Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Nope, it's a fact. The CO2 intensity of FF methane is too high for us to meet the Paris Accord targets, so it has to go too.

That's just an accord which can and probably will be dumped if heating can't be electrified at a reasonable cost

A bit like how the Germans will likely miss their 2020 targets (which they could hit by his rising natural gas rather than coal but they won't because just like you personally don't want your quality of life to suffer from buying a costly EV the Germans don't want their quality of life by switching to more expensive natural gas)

Martyn1981

GreatApe wrote: »

To add I didn't say the UK should transition to a gas only infrastructure

I said if the UK was purely gas powered and with BEVs that this would be quite a very low FF future primarily because it is maxing thermal efficiency

To add, as the UK Grid is now approx 50% low carbon and 50% gas, a transition to 100% gas (even in the short term) would effectively equate to a doubling of the Grid's carbon intensity.

So the idea is not only a nonsense in the medium to long term, but also now one in the short term.

In fact the only beneficiaries of such a crazy idea that I can think of would be the FF industries.

....... oh and that small group of science deniers who are anti-RE and anti-AGW.

ed110220

International agreements to limit warming to 1.5 or even 2C above the preindustrial assume not just carbon neutrality but actively removing carbon from the atmosphere (net carbon negative emissions) later this century. Using technologies that either have yet to be invented or are of unknown practicality. Almost as reckless an assumption ad our simian friend's assumption Ai will be the panacea that saves us.

If Ai really becomes a reality it's just as plausible that it will be of little to no use or could be actively dystopian. I mean some naively predicted that technology such as computers would mean we'd have to work much shorter hours... Ai could just as easily be used to extract more coal or make the deforestation of Amazonia more efficient. Or it.may decide humanity is the problem.

Amazing that we see such faith in something for which is there is so little evidence and such "skepticism" in a science that has accumulated mountains of evidence!

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

To add, as the UK Grid is now approx 50% low carbon and 50% gas, a transition to 100% gas (even in the short term) would effectively equate to a doubling of the Grid's carbon intensity.

So the idea is not only a nonsense in the medium to long term, but also now one in the short term.

In fact the only beneficiaries of such a crazy idea that I can think of would be the FF industries.

....... oh and that small group of science deniers who are anti-RE and anti-AGW.

It's more an acknowledgement of how far a nation can go with a gas heavy infrastructure coupled with BEVs

The UK grid is very soon (within 5 years) very low FF thanks in large part to domestic and foreign nuclear which will make up the largest part of our electricity needs (probably around 30%) with another 60% a mix of onshore wind offshore wind hydropower and solar

The UK will be fine since the grid is already solved and BEVs will come along and can be powered by this clean grid.

Heating however will have to stay as natural gas there is currently no affordable national scale alternative
Until the AI arrives :beer:

GreatApe

ed110220 wrote: »

International agreements to limit warming to 1.5 or even 2C above the preindustrial assume not just carbon neutrality but actively removing carbon from the atmosphere (net carbon negative emissions) later this century. Using technologies that either have yet to be invented or are of unknown practicality. Almost as reckless an assumption ad our simian friend's assumption Ai will be the panacea that saves us.

If Ai really becomes a reality it's just as plausible that it will be of little to no use or could be actively dystopian. I mean some naively predicted that technology such as computers would mean we'd have to work much shorter hours... Ai could just as easily be used to extract more coal or make the deforestation of Amazonia more efficient. Or it.may decide humanity is the problem.

Amazing that we see such faith in something for which is there is so little evidence and such "skepticism" in a science that has accumulated mountains of evidence!

Who are you to object to the scientific consensus which is that AI will happen???
Are you an AI denier?

Just look at the green hero Elon musk he thinks it's a certainty and close
And he says within days it will exceed the sum knowledge of all of humanity
And I think he is correct

So yes either this AI gets rid of us or it solves everything
Either way that means fossil fuel worries are a trivial side show

In reality AI is the threat, I wish I could jump up and down like mart does with fossil fuels to try and spread the message. We will only get one chance at this if we get it right humanity evolves into something new we probably won't even be biology anymore. If we get it wrong (and sadly I think that is more likely) then it's the end of us and the dawn of the machines. Lets hope this AI is more deserving of life than homosapiens

But I'm sure you are an AI denier even though the scientific consensus is it's coming...soon

GreatApe

ed110220 wrote: »

International agreements to limit warming to 1.5 or even 2C above the preindustrial assume not just carbon neutrality but actively removing carbon from the atmosphere (net carbon negative emissions) later this century. Using technologies that either have yet to be invented or are of unknown practicality. Almost as reckless an assumption ad our simian friend's assumption Ai will be the panacea that saves us.

If Ai really becomes a reality it's just as plausible that it will be of little to no use or could be actively dystopian. I mean some naively predicted that technology such as computers would mean we'd have to work much shorter hours... Ai could just as easily be used to extract more coal or make the deforestation of Amazonia more efficient. Or it.may decide humanity is the problem.

Amazing that we see such faith in something for which is there is so little evidence and such "skepticism" in a science that has accumulated mountains of evidence!

Also if it is a matter of the earth's temperature then we would just engineer world temperature control

Reflecting more sunlight out to space wouldn't be a task outside of humanity ability

This is one of the things I don't like about the climate change movement which as far as I am concerned is a last ditch attempt by the far lefties to get into power to try and destroy free market capatilism

If earth needs cooling we can cool the earth
This isn't a plea to keep using fossil fuels as I said in due course they mostly go away as wind or nuclear or PV or a combination of all of that becomes cheaper and as the world gets richer we just opt for more expensive stuff as acceptable

The truth seems to me to be that there is no consensus on an optimal temperature for earth
If we were already 100% non fossil fuels and the world's temp was going up to down (which it will) do you think there would be a consensus and effort to force temp at a particular point? I very much doubt it. What this means is nobody knows what the best temp is for earth the question itself is silly and pointless because the answer will depend on location and species.

Most likely we would have a very huge rage, making sure temp stays above a certain level to avoid ice ages and stays below another to avoid too much desertification and the time frames will be measured in centuries


All this discussion of course assumes AI never arrives
With AI all of this is pointless with AI we become gods or extinct
And since most scientists and engineers believe in AI and most think it's this century that more or less makes climate change problems irrelevant


Are you a global warming denier?
No..... Are you an AI denier?

Yes.....then you go against the majority of scientists
No.....then what the f does fossil fuels matter

1961Nick

GreatApe wrote: »

Also if it is a matter of the earth's temperature then we would just engineer world temperature control

Reflecting more sunlight out to space wouldn't be a task outside of humanity ability

This is one of the things I don't like about the climate change movement which as far as I am concerned is a last ditch attempt by the far lefties to get into power to try and destroy free market capatilism

If earth needs cooling we can cool the earth
This isn't a plea to keep using fossil fuels as I said in due course they mostly go away as wind or nuclear or PV or a combination of all of that becomes cheaper and as the world gets richer we just opt for more expensive stuff as acceptable

The truth seems to me to be that there is no consensus on an optimal temperature for earth
If we were already 100% non fossil fuels and the world's temp was going up to down (which it will) do you think there would be a consensus and effort to force temp at a particular point? I very much doubt it. What this means is nobody knows what the best temp is for earth the question itself is silly and pointless because the answer will depend on location and species.

Most likely we would have a very huge rage, making sure temp stays above a certain level to avoid ice ages and stays below another to avoid too much desertification and the time frames will be measured in centuries


All this discussion of course assumes AI never arrives
With AI all of this is pointless with AI we become gods or extinct
And since most scientists and engineers believe in AI and most think it's this century that more or less makes climate change problems irrelevant


Are you a global warming denier?
No..... Are you an AI denier?

Yes.....then you go against the majority of scientists
No.....then what the f does fossil fuels matter

Can you explain in practical terms exactly what AI will do to make the world a better place.

GreatApe

1961Nick wrote: »

Can you explain in practical terms exactly what AI will do to make the world a better place.

Nobody knows what will happen when AI arrives hence why it is often called the singularity

Everything from near instant extermination (or worse yet deliberate intentional continuous torture) on one end to utopia on the other end

I'm not sure what will happen to humans but I agree with ray kurzweil and many other scientists who assume this AI will just expand exponentially. That is to say it will bring alive all the matter on the planet then the solar system then the galaxy. Very rapidly. In effect an intelligence explosion.

This does sound ridiculous and far fetched but the majority of scientists believe in it including and especially Elon Musk


Personally I don't think humanity will last beyond this century, but I think what replaces us may well call itself 'human' But it will be as distant from us as we are from the single cell organisms we evolved from 3.5 billion years ago

markin

1961Nick wrote: »

Can you explain in practical terms exactly what AI will do to make the world a better place.

With an IQ of a billion it would make a 100% efficient solar cell.

GreatApe

1961Nick wrote: »

Can you explain in practical terms exactly what AI will do to make the world a better place.

Let's pretend we don't get human AI but instead have dumb AI say equivalent of a rat

This rat AI plus general computer language is sufficient to build autonomous controllable droids
If one droid could build one droid in a month, and then these two droids build two droids in a month and so on. In just three years the droids would outnumber humans 10 to 1 and in 4 years they outnumber humans 30,000:1

So what could you do with a robot army of 100 billion driods?
I'd suggest more or less anything you can imagine


The problem is we won't stop at rat level AI
As soon as it gets to dumb human level AI it will self improve exponentially until within days it exceeds the total knowledge of all of humanity....and it won't stop there. Human intelligence is limited by the size of a skull and about 30 watts of power. The brain for the AI can be the size of a mountain and run off nuclear reactors so the limitations of size and power are billions of times bigger

Some argue this won't happen for decades.....but what sort of argument.
An extinction level event (unlike claimitchange which is trivial nonsense) and the only defence is don't worry it's a few decades away....