human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
POSTED BY: 1kiki
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 19:38
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Quote:When looking at a pollutant, calculations are usually made on the cost that the pollutant imposes on society v the cost of controlling the pollutant. It's my favorite way of deciding what to do: The risk - or cost- of "doing nothing: v the risk - or cost- of "doing something".
Originally posted by second:Quote:Based on a series of assumptions, the data showed that a Tesla Model 3 in the United States, for example, would need to be driven for 13,500 miles (21,725 km) before it does less harm to the environment than a Toyota Corolla. Lifetime vehicle miles traveled: 173,151.
Originally posted by SignyM:
Looks like Argonne did the EV v gasoline breakeven point for me.
Tesla 3 v Toyota Corolla (33 mpg)
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifetime-carbon-
emissions-electric-vehicles-vs-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/
The beauty of a new green energy system, for a Capitalist, is that it is built right next to the old dirty energy system. Both systems are up and running and gouging all the customers by setting prices as high as the market will bear. The sci-fiction TV show The Expanse showed how that works with an air market. Everybody needs air in outer space and the air price goes up month after month so that the workers in outer space can never save money. The air company takes all their cash. Breathing air companies don't exist, yet, but green energy companies can do the same as oil and gas companies have done and the results will be just as beautiful as on The Expanse -- War in the asteroid belt against the owners (who live on Earth) of the breathing air companies. The Belters, as they are called on the Expanse, were dropping asteroids onto Earth to show their displeasure with the wonderful and profitable capitalist system. When the green energy system gets up and running, there will be many Earthers, just like Belters, who will be angry at the cost of energy, just as Belters were angry at the cost of air. Don't take deep breaths. It is too expensive.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Unfortunately, the cost of "doing nothing" about climate change is unreliable bc we're forced to speculate about alternate futures. Do we assume that oceans will be less productive? Or more productive? Or likely less productive for shellfish (ocean acifification) but more productive with jellyfish- a Japanese delicacy.
Some farmland will become less productive due to drought. OTOH northern farmland may become MORE productive if the growing season lengthens and rain shifts northwards.
Will storms become more extreme? If so, by how much? Will clathrates release gigatons of methane?
How do you attach a dollar cost to any of this? Do you use current commodity prices? Maybe nothing of the predicted negative side effects will occur, but something entirely beneficial and unlooked-for will happen.
The calculations are based on climate models which so far haven't been particuary good at predicting the past (feed the parameters in from 1960 and see whether your model reprduces observed climate trends over the next 50 years. With the best of intentions and supercomputers climate models haven't been very successful.)
Just to give an example of an unexpected kink, one would think that cool roofs - white epdm - couldn't POSSIBLY have a negative effect on anything. After all, they simply increase the albedo of city rooftops and reduce the heat dome AND indvdual bldg AC costs. But all that reflected sunlight exposes the overlying air to a double-dose of visible and ultraviolet light, and promotes formation of ozone at ground level.
That's why I prefer to look at the cost of control measure "A" v the cost of control measure "B",and the best you can do after that is try to get a qualitatve sense of secondary effects and whether they're net positive or negative.
Solar panels, if widely distributed, make ene
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Quote:Since renewable energy production is variable, storage is essential. In the Fast Transition scenario we have allocated so much storage capacity using batteries and P2X** fuels that the entire global energy system could run for a month without any sun or wind (Document S1 section “Energy storage and flexibility requirements”). This is a sensible choice because both batteries and electrolyzers have highly favorable trends for cost and production (Document S1 sections “Batteries” and “Hydrogen and electrolyzers”). From 1995 to 2018 the production of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries increased at 30% per year, while costs dropped at 12% per year, giving an experience curve comparable to that of solar PV. Currently, about 60% of the cost of electrolytic hydrogen is electricity, and hydrogen is around 80% of the cost of ammonia, so these automatically take advantage of the high progress rates for solar PV and wind.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Solar panels, if widely distributed, make energy production more robust, especially if each bldg comes with a battery backup capable of supplying enough emergency power to bring the system back up the next sunny day (solar panels, ironically, need a source of electricity BEFORE they can start converting sunlight to electricity,) OTOH I wouldn't recommend it for northern USA. And at about 25 years the panels will become a significant e-waste problem, like lithium batteries are a problem today.
More at https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(22)00410-X#secsectitle0
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** Long-duration energy storage (LDES) and all hard-to-electrify applications are served by power-to-X (P2X) fuels, i.e., by using electricity for hydrogen electrolysis and either directly using hydrogen or using it to make other fuels such as ammonia and methane as needed.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
In the Fast Transition scenario we have allocated so much storage capacity using batteries and P2X** fuels that the entire global energy system could run for a month without any sun or wind.
You're dreaming.
In related news, I don't hear Nathan Fillion talking about Solar Freakin' Roadways anymore.
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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
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Quote:The belief that the green energy transition will be expensive has been a major driver of the ineffective response to climate change for the past 40 years. This pessimism is at odds with past technological cost improvement trends and risks locking humanity into an expensive and dangerous energy future. While arguments for a rapid green transition cite benefits such as the avoidance of climate damages, reduced air pollution, and lower energy price volatility (Document S1 section “Additional benefits from the Fast Transition”), these benefits are often contrasted against discussions about the associated costs of the transition. Our analysis suggests that such trade-offs are unlikely to exist: a greener, healthier, and safer global energy system is also likely to be cheaper. Updating expectations to better align with historical evidence could fundamentally change the debate about climate policy and dramatically accelerate progress to decarbonize energy systems around the world.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
You're dreaming.
https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(22)00410-X#secsectitle0
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The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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SECOND, I don't know why you're so invested in these high-cost technologies. (Maybe bc you're - literally- invested? and maybe you see a gravy train of government money?)
If "market forces" are so favorable for green energy, why hasn't it taken over like yesterday already?
The breakeven point for EV is sooner than I thought, but still dependent on the fuel used to generate electricity, and on the specific models being compared. If coal is the primary fuel in a particular region, the breakeven point doesn't occur until 59,000 miles, IIRC. And don't forget that the typical EV battery only lasts 7 years (84,000 miles on avg), sometimes less.
Like I already posted, hydrogen power make sense for some applications (stationary source, semi-stationary source). I've got nothing intrinsically against it, but it doesn't work for everything. EV can be beneficial is areas where electricity comes from clean(er) sources, but it doesn't work for areas where coal is a large part of the energy mix, and it will probably require a grid upgrade. Distributed solar power ... on rooftops, carports, commercial buildings etc with battery backup is both rugged and environmentally friendly and doesn't require taking up large swaths of wildland, but it should be used in sunny locations and we will have to solve the e-waste problem sooner rather than later.
OTOH planting cover crops and urban trees costs (relatively speaking) virtually nothing and has no envirnmental downside that I know of. Limiting warmaking, ending production of gas guzzlers, and banning private jets costs less than nothing and has no environmental downside either. Forest management and environmental restoration has high labor costs, but low material costs, and if you're looking for a works program to employ those no longer making weapons that fills the bill.
Banning fertilizer is stupid. The crop that encourages over-fertilization most is corn, so stop using corn to make ethanol fuel already.
Somebody should pencil-whip ALL available options options in terms of
1) potential impact (how many million tons of CO2 removed/ prevented) and
2) dollar cost per ton of CO2
3) other probable benefits or costs
If the cost is low or - better yet- saves money, and it has multiple other benefits, why not implement it even if the potential impact is only moderate?
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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Quote:Let me make it simple for you. If America wanted zero CO2 added to the atmosphere and wanted to continue burning synthetic versions of natural gas and gasoline and jet fuel, it could be done, but there would have to be one big change. The carbon for these synthetic fuels would have to come from CO2 pulled from the atmosphere. That means no more wells drilled into the ground for crude and natural gas and no more coal mines and no more tar sand mining and no more burning wood. With that setup, everything stays exactly the same except for the source of the carbon in the fuel. Cars still run on gasoline. Homes are still heated by burning synthetic natural gas. Industry still has huge furnaces burning synthetic natural gas.
Originally posted by SignyM:
SECOND, I don't know why you're so invested in these high-cost technologies. (Maybe bc you're - literally- invested? and maybe you see a gravy train of government money?)
None of that has been done because it is easier to not think and just continue to automatically do what has been done for a hundred years: drill holes in the ground for crude and natural gas. The carbon will end up in the atmosphere. Dig up the ground for coal. The carbon in the coal goes into the atmosphere. Cut down forests for lumber and burn what is left. Again, carbon goes into the air.
If you never change anything about where the carbon comes from, nobody has to think carefully about what they are doing. Humanity has 300,000 years of not thinking carefully or not even thinking any deeper than wild animals do and the wild animals prospered for 66 million years since the last major extinction, didn't they? But there is a high likelihood of another major extinction if humanity won't think about what happens to carbon when fuel is burned.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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You start with a wrong assumption/ false dilemma that we have to technologically pull carbon from the atmo.
Nature does a pretty good job by itself. If we trim our CO2 emissions and enhance the natural processes that absorb carbon we might reach equilibrium.
BTw, the idea of pulling CO2 from the atmo and turning it into fuel is energetically like pushing a boulder up a hill. The reason why we burn fuel is because oxidation releases energy. You have to use more energy than was released in order to stuff those molecules back together. Where does the energy come from?
Solar?
Wind?
If you're going to harvest that energy then why not use it to make electricity directly? Bc otherwise you lose energy with every conversion.
Unless you're using it for storage, since batteries aren't up to snuff yet. But there are also a lot of potentially more efficient ways to store excess energy, including pumping water uphill for hydro power later, or flywheels. In fact, the flywheel idea is already built into the energy sector's idea of "spinning reserve", since even unpowered turbines still spin and generate electricity.
Again, I have nothing against generating hydrogen (for example) from solar-powered hydrolysis of water, or coal gassification with water, or a methanol economy. (excpet burning methanol creates formaldehyde, so there would have to be controls on that).
My point is that ALL of the options need to be considered because there is NO "one size fits all" answer. You (and the authors you cite) keep polishing one single idea. It may be a good one, but there may be far more effective/less costly ones out there.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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Quote:That's nice, but Capitalism cannot consider all the options to solve excessive CO2 in the air because Capitalism is about making money, not solving problems. The government will have to pick one or more options and then PAY CAPITALISTS to implement them and the government must oversee the Capitalists so that they don't cheat in order to get paid without doing the actual work. If the government is the one in DC, it cannot pick a solution. It can't make up its mind because it is fragmented into hundreds of pieces, each Congressman is unable to join a 2/3rds majority necessary to get a significant decision made AND CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THAT DECISION FOR DECADES. Congress is not designed to make complicated decisions. The Presidency can make complicated decisions (see WWII or the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Mission to the Moon or the Interstate Highway system) but Presidents come and go and when a new one arrives, their predecessor's decisions get tossed into the garbage can. That is not conducive to solving problems that take decades to finish.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
My point is that ALL of the options need to be considered because there is NO "one size fits all" answer. You (and the authors you cite) keep polishing one single idea. It may be a good one, but there may be far more effective/less costly ones out there.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:That's nice, but Capitalism cannot consider all the options to solve excessive CO2 in the air because Capitalism is about making money, not solving problems. The government will have to pick one or more options and then PAY CAPITALISTS to implement them and the government must oversee the Capitalists so that they don't cheat in order to get paid without doing the actual work. If the government is the one in DC, it cannot pick a solution. It can't make up its mind because it is fragmented into hundreds of pieces, each Congressman is unable to join a 2/3rds majority necessary to get a significant decision made AND CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THAT DECISION FOR DECADES. Congress is not designed to make complicated decisions. The Presidency can make complicated decisions (see WWII or the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Mission to the Moon or the Interstate Highway system) but Presidents come and go and when a new one arrives, their predecessor's decisions get tossed into the garbage can. That is not conducive to solving problems that take decades to finish.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
My point is that ALL of the options need to be considered because there is NO "one size fits all" answer. You (and the authors you cite) keep polishing one single idea. It may be a good one, but there may be far more effective/less costly ones out there.
Now if you pick a solution that Capitalists love, it doesn't matter that Presidents come and go or that Congress is full of flighty, foolish dilettantes. The Capitalists will drive the project to completion because it makes them rich. This brings everything back to this quote: The belief that the green energy transition will be expensive has been a major driver of the ineffective response to climate change for the past 40 years. This pessimism is at odds with past technological cost improvement trends and risks locking humanity into an expensive and dangerous energy future. While arguments for a rapid green transition cite benefits such as the avoidance of climate damages, reduced air pollution, and lower energy price volatility (Document S1 section “Additional benefits from the Fast Transition”), these benefits are often contrasted against discussions about the associated costs of the transition. Our analysis suggests that such trade-offs are unlikely to exist: a greener, healthier, and safer global energy system is also likely to be cheaper. Updating expectations to better align with historical evidence could fundamentally change the debate about climate policy and dramatically accelerate progress to decarbonize energy systems around the world.
https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(22)00410-X#secsectitle0
065
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Why does the government have to pay capitalists?
What if it were to set up a Works program, like the WPA of old? (You keep thumping FDR, and he created the WPA. You should be all for it!)
It should at least get some of those Big Brains on its staff to come up with estimates to decide which programs to fund right away, which to research and which to back burner
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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