Global warming solutions (on topic)

[Phil1111 1,149]

14 hours ago, Bigfalls said:

I recently read a book written around 1910 about the ice age.  Due to the elliptical orbit of the earth the length of the seasons change.                                I did some rough calculations and summer is now about 10 hours shorter than it was 100 years ago.  In 1000 years it will be 100 hours shorter or about 4 days.  In 10,000 years summer will be 40 days shorter.  That's not a solution to the current issue but if mankind is still around, they will have a different set of circumstances to deal with.

 

1 hour ago, kallend said:

You need to check your math.  It's way off.

mmmm that one is way beyond math!

[Phil1111 1,149]

11 hours ago, billvon said:

It's not.  It's the combination of a normal heat wave and climate change....

If that's not OK with us, it's up to us to demand they change their tactics.  The lawsuits are already starting, and they are the early indicators that governments/corporations will not be able to just refuse to pay their debts forever.

I applaud the time and effort you spend on some of your posts. Rolling my eyes is sometimes too much of an effort for some of the ideas around here.

[kallend 2,106]

On 6/28/2021 at 4:47 PM, kallend said:

Traffic engineering.  Replace traffic lights with roundabouts.  Eliminate 4-way stops at intersections.

Surprised no-one picked up on this.  Just taking my home town as an example, we have roughly 1,200 intersections with traffic lights that simply run on a timer with no smart (or even dumb) sensors or sequencing.  For some 16 hours a day observation suggests that typically 2 or 3 vehicles are stopped unnecessarily per intersection with a typical wait time of 1 minute.  Each stopped vehicle, unless hybrid or electric, continues to burn fossil fuel and emit CO2, and then needs to burn more to accelerate back to speed when the light turns to green.  That will consume some 5 - 6g of gas or diesel and produce around 20g of CO2 per event per vehicle. 

My back-of-the-envelope math suggests that this is putting about 40 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere daily, quite unnecessarily.

 

And then there's even more emission due to generally poor traffic management and congestion resulting in stop/start driving.

Edited July 8, 2021 by kallend

[billvon 3,076]

2 hours ago, kallend said:

Each stopped vehicle, unless hybrid or electric, continues to burn fossil fuel and emit CO2

Idle stop is a feature on all new cars in the US.

[billvon 3,076]

11 hours ago, wmw999 said:

This, a thousand times this. A little inconvenience now can save the people who come after us a whole lot more -- and don't forget they'll have other problems (and advantages) that we have no idea about now. Do you want to make like easier or harder for the people who come after you?

I once heard it said that almost no corporation, and almost no American, looks further ahead than the next ten years.  And over any ten year period, climate change won't get _too_ much worse.  Even in the US, where temperatures are rising faster than the rest of the world, you'll only see a .5F increase over ten years.  Perhaps a few inches in sea level rise.  A CO2 increase of 25ppm.  So if that's as far as you can see, it's easier to ignore.

But we have to get better at seeing farther than that.  There have been some good signs - the Kyoto protocol, the Paris agreement and the Kyoto accords are examples here.  And people are absolutely capable of seeing farther than 10 years into the future; after all, we keep having kids and planning for their futures.  We just have to be better at connecting our actions today with the kind of world our grandchildren will see.

And as I mentioned, we have to start some of these mitigations now.  We are making baby steps towards slowing down the change (EV's, solar incentives, new infrastructure) so we have the basics.  We just have to get more serious about it.

[JerryBaumchen 1,444]

2 hours ago, billvon said:

I once heard it said that almost no corporation, and almost no American, looks further ahead than the next ten years.  And over any ten year period, climate change won't get _too_ much worse.  Even in the US, where temperatures are rising faster than the rest of the world, you'll only see a .5F increase over ten years.  Perhaps a few inches in sea level rise.  A CO2 increase of 25ppm.  So if that's as far as you can see, it's easier to ignore.

But we have to get better at seeing farther than that.  There have been some good signs - the Kyoto protocol, the Paris agreement and the Kyoto accords are examples here.  And people are absolutely capable of seeing farther than 10 years into the future; after all, we keep having kids and planning for their futures.  We just have to be better at connecting our actions today with the kind of world our grandchildren will see.

And as I mentioned, we have to start some of these mitigations now.  We are making baby steps towards slowing down the change (EV's, solar incentives, new infrastructure) so we have the basics.  We just have to get more serious about it.

Hi Bill,

Re:  We

I simply do not think that what you, my neighbor, and I, can do can be enough.

As I mentioned earlier, it has to come from Congress.  With binding legislation, with penalties, etc.

Back in the 70's, Congress lowered the speed limits to 55 MPH max.  Eventually, all 50 states complied; some only at the very last minute, but they complied.

Jerry Baumchen

PS)  I do separate my garbage, recyclables, etc.

[wmw999 2,544]

The more of “we” who are already doing those things, the more likely our congresscritters are to consider them to be viable. So, yeah, separate your trash, but more important, reduce and re-use stuff. 
I consider our growth-measured economy to be part of the problem. 
Wendy P. 

[kallend 2,106]

4 hours ago, billvon said:

Idle stop is a feature on all new cars in the US.

Doesn't affect the wasted fuel due to acceleration back up to speed from every unnecessary stop.

Edited July 9, 2021 by kallend

[metalslug 36]

Quote

Worldwide climate change has pushed temperatures up by 1-2 degrees F.  In the Northern hemisphere, the increase has been 5-10F due to a lot of factors (more land in the lower latitudes, more rapid loss of ice and snow, less ocean circulation, elliptical orbit of the Earth.)

There's an online link somewhere (I'll find it if needed) mentioning research by U.C. Berkeley and U Washinton that places the average temperature difference between the two hemispheres at around 3°F since climate change. If the Northern hemisphere is impacted 5 to 10 degrees (per billvon estimate?), and the difference between hemispheres is 3 degrees (placing the Southern hemisphere at 2 to 7 degrees increase if applying the Berkeley difference number), and the average of both together is 1-2 degrees higher, then I'm not seeing how that math works.  It's not a trick question, I'm genuinely keen to know.  

There seems to be a fair bit of 'spitballing', even by experts, around climate estimates and this is very unfortunate considering the impacts of this topic and, in some cases, extraordinary grandstanding. billvon has stated that warm weather that kills people is a combination of heat wave, geographical features, and the climate change. So, when heat waves killed people several decades ago there was nothing to talk about, but when they kill people now then we have a soapbox to stand on. It's sounding as though we can now assign blame for every death and the entire event to a single cause.

I would however like to thank (genuinely, not sarcastically) the replies to my questions. I have been swayed and enlightened on a few things, specifically a better understanding of relative economic cost, which were largely my original questions. I reserve some skepticism on other aspects of the topic which I don't think can be effectively debated here.

[billvon 3,076]

19 minutes ago, metalslug said:

There seems to be a fair bit of 'spitballing', even by experts, around climate estimates and this is very unfortunate considering the impacts of this topic and, in some cases, extraordinary grandstanding.

That's because exact weather prediction is not possible; the system is too chaotic.  What we can predict is trends, and the predictions of the effects of climate change on global temperature made 30 - 40 - even 48 years ago have been pretty accurate.  

https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1763

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-models-projected-global-warming

This is true of many fields, not just climate change.  Doctors are "just spitballing" when they tell you that exercise and a good diet will prolong your life and give you a higher quality of life, and that drug abuse and smoking will cause a decline in those things.  They can't prove any of that; you could be one of those people who lives to 99 and smokes three packs a day.  Nor can they tell you the day you will die, or how much shorter your life will be for every pack you smoke.  But for the most part, their predictions are pretty accurate, and your behavior actually will affect how the rest of your life goes.

Quote

 If the Northern hemisphere is impacted 5 to 10 degrees (per billvon estimate?), and the difference between hemispheres is 3 degrees (placing the Southern hemisphere at 2 to 7 degrees increase if applying the Berkeley difference number), and the average of both together is 1-2 degrees higher, then I'm not seeing how that math works. 

Worldwide the increase is 1.8F since 1950.  In the northern hemisphere everywhere that has been amplified for several reasons (as listed above.)  In the northern hemisphere on land, where we are seeing those heat waves, it is amplified even further, since the oceans have a huge amount of thermal mass to soak up excess heat, and will continue doing so for decades.  So we will see much larger swings on land than we do on the planet as a whole, since 70% of the earth's surface is water.  Add that to the increased temperatures in the Northern hemisphere compared to the Southern hemisphere and you get those 5-10F increases.  

Quote

billvon has stated that warm weather that kills people is a combination of heat wave, geographical features, and the climate change. So, when heat waves killed people several decades ago there was nothing to talk about, but when they kill people now then we have a soapbox to stand on.

Because it will happen to a greater degree, and it will happen more often - and this time we are causing it.

Consider hearing about a friend of yours who died driving home.  Now consider how you would feel if:

1) they died because of a random event (a rock fell on their car.)

2) they died because a drunk driver plowed into them.  But the drunk driver is fine - he's another skydiver - and is claiming he didn't do anything wrong.  "These things happen.  Not my fault.  Hey, everyone dies, you know."

Are those the same to you, because the outcome is the same?  Or will you suddenly discover a soapbox to stand on?

Quote

It's sounding as though we can now assign blame for every death and the entire event to a single cause.

Nope.  No one event is caused by climate change.  I've said this several times.  No one heat wave is the result purely of climate change.  But the events will be hotter, and they will happen more frequently.  That heat wave in the Northwest?  That was supposed to be a 1000 year event.  But it happened.  Now it's probably a 100 year event.  By 2030 it will be a 10 year event.  And keep in mind that the last one killed 194 people.  And they will be happening more often, in more places.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/08/pacific-northwest-heatwave-deaths

And the 125F Seattle heat waves that basically never happen?  Now they will be the 1000 year events.

[metalslug 36]

Quote

Consider hearing about a friend of yours who died driving home.  Now consider how you would feel if:

1) they died because of a random event (a rock fell on their car.)

2) they died because a drunk driver plowed into them.  But the drunk driver is fine - he's another skydiver - and is claiming he didn't do anything wrong.  "These things happen.  Not my fault.  Hey, everyone dies, you know."

Are those the same to you, because the outcome is the same?  Or will you suddenly discover a soapbox to stand on?

I don't think that's an accurate metaphor. Consider perhaps if my friend was with 8 other people in a bus, which suffers an impact by some random event killing those 8. My friend survives the initial event, severely injured, but another driver subsequently crashes into the accident scene, killing him as his health is already compromised. I'd feel a bit sour about that for sure, because it's a subjective interest, but is my friend's life necessarily more valuable than the other 8 lives in the bus ?  Objectively it's not.

[olofscience 489]

3 hours ago, metalslug said:

There seems to be a fair bit of 'spitballing', even by experts, around climate estimates and this is very unfortunate considering the impacts of this topic

Exact prediction is impossible. It's basically fluid dynamics, and while experts use supercomputers to try to simulate as many variables as possible, it's just not possible to collect enough data.

Ever heard of the Butterfly Effect? "A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a typhoon in Japan".

A bit exaggerated, but not too much on how hard the Navier-Stokes equations are to solve. You'd have to cover the entire earth in sensors and the smallest thing you miss could have a cascading effect. But scientists are still trying to come up with improved models and gather improved data, and people like brent are still saying they know better.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

On 6/29/2021 at 2:46 PM, billvon said:

And that, in turn, requires to get away from debt as our primary means of wealth creation.

That all depends on the cost of the debt.

[metalslug 36]

On 7/8/2021 at 7:47 PM, olofscience said:

And the Tesla grid scale battery for South Australia, made from old and decommissioned batteries, made a TON of profit for the company they built it for, it was discussed in one of the other threads here.

Now there's this , and if you think the Australian Energy Regulator is a right-wing think-tank, think again.

Make no mistake, I don't oppose renewables outright, I want them to work, but they need to deliver what they promise if we're pushing emissions agendas to the timelines being proposed. If not, some of us will be sitting in the dark as we offer congratulations on achieving net zero.

[billvon 3,076]

9 minutes ago, metalslug said:

Now there's this , and if you think the Australian Energy Regulator is a right-wing think-tank, think again.

Ancillary services are a very tough thing to litigate over.  The battery did provide those services; the provider is arguing that it didn't provide enough of them.  But the network frequency depends on a lot more than that battery, so the utility will find it difficult to prove that not fixing the problem network-wide is Hornsdale's fault.

Worldwide battery storage is growing incredibly fast.  Last year US utilities were installing 700MW a month of grid scale storage systems.  That's equivalent to one big gas plant a month, but in the form of battery storage.  This is being driven by several things:

1) Ancillary services (as listed above) which allow a utility to run at very close to 100% of their rated generation capacity.
2) Blackout prevention, which is a big deal in places far away from the grid, and places affected by wildfires
3) Ramp rate control, so that intermittent sources like solar are easier to manage
4) Load shifting and peak shaving, which stores solar/wind energy for when it's needed

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/utilities-are-installing-big-batteries-at-a-record-pace/

[kallend 2,106]

Ford is investing big time in electric vehicles:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/27/business/ford-electric-vehicle-factories/index.html

 

[olofscience 489]

On 9/23/2021 at 4:16 PM, metalslug said:

Now there's this , and if you think the Australian Energy Regulator is a right-wing think-tank, think again.

Make no mistake, I don't oppose renewables outright, I want them to work, but they need to deliver what they promise if we're pushing emissions agendas to the timelines being proposed. If not, some of us will be sitting in the dark as we offer congratulations on achieving net zero.

More information is coming out about the lawsuit, and word on the street it's basically about:

• the owners were making profits on the energy market by purchasing energy at low rates and putting it into the battery, then selling it at high rates during peak times,

• being unwilling to provide energy into the grid at low rates when asked to prop up the grid.

• ambiguous language in the contract (hence – the lawsuit) about how often and how much they would prop up the grid

Nothing to do with Tesla, nothing to do with renewables, just business disagreements which seems pretty normal.

 

[metalslug 36]

3 hours ago, olofscience said:

More information is coming out about the lawsuit, and word on the street it's basically about:

• the owners were making profits on the energy market by purchasing energy at low rates and putting it into the battery, then selling it at high rates during peak times,

• being unwilling to provide energy into the grid at low rates when asked to prop up the grid.

• ambiguous language in the contract (hence – the lawsuit) about how often and how much they would prop up the grid

Nothing to do with Tesla, nothing to do with renewables, just business disagreements which seems pretty normal.

 

Do you have a reliable citation for any of that?  Until you do, I call bullshit. If the "word on the street" is the new measure of accuracy & credibility then I expect we'll hear a lot more 'street words' in future threads here.

Here's a report from another source, unless you regard Reuters as less reliable than 'the street'. In fairness; the report wording does not distinguish between unwilling or unable (to provide power) but either scenario does not bode well for trust in renewables to feed the grid. More reason for the AER to keep the coal burning until the trust exists.

Again I'll state that I'd like to see renewables work reliably, but there needs to be realistic assessments of the costs, the time required to achieve a specific outcome, and the cost/benefit to climate. If Australia's domestic emissions were entirely net-zero tomorrow, after spending billions to get there, the impact would reduce about 1.5% of the global total, with zero impact on actual surface temperatures. It's a tough sell at the moment.

[gowlerk 2,251]

On 9/23/2021 at 10:16 AM, metalslug said:

If not, some of us will be sitting in the dark as we offer congratulations on achieving net zero.

Kind of like Texas was last winter? Elon and batteries will be trying to make some more money helping with that.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-03-08/tesla-is-plugging-a-secret-mega-battery-into-the-texas-grid

[metalslug 36]

4 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Kind of like Texas was last winter? Elon and batteries will be trying to make some more money helping with that.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-03-08/tesla-is-plugging-a-secret-mega-battery-into-the-texas-grid

I would be in favour of that, if it works as promised.  It does seem a bit strange however that a grid that nearly failed during freezing winter weather, is the selling point for a project that "...could power about 20,000 homes on a hot summer day."  So, they're still f*cked in winter ?

[billvon 3,076]

16 minutes ago, metalslug said:

Do you have a reliable citation for any of that?  Until you do, I call bullshit. If the "word on the street" is the new measure of accuracy & credibility then I expect we'll hear a lot more 'street words' in future threads here. . . . .

Either scenario does not bode well for trust in renewables to feed the grid. More reason for the AER to keep the coal burning until the trust exists.

So in one place you say public opinion should be discarded because it is not a good measure of credibility.  Indeed, you call it "bullshit."

A paragraph later, you say public opinion is critical and we should not switch over until public opinion supports it.

Which is it?  Should we go with the science, rather than public opinion?  Or is the only really important thing how people feel about it?

Quote

Here's a report from another source

Yep.  And once again, the issue is ancillary services, specifically frequency stabilization.  AEMO says Horndale did not provide enough.  And again, if their criteria is "you didn't stabilize the grid" that's like having a plumber fix your toilet and then refusing to pay because your tub faucet is leaking.  MIGHT the two be related?  Perhaps - but it's unlikely.  What is more likely is that there's a problem in the plumbing somewhere between the two.

In this case, they are suing because the Hornsdale facility did not stabilize the grid due to a disruption at Kogan Creek, a power plant over 1000 miles away.  There is a limited amount of support that a battery can provide for a power plant over 1000 miles away.  And the grid itself that allows Hornsdale to influence Kogan Creek is under the control of AEMO, not Hornsdale.

As Olof suggested, this is a lawsuit to make money.  Both sides want to keep as much money as possible for themselves and give away as little as possible.  Thus if AEMO can sue and get some money from an external entity, they are happy, and their ratepayers are happy.

 

[gowlerk 2,251]

Just now, metalslug said:

I would be in favour of that, if it works as promised.  It does seem a bit strange however that a grid that nearly failed during freezing winter weather, is the selling point for a project that "...could power about 20,000 homes on a hot summer day."  So, they're still f*cked in winter ?

Yes, it is limited in what it can do. The battery will not be able to continue to provide power through a multi-day power system failure either. The TX event was a failure to invest in cold weather protection because it is rarely needed and the investment would not generate profit. That is an inherent problem with poorly regulated private utilities.

[billvon 3,076]

4 minutes ago, metalslug said:

I would be in favour of that, if it works as promised.  It does seem a bit strange however that a grid that nearly failed during freezing winter weather, is the selling point for a project that "...could power about 20,000 homes on a hot summer day."  So, they're still f*cked in winter ?

They are fucked if all their power plants freeze, yes.  Batteries can provide grid stabilization and a few hours worth of peaking power to get them through days with insufficient generation from 5-8pm.  It can't run the entire grid for three days until the power plants thaw out.

[metalslug 36]

6 minutes ago, billvon said:

So in one place you say public opinion should be discarded because it is not a good measure of credibility.  Indeed, you call it "bullshit."

Which is it?  Should we go with the science, rather than public opinion?  Or is the only really important thing how people feel about it?

I call bullshit on Olof asserting his own opinion as public opinion (if assuming he actually implied 'word on the street' to be public opinion). I'm an Australian in Australia, so I would welcome his source to back that up.

Do you really think the AER's decision to keep coal power going will depend on public opinion? Their brief is to have a stable grid. If renewables cant do it, I expect coal will. I don't expect to see them having a referendum on it.  Even the UK grid fires up their coal when needed without polling the street first.

7 minutes ago, billvon said:

There is a limited amount of support that a battery can provide for a power plant over 1000 miles away.  And the grid itself that allows Hornsdale to influence Kogan Creek is under the control of AEMO, not Hornsdale.

Then perhaps Neoen SA should not have made contractual promises in that regard, and I expect the AEMO would have already examined their own grid and traced the problem to Hornsdale before filing papers. In fairness to your argument, the reports do not make enough facts available. The outcome of the case will hopefully reveal more detail for both of us.

[olofscience 489]

3 hours ago, metalslug said:

I call bullshit on Olof asserting his own opinion as public opinion (if assuming he actually implied 'word on the street' to be public opinion).

Calm down, I didn't.

That's why I said it was word on the street, because I heard it from someone, and of course I'm not implying that's the public opinion.

3 hours ago, metalslug said:

The outcome of the case will hopefully reveal more detail for both of us.

Exactly.

4 hours ago, metalslug said:

but either scenario does not bode well for trust in renewables to feed the grid.

Minor nitpick, batteries are not renewables. They're for energy storage rather than energy production.