's bash Trump! Blah blah blah.

I'd like to see a scaled system of battery power that could handle a city of 500,000 for a 8 hour period first; pretty skeptical about the practicality of storing the energy in vast quantities.

The incidents you cite happened on Obama's watch.

6rdB says

it does not make sense in N. Dakota where most energy is consumed in winter with short days and cloudiness, or Sweden, Germany, Canada. For those countries much more area would need to be covered.

Definitely agree with this. So it might come down to 1000-mile-long transmission lines. I don't know if that is feasible.

Of course there is no need to forgo all solar panel technology because it's not viable everywhere. If the panels are effective in some areas when all "costs" are taken into account, then there may be good reason to deploy panels in those areas.

But another issues arises as well: Even if panels are good enough to improve energy generation in some areas, waiting a few years might result in better technology that vastly improves over what we could roll out today. Maybe it's better to suffer along with fossil fuels until really good technology can be rolled out.

Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors, replaced in a century by Fusion ;)

It would be funny if they were mostly inter agency infiltrators, and none of them knew it. "Uh, we have ten FBI infiltrators for every 'genuine' nazi white supremacist. Sig Heil!"
"Goddam, and I went and got a bunch of swastika tattoos for this undercover job, and the only people I tried to arrest were already working for the government!"

SunnyvaleCA says

Of course there is no need to forgo all solar panel technology because it's not viable everywhere. If the panels are effective in some areas when all "costs" are taken into account, then there may be good reason to deploy panels in those areas.

But another issues arises as well: Even if panels are good enough to improve energy generation in some areas, waiting a few years might result in better technology that vastly improves over what we could roll out today. Maybe it's better to suffer along with fossil fuels until really good technology can be rolled out.

I would gladly cover my house with solar panels, even though it would cost more than just getting electricity from power company since power companies are screwing all of us over. Unfortunately it is impractical here with hurricanes and bipolar weather of SE TX with freak hailstorms.

I suspect that price of electricity generated by solar is at this point limiting factor for many people. However, that should keep coming down with more research and improved production.