human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
POSTED BY: 1kiki
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 19:38
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Quote:If you really wanted to keep fuel distribution infrastructure unchanged AND everything the same mechanically for autos, without even going electric or ethanol or hydrogen, but still go green, there is a way: The Methanol-to-Gasoline Process. MTG process normally take place into two steps, first methanol is transformed into a mixture of dimethyl-ether (DME) and water with some unreacted methanol over a non-zeolitic catalyst usually.
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
Plant-based ethanol is just as good as hydrogen in terms of CO2, but it doesn't require dangerous high-pressure systems and a specially-built, entirely new, infrastructure to use it. Existing pipelines, underground fuel tanks, gas-stations and so on will do the job at normal environmental temperatures and pressures, without significant personal and environmental toxicity or risk.
Putting ethanol fuel into place - faster, better, cheaper - and less risky - than hydrogen.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/methanol-to-gasoline-
process
From 1,000 tons of methanol, the process will produce 387 tonnes of gasoline, 46 tonnes of LPG, 7 tonnes of fuel gas and 560 tonnes of water, which is recycled as process water.
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/12/dkrw-selects-ex.html
What is so green about methanol over ethanol? Biomass sources are preferable for biomethanol than for bioethanol because bioethanol is a high-cost and low-yield product. This is a promising alternative, with a diversity of fuel applications with proven environmental, economic, and consumer benefits. A mixture of gases from organic waste materials is converted to methanol in a conventional steam-reforming/water-gas shift reaction followed by high-pressure catalytic methanol synthesis.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15567030600817167
If you want to keep billions of the same old gasoline engines running and the same old gasoline stations/convenience stores, but go green, there is a way to make gasoline from biomass, but you have to spend trillions of dollars building the hydrocarbon chemical plants to do it and that is not going to happen naturally and organically. It will be a very deliberate political decision involving many decades of raucous, even violent, conflict between groups for and against. Then it takes decades to build it all, once a decision is made.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Norway again shows the all-electric car future is closer than people think
https://electrek.co/2021/12/03/norway-again-shows-all-electric-car-fut
ure-closer-than-people-think/
EU taxonomy for sustainable activities – Should nuclear energy be left out?
https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/video/eu-taxonomy-
for-sustainable-activities-should-nuclear-energy-be-left-out/
Why companies are embracing sustainability
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sponsored/PkqB18UxpLwez9s8lc7s/why-co
mpanies-are-embracing-sustainability/
Quote:
According to Dr de Hoog, “almost every time you use an app on your phone, it's basically connecting to a data center somewhere that is storing data and running some computational workloads that need to be powered by electricity. Every country in the world, even every region, has a set of generation sources for electricity in that region, which could be a mix of coal, gas, nuclear, solar, wind, biomass, multiple other sources.
Biden Orders Federal Government To Become Carbon Neutral By 2050
https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan/2021/12/08/biden-orders-federa
l-government-to-become-carbon-neutral-by-2050/
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Quote:
Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
Biden Orders Federal Government To Become Carbon Neutral By 2050
Biden* could even order a Value Meal at McDonalds at the drive thru unless he had a teleprompter in front of him in the car.
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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
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“Don’t Look Up” Is as Funny and Terrifying About Global Warming as “Dr. Strangelove” Was About Nuclear War
If you’re wondering whether we’ll do anything about global warming before it destroys civilization, think about this ominous fact: It occupies barely any space in popular culture.
This contrasts with the gusher of movies and books in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s about nuclear war. Anyone old will remember “The Day After,” “War Games,” “The Planet of the Apes,” “99 Luftballons,” and many, many more in which nuclear terror was the central subject or background.
All of this helped generate a worldwide anti-nuclear movement, which in turn generated a larger audience for anti-nuclear culture, which in turn strengthened the movement — all in a virtuous circle. In other words, we avoided atomic Armageddon in part because we spent lots of time imagining it and so were motivated not to experience it in reality. But with global warming, there are few indications that we’re imagining it at all. We’re blithely stumbling forward in a fog, with little comprehension of the catastrophe we’re stumbling toward.
The fountainhead of nuclear war culture in the U.S. was Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” released in 1964. It pried open space into which countless other creators rushed. “Don’t Look Up” has the potential to do the same thing for global warming.
Taken literally, the movie is about a huge comet heading directly toward us. It’s the same size as the one that hit the Gulf of Mexico in the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, which wiped out three-quarters of all species on the planet. But this is the most thinly disguised metaphor in the history of metaphors. It is in fact about our profound commitment to cooking ourselves to death. Pretending it’s about a comet, however, makes it possible for “Don’t Look Up” to fit the format of a standard blockbuster that the median moviegoer will love.
More at https://theintercept.com/2021/12/12/dont-look-up-review-adam-mckay-dr-
strangelove/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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World Petroleum Congress speakers prophesy a dark energy crisis to stall progress on the climate crisis
In a dozen speeches at the World Petroleum Congress in Houston, and no one denied fossil fuels are causing life-threatening global warming. Everyone agreed we must reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane levels.
Where the people inside the heavily-fortified convention center disagree with most of the world is how to slow emissions. The industry’s talking points called for more oil and natural gas extraction paired with expensive carbon capture technology financed with tax credits.
The World Petroleum Congress opened with a children’s choir singing the saccharine Disney tune “It’s a Small World (After All)” and ended with a menacing warning: Give us what we want, and there won’t be any trouble. Failure to provide the industry with $11.8 trillion in capital between now and 2045 will trigger an energy crisis that they insist will make the public forget all about the climate crisis.
Investors and governments are refusing to finance big fossil fuel projects with an aim to neutralizing greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Big Oil is paying more for capital as investors shower clean energy companies with resources.
Petroleum executives know capital investment is a zero-sum game, and they are worried about losing the two things they need most: low-cost capital and a social contract to operate. The execs are not above implied threats if they don’t get the money they want at the price they want to pay.
Keep in mind, conferences like the World Petroleum Congress are marketing exercises, not intellectually rigorous attempts to address issues. The main goal is to inspire investors to buy shares in the event’s corporate sponsors.
Like any pep rally, cheerleaders recited standardized propaganda: An energy transition that slashes fossil fuels will be messy and potentially violent. Climate mitigation efforts are causing the current energy shortfalls. Environmental regulations are scaring away investors. Switching to other fuel sources is too damn complicated. Big Oil has all the answers.
All they need is $11.8 trillion.
They want to spend the money on drilling new wells and building massive carbon capture projects. Capturing that investment would also hobble development of clean energy, their main competitors who have made amazing progress in winning market share.
Investments in wind turbines have brought down prices by 90 percent. Solar costs are down 70 percent. A trillion dollars spent on new batteries and new mines to extract critical metals would similarly bring energy storage costs down.
Clean energy executives insist that with a fraction of $11.8 trillion they can replace fossil fuels and meet growing global demand, no matter what the oil industry’s scientists claim. They also have clever engineers and new technologies.
This debate is about money. Oil CEOs want government handouts in the form of tax credits to capture the carbon they make money releasing. They also want the federal government to pay for their research.
We cannot allow oil executives to blackmail us. They are not prophets; they are business people looking for profits.
Governments should set limits on emissions, level out the subsidies and let the industry that supplies the most affordable, reliable and clean energy win.
More at https://web.archive.org/web/20211211054142/https://www.houstonchronicl
e.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Tomlinson-Don-t-fall-for-Big-Oil-s-16688970.php
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The IMF estimates that U.S. fossil fuel subsidies totaled $662 billion in 2020
What does $662 billion a year look like?*
Affordable child care & free universal Pre-K $47 billion/year
Tuition free public universities $80 billion/year
12 weeks national paid leave $55 billion/year
Publicly owned broadband $15 billion/year
Homes for all guarantee $150 billion/year
100% renewable in the U.S. by 2050 $270 billion/year
Add dental, hearing, vision to Medicare $36 billion/year
$9 billion remainder.
*10 year estimates except 100% renewable
SOURCES
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Still-Not-Get
ting-Energy-Prices-Right-A-Global-and-Country-Update-of-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-466004
https://berniesanders.com/issues/free-child-care-and-pre-k-all/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/tuition-free-college.html
https://berniesanders.com/issues/high-speed-internet-all/
https://www.filesforprogress.org/reports/homes_for_all.pdf
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2020-02/hr1185_2.pdf
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-12/hr3_complete.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/10/20/upshot/democrats-trim-r
econciliation-bill.html
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/the-global-price-tag-for-100-percent-rene
wable-energy-73-trillion
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProEarth/comments/qldfxg/what_could_fossil_fu
el_subsidies_pay_for/ 
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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"My friend the Communist.
Holds meetings in his office.
I can't afford his gas.
So I'm stuck here watching TV"
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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
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Rising coal consumption could bring global coal-fired power demand to a new all-time high this year, undermining efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday.
The IEA said global power generation from coal was expected to reach 10,350 terawatt-hours in 2021, up 9%.
According to a report published this week by researchers with China's State Grid Corporation, energy security concerns mean the country is likely to build as much as 150 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity over the 2021-2025 period, bringing the total to 1,230 GW.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/17/business/coal-climate-energy-iea-report
-intl/index.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The Controversial Plan to Vacuum Carbon Out of the Atmosphere
How much does it cost to do this?
The estimate that I most often heard is that right now the cheapest they can do is about $500 per ton of CO2. Everyone who looks at this field basically says that that is way too much. That is way too expensive to be able to do what we need to do. Because the IPCC was talking about removing 10 gigatons a year, which is billions of tons. So at $500 per ton, you’re talking about trillions and trillions of dollars. ($5 trillion to remove 10 billion metric tons of CO2. A metric tonne weighs 2,204.62 pounds or 1,000 kilograms. United States emitted 5.1 billion metric tons of energy-related carbon dioxide in 2019, while the global emissions of energy-related carbon dioxide totaled 33.1 billion metric tons.)
So, what price does it need to get to? No one really knows. But if it were around $100 per ton, then there starts to be a more of a market for this stuff. If you got it down to $50 or $10 a ton, then you’re really talking.
More at https://slate.com/technology/2021/12/direct-air-carbon-capture-technol
ogy-clive-thompson.html
https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-much-carbon-dioxide-does-united-states-a
nd-world-emit-each-year-energy-sources
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The death of the Build Back Better Act would truly be a disaster for the environment.
The Build Back Better Act might be dead. Or maybe it’s just on life support. Nobody but Joe Manchin can say for sure. The West Virginia senator ambushed his party on Sunday by announcing he was a hard no on the bill, imperiling the core of the Biden administration’s domestic agenda. After the initial furious reaction, both the White House and Democrats in Congress have begun trying to rescue negotiations, but their chance of success is unclear.
One thing is quite certain, though: If the defibrillators fail and President Joe Biden can’t resuscitate a deal, it will be an absolute catastrophe for America’s attempts to combat global warming. The bill that House Democrats passed in November was not everything clean energy and environmental activists had hoped, since some of its most aggressive proposals to limit greenhouse gasses were stripped to appease Manchin. But by providing hundreds of billions of dollars to speed up the country’s green transition, it would have been an absolutely crucial and historic step toward meeting the climate goals Biden announced when the U.S. rejoined the Paris accords earlier this year. Without it, the country is unlikely to come anywhere near those targets, even if in an abstract, technical sense they’d still be within reach.
“Let me put it this way. The U.S. can still achieve its [Paris commitments] through pathways that don’t require Build Back Better, which lean heavily on federal regulation and state action,” Anand Gopal, executive director of strategy and policy at the climate think tank Energy Innovation, told me. “But it will be damn hard.”
Here’s a simple way to think about the blow U.S. climate policy is facing. The Biden administration has pledged to reduce U.S. emissions 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. Under the House legislation, the United States would cut its carbon footprint by 44 percent, according to an analysis by the REPEAT Project at Princeton’s Zero Lab. But under current law, the U.S. would only cut emissions by 27 percent—not even in the ballpark.
It is possible that the Princeton analysis is overly optimistic about the impact Build Back Better would have. For instance, it factors in reductions from a fee on methane included in the House bill, which looked like it would be pared back in any final version. But almost every analysis of the bill’s key pieces has found that it would have a dramatic impact and potentially put our Paris targets within reach, thanks to roughly $325 billion of green energy, electric vehicle, and other tax credits that anchor its climate section (the bill’s total spending on climate amounts to $555 billion). Those subsidies would bring down the cost of a new solar or wind plant by 30 percent, and shave thousands from the price of an EV, making clean tech even more competitive than it already is .
Without Build Back Better, the Biden administration will be left to rely almost exclusively on its regulatory powers to curb emissions.
More at https://slate.com/business/2021/12/manchin-build-back-better-environme
nt-biden.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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