MidAmerican Energy today announced plans for a $3.9 billion renewable energy project in Iowa, including wind and solar generation, and the exploration of new technologies to advance the company’s transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
In a filing with the Iowa Utilities Board, MidAmerican’s proposed project, called Wind PRIME, would add 2,042 megawatts of wind generation and 50 megawatts of solar generation.
The company also proposed conducting feasibility studies focused on other clean generation technologies, including carbon capture, energy storage and small modular nuclear reactors.
I’m glad to see that MidAmerican is working on green energy, but I’m not sold on nuclear energy or carbon capture. We still have no solution for nuclear waste other than to put it in the ground, and direct carbon capture is a flawed concept. Most direct carbon capture technologies are based on injecting carbon dioxide and water into the ground, the argument being that the CO2 will react with water to form calcium carbonate. This is only true at a pH of 12. At a pH of 4 the carbon is in the form of carbonic acid, H2CO3; at pH of 8 it is in the form of bicarbonate, HCO3; at pH of 12 it is in the form of carbonate, CO3. Groundwater has a PH of about 8. Only if the soil contains calcium oxide, CaO, does adding water produce calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)2, and give a pH of 12. Not many places have CaO underground.
“Pedal to the floor“ capital Investment in BHE. Greg Abel is the next Chairman for this reason. At the annual meeting last year, Greg pointed out that most of these Utility investments were seeded 10-15 plus years ago. He mentioned some of the Western transmission investments were seeded in the 2005-06 timeframe. I wonder how many competitors can do this? The big secret is the 100% earnings retention at BHE. Can investors think of the Utilities and no Dividends
Keep it rolling, Greg & BHE! Hope the ESG critics are well aware of this continued action, vision & leadership.
Looking forward to following the Gates/Buffett Natrium reactor project out in Wyoming as well- very nice that Uncle Sam will be covering half the expense.
Redwoods work the best. They grow faster than most other trees, live longer and have have more surface area of leaves per acre. However many other tress works well, too. Douglas fir, white oak, etc. The trees live 100+ years, and the houses built from them last another 50+ years. Forests require little work, and they are scalable. They’re a far better solution for the environment than direct carbon capture.
Just to be clear, the trees do release CO2 back as their litter decompose faster. So the best course of action is dig a hold dump the trees, throw dirt on top and capture the carbon underground, future coal mines!!!
They’re a far better solution for the environment than direct carbon capture.
I agree that direct carbon capture is not obviously a great idea, given the likely efficiency achievable.
And everybody likes trees.
But trees are no climate panacea.
Mainly, they aren’t really a solution because they don’t tie up carbon for geological timescales.
That’s kid of the end of the thought, really.
On a very long time scale, the amount of planetary biomass is relatively static.
We can only nudge the current cycle to be a bit faster for a while.
Though it doesn’t matter as much as that main point, there are other gotchas.
They only grow well in some places. In a lot of places, a newly planted grove ties up less carbon than what’s already growing there.
The world has a LOT of bogs, for example.
They don’t work particularly well outside the tropics…at high latitudes forests are generally thought to be net planet warmers.
(the grow slowly, don’t absorb much in winter, and are a very dark colour, and there is some complicated thinking about aerosols they release)
And of course, in a lot of fertile places it’s nice to use arable land to grow food.
The highest impact way to use trees to mitigate climate change is to stop chopping down existing forests.
New tree plantings are more a “tinkering” level of change. Good tinkering, but it’s at the margin.
It’s rarely mentioned, but there is one thing anybody can do in their life that changes their carbon
footprint more than everything else in their life combined, by a wide margin: don’t have any kids.
Statistically each child will have a child or so, and so forth, imposing a huge load on the environment at every step down the generations.
“at pH of 12 it is in the form of carbonate, CO3. Groundwater has a PH of about 8. Only if the soil contains calcium oxide, CaO, does adding water produce calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)2, and give a pH of 12. Not many places have CaO underground.”
Even if they do succeed in producing calcium carbonate, CaCO3, it’s in the form of aqueous calcium carbonate, not solid calcium carbonate (limestone) as they claim. To produce limestone one has to remove the water. How do they propose to do that? The proponents of direct carbon capture claim that they are producing limestone, but they’re not.
t’s rarely mentioned, but there is one thing anybody can do in their life that changes their carbon footprint more than everything else in their life combined, by a wide margin: don’t have any kids.
It’s rarely mentioned, but there is one thing anybody can do in their life that changes their carbon footprint more than everything else in their life combined, by a wide margin: don’t have any kids.
Literally suggesting throwing the baby out. I think I used Literally correctly here.
there is one thing anybody can do in their life that changes their carbon footprint more than everything else in their life combined, by a wide margin: don’t have any kids.
As in, who cares what happens to the environment if there are not humans here to enjoy it. Not me, certainly.
Well, your reasoning is sound, as far as it goes. You wouldn’t enjoy it.
But it’s a bit of a straw person: there are numbers between 0% and 100%.
What happens to the environment if, after a while, there are only half as many humans to enjoy it?
Very much better environment, likely very much happier people on average.
It’s amazing how many currently destructive habits are entirely sustainable if fewer people are doing them.
My intent was not to suggest that we depopulate the earth, though a pinch of that might have its merits.
Rather, it was more to point out the absurdity of worrying about the CO2 impact of (say) flying to a global warming conference.
If it’s actual impact you care about, it matters orders of magnitudes more how many kids those delegates have, but almost nobody mentions it.
Mentioning what’s actually significant Just Isn’t Done. Trees and EVs are nice, but side shows.
It’s rarely mentioned, but there is one thing anybody can do in their life that changes their carbon footprint more than everything else in their life combined, by a wide margin: don’t have any kids.
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Literally suggesting throwing the baby out. I think I used Literally correctly here. … As in, who cares what happens to the environment if there are not humans here to enjoy it. Not me, certainly.
‘Literally’, in this context, would be if someone said that we should take our babies and throw them out. I don’t believe anyone said that. But killing babies is not the same as choosing to have less children, or, as a society, reducing or eliminating incentives to have large families.
We have gone from 1.6 billion people on this little planet in 1900, to a hair less than 8 billion now. When I was a kid, and there were 3 billion of us already, I cared about the environment, even if the population was smaller than it is now, and I think we should care just as much about the environment, for future children if for nobody else, whether there are 1 billion, 3 billion, 8 billion or 9.4 billion of us (the peak world population currently projected in 2070.)
Slowing the current rise in population, or plateauing at the current level, or even slowly decreasing to somewhere in between 1 and 8 billion, over the next few centuries, seems like something we could do to live in harmony with all species, not just our own. Without needing to throw out any human babies.
What happens to the environment if, after a while, there are only half as many humans to enjoy it? Very much better environment, likely very much happier people on average.
Are we still pretending that “Climate Change” is a real thing and not just a scam?
Okay.
Rather, it was more to point out the absurdity of worrying about the CO2 impact of (say) flying to a global warming conference.
Seems like the people who are now calling it “Climate Emergency” don’t actually believe it themselves. They sure don’t act like they believe it.
I just recently read the book “How Civilizations Die”.
Summary: It’s when they stop having kids.
As I summarized it to my wife, “At TFR (total fertility rate) of 1, 8 people become 4 people become 2 people becomes 1 person becomes … NOBODY.”
Succinctly, the future belongs to those who show up.
I just recently read the book “How Civilizations Die”. Summary: It’s when they stop having kids. As I summarized it to my wife, “At TFR (total fertility rate) of 1, 8 people become 4 people become 2 people becomes 1 person becomes … NOBODY.”
Elon Musk believes ‘civilization will crumble’ if people don’t have more babies:
""The Tesla CEO, who has six children of his own, called the world’s rapidly declining birth rate “one of the biggest risks to civilization” at a Wall Street Journal event…
Keep it rolling, Greg & BHE! Hope the ESG critics are well aware of this continued action, vision & leadership.