Climate Deal: US and China Join Paris Climate Accords (bbc.com)

An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes the BBC: The US and China -- together responsible for 40% of the world's carbon emissions -- have both formally joined the Paris global climate agreement... It will only come into force legally after it is ratified by at least 55 countries, which between them produce 55% of global carbon emissions. Before China made its announcement, the 23 nations that had so far ratified the agreement accounted for just over 1% of emissions. This will put pressure on G20 nations over the weekend to move faster with their pledge to phase out subsidies to fossil fuels...
There's a G20 summit starting on Sunday, and the BBC's environmental analyst reports that the accord "will just need the EU and a couple of other major polluters to cross the threshold." Its ultimate goal is to stop global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius -- "well above the aspirational 1.5C heating that the UN accepts should really be the limit" -- though U.K. researchers report that already 2016 temperatures may be rising 1.1C above pre-industrial levels.

Comments

Re:Trump will reverse it

[PvtVoid]

Yes, put our country back to work, let the market decide which technologies are efficient enough to take on coal. Why is our government only choosing energy production that only works when it's sunny or windy? Why is Bill Gates funding nuclear technology advancement in China and not here? Government shouldn't be picking winners and losers.

And furthermore:

- Canned talking point
- Canned talking point
- Unsubstantiated "fact"
- Canned talking point
- Political dog whistle

The Senate must ratify any Treaty.

[Anonymous Coward]

How Does the United States Ratify Treaties?

        "The President...shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur..." Constitution of the United States, Art. II, Sec. 2

[http://www.childrightscampaign.org/why-ratify/how-does-the-united-states-ratify-treaties]

Re:Trump will reverse it

[known_coward_69]

coal and oil are subsidized. there is a huge federal fund to pay for coal workers health problems which should be paid by the customers via higher prices. same with oil where the government leases land and passes all kinds of laws in case oil companies get sued after a spill

Re:I know you're trolling

[Mark of the North]

Yes, reduced demand in China is the single largest contributor to the ongoing bankruptcies in the coal industry. However, on the electricity generation front, coal is being displaced by cheaper options like combined-cycle natural gas, wind, and solar. This means that coal is unlikely to make a come-back. Those supported by the coal industry would be wise to ignore Trump and get on a different career path.

I used to be very pessimistic that society could reduce its fossil fuel use, but the shift away from coal has forced a change of mind.

Only possible if we go nuclear

[blindseer]

When it comes to carbon footprint the top two on energy produced per greenhouse gasses emitted are hydroelectric and nuclear. Wind and solar are close behind. So close that if anyone wants to argue with me on this I'll call them all equal, perhaps I'd even grant wind and solar a 10x lead because even then nuclear is so much better than coal and oil. Geothermal is up there somewhere too but, like hydro, it is highly location dependent. Wind and solar are still location dependent but much less so. There are few places we cannot put nuclear.

Then there are lives lost per terawatt hour produced. Nuclear gets 0.04 lives lost per TWh produced, and this includes Fukushima, Chernobyl, and deaths by mining uranium. Rooftop solar has 0.1, wind has 0.15, hydro has 1.0 (mostly due to China, 0.1 otherwise), with the world average around 47, mostly due to coal, oil, and natural gas. Again, even if we take the nuclear number and multiply it by 10 it is still not bad compared to the rest.

When it comes to costs I'll take average numbers from the EIA because I feel like it and I found their numbers real quick. Nuclear is $95.2/MWh, conventional coal is $95.1, hydro is $83.5, peaking natural gas is $113.5, combined cycle natural gas is $75.2, wind is $73.6 onshore and $196.9 offshore, Solar is $125.3 for PV and $239.7 for thermal. Nuclear doesn't have a 10x advantage here but If someone wants to argue the numbers I'll grant a 2x advantage since then it still beats out the unreliable wind and solar in many cases. What I will not do is allow claims that wind and solar prices will improve but nuclear will not. If we grant that future technology improvement grants a better price for one energy source then we should be able to assume an equal gain on any other energy source. This is especially true if discussing any technology that turns heat or mechanical motion into electricity since nuclear power uses those just as much as wind or solar thermal.

Then it comes down to whether or not we can actually build it all. I saw a comparison on these energy sources based on a cubic mile of oil. This comparison spreads the construction over 50 years, and if we assume a 50 year lifespan of these power sources then it turns into a continuous rate of construction. We'd need one new 900MW nuclear power plant every week. 200 new 18GW hydroelectric dams every quarter. 1200 new windmills every week with 1.65MW capacity each. For PV solar we'd need to cover 250,000 roofs per day with 2.1kWh capacity each.

Here's where I think the final nail in the coffin on the idea that we can replace coal with wind lies. To replace coal with wind worldwide would require 10 billion tons of steel and concrete, and current annual production is 1.5 billion tons. Wind requires over 500 tons of steel and 1000 tons of concrete per MW installed, about ten times that of nuclear, coal, or gas. I got most of these numbers from the EIA and from Morgan Stanley.

I've heard people claim it is impossible for us to produce one new nuclear power plant per week worldwide. I call bullshit because nuclear power takes no more resources than coal or natural gas and we are currently building them at a similar rate. Arguments against nuclear on costs in lives and dollars also go out the window to anyone that does an honest analysis. Comparing nuclear to wind on resources required makes nuclear look so much easier. I tried to do a similar analysis on solar but my calculator doesn't do numbers that big.

I've largely ignored issues like reliability, location restrictions, etc. that count against wind and solar because I don't have to go there to make my point. If someone wants to argue about nuclear being unreliable but wind and solar can be predicted then I'll go there, but you'll lose.

Re:Only possible if we go nuclear

[blindseer]

1. I cannot put my own nuclear plant beside my house. I can put solar panels on my roof.

That's true but if you and some like minded people get together to pool your money you'd have that nuclear power plant, which would give twice as much energy per dollar. This is not a plan for the individual since an individual is not producing those solar panels, it's a large corporation made of many people pooling their resources.

Also, I'm not arguing that you should not be able to put solar panels on your roof. What I'm pointing out is the comparative costs of these energy sources, in dollars, lives, and CO2 released into the air. If you want solar panels then you need to know what you are getting into. Don't put up solar panels because you think you'll save humanity from itself, you won't. Don't put up solar panels thinking you'll save money, unless you live in a highly optimal location. Do it because it takes you off the grid and independent from it, or whatever else you might be trying to do.

2. There is an idea to diversify our sources of energy. Please stop talking in absolutes like "replacing coal with wind".

I mention the case of replacing coal with wind because that is what I've seen people claim we can do, or at least replace coal with a mix of wind, solar, hydro, or whatever else is "green" where wind is a large portion of that. Take the numbers I've found and scale them as appropriate to fit your vision of the future and see what you get. Even if we assume we can replace 10% of "dirty" energy with wind we'd still have to double our annual output of steel and concrete to meet the demand that much wind power would create.

I see a future where nuclear makes up something like 50% to 80% of total energy demand. The rest would be a mix of wind, hydro, natural gas, and a small bit from solar. We will not rid ourselves from coal for a very long time but if CO2 reduction is the goal then nuclear power is the best choice we have right now.

It is possible that some future technology will make nuclear look bad by comparison but we don't have that technology yet. If we wait for that technology to come then we are just making a bad problem worse. I'm not a big believer in CAGW because that is a trio of things that have to pile up just so for this to be a problem we can fix. First we must have global warming. The globe may be warming, or it may not, we don't know what the future holds. We've already seen a 15 year "pause" in warming and the "pause" may end soon, or it may not. If there is global warming then we must still prove that human activity is causing it. This may be something easier to prove but then it comes to the last part. We still don't know if this global warming can be considered "catastrophic" or not. We might see many places become inhospitable but the world already has many inhospitable places, there's a chance we'd be just moving them around. That would suck for many people but people can move and at the rate it's happening people might barely even notice. It's possible that we'd make the world better for us.

Even if catastrophic anthropogenic global warming does not happen I believe we still have many reasons to move to nuclear power. The air quality in China is a good example on why we should do so.

Aniother day, another tyranny

[Anonymous Coward]

This is becoming the new normal under President Obama.

On immigration, he said he had no legal right to act, then he acted anyway and said he could because congress did not do what he wanted.

On the Iran deal he acted, and then when congress refused to support the deal, he presumed they supported and challenged them to undo his actions.

Now on the climate deal, he knows congress will not approve, so he is doing it anyway.

This is 100% anti-American. The Constitution does NOT have a clause that says that anytime the congress does not do what a president wants, the president is free to go ahead. That would make a President into a king and eliminate any need for a congress or the consent of the people. Obama is just lucky he has a congress lead by feckless, stupid, flaccid, chicken s%&t, establishment Republicans who are so scared of their own shadows that they have never actually opposed him on anything. They have supported every one of his budgets and every one of his debt ceiling increases, have been unwilling to stop any of his social policies, foreign policy actions, or do anything on issues like Obamacare, car bailouts, bank bailouts, government takeover of student loans, treasury department money printing etc.

Obama supporters have been cheering this lawlessness for 7+ years, but they will panic if Trump gets elected and decides to use all the precedents that Obama set. Trump will be able to implement nearly every policy he wants without worrying about congressional interference, just by executive authority. We used to be a nation of laws, but Democrats have changed all that for the momentary satisfaction of Obama successes. Hopefully a Trump administration will use the IRS, FBI, EPA, and ATF against a wide range of liberal organizations just as Obama has used them against conservatives. If Government oppresses the left enough, maybe they will lose their appetite for fascism and tyranny and then return to the position they had in the 60s of being afraid of big government and then liberals and conservatives can join forces to return the idea of being a nation of laws again with a government of three functional branches with checks-and-balances.

Re:Aniother day, another tyranny

[ChrisMaple]

Obstructing evil is the most sacred obligation of Congress. That obligation is equivalent to obstructing Obama.