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Rising Temperatures Could Melt Most Himalayan Glaciers By 2100 (nationalgeographic.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Rising temperatures in the Himalayas, home to most of the world's tallest mountains, will melt at least one-third of the region's glaciers by the end of the century (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source) even if the world's most ambitious climate change targets are met, according to a report released Monday. If those goals are not achieved, and global warming and greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rates, the Himalayas could lose two-thirds of its glaciers by 2100, according to the report, the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment. Under those more dire circumstances, the Himalayas could heat up by 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 degrees Celsius) by century's end, bringing radical disruptions to food and water supplies, and mass population displacement. Glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region, which spans over 2,000 miles of Asia, provide water resources to around a quarter of the world's population. One of the most complete studies on mountain warming, the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment was put together over five years by 210 authors. The report includes input from more than 350 researchers and policymakers from 22 countries.
Either good science or huge conspiracy...
Even the IPCC is targeting a 1.5C rise... Not 4C.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region, which spans over 2,000 miles of Asia, provide water resources to around a quarter of the world's population.
A lot of Westerners wonder why India and China have such large populations. It's because of the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas. Moist air flowing off the Indian Ocean gets pushed up into the atmosphere by the mountains, condenses, falls as snow, then melts as runoff to feed the Yellow and Yangtze rivers in China, and the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra Rivers of the Indian subcontinent. These river valleys produce the agriculture that feeds and sustains those populations. If the Himalayas suffer, so do they.
But, you'll still need to convince both governments that it's a problem.
... but they won't do nuclear power.
I find it difficult to believe that global warming is any real threat if the governments of the world cannot open a book just once and do some basic research on the solutions.
What is the lowest CO2 energy source available today? Nuclear power.
What is the safest energy source available today? Nuclear power.
What energy source requires the least materials for the most energy produced? Nuclear power.
So... Where's all the nuclear power plants being built to stop global warming?
Any complaints on the cost of nuclear power is nonsense. If global warming is the threat they claim it to be then the governments of the world should not find the expense of nuclear power as any kind of hurdle. I've seen nuclear engineers talk on the costs of building a nuclear power plant any where in the world and the major cost that they run into is regulatory. So, fix the regulations. Do something like France did and decide on one design and spread out the regulatory costs among many of the same design.
The global warming alarmists scream at everyone about how "the science is settled". Yep, I'll go with that, so long as they agree that the science is settled on nuclear power being part of the solution. If these people conclude that nuclear power is a greater threat to humanity than global warming then I conclude that global warming is such a minor threat that I have no reason to believe that I or anyone else need to change anything to avoid it. If there is no nuclear power in our future then I must conclude that there will be no global warming.
Which is it? Do we get nuclear power? Or, is global warming just a hoax? If we can't have nuclear power then I call global warming all a big fat lie. It's just a means to an end to get people to do things that they normally would not agree to do. Well, people would not normally agree to nuclear power. We get nuclear power then the threat goes away and it cannot ever be used as a threat again. I guess they will just have to create another false threat to push people to agreeing to the disagreeable.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
You make many good points. But my one quibble with your post is that you use a false-choice fallacy.
Yes, nuclear power is a compelling option for low-CO2 sources of energy. But there are others. Solar, wind, geothermal, tides, and so on. Long-term storage of nuclear waste is a problem that other technologies do not face.
Let's keep an open mind. But open to other alternatives besides nuclear energy.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
No, they are going to melt by 2035. Count on it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
We've already had a 0.8-1.2 C rise since the industrial revolution. 1.5 will happen within the next decade or two.
I don't respond to AC's.
Even the IPCC is targeting a 1.5C rise... Not 4C.
The IPCC's "target" is an absurd fantasy. There is absolutely no way we are going to limit GW to 1.5C, or even 2C.
Even a 3C rise will require some big technological breakthroughs.
It's because of the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas. Moist air flowing off the Indian Ocean gets pushed up into the atmosphere by the mountains, condenses, falls as snow, then melts as runoff to feed the Yellow and Yangtze rivers in China, and the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra Rivers of the Indian subcontinent.
That's great, but we are talking about the glaciers, not the cycle you just mention.
That cycle would continue - and with higher average temperatures, that means greater water evaporation from the oceans, leading to more moisture falling in the mountains, thus more runoff for the rivers.
So why should those governments be concerned, when they will be getting more water - not less? That's the effect a warmer planet has, more resources and a wider growing range for agriculture (those glaciers all melting means that more plants can grow at higher altitudes than was the case previously).
To me I am sensing more than a little undercurrent of worry from governments at what happens when poorer regions of the earth suddenly have a surplus of output and are not as reliant on aid from the west... so they try and scare everyone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... but they won't do nuclear power.
There are more than 150 nuclear reactors under construction or on order, with a total estimated power production of 160GW.
The future of nuclear is dim in America, the EU, and Japan. The rest of the world is more bullish.
Plans for new nukes
You'd be more credible if you didn't pose it as an either-or proposition. People have a right to be afraid of nuclear power. No matter how much you justify how safe we can do it now and the advantages, there's still the stain of disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima. Then there's the global security issues of weapon's grade waste.
Personally, I'm FOR the expansion of nuclear power. But regulations exist because these same companies have fucked up so disastrously.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Long-term storage of nuclear waste is a problem that other technologies do not face.
No, long term storage is not a problem. That is a problem that has been solved. What we have are people that fear the non-problem of nuclear waste over that of global warming. If it's the waste problem holding it up then they aren't trying hard enough.
Let's keep an open mind. But open to other alternatives besides nuclear energy.
Why? We have a long history of nuclear being inexpensive, reliable, safe, low carbon, and plentiful. Nearly a century of a history to prove this.
You speak of needing an open mind but you've closed your mind to nuclear power. Hypocrite.
Oh, and I made no call to abandon all but nuclear, only that nuclear must be part of the solution or we may be doomed to fail.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
So, fix the regulations. Do something like France did and decide on one design and spread out the regulatory costs among many of the same design.
The regulations amount to basically just "pay for the eventual cleanup costs and to reduce the risk of severe accident". The free market has evaluated the costs to adhere to these regulations (i.e. to pay for cleanup costs and defray risk) and found them to be non cost effective compared to solar, heck even to wind.
I think your choice boils down to "socialism to pay for the risks".
Yes, nuclear power is a compelling option for low-CO2 sources of energy. But there are others. Solar, wind, geothermal, tides, and so on.
Nuclear is the only power source that can replace all CO2 generating electrical sources right now. Thus, if you were serious about getting rid of emissions, you'd immediately start switching to nuclear (solar and wind are fine for part of the electrical load).
If you were serious about getting rid of emissions, you'd also mandate electric (or non-combustion engine) cars, along with subsidies for people who couldn't afford them. If this is something serious enough that it must happen today.
But it's not that serious.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It feels like it is getting much closer. All it needs is low energy yield long fuel life reactors, for more safe and reliable and stable energy production, many reactors lasting a long time, rather than a few running on the edge of collapse.
Though that long term threat, is not as important right now as the short term threat, that being of course the Great Planetary Fart. When hundreds of thousands of years of methane is released because it will become the warmest it has been for quite some time and there is quite the major flatulence build up.
A metre of sea level rise over a much shorter time would be far more destructive and disruptive and would be likely with rapidly escalating release of very long term stored methane. Which would result in a very rapid short term temperature rise and be sustained for quite a few years before settling into more regular change, logically cooling from that methane peak but the damage done, getting back to the averages of climate change, rather than potential calculable peaks of weather as a result of pattern changes in climate.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
- False. Next bullshit assertion presented as fact?
Oh yeah? Which other one can do it?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I'm having a problem with you conflating global warming and nuclear power the way you're doing, but I do agree -- even as a Democrat -- that we need to dispell the Boogeyman we've created surrounding nuclear power and avail ourselves of it before it's too late. It's possible to design and build inherently safer reactors, ones that won't suffer the pitfalls of even the most current design in use, but there first needs to be enough belief in the need for it to get the funding to first design them, then start building them. Meanwhile research into practical fusion power continues. It's all to the good so long as we get back on course and stay the course.
Solar, wind, geothermal, tides, and so on. Long-term storage of nuclear waste is a problem that other technologies do not face.
Heard all this before. The former are not end-all be-all solutions, they're more supplemental, and producing the hardware for them is not carbon-neutral or carbon-negative, either; the latter does not have to be a deal-breaker, we can I'm sure come up with ways to deal with waste products that does not pose a risk. Hell, drop it into the Marianas Trench and allow the Earth to reabsorb the stuff via subduction. Or maybe we find a way to recycle nuclear waste back into useful fuel -- or even a way to neutralize it entirely. I flatly reject anyone who puts forth the notion that physics has 'discovered all there is to discover' (and yes someone has said that in the past, and they weren't kidding). Sticking our heads in the sand over nuclear just isn't going to cut it anymore though.
They will be able to find all the bodies that are up there then.
IPCC AR4 said the glaciers would be gone by 2035; now it's just 1/3rd of them gone by 2100. Hurray - forward progress!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Which other "one"? That's a fail by itself. ALL of them
All of them? So kinetic watch movement?
You need to research baseload electricity.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You still refused to address the cost of nuclear exceeds the cost of power storage capacity as built by even a single manufacturer, Tesla, by a factor of hundreds to thousands
The Tesla thing is cool, and I hope to see more of it in the future, but it doesn't work as general power grid storage solution. Also, your insults are tiring, learn to think.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It's not only been considered, it's being studied.
Sounds like a solution that is being considered and studied, not implemented.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You say that like it's supposed to mean something. As if environmentalists have any power. As if they aren't beaten and gassed and frozen trying to stop pipelines from being built on their own lands. As if they were able to do anything about Flint's poisoned water, British Petroleum ruining the Gulf of Mexico, or the tar sands in Canada.
Regulations aren't stopping nuclear power. Hippies aren't stopping nuclear power. The complete unjustifiability of nuclear power is what is stopping nuclear power.
Except you'll need a "supplemental" nuclear power plant for your grid, to step in when one of your other nuclear power plant goes down for weeks (or longer) at a time for regular maintenance.
Yes, concrete pads for wind towers use concrete, which produces CO2 while baking it. What do you think cooling towers and other nuclear power plant buildings are made from? This is a red herring anyway, as wind and solar can be much more rapidly be deployed to replace coal than a nuclear plant that takes twenty years and twenty billion dollars to build.
Some people are dense and need Bart Simpson's chalkboard before something sinks in.
What is the lowest CO2 energy source available today? Nuclear power.
No it isn't.
The absolut lowest is: reduce usage, increase efficiency
And then comes everything that is not bound to mining and transportation, e.g. Biomass, Geothermal and Solar followed by Wind.
You are just an idiot, but nice you point your nuclear love out all the time ...
And you are uninformed, China is building lots of nuclear power plants. Stupid ass.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
No, long term storage is not a problem. That is a problem that has been solved.
If you had solved it, why did you not publish it?
You would have farmed in several Nobel prices and would be on top of that: the richest man on the planet. Perhaps the richest and most important man in history for the next few hundred years.
Sorry, you are an idiot.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Laughably false. Wind and solar passed coal in cost effectiveness years ago, and that was with allowing coal to externalize its environmental costs.
LOL, "immediately" in the context of nuclear power. Where it takes decades to build a nuclear power plant. The time and costs of nuclear power make it completely unjustifiable.
Not as tiring as the nuclear fanboy cult. And it's not an insult when it's true.
Nuclear is the only power source that can replace all CO2 generating electrical sources right now. ... etc. p.p.
Only if you have fat power lines going to the mines where fuel is mined. Have all the mining equipment and transportation electrified
But that story would be true for any electricity generation "concept". Make bio gas, only use gas for your farming and working equipment ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Base load is only a line on a graph ... ...
It is a horizontal line where the graph of your load profile/load curve has its minimum
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Even if that statement wasn't total bullshit on its face, Fukishima alone would wipe out your entire century of supposed safety and cost savings.
Producing nuclear fuel, mining, refining, transportation, is not CO2 neutral or negative either.
A nuclear power plant produces 30% of the CO2 a coal plant does, because of all the things mentioned above.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
This. I'm not alive at 2100, I have no kids, and I'm tired of trying to keep yours from suffering from your idiocy.
Go for it. Burn the coal. Why the fuck should I give a shit?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Personally I consider humanity just a pest, but I like your definition, too.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For a time when I will certainly be dead? Why?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nuclear waste storage has been solved? Did I miss the memo?
Might you please inform me of the solution?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Bollocks. Not the way debate works.
Some compelling reasons in your post, but I would venture the most likely answer is actually because nuclear power wouldn't give them returns during their time in office and for almost every politician out there, gains for society achieved AFTER they leave office are of no consequence to them
"You need to research baseload electricity."
I did, and I kept coming up with articles about how base load is a myth, and the wind is always blowing somewhere, and how it's cheaper to get a given capacity with batteries and solar/wind than with nuclear, and how coal can only be competitive if you don't require the industry to clean up after itself by fixing carbon.
Get a new argument, preferably a valid one.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This is nonsense and Slashdot should get its act together.
Why are they publishing a public relations piece? I believe in global warming. It has affected glaciers and will continue to do so, with consequences that are both good and bad. But this supposed scientific report... let's start with "Who are they and where is this published?"
Who are they? We don't know. All we have is the following: "the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment was put together over five years by 210 authors. The report includes input from more than 350 researchers and policymakers from 22 countries. " This appears to be the usual self-appointed group of experts. Again, they may be right or wrong- or more likely giving us the "This is horrible" bad news without the offsetting good news (more arable land, etc). Further tracking reveals all the four named authors are all from something called the "International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) Kathmandu Nepal" And who funds this? Good luck...
Where was it published? You follow the links in the article and they all lead to springer.com which says they are "Providing researchers with access to millions of scientific documents from journals, books, series, protocols, reference works and proceedings."
NO! I WANT TO KNOW WHERE IT WAS PUBLISHED. IS THIS A PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLE OR NOT? The answer appears to be "not" . At https://link.springer.com/book... we finally get the following: "This open access volume is the first comprehensive assessment of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region...". This is the usual non-profit funded PR piece trying to affect public opinion and through it public policy. I may agree with the conclusions or I may not but don't kid yourself, this is propaganda by one side of a policy debate and nothing more.
So thirty minutes of digging on my part yields "This is not science it is partisan BS"
Now back to the original question; Why is Slashdot publishing this? Are the Slashdot moderators and editors who select what appears here incompetent or are they so wound up in the left/liberal, phony moral outrage worldview that all an article has to do is agree with their moral posture to get into Slashdot?
Want to stop global warming? Well first stop flying around the world in jet planes, the biggest per-mile contributor to upper atmosphere pollution. Come on outraged snowflakes, forget the snowboarding trip to Colorado and do your part to save the planet. You are, after all, among the world's biggest polluters of the upper atmosphere. As for me, even knowing, I'll still head for Europe this summer. Dear snowflakes let me make it clear; I'm not claiming to be more moral, more pure than you, just less twitishly pompous.
And dear Slashdot moderators and editors; now could we get back to real news about technology for a change?
You're wrong. The original quote was from the WWF, and they stated - with no factual basis - 2035. And the IPCC took it at face value, and admitted as much.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I've searched my mind for any reason I can find to disagree with this on moral grounds but came up short. I'm fed up of fighting climate science deniers over something that will have very little affect on my life. I know it sounds selfish but why should I (and parent poster) bother?
Citation for your 30% figure please. Mining and transportation are also necessary for coal but I bet they aren't included in typical coal-plant CO2 figures either.
Apart from your hyperbolic "Which is it? Do we get nuclear power? Or, is global warming just a hoax?" I agree with you.
If you were being serious with the above quote, the answer is obvious. Global warming is real, it is not a hoax. We will not get new nuclear plants because the people in charge of various nations with nuclear capability are not scientists or engineers, they are businessmen and bureaucrats who have bought into the anti-nuclear FUD (just like most of the ACs replying to your comment).
While I agree the GP is in denial, I hardly think homosexuality enters the picture...unless....you do seem to be excited about it a lot.
Since Trump got elected, I've been waiting for liberals to call for ending elections since they aren't winning.
In my lifetime, liberals have turned against...
Free speech
Right to own firearms to defend yourself
Right to privacy (See FISA abuses under Obama)
Now they are starting to talk about getting rid of elections
Yep, you are going full dictatorship, and I'll be here to point it out so other people don't join you.
If it weren't for US defence dollars, the internet wouldn't even exist. There's a substantial amount hypocrisy in play for people working for google... a company that wouldn't exist without the internet protesting against taking defence department dollars.
but...I at least skimmed it. They state that the temperature in the Himalayas has risen "by nearly two degrees Fahrenheit since the start of the 20th century". So that's about 1 degree C in 120 years. Wow...that's...not very much. Given that the earth was/is still warming up after the "little ice age" of the 18th century, this is nothing more than natural warming.
Even with reduced glaciers, snow will still accumulate in the Winter and melt over the Summer. It's not like the rivers are going to dry up, although the flow patterns may change somewhat.
Furthermore, what many people forget: Glaciers are dead. Remove the glacier and you uncover potentially fertile valleys. Nature will take a few decades to reclaim the land - first, pioneer plants, then grass or shrubs, then perhaps forests, depending on the altitude.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
People in Australia might disagree with you right now, I surely will come June.
But then again, I got air conditioning, so why bother worrying?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For your information, I own a single small ICE vehicle which I require for my work. I have not replaced for an electric because I believe the environmental damage in building an electric vehicle from scratch (including the battery) plus that from scrapping my ICE car is more than my (already built) ICE will put out in normal use over the next decade.
I don't eat processed food at all.
Could be worse, I could lack the balls to post under an actual name like you.
There's also the unspoken assumption that we must have a single, simple basket to put all our eggs in. The problem with putting all your eggs in one basket is you run into rising marginal environmental costs as you rapidly scale one thing, like nuclear power, in some kind of crash program. If we did that with nuclear today, we'd face a huge decommissioning problem in fifty years as a crisis rather than a gradually developing problem.
One of the big keys is electrifying more stuff, because electricity isn't a *source*, it's a distribution medium. It allows you to have multiple energy baskets to serve your demand eggs.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, it'd be more correct to say that there is no long-term nuclear disposal problem for most of us, because it's relatively simple to dispose of nuclear wastes in such a way that it won't pose problems for decades with near perfect confidence.
While I do think nuclear has a place in slowing the pace of climate change, we need to consider the impact on proliferation of nuclear being the only possible option for having a modern industrial economy. If we were to wave a wand and replace all the fossil fuel plants in the world with nuclear plants, that means, for example, Iran would have a nuclear program 10x its current size -- even larger if you want to replace ALL fossil fuel use. It would certainly be processing uranium ore on a vaster scale, and probably have a nuclear research program that could produce plutonium.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
No, long term storage is not a problem.
Nuclear absolutely needs to be part of the solution but denying that waste storage is a problem (even if it's only a political problem) is stupid.
A far larger problem is the not-at-all-passive design of conventional reactors' cooling systems: coolant reservoirs located uphill? Gravity's all well and good until the earthquake damages the pipes and you lose pressure...
I guess you are just ignoring nuclear waste?
C02 is all gone from the atmosphere in roughly 1000 years. Nuclear waste on the otherhand sticks around for 100,000 years or more.
So you are doing exactly what people who had high hopes for oil are doing, ignoring the waste and externalities. I am not prepared to saddle the next 1000 generations with a waste problem because people don't like the very real solution of solar + hydro + wind + batteries.
It is most ironic, poeple who claim nuclear will solve all our problems with waste. That is the exact type of thinking that got us into this mess with carbon.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
Monsoons depend on the North Indian Plains getting really hot in the summer, the hot air rising up and creating a vacumn and hence pulling in moisture laden air from the Indian ocean. with Global Warming the summer temperatures in North India will go up higher leading to a stronger monsoon. Also the moisture holding capacity of air goes up with temperature so more moisture will reach the northern plains and the Himalayas. Given these 2 facts I have a serious doubt on the report stating that the snowfall will go down with Global Warming.
For India Global Warming means more rains as well as more snow (which means more water during the dry season). I dont see how that is bad.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Eventually the Earth will be obliterated as the sun transforms into a red giant and engulfs it. So by the "destruction is eventually inevitable" standard I suppose you're right.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The industrial side products of Solar panel manufacturing are just as nasty as nuclear waste. The difference is panel manufacture can be done in third world countries whereas nuclear plants need to be int he consuming countries. The US has reduced its CO2 demand by not doing the manufacturing where the consuming happens and not by actual less wasteful consumption. Solar is more of the same. Moving the problem elsewhere.
**Life is too short to be serious**
I think they'd be worried that all the water would arrive at one time instead of being conveniently stored in glaciers
You are the THIRD PERSON I've had to explain how snow works.
In any large mountain range, in the winter (and even late into spring or even summer) snow will fall. That snow slowly melts, releasing water all spring, summer and fall.
Since there will be greater evaporation, there will be more snow, therefore more water released year round by snow...
Glaciers are very stingy with producing water because ice melts much more slowly than snow. So wouldn't an increase in snowfall and therefore snow melt, make up for loss of glacier water?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is not true in my country (Slovakia). Wind and solar are 2.96 times more expensive than nuclear.
I heard somewhere that Slovakia is part of the EU. Is it a union, or not? Can't you buy power from nearby equitably?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Wind and solar passed coal in cost effectiveness" Why do I hear this being said all the time, all those studies showing current wind/solar $/kWh as being the cheapest form available, yet this clearly does not align with reality? We do not live in a dictatorship, if it was possible to build a solar farm and erect a bunch of windmills and undercut the local electric utility, you'd see this wholesale and fast across North America.
No, not the case at all.. in every jurisdiction planning a move to greater renewables, the focus is on trying to get the populace to accept greater electricity costs. This is also why it's so hard, especially in a democracy. Sick of hearing this "wind/solar are most cost effective" anyway - if it's better overall make that argument, but don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.
"Let's keep an open mind. But open to other alternatives besides nuclear energy."
None that are proven to be commercially viable without massive subsidies.
Let's talk in 10 years when all these solar panels put up in the Obama years now need replacement.
-Styopa
And most of them under building has been in that state for decades. And no construction is taking place.
The construction is in a hiatus.
For many the hiatus will be eternal. The only reason its not been stopped is that the cost of getting a new permit if it ever becomes profitable to build nuclear power again.
The reason: Wind and sun power is cheaper to build and maintain.
Just saying it like it are.
Citation for your 30% figure please. Mining and transportation are also necessary for coal but I bet they aren't included in typical coal-plant CO2 figures either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Coal 1050 g co2/kWh
Solar 32 g co2/kWh
Wind 10 g co2/kWh
Most other studies are in the same ballpark, i.e two orders of magnitude. Wind power has around 1% of the life cycle carbon footprint of coal burning and solar 3%. The really funny part here is the idea hat the CO2 footprint involved in mining a metric ton of coal is going to be a significant part of the life-cycle greenhouse emissions caused by burning that ton of coal, coal is pretty much pure carbon. The weight ratio of CO2 produced per octane molecule burned is roughly 3 to 1. The burning of the coal creates orders of magnitude more CO2 over the lifespan of a coal power plant than producing and operating a solar array or wind farm for the same period. In the case of wind and solar, after the carbon created during manufacture, your CO2 footprint is limited to the carbon produced by maintenance activities. On top of that solar and wind are more cost effective and they also aren't subject to fluctuations in fuel prices.
How fucking ignorant must you be to demand that there's no moral imperative to educate others or tell the truth?
Less ignorant than you, who can not even read to the last sentence of my post.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I did, and I kept coming up with articles about how base load is a myth, and the wind is always blowing somewhere, and how it's cheaper to get a given capacity with batteries and solar/wind than with
Yeah. Now find a place where baseload has been replaced by wind or solar power. The articles you read are all wishes and dreams.
Note: if you do find such an article or location, let me know because that will be sweet.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
In what part of the world has solar or wind replaced 100% of the energy needs? Nuclear can do it right now, but wind and solar are just theoretical.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Yeah sure and your mind is already made up so what does that make you? I reversed course on nuclear a while back. Meanwhile you're not even willing to think about it. All your 'renewables' are not going to be enough but you don't want to hear that either, do you? You'd probably say 'no' to fusion power, too, just because it's still a form of nuclear power. With your 'plan' for the Earth, a die-back of our species is the only way we'll survive -- but consider this: how much CO2 is going to get dumped into the atmosphere during the inevitable wars over resources and arable land that will take place when things get too tight? Oh, wait, you'll deny that too, won't you? You more than likely think we can have 10 billion humans alive on the planet all at once and have no problems. If so I got bad news for you, old son..
Solar can only provide intermittent electricity, nuclear can provide it around the clock. There is no place that solar (or wind) supplies 100% of the electricity.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Only if you have fat power lines going to the mines where fuel is mined. Have all the mining equipment and transportation electrified ... etc. p.p.
You seem to be trying to make a point, but I have no idea what you are trying to say.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Even if that's so it's still less than burning fossil fuels, and oh by the way the production of 'renewable' sources is far from 'carbon neutral' too and you can produce all the solar panels you want and it won't be enough in the long run. Nuclear power PLUS renewables are the way forward for the MIDDLE TERM. Fusion will replace fission sooner or later. That'll give us some breathing room until physicists come up with something even better; for all we know we might end up with anitmatter reactors or something even more exotic. But in the meantime we can't just sit here with our fingers up our collective noses and hope solar panels are enough. Oh and by the way even in yours and others' utopia of solar panels everywhere there still has to be massive energy storage to make that work 24/7/365, are any of you factoring that into your 'equations'? Probably not. The environmental cost of producing the raw materials for energy storage facilities? Probably not. Are you all factoring in the environmental impact of millions of acres of solar farms and wind generators everywhere, how they affect the ecosystem, how they affect wind and weather patterns? Probably not. How 'wave power' installations will affect ocean life, ocean current patterns? Probably not. I have NEVER come across anyone in any of these 'discussions' that even really tries to look at the total picture or the long term or even the medium term, you all look at the short term and a microcosm instead. I'm looking at as much of the total picture and the longer term as much as I can.
I never said I ain't part of the problem. Only that I don't give a shit about the problem anymore.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The energy density of nuclear power far outstrips any other energy source. No one can dispute that.
Now, if you express that energy density in terms of something like kilowatts per acre, then you see that something like solar and wind are ridiculous for the long term.
Now consider these points:
o Humans are never going to voluntarily limit their reproduction. We're specifically wired to not do that.
o Magifying the above, continual advances in medical science, quality of care, and availability of care, mean people live longer, people survive illnesses and diseases that they otherwise might not have.
o The above both translate to an ever-growing population of humans on the planet, regardless of availability of arable land and other resources to support them.
o With an ever-growing population and limited resources, at some point wars over control of arable land and resources are inevitable.
You can deny that last point all you want but historically that's what most wars are fought over: land and resources. When the Earths' population of humans rises above a certain point, it becomes inevitable, because people aren't just going to sit down and let themselves die.
Now, then, how the above relates to the subject of energy sources, if you didn't already follow me on this: When you have to take up millions and millions (or even billions) of acres of flat land that could be used for crops to feed people, eventually you're going to reach a breaking point where you can't grow enough food to feed everyone and still keep the lights on. What do you think is going to happen then?
Meanwhile you can build nuclear power plants here and there, taking up comparatively little acreage, give everyone as much power as they need, and preserve arable land to grow food to feed everyone.
Nuclear reactors can be designed in such ways to make them intrinsicly safer. I've seen the proposed designs.
Procedures and techniques can be devised to deal with waste products with better safety and efficiency, and perhaps even ways to neutralize it. Science will provide solutions for these sorts of problems.
Fusion power is just around the corner. We're almost there now. Fission will tide us over in the meantime.
Solar and wind can provide the stop-gap coverage while new generations of fission reactor designs are devised and built.
Meanwhile physics research continues to unlock the mysteries of Reality. They may come up with even more exotic energy sources that are even cleaner and safer than either fission or fusion.
Look to the long term and the big picture.
Says the AC.
It won't be a tall glacier anymore.
If your doctor (applied science) advises you to risk your life at great extent because it should extend your life... are you going to?
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
This. I'm not alive at 2100, I have no kids, and I'm tired of trying to keep yours from suffering from your idiocy. Go for it. Burn the coal. Why the fuck should I give a shit?
It is generally a personal decision of what to care about in your life, so you are certainly under no obligation to care about future generations. Although not having kids doesn't make too much of a difference, unless there is no one you care about that might care about future generations. Yes most species care about their young more than other members of their species, but humans often care about non-relatives as well.
Then again I don't know how old you are, and you might start to feel the effect of these decisions in your lifetime. Arguably some of the negative effects are already here in the form of more severe weather events, and if predictions are correct it will get much worse within most of our lifetimes.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Nuclear is "theoretical" too ... takes ages to build and needs special places, or we need to experiment with new reactor types.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The point is that mining and transportation of fuel for nuclear reactors costs more or less the same amount of CO2 than mining and transportation of fuel for coal plants, some people even claim, it costs more.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
As soon as a wind plant is build or a solar plant, it produces no CO2 anymore.
Every plant using fuel still does ... for fuel mining and transportation.
Fusion will replace fission sooner or later.
Extremely unlikely.
might end up with anitmatter reactors or something even more exotic. ... which would cost absurd amounts of energy.
Impossible. Antimatter needs to be created first
I have NEVER come across anyone in any of these 'discussions' that even really tries to look at the total picture or the long term or even the medium term, you all look at the short term and a microcosm instead.
Because it is a discussion. And not a 300 pages book about the topic. Why don't you read some?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I have no interest in reading the same opinions from 1000 people that I can get from one person like you, and I don't agree with or approve of that opinion, and no amount of repeating it to me 999 more times is going to change my mind. Also I don't give a rat's ass if you like what I have to say or not, I think I'm right and you and yours are wrong and that's all there is to it, nothing more to discuss I guess.
Everyone "requires" a car. Plus a cellphone. Plus a TV...etc.
Snow usually is melting during spring and early summe ... there is no snow left in late summer. Otherwise it is not "snow" but a glacier.
Again, you really need to visit the mountains. Again, you really need to realize that rivers all over the world are fed year-round by snow melt, just as they are in the U.S.
Snow remaining through the winter is not often a glacier, usually it is a snowfield. If a snowfield grows long enough it may eventually (say a thousand years+) become a glacier. In the meantime, again I say to you - go into the rockies in the summer, any time, you will see snow on the high peaks. I have hiked many 14k peaks and all of them have snow at the top at any time of year... partly because even rain will often fall around tall peaks as snow. Partly because it's simply a lot colder up there and even in summer temperatures are not all that high.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That doesn't make sense, much the science is centered around the problem of feedback loops whereby although CO2 is clearly the cause of initial warming
That was the original theory, debunked by years of rather large CO2 increases without corresponding temperature increases that were supposed to have occurred.
The methane is more of a threat, but we'll see what actually happens. Not like the Earth has not had massive methane increases before, perhaps it dissipates in some way unanticipated since obviously we've not had greenhouse Earth in the past, just a warmer Earth.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Looks like that stuff is on the way.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
We build nuclear power plants that fit on naval vessels that displace 6000 tons, therefore the power plant itself must be far smaller as much of that mass is weapons, armor, crew quarters and the life support systems. Oh, and we already build one or two of these every year. These are 26 MW or so power plants, not all that large compared to many coal plants but that just means we need to make more of them.
This is not theoretical. We know how to build and operate these power plants, and do so with a very high safety record. All it takes for a "special place" to build is some water deep enough to float. Last I checked about 3/4 of the world is covered in such kinds of water.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Bullshitters, that's who
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Unless I'm missing something...you are a human.
Not me. I'm a dog. But I do quite like humans.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Bahahaha! I'll place a $500,000 bet that there will be no more than 5% fewer glaciers by 2100
I'll take that bet, settle up in 2101 right. By then that will probably get you a can of coke and not much more.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
APK?
Careful, don't say it three times.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
There is no high safety record.
And small plants like those in subs don't scale for commercial sizes. Or why exactly do you think we have none of that type?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Ah, the old baseload BS. The problem with that old saw is that it applies just as much to nuclear power, as your plants will shut down for days, weeks or months at a time for maintenance. Sometimes even years. Which means you need to spend another $20 billion on a nuclear power plant to act as a spare when one of your other $20 billion plants goes down for planned (or worse, unplanned) maintenance.
Or you build a massive pumped storage facility to act as intermittent backup, as Michigan did for their nuclear grid. And if pumped storage is good enough for nuclear, it's good enough for wind and solar. Alternatives can be rolled out in a fraction of the time as nuclear power, for a fraction of the cost, with none of the risks that are measured in millennia.
Nuclear power cannot be justified.
I take your point. Technically my job requires I have a car, if it weren't for the job I could do without a car most of the time. I'm often visiting rural areas not served by public transport, and constantly using taxis would be prohibitively expensive. I also need certain equipment that would not fit on a motorbike. But you're right, nobody *needs* these things to live, we want them. Yes I could live without a phone or a TV but they greatly increase my quality of life at the cost of minimal pollution.
I tend to hold onto things (not just electronics) for years, only replacing them if they are no longer economically practical to repair. I've had my TV for nearly 10 years, my car for 10 years (and it was 5yr old when I bought it), my desktop PC for 5 years (except for gfx card upgrades, all purchased used), my kitchen knives for 15 years. I recently replaced a 5 year old Samsung smartphone that died, I bought a flagship phone (used) with the expectation that it will last me another 5 years. I only buy new clothes if old ones wear out or no longer fit, most of my wardrobe is unchanged from 10 years ago, same goes for furniture, kitchen appliances, etc. I use very few consumables compared to most people, i.e. I don't use any skin/beauty products, tiny amount of shampoo (I'm bald, beard only), no vitamin supplements, no makeup or hair products, no aftershave/cologne (I do use alcohol based deodorant), no razor blades. That is how I do my part for the environment. I think if more people purchased used items and kept them for longer then domestic pollution would be significantly reduced, along with cutting down use of non-food consumables. As a bonus you save a ton of money.
Question: Why is environmental pollution from the military getting a free pass? Nearly all military vehicles the world over are powered by fossil fuels. Each large-scale military exercise must waste thousands of tons of fuel. Shouldn't we be pushing for world peace followed by the abolition of all military forces? That huge amount of pollution is all fine but I should feel guilty for owning a car/phone/TV? I don't think so.
Mostly I was offended by the accusation that the motivation for my previous comment (or my general position on this issue) is laziness, especially from an AC.
Yeah, rant on about nuclear, I don't care. Whine as much as you want about baseload. Can you even point to one place in the world where solar has replaced baseload? That is the question that matters.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
My father spent he career working on the problem for the AECL. They published a one foot thick report on storage of nuclear waste in the Canadian Shield.
They run on near weapons grade fuel. There is no technical reason they can't scale.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You need to 'research' outside your usual circle jerk. All you are doing is 'confirmation bias'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
As 'must run' duh.
Alternatively they bid into the power pool at 'free' and collect the clearing price.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
'Some people' are idiots.
I can find people who claim 'rhythm method' is effective birth control, all that proves is there are morons in the world.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I'm a hard nosed engineer. Quit with the stupid lies. Solar panels don't have a ten year lifespan anywhere except on orbit. Even there they don't degrade to zero.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Thats the warming effect due to CO2 only. Unfortunately on the Earth, there are many other coupled forcings (albedo, cloud cover, permafrost, etc) which will also have an effect which will greatly magnify the effect due to CO2 alone.
They run on near weapons grade fuel. ... this is the case why they can not scale ... there is not much fuel like this. ... probably up to 99%.
Erm
Weapon grade means it is highly enriched
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Plutonium can be near 100%. Uranium can't.
It's more expensive to refine to that purity.
Reasons for not using navy style reactors are economic and political. Technically, it's possible.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Perhaps you want to look up what the term "critical mass" means.
Technically, it's possible. ... no?
Erm
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
In the world where coal has been around for a full century before the advent of solar power? Sounds like dismissing cars because they hadn't yet replaced horses as the primary mode of transportation in 1905. You could also have a whole lotta wind and solar if the trillions spent around the world on nuclear power had been used for that instead - but a wind turbine wont produce the materials you need for a nuclear bomb.
So any transition is going to be a work in progress - but you could always visit Germany, which has made significant investments in wind, solar and biomass energy.
Nuclear can replace baseload now, and it has. Solar hasn't.
I don't oppose solar, I think it's sweet. It's just unproven.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Probably because it's old news? So what else are you skeptical of, because reasons....Obama being born in Hawaii? Vaccines not causing autism?
And run all their own utility lines? Here's another link for you. Coal has a full hundred year head start on solar, and nuclear power has had trillions thrown at it around the planet. Of course it's going to take wind and solar some time to catch up in generating capacity. France isn't going to tear down their network of nuclear power plants that they spent a few hundred billion building and replace them with wind turbines and solar panels while the plants can still operate. People didn't all run out and shoot their hoses when Ford put the Model T on sale, for the same reason people haven't all sold their ICE cars to monster truck rallies to be crushed the moment the Model S was available for purchase.
See above on the baseload BS. You have to build extra nuclear plants to cover for those that are shutdown for maintenance, just as you would have to build extra solar capacity for cloudy days. Or you have to back up your plants with a giant battery - and if you can do that for nuclear, you can do it for wind and solar.
Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe.
Germany has been proving it for years now, and they have the same amount of sunlight as Alaska. Speaking of batteries again, the price has plummeted for the last twenty years and all signs show it will continue to do so. Making the price of a Tesla Powerwall or a large scale backup like they built in Australia cheaper all the time - but you're still going to spend $20 billion on a new nuclear power plant.
Germany has been proving it for years now,
Nah, they haven't. They still rely on nuclear, of all things. And coal. And when they say they have wind power, they back that up with natural gas.
but you're still going to spend $20 billion on a new nuclear power plant.
Nah, I don't really care. I don't believe that AGW is going to cause many problems, so I am happy to wait for solar to become mature. By 2030 I expect battery technology to be good/cheap enough to buffer solar on the grid.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Try two thousand.
Which is still over $600 biiiiiiilion dollars.
And a once-in-a-thousand-years disaster. Just how many nuclear plants in the United States do you think would weather a once-in-a-thousand years tornado, earthquake, flood etc etc without issue?
Don't know how cancer works, do you? It can take decades for a person to develop mesothelioma after exposure to Asbestos. Do you think that smoking cigarettes doesn't cause lung cancer because people don't develop lung cancer in their early 20's?
Yeah, they have - renewables have surpassed coal or nuclear in Germany in generating capacity. So what if they haven't completely transitioned - everyone isn't going to tear down their coal and nuclear plants to replace them with wind turbines for the same reason everyone didn't run out and shoot their horse the moment the Model T went on sale. The important factoid isn't what percentage of the grid is from renewables, it's where new generating capacity comes from. And the world is losing interest in new coal and nuclear power plants.
For the price of a new nuclear power plant you could buy 300 Tesla Powerpacks like the one they built in Australia or 1.3 million Powerwalls. Right now, not 2030. Kinda takes the baseload FUD and nukes it from orbit.
Yeah, they have - renewables have surpassed coal or nuclear [wikipedia.org] in Germany in generating capacity.
If you could even point to a single state in Germany that has managed to survive entirely on solar, then that would be impressive. I don't expect that to happen for a decade or so, though.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."