4 pillars

Density here means both the amount of energy per mass and how concentrated the supply is.

I’m sorry but I don’t follow how it might apply to wind and solar. What density do they have? How do you measure it?

Thinking about the British navy,

Last I heard the British navy was not “stationary.” LOL

Back to your transition question. The industrial revolution was helped along by using concentrated energy. It is more difficult to collect, concentrate and store diffuse wind and solar energy.

Yes but it is a false analogy. Plants have been collecting sunlight one by one for ever. My point is that with wind and solar we are going back to distributed energy instead of using solely concentrated utility scale energy. The grid makes it possible. Homes are already pumping energy into the grid.

The Captain

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Einstein, Bucky Fuller, and some other visionaries of the last 100 years were emphatic that due to the speed of technical advancement humanity would soon face a “final exam” that we were all too likely to fail. We are currently failing.

Thanks for that! I like the Israeli spirit, “The difficult we do right away. The impossible takes a little longer.”

I had the great luck of working for a company that expected me to do the impossible. Once I was asked if I knew a certain machine. “No.” My boss continued, “A customer with a problem is coming this afternoon. Fix it.” I replied, “I just told you, I don’t know that machine!” He ended the conversation with, “That’s YOUR problem.”

The company? IBM back in 1961.

The Captain

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Some policy-makers are aware of the scale and have proposed big changes to decarbonize. For example, President Biden wanted BBB passed to really make a dent into the CO2 emissions by transportation, industry, commercial and government facilities, and utilities.

Your example supports Smil’s point, not yours. The BBB was not a “big change,” and it would not have “really made a dent” in CO2 emissions. That’s Smil’s point - people are so blinded to the massive scale of what it would really take to decarbonize, that politicians are able to brand tiny changes to emissions as being important, even though they will really only have a trivial impact on future climate emissions. Even what the Democrats were proposing as going big on climate change would have had a tiny impact on overall emissions. Even the BBB was just more “blah blah blah” - better than absolutely nothing, but also nowhere near the size and scale of what would be needed to actually “make a dent” in emissions.

Policy-makers know this. They know that there’s no way to actually implement the kind of radically disruptive changes to the economy that actual movement towards decarbonization would require. Which is why they don’t try to do it.

Albaby

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Policy-makers know this. They know that there’s no way to actually implement the kind of radically disruptive changes to the economy that actual movement towards decarbonization would require. Which is why they don’t try to do it.

Well said.

Fundamentally, we can’t reduce emissions on a vast scale quickly because of the politics involved. Politics are local while climate change is global.

Equally fundamental is that we can’t accomplish massive reduced emissions without lowering standards of living in developed nations. Why? Because doing so will require huge sums of money, and it must ultimately come from the citizens in terms of higher prices and taxes without immediate benefits.

But can’t the governments just print the required money? Maybe, but with the accompanying impact of higher inflation as we’re now seeing. Another form of taxation.

So living standards get reduced in the short range and are personal while climate change gets reduced long range and is shared by all. That’s not the way to get reelected.

I recognize the foregoing is not that well said. But I think those are the basic challenges.

The technical issues can be worked over time. Even now steel makers are looking at using hydrogen to partially or totally replace the coke and natural gas used today. But that will come at a higher price unless electricity becomes almost free from wind and solar. But even then massive investments in materials and distribution will be required and the storage problems for intermittent supply must be solved for electricity. And the new steel making processes will involve modifying and replacing existing blast furnaces. More time and money.

Just one example. Technology efforts are underway in all the “four pillars” to develop more climate friendly means of supply. But all will face issues of higher costs and new investments.

And the politics involved in change on a massive scale. People don’t like change.

I was discussing all this with a good Irish friend. He said that such change won’t happen until the pain of not changing exceeds the pain of changing.

We’re making some progress in that direction. But to quote from a song from the movie Smokey and the Bandit: “We’ve got a long way to go, and a short time to get there.”

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Even what the Democrats were proposing as going big on climate change would have had a tiny impact on overall emissions. Even the BBB was just more “blah blah blah” - better than absolutely nothing, but also nowhere near the size and scale of what would be needed to actually “make a dent” in emissions.

Policy-makers know this. They know that there’s no way to actually implement the kind of radically disruptive changes to the economy that actual movement towards decarbonization would require. Which is why they don’t try to do it.

Albaby

===============================================================

You missed the point that I was making. BBB was a good attempt at getting some climate change legislation completed. Your silly words on BBB is just political right wing BS. My point was that the fossil fuels industry demanded and got all conservative Senators to stop BBB from being approved.

We know that the enemy of radically disruptive changes for climate change are the conservative who are owned by the fossil fuel industry.

At least Biden administration is trying to make changes in all kinds of areas to reduce CO2 emissions. These changes include supporting EVs, increasing mileage requirements for cars, applying new emissions requirements on fossil power plants, grid improvements, energy efficiency requirements, and penalizing fossil fuels.

Several states and cities are doing even more to reduce CO2 emissions with radically disruptive changes to transportation, power generation, grid improvements, energy efficiency requirements, and penalizing fossil fuels.

Jaak

1 Like

Fundamentally, we can’t reduce emissions on a vast scale quickly because of the politics involved. Politics are local while climate change is global.

Equally fundamental is that we can’t accomplish massive reduced emissions without lowering standards of living in developed nations. Why? Because doing so will require huge sums of money, and it must ultimately come from the citizens in terms of higher prices and taxes without immediate benefits.

But can’t the governments just print the required money? Maybe, but with the accompanying impact of higher inflation as we’re now seeing. Another form of taxation.

So living standards get reduced in the short range and are personal while climate change gets reduced long range and is shared by all. That’s not the way to get reelected.

============================================================================

You just seem to think that reducing CO2 emissions is so complex and costly.

The 4 pillars are not the dominate cause of CO2 emissions. Transportation, electrical power generation, and heating are the major causes of CO2 emissions. So what are the solutions:

  1. Carbon tax
  2. Transportation: Transition from ICE to EV cars, increase mileage requirement, and improve mass transit.
  3. Electrical power generation: Stop burning coal and oil by 2030, stop burning nat gas by 2040-2050.
  4. Improve industrial process to convert from coal and gas to electricity by 2040.
  5. Improve commercial, government, and residential heating/cooling to use energy efficient electrical equipment instead of coal, oil and nat gas by 2040.

Jaak

And the politics involved in change on a massive scale. People don’t like change.

==============================================================

People in the America have already said they want to get rid of fossil fuels to fight climate change. It is only the conservative politicians (bought by the fossil fuels) who keep telling lies to the American people that it is too hard and too costly.

https://medialibrary.climatecentral.org/resources/growing-pu…

Jaak

Fix it." I replied, “I just told you, I don’t know that machine!” He ended the conversation with, “That’s YOUR problem.”

========================================================

Did you fix the machine?

Jaak

“A typical lithium car battery weighing about 450 kilograms contains about 11 kilograms of lithium, nearly 14 kilograms of cobalt, 27 kilograms of nickel, more than 40 kilograms of copper, and 50 kilograms of graphite—as well as about 181 kilograms of steel, aluminum, and plastics. Supplying these materials for a single vehicle requires processing about 40 tons of ores, and given the low concentration of many elements in their ores it necessitates extracting and processing about 225 tons of raw materials.”

DB2

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A typical ICE car would require similar amounts of raw materials with similar processing of ores, and given the low concentration of many elements in their ores it necessitates extracting and processing about the same amount of raw materials for ICE as for EV.

Jaak

Back to your transition question. The industrial revolution was helped along by using concentrated energy. It is more difficult to collect, concentrate and store diffuse wind and solar energy.

DB2


The countries around the world are showing that wind and solar are cheaper and cleaner than coal. So I do not know why luddites do not see the advantages that power engineers have seen around the world.

Hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and other renewables will rule the future with a little help from nuclear. Coal, oil, and nat gas will wither and die.

Jaak

You missed the point that I was making. BBB was a good attempt at getting some climate change legislation completed.

“Even what the Democrats were proposing as going big on climate change would have had a tiny impact on overall emissions.”

DB2

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“Even what the Democrats were proposing as going big on climate change would have had a tiny impact on overall emissions.”

Got to start somewhere. That said, lobbies will put whatever pressure they can on decision makers to slow the extinction of their industry. That’s their job. It’s the elected official’s job to ignore the bribe and do what is best for the people they represent.

Our system of gov’t started out well in theory, but has been corrupted.

IP

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It’s the elected official’s job to ignore the bribe and do what is best for the people they represent. Our system of gov’t started out well in theory, but has been corrupted.

Could be, but that doesn’t change the fact that the transformations desired have enormous cost and people don’t want to pay enormous costs.

The BBC interviewed Professor Sir Dieter Helm, an economist at Oxford University. It starts at 32 minutes into the program.
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001471v
“There’s a juggernaut of cost to come…”

DB2

You missed the point that I was making. BBB was a good attempt at getting some climate change legislation completed.

I didn’t miss your point. I agree with it - BBB was an attempt (whether good or not) at getting “some” climate change legislation completed. It’s just that the “some” climate change legislation is utterly trivial relative to requirements.

Voters in western economies want their governments to fight climate change. They also do not want to pay any significant cost to fight climate change. And if required to choose between accepting a super-hot climate or paying the cost to prevent a super-hot climate, they will choose to accept the super-hot climate. They’d rather heat the planet than pay more for energy.

Smil’s point is that Greens (and voters) completely downplay the enormity of the scale of actually preventing climate change, so that they can pretend to themselves that there’s a way to fight climate change that doesn’t require paying an enormous cost.

Politicians - even Green politicians - are aware that voters will vote them out of office if they do anything that will impose significant costs on them. That’s why a carbon tax - which is necessary but not sufficient to fight climate change - is off the table, even for progressives. Voters won’t support it. Not because fossil fuel companies are evil liars who lie (which is certainly true), but because voters don’t actually want to pay more for energy beyond a trivial amount.

The enemies of radical disruptive changes for climate changes aren’t just conservatives or the fossil fuel companies. It’s the public at large. Only when we delude ourselves about the magnitude of the changes required can we convince ourselves that it’s a small number of special interests that are stopping effective responses to climate change. That’s because the small number of special interests are currently fighting the trivial and ineffective responses to climate change, so it looks like they’re the problem. But all they’re doing is stopping stuff that wouldn’t solve the problem anyway. In reality, non-trivial and effective responses to climate change don’t even get proposed - ever - because they are utterly impossible to get done.

Albaby

12 Likes

“Hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and other renewables will rule the future with a little help from nuclear. Coal, oil, and nat gas will wither and die.”

Probably true, just not in the lifetime of anyone currently living.

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The BBC interviewed Professor Sir Dieter Helm, an economist at Oxford University. It starts at 32 minutes into the program.
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001471v
“There’s a juggernaut of cost to come…”

I’m posting to endorse DB2’s link. It’s only 7 minutes if you fast forward to 32 minutes.

And Prof. Dieter speaks truth. Local citizens are going to pay the costs of decarbonizing their own operations. But they’re going to be impacted by the actions of other countries - particularly China, India, and those in Africa.

As others have pointed out, these facts are known by experts and policy advisors. They’re just not widely publicized. They need to be.

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Politicians - even Green politicians - are aware that voters will vote them out of office if they do anything that will impose significant costs on them.

No countries have delivered on promise to improve climate plans
www.newscientist.com/article/2320379-cop26-no-countries-have…
One of the headline promises of the Glasgow Climate Pact [2021] was that this year, 196 countries would “revisit and strengthen” their plans for curbing emissions by 2030…Sharma said that the UK government is looking at ways to strengthen its 2030 national climate plan, but to date, no countries have formally submitted a blueprint that goes further than what they promised before or at COP26.

DB2

no countries have formally submitted a blueprint that goes further than what they promised before or at COP26.

DB2

So if a country was already running a Carbon Tax that increased annually before COP26 … that doesn’t count because well they were doing it before COP26?

No wonder nations give up and go back to their good old polluting ways?

Anymouse

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1. Carbon tax

In the last year or two we’ve experience an effective over 100% carbon tax (at least for vehicle carbon usage). How much do you think that will reduce overall CO2 emissions, and over what period of time?

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The strongest arguments for Carbon Tax to control GCC all depend on creating a solid expectation that

  1. Hydrocarbons are expensive and will
  2. Continually reliably keep getting more expensive so
  3. Only insane people will buy ICE vehicles and poorly insulated homes and
  4. Public Utilities will push to non GCC modes of energy production as fast as possible

No one likes gas price spikes, but they are used to them coming and going.

david fb

1 Like