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Blueprints For Taming the Climate Crisis
mdsolar sends this story from the NY Times:
Here's what your future will look like if we are to have a shot at preventing devastating climate change. Within about 15 years every new car sold in the United States will be electric. ... Up to 60 percent of power might come from nuclear sources. And coal's footprint will shrink drastically, perhaps even disappear from the power supply. This course, created by a team of energy experts, was unveiled on Tuesday in a report for the United Nations (PDF) that explores the technological paths available for the world's 15 main economies to both maintain reasonable rates of growth and cut their carbon emissions enough by 2050 to prevent climatic havoc. It offers a sobering conclusion: We might be able to pull it off. But it will take an overhaul of the way we use energy, and a huge investment in the development and deployment of new energy technologies. Significantly, it calls for an entirely different approach to international diplomacy on the issue of how to combat climate change.
I look forward to the enlightened, reasonable debate to follow. Please chain down your chairs and pop some popcorn.
I live in Montana and I'm rather looking forward to global warming. This place is gonna be even more amazing when it gets warmer. I might even have to buy a summer home in the Yukon.
On a slightly more serious note, as Winston Churchill once said, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."
----- obSig
How about we just use nuclear power for most cases because it's more efficient, safer, etc.?
How about we just use electric cars for most cases because they're simpler, more efficient, etc.?
How about we just stop using coal because it's fucking terrible all around?
Why do we need a climate change bullshit bogey man to get politicians to stop blocking natural progress?
Did you bother to note the rather important fact that none of our modern crop foods were alive during that time period. Adaptation of plant and animal life to major geologic changes doesn't happen in a century.
The problem we face isn't one of extinction of life on earth, but the inviability of meta-stable ecosystems we and our economies rely on.
Because the real benefit of the fossil fuels is the high density of the stored energy.
Give me the technology to build a battery that can power an electric car for 500 miles, and ...
Electric cars can now work for 99% of the population - all running on power they store overnight/while at work.
Solar can now store enough to last not only through the night but also through a cloudy day.
Wind based energies can now store enough to get through some calm days
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Let's just pretend for a moment the answer to that question isn't yes
That wasn't even the point being made. It's the temperatures that are the threat to modern forms of plant, not CO2 concentration. Any farmer will tell you about the importance of climate to growing a particular crop.
Fifteen years for a dramatic ramp-up of nuclear power anywhere outside of China?! Not possible. I believe the United States long ago lost the ability to manufacture key components to even make a nuclear reactor and its containment vessel.
We need to do several things in the US to help ourselves, as well as push other nations.
We would be better off stopping subsidies on solar, and allow wind to expire in 2 years. Instead, we should now focus those subsidies on nuclear power (our own), along with electricity storage.
Then require that all new construction below 5-6 stories will have on-site AE that will equal or exceed its HVAC usage.
In addition, we need to put a tax on all consumed goods (including those shipped from overseas), based on the MAX CO2 that went into make it. The tax should start low and raise every 6-12 months. This will give time to all nations and states to make long-term choices.
Basically, the tax is applied to all goods, unless you register where it and its parts come from. Then if you get the parts from nations/states where the CO2 is lowest, you get lower taxes.
To make sure of the CO2, rather than the wild estimates that we have, we use the OCO2 which will show emissions production, along with movement, around the world.
Finally, to normalize it, we use $ GDP / tonne of CO2. The higher the $GDP, the better.
The above is all that is needed to force us to change, and give us time. Not just America, but all nations since America is the world's largest importer.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Germany gets 2.3% of it's power from solar electric.
Not even for a moment did they get half their power from solar. The headline was wrong/,misleading times two.
More like 6%, unfortunately. That's nice and all, that when the sun is shining really bright, for five minutes you can get a significant amount of power from solar.
Then, within three hours, it's no longer 10AM-2PM and solar energy drops dramatically. (Our eyes see brightness roughly on a logarithmic scale, so what we perceive to be not quite as bright as bright is actually 90% less energy). For example, the moon looks to be maybe 5% as bright as the sun. Actually, the sun is 400,000 times brighter.
So yeah, solar is a great way to REDUCE the demand on your base sources during lunch time. Kind of like regenerative braking REDUCES the demand on the engine. Neither is, or ever can be, a primary energy source.
the longer we wait, the more expensive it becomes.
If energy complains and religious fundies where pushing a false debate with lies, we would have been making small changes for 20 years.
Switching to cleaner technologies will not bankrupt America, don't be stupid.
China and India are also putting money into clean energies.
IF America would stop listening to denier and start a big project, it would BOOST our economy, and drive new technologies developed by american companies.
Remember, big project do not literally burn money. Changing the grid to something 21st century? Yeah, that would cost a lot/. which goes to American workers, who then buy things and everyone pays taxes. The circle continues.
Spending money to develop small Solar furnace project, say 5MW, on farms mean workers making money cheaper at cleaner energy.
spending the billions on have a 10K sqr miles solar farm moves money through the economy, provides cleaner energy.
The idea the moving to cleaner energy will bankrupt America is complete nonsense.
If 8 years ago people actually starting being rational about the science and started actining, the burst bubble would have had a much SMALLER impact.
It's funny., developing a pipeline the will provide a 100 jobs for a short time is good for the economy, but switching to a clean energy that will create many thousands of long term jobs is some how bad for the economy.
And this doesn't even get into the fact that it means less dependence on other countries.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There is an omission in the summary, that is a build out by 2050. But, their fig. 8 does have substantially more nuclear power in 2020 than in 2010 and that seems quite unrealistic.