Climate change and human responsibility

[GGG]

Originally Posted by zamler

Yes she has, says we already have the solution. Apparently the most challenging endeavour in history has been solved we can replace all carbon heavy energy with carbon neutral green solutions.

But we won't because corporations are pure evil.

We do have solutions.

If the question is do we have sufficient forms of energy to provide the necessities of life to 7 billion people in a world with 1.5 C warming the answer to that question is Yes.

The problem is that we don’t have a socio-economic solution to get from where we are now to there and people don’t want to increase energy cost or subsidize 2nd and 3rd world energy costs to get it done. The issue isn’t corporations being evil it’s individuals.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by GGG

We do have solutions.

If the question is do we have sufficient forms of energy to provide the necessities of life to 7 billion people in a world with 1.5 C warming the answer to that question is Yes.

The problem is that we don’t have a socio-economic solution to get from where we are now to there and people don’t want to increase energy cost or subsidize 2nd and 3rd world energy costs to get it done. The issue isn’t corporations being evil it’s individuals.

What are the solutions? What clean & renewable energy sources are there to supply 7 billion people? Not rhetorical questions.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by zamler

What are the solutions? What clean & renewable energy sources are there to supply 7 billion people? Not rhetorical questions.

Nuclear is the obvious one today for base line load in the timelines required.

Transportation is trickier but significant gas taxes to reduce mileage, encourage electric, and create market for direct air capture offsets should reduce that significantly.

Power being 30% of total C02 is the lowest hanging fruit easily addressable today.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by GGG

Nuclear is the obvious one today for base line load in the timelines required.

Transportation is trickier but significant gas taxes to reduce mileage, encourage electric, and create market for direct air capture offsets should reduce that significantly.

Power being 30% of total C02 is the lowest hanging fruit easily addressable today.

Greta is against Nuclear power, how dare you sir.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by GGG

Nuclear is the obvious one today for base line load in the timelines required.

Transportation is trickier but significant gas taxes to reduce mileage, encourage electric, and create market for direct air capture offsets should reduce that significantly.

Power being 30% of total C02 is the lowest hanging fruit easily addressable today.

I'll give you clean electricity and assume that in 10 years by some industrial miracle we can replace all fossil fuel electric generation with nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, tidal etc. done deal. Carbon neutral.

There are 86 million cars produced every year Tesla will sell nearly 400,000 cars this year. So replacing even half the petrol burners with electric means BEV manufacturing will need to increase 100x that would be another industrial miracle. And even if that happened there is still a carbon neutral best case payback of 5 years, that's being very optimistic. I wonder how many Gigafactories that works out to be. Granted there are other electric makers but their sales are small, so maybe just maybe we "only" need to increase BEV production 20x.

You said we do have solutions no we don't not even close, not for decades. Once again I'm the only one attempting to do the math why is that.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by zamler

I'll give you clean electricity and assume that in 10 years by some industrial miracle we can replace all fossil fuel electric generation with nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, tidal etc. done deal. Carbon neutral.

There are 86 million cars produced every year Tesla will sell nearly 400,000 cars this year. So replacing even half the petrol burners with electric means BEV manufacturing will need to increase 100x that would be another industrial miracle. And even if that happened there is still a carbon neutral best case payback of 5 years, that's being very optimistic. I wonder how many Gigafactories that works out to be. Granted there are other electric makers but their sales are small, so maybe just maybe we "only" need to increase BEV production 20x.

You said we do have solutions no we don't not even close, not for decades. Once again I'm the only one attempting to do the math why is that.

This leads to the question for me, lets say that we replace regular cars with electrical cars, this likely leads to a new environmental problem not only witht he hideousness of rare earth mining and the limited supplies of this, but also the disposal of batteries.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

This leads to the question for me, lets say that we replace regular cars with electrical cars, this likely leads to a new environmental problem not only witht he hideousness of rare earth mining and the limited supplies of this, but also the disposal of batteries.

Building and recycling a car is incredibly complex (and dirty) so I'm not sure how the materials list would break down petrol versus battery powered. It's going to be similar until like you say the rare earth metals for the motors, a major one is cobalt for the batteries. People think lithium is the tough one but no that's easy to mine (and relatively clean) it's the cobalt which happens to be controlled by unethical governments and is difficult to mine. Tesla is constantly trying to reduce the cobalt content for this reason.

Now try and scale that up 20x or more can it even be done? Maybe but how long will that take? Auto factories are not tooled to build electric cars or batteries at all never mind on a massive scale. Telsa is way ahead here but they can't even begin to supply the total market. And their cars are predictably expensive.

But people don't think about this stuff, it's oh we have the technology easy to do. In reality the problem is a logistical, political and technological nightmare anyone that says otherwise is at best not informed.

On recycling the battery packs I don't know how difficult or not this is. In theory it should be better to recycle the materials versus mining them but by how much? I don't have the answer to that. And what percentage of the battery can be recycled, Tesla would know but I doubt they will tell you.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by zamler

I'll give you clean electricity and assume that in 10 years by some industrial miracle we can replace all fossil fuel electric generation with nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, tidal etc. done deal. Carbon neutral.

There are 86 million cars produced every year Tesla will sell nearly 400,000 cars this year. So replacing even half the petrol burners with electric means BEV manufacturing will need to increase 100x that would be another industrial miracle. And even if that happened there is still a carbon neutral best case payback of 5 years, that's being very optimistic. I wonder how many Gigafactories that works out to be. Granted there are other electric makers but their sales are small, so maybe just maybe we "only" need to increase BEV production 20x.

You said we do have solutions no we don't not even close, not for decades. Once again I'm the only one attempting to do the math why is that.

We need to cut emissions in half by 2030 to stay on target. 30% of emissions are power plants. So we have the technology to do that. We certainly don’t have the will. So if we cut 83% of those emissions that represents half of the work required. So it is only lack of political mandate that is stopping this.

The answer to cars isn’t only BEVs. If you immediately mandate the cars sold have a fuel efficiency of X the cost of SUVs and Trucks increases dramatically and smaller cars would dominate. You’d also need to tax older cars as well. But the first step is the average vehicle sold needs to be 20% more efficient than the average today. This requires only inventory shifting and not new tech. Less people will be able to afford large vehicles. Next we place $200-$500 per tone Carbon tax on gasoline globally with this money spent on direct air carbon capture based on the end price of DAC. The current pilots are suggesting 100-200 per tonne. A $200-$500 tax works out to about 40 - 100 cents per litre. Doubling the cost of gas also decreases km driven.

The tech exists. The will to double the cost of Gas and increase food prices and taxes to subsidize those who can’t afford higher food prices does not.

[SebC]

It's not unfair to question the mental health of someone who is diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and, in her own words, had "no energy, no friends and I didn’t speak to anyone. I just sat alone at home, with an eating disorder."

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by zamler

I'll give you clean electricity and assume that in 10 years by some industrial miracle we can replace all fossil fuel electric generation with nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, tidal etc. done deal. Carbon neutral.

There are 86 million cars produced every year Tesla will sell nearly 400,000 cars this year. So replacing even half the petrol burners with electric means BEV manufacturing will need to increase 100x that would be another industrial miracle. And even if that happened there is still a carbon neutral best case payback of 5 years, that's being very optimistic. I wonder how many Gigafactories that works out to be. Granted there are other electric makers but their sales are small, so maybe just maybe we "only" need to increase BEV production 20x.

You said we do have solutions no we don't not even close, not for decades. Once again I'm the only one attempting to do the math why is that.

You're making lots of assumptions here that can be challenged. To be fair to you, many experts will have different opinions on how this plays out, so it's not simple and straightforward.

1) 100% clean electricity production isn't and shouldn't be the goal. The increasing costs as you go higher mean the last few percent will be astronomical. We can largely phase out fossil fuels though and still remain on co2 Target without spending trillions on the last bit

2) Most electric vehicles (not large battery packs) on a clean grid, the carbon payoff is much quicker than a gas powered vehicle. The co2 emissions from battery production are largely dependent on the energy source of the place they're being produced. So with all clean electricity generation, the payoff is probably less than a year.

3) You're not thinking globally when thinking about EV production. In 2019, 2.5% of all light duty vehicles were plug in vehicles. China alone sold over 1 million this year already. While about 30-35% of those were plug in hybrids, due to battery costs dropping the share of plug in hybrids to fill electric is plummeting.

4) You can't look at disruptive technology linearly. In 2013, Tesla sold 21,000 cars. By 2016 they exceeded 80,000. This year they will sell 400,000 and are doubling their production capacity

5) Tesla built a gigafactory in China in 6 months and will be making up to 250,000 cars there. Volkswagen plans on selling 22 million electric vehicles by 2028. These plans are already underway

6) Electric Vehicles are more powerful, faster, more reliable, cheaper to run, and last longer. The only thing they are not yet is cheaper to buy (they are often cheaper over a life cycle but I digress). Once price parity is reached (estimates by 2022) why would anyone buy a gas powered car? If the market demands electric Vehicles, that's what will be produced. They won't shutter every vehicle manufacturing plant and open whole new ones.


Having said all of that, 100% electric by 2030 is balderdash

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

This leads to the question for me, lets say that we replace regular cars with electrical cars, this likely leads to a new environmental problem not only witht he hideousness of rare earth mining and the limited supplies of this, but also the disposal of batteries.

This is a frustrating topic because there is so much disinformation out there. This is what people think a lithium mine looks like.



This isn't. This is an open pit copper mine in China. Arizona is also pock marked with these as well. This is a common mining method for various ores close to the surface of the earth. Not all mining relies on open pits, and this includes lithium production from spodumene, petalite, and lepidolite. This is actually what the most common lithium mine looks like today.



Settling ponds are the most destructive part of the extraction process and those can be cleaned up and remediated very easily. The thing here is that lithium extraction is no more polluting than any number of mining processes.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/li...ine-oil-sands/

Lithium production is actually very different than a lot of people think. Brine extraction is the preferred method now and is much cheaper and has the environmental impact is extremely low. Lithium can even be extracted from ocean water through a similar process. The destructive nature of lithium mining is over-blown in many regards. Lithium extraction is no more polluting than any number of mining processes, and using it as a crutch is silly. The claim is meant to sway the argument and distract from the fact that the issue is managing sequestration points for greenhouse emitting sources of pollution.

https://www.thebalance.com/lithium-production-2340123

If we can remove the greatest offending sources of pollution we can make a massive dent in the problem and buy us time. If we can remove most of the coal fired plants, eliminate oil burning heaters in homes, and then focus on removing the big polluters from the roadways, we can meet our goals and begin our transition. Nuclear and solar can kill off coal. Wind and solar can kill off the home heating challenge. Increased CAFE standards and taxation can force the dirty engines off the road. Continued incentives for EVs can drive even more off the road and convert completely away from internal combustion engines except for industrial and commercial uses. These strategies help us remove the largest number of carbon emitting sources as quickly as possible. It is doable, we just need people to adjust their expectations, which is why taxation and incentives are needed.

[GGG]

There are several companies looking to extract lithium from brine in Alberta.

https://www.powermetalscorp.com/proj...ilfield-brine/

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

2) Most electric vehicles (not large battery packs) on a clean grid, the carbon payoff is much quicker than a gas powered vehicle. The co2 emissions from battery production are largely dependent on the energy source of the place they're being produced. So with all clean electricity generation,the payoff is probably less than a year.

Got a source? This is 5x more optimistic than anything else I've read. Of course it depends on the loaded statement not large battery packs.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by zamler

Got a source? This is 5x more optimistic than anything else I've read. Of course it depends on the loaded statement not large battery packs.

There's various sources

https://www.popularmechanics.com/car...udy-fake-news/


The estimates for co2 emissions on battery production (which is the only production difference leading to increased co2 emissions) vary by a factor of 14 in current studies.

The other issue is the studies that purported to say electric vehicles were dirtier imagined that combustion engines took no energy to create and fuel magically appears in gas tanks. When you include those factors even if the battery pack is made in a coal burning country, it's 3 years (60,000km) for break even.



https://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/5da5da10...9022018_vF.pdfhttps://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/5da5db12...%20%281%29.pdf

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by SebC

It's not unfair to question the mental health of someone who is diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and, in her own words, had "no energy, no friends and I didn’t speak to anyone. I just sat alone at home, with an eating disorder."

I am not sure what you are implying.

Many people with mental health issues are productive members of society, and make sound decisions, statements that are borne out by fact, etc.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

The other issue is the studies that purported to say electric vehicles were dirtier imagined that combustion engines took no energy to create and fuel magically appears in gas tanks. When you include those factors even if the battery pack is made in a coal burning country, it's 3 years (60,000km) for break even.



https://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/5da5da10...9022018_vF.pdfhttps://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/5da5db12...%20%281%29.pdf

For those trying to get to the link, here it is.

https://theicct.org/sites/default/fi...9022018_vF.pdf

[peter12]

Originally Posted by SebC

It's not unfair to question the mental health of someone who is diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and, in her own words, had "no energy, no friends and I didn’t speak to anyone. I just sat alone at home, with an eating disorder."

Nor is it unfair to question the motivations of the adults who surround and take care of her well-being.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by peter12

Nor is it unfair to question the motivations of the adults who surround and take care of her well-being.

Can we question the irrational outrage of people who are seething over a teenage climate activist visiting our province?

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Can we question the irrational outrage of people who are seething over a teenage climate activist visiting our province?

Well, do it properly. Alberta has been on the receiving end of a pretty full-court press PR smear campaign for years, and this is just the latest iteration.

[Ozy_Flame]

Let's get our money's worth then. Here's hoping the War Room flags her as a threat to Alberta interests and incarcerates her and her handlers for costing Alberta billions of dollars