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The Shale Boom Won't Stop Climate Change; It Could Make It Worse
Lasrick writes Energy expert H-Holger Rogner walks through the realities of the shale-gas boom, the 'game-changer' that has brought about a drop in energy prices and greatly reduced carbon emissions. But despite the positive impact on carbon emissions, Rogner points out that the cheap gas brought about by fracking shale may already be affecting investments into renewable energy, nuclear energy, and energy efficiency by offering more attractive investment opportunities: 'At today's prices of $4 to $5 per million British thermal units, gas-fired electricity holds a definite competitive advantage over new nuclear construction and unsubsidized renewables.' But natural gas is still a fossil fuel that emits carbon dioxide. 'A much higher share of natural gas in the energy mix would eventually raise emissions again, especially if gas not only displaces coal but also non-fossil energy sources. Moreover, methane, the chief component of natural gas, is itself a heat-trapping greenhouse gas with 25 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide. If total methane leakage—from drilling through end use—is greater than about 4 percent, that could negate any climate benefits of switching from coal and oil to gas.'
... to the abyss. I emit personal methane in the general direction of anybody that didn't recognize this many moons ago. The solution to climate change isn't finding ever-more-exotic carbon to extact and burn - it's to stop burning carbon as soon as possible.
Don't worry. You are safe. Unless someone make time machines and travel back in time from 2350 to shoot you in the head for being stupid, you are just fine.
1. Tragedy of the commons
2. Short term gain, pain, not in our lifetimes!
So yes, New York WILL BE under water, in 2500. Not in 2050. Yes, Bangladesh, Neatherlands, Florida, and other places where BILLIONS of people live, WILL BE under water, in 2500, not in 2050.
In 2050, some islands will be dead. Some coastal marshes will be saturated with salt, and dead, despite what North Carolina laws says.
Anyway, you are *prime example* of why many people ignore Global Warming. It will not affect them drastically in their lifetimes. It will not even matter much in their children's lifetimes. Their grand kids? Well, who knows. But their grand-grand-grand-grand kids will probably start to curse 1900-2200 era.
And you are fucking lucky that people took proactive measure to curb ozone depletion. But that only had 40 year lead time, not 400+ year lead time. And no, in 200 years you will not be able to just turn on magic reverse global warming. Even if people in 100 years stop ALL CO2 emissions, the earth will just get warmer and warmer and warmer until new equilibrium is reached.
+12C global average means ice age
+14.5C global average means 1950s type environment
+15C is about current temperature.
with current emissions, we are aiming at +20C average? +25C? If 2C is different between ice age or not, the current *at least* +5C swing is going to be very significant. But not for a few centuries. So you can rest east and call it "bullshit"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
Switching from oil and coal to natural gas is a positive step in reducing both carbon emissions and other pollutants. We should celebrate progress rather than grumbling that it doesn't solve humanity's problems forever and ever, because nothing ever will. If carbon tax is implemented, natural gas will be more economical than oil and eventually other technologies will be more economical than natural gas.
Heretic! Only solar-electric is good. Only solar-electric can be praised. To get hot water, we must build huge solar-electric panels and use them to charge big banks of batteries made from toxic chemicals, then electrically heat the water! Simply the water through a black pipe outdoors and allowing the sun to heat it naturally will not do.
Nuclear may be a thousand times safer than any currently available alternative, but it's not solar-electric, so we'll just have to stick with coal until we can figure out which combination of noxious chemicals will make a magic battery for solar-electric. We've only been seriously investing in solar-electric for 60 years - any day now that magic battery will appear, and with it magic components like 100% efficient inverters. Until then, we must burn coal.
The funny thing about Sandy, is that the Capitol Weather Gang correctly predicted it about a week in advance, based on a very similar storm in 1878. We didn't quite as many SUVs nor coal plants back then.
"Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
What really killed nuclear power wasn't "The China Syndrome" or Greenpeace - it was that the price of fossil fuels didn't continue to increase as expected. That's unfortunate, as while I like inexpensive energy I also believe that we should make ALL of our electricity with nukes (or hydro) and save fossil fuels for applications where nothing else will do (e.g. aircraft). And here's a litmus test: if you're serious about global warming, you've pretty much got to be pro-nuke. No other technology - not solar, not wind, not whatever green scheme you dream up - can produce electricity on a large scale. Wanna save the planet? Push for nukes and plug-in electric cars.
That's fairly basic physics. Because of the ocean we do not reach equilibrium instantaneously. Is there any evidence to suggest otherwise?
I'll be very clear then.
You're dealing with what are ultimately derivations of human nature on geopolitical scales.
These forces are nearly natural forces in their intensity, intractability, indifference to criticism, etc. They have their own rules they operate on. Like gravity, supply and demand doesn't care if you find something immoral or undesirable. If the demand is there then that sucking void is going to feed its need. Look at the war on drugs. How is that working out? Same thing. Supply and demand. People have drugs. Other people want drugs. The two call to each other until the one services the other. Same thing with energy. You cut off my supply of energy... I want energy... someone else has energy and they're willing to sell it to me. I will get what I want.
You cannot stop me. You can only make yourself an additional problem I have to deal with to get what I need.
You only solve this issue by making sure first and foremost that I get what I need. Try to starve me and you will either get bypassed or eaten in turn.
You say you don't have a cost neutral alternative?
I asked you to look into the raptor's eye. Don't think you're reasoning with another reasonable human being here. You are looking into the eye of something that is hungry, powerful, and clever. And if you do not understand how this creature works then you are not going to be able to control it. It will take what it wants without hesitation, pity, or remorse.
Fossil fuels service a need for energy. They are currently cheap, reliable, and abundant. When the raptor is hungry, it is going to seek out easy to kill prey that it finds tasty.
What you are suggesting is putting the raptor on a diet... feeding it less... and you probably want to feed it something else... maybe kale or something. The raptor is going to be hungry until it isn't. And the raptor is hungry for what it considers food... not what you consider food.
That is what you are reasoning with and are attempting to regulate. When you put up electrified fences, all you're doing is creating obstacles. The raptor doesn't respect these barriers. It simply sees them as puzzles it has to solve.
In regards to global warming, out sourcing instantly bypasses most environmental regulations. It renders irrelevant most of the rules. The raptor escapes and does what it wants.
Another good trick is bribing the gate keepers. You give the politicians a little bit of meat and they leave a little hole in the fence that lets the raptor out to do what it wants. In that case, all the regulation accomplishes is to give corrupt politicians ways to extort bribes. Nothing more in many cases.
If you want to fix the issue, then you need to appreciate that answers that do not answer the question are not answers at all.
Lazy and naive policy wonks keep thinking they can solve complicated problems with lazy hamfisted policies that mostly rely on government violence to compel compliance. Rather then solve the puzzle you are slaming jigsaw pieces into places they do not go. With enough force the cardboard can be ripped and any piece can fit anywhere. This is in many cases the logic of many government policies. "We have guns and prisons. They comply with what we say or we'll throw them in jail or shoot them." All you're doing is creating barriers. The dumb ones won't figure out how to get out. But the clever ones test the walls... tap tap tap scrape along the edges. They watch. They wait. And when their moment comes... they will be ready. They always have been.
I can think of many ways to improve the environment without causing ripples in the equilibrium. My solutions will not be attractive to the crypto marxists... but then they only see the environmental issues as a means to an end rather then an end unto themselves.
For those that genuinely care... the solution is finding a solution for everyone. That includes the industries that feed and fuel us all. You have no solution if your first step is to fuck over the beating heart of our civilization.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The Salon article is wrong although the fault may be that of the interviewee. Bob Reiss asked Hansen what the view from his office would look like if his worst-case scenario from the paper he'd published not long before the interview were to come to pass.
That would have been the Scenario A from the 1988 "Global Climate Change as Forecast by GISS 3D Model" - http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs...
That scenario as described in the paper, assumes a CO2 doubling by 2030 but states that Scenario B's assumption of said doubling by 2060 is more likely.
Reiss details the conversation in a couple of his books but only named 2001's The Coming Storm when he corrected what he'd told to Salon, who never updated the online article.
Either way, there's still quite some time before Hansen's prediction can be definitively shown to have been wrong
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The NAZI party was the NATIONAL Socialist GERMAN Workers PARTY. So per your argument, that's as right wing as it gets. All the NATIONAL parties of the history have been right wing. Left wing parties are typically INTERNATIONAL (their war-song is even called the "Internationale"), as their ideology is about class, not about nation.
So the name of the Nazis both appeal to extreme left wing, as well as extreme right wing. This is not a coincidence.
The rest of the AC's argument is as stupid and ill-informed.
Classic Slashdot logical fallacy. One person makes a mistake, therefore all the other evidence and accurate predictions about climate change must also be wrong.
By that logic gravity must be wrong, because Whitehead's theory of gravitation turned out to be incorrect. Clearly airlines are just ripping us off because gravity isn't real. Just look up in the sky, there are clouds up there, they don't come crashing down to earth, right?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This is why America has no friends. It's like you think polluting is your god given birthright and will continue to argue about it long after everyone else has accepted that it's a problem.
Remember that it's only cheap for you because you are pushing the cost on to other people.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The issue with trying to control fossil fuel consumption is that it fills a need. That need exists. It is a sucking vacuum that will draw solutions to it and will do so in the most cost efficient manner it can find.
For example... that might mean off shoring all production to Asia if you make it too expensive to make things in the West. Very simple to do that. Totally bypasses all the environmental laws instantly. Anything that makes production in the US more expensive then somewhere else will just result in off shoring.
Europe solved this ages ago. Firstly to make things more efficient, so that the demand goes down. If your house is well insulated you need less cooling and heating, simple as that. Doesn't matter how cheap it is, you don't need it. New buildings can be pretty much passive at fairly minimal cost these days.
Secondly, you require imported goods to meet certain standards. The EU has things like RoHS that require goods not to use hazardous materials, but also requires companies offshoring manufacturing or importing to be environmentally responsible in the countries where their factories are. Companies will do it because they want to sell to the EU, which is a huge and very profitable market. In the EU corporations are our bitch and do what we tell them to, unlike in the US where you are the corporation's bitch and do what they tell you to.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC