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Topic: Weather, Climate, Environment, and Energy

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CWSooner

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2492 on: May 12, 2020, 11:57:59 AM »
Interesting word, "decimate."

It originated with the custom in the Roman army of punishing legions that disgraced themselves by executing every 10th man.
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Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2493 on: May 12, 2020, 12:11:19 PM »
Nuclear is one path to taking out the coal fired generating plants in the US.  If there is another cheaper path, great.

I keep going back to have a PLAN of some sort, instead of just saying "wind and solar" blah blah blah.

A plan, at least the general outline of a plan.  Will coal usage in the US go to near zero by 2030 without a plan of action?  Maybe so, then it doesn't matter what government does.

847badgerfan

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2494 on: May 12, 2020, 12:17:14 PM »
Every developer I've worked with on wind and solar plainly admitted they would not want it in their own back yard. That includes BP, Horizon and many of the other big boys.

I did a huge wind farm on I-65 in Indiana. Yuck.
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Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2495 on: May 12, 2020, 12:18:45 PM »
I know the EIA's projections have not been very good, so take this for whatever it's worth:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/coal-will-remain-part-of-the-us-grid-until-2050-federal-energy-projections-say/

Coal, one of the most carbon-emitting sources of energy, is still projected to provide 17 percent of the United States' electricity in 2050, and that's assuming that no carbon-capture technology has been made mandatory. Natural gas—a fossil fuel that is less carbon-emitting than coal but still a problem for climate change—will increase its share of US electricity production from 34 percent to 39 percent.

If coal does level off in the midteens by 2050, well, we would have missed a chance to implement a PLAN to cut it to near zero.

And yes, I am aware it is not far from 17% today, but I also know that the easy cuts happen first, and now we're probably looking at newer coal fired plants that are not amortized.  If the above projection is anywhere near true, what I've been saying here over and over and over is CLEARLY reality.


Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2496 on: May 12, 2020, 12:19:35 PM »
So, why is there no outline of a plan, a proposal, a how to get from here to there?

Is it because when you look at the hard numbers, you can't do it?

Oh yeah, wind and solar.

utee94

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2497 on: May 12, 2020, 12:23:12 PM »
Interesting word, "decimate."

It originated with the custom in the Roman army of punishing legions that disgraced themselves by executing every 10th man.
I actually knew that! :)


Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2498 on: May 12, 2020, 12:27:46 PM »
The word December comes from the same root of course, tenth month of the year.

The term Friday comes from the tradition of having fried chicken on Friday.

Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2499 on: May 12, 2020, 12:36:34 PM »
What would be our energy mix in 2030, or gigatons of CO2 produced in the US, under the following scenarios:

1.  Republicans are largely elected and little is done, or
2.  Democrats are largely elected and they do what they want for the most part?

If wind and solar are cheaper, won't that continue to replace fossil fuels fairly quickly?  What's the hold up here?  Does some government policy need to change to make this happen?

Presume normal economic growth, where will the US be in 2030 versus today?  

betarhoalphadelta

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2500 on: May 12, 2020, 12:39:30 PM »
The term Friday comes from the tradition of having fried chicken on Friday.
Not according to this... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday

Which makes sense, because I think the name of the day probably predates the invention of fried chicken...

NorthernOhioBuckeye

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2501 on: May 12, 2020, 12:55:02 PM »
The answer to that question is simple: what is the optimal climate?

The one which supports human life on this planet. There is an acceptable range of climate variance in which we can continue to grow crops, to live in most regions of the planet, to support a population of 7-10B people.

The concern is that we drift outside that range, what are the implications?

The earth doesn't give af. It's undergone 5 mass extinctions in history, and it's still here. So the question isn't what is the earth's optimal climate--it's what climate allows US as humans to thrive.

I think it's clear that climate is warming, and it's clear that a portion of that warming is due to CO2. That is undisputed.

The question is whether a warmer climate is adverse to our future?

True, but our burning of fossil fuels is equivalent to huge "natural" climate events happening every day, every month, every year, and always in the direction of adding CO2 to the atmosphere. Your point--that there are huge natural events that can swing climate--is valid. But most of those events are transitory or cyclical, not continuous. 

Agreed, and that IMHO is one of the blinds spots of the climate change alarmists. I think that many of them know NOTHING about economics. They assume that we can just stop producing CO2 and it won't have any negative effects, or that we can magically/economically transition to renewables by fiat.

It's why Cincy frames his argument the way he has done so--we're running this experiment through. Economically, the many third world nations trying to climb out of poverty--which are relying on cheap fossil fuel energy--will NOT simply give up their future economic success unless there's a breakthrough that makes renewables economically feasible to power their growth. That day may come, but it's not yet here.

I don't know. The world of 10,000 years ago wouldn't support 7B humans in an industrial society, so maybe we should try to avoid swinging the climate too far from a climate that we know actually WILL support 7B humans in an industrial society.

I think you're discounting the level of havoc that mankind could wreak. CO2 may be the least of our problems. We have enough nukes across the world that we could make Earth uninhabitable for humans in less than a day, and more and more nations trying to get them.

Which--if climate change really DOES cause adverse affects to our climate, may be more likely. What happens if we swing the pendulum far enough that we affect climate to the point where we can only grow enough crops for ~1B people? How much war, how much destruction, how much terror will occur to try to be one of those 1B rather than one of the other 6B?

You make a lot of valid points, but I do want to address the one in red. 

While I don't have the data in front of me and am really too busy go find it at the moment, there is debate as to whether or not C02 is a cause of warming is disputed. There is no concensus that it causes warming. There are those that believe that it is simply a by product of warming. 

And my point about the sun dictating out climate is that there is nothing we can do about that. The climate will do what the sun dictates. As for a massive nuclear event, if that happens, the climate will be the least of our worries. 



MichiFan87

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2502 on: May 12, 2020, 12:56:41 PM »
Wind and solar will continue to grow regardless while coal goes away.

Trump is just trying to delay the inevitable and his efforts have been largely ineffective.

Democratic states are accelerating the transition to renewables and Biden would do the same at a national level. Again, though, it really shouldn't be a political issue, and even in some moderate to conservative states (eg. Texas, Iowa, North Carolina, Arizona) it isn't.
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Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2503 on: May 12, 2020, 01:03:49 PM »
Well, it surely sounds as if we don't need any government action here, nor a plan, nor any kind of concise analysis, it's all going to happen, like magic.

I'm not so optimistic, nor so naive.


Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2504 on: May 12, 2020, 01:05:00 PM »
So, put it another way, two scenarios, what is our CO2 output in the US by 2030?

1.  Government intervention to accelerate change, and

2.  No government intervention.

Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2505 on: May 12, 2020, 01:19:27 PM »
 increased fossil fuel consumption drove an estimated 2.3% increase in Chinese CO2 emissions in 2018 and 4% in the first half of 2019, marking a third year of growth after emissions had appeared to level out between 2014 and 2016. Exacerbating this deteriorating picture is the fact that China started construction of 28 GW of new coal-fired power capacity in 2018 after lifting a previous construction ban, bringing its total coal capacity under construction to 245 GW. China’s recent increased coal consumption and development is inconsistent with the Paris Agreement, under which 1.5˚C compatible pathways for non-OECD Asia coal power generation would need to be reduced 63% by 2030 [below 2010 levels], leading to a phase-out by 2037. China’s emissions, like the rest of the world’s, need to peak imminently, and then decline rapidly.

https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/

China’s greenhouse gas emissions are projected to rise until at least 2030, although the rate of increase is projected to slow towards the end of the 2020s. Under optimistic renewables growth assumptions, energy-related CO2 emissions could level off over the next few years, but these emissions continue to grow in our upper-bound scenario. 


 

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