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Comments 2151 to 2200:
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Bob Loblaw at 22:49 PM on 9 March 2023It's not urgent
Eddie:
SkS did a series on the ocean acidification issue a number of years back.
Part 0 provides an index to the series.
After it was complete, it was turned into a downloadable booklet.
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EddieEvans at 19:57 PM on 9 March 2023It's not urgent
MARoger@
"The net carbon sink into the oceans is far more predictable than the carbon interchange in/out of the biosphere."
Using the global ocean as a carbon sink has consequences for biodiversity, increasing acidification. There's no free lunch, and no eternal waste disposal for the Anthropocene, I gather. I'm not up to date on the latest research; I left the ocean as a sink with Roger Revelle. I will update my understanding for sure. There are no positives in any of these GHG matters.
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Rob Honeycutt at 15:25 PM on 9 March 2023Which state is winning at renewable energy production?
David @9... "The shift of the demand curve effectively raises the market price of the product."
Not necessarily. Specifically, with RE systems, what the tax credits are doing is making up for externalities. RE is operating in the energy marketplace and is therefore in competition with legacy energy generation from FF sources. Those FF sources have an effective advantage in that the byproducts of their uses have quantifiable, but uncaptured, harms to the global environment.
Regardless of whether a tax credit is making the energy product cheaper or making the RE provider more profitable doesn't matter. What matters is the overall benefit to the RE energy companies in lieu of direct taxes on carbon emissions.
Same applies to EV makers. They are operating in the automobile market with, initially, products that cost more to manufacture. Tax credits level the playing field between EV's and ICEV's for a time period while economies of scale can be achieved by EV makers. Remember, all the auto tax credits have sunsets based on the numbers of vehicles sold.
In the case of EV's, clearly the tax credits are benefiting the buyer because the cost of EV's is just now (or within a year or two) achieving parity with the cost of manufacturing an ICEV. Thus, up until now those tax credits have served to bring the cost of EV's in line with ICEV's.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:42 AM on 9 March 2023“It’s almost like a cult.” Activists shout down rural renewable energy projects
David-acct:
Wind turbines may be spread over a large area, but not all the land in that area is removed from other functional uses. Farmers can easily use most of the land in that 750 acres, since the only place that can't be farmed is the actual base of the towers and any road infrastructure needed for maintenance.
A picture from the North Sea area in Germany:
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Bob Loblaw at 11:29 AM on 9 March 2023Which state is winning at renewable energy production?
David-acct:
The change in price in response to shifting supply or demand depends a great deal on the "elasticity" - basically, the slope of the supply or demand curve. Some products are very inelastic - prices are barely affected by large changes in supply or demand - while others are very elastic - small changes in supply or demand can lead to large price changes.
Some products are essentials, and people will continue to pay for them even if prices go up a lot. Luxuries are often more elastic - people will readily reduce purchases if they think it's too expensive.
As for who benefits from a credit - surely the individual buyer pays less in the end (the initial payment, less the tax rebate), even if the producer pockets more? Electricity is not a particularly elastic demand - people need it, and changing the amount they use is not easy. What happens if tax credits are given for renewable generation is that there is (hopefully) a shift from non-renewable to renewable. It's not a function of the elasticity of electricity overall - it is a shifting of the demand from one source to another. Some purchases get a benefit, while others (still using non-renewable resources) do not.
Do you have specific references to support your closing claim that 70-90% of the benefit goes to the seller?
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Bob Loblaw at 11:12 AM on 9 March 2023Methane emissions from Siberian sinkholes
My favourite non-igniting explosion is probably the water heater that the Myth Busters blew up.
Heat and pressure, That's all it takes.
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David-acct at 11:10 AM on 9 March 2023“It’s almost like a cult.” Activists shout down rural renewable energy projects
NIMBY does create some issues for worthwhile projects. A 375 Mw wind farm will require approx 3000 acres (assuming 80 acres per megawatt) or 35-40 square miles (assuming 10 mw per square mile. A typical gas generating plant generating 250-300MW will have a foot print of approx 15-20 acres. Approx 2 acres of land used for the actual turbine, & roads means the foot print for the 375mw is 750 acres, not including lower farm production.
So while it is regrettable, it remains understandable.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:06 AM on 9 March 2023It's not urgent
PM (may I call you PM?):
There is a classic line at the end of the movie Casablanca, where the police captain (Renault) says to Rick (the main character played by Humphrey Bogart), "round up the usual suspects". The connotation is that the police have a list of people they know are usually associated with many crimes, and they'll take the blame.
I'm basically pointing out that there are certain players in the climate change "debates" who will most certainly take the least charitable interpretation of that quote. We've seen them do similar, many times before.
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David-acct at 10:55 AM on 9 March 2023Which state is winning at renewable energy production?
to bob & Nigelj at 6 & 7
There is a lot of misunderstanding on tax credits and who benefits from those tax credits, Those misunderstandings persist simply because the general public has a poor grasp of the basics of micro economics and the supply and demand curves. Tax credits which buyer obtains a reduction of their income tax artificially shift the demand curve. The size of the shift is a function of both the size of the credit and the natural demand for the product without the tax credit. The shift of the demand curve effectively raises the market price of the product. The buyer is still paying at or near the natural market price ( which is the gross price less the tax credit or some portion thereof depending on the elasticity of the product). As such, most of the benefit of the buyers tax credit goes to the seller in the form of higher sales price. A reasonable estimate in the case of EV's and home renewable products is 70-90% of the benefit effectively goes to the seller.
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PollutionMonster at 10:49 AM on 9 March 2023It's not urgent
Bob Loblaw @21
I am unsure who "The Usual Suspects" are. I am pretty good at debunking obvert denial, but I still have a knowledge gap when it comes to the subtler aspects of climate change.
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scaddenp at 09:36 AM on 9 March 2023Methane emissions from Siberian sinkholes
There is all those lovely videos of SpaceX experiments failing cryo tests. eg www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYeVnGL7fgw I think most people would call them explosions, despite liquid nitrogen not being ignited.
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John Hartz at 09:01 AM on 9 March 2023“It’s almost like a cult.” Activists shout down rural renewable energy projects
And on the other side of the "pond"...
Three non-violent Insulate Britain activists have been jailed for telling juries why they were protesting.
Court restrictions on climate protesters ‘deeply concerning’, say leading lawyers by Sandra Laville, Environment, The Guardian, Mar 8, 2023
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Bob Loblaw at 08:36 AM on 9 March 2023It's not urgent
I"m with Rob. The writing of that specific sentence could be clearer. The "50% chance" part is definitely associated with the "staying below 1.5 degrees", but the comma that follows that separates the "50% chance" probability from the "risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions".
Two possible re-writes that would make the writer's intentions clearer:
- "The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees [Celsius]." It also brings a "risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control."
- "The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of" avoiding two outcomes: "staying below 1.5 degrees [Celsius], and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control."
Expect "The Usual Suspects" to insist that the only possible interpretation is the one that fits their preconceived notions of Greta Thunberg.
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Rob Honeycutt at 08:14 AM on 9 March 2023It's not urgent
Hm... Yeah, those are quotes from 2019 and I think she's probably conflating two issues. One being the likelihood of staying below 1.5°C or 2°C, and the other being the likelihood of setting off irreversible feedbacks. To my understanding, they're two different issues with very different confidence levels.
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PollutionMonster at 07:38 AM on 9 March 2023It's not urgent
Most of the quote is here in this NPR article. Risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions NPR.
I would have to reread the book to get the exact quotes, I read in local bookstore.
""The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees [Celsius], and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control." Thunberg
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wilddouglascounty at 07:25 AM on 9 March 2023The little-known physical and mental health benefits of urban trees
Little known? Ask any kid on a playground with one large tree on it where they want to play. Actually, you don't even have to ask: use your eyes!
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Rob Honeycutt at 07:22 AM on 9 March 2023It's not urgent
PM @17... Would you have the precise quote from Thunberg's book related to "50% chance of runaway greenhouse effects beyond human control at 2°C"?
My suspicion is that's not an entirely correct assessment, though I'm confident Thunberg's book went through a thorough review by researchers prior to publication. My understanding is, past 2°C we move into a realm of much greater uncertainties. Also, even at 2°C significant feedbacks (say, from methane releases) remain long tail uncertainties. But I could be wrong.
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Rob Honeycutt at 07:14 AM on 9 March 2023Methane emissions from Siberian sinkholes
Dennis... Getting things wrong is part of learning. We all get things wrong from time to time. The only true error is when we fail to learn from our mistakes.
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PollutionMonster at 07:11 AM on 9 March 2023It's not urgent
I read all the responses, and I want to thank all of you. :) Climate justice is a major part of climate change. That rich nations including the United States, France, and United Kingdom need to reach zero emissions by 2030 so that poorer nations have time to develop and have some emissions until 2050.
Thunberg in her book referenced some specific page of the IPCC page 100 or so stating that there is a 50% chance of runaway greenhouse effects beyond human control at 2C and only 34% chance at 1.5C. Is this true? That there really is that high a chance that climate change will be the end of everything? Did I misread? I haven't read the source material, navigating the IPCC report is difficult.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:32 AM on 9 March 2023“It’s almost like a cult.” Activists shout down rural renewable energy projects
Cult-like expressions of angry opposition to helpful developments are being driven by passionate belief in harmful misunderstanding.
That is a common tactic of people who likely know what is harmful and helpful but want to benefit from the ability to harmfully mislead "common people". And it is happening on many issues, not just climate change.
Too many people are too easily misled because there is no effective penalty mechanism. Commercial product marketers can be penalized for being misleading. But there is no comparable penalty for being politically misleading.
It is important to remember that even a "renewable energy development" can have harmful aspects hidden by 'a focus on the positives'. The important requirement is full understanding of the negatives with the set of 'least negative' alternatives being considered to be the only viable development alteratives.
That requires the development of regional populations that will be governed by learning to be less harmful and more helpful to people who need assistance.
Everyone does not have to learn to be less harmful and more helpful. There just have to be enough helpful people to effectivey limit the harm done by attempts to benefit from harmful misunderstandings.
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DennisHorne at 05:37 AM on 9 March 2023Methane emissions from Siberian sinkholes
Moderators
Sorry, please remove anything not right or the comments in their entirety. Thanks.
Moderator Response:[BL] If we wanted to, we would have. Usually we start with nudging users to remind them of proper posting etiquette. The initial goal is to make sure that users do not wander too far off, before things reach the point where we have to start editing or deleting posts.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:36 AM on 9 March 2023It's not urgent
MA Rogers has correctly clarified that the total harmful warming impact is what matters. Limiting the impact to 1.5 C needs to continue to be the focus. And the reality that the peak impact will almost certainly exceed 1.5 C needs to be understood to mean that wealthy people today need to be paying for safe/harmless technological extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere. That extraction will be expensive and never be profitable. And the spending of tax money on it rather than other things will never be "most" popular.
That is the challenge. Leadership has to do something unpopular and unprofitable to benefit future generations. The diversity of developed socioeconomic-political systems is tragically lacking in the development of that type of leadership. And it is now undeniable that humanity only has a future if it develops governing of all significant human activity in ways that understandably limit and correct harm done.
A related point is that it is harmful to cause increased CO2 to be absorbed in the oceans. The fact that CO2 will continue to be absorbed in the oceans is not a positive.
Also, a lack of significant methane release from massive thawing of permafrost (a miss named item) is not a helpful positive.
It is essential to remain focused on the need to end harmful activity regardless of its developed popularity or profitability abnd related popular 'perceived to be positive' misunderstandings (and that applies to authoritarian as well as democratic governing).
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gerontocrat at 05:26 AM on 9 March 2023At a glance - Is Antarctica losing or gaining ice?
The CO2 615ppm limit for the East Antarctic ice sheet remaining stable seems to me somewhat optimistic.
One of the 25 drainage basins used to measure ice sheet mass loss in East Antarctica (Wilkes land) has lost 400 Gigatons (i.e. 400 Cubic Kilometres) of ice in the last 20 years, the fourth highest of all the basins, and comprising about 15% of the total ice mass loss of 2,500GT. The highest three are in West Antarctica.
Every time a new field survey is undertaken, it generally seems to come up with more bad news about the vulnerability of this apparently solid ice sheet.
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John Hartz at 02:26 AM on 9 March 2023It's not urgent
According to the following article, we are on the precipe of multiple climate tipping points. As they say, "Hold onto your hat, we're in for a wild ride."
Risky feedback loops are accelerating climate change, scientists warn by Emma Newburger, Climate, CNBC, Mar 6, 2023
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MA Rodger at 00:37 AM on 9 March 2023It's not urgent
EddieEvans @13,
The net carbon sink into the oceans is far more predictable than the carbon interchange in/out of the biosphere. There is still some uncertainty and re-assessment (eg Watson et al 2020) in the matter but generally the only big variable is the ocean surface temperatures. So as long as we prevent massive SST rises, I would think it is safe to say "the global ocean will continue to act as a viable carbon sink." The actual size of that sink over the coming millennium will thus depend on how well we do preventing AGW but otherwise it's size is fairly predictable. What is far less predictable under AGW is the biosphere as a source/sink.You also raise the threat of methane, this usually focusing on natural feedbacks and the melting permafrost. In the past I was rather worried by the poor coverage of this subject in the scientific literature but having dug into the subject I now feel more comfortable about it. Additionally the absence of significant methane fluxes resulting from the significant permafrost melt in recent decades is a reassuring sign.
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EddieEvans at 23:24 PM on 8 March 2023It's not urgent
"These extractions from the atmosphere are additional to the natural draw-down of CO2 into the oceans.)"
And we have no idea if, at all, the global ocean will continue to act as a viable carbon sink, not to mention methane. Then there's the political will and economic resources to make the abrupt ideological and technological changes needed, assuming that critical tipping points were not breached long ago. I'm assuming that we don't know everything to know about the neew climate change and our test-tube earth mentality.
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MA Rodger at 22:43 PM on 8 March 2023It's not urgent
PollutionMonster @10,
You ask about the timing for reaching net zero carbon. That single timing doesn't properly capture the task in hand.
The science strongly suggests that increasing global temperatures by more than +1.5ºC risks potential dramatic climate change. To prevent such rise, there is just one scenario presented within the IPCC AR6 that fits the bill - SSP1-1.9.
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This SSP1-1.9 scenario does include a timing of 2050 for net zero carbon but it also requires a halving of global net carbon emissions by 2030 and large net negative carbon emissions post-2050. These net negative emissions amount to roughly extracting atmospheric CO2 equal to all the emissions post-2007 and storing them away safely. (There are many saline aquifers around the world which this CO2 could be desolved into after its extraction from the atmosphere. These extractions from the atmosphere are additional to the natural draw-down of CO2 into the oceans.)
But it seems it is only the 'net zero' message that is being heard by politicians. So calling for an earlier 'net zero' is probably a useful message.
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EddieEvans at 20:46 PM on 8 March 2023It's not urgent
"PollutionMonster at 14:13 PM on 8 March 2023"
"How urgent is it?" is a value question. Another value question is "How much threat to diversity does humanity's anthropocentrism" cause to the long-term survival of species-populations in the wild (10,000 years)? And I agree, how do we quantify "How much threat"?In an anthropocentric (human-centered) context, judging from what I'm witnessing, we were out of time long ago.
I need only point to the proliferation of nuclear warheads and greenhouse gases to bolster my case. I don't see much genuine effort by governments and corporations to do the real work, and make long-term decisions for the benefit of humanity and biodiversity's long-term existence; we continue to pass the buck to future generations.
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EddieEvans at 20:17 PM on 8 March 2023Methane emissions from Siberian sinkholes
Ah, I might add to "burst," rather than "explosion," a synonym for grazing cattle's flatulence, "bursting" gut gas.
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EddieEvans at 20:15 PM on 8 March 2023Methane emissions from Siberian sinkholes
Maybe "burst" is a better word for the release of pressure from the methane's underground vault?
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scaddenp at 18:45 PM on 8 March 2023Methane emissions from Siberian sinkholes
Again, Explosion does not equal ignition. Think about what an explosion really is. Your "ignition" type is when have a rapid chemical reaction generating large local gas pressures which then expand when any containment broken. Chemical reaction (needing ignition) isnt the only way to generate large gas pressures though. This paper goes into the process much more deeply than news articles. Clearly no ignition.
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PollutionMonster at 14:13 PM on 8 March 2023It's not urgent
Hi, I just read the book No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg. Wow, what an emotional rollercoaster. I've played the Cranky Uncle game for hours, taken the edx101 course, surfed the skeptical science website, and argued with deniers.
Book no one is too small Greta Thunberg
Yet, only in 2022 have I heard about net zero emissions. Even then, I thought it was by the year 2050. Greta Thunberg makes the case that global climate change is an existential urgent crisis. That we need net zero by 2030. Is this really true?
As a millennial I feel a lot of the same emotions that the older generations are out of touch when I say I cannot get a job or having trouble with the basics like a roof over my head, running water, heat in winter. I find I get scolded by the older generations and they offer out of touch simplistic solutions blaming the victim or even calling me a liar.
Did I get distracted by the pandemic, George Floyd's murder, and possible nuclear war between Russia and Ukraine? With all my climate activist since 2016 did I really miss that we only have a 50% chance to avoid a climate catastrophe of runaway greenhouse effect if we go for a 2 degree Celsius increase by 2050 or whatever Thungberg said in her book?
How urgent is climate change? Thank you in advance. :)
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:50 AM on 8 March 2023Methane emissions from Siberian sinkholes
Dennis... Reading the article you link to, I believe they're using the term "explosion" the same way you would say a balloon "explodes" if you blow too much air into it. There is no "source of ignition." The pressure is merely reaching a point to where the ground above the methane build up catastrophically fails to hold it in.
Note that the before and after photos shown at the end of the article don't indicate any fire or charring around the crater, suggesting there was no actual "ignition" event related to the formation of the crater.
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DennisHorne at 11:26 AM on 8 March 2023Methane emissions from Siberian sinkholes
@scaddenp
I'm asking a question. When the methane explodes, as it clearly can, what is the source of the ignition?
Moderator Response:[RH] It's appreciated when you utilize the link tool to activate your references.
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scaddenp at 09:07 AM on 8 March 2023Methane emissions from Siberian sinkholes
I cant see anything in these that suggest the methane is igniting (explosion != ignition). In fact several of your sources explicitly discuss the gas blowout mechanism which I believe is what causes these. It is just build up a huge pressure from methane release until ground-strength is exceeded.
Pretty much same mechanism that causes gingerbeer or sauerkraut explosions, especially in days before plastic bottles and screw-tops.
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DennisHorne at 08:11 AM on 8 March 2023Methane emissions from Siberian sinkholes
@scaddenp
https://uaf.edu/news/nova-episode-explores-arctic-methane-explosions.php
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201130-climate-change-the-mystery-of-siberias-explosive-craters
Moderator Response:[BL] As noted by moderator RH in comment #5, please turn your text into proper links. The web software here does not automatically create links. You can do this when posting a comment by selecting the "insert" tab, selecting the text you want to use for the link, and clicking on the icon that looks like a chain link. Add the URL in the dialog box.
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No link or picture only. Any link or picture should be accompanied by text summarizing both the content of the link or picture, and showing how it is relevant to the topic of discussion. Failure to do both of these things will result in the comment being considered off topic.
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Rob Honeycutt at 07:54 AM on 8 March 2023Which state is winning at renewable energy production?
Peppers @5... Yes, there is a link there to the CA PUC but it's not clear how this supports anything you're saying.
Right now, any home owner in CA can order solar without actually even owning the solar panels. You can merely lease them and pay lower, fixed energy rates over the lifetime of the panels. No installation cost. Just lower bills. For non-home owners, in CA you can select the sources of your electricity on your energy bill.
I think you should consider taking a careful look at the graph I posted. If CA residents are using half the electricity per capita, even if paying higher rates than the rest of the nation, they end up (on average) paying less than people who live in low per-kwh rates.
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nigelj at 06:50 AM on 8 March 2023Which state is winning at renewable energy production?
Peppers appears to be saying solar panels are subsidised, but even with subsidies only high income people can afford solar panels, and the cost of the the subsidies falls on the avergage tax payer and this is unfair. The poor are allegedly subsididing the rich. I hear this same reasoning with electric car subsidies. I acknowledge what people are getting at and we have to be careful that the costs of the transition to renewables don't disproportionately fall on low income people .
But doesn't America have a progessive tax system, so the rich do ultimately contribute more to the subsidies for the solar panels than low income people? And the subsidies promote the deployment of solar panels, so their price eventually drops, making them more accessible to low income people. So there are some positives in the subsidy policy.
Other ways of speeding the uptake of solar panels are carbon taxes or cap and trade schemes, but these can potentially hurt low income people and have other downsides. There is no magic bullet, just a choice of the least worst option.
Whether subsides or carbon price schemes are best for promoting renewables is contested. Economists seem to prefer carbon price schemes over subsidies. However Norway has strong incentives to buy EV's and uptake has been very impressive.
Carbon pricing schemes are largely quite weak. The price has to be high to promote change but its politically difficult to have strong carbon pricing, strong carbon taxes, and the like. Quite a conundrum.
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scaddenp at 05:46 AM on 8 March 2023Methane emissions from Siberian sinkholes
Dennis, did I miss something? What makes you think that the methane ignited? I understand these to be pressure-blasts.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:35 PM on 7 March 2023Which state is winning at renewable energy production?
peppers @ 5:
No, I am not "talking about the speaker". I am talking about your lack of reponse to counter-arguments that have already been made, and suggesting your lack of response indicates a failure to engage in meaningful discussion. Also, your provision of arguments against things that people have not said - in other words, putting (inaccurately) words into people's mouths - also reflects poorly on your level of engagement. It is your actions that are in question, not you as an individual.
I suggest that you read the Comments Policy carefully. So far, I'm giving you mild suggestions on how you should approach discussions here. If I have to step in as moderator, I will also have to step out as a participant in the discussions. So far, you have not responded at all to my previous comments on regulation in the California electricity market, on that other thread. To make it easier for you to find those comments, here are links to them:
https://skepticalscience.com/take-advantage-clean-energy-tax-credits.html#140216
https://skepticalscience.com/take-advantage-clean-energy-tax-credits.html#140222
https://skepticalscience.com/take-advantage-clean-energy-tax-credits.html#140226
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DennisHorne at 20:45 PM on 7 March 2023Methane emissions from Siberian sinkholes
The methane explodes. What is the source of the ignition - lightning?
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peppers at 20:31 PM on 7 March 2023Which state is winning at renewable energy production?
Gentlemen,
Bob, your are talking about the speaker and not the topic. Chime in whenever.
Rob, the link to Ca. Gov statistics is provided up there, and is the basis of my comments. As the wealthy install solar panels with incentives and sell power back and reduce their bill to low or none even, they do not participate in the fees or absorbing Cares discounts, the addon's and subsidy participation costs which are routinely added on the the electric bills. The burden is now passed to the common payer as the payer pool shrinks, and Ca is scrambling to change regs to stem this inequity. As they raise recovery times against costs to put up solar from 3.5 to 10 years and consider charging these costs as an aside ( removing big incentives for buying solar ), it will be hitting the brakes on new purchases of panels as well. A yo yo outcome. I am not just speculating, I am responding to what I read from the ca.gov site there.
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commonsense at 14:01 PM on 6 March 2023Filling an editorial policy hole
Please consider using columns or borders to create categories for content with different degrees of credibility.
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Quotes from agencies of other governments or from journals, magazines and newspapers (or unpublished original research data and opinions from authors previously published in the same discipline) and research reports without peer review which the Skeptical Science moderator finds to be credible might have grey borders.
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If creating these borders in the web site proves too difficult, different type styles, fonts and sizes might be used instead (with explanation).
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Rob Honeycutt at 10:16 AM on 6 March 2023Renewable energy is too expensive
Ah, that makes more sense, stranger1548. I was trying to reconcile the two and defaulted to the latter half as what you were claiming. There are a bunch of formatting functions in the text editing box that you can use to differentiate your words from others. I tend to utilize the...
Block quote and/or italics to doubly reinforce the separations between speakers/sources. And will also make sure to include an "[emphasis added]" if want to point out specific aspects of someone's written comments which they didn't include.
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stranger1548 at 07:53 AM on 6 March 2023Renewable energy is too expensive
Sorry for the confusion! I forgot put in the quote marks. The first paragraph is what I wrote. The rest was the skeptics claim.
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michael sweet at 06:40 AM on 6 March 2023Renewable energy is too expensive
Stranger1548,
As Rob Honeycutt says doing your own calcualtions is usually a waste of time.
This Carbon Brief article finds that comparing the most inefficient coal plants electricity to the most efficient ICE car on the road (Toyota Prius ECO) that the life time emissions of CO2 are about the same. With partial renewableenergy the electric car is better. Compared to less efficient cars the electric cars are much better. Once all electricity is renewable the electric cars will be much more efficient.
There must be a number of errors in your estimate. For one, you use the gasoline at the time it is burned while the electricity has to be transmitted and charged. The gasoline does not magically appear at the gas station, about 10% of the embodied energy is used for mining, refining and transporting it to the gas station.
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michael sweet at 06:01 AM on 6 March 2023The Problem with Percentages
A recent article in Carbon Brief says that:
"The Global Carbon Project points out that “the latest data confirm that the rate of increase in fossil CO2 emissions has slowed, from +3% per year during the 2000s to about +0.5% per year in the past decade”.
Newspaper reports suggest that the increase last year (2022) would have been about 3 times higher without new installations of renewable energy. That means that in 2022 2/3 of all CO2 increases were erased by new renewable energy insallations. The increase in CO2 over the past 5 years has dramatically decreased due to new renewable energy .
In order to resolve the AGW problem emissions of CO2 must dramatically drop. This has not yet started and all of us have to work hard to achieve this goal.
I remember 10 years ago when renewable energy was much more expensive than fossil energy and the situation looked compeltely hopeless. That is no longer the case. Renewable neergy is the cheapest energy and is being built out everywhere. Since it takes 5-10 years to plan and buid a fossil power plant there are still some plants being completed that were planned before renewable energy was cheapest.
Fossil interests have a lot of political power and are holding us back. In addition, it takes years to plan and build out the manufacturing plants for renewable energy. Everyone has to work to move renewable energy along.
The faster we convert to renewable energy the less damage we will have to deal with.
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Rob Honeycutt at 04:06 AM on 6 March 2023Renewable energy is too expensive
stranger1548 @28... More thorough peer reviewed work on this subject is available, so there's really no need to do this kind of back-of-the-napkin estimate. And when doing this kind of thin analysis it's certainly no justification for making definitive assertions such as your final sentence here.
Here's one study saying, yes, EV's are more efficient WTW (well to wheel) but not significantly. Although, they add, if you include electricity from renewable resources, which nearly all grids now increasingly include, EV's are up to 70% efficient.
https://sciendo.com/downloadpdf/journals/rtuect/24/1/article-p669.pdf
When I look at other WTW analyses, most aren't even comparing ICEV's to EV's. They're comparing HFCV's (hydrogen fuel cell) to BEV's. Internal combustion isn't even in the running.
https://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2190-4715-24-14
If you think the available research is getting the results in error, it is incumbent upon you to also publish your results in a reputable journal. That'll require a lot more napkins.
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EddieEvans at 00:31 AM on 6 March 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9
Republican Leaders Want to Reinvent the Party’s Climate Image. The Far Right Won’t Let Them
It's 2023, fifty-seven years since President Johnson warned the world about Green House Gases, and still, the Republican Party deceives, denies, and delays. Let's see if the coming El Nino moves a few of the thirteenth-century minds sets in the right direction.
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stranger1548 at 00:06 AM on 6 March 2023Renewable energy is too expensive
This was a post that I just read last night. I told the poster I had read up on the gas turbines and there effiency. I asked if he couId produce a paper because I thought there were facts he had probably not included. I refered him the the Anderson Economic study where some cherry picking had been done. He said I was math deficient and that anyone with even moderate math skills should be able to come to the conclusion.
The most BTU efficient method of fossil fuel energy generation is, of course, the natural gas turbine. The very newest (built within the last few years) hybrid NG plants can reach up to 60% thermal efficiency, but most combined cycle plants fall around the 38-42% mark.
Taking that, we know that a gallon of gasoline contains 112,000 BTUs, and in a perfect world without losses, 112,000BTUs = 32.82kWh. We also know a Honda Accord can travel 38-highway miles on 112,000BTUs per the EPA's testing.
But if we burn 112,000BTUs at an NG plant at 40% efficiency, we only get 13.12kWh. Then there's line losses to consider, which per Schneider Electric, are at around 12% on average (How big are Power line losses? | Jacques Schonek). But then that brings us down to only 11.54kWh.
Oh but Tesla also stated that charging losses are around 16%, which puts us down to 9.69kWh.
However, a 82kWh Tesla Model 3 can travel 310 miles per the EPA (using the same testing method as the ICE vehicle), for roughly 3.7 miles per kWh (with no A/C, heat, or other auxiliaries). Meaning the Tesla can travel for 35.85 miles from the same amount (112,000BTUs) contained in a gallon of gasoline that was burned at a natural gas plant.
When measuring from the time the fuel is combusted, EVs are the same, or even less efficient.
Moderator Response:[BL] As noted further down in comment #31, stranger1548 failed to make it clear that only the first paragraph is his/her writing, and the rest is a quote from a "skeptic". All but the first paragraph has been modified to be indented, to help clarify this.
[No, you can't edit your own comments.]
