Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

There is a mindset that although climate change exists 'I will be dead before it has a material impact on developed countries and so I will not sacrifice any of my current income or wealth to address the issue' that I can not even begin to understand.

The only possible explanation might be if you believe the problem is intractable and the disaster certain?

You could think the future is going to be vastly more productive than the present so why spend 100 units of human capital today when 1 unit will do in fifty years time instead spend the 99 human units of capital to improve worldwide health and save more people from misery and hardship until the extreme productivity of the future arrives

zeupater

Hi

... and then there's the old adage "A stitch in time ..." .... :whistle:

Martyn1981

michaels wrote: »

There is a mindset that although climate change exists 'I will be dead before it has a material impact on developed countries and so I will not sacrifice any of my current income or wealth to address the issue' that I can not even begin to understand.

The only possible explanation might be if you believe the problem is intractable and the disaster certain?

It's already impacting a lot of people, and interestingly, a lot in the US. Might seem kinda mean focusing on US citizens, and this isn't meant as mocking nor Schadenfreude, but could be very important in changing the mindset of some who deny AGW, when they see it start to impact them.

Florida is already struggling from rising sea levels, and Miami could be hit badly (economically) in the very near future, then there's Nebraska this week - Their land is still frozen following the polar vortex, an effect that was predicted as a warmer Arctic pushes cold air south (but Trump commented on it as where's the global warming gone, can we have some back), now they are getting ice melts into rivers, plus higher than normal rainfall (again predicted) that's washing straight off the frozen land (can't absorb water) and seeing horrendous flooding. Every part of which was predicted.

It's sad that people have to suffer financial losses and economic hardship before they believe what the scientists have been saying for decades, but perhaps that's the kick up the butt that's needed, so quite timely.

The proposed New Green Deal in the US, would help massively, but it involves taxing those on $1m+ a higher rate, and enormous spending on going low carbon, and energy efficiency. In the US, such proposals are seen as 'socialist', which sadly turns into communism and screams of 'like Venezuela' rather than a more common sense understanding of the word, and light socialist policies such as most of Europe operates.

In the US, they tend to encourage profit making from capitalism, which tends to go to a small number of people/corporations, but are now having to spend lots of public money on disaster relief, and aid for struggling farmers and communities.

This is often described as 'privatising the profits, and socialising the costs', which is a pretty bad method of running a 'fair' economy.

But watch out for those American 'kids' they are becoming angry and politicized, and every year about 4m more get to vote.

GreatApe

~7.7 trillion / ~21 trillion

The USA government (federal state and local) spending is about 37% of the economy

Most EU nations are higher but a big part of the reason is a lot of EU nations both tax and give benefits to the very same households or have 'nationalized' industries like electricity with EDF mostly owned by the state. If the USA nationalized its electricity sector it would up the share of government in the economy but life for people would not change at all as a result

The average persons life is not that much better or worse but the yanks definitely can afford more !!!! thanks to their economic model producing more goods and services

Martyn1981

Interesting article,

Fracking plan ‘will release same C02 as 300m new cars’

but to avoid any confusion or disagreements, I suspect the figure of 300m cars is based on burning FF gas, not the fracking process. So, to be fair, this places in context how much FF gas we will most likely burn regardless of source, and lets us know what we are up against and the steps we need to take.

In fairness to Labour (just from reading the article) they seem to be suggesting a renewable alternative to the FF consumption (I think), since banning fracking doesn't in itself remove the FF/CO2 problem, it just shifts it elsewhere (Norwegian gas, LNG etc).

Just to be clear, I have no idea if Labour's plans, and their 'green industrial revolution' are viable. I would like fracking to be banned but off the back of us removing the need for the FF gas.

1961Nick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Interesting article,

Fracking plan ‘will release same C02 as 300m new cars’

but to avoid any confusion or disagreements, I suspect the figure of 300m cars is based on burning FF gas, not the fracking process. So, to be fair, this places in context how much FF gas we will most likely burn regardless of source, and lets us know what we are up against and the steps we need to take.

In fairness to Labour (just from reading the article) they seem to be suggesting a renewable alternative to the FF consumption (I think), since banning fracking doesn't in itself remove the FF/CO2 problem, it just shifts it elsewhere (Norwegian gas, LNG etc).

Just to be clear, I have no idea if Labour's plans, and their 'green industrial revolution' are viable. I would like fracking to be banned but off the back of us removing the need for the FF gas.

I wonder how these tiny seismic events that need ultra sensitive equipment to detect compare to the subsidence damage done by deep mined coal extraction?

The use of CO2 in the headline is poor journalism. If 10% of our gas consumption came from fracking it could replace all the gas we import by tankers & actually reduce CO2......I can't be bothered converting that to "cars".:D

Martyn1981

1961Nick wrote: »

I wonder how these tiny seismic events that need ultra sensitive equipment to detect compare to the subsidence damage done by deep mined coal extraction?

I've been wondering the same, I've no idea if the seismic issues matter or not, or are serious or not.

What I do find interesting though is that the industry agreed to those seismic limits, but every time they try to frack they exceed them immediately, so now they want the limits raised.

Maybe, just maybe, this government is getting serious about FF gas consumption going forward, so the issue of 'to frack or not to frack' might become mute.

1961Nick wrote: »

The use of CO2 in the headline is poor journalism. If 10% of our gas consumption came from fracking it could replace all the gas we import by tankers & actually reduce CO2......I can't be bothered converting that to "cars".:D

My thoughts too on the CO2 journalism. But if 10% of our gas consumption could be removed (or replaced with bio-gas), then even better CO2 reductions.

michaels

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I've been wondering the same, I've no idea if the seismic issues matter or not, or are serious or not.

What I do find interesting though is that the industry agreed to those seismic limits, but every time they try to frack they exceed them immediately, so now they want the limits raised.

Maybe, just maybe, this government is getting serious about FF gas consumption going forward, so the issue of 'to frack or not to frack' might become mute.




My thoughts too on the CO2 journalism. But if 10% of our gas consumption could be removed (or replaced with bio-gas), then even better CO2 reductions.

Surely it is not an either or?

What are the environmental impacts of the gas we import? I suspect our standards are probably at least as good (and probably in many cases much better) so again domestically produced gas may be better for the environment that foreign gas. I think we are agreed that volumes will be too low to impact the global market price so it will not impact the economics of gas vs renewables.

Martyn1981

michaels wrote: »

Surely it is not an either or?

What are the environmental impacts of the gas we import?

Conventional gas imports, the majority, mostly from Norway is lower CO2 than frack gas, but LNG is higher CO2 than frack gas as it may itself be frackgas, and also consumes a lot of energy being turned into a liquid.

As Nick points out, about 10% of our gas is LNG. We don't have a huge amount of gas storage, so LNG tends to come in when consumption is high and prices rise to meet its higher cost. Greater storage might help to remove the LNG element, or at least reduce it.

In an ideal world we'd remove that top 10%, be it LNG or frackgas, then get on with removing more of the conventional FF gas, as that has far too high CO2 emissions for us to meet medium/long term aims, so it has to go regardless. But in the short term has worked well for us as all gas is better than coal.

So the UK is doing well on leccy emissions, poorly on transport, but that door is opening up nicely now to electrification, and then the tough one - space heating, but as per recent posts, attention is now turning to that too.

GreatApe

More shale resulting in more consumption is mostly wrong or certainly not the primary factor

Co2 per Capita over the decade 2007-2017 from BP energy stats

Germany -6%
USA -20%

USA per capita over the 2007-2017 decade
CO2 -20%
Coal -45%
Oil -10%
NG +10%

If the EU had just 1/2th of the Shale output of the USA it would be enough to displace all gas imports and have plenty left over to have a large rapid switch from coal to NG

The $150 billion more economic activity and the 3 million additional jobs as a result would also mean a richer EU more able to afford to be more green

Shale would be a big net positive for the EU lets hope some EU nations are able to grow shale over the next decade.