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Comments 4351 to 4400:
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Philippe Chantreau at 04:02 AM on 29 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
I'm not sure I'm sold on the "driving is regional" argument. In Europe, one can go from the UK to France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany in one day of driving, although rail would be a better option. The European Union is a very integrated region, where the electrical grid is essentially one system. Establishing standards can not be done only at the scale of one small country like the Netherlands, and the overall benefit is what must be considered. Furthermore, the one thing that really matters is global emissions; whether we like it or not, that is what makes the radiative forcing. Any way to lower global emissions is beneficial.
There are more recent studies than Vliet et al.
Hall and Lutsey found in 2018 that in all studied European countries, EVs lifecycle emissions over 150,000km were less than ICE, except perhaps in Germany.
One could say that just the benefit of cutting on particulates would be enough to give EVs an advantage if CO2 life-cycle emissions are comparable. One could also, as was done earlier, argue that waiting until the generation mix is more favorable is counterproductive in the perspective of a large scale transition. As the generation mix improves, the CO2 equivalent/km of a given EV will decrease over the lifetime of the vehicle.
In China, just the benefits of cutting particulates emissions from numerous discrete sources close to people (like cars) is certainly enough to argue in favor of EVs. The overall benefits of switching to EVs stand, whether on a regional or global level. Of course, electric trains and any/all "wedges" should be used as well. EVs are not a panacea.
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Bob Loblaw at 03:30 AM on 29 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Jan @64:
And I don't care if the document was peer-reviewed because:
- We have scientists like Ivar Giaever and similar creators hereI don't consider Ivar Giaever to be a reliable source:
https://www.desmog.com/ivar-giaever/
- you can choose peer-review as a service from your defined contacts, even in reputable journals.
Ah, the old "Pal Review" myth. It sure works well for the fake skeptics. Covered elsewhere here at Skeptical Science.
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jan21405 at 01:59 AM on 29 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
correction in my text in #64
posted:
it means that there was no such significant coal damping as the study mentioned for 2015 = 55%; it's actually less.
valid:
it means that there was no such significant gas boosting as the study mentioned for 2015 = 55%; it's actually less.
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jan21405 at 01:53 AM on 29 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
@michael sweet #61
I will continue to use the facts only:
1. in my post #40 you can read:
Vehicles operation is not global but regional. It follows that we cannot use global emissions from cars as a tool to calculate emission reductions with the introduction of EVs, but strictly regional, per country. It will be mathematically correct (the global data approach), but you will not be able to put it into practice.
What was the purpose of my discussion regarding the largest producer of GHG emissions with the largest EVs market in this world (+50%) with +70% of Power production from fossil fuels (and it grows). I don't like Global Math Averages. In principle, the arithmetic mean is the least accurate indicator of reality. I presented you with the NREL study, which may not fit into your concept, but it cannot suit everyone. However, if the comprehensive study by The National Renewable Energy Laboratory is not enough for you, it is difficult to look for anything more accurate.
So we can check your mentioned study about the EVs better emissions for Global strategy:
2. Your study (Vliet et all, 2011) mentioned in #61 contains a different statement (page 7):
"We find that EVs charged using electricity from coal do not have significantly different GHG emissions from driving in regular cars."
and as you wrote here:
"We find that EVs charged using [100%] electricity from coal do not have significantly different GHG emissions from driving in regular cars."
the value [100%] was defined on the basis of your own interpretation?
link to the study to confirmation of the mentioned wording (page 7)
following the study you need to take into account:
- study is from 2010 (published)
- it is about the Netherland's specific conditions only, you can't take it as the holy grail for each country
- also specific conditions for Power production must be taken into account - the NGCC technology is more predominant in this country = lower emission factor than coal-fired plants (you can see the differences in Table 4.: Electricity generation capacity in the Netherlands)
- you will find there also an increase in the pulverised coal-fired plants for the 2015-2030 period (Table 4)
- and finally - Summary and conclusions (Page 11) ... read carefully:
WTW GHG emissions from electric driving depend most on the fuel type (coal or natural gas) used in the generation of electricity
for charging, and range between 0 g km−1 (using renewables) and 155gkm−1 (using electricity from an old coal-based plant). Based
on the generation capacity projected for the Netherlands in 2015, additional electricity for EV charging would largely be generated
using natural gas, emitting 35–77 g CO2eq km−1. In the Dutch context, emissions vary little with charging patterns, and are unlikely
to change much before 2030.And here is a summary from the IEA report 2020:
In 2018, TPES came from natural gas (42%), oil (37%), coal (11%), biofuels and waste (5%), and small shares from nuclear, wind, solar, hydropower and geothermal. The Netherlands is still one of the largest gas producers in Europe; however, domestic gas supply and gas exports are rapidly declining as production from Groningen is being phased out. Domestic oil supply is small, especially in comparison to the large oil demand. All coal is imported and is used primarily for electricity generation and steel production. The electricity supply is also heavily reliant on fossil fuels. In 2018, electricity generation came primarily from gas (52%) and coal (27%).
it means that there was no such significant coal damping as the study mentioned for 2015 = 55%; it's actually less. And even worse for 2021:
The current energy mix in the Netherlands is natural gas (38%), oil (35%), coal (11%), biofuels and waste (5%), and 11% from nuclear, wind, solar, hydropower and geothermal.
Following reality, the mentioned study is out of a doable plan. I like data and I would like to listen more than personal attacks, rather more deep-dive information from my base education in Energy engineering. I'm the proud owner of a small PVe and Solar water heating, so you really don't have to swear at my fossil fuels lobby. I understand energy - from its production, distribution to consumption.
That's why I'm researching anything related to emissions. Not everyone will like this option - but I'm not a friend of extreme solutions or chaos.
Finally, I'm sending a link to one peer-reviewed study from The Nature - A plant-by-plant strategy for high-ambition coal power phaseout in China. link
If you will find at least 3 fatal mistakes that should not appear in The Nature or any peer-reviewed studies, you have passed the Energy engineering exam. Otherwise, we can no longer talk about Energy engineering from the position where you want to be a professor.
I judge people by what they write about and how they write. I don't care what their education is. And I don't care if the document was peer-reviewed because:
- Energy engineering is my native domain
- We have scientists like Ivar Giaever and similar creators here
- you can choose peer-review as a service from your defined contacts, even in reputable journals.Each of my documents contains data only from scientific sources and/or national sources from which I drew (defined). I don't like bending data. I do not have time for this.
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Philippe Chantreau at 02:50 AM on 28 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
I don't understand what Jan is talking about at 54. The problem of how the electricity is generated is such a basic consideration that it has been studied enough to draw conclusions. Multiple studies have shown that the life cycle carbon footprint of EVs is lower than that of ICEs even if they are charged with electricity produced with coal. The battery production process is carbon intensive but that is compensated by the superior efficiency over the lifetime of the car. In pure mpg equivalent over only road use, it more than compensates, even with FF produced electricity.
It takes only 2 years on average for the balance to tilt in favor of EVs. Location and driving habits make it vary. However, when comparing EVs to ICE, it is always possible to reach a mileage where the whole vehicle life carbon emissions become lower for the EV and it is always a realistic number of miles. It just takes more miles when using electricity that has a lot of fossil fuel in the production mix and batteries made in Asia.
CarbonBrief has looked at this in details:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change
Unfortunately, a vehicle is a big purchase. I already have a hybrid that I bought only a few years ago so no EV for me in the near future. Would help also if they became a little less expensive...
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Hal Kantrud at 02:33 AM on 28 March 2022SkS Analogy 3 - The Greenhouse Effect is Like a Cloudy Night
"Because CO2 is diffuse, its effect is felt slowly, over many decades."Yes like about 700 to a thousand of them, beginning with farming and grazing by domestic animals?
Moderator Response:[BL] Off-topic deleted.
Several times recently, people have started talking about agriculture, etc., in threads where it is off-topic.
If people want to discuss veganism and/or agriculture, there are two possible threads here at Skeptical Science that might be more suitable. You can also use the Search box to find suitable posts.
If you are to comment on those threads, make sure to read the original post, any following comments, and make sure that your comments are on topic.
https://skepticalscience.com/animal-agriculture-meat-global-warming.htm
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michael sweet at 23:57 PM on 27 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Eric @58,
The articles you link at 58 are discouraging. This article from Carbon Brief, from Sept 2021, titled "How World's coal-powered pipeline has shrunk by three-quarters" since 2015 offers me more hope. The data is similar to the data in your articles but is looked at from a different angle. I see two primary issues with coal plants:
- Fossil interests have tremendous political power.
- It takes 10-15 years to plan and build a large fossil fuel plant.
We all need to work hard to overcome the political power of fossil fuel interests. The market will eventually build out a lot of renewable energy since it is cheaper, but the power of fossil fuel iterests can delay that for a long time.
All the coal plants being built world wide were planned before renewable energy was the cheapest power. The article I cited indicates that many coal power plants are being cancelled since they are no longer economic. It takes the market a lont time to reset completely now that renewable energy is cheapest. The political power of fossil fuels slows down the transition.
Statements upthread like "we will know where to target policies and programs ($$$) to help leapfrog the cheap coal electricity phase" are simply incorrect. Coal electricity costs more than renewable energy. Less developed countries would be better off going straight to renewable than to build out expensive coal plants now. Even if coal were cheaper today, in a few years developed countries will institute carbon fees on imports that will make coal power even more expensive.
It is often hard to be optimistic when politicians respond so slowly. I take hope from the fact that 10 years ago politicians were not even talking about trying to reduce carbon emissions in most countries. Hopefully the turnaround will be soon enough to avoid the worst consequences.
In many poor locations people are purchasing small off grid PV to charge phones, power lights, run refrigerators and other domestic uses. I saw a picture of solar panels that powered a water pump to irrigate opium poppies in Afganistan. This is chepaer than large central generators with long transmission ines, and the transmission lines cannot be cut by war.
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michael sweet at 23:14 PM on 27 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Jan@54
I am sorry, I thought that you had done your homework and that I did not have to do your work for you.
The debate about wether it is worthwhile to drive an electric car using power from coal power stations was resolved over 10 years ago in the peer reviewed literature. Newbees who try to do their own calculations simply are wrong.
This peer reviewed paper published in 2011 states:
'We find that EVs charged using [100%] electricity from coal do not have significantly different GHG emissions from driving in regular cars"
Since the efficiency of electric cars has improved since 2011, it is now more efficient from a release of CO2 standpoint to drive an electric car than using an ICE car, even if 100% of the electricity comes from coal. In China, since 30% of the energy is renewable, it obviously is better to drive electric cars. Evan, using at least 50% wind energy, is way better than an ICE car. You are simply uninformed. I do not like being lectured to by people who do not know what they are talking about. I note that you have cited exactly zero peer reviewed papers in your posts here at Skeptical Science while I have cited papers to support my position.
Since electric cars release less CO2 no matter how the electricity is generated, it is best for everyone everywhere to try to purchase an electric car. Waiting until more renewable electricity is being generated results in more CO2 being emitted. Many other reasons also result in the conclusion that it is best to buy an electric car as soon as possible.
Simply looking at the efficiencies I cited in my previous post it can be concluded that it is more carbon efficient to drive an electric car powered by coal electricity than to drive an ICE car. The fact that ICE cars are less than 20% efficient in converting the energy in the gasoline into kinetic energy is the critical factor. Electric cars are about 90% efficient at converting electricity into kinetic energy. I can provide the calculations for you if you want to see them.
In the future as much transportation as possible needs to be converted to electric because electric motors are so much more efficient than ICE motors.
Your claim that we should wait to purchase electric cars until more renewable energy is being generated is simply fossil propaganda. The more electric cars there are the less demand for gasoline there will be.
Moderator Response:[BL] Please tone it down a bit.
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Haiburton42 at 19:34 PM on 27 March 2022SkS Analogy 3 - The Greenhouse Effect is Like a Cloudy Night
I wrote this in my climate change dream journal at 12:24 am Ogden Utah Time. Light pollution makes it hard to see the stars and I thought the less stars the easier is to make a connect the dots picture — the clouds are the peaceful alternative — and I thought what about a sky polluted no stars shown through and I couldn't make a connect the dot picture that would be a very sad time for me. And a very sad world.
So, I think that when an entire town decides not to drive a car for a week in a row and the stars get brighter and we all go for a walk it can be a very good thing.
And now I'm promoting Take Back the Night brought to us by the Women's Center at WSU because ever since they helped me when I needed it I made a vow to take back the night whenever I can until we no longer have to.
But have I just been off-topic, political or ad hominem in my rhetoric?
Moderator Response:[BL] This does seem to be rather off topic.
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nigelj at 12:09 PM on 27 March 2022SkS Analogy 3 - The Greenhouse Effect is Like a Cloudy Night
Its intriguing reading a thread of comments like this. Because reading them in their entirety its obvious dudo39 is just highjacking the thread to push an agenda. The article was obviously using clouds at night an an analogy only, and said quite clearly "Although the greenhouse effect is active 24/7, it is most apparent at night, " but dudo39 still rambles on @1 about the article not addressing clouds during the day and then the rest of the comments posted drift on from that, and the main issue gets forgotten.
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Eric (skeptic) at 20:33 PM on 26 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
nigelj @59, thanks, that sounds promising.
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nigelj at 17:10 PM on 26 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Eric (skeptic) @58, just something fyi:
"Chinese President Xi Jinping recently announced at the UN General Assembly that China “will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad”. Shortly after this, the Bank of China said it would no longer finance new coal mining and power projects abroad for the last quarter of 2021." Here.
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Eric (skeptic) at 11:28 AM on 26 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
michael sweet @50
The poor are building out renewable energy in many locations. Why build a coal generator when renewable energy is much cheaper? Why build out central facilities wheen distributed generation (like PV) is much cheaper? You guys need to read the literature and give up on the fossil fuel propaganda.
I assume you mean undeveloped countries? Or people who are actually poor? Coal is being built out because, apparently, it's been easier to get the financing for them from China:
Perceptions of coal for baseload reliability and low cost seem to be the driving factors, but biased by the availability of financing for coal.
I looked through the Connelly link you provided, but that solution was for wealthy Europe. Then clicked from that page to Jacobsen: Matching demand with supply at low cost in 139 countries among 20 world regions with 100% intermittent wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) for all purposes
Seems like that would speak to your claim which I quoted above. Haiti is poor and would have less than 10 cents average electric cost with 65% solar PV (nameplate, table 2). Table 3 shows Haiti with a mainly flexible load (my point earlier). Seems practical and fairly reasonably priced. But "much cheaper"? I don't see that.
Please note I am not promoting coal, just stating the facts of where coal is headed (e.g. as shown by endcoal.org).
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:38 AM on 26 March 2022The FLICC-Poster - Downloads and Translations
David-acct @4,
Here is a Follow-up regarding your unjustified attack on NPR reporting:
The following Nature article "Wuhan market was epicentre of pandemic’s start, studies suggest" appears to rather conclusively prove that you have allowed yourself to be misled about the certainty that COVID-19 came from a lab ... perhaps because of a penchant for the reporting by sources like Fox News. And that bias may apply to other beliefs you have developed a liking for. You really should investigate if your developed bias, everyone has bias and can learn to change it, is causing you to be harmfully misled.
That Nature report has been referred to in NPR reports, including this one "How the false Russian biolab story came to circulate among the U.S. far right"
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Evan at 09:02 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
OPOF@53 Sobbering comments. It's scary to know the marketeers know how to get into our heads and how to apply leverage to people who other might object to the kind of harms to which you're referring.
OPOF@56 Very interesting, sad education you're providing. I knew enough about the tar sands to know we did not want to burn anymore of it than we have to. You only deepen my resolve.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:46 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Evan @55,
All things considered, burning gasoline from the oil sands is indeed potentially worse then using Minnesota's electricity to power a car.
One big harm, hidden from many people by the Shell Game, is that upgrading heavy crude (like Alberta's Western Canada Select) produces a by-product called 'coke'. Coke is like a very crappy coal (very high ghg emissions for the heat units obtained, and other crappy emissions from burning the stuff). Some places are OK with dirtier cheaper stuff to burn. They will burn Coke. It has been burned at oil sands operations in Alberta. But, to reduce emission in Alberta, the materials are often now exported as heavy crude (Western Canada Select) which exports the impacts of upgrading, including coke, to the importing nation. And the upgrading facilities in the USA producing the gasoline for Minnesota likely export the coke they produce to be burned somewhere else in the world (so the coke is not counted as a USA waste or ghg impact).
The more you know the more there is to dislike about extracting and burning up the oil sands stuff, and other heavy oils, and coal (and sour natural gas - note that WCS is also a very sour crude - lots of sulphur). Those all really should be the first fossil fuels terminated no matter how many investors lose perceived wealth because 'their assets ended up stranded - unusable'.
Note that the Shell Game includes Alberta Oil Sands promoters claiming it is More Ethical Oil (amusing note Shell sold its oil sands assets).
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Evan at 07:49 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
jan@54 another reason I bought an EV. In Minnesota about 90% of our gasoline comes from tar-sands oil. That alone drove me to want to minimize my use of gasoline. IMO, just about anything is better than burning tar-sands oil.
One thing you should consider is that if you want to buy an EV today, you might end up waiting a long time because of supply-chain issues. This is the reality of how long it may take to switch from ICE's to EV's. Even if EV's only operate at break-even GHG emissions in some places because of high usage of fossil fuels, it is worthwhile to start switching manufacturing towards EV's, because the transition will likely take a very long time, given real-world distribution factors.
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jan21405 at 07:21 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
@michael sweet #50
The car's energy conversion efficiency is one thing; electricity consumption per 1km is the second point. You have to recharge the consumed energy somewhere. And 70 kWh of electricity will always be only 70kWh of electricity, no matter what source you use for recharging. This has nothing to do with energy conversion efficiency while driving in a car. This is the energy (not the capacity) you need to return to the battery. You need also calculate another big impact - batte charging is a Power factor and dirting of the power grid. When you don't understand this basic energy principle, then I'm here by mistake.
When you got the arguments and accused me of fossil fuels propaganda, neither of us understood anything. Nice. -
One Planet Only Forever at 07:17 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Evan @48,
Agreed that it is not helpful if the presentation gets too complicated or triggers unjustified reactions.
Another way to address the marketing problem is to describe how it affects every aspect of the diagram (competition game/system) without presenting it as part of the image.
Marketing is about raising awareness and trying to influence what people think about things. Marketing is helpful when it raises awareness and fully informs regarding the awareness being raised. It can be especially helpful when it does that regarding Harm Being Done. But marketing almost never gets done that way because the pursuit of reward and benefit (popularity and profit) powerfully motivates what is done.
That pursuit of reward limits what is Investigated.
- It can keep scientists from looking into the potential harm of developed activities, especially activities that are popular and profitable (because who is going to fund or reward the investigation into the potential need to limit, change or stop popular and profitable activities).
- It can tempt scientists into focusing on research that appears to have the potential to be profitable or popular, because that is more likely to be funded and be rewarded with patents.
- It certainly discourages consumers from investigating if what they are tempted to desire is harmful.
- Engineers have a fairly powerful motivation to limit harm done. But even they can be tempted to participate in developing more harmful results due to the potential for more reward to be obtained that way (or get less reward if they won't play the 'behind the curtain' game that way). And some of them push for 'lower minimum standards', or push to not have standards, because that gives them cover/excuses for participating in producing riskier more harmful results (what they did did not contravene any established requirements - that they were aware of).
Undeniably, the potentially harmful marketing angles of the Industry (pursuers of profit) and Political (pursuers of popularity) players are the most dangerous drivers/motivators of the game/system. And the most dangerous condition is when there is no clear separation of Industry from Government.
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:14 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Evan @48,
Agreed that it is not helpful if the presentation gets too complicated or triggers unjustified reactions.
Another way to address the marketing problem is to describe how it affects every aspect of the diagram without presenting it as part of the image. Marketing is about raising awareness and trying to influence what people think about things. Marketing is helpful when it raises awareness and fully informs regarding the awareness being raised. It can be especially helpful when it does that regarding Harm Being Done. But marketing almost never gets done that way because the pursuit of reward and benefit (popularity and profit) powerfully motivates what is done.
That pursuit of reward limits what is Investigated.
- It can keep scientists from looking into the potential harm of developed activities, especially activities that are popular and profitable (because who is going to fund or reward the investigation into the potential need to limit, change or stop popular and profitable activities).
- It can tempt scientists into focusing on research that appears to have the potential to be profitable or popular, because that is more likely to be funded and be rewarded with patents.
- It certainly discourages consumers from investigating if what they are tempted to desire is harmful.
- Engineers have a fairly powerful motivation to limit harm done. But even they can be tempted to participate in developing more harmful results due to the potential for more reward to be obtained that way (or get less reward if they won't play the 'behind the curtain' game that way). And some of them push for 'lower minimum standards', or push to not have standards, because that gives them cover/excuses for participating in producing riskier more harmful results (what they did did not contravene any established requirements - that they were aware of).
- Undeniably, the potentially harmful marketing angles of the Industry (pursuers of profit) and Political (pursuers of popularity) players are the most dangerous drivers/motivators of the game/system. And the most dangerous condition is when there is no clear separation of Industry from Government.
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nigelj at 06:54 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Jan @38.
I was wanting to know your academic qualifications to see if you had any relevant to the issues. I'm reluctant to commit time to reading very long articles by people if they have no relevant qualifications at tertiary level. Your engineering degree is definitely very relevant. I believe that a person with an engineering degree could definitely do "science". However calling yourself a scientist could cause confusion and I think you are unwise doing that, fwiw. And I see no need for you to do so.
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Jan @40, ok we seem to be roughly in agreement, and I get your point about China: They are actually expanding their EV fleet much faster than its expanding renewables which is out of step. However China is non typical with its autocratic government having huge control over EV production. However there are other reasons they are pushing EVs really hard, namely to reduce high levels of particulate and nitrous oxides air pollution in their cities.
Yes the data speaks loudly. I had a friend who always said when arguing about contentious issues, and opining on them, always go back and look at what the basic data says. Regardless of the issue and field of enquiry.
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michael sweet at 06:30 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Jan,
I think you have the incorrect assumptions behind many of your calculations. This results in your conclusions being in error. In general, whenever I see someone relying on their own calculations instead of published calculations I figure their conclusions are incorrect. I see very little peer reviewed data in your posts.
For example, many published studies describe how to get 100% renewable energy. See this description of Connelly et al 2021 for a starter. I note that you have no problem with "baseload" power sources that require emergency back up power every day to provide peak power but you are concerned that renewable energy might have problems providing peak power. Why is it OK for "baseload" sources to require back up but not renewables? Most of the pumped hydro storage in the USA was built to store power from nuclear power plants at night to use for peak power during the day. Plans like Connelly et al describe how to provide 100% renewable energy. You are wrong to suggest it cannnot be done. Providing 80% renewable energy using existing fossil gas peaker plants as storage is easy and cheaper than fossil power.
Your anaylsis of EV cars seems to me to be completely off. Even if the grid is 100% coal there are benefits from EV. You do not consider that baseload coal power plants are about 40-45% efficient at generating electricity form the heat of the coal. Gas combined cycle plants are over 60% efficient. EV cars are about 90% efficient in using electricity. By contrast, internal combustion cars are only about 20% efficient at using the energy in the oil they burn. When you consider the comparable emissions of carbon dioxide, an EV with electricity from a 100% coal electrical system releases comparable carbon to internal combustion engines. Since the electricity for Evan is over 50% from wind, his EV releases much less CO2 than a comparable ICE car.
According to Our World in Data China gets about 30% of its electricity from renewable sources. It seems to me that when you consider the efficiency of EV cars compared to internal combustion cars the EV's release less CO2 than ICE. Since almost all coal systems use gas for peak power the release of CO2 is even less from EV cars than ICE cars. My brother has solar panels on his roof that recharge his EV car. How much CO2 does his car release?
This peer reviewed paper says that the best thing to do for the next ten years is to build out renewable energy sources as fast as possible and switch to EV's at the same time. If we wait on EV's until we have more renewable energy we will not be able to switch fast enough from ICE's. Your argument that we should wait for more renewable energy to be built is completely incorrect. Please cite a peer reviewed paper that suppports your wild claims. I think your calculations are incorrect as described above.
I note that the people engaging in this conversation are citing their own calculations and not peer reviewed documents. I see many claims that I think have been demonstrated as false in the peer reviewed papers I have read. It seems to me that many of the claims made here are simly fossil propaganda against renewable energy. I want to remind posters that this is supposed to be a science based site. You must support your claims with peer reviewed data.
The poor are building out renewable energy in many locations. Why build a coal generator when renewable energy is much cheaper? Why build out central facilities wheen distributed generation (like PV) is much cheaper? You guys need to read the literature and give up on the fossil fuel propaganda.
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BaerbelW at 05:42 AM on 25 March 2022New resource: myth deconstructions as animated GIFs
The initial 9 animated myth deconstructions have now been added as notes to the related rebuttals:
Does cold weather disprove global warming?
Are glaciers growing or retreating?
CO2 lags temperature - what does it mean?
How reliable are climate models?
How the OISM Petition Project casts doubt on the scientific consensus on climate change
What does past climate change tell us about global warming?
Plants cannot live on CO2 alone
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Evan at 05:33 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
OPOF@46 and 47. Very interesting example. It's easy to market these feel-good stories, because it's what people want to hear. Thanks for sharing yet another concrete example of the Shell Game.
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Evan at 05:32 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
OPOF @45 Yes, this chain is not complete, but hopefully it conveys the idea without getting too complicated. The inclusion of government might conjure up images of corruption and the like, but every well-functioning society relies on some form of governance to set policies, standards, etc.
Marketing is somewhat implicityly in the industrial segment, because they are the ones manufacturing and selling the products. I'll try to weave in your ideas, but am afraid that the complexity will grow.
There's that growth problem again. :-)
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:11 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
I missed an important aspect of the Shell Game example I shared @46.
I am not able to find the total power demand for the Server Farm. It appears that it may be higher than the 400 MW contract for power from the new Solar Farm. And that power demand will be 24-7, not just when the sun shines or the wind blows. So there may even need to be added non-renewable power in Alberta to meet the added power demand for this "new improvement in Alberta".
And the Shell Game sales pitches continue with the glowing presentation by Calgary Economic Development that also mentions all the 'homes Amazon will supposedly be powering with renewable power'.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:25 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Here is an Alberta Example of the Shell Game.
The largest Solar Farm in Canada is now being built in Alberta. Read the following article about it, and note the statements regarding the 'number of homes it would power'.
CTV News - Canada's largest solar project under construction in Vulcan County
Now read the following article from a different news source published on the same day.
Global News - Southern Alberta firm signs massive solar power deal with tech giant Amazon
Note how the second article tells about the the 'new benefit for Alberta of the Amazon server farm' that is going to consume almost all the power from the new solar farm.
What happened is an added energy demand in Alberta that fully consumes a renewable energy generating facility. Essentially, no improvement. But lots for Albertans, and Others, to be pleased about.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:11 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Evan @35,
A suggestion related to my comments @33 and @37 that relates to both the Consumer and Science Disconnect.
The image under Science Disconnect should be expanded to indicate “marketing” (pursuing popularity and profit) behind the curtain and connected to Industry and Politics.
And it would be helpful to have a way to represent “Helpful Governing: The pursuit of learning about the harm of what is developed and effort to limit harm done”. That feature has different values in front of and behind the curtain.
- In front of the curtain there is some interest in self-governing in pursuit of learning to limit harm done, but it is not the ‘governing’ interest.
- Behind the curtain there is a powerful ‘anti-interest’ including attempts to block investigations into potential harms. That drives the development of misleading marketing to cover-up or excuse the harm that cannot be kept hidden. And that marketing over-promotes potential benefits, promotes harmful misunderstanding, and encourages people to be dismissive of the harm or risk of harm (because the benefit has to be worth it).
It would also be helpful to present an "External Influence" - Governing what is going on by pursuing learning and education about what is harmful and implementing policy and laws to limit harm done through education, regulation, restriction and legal penalty.
External Helpful Governing to limit harm done, and change the developed system, is the Key Requirement. Expecting the pursuit of more benefits and higher status to be Self-Governed to limit harm done is obviously absurd. Without external governing effectively limiting harm done the "Science (learning) - Consumer (pursuit of benefit)" system will produce an endless stream of harmful “popular and profitable results”. It will also produce a bunch of harmful results that fail to be the most popular and profitable, but still get to compete in the market. And less harmful developments will have a competitive disadvantage because they will be "less rewarding", require more effort and be more expensive than more harmful alternatives.
Without effective external helpful governing the “solutions developed by the competition for status system” are almost certain to be more harmful and less helpful than they needed to be (like the madness of global geo-engineering experiments, only able to be fully understood after being implemented, to "solve the avoidable global geo-engineering experiment climate change problem that has been caused by the belief that the pursuit of new technology that is highly desirable and profitable will effectively develop The Required harm limiting Solution").
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Evan at 02:46 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
jan@43 What is your point? I am well aware that Minnesota gets over 50% of its power from renewable energy. Shall I not drive an EV until that number reaches 100%. Great River Energy, MN, is pushing hard to generate renewable energy. Shall we stand by and watch and wait until they get the grid to 100% renewables and then buy EV's?
I think now is the time to push, because coops like Great River Energy are doing the kinds of things we need.
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jan21405 at 02:37 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
@Evan #42
thank you for the feedback.
Just last post and I will keep this group in the previous stage.
Follow the EIA.gov data for Minnesota state energy (power production sources):
43% share is based on fossil fuels (coal + natural gas)
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Evan at 01:31 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
jan@41, a friendly admonition.m:-)
I would say that you are somewhat falling into the shell game of which I'm writing.
There is this myth that we are going to orderly, neatly, and in a highly controlled manner transition into a green-energy world. Kind of like what is talked about on Star Trek when they refer to how humans lived before the big societal transitions.
I am an engineer and well aware that a promise of supply by renewable energy is not a guarantee of purity. But I know the utility behind this promise, and they are credible. I also know it is a step in the right direction.
The transition will be messy and far from the utopian path many climate scientists envision. Such is the nature of the real world.
So all I mean to say is that we need to push hard. I will not wait until the perfect EV is available and charged from the perfect energy source. By then it will be too late.
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jan21405 at 01:24 AM on 25 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
@Evan #31
Many power utilities will certify that they use "green energy credits" to ensure the power used for cars comes from renewables.
People are often subject to tempting keywords. 100% certainty that your electrical outlet is currently supplying electricity from "green sources" is only if your house is off-grid + connected to your PVe/Wind/Hydro power production system. Otherwise, your distribution company supplies a mix of energy from sources that are currently providing this energy. Just to be sure.
Also, getting a lot of EV's on the road sends the right signal to the company's making them and to the company's powering them. Hard to know where to start, but I think we need to just jump in and get things going whereever we can.
Shouldn't this discussion be scientific? This is just a chaotic shooting into a dark approach. No hypothesis verification.
I think they call this the chicken or the egg problem. :-)
For common people - yes.
If you want to run a stable distribution grid you need:
- the stable source of energy production for 24/7/365 operation (any time, any weather conditions). Today they are - Nuclear, Coal, Natural gas, Hydro (dams). You can't control the sun (irradiation, clouds) or wind (atmospheric pressure).
- for unstable energy sources you need storage with sufficient capacity. More unstable weather, more capacity for the storage.
- all the sources must be able to deliver power quality conditions (Variation in voltage magnitude, frequency, transient voltages and currents, harmonic content for AC)
- solve challenging demands for the transmission losses. More warm conditions = more losses = need more energy production. Note: I have done a study in Slovakia power grid how weather conditions have a heavy impact on the transmission losses (in period 1964-2019). And I can responsibly say that this is a very modern power grid vs UK or US.
So, we have heavy challenges:
- transform existing energy production from the fossil fuels, including YoY increment of energy production
- upgrade the obsolete power grids to keep existing power demand
- in parallel create new energy production capacities for new electric charging points (EVs, trucks, busses, ...). You can't build up these points anywhere.
- create new power grids for the new energy sources, including new transition stations, ...
- and keep it all orchestrated to achieve a sustained power supply. This is really tricky now (see below)
- and in Europe, we have an additional heavy variable - to cut off from Russia natural gas - one of the important resources for Europe power production and power grid sustainability.
Finally yes - it is about chicken or the egg:
- you can't decrease emissions with EVs charged from Coal, Oil or Natural gas power plant energy sources.
- stabilize the obsolete power grid or new demand in the existing obsolete grid.
It's similar to enjoying a healthy diet that you're preparing on a coal fire stove.
Power production needs an order. No chaotic solutions.
Some useful information:
- Jan/2021 - Europe was near heavy Blackout due to power supply failure that is suspected to have originated in Romania disrupted the Continental Europe Synchronous Area. Its frequency dropped to 48.75 Hz (target frequency 50Hz), which caused the South-East area to be separated from the rest of the grid. This disruption and a lack of operating reserves in France nearly caused a Europe-wide blackout. Luckily, the automatic activation of power stations throughout Europe and the automatic initiation of contracted load shedding in Italy (1000 MW) and France (1300 MW) kept the grid stable and prevented a blackout. This incident shows the fragility of the grid and the real possibility of a Europe-wide blackout, which we need to prevent.link
- IPCC AR6 - The latest IPCC report suggests that average wind speeds over Europe will reduce by 8%-10% as a result of climate change.
- UK’s renewables share drops to 35.9% in Q3 2021 on slow winds
- Spain's solar energy crisis: Thousands os Spaniards bankrupt after investing in solar panels
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jan21405 at 19:42 PM on 24 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
@nigelj #30
your opinion:
I disagree partly. You do actually have to start using some EVs even if the energy source is only about 10% renewables. You have to phase in EV's gradually. Otherwise we would have a situation where we get say 30 years down the road and the grid is say 75% renewables, then we have to start building EVs and everyone driving them which would probably be another 30 years because scaling them up is inevitably a slow process. By then the climate is totally cooked.
My note:
You read this sentence from my essay for masses: No More Good News on Global Warming; linkWhen you will read deeply my document: GHG [CO2] emissions problem in a dark box - 1st part of the Global warming series; link
you will get more answers to my point of view.
Step by step to your opinions:“You do actually have to start using some EVs even if the energy source is only about 10% renewables.”
My point: YES
“You have to phase in EV's gradually.”
My point: YES
“Otherwise we would have a situation where we get say 30 years down the road and the grid is say 75% renewables, then we have to start building EVs and everyone driving them which would probably be another 30 years because scaling them up is inevitably a slow process.”
My point: YES – from the Global level only. But this is the wrong attitude. Reason:
Vehicles operation is not global but regional. It follows that we cannot use global emissions from cars as a tool to calculate emission reductions with the introduction of EVs, but strictly regional, per country. It will be mathematically correct (the global data approach), but you will not be able to put it into practice.
An example:
Slovakia - Electricity generation by source: almost 80% comes from Carbon Zero technologies (mostly from Nuclear, then Hydro, partially PVe) and just 20% from the fossil fuels (mainly Natural gas, partially from coal which will be terminated 2023 and thin part from oil and biofuels). Then according to the study from NREL (2016): Emissions Associated with Electric Vehicle Charging: Impact of Electricity Generation Mix, Charging Infrastructure Availability, and Vehicle Type; linkSlovakia has a Low carbon average Daily profile of electric grid carbon intensity. This will be changed from the autumn of 2022, as another 471MW reactor in the new NPP will be launched to operation, which will bring the next 3.7TWh to the grid. It will cover fully coal, oil and almost 50% of the natural gas power production in the country = ready to immediately switch off. Then Slovakia will achieve from the beginning of 2023 near to 90% of green electricity. So, not gradual, but the fastest possible strategy of exchanging combustion engines to EVs seems to be workable.
But then we have a country like China. Its share in the EVs market is 53% (car sales according to IEA.org). The Chinese government’s official target is for electric cars to reach a market share of 20% for the full year in 2025, and their performance in 2021 suggests they are well on track to do so. link
If China had up to 270M passenger cars in 2020 and in 2025 it expects the number of EVs to be 54M EVs (270M x 25%) and in 2035 it expects 100% EVs, then it will need to produce 618TWh of energy in its electric grid, which does not exist today. In the same year, 50% of fossil fuel energy sources from Todays near 5 PWh (2021) will have to be transformed. So China needs to build a capacity for 6PWh/annually power production infrastructure and also distribution grids upgrade by 2035 (you can't generate electricity at point A, which is thousands of miles away from point B consumption. It's inefficient.) What's hard to achieve because China by 2025 will rise with coal fire power plants construction. Plus, energy consumption is growing - no one expects it to freeze. When it puts into a comprehensive analysis – so, China will need a miracle or something to do.
You can find more in my analysis: GHG CO2 emissions - Part 01 China Power production, race to zero analysis;link
I like to talk about exact data, analysis. Opinions are one thing, but the data shows something else. When thinking about such complex things as energy production and distribution, we need to be purely pragmatic and not subject to immediate results, but to look for ways to long-term sustainable solutions.Ready for a discussion. But especially here we need to use more facts than opinions.
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jan21405 at 18:25 PM on 24 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
@Eric (skeptic) #36
you are right in your approach. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.
Regarding my note #28 - this is my approach; when I read something, I examine how those conclusions were made and what data was used and what methodology was used to examine the data. It is more arduous, but it helps me use only sufficiently reliable data in my hypothesis tests.
Quite often, I get into a position of devil's advocate, which provokes a discussion in order to get better outputs. It's nothing personal. If I can find something more useful, I'll send it to you. Because I also have suggestions on how to do things better.
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jan21405 at 17:44 PM on 24 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
@nigelj #30
regarding your reques to my background:
Slovak technical university, Faculty of electrical engineering
I am glad that you are interested in the reason why I focus mainly on energy, which is so fundamentally involved in emision issues.
Btw: Who is actually a scientist?
In the simplest sense- it is an investigator of topic based on scientific approach (observation, research, hypothesis, test, analysis, conclusions.
I do not divide people according to titles, number of published papers, articles, ... but according to the description of what methods they use, what sources influence their interpretations of results and what conclusions their activities bring. After all, it is the basis of science. Otherwise, we would very easily be subject to the fact that a scientist is only the one who has many titles before and after the name. In some cases, it comes as far as the absurdity that the Nobel Prize winner is a scientist, but he speaks without a scientific approach. Just look at Ivar Giaever's statements on Global warming. Is it necessary to continue this topic?
Or will we look at useful long-term sustainable ways to reduce the impact of emissions on ongoing climate change?
Especially in a small circle of scientists, we should use the justification of our doubts about other proposals based on knowledge, not based on opinions only. I have a deep research about the topic of EVs, what exactly and why and on what basis is your doubt based? We can meet, I prefer face to face discussion than just offline (such this one). I can easily setup a video call.
Btw: I communicate openly, you can see who I am, where I am from, I make public contacts. I only know your nickname about you.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:45 PM on 24 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Evan @33,
People who powerfully resist learning that they had developed a liking for being harmful and related harmful misunderstanding do not have to have their minds changed. They just need to be kept from being as harmful as they would like to be. They need to be kept from significantly influencing policy makers.
A potential effective solution for the challenge of limiting the harm done by people who do not care that their pursuits are harmful is the Development and Implementation of Policies that limit the harm done (through public education efforts and penalty or refusing permission - think about COVID policies).
Getting that done for climate change harm limitation requires the majority of the winning policy makers to be people who actually will do that. That is not an easy task. But it is a way to solve the problem. However, it exposes why the problem has become so large and challenging today. There was a lack of popularity for the required changes due to the popularity of harmful misunderstandings (and better science presentation was/is helpful but not a solution).
The root of the problem is harmful political game players who are not, or cannot, be penalized for making harmfully incorrect claims or be denied permission to make such claims. The actions and regional popular support of the Putin Group and Trump Group are evidence of how harmful it is for people to have, or choose to have, the information they are aware of limited to misleading marketing that promotes harmful misunderstandings, or hides or fails to discover and expose harmful things that people should be aware of.
As you say, the distraction by misleading presentations of the Positives (harmful misunderstandings) is a serious part of the problem (as is the distraction of attention grabbing entertainment including sports).
My hope is that people who become more aware that they have been harmfully misled into believing harmful misunderstandings are unlikely to fall back into believing the nonsense. But I am well aware of the power of the need some people develop for their 'developed identity community' to draw them back into the fold of harmful misunderstanding. Jonathan Haidt, in The Righteous Mind, presents how that is more likely, but not certain, to happen to people with Libertarian or Conservative personality traits.
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Eric (skeptic) at 12:40 PM on 24 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Quote from Jan@28:
To be completely clear. The importance of examining the impact of using Biomass fuels is essential. But it is much more important to use data that will not ruin the whole effort.
Jan, thanks for examining my sources and for your corrections. I would like to know which populations are moving away from unhealthful conditions (e.g. indoor biomass burning) to electric cooking. Or to renewable biomass in a stove. Or moving from home coal fires to biomass fires or other energy source. Or still stuck with one of those awful energy sources.
Once we understand those populations, we will know where to target policies and programs ($$$) to help leapfrog the cheap coal electricity phase. That might mean helping with cultural shifts to match energy demand with renewable energy supply. Renewables are quite cheap when demand can be matched with supply. Shifting the supply curve is very expensive (e.g. Germany's pumped storage) but shifting the demand curve may be much more realistic for countries without Germany's wealth.
Also very high birthrates are often correlated with the poverty typified by the indoor cooking and heating fire and subsequent childhood mortality. So while the numbers are not as high as I thought, it is still a significant source of future energy demand represented by rapidly increasing population.
One alternative to leapfrogging is a program like India to take the population from 30% electrified to close to 100% in the past two decades. That's amazing progress from a health view (eliminating indoor burning), but terrible for global CO2. That's somewhat of a red herring, but being actively pursued in many countries. Also I should not pick any other country without acknowledging our own lack of energy efficiency and other easy targets here. But I am talking about the future shape of the top curve in fig 4.
That's my main focus in my discussion above. My overall argument is that we need not be pessimistic, but think globally and promote realistic global energy solutions. Also provide lots of funding of R&D for tomorrow's cheap renewable energy.
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Evan at 09:23 AM on 24 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
OPOF@33
There are likely many people who know they are doing harm, and don't care. No idea how to solve that one.
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prove we are smart at 08:58 AM on 24 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Australia plays the climate shell game very well.. "This is little more than a wealth transfer. People can think of this as welfare payments for the undeserving". www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/insider-blows-whistle-on-australias-greenhouse-gas-reduction-schemes/ar-AAVpXoK?ocid=ACERDHP17&li=AAgfYrC
I stopped feeling guilty about buying my only 4k oled smart tv 3 wks ago after reading this...www.miragenews.com/ranked-how-many-properties-do-australian-545566/
Thanks Evan for simplifying to some of the bottom lines. Many years ago I stumbled onto Skeptical Science which began my AGW learning, now of course commonly called climate change. Yes, the overshoot problem with 80 million people extra every year on a finite earth isn't helping.
I try to use many different media sources to reduce bias but with a lot of my friends many are not so caring. Thanks Jan@18 for hitting the nail for me. When I pulled my head out of the ground to educate myself, it was a fruitful exercise but lately it seems the doomer in me is growing stronger. Is that why so many wilfully delude themselves-I think in this media world people need to see the high status/leaders showing integrity and sacrifice( because it's needed now)- just don't hold your breath..
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:55 AM on 24 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Evan, nigelj,
I am still pondering all of this, so thanks for the feedback.
Another observation (like a question), but this time directly linked to a specific point of the presented information.
The question is: Why is there a lack of rigorous effort to investigate potential harm of developments, and lack of related leadership actions and policy implementation, to limit harm done?
In the Science Disconnect image there is something missing. 'The scientific investigation of the potential harm of new developments' is missing. The people pursuing profit and popularity understand that many people who developed by being immersed in the pursuit of benefit from new developments (consumers) are only potentially interested in 'personal harm'. Harm to Others, especially future generations is irrelevant to them. And, even if there is risk of personal harm, many people seem OK with that if the sales pitch for the new thing seems to be 'promising enough potential personal benefit'.
It is obvious that serious investigation into the potential harm of new developments is not something that the power players in the developed competitions for perceptions of status care about. In fact, it is pretty apparent that the power players likely have powerful motivations to stifle any potential investigation into the potential harm of what they benefit from. And there is powerful knowledge of misleading marketing power that is at their disposal to fight against that type of investigation happening or its results becoming common sense understanding among their captive audience of compliant, desperate, easily manipulated consumers.
That leads to another question: What will effectively un-brainwash people who have learned (developed a way of thinking) driven by liking what they perceive to be personally enjoyable, thrilling, or beneficial? What will change the mind of someone who will passionately rely on misunderstanding to defend and excuse what they like to believe against evidence that it is harmful? Older people can still learn. But they have developed many beliefs that can be hard to over-turn (the mind builds those short-cuts through learning). And if they sense personal benefit is obtained by preserving a harmful misunderstanding (meaning they will have to give up personal benefit if they give up the harmful misunderstanding) they are likely to passionately insist on more harmfully misunderstanding things (they get angrily resistant when pushed toward corrected understanding that they sense they will not personally benefit from).
How to be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi, presents an interesting understanding based on the origin of the term racism being the 'race (or competition) for superiority; the development of artificial and likely unjustified hierarchies of people. And he mentions the problem of climate change several times in the book as a harmful result of persistent harmful misunderstanding. His conclusion is essentially that the solution requires institutional, systemic, policy changes. And the policy changes require the people who 'care to address the problem' to have the power to make the policy changes happen.
A related understanding is that "everybody's actions add up". Regarding climate change, that obviously is why the problem continues to grow. More people are continuing to cause more harmful impact thta adds up. And the solution is people acting helpfully to limit the harm done. And the policy changes required need to equitably limit everybody's harmful contribution. The less fortunate should be the only ones who 'temporarily' benefit from harm done (not any of the most fortunate). And the more fortunate, all of them, especially the most fortunate, need to lead the rapid correction of what has developed. Any more fortunate people 'freer to believe and do as they please' makes the future situation worse than it needs to be, including the bad example they set for others to aspire to develop towards.
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nigelj at 07:08 AM on 24 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
OPOF @15
"Why do people who obtain the ability to provide for all of their basic needs become desperate to pursue More?"
Very good question I have also asked myself. A combination of reasons from well established biology and psychology:
1) Humans are status seeking animals. We demonstrate this in part by accumulating consumer goods.
2) Humans are hoarders. We accumulate more than we need in case there are shortages. This could be consumer goods or the money that can buy them. And its hard to put an upper limit on how much is appropriate to hoard so it gets huge with some people.
3) Retail therapy makes us feel good by triggering the dopamine / seratonin pathways in the brain.
4) Humans seek ever more life experiences. People like to fulfill their wants even if these are extravagant wants. (Defining wants versus needs is also not as easy as it seems)
5) Humans are fundamentally selfish animals. We do share things and cooperate but this is only secondary and as an insurance policy. Given rich people already have an insurance policy because they are rich and self sufficient, they are not so driven to share. However people do sometimes share because sharing does make people feel good. And people are hardwired to share with their families obviously.
So for me this easily explains the fact that people are materialisitic and pursue more and more things or the most expensive things. It also easily explains why its hard to change this.
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Evan at 06:56 AM on 24 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
nigelj@30 Agree with your comments about EV's. The world is not uniform. We've had an EV for 5 years, powering it, theoretically, on wind power. Many power utilities will certify that they use "green energy credits" to ensure the power used for cars comes from renewables.
Also, getting a lot of EV's on the road sends the right signal to the company's making them and to the company's powering them. Hard to know where to start, but I think we need to just jump in and get things going whereever we can. Getting to net zero will likely not be as orderly as the modelers would like us to think.
I think they call this the chicken or the egg problem. :-)
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nigelj at 06:44 AM on 24 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Jan Rapan, thanks for the links. Its certainly true that many people are apathetic about the climate issue. This is for well known psychological reasons like these:
You say you are a "data scientist. What university degree do you have and from what institution please?I was unable to find anything in any of your links or your biography.
You wrote in one of your links: "Logically we need to have clean green energy first; only then do we need to change over tonew devices, like EVs. We cannot do it oppositely. Otherwise, we only transpose the CO2emission problems from oil fuels to our electric outlets filled by combustion power fuels (coal,natural gas, biomasses). It is the big irony driven by profit only. But look at an excellent exampleof simplification for people: Green is Cool. EVs are cool. EVs are zero emissions. EVs are Green.Yes, it holds for the country regions with low/zero emissions power sources. But remember,China is worldwide the most significant EVs market, and China produces electricity for themmainly from fossil fuels (and even openly plans to continue with it)"
I disagree partly. You do actually have to start using some EVs even if the energy source is only about 10% renewables. You have to phase in EV's gradually. Otherwise we would have a situation where we get say 30 years down the road and the grid is say 75% renewables, then we have to start building EVs and everyone driving them which would probably be another 30 years because scaling them up is inevitably a slow process. By then the climate is totally cooked.
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Evan at 03:00 AM on 24 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
OPOF@15 Good questions.
"Is it OK that there are a significant number of people who lack basic needs like: adequate nutrition and clean water, basic health care and education, adequate shelter? Global GDP has grown far faster than global population so how is that still happening?"
IMO these groups should be allowed to continue to use fossil fuels longer than those of us who can afford to transition sooner. I believe this is the concept of "equity" included in the Paris Agreement.
"Why do people who obtain the ability to provide for all of their basic needs become desperate to pursue More? And why do they pursue More without serious concern for the harm done by their pursuits of More? Every person consuming more than their basic needs reduces 'space and resourse access' for Others who do not have the ability to meet their basic needs. And being harmful is only potentially excused if a poor person does something harmful in pursuit of basic needs."Why do cats chase, play with, and then kill mice when they have all the food they need in their food dish?
Why do tyrants invade and kill innocent people? If they have sufficient funds to wage war, presumably they have sufficient funds to properly run their country without waging war. I have no idea how we "retrain" people to play nice and to be fair.
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jan21405 at 00:46 AM on 24 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
@Eric (skeptic) #12:
“Two million children die each year from indoor air pollution. link to the study. That's because 2.5 billion people use indoor fires for cooking and heating. “
I found in the linked study (Fullerton, 2008):
One-third of the world’s population burn organic material such as wood, dung or charcoal (biomass fuel) for cooking, heating and lighting.
My note – no source and year defined for the: “1/3 of the world’s population burn organic material” claim.Then I found there:
“The amount of exposure in terms of the number of people, exposure intensity and time spent exposed is far greater in the developing world (Smith, 1993); approximately 76% of all global particulate matter air pollution occurs indoors in the developing world (Figure 1).”My note: The study is from 1993 (29y ago) and refer to the situation in 1990 or “the late 1980s” when the world population was about 5.327B(1990) … (source: UN Population). Developing countries based on HDI<0.9 (defined by the author of the study) … can’t find the exact number.
But the mentioned “ Indoor air pollution from biomass combustion in LDCs” (Smith, 1993) – are based on mixed country samples (developing countries) and different years of the data captured within the years 1968-1993. To be sure diff years for diff countries in the sample list. Then the study gets a heavy range of the Typical pollution level (fLg/m3) from 90 up to 21,000.
There is also mentioned another source for the:
“BMF refers to burned plant or animal material; wood, charcoal, dung and crop residues account for more than one-half of domestic energy in most developing countries and for as much as 95% in lower income countries (Smith et al., 2004).”
My note:
- Study source from 2004 is about different years and different country samples and different kinds of methods of obtaining data (local energy statistics, local census, International Energy Agency, local survey, statistical UN, statistical WRI, FAO, …)
- The study from 2004 uses the list of different sources for “Parameters in the fuel use prediction model”: UN, World Bank, Author calculation, from different years: 1993-2001 for every single parameter.My conclusion:
I certainly would not recommend using these data in research outputs, as climate deniers would literally tear you apart by comparing pollution from 1964 and today through research published in 1993. Or by the “strange” defined data for the modelling in 2004.
It could be used as a comparison sample for research done today. That would make sense for me.To be completely clear. The importance of examining the impact of using Biomass fuels is essential. But it is much more important to use data that will not ruin the whole effort.
@Eric (skeptic):
“What do we do about that since that is the cause of the acceleration? We look at China's R&D as I pointed out in my opening comment, with the largest investment in solar hydrocarbon fuel research in the world. The benefits will be carbon neutral heat and cooking on demand. Fossil electricity is available today so they are doing that today. They will ramp up renewables as your fig 4 shows. The past lag is due to high price and the current lag is due to lack of emergy storage.”My note:
Solar Hydrocarbon fuel is really great idea. No doubt. -
jan21405 at 22:23 PM on 23 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
@Evan
thank you.
Here is one of my first complex documents:
GHG [CO2] emissions problem in a dark box - 1st part of the Global warming series
Enjoy!
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Evan at 21:54 PM on 23 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
jan, I like your approach. I write, and my co-author, jg, illustrates. I agree with the need for visual communication, and that's why I like collaborating with an illustrator: he brings the message to life as do you with your visualizations.
My writing may, in fact, be how I practice to dialogue verbally with others. Effective communication needs both text and illustrations, in the proper balance. And getting that balance correct is the trick.
And I like John's technique of wrapping the message in a tale of local history. That brings the message home and personalizes it.
I hope you will continue to participate in SkS jan and to add your comments.
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jan21405 at 21:39 PM on 23 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
@Evan #24
as a data scientist, I'm on the same page.
I need to maintain a scientific approach to my hypotheses. That's why I make documents that follow this form 9testing, confirmation/rejection, references, ...).
Subsequently, I make educational documents based on scientific methods, but I use data visualization (more than text doc) because people understand images better than text. This section is dedicated to popularization for scientists at a broader range than the Climate area.
Subsequently, I started with documents for 80% of the population (Pareto). Then, thanks to what fed me, I understood that this auditorium needed a light information diet. Otherwise, they will refuse all because it will be difficult for them.
Got your point regarding the "imperfect world". I do it for my children and their successors lest they shouldn't be ashamed of what we left them.
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Evan at 21:21 PM on 23 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
jan, I started writing analogies for the very purpose you describe: to reach the masses. I work in the sciences and generally communicate like an engineer. But I understand the need to which you're referring to speak to lay people on a different level. And some times this gets me in trouble with climate scientists because I will sacrifice scientific rigor to improve clarity and understanding.
One of the problems we face is the mental, digital switch: all or nothing. If people lose hope, they say, "What's the point in trying." Yet life is often lived in a gray, imperfect zone, and we extract meaning from daily struggles with the results of less-than-perfect decisions. Whatever happens in the future with our imperfect political systems, life will go on, and the better people understand what is happening and why, the better they will be able to navigate life's bumpy roads.
SkS is a great forum for discussing climate-science communication strategies.
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jan21405 at 20:49 PM on 23 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
@John Mason #21
great job John, I will read it.
We are in the same way. Now let's prepare a common understanding for the masses - a story - which will be easily digestible for them to understand.
