Global Warming & Climate Change Discussion

[Deleted member 67555]

No kidding. I must admit, I had the same thought myself... but that couldn't be it... there's no way that the climate has been impacted this much because we've stopped producing as much crap for a couple months.

Re: steel mill, you're taking about Vallourec (formerly V&M Star), yeah? It was down for a good while back in... 2014 I think? Since then, it's been opened again, however I heard it just recently closed again because of the low oil prices.

Trying to remember what it was called before it shut down...Was WCI Steel then Severstal...then it ended named RG Steel...LOL
It was just outside of downtown Warren...When it was open Warren had it's own weather pattern.
It's amazing how much cleaner the city is.

 

[Vayra86]

No kidding. I must admit, I had the same thought myself... but that couldn't be it... there's no way that the climate has been impacted this much because we've stopped producing as much crap for a couple months.

Re: steel mill, you're taking about Vallourec (formerly V&M Star), yeah? It was down for a good while back in... 2014 I think? Since then, it's been opened again, however I heard it just recently closed again because of the low oil prices.

Well around cities I'm sure a reduction in smog improves air quality and that easily translates into 'a fresh breeze'. Its the same sort of difference I notice when I'm on holiday somewhere in a France rural area. But that's weather, really, not climate, if you think of it. Climate is the helicopter view of lots of weather over time.

I don't understand why people continue to be against wind and solar. Scale solves everything, with enough wind and/or solar farms and enough pumped storage you don't have to worry about vagaries of weather.

Yes, it's expensive - but hey, scale solves that problem too. And the way to get the maximum scale is to devote massive amounts of public resources to it.

We could call it something like, I dunno... "Green New Deal"?



We passed that age about half a century ago.

Solar and wind are not a net reduction in ecological footprint. Its not really something to be completely against, but we really need to recognize it is sub optimal in many ways. It takes a shitload of space, has considerable material and maintenance cost, so it puts pressure on many other aspects such as logistics and those in turn are pollutors. These things break, too, and they do break a tad faster than your average coal or nuclear plant. A large footprint also means it is problematic when you consider population growth. There are many areas where space is already at a premium, Europe being a fine example. Space for solar panels is also possibly a removal of forest, for example.

The only reason solar and wind look good is because we put them side by side with coal and other energy sources but our dataset is horribly incomplete. There is opposition in our country for example against placement of wind farms on land. Our country is almost entirely flat. Anything you place on the horizon is visible miles and miles away in each direction. Farmers and villages suddenly find themselves looking at a wall of white towers.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Well around cities I'm sure a reduction in smog improves air quality and that easily translates into 'a fresh breeze'. Its the same sort of difference I notice when I'm on holiday somewhere in a France rural area. But that's weather, really, not climate, if you think of it. Climate is the helicopter view of lots of weather over time.



Solar and wind are not a net reduction in ecological footprint. Its not really something to be completely against, but we really need to recognize it is sub optimal in many ways. It takes a shitload of space, has considerable material and maintenance cost, so it puts pressure on many other aspects such as logistics and those in turn are pollutors. These things break, too, and they do break a tad faster than your average coal or nuclear plant. A large footprint also means it is problematic when you consider population growth. There are many areas where space is already at a premium, Europe being a fine example. Space for solar panels is also possibly a removal of forest, for example.

The only reason solar and wind look good is because we put them side by side with coal and other energy sources but our dataset is horribly incomplete. There is opposition in our country for example against placement of wind farms on land. Our country is almost entirely flat. Anything you place on the horizon is visible miles and miles away in each direction. Farmers and villages suddenly find themselves looking at a wall of white towers.

I find them preferable to Industrial plants on the skyline

 

[dorsetknob]

Indeed, there's the food side to the equation this thread has never really touched upon other than that brief tangent into overpopulation territory.

Think Your find that the next major Crysis will be the Availability of Drinking water.
Parts of the Planet are in dire position in this Respect.
without Desalination plants Saudi Arabia is uninhabitable
North and Sub Saraha Africa will also be uninhabitable.

You can live 3 months without food AND 3 to 5 DAYs WITHOUT WATER

 

[R-T-B]

And it talks about human overpopulation which I talked about many, many, many pages ago and people attacked me for it.

Even a broken clock is right once a day?

I don't know who would honestly question the idea that humans are overpopulated. It's just that dealing with it is morally questionable too.

Think Your find that the next major Crysis will be the Availability of Drinking water.
Parts of the Planet are in dire position in this Respect.
without Desalination plants Saudi Arabia is uninhabitable
North and Sub Saraha Africa will also be uninhabitable.

You can live 3 months without food AND 3 to 5 DAYs WITHOUT WATER

We in Washington, land of rain and storm welcome your tribute in advance for a GREAT DISCOUNT ON ALL THAT WATERY GOODNESS.

Oh wait we were on fire last year too, maybe wait and see?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Think Your find that the next major Crysis will be the Availability of Drinking water.
Parts of the Planet are in dire position in this Respect.

Yes...and then it rains. People forget about the 11 year solar cycle. Solar maximum tends to create dry spells. We're coming off of solar minimum which is wet spells.

North and Sub Saraha Africa will also be uninhabitable.

They've always been dependent on the Nile.


Keep in mind the desalination is simply an electric problem and nuclear fission/fusion address that at low environmental cost. The problem is that desalination is a long term project. It doesn't pay when the lack of water is just because of temporary dry spell.



Re: Wind: huge investment in materials, low output, only produces when wind is not to fast and not too slow, 10 year service life, doesn't track with grid demand so requires natural gas power to compensate.
Re: Solar: huge investment in materials, low output, only produces significant amounts of power for a few hours per day, decimates vegetation, requires tons of land, extremely high maintenance, the sun doesn't track with grid demand so requires natural gas power to compensate, 5 year service life typical.

As I said before, wind and solar are code words for natural gas. The more wind and solar capacity there is, the more natural gas capacity is required to compensate when they fail to deliver.

 

[R-T-B]

As I said before, wind and solar are code words for natural gas. The more wind and solar capacity there is, the more natural gas capacity is required to compensate when they fail to deliver.

Or hydro. We've used it in Washington to great effect. Of course we've paid in other ways...

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Natural gas is #2:

U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis

www.eia.gov

Iowa (which has little in the way of hydroelectric), natural gas is #1:

U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis

www.eia.gov

I know for a fact that most of that biomass energy in Iowa is from ethanol which is produced from corn. It's not burning woodchips like was stressed in that video.

 

[R-T-B]

Natural gas is #2:

And? Does that grant it something as the answer to our problem?

 

[Vayra86]

And? Does that grant it something as the answer to our problem?

No no, the angle here, is that the documentary (and Ford) speaks of biomass as a catalyst for more natural gas plants. The numbers support that. So the net gain of biomass is that more natural gas is needed to keep it going. It is most certainly NOT the answer.

EDIT: Biomass - those are my words - solar/wind were the ones.

 

[Assimilator]

Re: Wind: huge investment in materials, low output, only produces when wind is not to fast and not too slow, 10 year service life, doesn't track with grid demand so requires natural gas power to compensate.
Re: Solar: huge investment in materials, low output, only produces significant amounts of power for a few hours per day, decimates vegetation, requires tons of land, extremely high maintenance, the sun doesn't track with grid demand so requires natural gas power to compensate, 5 year service life typical.

Why do you consistently bring up the variability of wind and solar as a problem, when the solution (pumped storage) is known and proven?

Where are you getting these service lifetimes from?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

No no, the angle here, is that the documentary (and Ford) speaks of biomass as a catalyst for more natural gas plants. The numbers support that. So the net gain of biomass is that more natural gas is needed to keep it going. It is most certainly NOT the answer.

EDIT: Biomass - those are my words - solar/wind were the ones.

Anything that can't produce consistant power 100% of the time has to be supplemented and almost everywhere, the supplementation is in the form of natural gas turbines. Natural gas turbines can go from off to maximum output in a few minutes. Coal takes days; nuclear takes weeks.

Why do you consistently bring up the variability of wind and solar as a problem, when the solution (pumped storage) is known and proven?

Pumped storage = acres flooded destroying habitats and prohibited the land from being used for agriculture. Very few places even have landscape suitable to be converted into a reservoir. Additionally, it takes far more power to pump water up than you'll get back from capturing the kinetic energy as it falls and the water usually has to be fresh water which is often already in short supply. It's stupidity stacked on top of stupidity all in the name of making a crappy electric source less crappy.

Where are you getting these service lifetimes from?

Nature destroys everything:

Wind farm turbines wear sooner than expected, says study

Britain’s wind farms are wearing out far more rapidly than previously thought, making them more expensive as a result, according to an authoritative new study.

www.telegraph.co.uk

Solar panels don’t last forever and degradation varies wildly, study says

A recent study from an international certification body revealed that some solar panels fair far better than others in laboratory tests that degraded their power conversion efficiency.

www.computerworld.com

The Life Span Of A Solar Inverter | Solar Market

The life span of a solar inverter is something you need to know, everyone talks about how long a solar panel lasts but the inverter needs to work too!

www.solarmarket.com.au

 

[R-T-B]

Pumped storage = acres flooded destroying habitats and prohibited the land from being used for agriculture.

These things generally happen with wind and solar plants anyways. The best solar regions tend to be pretty unsuitable for agriculture (extreme heat in the best choice places), and wind turbines basically prohibit it in the nearby radius.

I guess at worst it's not worse than hydro by a large margin, which honestly, is a helluva lot better than what we have: Speaking from experience in the hydro powered northwest.

No no, the angle here, is that the documentary (and Ford) speaks of biomass as a catalyst for more natural gas plants. The numbers support that. So the net gain of biomass is that more natural gas is needed to keep it going. It is most certainly NOT the answer.

EDIT: Biomass - those are my words - solar/wind were the ones.

I wasn't even thinking biomass. Honestly I don't even consider it a contender, but I haven't studied it much. It seems it would really suffer from a lot of the same emission issues.

But even that said, why in the world would burning organic waste (biomass) be dependent on natural gas like, at all?

Really the only place I even see biomass brought up is in literal big oil ads about how they are "contributing" which tells me about all I need to know.

Nature destroys everything:

Those articles establish wide variance, which means more research is needed to improve assembly quality and lifetime. They do not establish a reliable service-life ceiling.

Heck, for the national grid, the inverter one really isn't very applicable at all. That's more for inhome panels. I promise you you can get excellent inverter lifetimes if you scale up. You are basically looking at consumer vs industrial grade parts.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

These things generally happen with wind and solar plants anyways. The best solar regions tend to be pretty unsuitable for agriculture (extreme heat in the best choice places), and wind turbines basically prohibit it in the nearby radius.

If they're not suitable for agriculture, they're dusty which means they're unsuitable for solar too.

Everything solar and wind are a function of surface area so yeah, they're pretty wasteful at face value and it just gets exponentially worse with pumped storage on top of that.

Those articles establish wide variance, which means more research is needed to improve assembly quality and lifetime. They do not establish a reliable service-life ceiling.

First (wind turbines installed 10+ years ago are largely in disrepair) and third (inverter failure is an inevitability) do. Solar panel life span is highly variable.

Heck, for the national grid, the inverter one really isn't very applicable at all. That's more for inhome panels. I promise you you can get excellent inverter lifetimes if you scale up. You are basically looking at consumer vs industrial grade parts.

All solar panels are DC. All grids are AC. Inverter is required...even on industrial scales. The video covered several grid-size solar panel installations in USA that fell into disrepair. The cost to maintain far exceeds the profit from electric sales. Natural gas is much cheaper per Gwh produced in effective service life.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Anything that can't produce consistant power 100% of the time has to be supplemented and almost everywhere, the supplementation is in the form of natural gas turbines. Natural gas turbines can go from off to maximum output in a few minutes. Coal takes days; nuclear takes weeks.

A few issues:

1. Wind actually produces the most power at night. While Solar produces the most power during the day. Wind + Solar are self-complementary.

2. Americans use 2x more power during the day than at night. This is due to a combination of factors, including air conditioning (needed during the day, when the sun is shining and hot), working hours (9-5 hours for a manufacturing plant uses the most energy), among other factors.

Solar contributes power when we need it most: air conditioning and working hours (9 to 5). There's a "Nessie dip" from 6pm to 9pm, where the sun sets but power is still needed, but it turns out we only need to store enough energy for those 2 hours to be most effective. Wind does start to pickup at this time. Hydro power is the most logical, due to its ease in conversion into energy storage (aka: pumped storage), as well as the ability to quickly ramp up / down, similar to a peaker plant.

Natural Gas is kinda useful for another kind of energy: compressed air energy storage. In locations where a lake / hydro isn't available (some flat areas of Texas), compressed air energy storage can be created out of old mineshafts. However, storing energy into tanks underground causes their temperature to drop, so Natural Gas should be used to heat the gas back up as you extract the energy. The compressed air remains the primary storage mechanism, but natural gas remains one of the most effective ways to heat up compressed air and make it usable again.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

1. Wind actually produces the most power at night. While Solar produces the most power during the day. Wind + Solar are self-complementary.

Not really:

Day vs Night Wind Speed Profiles - Global Wind Power

Figure 12. Comparison of the diurnal (diamonds) and nocturnal (squares) global average profiles of wind speed in 2000 obtained at the sounding stations (with

www.freeenergyplanet.biz

2. Americans use 2x more power during the day than at night. This is due to a combination of factors, including air conditioning (needed during the day, when the sun is shining and hot), working hours (9-5 hours for a manufacturing plant uses the most energy), among other factors.

Here's a nice chart that shows the problem these two sources create:

January 18, ~18% of the electrical generation had to go offline to make capacity for that surge in wind power. Conversely, on January 25, generation facilities had to produce ~95% of the power in the grid because it was cloudy and calm. That 13% difference doesn't come from thin air. It mostly comes from natural gas. In other words, these countries need enough installed natural gas capacity to cover roughly 20% of their total energy need or there will be brown outs and black outs.

There's a "Nessie dip" from 6pm to 9pm, where the sun sets but power is still needed, but it turns out we only need to store enough energy for those 2 hours to be most effective.

Storage is the least efficient power source which why natural gas is king: you simply don't produce what you don't need. Combustibles are a far better potential energy store than any battery/pumped storage known to man.

 

[the54thvoid]

What @FordGT90Concept is true.

I wish it wasn't but until we get fusion going or understand that fissile energy is king, we'll still be using natural gas, and carbon fuels. The wind is great - but what happens when it fails? We get days on end with little wind - what then? Solar? Try that in Scotland, or the Northern temperate hemisphere. We live in a shitty world, dominated by wealth and consumption. Our leaders have chosen that path (and we chose those leaders - I didn't). So, if we walk the path of renewable, and we scrap carbon, what do we do when the wind is feeble and the sky is grey? Renewables require amazing battery tech and we're not there yet. We're decades away but we will get there. Until then, we've got hard choices... no wait - we have no choices- industry makes them for us.

Ultimately, until the true saviour of green arrives (fusion), you choose your own impact on the planet. And unfortunately, in that respect, we're all hypocrits.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Renewables require amazing battery tech and we're not there yet. We're decades away but we will get there.

No, we won't, because physics.

Look where the things we burn are; look where batteries are.

 

[dragontamer5788]

The wind is great - but what happens when it fails?

Then we warm up the earth so that the wind blows a little bit harder

The real issue, and this has already begun to happen in California, is when you have too much wind or solar. When solar / wind is overbuilt, you have them sit idle, wasting money. Until we have enough solar/wind deployed such that they begin to sit idle, it only makes sense to build them out to capture the free energy.

We also should build natural gas plants to hold us over on "peaking". There's nothing wrong with building both at the same time.

---------

Most cities / municipalities right now are NOT in California's position where there was too much solar built out. Most locations will benefit from gathering the literally free energy. Sure, its not as easy to control or ramp up and down like natural gas, but every day when the sun is shining is a "free energy day" for solar panels.

 

[the54thvoid]

Anthony Watts - SourceWatch

www.sourcewatch.org

I deleted some posts. What some people fail to understand is that climate science, though never exact, does in the main ascribe to fairly rigid scrutiny.

It is not a balanced view to post spurious, off-base theories to support an opinion that is decried by the vast majority of scientific evidence or study.

The link above shows the credentials of one such source of the deleted posts. Some will say we need to give these people a voice. Perhaps so. But for a balanced view, just as in science, that outlier needs to be weighted against 99 others who can supply the same counter based in science. It's not censorship to remove ill-informed and spurious claims.

I'm quite happy to see debates about the problems of green energy and the obvious efficiency of fossil fuels - these all make for serious debate. But there is a line that needs to be drawn when that debate is derailed by unsupported guff.

 

[Vayra86]

I wasn't even thinking biomass. Honestly I don't even consider it a contender, but I haven't studied it much. It seems it would really suffer from a lot of the same emission issues.

But even that said, why in the world would burning organic waste (biomass) be dependent on natural gas like, at all?

Really the only place I even see biomass brought up is in literal big oil ads about how they are "contributing" which tells me about all I need to know.

As I understand it, for biomass the net energy generation is so low, and for solar/wind the intermittency is always present, so in both methods you need to invest in something to support your base load. Since it can't be coal anymore because not sexy, it becomes natural gas. The supply chain for biomass also uses fossil fuels all over the place.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Then we warm up the earth so that the wind blows a little bit harder

The real issue, and this has already begun to happen in California, is when you have too much wind or solar. When solar / wind is overbuilt, you have them sit idle, wasting money. Until we have enough solar/wind deployed such that they begin to sit idle, it only makes sense to build them out to capture the free energy.

We also should build natural gas plants to hold us over on "peaking". There's nothing wrong with building both at the same time.

---------

Most cities / municipalities right now are NOT in California's position where there was too much solar built out. Most locations will benefit from gathering the literally free energy. Sure, its not as easy to control or ramp up and down like natural gas, but every day when the sun is shining is a "free energy day" for solar panels.

Reality check:

U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis

www.eia.gov

"Net Interstate Flow of Electricity" is mostly imports of electricity from neighboring Arizona (which is 1/3 coal, 1/3 nuclear, 1/3 natural gas):

U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis

www.eia.gov

Oh yeah, look how tiny California's "other renewables" is compared to natural gas...just as I said it would be: "renewable" is code word for "natural gas."


Even nuclear power plant replacement/expansion plans are getting scrapped because natural gas is so cheap.

 

[the54thvoid]

Reality check:

U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis

www.eia.gov

View attachment 154396
"Net Interstate Flow of Electricity" is mostly imports of electricity from neighboring Arizona (which is 1/3 coal, 1/3 nuclear, 1/3 natural gas):

U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis

www.eia.gov

View attachment 154397
Oh yeah, look how tiny California's "other renewables" is compared to natural gas...just as I said it would be: "renewable" is code word for "natural gas."


Even nuclear power plant replacement/expansion plans are getting scrapped because natural gas is so cheap.

I'm confused by the other charts from the same source.

It shows California produced more energy from renewable than it did any other source. How do the graphs tally up? Actual question, not a counter to your post.

 

[R0H1T]

So, if we walk the path of renewable, and we scrap carbon, what do we do when the wind is feeble and the sky is grey?

Try this, at industrial scale ~ Powerwall | The Tesla Home Battery

Obviously not a cost effective solution right now, but with better battery tech & energy density it's a viable solution in the long(er) term. You know what works best now ~ switching to more efficient appliances or products, like 5 (or 7) energy star rated lighting, fans, refrigerators, TV, AC, washing machines(?) et al.

Pretty sure mandating higher (energy) efficiency products or even subsidizing their sale will decrease a lot of peak load from the grids, you could also go one step further & punish willful or negligent waste of energy. There are many ways to skin the cat, the real question is how far are we willing to go?

 

[Vayra86]

Try this, at industrial scale ~ Powerwall | The Tesla Home Battery

Obviously not a cost effective solution right now, but with better battery tech & energy density it's a viable solution in the long(er) term. You know what works best now ~ switching to more efficient appliances or products, like 5 (or 7) energy star rated lighting, fans, refrigerators, TV, AC, washing machines(?) et al.

Pretty sure mandating higher (energy) efficiency products or even subsidizing their sale will decrease a lot of peak load from the grids, you could also go one step further & punish willful or negligent waste of energy. There are many ways to skin the cat, the real question is how far are we willing to go?

Batteries to save our overproduction and then what, rely on it for base load? Batteries also need replacing... production... it does not sound efficient and adds yet another piece into the chain... on a home use level, sure. But on the grid?!