Slashdot Mirror
The Road to Deep Decarbonization (bnef.com)
Michael Liebreich, writing for Bloomberg New Energy Finance: In the past fifteen years we have witnessed several pivotal points along the route towards clean energy and transport. In 2004, renewables were poised for explosive growth; in 2008, the world's power system started to go digital; in 2012, it became clear that EVs would take over light ground transportation. Today I believe it is the turn of sectors that have resisted change so far -- heavy ground transportation, industry, chemicals, heat, aviation and shipping, agriculture. One after the other, or more likely as a tightly-coupled system, they are all going to go clean during the coming decades.
Astonishing progress is being made on super-efficient industrial processes, connected and shared vehicles, electrification of air transport, precision agriculture, food science, synthetic fuels, industrial biochemistry, new materials like graphene and aerogels, energy and infrastructure blockchain, additive manufacturing, zero-carbon building materials, small nuclear fusion, and so many other areas. These technologies may not be cost-competitive today, but they all benefit from the same fearsome learning curves as we have seen in wind, solar and batteries. In addition, in the same way that ubiquitous sensors, cloud and edge-of-grid computing, big data and machine learning have enabled the transformation of our electrical system, they will unlock sweeping changes to the rest of our energy, transportation and industrial sectors.
Astonishing progress is being made on super-efficient industrial processes, connected and shared vehicles, electrification of air transport, precision agriculture, food science, synthetic fuels, industrial biochemistry, new materials like graphene and aerogels, energy and infrastructure blockchain, additive manufacturing, zero-carbon building materials, small nuclear fusion, and so many other areas. These technologies may not be cost-competitive today, but they all benefit from the same fearsome learning curves as we have seen in wind, solar and batteries. In addition, in the same way that ubiquitous sensors, cloud and edge-of-grid computing, big data and machine learning have enabled the transformation of our electrical system, they will unlock sweeping changes to the rest of our energy, transportation and industrial sectors.
That's when I knew he was full of hot air.
They are firing carbon based life form workers and are installing silicon based robots.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Go back to 1988, where only nerds used computers. Fast-forward three decades later and almost everyone uses a pocket computer that's thousands of times better than what we had back then.
#DeleteFacebook
Fixed that for you, eh?
#DeleteFacebook
2012 did not see EV outselling ICE at any point, even today. "Clean energy" is still a mere fraction of total power output, especially for long term 365/24/7 reliability.
No expect predicted that EVs would outsells ICE cars in 2012, but the fraction of cars which are electric has been steadily climbing. In 2017, more electric cars were sold than the previous year which sold more than the year before that, and that occurred even as overall car sales *went down* https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/01/2017-was-the-best-year-ever-for-electric-vehicle-sales-in-the-us/. It is likely going to be a long time until electric cars outsell internal combustion cars, but that's a distinct issue.
As for the idea that clean energy is only a fraction of total electric power, that's true, but the size of that fraction which is wind and solar or geotherma has been growing. It is true that the overall percentage did initially trend downwards as the US reduced the amount of hydroelectric power (in part because of its other environmental issues) but the percentage has been going up in the last few years even given that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United_States#/media/File:USRenewableElectricity.jpg. Moreover, total US CO2 production has trended down the last few years https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/us-greenhouse-gas-inventory-report-1990-2014. And while CO2 emission worldwide did likely go up slightly in 2017, that was after three years of it being flat https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-global-co2-emissions-set-to-rise-2-percent-in-2017-following-three-year-plateau.
All of that said, it is true that we're not moving fast enough. So what can you as an individual due to help out? Well, there are the basic things you can do personally, such as use more public transit, eat less meat, and keep your house well insulated. Moreover, all those are things which will pay you back, since you will save money from them. However, small personal changes aren't enough. So what else can you do?
If one wants to help directly with helping reducing CO2 production then donating to solar and wind charities is the best bet. For solar, the best two seem to be Everybody Solar https://www.everybodysolar.org/ (which gets solar panels for non-profits like museums and homeless shelters), and the Solar Electric Light Fund https://self.org/ which gets solar panels for people in developing countries. Right now, the best specific wind charity in the US, the best one seems to be the New England Wind Fund https://www.massenergy.org/the-wind-fund. Finally, if one wants to directly reduce CO2 in the short-term, then the best bet is simply directly donating to Cool Earth https://www.coolearth.org/. Every little bit helps.
I got buzzword bingo everyone. Seriously was the article written by an AI fed only buzzwords?
Sorry, they still make up a tiny percentage of total renewable energy.
And the capacity to build the quantities we need for utility-grade applications would basically hijack the markets for an entire year.
You want to decarbonize NUCLEAR POWER. End of discussion. Stable baseline power. Zero carbon emissions.
Add in remaining utility-grade large hydro, geothermal and augment with small hydro to bring up baseline to today's PEAK demand.
You can offset peaks in demand with renewables then.
But the real gains have NOTHING to do with power generation.
40-something percent of all power consumption in this country is from BUILDINGS.
Build better insulated, more efficient buildings, and watch demand on the grid plummet.
Build for longevity and sustainability.
Retrofit less efficient buildings.
HVAC being offset with BTU batteries and careful timing of power use.
Then use any power excesses in the system to do things like desalinate water and carbon capture into hydrocarbon fuels which can be used to stay carbon-neutral or stored to be carbon positive.
Because if you think coating the planet in solar panels and wind turbines is going to fix everything, you're delusional.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
They contribute to warming.
But only with a fixed amount, call it a base line.
It is correct that it is a zero sum game ... but if we had only half as many cows, the baseline would only half as high.
In the long run it makes no difference how many cows we have, however the whole meat industry produces CO2 by burning fossile fuels. On top of that we have agriculture that we only do to feed cattle ...
So it is worth to look at that point, even if the impact is exaggerated.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Gasoline still has an order of magnitude more energy per unit weight than batteries.
Gasoline engines are an order of magnitude less efficient than battery powered cars.
I have an electric car and range is not a problem. My daily commute uses less than 20% of the capacity. Once or twice a year I need to drive beyond the range of the car, so I either recharge enroute (usually while eating lunch or dinner) or I drive a different car.
It's not the CO2, it's the methane which is 25 times as potent a greenhouse warming gas as CO2. Methane takes at least 30 years to break down in the atmosphere giving it plenty of time to warm the planet.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
The car only needs to go as far as you want to drive each day. For most people most of the time that's less than 50 miles. For the other times, there are rapid chargers. This is a non-issue.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Fast forward to 2016 where gas/fuel/distribution titans The Koch Bros. influenced sufficient elections to foist an anti-environment, anti-regulation, pro-coal, and largely anti-solar electric/wind/hydro electric regime into control of the US House, Senate, the POTUS, and the Supreme Court's open nominations.
Like it or not, in this year, there are billions of dollars fighting de-carbonization, to my dismay. Saving the planet is NOT on their agenda, rather, The Rapture is on their agenda.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
London? You mean the city where three boroughs are trialling lamp-post charging to address on-street charging?
That only ever sounded reasonable to the very few people who live in Canada, Siberia and Alaska. It never sounded reasonable to the billion people who've build their cities at sea level, who would much rather deal with the lowering sea levels of an ice age (which is an economic problem to be sure but one they can expand the city to adapt to) than rising sea level (a much much bigger economic problem).
This space intentionally left blank
Bad example, the Koch brothers hate Trump
https://www.vanityfair.com/new...
When they agreed with Trump on something Politico actually found it newsworthy and posted a story about it
https://www.politico.com/story...
Trump has a low opinion going back to at least the election
https://twitter.com/realdonald...
Their strong dislike of Trump is still very current
http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...
Sure. My wife and I have gone through a lot of effort to not have a car at all for that reason. But not everyone lives somewhere where that's an option or can choose jobs where that's an option. I'd much rather have people have an EV than an ICE if they are going to get a new car.
You left out the Sahara.... https://news.nationalgeographi...
love is just extroverted narcissism
You would only need a lamp post per address, if the *average* requirement was that every address needs to charge an EV every night. That is just nowhere near the truth:
1. Only about 50% of London households have a car
2. About 25% of London households have off-street parking
3. Given average British mileage of 150 miles per week, most EVs will only need recharging once per week (today, a Zoe, Leaf, Tesla can all manage that). That's a substantial over-estimate, given London driving distances are much shorter than average British which includes rural drivers covering much longer distances
So the average percentage of EVs that would need charging overnight on any one night is: 50% * 75% * 14% = about 5%. If you could get 1 lamp post per 10 households done with Ubitricity, you'd be more than fine with a hefty margin of error built in.
My next car is 400 hp v8. Why? Because I hate Gaia? No. Because if you live your while life like a monk you might as well just kill your self. We are people, human beings, not ants.
Life is meant to be lived.
And posting as AC fits nicely with you clearly being a coward, and ashamed of your choices. Anyone who posts a statement like this is a colossal ass that doesn't care about anyone but themselves. Many of us have sacrificed to help future generations enjoy what we had. Some day I hope you learn to care about someone other than yourself, and realize how awesome life can be when you put others first. I promise, it feels better than owning a fancy money-pit car.
According to EPA
Methane (CH4) is estimated to have a GWP of 28â"36 over 100 years (Learn why EPA's U.S. Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks uses a different value.). CH4 emitted today lasts about a decade on average, which is much less time than CO2. But CH4 also absorbs much more energy than CO2. The net effect of the shorter lifetime and higher energy absorption is reflected in the GWP. The CH4 GWP also accounts for some indirect effects, such as the fact that CH4 is a precursor to ozone, and ozone is itself a GHG.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissio...
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?