The Climate Change Thread: Or The Perils of Carbon

[Bluelight-R006]

I doubt there exists a technology that can reverse climate change altogether. But there are technologies that can prevent it from getting worser: Renewable energy, for example.

It’s just whether we want to use it or not. After all, economic profit is gained from the sales of the more common energy source: Fossil fuel.

Unless you count nuclear as a renewable (as we probably should, we have enough to last thousands of years) nuclear is absolutely vital.
It actually would cost less to build.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshe ... power/amp/

It uses up less land and resources,
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/cont ... ormat=750w

And is far more reliable.
Geothermal and hydro only work in certain places. Wind and solar are too unreliable to be baseloads.
Nuclear providing the baseload with renewables the peaking is the only really viable option.

Fact is: Nuclear is not reliable. Many people live in fear and protest against having to live near a nuclear power plant that could get into a devastating accident. And Nuclear isn’t renewable. It will last for a few thousand years, but I doubt it’ll be forever here for hundreds of thousands of years.

[Novus America]

Unless you count nuclear as a renewable (as we probably should, we have enough to last thousands of years) nuclear is absolutely vital.
It actually would cost less to build.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshe ... power/amp/

It uses up less land and resources,
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/cont ... ormat=750w

And is far more reliable.
Geothermal and hydro only work in certain places. Wind and solar are too unreliable to be baseloads.
Nuclear providing the baseload with renewables the peaking is the only really viable option.

Fact is: Nuclear is not reliable. Many people live in fear and protest against having to live near a nuclear power plant that could get into a devastating accident. And Nuclear isn’t renewable. It will last for a few thousand years, but I doubt it’ll be forever here for hundreds of thousands of years.

Bull shit. Fear is not fact
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fool.c ... -fear.aspx
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor

And by that argument solar and wind are not renewable.
You do realize the sun works on nuclear power right?

A thousand years buys us plenty of time for nuclear fusion. Which will last hundreds of thousands of years.

[Saiwania]

I doubt there exists a technology that can reverse climate change altogether. But there are technologies that can prevent it from getting worser: Renewable energy, for example.

It is actually possible to reverse climate change gradually. But as a conservative estimate, I'd say it'd be 100+ years of effort before the CO2 level is at a preindustrial mark- if we were serious about carbon capture and removal. There are at least some options, just not at the scale we need. Some examples include BECCS, DAC, BioChar, creating plants that can absorb more carbon at a faster rate, creating artificial equivalents with the best of chemistry/technology.

In a way, removing greenhouse gases is the only way to make real progress on this because a minority of people will keep adding carbon to the atmosphere. The only way will be to remove CO2 at a faster rate than it is being added.

It is much easier to add carbon than it is to remove it, but it can still be done. It costs lots of money but there is little to no profit to be had if carbon is too plentiful, so I'd consider it to be like a tax burden. There is no short term benefit other than more carbon to make different materials/products out of, but the long term benefit is cleaning up most if not all of the past mess we've caused to the atmosphere. It is restoring it to the way it should be and would bring down temperatures to normal over time.

[The Realm of Platinum]

Unless you count nuclear as a renewable (as we probably should, we have enough to last thousands of years) nuclear is absolutely vital.
It actually would cost less to build.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshe ... power/amp/

It uses up less land and resources,
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/cont ... ormat=750w

And is far more reliable.
Geothermal and hydro only work in certain places. Wind and solar are too unreliable to be baseloads.
Nuclear providing the baseload with renewables the peaking is the only really viable option.

Fact is: Nuclear is not reliable. Many people live in fear and protest against having to live near a nuclear power plant that could get into a devastating accident. And Nuclear isn’t renewable. It will last for a few thousand years, but I doubt it’ll be forever here for hundreds of thousands of years.

At least it's not coal.

[Salandriagado]

I doubt there exists a technology that can reverse climate change altogether. But there are technologies that can prevent it from getting worser: Renewable energy, for example.

It’s just whether we want to use it or not. After all, economic profit is gained from the sales of the more common energy source: Fossil fuel.

There are known methods for removing carbon from the atmosphere. They just need either lots of land, might have poorly understood side-effects, or are expensive.

[Salandriagado]

Unless you count nuclear as a renewable (as we probably should, we have enough to last thousands of years) nuclear is absolutely vital.
It actually would cost less to build.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshe ... power/amp/

It uses up less land and resources,
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/cont ... ormat=750w

And is far more reliable.
Geothermal and hydro only work in certain places. Wind and solar are too unreliable to be baseloads.
Nuclear providing the baseload with renewables the peaking is the only really viable option.

Fact is: Nuclear is not reliable. Many people live in fear and protest against having to live near a nuclear power plant that could get into a devastating accident. And Nuclear isn’t renewable. It will last for a few thousand years, but I doubt it’ll be forever here for hundreds of thousands of years.

Nuclear is vastly safer and more reliable than literally anything else. By the time we run out of nuclear fuel on earth, we'll be well established in space, so will have access to functionally infinite energy from the big nuclear reactor in the middle of the soar system.

[Saiwania]

There are known methods for removing carbon from the atmosphere. They just need either lots of land, might have poorly understood side-effects, or are expensive.

The side effects being that there is less CO2 warming the planet than there was before. I don't see a single downside for most methods, other than that its expensive. We won't keep removing carbon if there is no longer a need to, such as if we really did reach the preindustrial level of CO2 in terms of ppm.

Carbon sequestration is almost certainly required anyways, if we're to reach goals that've been set. We'll need to get creative such as incorporating artificial trees on most if not all of our buildings.

[Novus America]

Fact is: Nuclear is not reliable. Many people live in fear and protest against having to live near a nuclear power plant that could get into a devastating accident. And Nuclear isn’t renewable. It will last for a few thousand years, but I doubt it’ll be forever here for hundreds of thousands of years.

At least it's not coal.

And it is still safer, more reliable and less environmentally damaging than any alternatives (yes including wind and solar).

[UniversalCommons]

Small scale nuclear turbines, turbine heat and steam small modular reactors which do not require fuel that is as enriched would work, but no one would build them because they want big, giant expensive projects. Also, biogas production from farms which can be done on a small scale, as well as wind farms could make things much better. The best thing which can happen is the big turbine/battery power plant which can take in and distribute both liquid fuels and electricity easily.

Climate change will be destructive, as it gets hotter, more people will start dying it will start with a few hundred in a state then go up to thousands, it will be harder to grow crops because of the heat, coasts will start to flood, we'll have even bigger fires in places like California and Nevada and people will lose many more homes, the prices for basic goods will go up because of the problems with farms, infrastructure will become more expensive as the old infrastructure is destroyed by flooding, torrential rains and shorting out because of excessive heat, there will be a greater need for air conditioning. It will be more dangerous for old people in the floods and heat increases expenses for hospitals and basic services. The world will not end, but things will get very hard for a lot of people. Pollution will increase in many areas because of the greater electrical needs, especially air conditioning. There will be more storms. Fish will die out in areas because the ocean will have its hydrological cycle disrupted. We'll have less food, greater expenses, and less biological diversity.

[Salandriagado]

There are known methods for removing carbon from the atmosphere. They just need either lots of land, might have poorly understood side-effects, or are expensive.

The side effects being that there is less CO2 warming the planet than there was before. I don't see a single downside for most methods, other than that its expensive. We won't keep removing carbon if there is no longer a need to, such as if we really did reach the preindustrial level of CO2 in terms of ppm.

Carbon sequestration is almost certainly required anyways, if we're to reach goals that've been set. We'll need to get creative such as incorporating artificial trees on most if not all of our buildings.

No, side effects like whatever the hell dumping vast quantities of iron into the oceans will do. Side effects like massive initial increases in CO2 levels.

[Ther Sul Citzpacia]

A consequence of global warming that may not have been mentioned so far is the shutdown of the the North Atlantic drift.

This would have a significant effect on planet earth - https://sciencing.com/happens-ocean-cur ... 18706.html

Probably not far off- so how that would affect things- who knows?

Commercial forces such as the oil companies have been a major roadblock to possible alternatives- as they buy up patents for alteernatives and oppose things like electric vehicles- they killed at least one off https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1 (I think that was the one) and will no doubt continue to stand in the way of profress-especially with Trumpin the whitehouse.

[Novus America]

The side effects being that there is less CO2 warming the planet than there was before. I don't see a single downside for most methods, other than that its expensive. We won't keep removing carbon if there is no longer a need to, such as if we really did reach the preindustrial level of CO2 in terms of ppm.

Carbon sequestration is almost certainly required anyways, if we're to reach goals that've been set. We'll need to get creative such as incorporating artificial trees on most if not all of our buildings.

No, side effects like whatever the hell dumping vast quantities of iron into the oceans will do. Side effects like massive initial increases in CO2 levels.

Unfortunately our carbon sequestration tech is not up to snuff.
Ideally we could convert carbon from the atmosphere directly into steel, carbon fiber and other carbon based materials, but I do not think the feasible.

[Xandarnia]

Fact is: Nuclear is not reliable. Many people live in fear and protest against having to live near a nuclear power plant that could get into a devastating accident. And Nuclear isn’t renewable. It will last for a few thousand years, but I doubt it’ll be forever here for hundreds of thousands of years.

Bull shit. Fear is not fact
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fool.c ... -fear.aspx
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor

And by that argument solar and wind are not renewable.
You do realize the sun works on nuclear power right?

A thousand years buys us plenty of time for nuclear fusion. Which will last hundreds of thousands of years.

also
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca ... 889bca159a

[Telconi]

No, side effects like whatever the hell dumping vast quantities of iron into the oceans will do. Side effects like massive initial increases in CO2 levels.

Unfortunately our carbon sequestration tech is not up to snuff.
Ideally we could convert carbon from the atmosphere directly into steel, carbon fiber and other carbon based materials, but I do not think the feasible.

We can do that now, it's just not a good thing to do.

[Tinhampton]

There are, realistically, two ways we can stop Extinction Rebellion: get to New Year's Day 2026, or ban boats

[Great Minarchistan]

The chaotic, reactionary free market doesn't like solutions, it likes problems.

God damn the free market investing on substitution of fossil energy by clean energy (as the latter is getting ever cheaper) on a sector that answers for half of the global CO2 emissions! /s

[Great Minarchistan]

Unless you count nuclear as a renewable (as we probably should, we have enough to last thousands of years) nuclear is absolutely vital.
It actually would cost less to build.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshe ... power/amp/

It uses up less land and resources,
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/cont ... ormat=750w

And is far more reliable.
Geothermal and hydro only work in certain places. Wind and solar are too unreliable to be baseloads.
Nuclear providing the baseload with renewables the peaking is the only really viable option.

Fact is: Nuclear is not reliable. Many people live in fear and protest against having to live near a nuclear power plant that could get into a devastating accident. And Nuclear isn’t renewable. It will last for a few thousand years, but I doubt it’ll be forever here for hundreds of thousands of years.

Within the last twenty or so years there have been only two nuclear accidents with an INES >= 4 (aka accident with local consequences). Out of which one (Fukushima) was caused by a literal tsunami, so uhhh yeah it's definitely reliable

[UniversalCommons]

The problem is the definition of what renewable energy is and how much energy which we need. There is more than enough potential to replace fossil fuel energy. There has been for a very long time. Just wind and solar could replace most all of the energy in the United States. https://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/jan ... 12611.html

The resources for renewables are:

1) Wind-- On shore, off-shore, high altitude
2) Solar
3) Biogas-- from manure
4) Biodiesel
5) Hydroelectric-- run of the river and small scale hydroelectric (mitigate most of the large dam problems)
6) Geothermal
7) Ocean Thermal
Wave Energy

There is a lot more available than wind and solar energy. The new power plants can run both liquid fuels and electricity. Hybrid power plants can take in and distribute energy from any energy source. https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/hybrid You could easily have biogas or biodiesel, distributed hydroelectric (micro hydro or run of the river) , solar, and wind running through a single power plant. This kind of arrangement would have more energy density than the current systems. It would be possible to attach this to a microgrid for a single community sell off the excess energy and have a more flexible, efficient system. You can also add in a solar heat pump, energy efficiency in housing, etc.

There are both net zero and energy plus houses and buildings. This is a matter of scaling up the technology. You could have a building that gave away its energy to startups inside the building if it was an energy plus building as part of a scheme to encourage innovation.

Thinking in terms of large fixed resources is not how microgrids and smart grids work. The more variety the better.

There is a second issue that is problematic with the story about power. Renewables can run both large scale power plants (multi-mega watt plants), and microgrids. There is flexibility in the grid allowing for better energy distribution and markets. You can create areas where communities can produce the same amount of energy they consume, then sell off the energy at peak periods when there is excess energy. https://www.energy.gov/articles/how-microgrids-work

There is a potentially much more flexible efficient system with less energy loss. Ultimately renewables will outproduce the current fossil fuel grid, be more flexible and cleaner.

There are places where people produce more energy than they need and have asked permission to put back energy into the system and are refused. If people want to produce excess renewables on their property and feed it into the grid as an investment, it should be allowed.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... government

[New haven america]

I doubt there exists a technology that can reverse climate change altogether. But there are technologies that can prevent it from getting worser: Renewable energy, for example.

It’s just whether we want to use it or not. After all, economic profit is gained from the sales of the more common energy source: Fossil fuel.

Renewable power, nuclear power, industrial carbon absorbers, strategic tree planting, etc...

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

The chaotic, reactionary free market doesn't like solutions, it likes problems.

God damn the free market investing on substitution of fossil energy by clean energy (as the latter is getting ever cheaper) on a sector that answers for half of the global CO2 emissions! /s

Yeah, that would be grand if it happened 30 years ago. However, the free market is too late, and even now it is transitioning too slowly.

Do you know why companies are investing in green energy? Taxes put on fossil fuels, subsidies for green energy, and the threat of government action against fossil fuels. For example, the Netherlands is closing all its coal plants in the foreseeable future, so no-one invests in coal anymore. That's not free market capitalism.

Anyway, even if it did happen: it's accidental. The free market does not care about the environment, it cares about profits. So the free market cannot be trusted to make the right decisions all of the time, just because they accidentally did something good in the past. Truth is, other methods are far superior to just trusting the free market, and capitalists point to even the smallest of investments in renewable energy to legitimise their faith in the invisible hand of the free market that got us in this mess in the first place.

[Lanoraie II]

I work and study in conservation. We're doomed unless we nuke China and make eating cow meat illegal. Although, when I say "we", what I really mean is people who don't have access to conserved groundwater, people who refuse to not like on the coast, and people who live in severely polluted cities. Also people who already live in hot areas and refuse to move. And this will still be a slow burn. The closest "oh shit" moment coming up is when the water table in central USA dries up--which it will between 2030 and 2050. And then food prices of many many many items will skyrocket worldwide.

The earth will continue to heat up even if we go 100% clean, but at the rate we're going its gonna get fast and furious. However, an interesting thing to note is we might actually go through a brief (5-15 years max) period where it gets significantly cooler because of all the extra water and the way the ocean current is affected by global climate change. In fact the western parts of Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal are expected to get colder winters and hotter summers--with some areas getting colder all seasons.

Edit: Oops, forgot about the antibiotic crisis. The good news is humanity is rapidly heading towards mass extinction due to antibiotic-resistant diseases, starvation, and lack of sperm, as God intended. So if you're into that sort of thing, don't kill yourself yet, the fireworks should start around 2050.

[Lanoraie II]

I doubt there exists a technology that can reverse climate change altogether. But there are technologies that can prevent it from getting worser: Renewable energy, for example.

It’s just whether we want to use it or not. After all, economic profit is gained from the sales of the more common energy source: Fossil fuel.

Renewable power, nuclear power, industrial carbon absorbers, strategic tree planting, etc...

None of that will matter unless China stops killing the Earth YESTERDAY. China puts out about 30% of all CO2 emissions. Next is America. So, we would help, but in the end it wouldn't matter when China would still be putting out a whopping 30% and more every year. As for tree planting, it could theoretically help, but to be quite frank there's no way in hell we can put them in forests. Silviculture is an art form and every tree species has its own space and sunlight requirements, and the ones that need less space and sunlight are usually smaller and take in less CO2. Planting them in cities might help, and making lots of parks and putting them along roads would help in the immediate area. But again. Trees take a long time to grow.

If you want my suggestions for what you can do right now: STOP BUYING ANYTHING THAT ISN'T FROM WITHIN 100 MILES OF WHERE YOU LIVE. Please. I beg of you. Globalism is literally the cancer killing Earth in so many ways, especially foreign imports. China would not be able to pollute our Earth if we were not buying their shit en masse. Encourage others to do so as well. Also, grow your own food, and...yes...I'm going to say it. Go vegan. Or rather, don't eat meat or animal products unless you hunted/fished for it yourself, or it's milk/eggs. Basically just avoid beef, please.

Please do NOT go into the forest and plant a bunch of trees because 99.9999% of you have no idea what you're doing and that tree likely won't grow. Also, all forests are managed by silviculturists. They know what they're doing. Do a little research and plant a sapling/seedling in your yard instead or advocate for them to be planted along roads.

[Thermodolia]

Given the current trends, I'm a full-on doomer. The most promising technology is carbon capture and storage, but it requires a shitload of manpower and storage space.
10 years ago, carbon taxes and increases in renewable energy would've helped. But with the biggest contributors to climate change (China, USA, Russia, Japan) not on board with those things then and still not on board now, we're pretty fucked. The even worse thing is that third-world countries are still contributing a metric fuckton of babies every year and the higher population means a) more people to pollute, and b) even more overpopulation, worsening starvation and overcrowding.

Overpopulation is a myth.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Given the current trends, I'm a full-on doomer. The most promising technology is carbon capture and storage, but it requires a shitload of manpower and storage space.
10 years ago, carbon taxes and increases in renewable energy would've helped. But with the biggest contributors to climate change (China, USA, Russia, Japan) not on board with those things then and still not on board now, we're pretty fucked. The even worse thing is that third-world countries are still contributing a metric fuckton of babies every year and the higher population means a) more people to pollute, and b) even more overpopulation, worsening starvation and overcrowding.

Overpopulation is a myth.

And a racist one at that.

[Thermodolia]

I'm not a doomer by any means. I think things will get bad for sure but humanity isn't going to extinct or some other such nonsense.

We're never going to be able to respond to climate change effectively though, our capitalist democratic system prevents it. To do the kind of change you'd need to at this point you'd need to strip people of most any political rights to do it because there's too many morons out there who have too much of a say in the system and can thus prevent it. We're just gonna have to roll with climate change and adapt at this point.

Pretty much my thoughts on the matter