Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
Hes putting the Ideal ahead of the Practical while ignoring the Logistics. Much like our current Governments.
Realistically speaking Canada could get our emissions down to 0, live in igloos, burn whale oil for warmth and dogsled from town to town and literally no one would notice any difference in World-Wide emissions.
So why do we bother?
|
Approaching a problem with a single solution in mind at the onset is never a good practice in my opinion. Forcing renewables beyond what they're capable of is a folly that we've seen play out in Germany and Ontario and are about to get a front row seat for in Alberta as well. Ignoring logistics as you say is a major downfall of the 100% WWS crowd. I think we need all the best technologies available, an appropriate balance is necessary.. this should never be viewed as an extreme all or nothing choice. Our food is an equally impactful and important choice.
People debate energy mix on a moral level becuase it is forcing us to make value based decisions. We all may agree that it's a good idea to live in harmony with our environment but there are a lot of people that like inexpensive meat and energy during their lifetimes more than the idea of making sure the planet is habitable in another 250 years.
For example I deeply believe that we need to be good stewards of our environment and that through concentrating population density and deploying technology, we can decouple advancement from environmental impact.. but I cannot accept that we need to push a solution that requires high cost of energy to work, even though I place a very high value on things like electricity and all that it brings. This is 100% against my friends who applauded forecasts of energy costs rising in Alberta because it meant solar and wind would now be economic to deploy. To me the logic just seemed so backwards but it is becuase the thinking is not consistent with my values. We will never be able to bring the 2 billion people who live in abject energy poverty out of that position with a technology that is effectively a luxury by first world standards and in your addresses grid electricity - ignoring industrial and process heat/power needs and the convenient omission that the construction of a major, advanced grid innebery developing nation ay not be a luxury that we can all afford.
Why it matters for Canada to try is becuase we represent a rather unique mix of things on earth. A stable, peaceful nation; highly educated population; a wealth of raw resources; and as many have alluded to here, a tough climate and geography that forces the need for innovation. Your specific use of imagery that's connected with ancient cultures and lifestyles deeply ingrained with living in harmony with mother earth is also something somewhat unique to Canada - and if we are successful in repairing the damage done to our brothers and sisters who are of these people, maybe we will discover something that will be an important piece of the puzzle that has been largely overlooked until now.
We may not need to bring our direct emissions down as much as China does. But what if we develop a technology that is proven to work in a way that is in harmony with the environment, an exceptional quality of life in one of the more difficult climate/geography configurations on earth? Well to me thst technology is going to work for a lot of less difficult situations and provide a TREMENDOUS leap forward in quality of life for those people. China included.
Canada is excellent at innovating technology and horrible at deploying it. This needs to change. We can make a huge difference and that's why we should bother.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
From what I can tell there are a lot of engineers without work right now in Alberta. Perhaps someone should hire a bunch of the best ones, put them in a room, give them an unlimited budget and tell them to figure out how to radically reduce the amount of emissions coming from gas-fired power plants.
|
Easy, replace the boilers with small modular fission systems. By far less expensive and impactful that combined cycle gas combustion with CCS.
We will run out of CCS capacity pretty quickly anyway, it's not a long term solution.
Our petroleum techies need to be working on stuff like how to develop carbon based materials that will advance superconductivity, battery storage, photovoltaic energy conversion, computing power; supercritical CO2 turbines; construction materials, prosthetics, advanced plastics, and on and on and on. Not to mention, fabricating the hydrocarbons from water and air themselves. All possible and all required.
It's not hydrocarbon we need to move off of.. chemical combustion and hydrocarbon based materials will be far too useful forever. We need to move off of extraction and into concentrated, intentional fabrication of such things.