Fix for global warming

OK lets say you convinced me and AGW is a clear and present danger. Species are going extinct, sea level is rising fast, and very soon the planet will be ice free. World wide starvation and economic chaos is at our door. What do you propose we do? What will save us? The fix is?

 

There will be two answers:
1) green energy, conservation, electric cars....blah, blah, blah....all stuff that doesn't work
2) the actual answer, return to the stone age....or at least the bronze age

Believe it or not some people actually espouse #2

Maurice Strong, opening speech at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit:
If we don't change, our species will not survive... Frankly, we may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse.

Of course Mr Strong has made 100's of millions off the GW scam since then so I doubt he personally will "collapse".

 

Send up nuclear missiles with massive EMP warheads on them to cover every part of the earth, set those off, and in a year or so the population will have gone from about 7 billion to 2 billion. Yeah! The earth is saved!

 

Apparently not one alarmist can step up to this challenge so if AGW was real I guess we are toast.

 

Rapid decarbonization, starting with the electric grid. Once the grid is decarbonized, switch existing fossil-heaviy activities, industrial, transportation, and heating, to electrical.

http://unsdsn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/US-Deep-Decarbonization-Report.pdf

 

and yet the replacement energy is still missing today in 2015. so someone better develop that replacement to support that paper.

 

That's the whole point.

 

"Decarbonization" to what? And don't say solar or wind because they will never do it.

 

So lets look at this "answer"

70% of our electricity comes from "carbon". If we eliminate that what to replace it with?

Solar or wind? Gimmie a break....the make up like 12% now and Obama and company had to throw billions at them to get it that high. Any more and we will be bankrupt.

Nuclear....actually I am for that, but the greenies go apocalyptic !

Hydro, I'm for that to.....just try and get a permit from the EPA and US Army Corps of Engineers for a new hydro dam........it won't happen. Might inconvenience a fish.

So we are 70% short to start with, THEN you want to convert all transportation to electricity...? Where you gonna get it?

But lets assume we poop massive increases in electricity somehow for the transport market:

Electric cars have only a tiny market niche (that pesky range issue), and electric transport trucks? (18 wheelers)......impossible without radical new battery technology that would have to border on magic.

Trains, yes that could be practical. But America is heavy into trucks. It will take many many years to swap to rail and electrify our rail system.

My point is we are stuck with carbon for DECADES at least, far beyond all the "tipping points" and doomsday scenarios the alarmists are predicting (not counting the ones that have already passed).
So drink up, don't worry, and fire up the SUV !

 

You might try reading the document, where your questions will be answered. The cheapest option is hydro and geothermal where available, wind up to the curtailment point, and nuclear for the rest.

 

How long would this switch over take do you think?

 

The document addresses only the US and even if it were possible here the rest of the world would dwarf anything we do. If AGW is real it must be dealt with globally.

 

US electrical usage is 13,000 kWh per capita per year, of which about 2/3 is fossil. So call it 9000 kWh per capita per year we would need to convert. The fastest wind build-out in the world is occurring right now in Denmark, at 200 kWh per capita per year, and the fastest nuclear build-out in the world occurred in Sweden in 1979-87, where they achieved 842 kWh per capita per year. (France and Finland achieved 660 and 617 kWh per capita per year with their nuclear build-outs, respectively). If the US had a similar national commitment and achieved similar rates, we could complete the transition in about 15 to 20 years.

 

Yes, a better international framework, or even an enforceable treaty like the Montreal Protocols would help. But the US and China account for 40% of global greenhouse emissions, so we need to get our own house in order too. In fact, a fossil carbon tax with import tariffs based on (a) carbon content of the imported good; and (b) carbon tax in the exporting nation, would be a very big stick to incentivize the rest of the world into compliance.

 

It's not clear to me how to define 'save'? All the potential issues with global climate change, at least in the next few hundred years, won't cause extinction. But as they progress, they will cause personal harm, economic harm, social harm, etc. People will be forced to change/adjust or they will not survive. For example, if the sea level rises by three feet, well...tens of millions of people must relocate. For me, at least in the early stages of these problems, people and governments simply do not have the money to be proactive or even reactive. The good news is the 'change' process should be slow which gives people and governments plenty of time to react. So, let's say we own a nice property on the beach and we'll be under water with a three feet sea rise...when do we pull the trigger to sell the property? Who will actually buy a property that is doomed to flooding? Take a location like southern Florida which will be flooded; should the government today mandate that all people/business within certain latitudes in Florida relocate by a certain date? Isn't this the only way for something as complex as moving 1/3 of a state to take place...government take over?! This is just about flooding so what about loss of crops, water, etc. which can effect huge portions of the USA away from the coast lines?

If the concept of global climate change is accurate, then continued population increases, continued industrialization, and continued pollution of our atmosphere, lakes and oceans, certainly will exacerbate the issues. No one knows if we have reached a point of no return or if there is time to be proactive? However, the idea of being proactive, both in terms of having the money and the mental prowess, is highly unlikely so we better prepare to change and adjust...be reactive.

If global climate change unfolds as the scientists suggest, it will force a world-wide paradigm shift, force impossible economic scenarios, and tens of millions of people will be walking around like zombies wondering what to do...

 

There is no one single fix but there are a lot of little things that we can do now

We can reduce the amount of CO2 we are pumping into the atmosphere - delay the dread day
We can stop being wasteful slobs
We can get rid of useless excessive rubbish that only adds to cost of things
We can learn to recycle carbon



Think of it - plastic made from pollution that is CHEAPER than that made from petroleum products

<<< REMOVED LINK @ LINKS REQUEST >>>

 

So if we have a 15 to 20 year cushion I don't think you see AGW as a real pressing problem. In that time frame technology will advance and fossil fuel use will drop on its own.

 

A carbon tax would do nothing but make fossil fuel more expensive and keep poor countries poor. In this country it would make the price of everything go up as business added the cost to their finished service or product.

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A lot of "ifs" there. We could what if ourselves to death on most any subject.

 

So in your opinion if we reduce a little here and there, the polls will stop melting, weather will get back to "normal" and polar bears can relax. All is good. Sounds like you too don't see AGW as any real threat.

 

No that is not what I said - but it might be what you WANT me to say

 

There is not a lot of hydro possibilities left at an acceptable price with acceptable environmentally. As I said forget wind will never be a big player nor geothermal. Nuclear is the best long term option but untilled then no reason not to use fossils.

 

thank you Mr. eight ball

 

We would need an infrastructure to move energy around and store it before unpredictable patters of wind and solar can be relied on.

I'm pretty sure such things will occur in the future, but until someone can show that fossil fuel actually is a threat, I want no part of funding projects that are so expensive today.

That said, I would set a standard voltage nationwide and join with Canada for a continental DC intertie. For the short durations needed for power storage, Nickle Iron batteries are probably the best choice to buffer this power. If we had a 500,000 volt DC structure, it would take around 415,000 cells in series.

This could be done, but at what cost?

The current Pacific DC Intertie is being upgraded to 500,000 volts, so we can increase our power sent to Los Angeles from 3.1 gigawatts to 3.22 gigawatts.

Damn, if they made it 3.63 gigawatts, we could power three DeLoreans!

Anyway, it must be an answer to help California with it's ever growing need for power, and the excess power we have here, requiring wind power generation to be shut down at times.

http://www.bpa.gov/transmission/Projects/line-projects/Pages/PDCI-Upgrade-Project.aspx

http://www.bpa.gov/transmission/Pro...radeProject/pdci-customer-update_01152015.pdf

Cool! Now we can have our three DeLoreans!

 

This is interesting, from the perspective of the local history I have been exposed to:

http://www.bpa.gov/transmission/Projects/wind-projects/Documents/bpa-wind-map.pdf

Not the map only shows one project under construction, with several completed and several planned. Once the existing plants went up, they were losing money because we generated more power here in Oregon and Washington than what could be used. With all the planned upgrades to the DC intertie network, they have planned to start building wind plants again.

http://efw.bpa.gov/environmental_services/Document_Library/Big_Eddy-Knight/

http://efw.bpa.gov/environmental_services/Document_Library/Central_Ferry-Lower_Monumental/

http://efw.bpa.gov/environmental_services/Document_Library/Grand_Coulee/

http://www.bpa.gov/transmission/Projects/wind-projects/Pages/default.aspx

Now if we could just build a 500,000 volt DC national or continental grid!

AC doesn't work for long distance. The length of line starts acting like a transmitting antenna, and the power is lost.

 

There is not a lot of hydro possibilities left at an acceptable price with acceptable environmentally. As I said forget wind will never be a big player nor geothermal. Nuclear is the best long term option but untilled then no reason not to use fossils.