RobinBHM
Established Member
Im just happy if I can remember what I was doing last week
Cop 29
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Terry - Somerset
Established Member
I agree with the conclusion - but what replaces it.
For a realistic chance of success, climate change action needs a common agreed strategy of the 8 or 10 largest emitters. Given the disparity in economic circumstances between (say) US, China and India this seems unlikely to be quickly resolved. Years of argument seems probable.
An alternative is for a dominant power to force action through economic or military means. The only two which have the capability are US and China.
Trump will take no such initiative - what future US presidents do is speculation. China may if it sees it as a way to enhance global reach - but likely to be derailed by the US.
Forcing the issue by (say) unilateral destruction of oil and gas facilities to make net zero inevitable could initiate WW3.
Personal opinion - we will continue to do too little too late. The "wake up call" will happen when sea level rise and severe weather causes destruction on a major scale.
Recent floods in Spain just don't count. When London, New York, Calcutta, Shanghai etc are swamped leaving [possibly) millions under water, and mass destruction of infrastructure and heritage, action will be forthcoming.
This will be too late. I suspect sentiment will turn against the mass migration which will follow - not nice but probably realistic. If New York is under water, the US will turn its back on millions suffering from Bangladesh, Lagos etc to help its own.
All somewhat depressing - it would be nice o be proven wrong over the coming decades. But if I were advising my kids and grandchildren - don't buy a house near the coast or at low level. The further you are from the immediate impacts, the less troubled you are likely to be.
I know this runs counter to the well intentioned "it is all one planet" and we should support those less fortunate. It is more a reflection of fundamental human behaviours where loyalty and support diminish with distance.
woodieallen
Established Member
You don't need to press any buttons. You're missing the point. Again.
No gas fired generators + No wind + Limited nuclear + No sun (here's a hint for you, the sun doesn't shine during the night) = No electricity.
Simple enough ?
RobinBHM
Established Member
Intermittency of renewables is a challenge but it’s not unsolvable.
Energy storage is the main solution and whilst that’s growing we have energy mix.
The current energy mix is not that secure, our gas storage is limited to a few %, most of our storage is held in Germany, if our pipework connections were damaged we would be in trouble
https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinio...ittency-of-renewable-energy-in-power-markets/
The sun won’t shine for ever.
When serious people, intent on saving the human race, get us beyond the great filter (if possible at all), those people will have pictures of space x on the wall.
Not a bunch of left wing malcontents.
It’s as if progression to these people is linear and not exponential.
John Brown
Freeloading Social media influenza
Eh? Are you trying to sound clever or something? Please don't confuse us with your fancy words! We're just stupid Britishers!
I’m British too!
It means that human growth/evolution (to some extent) does not follow a continuous curve.
Nothing happens then everything happens.
You build a rocket. It takes 100,000 years.
In 1 year you build 100 rockets.
It might take 100,000 years to build a solar sail, or it might happen in 100 years after building the first rocket.
The great filter is a theory regarding the discrepancy between life colonising the galaxy and the lack of evidence another life already has.
It’s kinda depressing because it’s likely true but whatever.
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John Brown
Freeloading Social media influenza
Great. Your explanation is neither linear nor exponential.
Too simple. You focus on the things that are simple to understand, but are not the end all: sun don't shine, wind don't blow, then we got nothing. It's far more complex than that, involving wider international networks, needing considerably better transmission, better storage (and yes, absolutely, storage alone is not going to do it), more nuclear for baseline load, yadda yadda. And no matter how challenging it is, we'd better learn how to deal with it, if energy generation is something we want to sort out. The biggest challenge is not even generation, it's transmission.
If you think just grunting about solar panels not working at night is the be all and end all, you're not even listening to politicians, let alone actual engineers and more visionary people concerned with it. Nobody says it's going to be easy.
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M8, I follow every Starship launch like a spectator sport and watch developments at Starbase every week. I think Mars is pointless nonsense but O'Neill cylinders are probably great a idea for some far flung future. We're not raising orbital elevators (or some other design more feasible) or any other very low power orbital transition thing until we have a decent fleet of (likely) chemical rocket launch bodies that deal with the tyranny of the rocket equation efficiently. All of this is true.
But if you think SpaceX is going to save us all, if you think we're about to move power generation and harmful industry to orbit or the Moon before we're all fooking toast, on the whim of some hubristic billionaire idiot, you're dreaming. Yes, it's all got to start somewhere, and I'm all for it, I'm all for spending some capital and some carbon budget on making this stuff go, more and better. But if I thought Elon Musk was any more than a twatty little rich boy with stars in his eyes and, these days, a nasty little urge to see how far he can f**k people about, while they beg him to do it, I'd get down on my knees for him right now and get begging myself.
But he's not. He's just a bell end. Off-Earth stuff, post-scarcity society through unlimited resource provided by the expanded Solar system blah blah blah is the realm of dreamers, for now. We need the realists more than the dreamers right this minute.
selectortone
Still waking up not dead in the morning
An emerging consumer of large amounts of electricity is AI. Vast sums are being invested in AI data centres that will require huge amounts of energy. In the news this week, China is well on the way to creating fully ambulatory, sentient androids. Soon we'll have factories full of robots building more robots. This may all end in tears. And not for the robots.
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RobinBHM
Established Member
The sun will e become a red giant and engulf the earth in 5 billion years.
It’s not hard to work out that man made climate change is more pressing.
Elon Musk is a right wing provocateur whose motivation is is publicity and self interest.
I am sorry you are so naive
What a silly comment, how embarrassing for you.
It’ll be fun watching Trump supporters like you twist yourselves inside out as the nonsense plays out.
I’m off to stock up on popcorn
Sorry I couldn’t understand what you were saying
“Musk, twaty, rich, boy, bell end”
Sounds like something a child would say.
I’m not a Trump supporter.
I just happen to think that out of the two options, left wing liberal narcissism is far more damaging (potentially) and less honest, than Trumps narcissism.
If a liberal told me the sky was blue, I’d double check and be called a racist for having the temerity to do so.
Trump would probably laugh and say “gotchya”!
Bwahahaha
. Says the bloke who brought a "Great Filter" video to a discussion about billionaires affecting politics. I think my comments were a bit easier to understand than what ever it is you're trying to dribble out. Terry - Somerset
Established Member
Energy security is all about managing risk - it matters not whether it is green, nuclear or fossil fuel based. The risks associated with transmission, and demand variability are similar irrespective of the energy source.
We have decades of knowledge and experience about fossil fuels. We mostly understand the risks - oil and gas storage volumes, supply disruption caused by international events, generator failures and spare capacity in the system.
The incidence of power cuts of more than a few minutes is rare so we have probably got it about right generally, although price has been materially impacted by international events. Longer term outages through (say) terrorist action impacting pipelines and key infrastructure are an unknown.
The risks associated with nuclear are quite different - a few sites individually supplying a large amount of power. Failure of any one could leave the network short of generating capacity. The risk of catastrophic failure and nuclear release exists - possibly low probability but high impact.
Green technology risks are mainly associated with weather, sun and storage. There is considerable scope for improving the understanding of how energy supply may be affected by variability, but fundamentally the challenges are the same as for other technologies - managing risk.
The decision is not an immediate "which one should be backed to the exclusion of the rest". The mindset which says "we can't" is completely misplaced.
For the next 20-30 years there will be three different technologies - gas, nuclear and green. This provides an extended opportunity for improvements to technologies and fully understanding potential risks and responses (load shedding, back up gas generation, imports etc)
A personal view - a nuclear base load capability together with green sources which require improved storage facilities. As gas generation will remain part of the mix for the next 10-20 years the transition to green is materially de-risked.
We have decades of knowledge and experience about fossil fuels. We mostly understand the risks - oil and gas storage volumes, supply disruption caused by international events, generator failures and spare capacity in the system.
The incidence of power cuts of more than a few minutes is rare so we have probably got it about right generally, although price has been materially impacted by international events. Longer term outages through (say) terrorist action impacting pipelines and key infrastructure are an unknown.
The risks associated with nuclear are quite different - a few sites individually supplying a large amount of power. Failure of any one could leave the network short of generating capacity. The risk of catastrophic failure and nuclear release exists - possibly low probability but high impact.
Green technology risks are mainly associated with weather, sun and storage. There is considerable scope for improving the understanding of how energy supply may be affected by variability, but fundamentally the challenges are the same as for other technologies - managing risk.
The decision is not an immediate "which one should be backed to the exclusion of the rest". The mindset which says "we can't" is completely misplaced.
For the next 20-30 years there will be three different technologies - gas, nuclear and green. This provides an extended opportunity for improvements to technologies and fully understanding potential risks and responses (load shedding, back up gas generation, imports etc)
A personal view - a nuclear base load capability together with green sources which require improved storage facilities. As gas generation will remain part of the mix for the next 10-20 years the transition to green is materially de-risked.
woodieallen
Established Member
Thank you for the lecture although it's rather patronising .
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There's this small modular nuclear thing going on at the moment, but I'm not very knowledgeable about it and the t'internet reporting I get on it is varied between next best thing vs still costly with projects so far that aren't getting off the the ground properly. Dunno, maybe just hypey nonsense.
Yup, this. In my half baked view anyway.
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