74% of US Coal Plants Threatened by Renewables, But Emissions Continue To Rise (arstechnica.com)

The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report this week saying that in 2018, "global energy-related CO2 emissions rose by 1.7 percent to 33 Gigatonnes." That's the most growth in emissions that the world has seen since 2013. From a report: Coal use contributed to a third of the total increase, mostly from new coal-fired power plants in China and India. This is worrisome because new coal plants have a lifespan of roughly 50 years. But the consequences of climate change are already upon us, and coal's hefty emissions profile compared to other energy sources means that, globally, carbon mitigation is going to be a lot more difficult to tackle than it may look from here in the US.

Even in the US, carbon emissions grew by 3.1 percent in 2018, according to the IEA. (This closely tracks estimates by the Rhodium Group, which released a preliminary report in January saying that US carbon emissions increased by 3.4 percent in 2018.) "By country, China, the United States, and India together accounted for nearly 70 percent of the rise in energy demand," Reuters wrote.

Comments

Well yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to stop burning coal. You cant just use renewable zero emission energy AND still burn the coal and expect things to change

Re: Well yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

where's the justice in this world? That's what I'm talkin bout

Re:Well yeah

[bobstreo]

You have to stop burning coal. You cant just use renewable zero emission energy AND still burn the coal and expect things to change

Think burning coal is bad?

Wait until legislation is passed, outlawing all the solar cells and windmills and designating them to be burned in coal plants. /s?

Re: Well yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, it gets even better than that. China uses coal to power the mining, refining, and manufacturing industries which produce the solar and wind generation equipment. Then they flat out lie about how much they're really polluting.

Re:Well yeah

[ShanghaiBill]

You have to stop burning coal.

We also need to start treating CO2 as a global problem.

A solar panel in Arizona is going to offset half as much CO2 as a solar panel in Rajasthan.

We need to deploy renewables first where they will do the most good.

Re:Well yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

A solar panel in Rajastan will power 100 homes. One in Arizona won't even power one home.

It's the usage that is the main problem. India and China use much less power per capita than America.

Re:Well yeah

[AmiMoJo]

Deploying solar PV in Arizona helps bring the cost of the tech down so that it is affordable in Rajasthan..

Re: Well yeah

[Type44Q]

Deploying solar PV in Arizona

Would that fall under the category of increasing supply or demand? Serious question; not trying to be snide or argumentative... still too sleepy for that.

Re: Well yeah

[AmiMoJo]

Well there isn't a supply bottleneck, so it would be demand.

Re: Well yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

The lies arenâ(TM)t great, but youâ(TM)re basically just describing a bootstrapping process. If youâ(TM)re using coal to construct its replacement, it does actually help to phase out coal.

Re:Well yeah

[Luckyo]

This growth in emissions is not about coal, which is simply not competitive in US right now due to shale revolution having made natgas almost free.

It's about the massive growth cycle US is in.

Re: Well yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Sustained doubling of demand results in dramatically lower per unit costs. This is due to both economies of scale and technological improvements achieved in manufacturing processes with each additional plant or line.

This has held surprisingly true across all kinds of tech products, from CPUs and batteries to wind turbines. So massive PV buildout in wealthy nations has and will continue to lower costs for future PV installations in poorer countries.

Re:Well yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

MAGA!

Re:Well yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Another headliner case of ignoring making the US the first bad actor and downplaying much larger problems in countries like China and India.

China and India should not get a pass when it comes to pollution. The US and EU can reduce pollution 1% as measured by air quality 1 day a month in the top 5 population area cities when China and India reduce air pollution 5% as measured by air quality 1 day a month in the top 5 population area cities.

An incentive or penalty system should not exclude 2/3rds of the worlds' population, actually more if you include China, India, Brasil, Indonesia and Pakistan all of which have much worse city air quality than the EU or USA.

They have been developing countries for 100 years, and should not be called developing any more thus being subject to the same sorts of international attention paid to EU and USA.

Ah must be all that

[ruddk]

Clean coal they are talking about. :’D

The Paris Accord Will Fix Everything

[Anonymous Coward]

Just keep blaming Trump and ignore the fact that several countries who signed the Paris Accord, including China and India, have increased their use of coal.

Re:The Paris Accord Will Fix Everything

[elrous0]

But...but...Orange Man Bad!

Sounds like a solution

[Krishnoid]

If most of the coal-related emissions are coming from a couple countries, multiple countries should be able to gang up and apply sanctions against them until they fix the (now geographically localized) sources of the problems.

Re: Sounds like a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you gang up on 3rd world nations? These countries are just developing a middle class and billions of people are coming out of poverty. Its a shame you only look at it from a Western point of view.

Re: Sounds like a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

True. You have to make a middle class before you can exploit them and shove them back into poverty again.

Re: Sounds like a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

You are calling China a third world nation?

Re: Sounds like a solution

[ClickOnThis]

Why would you gang up on 3rd world nations? These countries are just developing a middle class and billions of people are coming out of poverty. Its a shame you only look at it from a Western point of view.

The primary emitters are China, India, and the USA. While they all have wealth-distribution and other issues, I'd hardly call them third-world. All three are spacefaring. All three have high-quality universities whose graduates make an impact all over the globe. All three have considerable and unique contributions to world culture and knowledge.

Don't get me wrong, third-world nations should be given support. But you're making a mistake when you claim the OP wants to "gang up" on third-world nations. China, India, and the USA are the "couple counties" the OP suggest the rest of the world should "gang up" on.

Re: Sounds like a solution

[Uberbah]

The primary emitters are China, India, and the USA. While they all have wealth-distribution and other issues, I'd hardly call them third-world. All three are spacefaring. All three have high-quality universities whose graduates make an impact all over the globe. All three have considerable and unique contributions to world culture and knowledge.

And two of them - India and China - together have something like seven times as many people as the United States. Which means they get to pollute more than the United States. It's per capita or nothing - no one would say the Vatican is free to pretend that all nations are equal, and that they have the right to pollute just as much as a much larger country.

Re:Sounds like a solution

[jonwil]

Even if you could somehow get enough countries to agree to impose sanctions against China to actually hurt the Chinese, you would never be able to convince the Chinese to move away from coal by a large enough amount to make a real difference to global emissions.

Re: Sounds like a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Western POV ? Well yes I consider my interests ... wogs can look after themselves.

Re: Sounds like a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you've never been to China. Usually when you read the news you see big cities like Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing and they look marvelous. But you never see the impoverished rural areas and they most live in third world conditions.

Re: Sounds like a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

China would be a second world nation as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd world designations have nothing to do with standard of living in those nations.
1st world is the US and allied nations mostly following capitalist economic policies
2nd world was the Soviet Union and other nations within it's sphere of influence, mostly following communist economic policies (China is more 2nd world than Any of the nations that made of the former Soviet Union are today).
3rd World are those nations outside the direct influence of either the 1st or 2nd world Super Powers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

Re: Sounds like a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

All three are spacefaring. All three have high-quality universities whose graduates make an impact all over the globe. All three have considerable and unique contributions to world culture and knowledge.

That would still be possible in a third world country.

When we think of a country as poor the case is usually that the poorest are on the verge of starvation.
That doesn't mean that the richest doesn't have plenty of resources and goes to good universities.
North Korea is dirt poor but the upper class still lives a life in luxury.

That is why we don't judge countries of how great their best and how rich their top are.
We judge them by how they treat their poorest.

Re: Sounds like a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

The cause is pretty much lost with anyone arguing how much they get to pollute.

If someone takes the stance that "we won't do jack shit until we are the worst offender" instead of striving to be the best you can't just say that a little better is all it takes.
Someone like that needs a slap in the face to wake up.

Re: Sounds like a solution

[GLMDesigns]

It's far more complicated than per capita.

Living in a remote area where you have NO electricity, no running water (and obviously) no car means your CO2 production is limited to burning wood. There are tens of millions of such people living in China today, in 2019. They want - and will get running water and electricity.

A frugal lifestyle (small apartment, bicycle to work, no A/C) etc... in the west produces many times the CO2. Case in point - your refridgerator, TV and internet.

Comparing per capita is close to useless as regards implementing policy.

Re: Sounds like a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

China is moving away from coal already, in terms of proportion of energy production.

Re: Sounds like a solution

[ilsaloving]

The only problem is that at least two of the countries (I don't know about India...) are led by "fuck you I do what I want" people, and have large military complexes.

So the best the rest of the world can do is implement trade sactions, and even then you're playing a game of chicken.

I'm so glad I'm not in politics cause I don't have the foggiest idea of what could be done.

Re: Sounds like a solution

[Uberbah]

Do tell how you come to a global agreement on reducing CO2 pollution without setting an emissions standard?

Re: Sounds like a solution

[Uberbah]

Living in a remote area where you have NO electricity, no running water (and obviously) no car means your CO2 production is limited to burning wood. There are tens of millions of such people living in China today, in 2019. They want - and will get running water and electricity. A frugal lifestyle (small apartment, bicycle to work, no A/C) etc... in the west produces many times the CO2. Case in point - your refridgerator, TV and internet.

So you reinforce the point that the whining about pollution from China and India is really about continuing the western sense of entitlement, but at the same time argue that pollution limits shouldn't be set per capita? Oooooooookay.

Re: Sounds like a solution

[GLMDesigns]

No. I think that increasing their standard of living is great, and what needs to happen

It's the Western fools that think we can reduce our standard of living to the point where there would be an environmental equilibrium that I'm ridiculing.

This is a technological problem more than it is a reduce consumption problem.

Solar (PV) and wind generated power is growing at an exponential rate. That needs to continue - that's what needs to be focused on.

FUD stats...

[Dan East]

The lightweight article referred to above has links to a more thorough article that gets to the important details (https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2019/march/global-energy-demand-rose-by-23-in-2018-its-fastest-pace-in-the-last-decade.html)

The issue here is that the demand for electricity increased by a large percentage in the US, China and India. Obviously something has to ramp up to meet those demands. In the US that was primarily natural gas, the usage of which increased by 10% in 2018. China is using coal to meet their increased power demands.

So why is power consumption increasing? The article above said a significant portion was due to colder than normal winters and hotter than normal summers, thus requiring more power for heating and cooling. In the US petrochemical demand has increased due to trucking and industrial consumption. The economy is strong, growth is occurring, and that is fueled by energy.

So the FUD here is that "emissions continue to rise" is not due to a shift back to coal, but the use of fossil fuels to meet a quick increase in energy demands. Solar, nuclear, wind, etc, cannot ramp up nearly as fast as gas and coal, because those plants already have spare capacity to meet peak demands. If the higher rate consumption continues then renewable sources will continue to grow to reach at least their previous percentage share of power generation.

Re: FUD stats...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fat asses sitting on the couch just sipping jugs of ale. You should slap them silly for not caring about the environment

Re:FUD stats...

[sfcat]

The issue here is that the demand for electricity increased by a large percentage in the US, China and India. Obviously something has to ramp up to meet those demands. In the US that was primarily natural gas, the usage of which increased by 10% in 2018. China is using coal to meet their increased power demands.

Demand increases because population continues to increase. But not by 10%. And the economy doesn't grow that fast. The hidden factor here is keeping the natural gas plants spinning to backup renewables. This isn't a 1 year trend. In CA, CO2 emissions have increased during the last decade, a period where we deployed a large amount of solar and wind. When you have intermittent power sources, you either need storage or you keep a running backup. For CA and most of the US, that's natural gas. The large deployments of wind and solar have much to do with the increase in CO2 emissions but its easier to just blame a cold snap that occurred in 2019? 2018 wasn't that cold and weather certainly wouldn't account for a 10% increase in total usage for the entire year. Residential heating just isn't that large a part of the overall energy usage. A change that big has to be due to changes on the supply side and not on the demand side.

Re:FUD stats...

[angel'o'sphere]

Perhaps you want to research how fast a gas turbine is spinning up.

Hint: no one keeps gas turbines as spinning reserves.

Re:FUD stats...

[HornWumpus]

Sure you do, you just define 'spinning reserve' as starting in under 2-5 minutes. Spinning, ready etc nomenclature changes world wide, even regionally (in the details) in the USA.

You have to be careful terms are explicitly defined when dealing with any sort of fuzzy foreigners.

Also note: Gas turbines do not like to spin up fast and cold. Pick one, they can do it, but it cuts a bunch off their lives.

What CTs mostly do is ramp, then come back down as the slower cheaper plants ramp. Some/many stay on during the 'rampy' times of day. Number based on expected max instantaneous load ramp.

Re:FUD stats...

[angel'o'sphere]

Also note: Gas turbines do not like to spin up fast and cold.
They do. They go from cold and zero to ~80% power in 30 seconds, and to 100% in less than 1 minute.

That is why I politely gave the hint to the parent: read it up.

Also your parent always wrong with his "back up myth" and "spinning reserves".

When you have enough renewables, then they are spread out as virtual power plants. E.g. a wind farm with 100 turbines is not 100 plants but one single virtual plant.
When you have a few dozens of those virtual plants you perfectly know how much power each of them will produce in the foreseeable future (next 15, next 30, next 120, next 240 minutes). Hence for a dozen renewables you have perhaps one, or if for some reason it is more reasonable, two gas turbines ready.
And actually: for that kind of "back up" you do not use gas turbines anyway. Gas turbines are used for balancing power and not ordinary "load following" as in supplementing renewables. Unless of course, in the US, because they built a lot of combined cycle plants.

Anyway, I'm a bit tired about people having no clue about grids and power production (as our parent) posting their nonsense on /.

Re:FUD stats...

[ilguido]

you perfectly know how much power each of them will produce in the foreseeable future (next 15, next 30, next 120, next 240 minutes)

Wow, that is a lot of time to get your backup system up and running efficiently. /sarcasm

When you have enough renewables, then they are spread out as virtual power plants. E.g. a wind farm with 100 turbines is not 100 plants but one single virtual plant. When you have a few dozens of those virtual plants you perfectly know how much power each of them will produce in the foreseeable future.

Here is where reality kicks in. Power plants do not produce energy, but power: electric utilities sell a guaranteed power output (e.g. 3kW to a household, 500kW to a small factory etc.) and they are liable if that power supply is not met. New renewables do not guarantee a given power output, unlike hydropower, coal, gas, nuclear. With coal for example, you build a 1MW coal power plant and you are pretty sure to have a 1MW output (maintenance aside, but that's programmable); while with solar or wind, you build a 1MW power plant and you will get 250kW on average if you are lucky, but you do not really know. So you end up building 10 1MW solar plants to have good chances (but no certainty, so you still need backup!) of meeting that 1MW request. While the price per energy produced is low, the price per power guaranteed is high. Unfortunately it is the latter that you need.

Re: FUD stats...

[Anonymous Coward]

adding solar to your house can be as simple as plugging in a new fridge.
what IS missing are:
government legislation
and
people who care.
with legislation i mean the same amount of burocrazy as pluging in a new fridge, e.g. ZERO.
furthermore people will only care for solar if they see a real benefit which they would if rigerous netmetering would be implemented. some people complain about feed-in-tarif, because it can be construed that non solar users are subsidizing expensive solar. with netmetering this would be a non issue.
other "complaints" are about overloading the grid with solar power on sunny days.
thru history the grid evolved to new challenges. nobody would have air conditioners and fridges today if the same "overload" mentality would have taken hold when air conditioners and "in every house" fridges hit the market many years ago.
the problem are governments that are heavily invested in centralized energy production, like goal, gas and nuclear for undividual personal gain and taxes and kickbacks or the worst: own a huge chunk of the business!!!
example: the thai treasury department OWNS 70% of all stocks of the biggest listed thai company, which happens to be the oil company "ptt". surely there is no conflict of interest in SUNNY thailand there mf

Re: FUD stats...

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on the type of plant. A molten salt plant evens out the short term stuff pretty well. For solar cells, you would need backup storage (battery, pumped water, vat of molten salt that you heat with electricity, flywheels, whatever ends up giving you the ost bang for your buck) and you could use that to even out dips in production and make it just as predictable in the short term as those other types of plant.

Re:FUD stats...

[HornWumpus]

I bet I've spent more hours on control floors than you.

CTs can go from cold to power fast, but it costs them _many_ hours of lifetime. Hence utilities _don't_do_it_. They warm them up first, it's not like rapid ramp periods are surprises to them

Re:FUD stats...

[Anonymous Coward]

Demand for electricity in the US has stagnated since the 2008 financial crisis, see this EIA graph. There has been a decoupling of economic growth and electricity demand growth in the US.

Re:FUD stats...

[HornWumpus]

Solar is very schedulable. Wind less so, but it's not like weather forecasts don't exist. Already used in load forecasting.

You do need plants after dark, but it's not like that's not known.

But 'good news', other than northern climates in winter, demand is typically highest at noon/late afternoon (the classic double peak). They've got plants sitting there ready to run when the sun goes down. You don't have to build them, just staff and fuel them. It does mean you can't tear them down and is a real cost.

Re:FUD stats...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are quite a few studies that show this argument to be blatantly false. There are two factors that are confused here:
- short term supply (within two days)
- long term supply (> 2 days)
The 2 day factor because that's the time you need e.g. to power up a coal plant.

Now if you take a look at the reliability of regional whether forecasts you will see that the 2d window is highly accurate when it comes to predicting the wind energy production for an area with a radius of 50 miles. In that sense, wind energy works perfectly fine to satisfy the base load of the network.

For the long term supply reliability, it is a question of scale. It's quite true that an area like the above 50 miles circle will sometimes produce little to no energy. But on the scale of a continent (even smaller ones like Europe or Australia), there are very stable known production factors. Surely it means you have to plan for installing more capacity than the sum of the nameplates, but that's still cheap. The numbers have been crunched using the real world data of decades, it works. One of the main problems has nothing to do with energy generation, but cost and NIMBY preventing the grid extensions necessary for such a large scale energy distribution to work.

Re:FUD stats...

[angel'o'sphere]

Wow, that is a lot of time to get your backup system up and running efficiently. /sarcasm
Yes, it is. so what is your point?

Here is where reality kicks in. Power plants do not produce energy, but power: electric utilities sell a guaranteed power output
The "utility company", yes. But they are free to use what ever plant they want, or simply buy power elsewhere.

Did I mention: I'm tired about idiots who have no clue how production works?

Re:FUD stats...

[angel'o'sphere]

Obviously they keep them warmed up.
My point was about performance.

No idea what a control floor is :P

Re:FUD stats...

[HornWumpus]

AKA dispatch center, control center, grid operations center, Independent System Operator (ISO) regional control center.

I spent a decade+ writing software that collected real time system data and fired off many simulations in the 1 day to 1 week forecast range. Allowed the system operator or power trader to examine various operational scenarios. That job took me around the world a few times.

Re:FUD stats...

[ilguido]

Solar is very schedulable. Wind less so, but it's not like weather forecasts don't exist. Already used in load forecasting.

I know that english is not my mother tongue, but, come on, I was pretty clear. I am not talking about load balancing or production scheduling. I am talking about production planning and capacity factor. The biggest share of renewable sources you have, the lowest the capacity factor of your whole power supply (i.e. the weighted sum of the capacity factor of all your power sources) is, so you need more redundancy to meet the requested power supply, that is you need more plants, which means more costs. Moreover, for traditional power sources, maintenance and refuelling can be planned months in advance, while for wind or solar you have no control on their downtime, so you have to plan in advance a backup source, that is you have to build even more plants.

Re:FUD stats...

[ilguido]

But they are free to use what ever plant they want, or simply buy power elsewhere.

Ah, ok, now I get it: your plan is to let, say, Mexico build coal plants, so when your solar and wind power is slacking off, you can buy power from them and berate them because they still use dirty sources. Smart.

Did I mention: I'm tired about idiots who have no clue how production works?

Internet is serious stuff, uh?

Re:FUD stats...

[HornWumpus]

Solar is 'peak shaving', the plants to serve nighttime load already exist. You just can't tear them down yet.

All peaker plants only run a few hours/day. That's their nature. The most expensive, oldest peaker in your region likely has a worse capacity factor than solar. Solar is only the worst 'category', individual plants will run lower capacity factors. There are individual plants that run at 0% (granting not 0.0000000%) capacity factor most years. They make all their money on capacity payments. Some are priced higher than load curtailment (paying industrial users to shutdown when things are very critical).

Every transmission/control area is required to maintain enough standby power to cover the biggest single plant/transmission line going down. That is also just the nature of the grid. Nothing is 100% reliable, utilities are required to accept that fact and spin for their nuke, biggest thermal plant or highest power transmission line falling over.

The long term situation for the grid is challenging. Eventually solar might become a difficulty, once most areas load - solar becomes night peaking. But not even close yet. Negative reactances of switching power supplies is a more immediate issue. Old school, you just let the grid brown-out and power use drops, but with switchers when you drop V, current goes up. When that becomes dominant the grid has a huge fucking problem.

Re:FUD stats...

[HornWumpus]

Just to add: Your basic mistake is thinking any plant can 'guarantee a given power output'.

That's just wrong. They _have_ (FERC rules in the USA) to spin for their biggest single power source, as _none_ are guaranteed.

As a practical matter, they _all_ violate spinning/ready reserve rules a few hours/year BTW. But engineers are practical people, not mathematicians.

Re:FUD stats...

[Magius_AR]

The issue here is that the demand for electricity increased by a large percentage in the US, China and India.

That's not true.
US Electrical consumption has actually been flat for over a decade: https://www.vox.com/energy-and...
Per capita, we're declining in electrical demand.

Re:FUD stats...

[angel'o'sphere]

The biggest share of renewable sources you have, the lowest the capacity factor of your whole power supply And why would the CF be relevant when I actually know with a very small error margin how much power my plants will produce over the next 6hours?

so you need more redundancy to meet the requested power supply Erm ... no?

that is you need more plants, which means more costs. Erm ... no? You have the plants already ... you use the plants you are replacing with renewables ...

Moreover, for traditional power sources, maintenance and refuelling can be planned months in advance, so can usually power production by renewables be planned.

while for wind or solar you have no control on their downtime, so you have to plan in advance a backup source, that is you have to build even more plants. Erm ... no? You have those "backup plants" already.

Re:FUD stats...

[angel'o'sphere]

No, my plan would be to buy power e.g. from Texas.
And if we talk about Mexico, obviously we set up wind and solar plants there as they have lots of sun and a long coastline.

Mexico build coal plants
Why would they? It is the second most expensive power source, or the third if one was so stupid to build an oil plant.

Re:FUD stats...

[angel'o'sphere]

AKA dispatch center, control center, grid operations center, Independent System Operator (ISO) regional control center.
Half guessed that, we call it dispatcher center/room. I only spent a few hours there.

I spent a decade+ writing software that collected real time system data and fired off many simulations in the 1 day to 1 week forecast range. Allowed the system operator or power trader to examine various operational scenarios.
I did the same.

That job took me around the world a few times.
Unfortunately stuck in Baden Württemberg as I basically only worked for EnBW.com ... I hoped to visit ENCF.fr, too but it never happened.

Re: FUD stats...

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't thinking at a systems level, that is on the level of a web of producers and consumers with different attributes. There is an irreducible level of power AND energy (just having 1kW won't do much good unless it is sustained for long enough to produce the ENERGY required to heat your house, and my energy company bills me for the ENERGY I use) required over a period of time required, but different systems have different requirements or different production requirements.

For example, fridges doesn't run continuously now, but in response to a thermostat. But if there was an interaction between thermostat and cost of energy in real time then the fridge could choose to cool when it is cheap provided that the good stayed fresh. Essentially, the food provides the storage. Ditto a well-insulated house can be kept warm or cool using similar principles, or high thermal mass used as storage. If we are talking ventilators in a hospital then yes they need power all the time, but then hospitals don't fully rely on the grid.

Systems engineering plays an important role by looking at the entire system and the design required to meet irreducible requirements (hospitals, enough to stop food going bad) and additional ones required for a good quality of life given the desired balance and risk appetites, resiliency requirements and so on. In such a context then a five minute interruption to domestic air con to shed a little load while peaking gas turbines to come online might be entirely acceptable.

To dismiss the whole idea of a systems engineering approach on an IT-centric forum is disappointing.

It's not necessarily easy to do, but then we seem to have done many things that weren't easy. Why give up on trying difficult things to achieve a good goal now?

Re:FUD stats...

[Anonymous Coward]

According to something I was watching from GE about their NG turbine power packs, they can gain about a 20% efficiency boost from attaching battery packs to the turbine to smooth out the constantly changing demand and allow for more downtime. It's even more efficient to have a separate dedicated batter energy storage plant.

Energy storage plants can increase the efficiency of existing fossil fuel power plants enough that the savings in fuel will pay off the batter plants in several years. The problem is the competitive market in the USA currently does not play well with such designs. The value added by the battery banks results in money saved by people other than the battery operators. The system as a whole is made more efficiency and everyone else wins at the expense of the battery plant. This is one of those corner cases where a free market does not work effectively.

Re:FUD stats...

[HornWumpus]

Our power trading code likely exchanged data. We were at the Swamp German power company...as well as all over the UK, Spain etc.

CEO to another team lead: 'Fix that by friday our you're going to Amsterdam to explain the client why it's broken.'
Me: 'What do I have to screw up to get sent to Amsterdam? Say the word and it's as good as broken!'

China and India

[AHuxley]

But the USA has to change its energy policy and accept new energy prices?
Because virtue signalling?
Let the USA select form any entry it wants to stay productive 24/7, keep jobs and export.
Hydro, gas, nuclear, coal, solar, wind. Anything that keep US power costs low and the USA working 24/7.
Export to the work with low power costs. If thats from low cost coal in your state, enjoy the jobs and productivity.
When lower cost energy is ready move to that.
Don't force the USA to change and induce more energy costs all over the USA>

Re: China and India

[Rockoon]

Because virtue signalling?

The left coast maintains that the signaling of virtue is the most important thing. We are talking about nothingburgers here. Nothingburgers are a healthy alternative to regular stuff.

Re: China and India

[Anonymous Coward]

Your brain is a nothingburger, the alternative to you is anything that matters. Kill yourself red state faggots, nobody will even notice or care. Try it.

Re: China and India

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, what is it with you people. Itâ(TM)s always the name calling and the attempts to reduce the behavior of your opponents to simplistic (and contemptible) mechanisms. Have you ever thought about the damage that kind of rhetoric does to actual debate? The reality is that people who are worried about the level of pollution that mankind produces arenâ(TM)t trying to âoevirtue signalâ any more than the people who donâ(TM)t care about it and argue about freedom, etc. in the same context.
The whole idea appears to be based on the âoephilosophical zombieâ concept, where ones self is the only thinking, free willed entity in the universe, and everyone else is just an empty human-shaped shell, going through the motions of appearing human. The trend of talking about others as âoevirtual signalingâ NPCs and the like is basically the p-zombie concept with the extension of adding your in group to the group of those with real thoughts and feelings. Itâ(TM)s a fundamentally disrespectful and, frankly, dangerous way to behave. Attempts to dehumanize your opponents historically donâ(TM)t end well for anyone.

Not my problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

But good news for psychiatrists and fear mongers.

Burn More On Purpose?

[rtb61]

For some countries burning as much fossil fuel as possible works. Never ever forget the country most impacted by climate change and sea level rise will be the USA, no country will suffer as much as they do, the entire US east coast is under huge threat. Right now for those countries in conflict it makes sense to generate as much carbon dioxide as fast as possible, it's no like the USA will complain, they will help and in their insanity try to out compete you by producing even more carbon dioxide. All entirely silly but unfortunately much closer to reality than it should sanely be.

Re: Burn More On Purpose?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well no thanks then. Plenty of power sources. Toodles!

Re:Burn More On Purpose?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, what is known as the Sunny Siberia plan. A secret clandestine effort to infuse the frozen Tundra with enough heat to save the world?

Re:Burn More On Purpose?

[angel'o'sphere]

Every country with coasts will suffer.
But it is nice you showed us your US centric few of the problem :P

I would assume the coasts of Australia, India, China etc. are similar long.

Re:Burn More On Purpose?

[_merlin]

Bangladesh will suffer the most - the whole country is basically at current sea level. They'll need to hold back the ocean Dutch-style or pack up and leave.

Re: Burn More On Purpose?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. The countries surrounding Bangledesh will suffer the most since the citizens of Bangledesh will flood into them and deminish any current standard of living. Rinse and repeat

Re:Burn More On Purpose?

[Sique]

The dutch dams work because of the special situation at the Dutch coast: a mudflat with tidal changes.

Due to the special conditions around the North Sea (a small sea bordering an ocean) you have high tidal differences, which allows to empty the rivers during low tide and block the incoming seawater during high tide. The difference in height is up to ten feet at the Dutch coast, but only about one foot at Bangladesh's coast.

The tidal changes work like a large natural water pump. The natural pump basically doesn't exist in Bangladesh with only one foot twice per day, and with one foot of sealevel rise, it is totally gone. Instead, Bangladesh would have to install large man-made water to get the water of the Ganges and the Brahmhaputra river out of the country and into the ocean.

I always wonder when people bring up the Dutch dam system if they ever actually look how they work? And why they only exists along the North Sea and nowhere else on the globe? You would expect them to have been built alongside all coasts of the world, if they were an universally appliable concept. Alas, they aren't. They work because the Dutch coast is in fact a mudflat... the largest mutflat of the world. The Dutch dam system only works with mudflats. Everywhere else, it fails, becaue either, you don't have enough tidal changes, or because of the missing mudflats along the coast.

Re:Burn More On Purpose?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every country with coasts will suffer.

Yes, but they will mostly cooperate to make space for those who have to move away from the costal areas.

Imagine what will happen in the US when "those costal people" that makes up 90% of the population migrates to higher ground.
It's not going to be pretty in a country where the focus is on greed rather than resolving issues.

Re: Burn More On Purpose?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just eliminate federal flood insurance and it will happen naturally. Once you can't insure low-lying structures you'll move on your own. Or at least your kids will.

Re: Burn More On Purpose?

[Anonymous Coward]

That would certainly render the Electoral College issue mute and at long last reverse the brain drain from The Methlands!

Re:Burn More On Purpose?

[angel'o'sphere]

I always wonder when people bring up the Dutch dam system if they ever actually look how they work?
In general it is safe to assume that people don't look up how stuff works.

Hence all the misconceptions about renewable power, its supposed dirtiness in production of wind turbines, panels etc. usage of rare earth elements (which are not rare) etc. p.p.

Funnily many things are super simple to grasp if one would just sit back 30 minutes, empty the mind of all prejudice and start thinking with a clear mind on a fresh slate.

But alas, I'm a requirements engineer, it is in my blood to assume I know nothing and listen to the others and build up a new mental model.

Re:Burn More On Purpose?

[No Longer an AC]

the entire US east coast is under huge threat.

That's why I'm about a mile high in Denver. That's an old Jimmy Buffett song before he realized he liked Margaritas better than Coors? LOL... Nobody drinks Coors here.

Re:Burn More On Purpose?

[No Longer an AC]

Every country with coasts will suffer.

Evo Morales chuckles at the thought. It's not just the US that will suffer. Chile will pay a steep price too. Maybe Bolivia will finally get access to the sea if it rises enough.

No, Dan East, you're the FUD.

[Anonymous Coward]

Solar, nuclear, wind, etc, cannot ramp up nearly as fast as gas and coal,

^ Is complete bullshit, you just have to invest in the infrastructure to comparable levels. https://www.clf.org/blog/doe-economics-killing-coal/

Re:No, Dan East, you're the FUD.

[Dan East]

^ Is complete bullshit, you just have to invest in the infrastructure to comparable levels. https://www.clf.org/blog/doe-e...

Did you not read what I wrote? With the current state of things - the current infrastructure - gas power production can literally ramp up by pressing a couple buttons and telling the plant to produce more energy. The plants are not normally running at 100% capacity. Solar and wind already produce all they are capable of producing, and that is just pumped into the grid with hopes it can be used at that exact moment. "Ramping up" means literally building and installing new solar panels and wind turbines. That cannot happen nearly as fast as gas and coal plants that already have spare production capability. My point is spot on.

Re:No, Dan East, you're the FUD.

[Anonymous Coward]

Solar, wind, and batteries combined are about 2% of the world's energy needs. We would have to ramp up a factor of 70 or so (to provide for excess capacity in some areas to cover for those with less) at a minimum.

Re:No, Dan East, you're the FUD.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't "ramp up" a new gas plant any quicker (and considerably slower) than you can a new solar plant or turbine setup. Once you've built them you will have an overcapacity-into-storage grid rather than the wasteful current regime.

You are the FUD. Once we've invested in renewables to the extent that we have LNG or nuclear or coal or anything else, it will absolutely be (and already is) a large portion of the cheapest, cleanest power available anywhere.
And potentially as-importantly, it will be a distributed generation grid that can be incrementally added to, with capacitance being much more modular than massive fossil fuel plants, obviously.

"Ramping up" literally yes means putting infrastructure in place. We've done that for 100 years with fossil fuels. Now we will do it with renewables. Grab some pine and enjoy the view.

Re:No, Dan East, you're the FUD.

[110010001000]

Um you missed his point. He is saying with current infrastructure. You are saying the same thing he is.

Re:No, Dan East, you're the FUD.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is propaganda driven statistics. "World energy needs" covers a lot more than just electricity, but includes traffic, heating etc. Even then, the 2% figure does not include hydro power at all (which is around 7%). Even ignoring all that, scaling wind energy is easy and cheap in many parts of the world. Let's just reduce it to the USA. At the start of 2017, there was a total installed capacity of 82GW. Compare that with Germany's 56GW and you will see there is a lot of room. The second part is that the stated reasons in the article work out nicely in favor of solar for at least half of the problems. Power consumption by air conditions correlate nicely with power generation potential using solar...

call

[Anonymous Coward]

Whew, didn't mention overpopulation. Nothing to see here, then.

Re: call

[Anonymous Coward]

I never minded apathy. You can go it alone. It's all or nothing with these environmental crazies

Why not nuclear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Coal => natural gas+nuclear => fusion

Renewables will always be a niche market.

emissions rise

[Anonymous Coward]

so what? plant a tree. christ almighty it isn't as if co2 hasn't been 10% at times in the past.

Duh!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

74% of the US coal plants threatened.

Coal contributes to one third of the increase mainly due to China and India

Re:Duh!

[Freischutz]

74% of the US coal plants threatened.

Coal contributes to one third of the increase mainly due to China and India

Yes, but per capita the US reigns as emperor along with Canada, Saudi Arabia and Australia who all emit from 15-17 tons of CO2 per capita. Comparable figures for India and China are 1,58 tons and 6,59 tons of CO2 per capita. Some 327 million Americans produce the same amount of CO2 emissions as 800 million Chinese and 3,4 billion Indians (that's 2,5 times the current population of India).

Coal is dead

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Clean Natural gas is cheaper than even the raw dirty coal. Drill baby drill crowd produced so much of natural gas, the dig baby dig crowd got shafted.

If the coal workers have any sense, they will support the Democrats and make sure they get the job of safely shutting down coal mines. There is enough work there to guarantee jobs for the coal workers till they retire. There is money for it from the bonds posted by the coal companies. Democrats will make sure those bonds are actually used to give jobs to the coal workers. If they go with the Republicans, the companies will self post, sign some papers, steal the bonds, and promptly declare bankruptcy after divvying up the money.

Re:Coal is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

"Clean"

Except all the methane leaking out of the wells. And the fracking waste causing earthquakes.

Re:Coal is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

There is enough work there to guarantee jobs for the coal workers till they retire.

There is no need for them to remain stuck in the energy sector. Those coal miners can just #LearnToCode

Re:Coal is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

The reports of coal's death are greatly exaggerated. Of course you didn't RTFA, but at least read the summary: "Coal use contributed to a third of the total increase, mostly from new coal-fired power plants in China and India. This is worrisome because new coal plants have a lifespan of roughly 50 years."

Even in the US coal energy production is projected by the EIA to stay steady through 2050 (see page 7 of this pdf). While the less economic plants do and will continue to get shut down, other things equal the remaining ones will be getting enough money to stay open either via capacity revenue in unregulated markets or cost recovery in regulated markets. If cost reductions for renewables and batteries continue for long enough, it may drive those hold out coal plants out of business before 2050, even in regulated states (see the recent NIPSCO news in Indiana). Add to that potential state environmental regulations and especially a potential carbon price and the case becomes even more dire for coal units. But don't assume they are dead yet.

Re:Coal is dead

[DNS-and-BIND]

Vote for the same people who called them deplorable? The same people who coldly told them "learn to code"? The same people who, when the working class retaliated with "learn to code", considered this a hate crime? We'll get right on voting for people who call us racists, rape apologists and woman haters.

Not a surprise...

[LynnwoodRooster]

The EU just abandoned their 2050 climate goals because there was no chance of reaching it. And Germany has seen coal use slightly rise over the last 10 years - no chance of meeting their own 2020 and 2030 commitments.

The future isn't solar and wind (because it's not working); it's nuclear. That is the only way forward out of pollution and limited power.

Re:Not a surprise...

[Freischutz]

The EU just abandoned their 2050 climate goals because there was no chance of reaching it. And Germany has seen coal use slightly rise over the last 10 years - no chance of meeting their own 2020 and 2030 commitments.

The future isn't solar and wind (because it's not working); it's nuclear. That is the only way forward out of pollution and limited power.

Germany is set to phase out coal-fired power stations by 2038: https://www.ft.com/content/cfa... Both Nucear and Coal will be killed off by the free market for the simple reason that Nuclear and Coal are the two most expensive options available in terms of LCOE and the only remaining fossil full that can compete with terrestrial wind and solar in terms of cost-effectiveness is natural gas. Isn't the free market wonderful?

Re:Not a surprise...

[Luckyo]

When you are so deranged by green ideology, you seriously claim that wind and solar are the most cost effective power production methods.

Re:Not a surprise...

[LynnwoodRooster]

Yep! And you just punted on every commitment you had made prior...

Re:Not a surprise...

[Anonymous Coward]

Solar is not the most cost effective power production method, wind is. But it is not an either-or question, but exploiting as many available resources as possible.

Re: Not a surprise...

[Anonymous Coward]

solar is the most democratic. not everyone lives in a windy place but if you are not chained to a wall in dungeon the sun shines on you too ...

The Dems aren't shooting for jobs

[rsilvergun]

shutting down coal plants. They're trying to replace the coal jobs via the Green New Deal. The "Green" part is incidental to the "New Deal" part. It's a jobs program to give a real answer to the question "What do we do with all these out of work coal miners in Ohio that swing presidential elections?". The answer is to give them jobs doing something we want done anyway (replacing old, dirty coal plants with wind and solar).

Re:The Dems aren't shooting for jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

DO not make too much sense. /. does not have a place for logic anymore, just emotional hatred. You are absolutely right of course.

Re:The Dems aren't shooting for jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a jobs program to give a real answer to the question "What do we do with all these out of work coal miners in Ohio that swing presidential elections?". The answer is to give them jobs doing something we want done anyway...

Your not likely to find a one to one fit consistently, even with retraining from coal to wind and solar.

The answer is having the resources to retrain for new jobs, not necessarily related to wind and solar, and if need be some assistance till they are at the new jobs. This may even include relocation to an area with more work. You could bias this to people in particular fields that need to retrain, for a limited time, but really the idea is to, in general, give people a shot to start over doing something else.

The problem is, the world must move forward, and we must make fewer mistakes tomorrow than we made today, if we want to preserve our world for future generations. It's easy for a politician to claim the easy solution is to just keep mining coal, but that's not a solution at all. .
I can understand why people like Trump does it. He knows one way or another he will be dead before it gets really bad, and he doesn't care.

The countless early graves from all the future generations that will be impacted by our current folly doesn't even register to a narcissistic sociopath like Trump. I don't even think he even considers it. It's all the long con, with no regard to the cliff ahead.

Re:The Dems aren't shooting for jobs

[Uberbah]

The answer is having the resources to retrain for new jobs

And when there are more unemployed people looking for work than there are jobs available? Besides, if there's enough demand, corporations will - shockingly enough in today's capitalist USA - recruit and train workers to the job. A GND would create far more jobs than would be lost in the coal industry, skipping the old saw about workers being untrained. Replacing coal and nuclear with wind and solar would take a few decades, so it's not like people would have jobs next year but would shortly be out of work again.

Re:The Dems aren't shooting for jobs

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Do you know how much work there is shutting down the coal mines safely? All those tilings left behind. Mine shafts to be systematically closed and sealed, lest some random soccer team gets lost in there. All those toxic ponds of pumped water to be safely disposed off. These are all green jobs. The coal companies posted bonds to do the clean up. Or have self bonded. There are just 50,000 coal workers left. And we need them. They are the only ones skilled enough, trained enough to do the job. None of the coal workers want their kids to get into coal mining. They really don't want the coal mines to operate in perpetuity. All they want is a honest job with honest pay till their retirement.

Orderly shutting down of coal mines would do the job, has the money for it. But you can trust Republicans to play up the emotions, steal all the bond money posted by the coal companies and leave the workers high and dry, and the taxpayers with the clean up bill.

Re:The Dems aren't shooting for jobs

[drew_kime]

It's a jobs program to give a real answer to the question "What do we do with all these out of work coal miners in Ohio that swing presidential elections?". The answer is to give them jobs doing something we want done anyway (replacing old, dirty coal plants with wind and solar).

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Re:The Dems aren't shooting for jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Sensation is manic is White House. Bring the pain baby and remember, your concept of values is only incidental to your honor, like it is personally.

Re:The Dems aren't shooting for jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Coal jobs are irrelevant to everyone except for the coal miners themselves. The GND is sooo much larger than coal, which is not even a rounding error. There are ~50K coal jobs and the average age is almost 50. Paying each of them $70K / year would cost ... $3.5 B / year, or 0.0167 percent (percent!) of GDP. Pay them to go home, it's not worth discussing.

Re:The Dems aren't shooting for jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

I love your comment because it basically say, "Look at the huge externalities that nobody has been paying while selling all this cheap coal!" I would say that they likely want to afford their mortgage payments at least as much as "an honest job," but that's a quibble.

So absolutely, pay coal workers to wind down the industry. But make sure the taxpaying public realizes that the costs are simply the delayed bill that that industry has foisted off on them for generations. It's Superfund all over again. Maybe some accountability from the industry?

And Dems should just buy their votes.

Coal jobs are irrelevant to everyone except the coal miners themselves; coal is not even a rounding error in the scheme of things. There are ~50K coal jobs and the average worker's age is almost 50. Paying each of them $70K / year would cost ... $3.5 B / year, or 0.0167 percent (percent!) of GDP. As the cleanup work evaporates, just pay them to go home—it's not worth arguing about.

Re:The Dems aren't shooting for jobs

[No Longer an AC]

I think Andrew Wheeler's plan is to follow the example of Brazil and wait until there's a dam holding toxic waste that breaks thus providing lots of money and jobs to whoever cleans it up...

They will clean it up, right?

its a big world

[sdinfoserv]

Americans are buying SUV's over cars and SUV's get much worse MPG. It's the reason Ford will no longer make sedans.
https://www.nbcnews.com/busine...
That's why emissions are up in the US.
Secondly, the US isn't the top carbon emitter enymore either: China emits more carbon then the US and Europe combined:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...
Third, the US has a president that denies global warming is real and is doing everything he can to eradicate any "Obama era" policy that might require reduced emissions, more efficiency vehicles or the pushing of renewables. The republican mantra of "remove those horrible job killing regulations " is in full force.

Re: its a big world

[Anonymous Coward]

There is absolutely no evidence that vehcle or coal emissions cause global warming. I also believe there is not one shred.of evidence for global warming.

Orange traitor hangs either way.

[Anonymous Coward]

Orange traitor hangs either way.

Re:Orange traitor hangs either way.

[Luckyo]

Mueller will save you, I'm sure. Any day now.

Not a surprise... that Lyinwood lies again? Fag

[Anonymous Coward]

You just lied. Germany has pushed back on the goal being expensive (for them), yet the EU continues pushing for it overall. You're a lying faggot with yellow fever, nothing more. Learn to read Lyinwood moron. Find some integrity in death.

WindBourne hurry you're needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell us how America rising at twice the global average is a good thing. Especially when they are per person already up near the very top...

Technically

[Texmaize]

Technically, coal is going down, but it goes to natural gas. So, title is sorta misleading https://www.statista.com/stati...

Global CO2 levels continue to rise

[Chas]

YEAH!

And it's not from the coal we're burning in the US! Even with the coal we burn, we're DOWN, year over year.

Look at China and India though.

This is where the global rise is coming from.

Re:Global CO2 levels continue to rise

[Freischutz]

YEAH!

And it's not from the coal we're burning in the US! Even with the coal we burn, we're DOWN, year over year.

Look at China and India though.

This is where the global rise is coming from.

Yes but in terms of raw tonnage of CO2 emissions it's the US and China that matter by far the most. The US and China emit more CO2 put together than the entire rest of the top 20 list of CO2 emitters put together including India: https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/d... If you consider the populations behind the slices on that pie chart the US emissions are simply staggering.

You lie like a WindBourne.

[Anonymous Coward]

And you didn't even read the summary. Well done.

Re:You lie like a WindBourne.

[Luckyo]

He read the actual data. Summary is intentionally misleading.

You WindBourne or just a generic GOPer?

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly have no idea what the Paris Accord even was.

Re:You WindBourne or just a generic GOPer?

[Anonymous Coward]

A bunch of feel good bullshit? Hurrah we all agreed to do something even though the something most of us have to do is nothing (and some of us are getting paid for it as well).

Re:You WindBourne or just a generic GOPer?

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly have no idea what the Paris Accord even was.

Was it a Honda in France?

Us coal went down

[WindBourne]

According to rhodium's us report, CO2 from coal went down. In fact, co2 from our cars went down as well, in spite of moving some new sales to trucks/SUV. CO2 from electricity sourced by nat. Gas is what went up the most. The other was semis and jet aircrafts due to our economy booming. But coal plants are not threatened by renewables. They continue to be threatened by nat gas and wind. Solar is not making a dent yet. Right now, the GOP is working on rewriting regs/subsidies dealing with nuclear power. Hopefully, this will make inroads.

Are you thick? Or deceitful?

[Anonymous Coward]

China has a lot more people than the US and EU combined too. Did you have a point?
Maybe your point was to hide the fact Americans are twice as CO2 polluting as either Europeans or Chinese.

Exactly coal is a red herring

[Anonymous Coward]

US CO2 went up anyway.

Until America can half its CO2 levels back to China's and the EU's per person level it's just putting lipstick on a pig.

Chas is just another illiterate Republican faggot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chas is just another illiterate Republican faggot.

US per person electricity is way higher than China

[Anonymous Coward]

and they both dwarf India.
Coal is a red herring at this point, it will be phased out eventually.
US gas and US oil are similarly quite excessive compared to other countries.

Coal was only a third of the CO2 increase anyway.

You admit your lie, will you go back and correct?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that you admit:

The other was semis and jet aircrafts due to our economy booming.

Are you going to go back here and correct you lie?

You deny constantly that American people are worse than Chinese people when it comes to CO2.

You deny that historically America is the biggest source of CO2.

You constantly play down the reality that America per person is still over twice as bad as Chinese people. You try to convince everyone that because they got a little better (except last year when you got worse) they are the good guys. They are not. They are still twice as bad as European and Chinese people, there are just less of them.

You constantly claim America should naturally produce so much CO2 because it's GDP is high.

Your one example of a lie (which you 'claimed' was a few examples) isn't even a lie. But then you constantly claim links say what you want them to when they clearly do not.

Even here in that very post you lie yet again.

Even in 2018, we were headed in the right direction, EXCEPT for nat. gas for electricity.

Transport was your biggest emitter, it got worse again. Like it has every year since 2012. You have been shown many times, why still lie?

But then it's standard for WindBourne to lie. He does it so much, he can't help but lie even in the posts where he accuses me of lying. Here here and herefor example. Yet he still can't show one. Strange.

Shit for brains APK is talking to himself and

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit for brains APK is now having entire conversations with himself and repeating him self too. Some forgot to take their meds today or they need to be increased.

Re:Shit for brains APK is talking to himself and

[Anonymous Coward]

He ran you DRY of your downmodpoints you abuse again hehehehe!

Re: Shit for brains APK is talking to himself and

[Anonymous Coward]

Alexander has always done that. Itâ(TM)s completely obvious and everyone knows itâ(TM)s him responding to his own messages, but he does it anyway. It appears to be a narcissist thing. He doesnâ(TM)t actually care that the praise is coming from himself, he likes to bask in it anyway. Also, thereâ(TM)s some small number of people that it actually might fool, and I think his mind counts only them and not all of the other people who can see right through it. In other words he consumes the small amount of positive attention and ignores the negative (or maybe he even finds a source of joy in that as well). His brain just doesnâ(TM)t do the math on it the same as the rest of us, so his internal reward system is screwed up.

FUD stats... from you...

[Anonymous Coward]

China is using coal to meet their increased power demands.

Gas demand in China increased by almost 18%

Now which quote is from the report and which is made up by you to make China look bad?
If I didn't know better I'd think you were WindBourne.

It's OK USA is only 2nd worst

[Anonymous Coward]

Lynnwood troller

It's the oil crash

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems pretty obvious to me. It's the crash in oil (as well as coal) that led to the increase in use. What else could have allowed people to start using 6-wheel diesel trucks as commuter cars? Cheaper cost of operation, of course. Some of these chest-beating wannabes are driving to their white-collar office jobs in 6-wheel diesel trucks, every day, as if it's normal. They've never towed a damn thing in their lives.

It was economics that led to the increase, and it will be economics that leads to the fallout. Hopefully sooner than later, because I'm getting really tired of inhaling diesel exhaust at the freaking super market of all places.

Re: It's the oil crash

[Anonymous Coward]

Bigots like you, of course, are the solution. Your assertion odd based on never having talked to anyone outside off your smug hipster circle. How about you actually talk to pepper who aren't mindless idiots like you and realize that there are other cultures besides your smug urban hateful one.

Re: It's the oil crash

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! The insensitive clod assumed the coal rollers were all urban office professionals. In rural areas, these $60k trucks are typically driven by meth and heroin dealers!

Re: It's the oil crash

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we can get Pepper to give up the secrets of the Stark ARC reactor and solve both problems at once.

And for the record, I don't think it's fair to call her an idiot, even if she is played by one...

The articles are shit

[DaveV1.0]

Having read this and the the source article, it is obvious the articles are trying to hide the fact that China and India are the major contributors to the increase and that U.S. coal is no where near the player it is portrayed to be. The author of the article is writing propaganda to push an agenda instead of being a journalist and presenting the true facts.

Re:The articles are shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Arstechnica was all you needed to know... they have good journalist and also a massive agenda.

It doesn't matter if you are a little bit better

[Anonymous Coward]

An American will still be twice as bad. If they don't clean up it wont matter what the rest of us do.

I used to think it was advertisers/webmasters (nat

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to think it was advertisers/webmasters (naturally, they profit by ad/tracking bullshit & I never would've released my work publicly BUT pals of mine tested it & said "Let 'er rip man - she works" so, there ya go - advertisers & webmasters INFECTING us did it more than the tracking + slowup though).

INFERIOR competitors that don't do as much from ANY SINGLE 1 of them (addons/DNS/AntiVirus either 'souled-out' to advertisers (ghostery/adblock) or crippled by JEWgle's machinations (UBlock 30k item limit in new API or even BROWSERS subverting NATIVE TCP/IP function)) are a possible too.

* I also USED to think it was malwaremakers/botnetherders/spammers/phishers also - but they will just "make more doritos", though it costs them to do so in time/money, they will so, I think they are the "LESSER EVIL" suspect.

APK

P.S.=> Now, as to YOUR thoughts? See subject - I do PITY that useless JEALOUS "Lil' Jowie" waste of life (really) - instead of trying to hassle me he could be doing this:

Make a Wheel https://isc.sans.edu/forums/di... as I did giving users more speed/security/reliability & anonymity NATIVELY doing more for less vs. ANY single 'solution' via the best hosts file multiplatform!

HOWEVER - that's thinking like I do (as did the folks @ SANS): Good people do - SHITHEADS guilty of the Sin of CAIN (envy) like the dildo stalking/impersonating me can't even BEGIN to execute such a good deed - they're WASTES OF LIFE & know it themselves inside (Lazy, stupid, but mostly they're MISANTHROPES hating on others when they REALLY HATE THEMSELVES for being wastes, etc.)... apk

Re:Still IMPERSONATING me JEALOUS "Lil' Jowie"?

[stealth_finger]

Stop IMPERSONATING me lying

You wanna know how you can stop people impersonating you? By signing the fuck in.

Re:I do &... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep fighting the good fight! Thank you!

Re:Still IMPERSONATING me JEALOUS "Lil' Jowie"?

[Anonymous Coward]

./ has devolved into a never-ending argument center filled with temper tantrum brats.

Illegal Immigration

[Scroatzilla]

I'm curious how much illegal immigration affects energy consumption in the US? We're so caught up in how the media spins illegal immigration (and shutting down people who point out the destruction of low-skilled jobs available to impoverished American citizens), I hardly hear anyone talk about the environmental impact of illegal immigrants. Many of the places they come from don't really push "energy consciousness," an American value stemming from its relatively high standards of living.

as usual pathetic western reporting

[Anonymous Coward]

Note the summary and you will see India and China enemy, right? This has been the case for decades of false reporting. If you go in details, India's increase of CO2 is 105 million tonnes vs US 180 million tonnes. Why is US not listed? It should have been China and US. When adjusted for population, US CO2 rose at 7 times that of India. Oh and thanks for reporting like this, we never mention the biggest offenders in the world like Australia and Canada because they are western darlings.

It will wake people up that USA is worse

[Anonymous Coward]

300 million Americans put out as much co2 as 600 million Chinese or a few billion Indians.
You don't get to be so much dirtier and complain that they want to be like you.

You lie like a WindBourne too

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither of you did. Both you are just WindBournes.
US CO2 rose, it's common knowledge fool.

You got a bad case of the WindBournes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only a problem for countries larger than you?
American people are much much worse, there are just less of them so you can hide how bad you are.
Why is America's total so much bigger than Canada, Australia and The Vatican?

They are shit,but you're hiding the reason

[Anonymous Coward]

It's clear and obvious that anyone focusing on 'the increase' and not the per person CO2 is just an American apologist.
Or pandering to Americans in order to sell articles.

You're clearly a big part of that problem.

It's obvious. It gets worse.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just look at averages. The average per person CO2 is almost always lower in those other countries. They come to America and then start to pollute like us.

WindBourne will use Canada and Australia

[Anonymous Coward]

He has 2 ways to hide how dirty America is. China is bigger, and Australia and Canada are worse per person. So therefore America is as pure as the driven snow.
WindBourne logic...what can you do...

American apologist at it again.

[Anonymous Coward]

What a surprise, the American apologist blames China to deflect attention away from America.

Americans are so much more dirty than Chinese it's not even close.
China could literally burn twice as much coal just to spite you, and their per person CO2 would still be less than yours.
Just put it all in a big pile and set it on fire. Just for fun. They would still be cleaner than you.

You already know this of course. Just as you already know America is far far worse than just about every country in the world when it comes to CO2 pollution.

3 Amigos, Chas, Luckyo and WindBourne

[Anonymous Coward]

All lying together. How cute.