Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

GreatApe

pile-o-stone wrote: »

I first heard something like this back in 1984 when I was told I was wasting my time learning to program because coding will be done in the background by computers, guided by the flowcharts selected in the foreground by analysts.

I ignored that advice and learned to program in various languages and I have had a 27 year career in IT where we still develop code line by line. The tools are better but the basic premise is the same.

On my computer science degree I did an Artificial Intelligence module and they had the same statement as we always hear from the developers of fusion reactors - the technology is only 10 years away. Again, 27 years later and we still are just 10 years away.

Well if I were around in 1984 I would have pointed out the fundamental limits of why such a prediction in 1984 was wrong. in 1984 a computer was no where near a human in sensory input or output let alone the processing power to make sense of that input

But now computers have reached a level when they can input and output at human limits and beyond. Your eyes take in a huge amount of data much more than a 1984 computer but less than a 2019 computer.

Digital cameras exceed human eyes now
Video output at 4k is more pixels than your eye has cone cells

Computers are still not human level at visual processing but they seem to be getting close. At least the sensors are already here. Your £100 smartphone now has a sensor kit which exceeds in many ways you own biological sensors.

Also I would argue that the internet as a whole is already very very close to an 'AI'
If I have a difficult question who do I ask for an answer? Not the local university professor but google. And 99.99% of the time I get a good useful answer back.

At what point does a huge bank of stored data become an AI?
Sure it cant invent new things but most humans never invent new things in their life but we still call and class them as Biological intelligence

The main thing to accept is that we are just a bunch of atoms with the emergent property of intelligence a property which is clearly not unique by the fact that we have 7 billion human brains all wired up differently and all intelligent

If you think the task is 1000 x harder than I think just up your time frame by 20 years.
If you think the task is 1 million x harder than I think just up your time frame by 40 years.
If you think the task is 1 thousand trillion times harder than I think just up your time frame by 100 years.

I think its very unlikely we will not get artificial intelligence this century
Good or bad its happening in my lifetime and if I had to bet I would put it before 2060 rather than after 2060 so 40 years or less

zeupater

Martyn1981 wrote: »

... But, BECCS is a negative carbon solution, so, perhaps, whilst not being charged a carbon price (as emissions from bio-mass are net zero), they might also get a carbon subsidy for storing carbon too, giving them a double economic boost in competing with FF's, and a single boost in competing against RE ...

Hi

All that someone needs to do to get their head around the issues regarding scaleability is look at what negative carbon really looks like on a global basis ....

If global CO2 emissions are correct at around 37 billion tonnes and the goal is not only to maintain net-zero emissions but actively reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations we're realistically looking at processing 50 billion tonnes per year in order to roll back CO2 by around 3 years per decade of time passage, resulting in around 14billion tonnes ((12/44)*50billion) of pure recoverable carbon, so around 7billion cubic metres in solid form, which would form a cube of around 2x2x2km each year ... another way of looking at it is in mountain terms it's approximately the equivalent of around 4 Mount Everest sized piles of solid carbon ... per year, for a number of decades! ... so it just comes down to cost of scaling up capture from the current capital investment of £1000 to remove 1tonne/year to a commercial basis and what to do with all of that carbon .... anyone got up to £14trillion to spend each decade-or-so in spare change at current prices? ....

It all sounds fine in principle, but it's a far bigger issue than the simple geological sequestration in depleted underground mines and oil/gas fields that's being sold as the solution to both governments and the general public at the moment, yes it obviously works for a while, but when the majority of the suitable & easily accessible carbon 'dumps' are full, what happens? .... as mentioned, the issue is one of scalability!

HTH
Z

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Yes, you are right, but BECCS has a potential joker to play.

The world is slowly waking up to carbon pricing. The UK says it will freeze our tax at about £18/tonne, and possibly lower it a bit, if the EU tax keeps going up.

But, BECCS is a negative carbon solution, so, perhaps, whilst not being charged a carbon price (as emissions from bio-mass are net zero), they might also get a carbon subsidy for storing carbon too, giving them a double economic boost in competing with FF's, and a single boost in competing against RE.

No idea if that would make them viable, possibly not given the falling costs of RE generation, but v's RE + storage (as bio-mass can demand follow a bit, and is predictable/dependable) and with a carbon subsidy too, perhaps?

Plus, long term, to avoid runaway climate change and meet the +1.5C target, we need to deploy CCS as the plans currently are for a plus 2C rise, with the goal of avoiding that and only hitting +1.5C by 2100 based on carbon capture being rolled out from 2050 onwards - when we assume we can invent something to do this, and hopefully do it economically.

So many things have to go right it scares me, but it's also fun to watch the technological arms race.

you can already cool the planet its not difficult to do but we dont do it because no one actually wants to take the huge risk of cooling the planet

The whole debate is so anti scientific it relies on the premise that what we have by chance is perfect any movement in either direction is hell in a hand basket which is almost certainly wrong.

There is also no right answer
A planet better for who or what?
Every climate disaster, every volcano that destroyed thousands of species, every asteroid impact that killed half the planet, every negative you can imagine and not imagine is actually a positive for life that exists today not only is it a positive but it was all a NECESSITY. What this shows is there is no positive or negative there is only change

So if you cant even conclude if a huge asteroid impact was a negative or positive how can you claim a small minute change in global temperatures is a positive or negative

anyway we will transcend all this in the near future.
Humanity will become gods and we will need to decide what we want to do with earth
No more will chance and nature dictate the direction of the sons of DNA
We will geo engineer the planet to what we think is best for what we think is best for what we think is best for.....until we probably decide to digitize everything and have trillions upon trillions of universes within universes within universes

GreatApe

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

All that someone needs to do to get their head around the issues regarding scaleability is look at what negative carbon really looks like on a global basis ....

If global CO2 emissions are correct at around 37 billion tonnes and the goal is not only to maintain net-zero emissions but actively reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations we're realistically looking at processing 50 billion tonnes per year in order to roll back CO2 by around 3 years per decade of time passage, resulting in around 14billion tonnes ((12/44)*50billion) of pure recoverable carbon, so around 7billion cubic metres in solid form, which would form a cube of around 2x2x2km each year ... another way of looking at it is in mountain terms it's approximately the equivalent of around 4 Mount Everest sized piles of solid carbon ... per year, for a number of decades! ... so it just comes down to cost of scaling up capture from the current capital investment of £1000 to remove 1tonne/year to a commercial basis and what to do with all of that carbon .... anyone got up to £14trillion to spend each decade-or-so in spare change at current prices? ....

It all sounds fine in principle, but it's a far bigger issue than the simple geological sequestration in depleted underground mines and oil/gas fields that's being sold as the solution to both governments and the general public at the moment, yes it obviously works for a while, but when the majority of the suitable & easily accessible carbon 'dumps' are full, what happens? .... as mentioned, the issue is one of scalability!

HTH
Z

only a fraction of the CO2 from burning fossil fuels seems to be entering the atmosphere the rest is absorbed by the oceans and soil and whatever else. I dont recall the fraction but lets say half for arguments sake

What this means is if you cut CO2 burning by half the atmospheric CO2 should be stable

If you cut it down to zero the atmospheric CO2 should fall by half the rate it is currently increasing by

So no CCS needed just reduce CO2 into the air and it seems nature will rapidly take care of the rest

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

All that someone needs to do to get their head around the issues regarding scaleability is look at what negative carbon really looks like on a global basis ....

HTH
Z

That's probably why the can has been kicked down the road to a hoped for solution/technology by 2050 (that's a roll out starting in 2050, not a fix by 2050).

If we all cross our fingers, or click our heels together three times, we might just pull this off! :think:

GreatApe

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

All that someone needs to do to get their head around the issues regarding scaleability is look at what negative carbon really looks like on a global basis ....

If global CO2 emissions are correct at around 37 billion tonnes and the goal is not only to maintain net-zero emissions but actively reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations we're realistically looking at processing 50 billion tonnes per year in order to roll back CO2 by around 3 years per decade of time passage, resulting in around 14billion tonnes ((12/44)*50billion) of pure recoverable carbon, so around 7billion cubic metres in solid form, which would form a cube of around 2x2x2km each year ... another way of looking at it is in mountain terms it's approximately the equivalent of around 4 Mount Everest sized piles of solid carbon ... per year, for a number of decades! ... so it just comes down to cost of scaling up capture from the current capital investment of £1000 to remove 1tonne/year to a commercial basis and what to do with all of that carbon .... anyone got up to £14trillion to spend each decade-or-so in spare change at current prices? ....

It all sounds fine in principle, but it's a far bigger issue than the simple geological sequestration in depleted underground mines and oil/gas fields that's being sold as the solution to both governments and the general public at the moment, yes it obviously works for a while, but when the majority of the suitable & easily accessible carbon 'dumps' are full, what happens? .... as mentioned, the issue is one of scalability!

HTH
Z

You dont need to scale anything the equilibrium forcing function is already such that carbon is removed from the atmosphere naturally in large quantities. Something like 15-20 gigatons net per year is removed from the atmosphere naturally (not counting the FF CO2 we add)

So in theory if you reduce fossil use to half of today then CO2 in the air should stop going up.
If you reduce FF use by 99% then CO2 in the air should go down by ~15-20 giga tons in the first year and keep doing that over time (with the rate slowing down as the concentration in the atmosphere falls naturally)

Martyn1981

An article on the cost (additional cost) of building net-zero homes in California.

California Leads In Net-Zero Homes As Costs Drop

Half a dozen California cities are hosting enough net-zero homes to place the state in first place nationally among other states like Arizona where the net-zero trend is catching on rapidly, both among legislators and among leading homebuilders. This trend is expected to accelerate markedly over the coming decade, as the cost of adding net-zero features, including solar, drops by 50%.

Although the premium cost of making a new home net-zero is currently between 7% and 8%, the cost is expected to drop in half by 2030, according to a 2019 study by the Rocky Mountain Institute. Unfortunately, consumer surveys show that most potential buyers only want to spend about a 4% premium for the purchase of a net-zero home, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Martyn1981

Martyn1981 wrote: »

So ..... Aussie central government politics and policies are not exactly RE friendly (they do like a nice lump of coal) but state politics and individuals are pro-RE, and especially pro-money (saving it).

So, kinda ironic, but also incredibly good news, is that Aus is smashing it when it comes to leccy generation/RE.

Speaking of irony, and the difference between Aus progress and Aus central government policies, how about this for irony:

Emissions reduction fund could be used to upgrade 40-year-old coal-fired power plant

The emissions reduction fund, which is at the heart of the Morrison government’s climate change policy, could be used to help pay for an upgrade at a 40-year-old coal-fired power plant after its owners successfully applied to register under the scheme.

In a step that underscores the political divide over emissions policy, Vales Point power station in New South Wales was registered in August for a proposal to improve some of its turbines. It is the first stage in it being allowed to bid against land owners and other businesses for climate funding.

Martyn1981

Promising news from BP -

Renewable energy sources will be the world’s main source of power within two decades and are establishing a foothold in the global energy system faster than any fuel in history, according to BP.

The UK-based oil company said wind, solar and other renewables will account for about 30% of the world’s electricity supplies by 2040, up from 25% in BP’s 2040 estimates last year, and about 10% today.

Renewable energy will be world's main power source by 2040, says BP

But I can't help thinking that they are still lowballing here, as costs/prices for RE and storage (battery and large scale longer term storage) are still falling and deployments are speeding up. I'd expect more of a rising curve deployment, than a steady roll out now.

NigeWick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

cost) of building net-zero homes

I seem to recall a university in Wales was building net zero homes at the same cost as "normal" ones.