The Paris Agreement on Climate Change

[Old Man Mike]

Hello, Cack. There have been calculations done estimating individual lifestyle choices regarding carbon-burden --- sadly I cannot find the more detailed one that I used two decades ago.

It was difficult (and very un-American) but I managed (according to the guide) to achieve a personal carbon-neutral lifestyle for about 10 years. (My life then changed due to moving into a multiple resident house, but we still did pretty well there.)

What did I do? (mostly what didn't I do.)
A. No car; all walking or mass-transit and a little car-pooling;
B. disciplined buying mainly regarding packaging; I was able to reduce waste to three trash bags per year with heavy recycling and composting --- by the way, this got habitually easy once into it for a while;
C. local food buying (farmers market; local animal and fish products including, amazingly, Michigan raised shrimp; regional producers when local wasn't available);
D. giving up certain long distance products. I don't drink coffee so that was easy, but stuff like peanut butter "hurt"; Fortunately Michigan has the second largest variety of food products in the country, so eating wasn't boring;
E. Air travel was a problem. Even one trip is a carbon monster. I cut down to one a year and zero if possible;
F. emphasis on electricity for power and purchasing the Solar/wind option from the power company (this is rather heavily scrutinized so the big power company cannot sell more "green" energy than it produces);
G. trying to buy non-food products from Made-in-America companies. This was almost impossible, but occasionally I could find them; (Ex. a grinder from Vermont was a hard find and about three times the expense of a junk piece from China, but I felt better and got a better piece of equipment --- this is a key element in this: we must junk our stupid what's the cheapest "bargain" crap, and pay the extra "Green Premium" which almost always gets a better product and supports American jobs --- Walmart ain't the way);

other stuff that I can't think of right now.

Most of the trouble that I had getting to One Earth Carbon Balance sustainability was due to our huge system being Global with monster energy/transport requirements. That transport burden killed a lot of my efforts when the product involved engaged elements of the global system, even when those elements were not immediately involved with my purchases or lifestyle. But for that decade I wasn't so much of a burden to the future. ... and that felt spiritually very good.

 

[NorthDakota]

Thanks gentlemen for the input on the costs of nuclear. I knew it could be a bish to maintain but was unaware of some of that. Appreciated.

 

[brick4956]

So my uncle has actually worked for a few companies like Westinghouse and GE when they were attempting to build some nuclear power plants in the United States let me tell the United States sucks at getting power plants that utilize nuclear energy every single project he had worked on either was marred with overspending that caused it to go up in smoke or being cancelled due to lack of funds nuclear has been a massive headache to build just because of the high price of it think of a a phone display that is completely sapphire very expensive to make and can almost bankrupt if not successful in manufacturing that’s how nuclear is when building

 

[SonofOahu]

A lot of variables for sure, but for the average person moving towards more lentil based meals over ground beef for example would lead to better health. FTR I am very much an omnivore.

Of course depends on preparation of the meals too.

Bruh, I made a huge pot of lentils one night, just to try it out. It felt like those little fuckers were tearing my abdominal wall apart. Like, I thought I was going to experience the "Aliens" scene.

A couple of days later, I was talking to an Indian (bindi, not feather) friend and I asked him about this. He said that as you get older, lentils are harder to digest so he suggested different grains and legumes. Live and learn.

 

[SonofOahu]

"Nuclear power f'ing owns."

smh ............ from a nerd.

Mike, back in my undergrad days, my physics professor talked about fusion, particularly "cold" fusion as the holy-grail of nuclear energy. I've seen sporadic news releases about Korea making advancements in fusion reactors. Do you think we'll see this come to fruition in any of our lifetimes?

In case anyone doesn't know what the hell fusion or cold fusion is, here is the best way to learn about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atpbdTo9nno&list=PLsBI0faJgzhQzrQ9I4MLMIA57zgzX0srZ&index=13

 

[TorontoGold]

Bruh, I made a huge pot of lentils one night, just to try it out. It felt like those little fuckers were tearing my abdominal wall apart. Like, I thought I was going to experience the "Aliens" scene.

A couple of days later, I was talking to an Indian (bindi, not feather) friend and I asked him about this. He said that as you get older, lentils are harder to digest so he suggested different grains and legumes. Live and learn.

One of my best friends has worked in some of the best Toronto kitchens, he is fully vegetarian now which means every meal is lentils and he says meat destroys his stomach lol. He can destroy a decent sized can of them no problem but a 12oz steak destroys him. Guess we're lucky to be in our late 20's....

 

[Old Man Mike]

Oahu: a few bullet points.

1. Since not all of our IE colleagues understand nuclear science, we should begin with a reminder that nuclear fission (current day reactor power) and nuclear fusion (the speculated hope-for Grail of nuclear power) are two WILDLY different things. Perhaps it is honest to say that NONE of the technical knowledge that we have about laboratory Fission and scaled up Fission plants applies to Fusion science or possible scaled up fusion technology. To make a simplistic statement: Fission is the splitting apart of the largest atomic nuclei (ex. Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239) while fusion involves involves the forceful merging together of the smallest atomic nuclei (hydrogen plus some other low atomic weight nucleus --- fusion can be accomplished with more than one "partner" but hydrogen is the key actor.) The importance of this reminder is that we must realize that making CONTROLLED fusion (not uncontrolled like an H-Bomb) is a very immature science and technology. There is to date NO experimentation to demonstrate scaled up "pragmatically-useful" power production via fusion.

2. In the 1990s I had the benefit of talking to and listening to the leading US scientists working on lab-bench Cold Fusion in those times. They were from Stanford, Texas A&M, SRI, and one other institution which (in my old age) escapes my memory. They also talked of the BYU and Utah experiments. Later I subscribed to Eugene Mallove's INFINITE ENERGY journal wherein he collected the breaking news. Lastly I am friends with Hal Puthoff who tested several of the claimed Cold Fusion technologies in his Austin calorimetry lab. Almost everyone of these guys felt optimistic that we might ultimately get a breakthrough in control but at the moment the phenomenon was extremely ephemeral. (Many of the claimants seemed to be measuring heat releases from Palladium catalyzed chemical breakages rather than nuclear fusion.) Nevertheless they DID believe that it was happening in a couple of the technologies. There WAS some indication that South Korea had made some progress in this, but everyone stateside said that the data was nowhere near compelling. That's how it was in the 2000s.

3. We have been able to create lab bench Hot Fusion (ex. via concentrated laser foci) for many years. But we can't control it for more than a small fraction of a second before it breaks control and essentially burns out the equipment. Hot fusion must be contained for (I believe) a few seconds until the kinetic energy of the plasma "cools down" enough that we can "reach in" and tap it for heat power (usable then like you would coal furnace heat to make steam and turn generators in the simplest cases.) To my knowledge we have not made much progress (although some) in this plasma control.

4. It would be interesting if there were true control breakthroughs on these two forms of Fusion research. Hot fusion control would doubtless be only applicable to huge government projects. We would hardly want private parties in control of potential runaway H-bombs. Cold Fusion might be more feasible to "socially/humanly" manage, as that technology feels as if it could be safely scaled in size and human-screwing-up thereby limited. The nice thing about the Fusion reactions is that they typically do not produce nuclear waste (i.e. the Fusion products are not radioactive isotopes as are some of the Fission products.) But as to scale, one wonders if we would want to allow home-sized nuclear fusion machines in people's back yards.

 

[SonofOahu]

Oahu: a few bullet points.

1. Since not all of our IE colleagues understand nuclear science, we should begin with a reminder that nuclear fission (current day reactor power) and nuclear fusion (the speculated hope-for Grail of nuclear power) are two WILDLY different things. Perhaps it is honest to say that NONE of the technical knowledge that we have about laboratory Fission and scaled up Fission plants applies to Fusion science or possible scaled up fusion technology. To make a simplistic statement: Fission is the splitting apart of the largest atomic nuclei (ex. Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239) while fusion involves involves the forceful merging together of the smallest atomic nuclei (hydrogen plus some other low atomic weight nucleus --- fusion can be accomplished with more than one "partner" but hydrogen is the key actor.) The importance of this reminder is that we must realize that making CONTROLLED fusion (not uncontrolled like an H-Bomb) is a very immature science and technology. There is to date NO experimentation to demonstrate scaled up "pragmatically-useful" power production via fusion.

2. In the 1990s I had the benefit of talking to and listening to the leading US scientists working on lab-bench Cold Fusion in those times. They were from Stanford, Texas A&M, SRI, and one other institution which (in my old age) escapes my memory. They also talked of the BYU and Utah experiments. Later I subscribed to Eugene Mallove's INFINITE ENERGY journal wherein he collected the breaking news. Lastly I am friends with Hal Puthoff who tested several of the claimed Cold Fusion technologies in his Austin calorimetry lab. Almost everyone of these guys felt optimistic that we might ultimately get a breakthrough in control but at the moment the phenomenon was extremely ephemeral. (Many of the claimants seemed to be measuring heat releases from Palladium catalyzed chemical breakages rather than nuclear fusion.) Nevertheless they DID believe that it was happening in a couple of the technologies. There WAS some indication that South Korea had made some progress in this, but everyone stateside said that the data was nowhere near compelling. That's how it was in the 2000s.

3. We have been able to create lab bench Hot Fusion (ex. via concentrated laser foci) for many years. But we can't control it for more than a small fraction of a second before it breaks control and essentially burns out the equipment. Hot fusion must be contained for (I believe) a few seconds until the kinetic energy of the plasma "cools down" enough that we can "reach in" and tap it for heat power (usable then like you would coal furnace heat to make steam and turn generators in the simplest cases.) To my knowledge we have not made much progress (although some) in this plasma control.

4. It would be interesting if there were true control breakthroughs on these two forms of Fusion research. Hot fusion control would doubtless be only applicable to huge government projects. We would hardly want private parties in control of potential runaway H-bombs. Cold Fusion might be more feasible to "socially/humanly" manage, as that technology feels as if it could be safely scaled in size and human-screwing-up thereby limited. The nice thing about the Fusion reactions is that they typically do not produce nuclear waste (i.e. the Fusion products are not radioactive isotopes as are some of the Fission products.) But as to scale, one wonders if we would want to allow home-sized nuclear fusion machines in people's back yards.

Here's fusion example #2, nerds:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p66AWyzFIec" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

See OMM's bullet #4 about private parties in control of bombs.

 

[Old Man Mike]

Hah! Far more entertaining (and less damage control apparently needed) than a future DYI fusion accident would produce. But maybe by that time we'll have Spiderman to deal with all these things. (I'd prefer the Red Witch myself --- she seems to run on a kind of personal fusion power herself. ... and is a lot prettier.)

 

[drayer54]

"Nuclear power f'ing owns."

smh ............ from a nerd.

Environmentalists who don’t support nuclear are either woefully stupid or virtue signaling.

 

[Old Man Mike]

WAI

 

[arahop]

Too much for my mind but so is the fact that we still power a majority of automobiles by gasoline over 100 years later.

Zero point Energy
Something like this I imagine will become necessary the in future.
https://scholars.direct/Articles/el...c-1-001.php?jid=electronics-and-communication

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

WAI

Some people understand that a cost benefit analysis yields different conclusions rather than being woefully ignorant. Lol. I love it when people dismiss my 20 years of educational and practical work experience in a single swoop.

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

Too much for my mind but so is the fact that we still power a majority of automobiles by gasoline over 100 years later.

Zero point Energy
Something like this I imagine will become necessary the in future.
https://scholars.direct/Articles/el...c-1-001.php?jid=electronics-and-communication

The reason we are still using combustion as the main energy source for transportation is it is now cheap and heavily entrained in our industrial DNA. It was not always like that. Electric cars existed early in the 20th century but were quickly replaced by combustion engines. Petroleum industry were given massive bailouts and financial incentives very early on.

A green industry would similarly benefit from such investments but conservatives moan about the cost and never considered that at one point in history petroleum almost failed miserably without a significant financial investment by governments.

 

[arahop]

The reason we are still using combustion as the main energy source for transportation is it is now cheap and heavily entrained in our industrial DNA. It was not always like that. Electric cars existed early in the 20th century but were quickly replaced by combustion engines. Petroleum industry were given massive bailouts and financial incentives very early on.

A green industry would similarly benefit from such investments but conservatives moan about the cost and never considered that at one point in history petroleum almost failed miserably without a significant financial investment by governments.

That's solid history! We can smash particles into each other at near the speed of light. I had a hunch that self serving gains might have been a key contributor. Let's hope for the sake of the future that we will see some strides toward these changes.
Might help me retire a few years earlier with some reallocation into investments into those sectors. That would be a bonus.

 

[arahop]

Cack .any reading that you could recommend. I'll need the fusion/fission for dummies. That type of science has always been too advanced for my mind.

 

[drayer54]

Some people understand that a cost benefit analysis yields different conclusions rather than being woefully ignorant. Lol. I love it when people dismiss my 20 years of educational and practical work experience in a single swoop.

The economics are what’s killing nuclear. However, in our world of throw money at climate change like the world is going to end tomorrow, why not? The agreement this thread is centered around is nothing but a handout anyways. I used to pull rods for a living, but I’ll yield to you internet curmudgeons.

Also- you can’t have a grid with nothing but volatile wind and solar. Batteries aren’t even close to managing that kind of megawatts.

So yes, my pet peeve is people who looks at large scale carbon free power and dismiss it.

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

The economics are what’s killing nuclear. However, in our world of throw money at climate change like the world is going to end tomorrow, why not? The agreement this thread is centered around is nothing but a handout anyways. I used to pull rods for a living, but I’ll yield to you internet curmudgeons.

Also- you can’t have a grid with nothing but volatile wind and solar. Batteries aren’t even close to managing that kind of megawatts.

So yes, my pet peeve is people who looks at large scale carbon free power and dismiss it.

I think if you read our posts carefully neither of us are overlooking its potential but are very much aware of the large scale long term risks associated with even using nuclear to meet 50% of our needs. My example of SOuth Carolina’s recent failures just to construct 2 reactor sites should be a major lesson for everyone.

For the record nuclear IS NOT carbon free. The amount carbon needed to make and transport just the concrete and steel to construct a plant is ungodly.

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

That's solid history! We can smash particles into each other at near the speed of light. I had a hunch that self serving gains might have been a key contributor. Let's hope for the sake of the future that we will see some strides toward these changes.
Might help me retire a few years earlier with some reallocation into investments into those sectors. That would be a bonus.

I’d love a spacerace type of investment in funds and economic and educational talent to grow the Green Industry. Would be a boon to economy and whole new sectors of manufacturing would grow.

 

[Old Man Mike]

arahop: I wouldn't believe anything in that zero point Tesla article you listed.

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

Cack .any reading that you could recommend. I'll need the fusion/fission for dummies. That type of science has always been too advanced for my mind.

https://cen.acs.org/articles/89/i51/Long-History-US-Energy-Subsidies.html this does a decent job of explaining how oil subsidies creates in the 1900s pretty much make green energy incapable of competing with oil without a massive shift in subsidies and other financial support

 

[BilboBaggins]

https://cen.acs.org/articles/89/i51/Long-History-US-Energy-Subsidies.html this does a decent job of explaining how oil subsidies creates in the 1900s pretty much make green energy incapable of competing with oil without a massive shift in subsidies and other financial support

I once read a economic outlook brief by Goldman Sachs that solar would be cost competitive with fossil fuels, even without subsidies, in 20 years. I read that 5+ years ago.

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

I once read a economic outlook brief by Goldman Sachs that solar would be cost competitive with fossil fuels, even without subsidies, in 20 years. I read that 5+ years ago.

Compared to coal, yes it’s already pretty much equal, but nuclear and natural gas and petroleum there is still a bit of work to do. That is mainly due to coal plants being too expensive to maintain and the costs with having to cleanup al contamination after they are closed. Renewables do get some subsidies but no where near oil and gas. Historical tax cuts and depreciation loopholes that are still in place from the 1920s mean oil has a 100 year head start on infrastructure economics.
https://www.irena.org/newsroom/pressreleases/2020/Jun/Renewables-Increasingly-Beat-Even-Cheapest-Coal-Competitors-on-Cost

Solar and wind power costs have continued to fall, complementing the more mature bioenergy, geothermal and hydropower technologies. Solar photovoltaics (PV) shows the sharpest cost decline over 2010-2019 at 82%, followed by concentrating solar power (CSP) at 47%, onshore wind at 40% and offshore wind at 29%.
Electricity costs from utility-scale solar PV fell 13% year-on-year, reaching nearly seven cents (USD 0.068) per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in 2019. Onshore and offshore wind both fell about 9% year-on-year, reaching USD 0.053/kWh and USD 0.115/kWh, respectively, for newly commissioned projects. Costs for CSP, still the least-developed among solar and wind technologies, fell 1% to USD 0.182/kWh.
Among other implications:
Replacing the costliest 500 gigawatts of coal capacity with solar and wind would cut annual system costs by up to USD 23 billion per year and yield a stimulus worth USD 940 billion, or around 1% of global GDP.
Replacing the costliest coal capacity with renewables would also reduce annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by around 1.8 gigatonnes, or 5% of last year’s global total.
By 2021, up to 1 200 gigawatts of existing coal-fired capacity would cost more to operate than new utility-scale solar PV would cost to install.
Continuing cost declines confirm the need for renewable power as a low-cost climate and decarbonisation solution, aligning short-term economic needs with medium- and long-term sustainable development goals.
Renewable power installations could form a key component of economic stimulus packages in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

[NDFAN420]

I once read a economic outlook brief by Goldman Sachs that solar would be cost competitive with fossil fuels, even without subsidies, in 20 years. I read that 5+ years ago.

From a post I wrote on LinkedIn last year:
BP published its World Energy Outlook. Some key takeaways include company plans to go "carbon neutral", that demand for oil may have already peaked, and the chances that oil goes into steep decline over the next 30 years - partly due to a shift to electrification. At the same time OPEC has revised its forecasts to indicate decreased demand over the next two years.

https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/energy-outlook.html

 

[Old Man Mike]

The fears about GCC in Europe are much greater than in the US (biggest examples: sea level rise and The Netherlands; shifting of North Sea fisheries much northward; altering of the so-called "conveyor belt" current), so the European part of the big Oil monopolies (BP and Shell) began talking openly about what they know --- and EXXON-Mobil knows as well.) This is why BP/Shell began talking so strongly about Carbon-neutrality and facilitating green/solar energies way earlier than US megacompanies.

 

[NDFAN420]

The fears about GCC in Europe are much greater than in the US (biggest examples: sea level rise and The Netherlands; shifting of North Sea fisheries much northward; altering of the so-called "conveyor belt" current), so the European part of the big Oil monopolies (BP and Shell) began talking openly about what they know --- and EXXON-Mobil knows as well.) This is why BP/Shell began talking so strongly about Carbon-neutrality and facilitating green/solar energies way earlier than US megacompanies.

And trying to obtain the greatest market share of said green energy as seen in Nord Stream 2 and the Baltic Pipeline. It's unclear whether the German political establishment believes that they can influence decision makers in Moscow through greater dependency on Russian gas or if they even care. So, if all politics is local, this is less about bridge fuel and more about market share in Europe. This is especially evident when considering the Baltic Pipe project is due to be completed in 2022 and comes with far fewer political and geostrategic consequences for the continent and beyond. The Baltic Pipe, a project of common interest of the European Union, however also offers fewer connections directly to Germany - zero.

Poland and the Visegrad countries are rightly concerned that a core EU country like Germany is so willing to compromise their security so readily.

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

A thread started by Ghost Cacky and revived by Cacky 2.0. Now we just need a visit from the future by time-traveling Cyborg Cacky to confirm how shitty everything gets.

New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States

According to new data analyzed by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, warming temperatures, rising seas and changing rainfall will profoundly reshape the way people have lived in North America for centuries.

projects.propublica.org

Its fucking terrible.....

 

[NorthDakota]

New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States

According to new data analyzed by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, warming temperatures, rising seas and changing rainfall will profoundly reshape the way people have lived in North America for centuries.

projects.propublica.org

Its fucking terrible.....

Skimmed it. North Dakota is gonna be hype!

 

[Ndaccountant]

New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States

According to new data analyzed by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, warming temperatures, rising seas and changing rainfall will profoundly reshape the way people have lived in North America for centuries.

projects.propublica.org

Its fucking terrible.....

2 things.

1) I am thrilled to see a thread where I can see Brick's glorious Jessica Rabbit flow when I open up the last posts.
2) ND will no longer be at a weather disadvantage....Natty 2070. Stone.

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

My personal take is that the South USA will be like Arrakis