Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

markin

The power saving from Google's quantum processor, Sycamore, Will be huge will they not? It finished a calculation in three minutes and 20 seconds VS IBM's current super computer that would take 2.5 days.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7604195/Google-touts-quantum-computing-milestone.html

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Their research confirmed exactly what all of the science was saying, that AGW was both real and would have a huge negative impact.

They chose to lie, by omission, and then (like many other FF businesses) to lie openly to the World by funding a misinformation campaign designed to stop or delay action. They probably cost us 20yrs of action, delaying the big push to around 2010.

The result of their (and others) actions, is that the environmental impacts, and cost impacts will be vastly greater, and if we do manage to avoid runaway GW (not certain anymore that that is even possible) then it will be at a temperature higher than it otherwise would have been, with all the negative connotations that that will bring.

A while back ( quote below) you were arguing Big Oil had cost us ‘about 30 years’, now it is down to ‘probably 20’.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Sorry your spin won't work with me. Exxon, and all the other energy companies were behind the anti-AGW campaign that delayed action for about 30yrs, to say the end of the naughties.

There is no evidence that Exxon’s campaign delayed AGW action for 30 or even 20 years; it is just another of your opinions.

The world was well aware of climate change and the need to act. See Margaret Thatchers speech to the U.N. in 1989.

https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107817

Martyn1981 wrote: »

You like to talk about the cost of action, and how much we should spend (or not spend), well thanks to those companies we have to spend vastly more - yet you would rather argue against me, and defend them.

No, in 1989 the only tool in the arsenal we could deployagainst greenhouse gasses, was nuclear energy. Technology has moved on, we have more alternatives at our disposal and we can achieve so much more with far less cost now. Imagine if we had committed 30 years ago to go carbon neutral by 2020. What price would we be paying for our electricity now and what would have been the effect on our economy?

ABrass

The power saving from Google's quantum processor, Sycamore, Will be huge will they not? It finished a calculation in three minutes and 20 seconds VS IBM's current super computer that would take 2.5 days.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7604195/Google-touts-quantum-computing-milestone.html

Sort of.

Quantum computing is a game changing concept. Imagine that you play the lottery and each week you pick your numbers and see if you've won. Quantum computing attempts to play every number combination at once.

You could do that by buying however many million tickets you'd need to do it, but that'd take ages and cost a fortune. With a quantum ticket (if such a thing existed) you'd fill it in once and then when the draw happens it'd turn out to have the right number.

Yes, this is confusing and sounds magic. It is confusing and depending on your definition it is literally magic (Clarke's first law). That's one of its greatest challenges, how do you understand magic well enough to use it to work out how to travel between different towns in the most efficient manner (see travelling salesman).

Some things it could do millions of times faster than anything we could create at the moment. Some things it can't do any faster at all.

The really scary bit is that all the encrypted traffic on the internet assumes that these really hard calculations are effectively impossible to do. If quantum computing is practical then it will force a big change to the way that all computers work.

ABrass

The UK’s largest fossil fuel generators may be back in line for almost £1bn in backup power subsidies this winter after the European commission approved the UK’s flagship energy scheme, which was ruled illegal last year.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/24/brussels-allows-uk-to-subsidise-fossil-fuel-generators

You've got to wonder how many years it'd take to balance the cost of massively over provisioning wind power and longer term storage. But for now it does seem to make sense.

Martyn1981

1961Nick wrote: »

Governments set the legal framework under which businesses operate ... and that includes environmental considerations. From what I can remember about the 1980's & 90's, was that there was virtually no governmental interest in climate change in terms of setting policy. This should have been the job of the departments like the Environment Agency & the EPA, not businesses like Exxon.

Retrospectively sub-contracting responsibility for the welfare of the environment to an oil company is ridiculous imo.

PS. Excellent numbers from TSLA & they seem to be ahead of schedule in a number of key areas. Could this be the next Amazon/Apple/Microsoft/Google?

And @ Ken - Nope!

You are both in denial about the actions and misinformation campaigns run by big oil.

There was little to no disagreement with the science of AGW in the 80's and action could and should have started. But these companies began their relentless campaigns against the science (despite secretly agreeing with all the science), and this undermined public understanding and belief in the science.

Governments tend to follow what their public believe, though they should of course do what is necessary to protect the public, but that might lose them an election, so they go with the 'easy' option.

So, whilst the World was ready to accept the problem, and start to act, we were deliberately mislead and delayed for about 20-30yrs, with serious action, and deployment of RE, starting around 2010, a good 20-30yrs late.

None of this is opinion, it's well documented, and even subject to multiple legal actions. So continued denial of it, is simply ..... pointless, and dare I say disgusting on this thread/board.

So, to re-cap, we have two people who complain about the expenditure of monies on AGW mitigation, also defending (with denials) the actions of the very companies, who through deliberate misinformation, have delayed action, and thereby increased the total cost vastly, and most likely made it impossible now for us to avoid enormous environmental impacts, and possibly impossible to avoid runaway GW.

Your arguments don't tally - you complain (to the messenger) about the size of the cost, whilst defending those responsible for a major share of that cost through opinion manipulation. It's like you shouting at the receptionist in a dentist surgery, for the cost of the work needed to repair/replace your teeth, whilst defending the actions of the guy that kept punching you in the face, claiming it was good for you, medically and scientifically.

Martyn1981

ABrass wrote: »

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/24/brussels-allows-uk-to-subsidise-fossil-fuel-generators

You've got to wonder how many years it'd take to balance the cost of massively over provisioning wind power and longer term storage. But for now it does seem to make sense.

Yeah, I think it makes sense too, paying to keep some 'stuff' in reserve at least opens the door today to a faster deployment of RE.

Just thinking out loud - I wonder if the government could run a massive storage project (multiple hubs) without mucking it all up, or if market forces will step in and do it anyway?

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

And @ Ken - Nope!

You are both in denial about the actions and misinformation campaigns run by big oil.

There was little to no disagreement with the science of AGW in the 80's and action could and should have started. But these companies began their relentless campaigns against the science (despite secretly agreeing with all the science), and this undermined public understanding and belief in the science.

Governments tend to follow what their public believe, though they should of course do what is necessary to protect the public, but that might lose them an election, so they go with the 'easy' option.

So, whilst the World was ready to accept the problem, and start to act, we were deliberately mislead and delayed for about 20-30yrs, with serious action, and deployment of RE, starting around 2010, a good 20-30yrs late.

None of this is opinion, it's well documented, and even subject to multiple legal actions. So continued denial of it, is simply ..... pointless, and dare I say disgusting on this thread/board.

So, to re-cap, we have two people who complain about the expenditure of monies on AGW mitigation, also defending (with denials) the actions of the very companies, who through deliberate misinformation, have delayed action, and thereby increased the total cost vastly, and most likely made it impossible now for us to avoid enormous environmental impacts, and possibly impossible to avoid runaway GW.

Your arguments don't tally - you complain (to the messenger) about the size of the cost, whilst defending those responsible for a major share of that cost through opinion manipulation. It's like you shouting at the receptionist in a dentist surgery, for the cost of the work needed to repair/replace your teeth, whilst defending the actions of the guy that kept punching you in the face, claiming it was good for you, medically and scientifically.

No denial here. It is well reported what Exxon got up to but whether that had any impact on CO2 levels is what has yet to be demonstrated. We didn’t have the technology in the 1980s and 90s to do what we can do today. Deploying 1980s technology would have just wasted huge amounts of money with little or no impact on greenhouse gasses. It is better we are spending the money now more cost effectively. Had we gone to 100% renewables by now how much would that have been costing us in CFDs?

Martyn1981

News on the potential scale of off-shore wind, it's big, very big:

Offshore windfarms 'can provide more electricity than the world needs'

Erecting wind turbines on the world’s best offshore sites could provide more than enough clean energy to meet global electricity demand, according to a report.

A detailed study of the world’s coastlines has found that offshore windfarms alone could provide more electricity than the world needs – even if they are only built in windy regions in shallow waters near the shore.

Analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA) revealed that if windfarms were built across all useable sites which are no further than 60km (37 miles) off the coast, and where coastal waters are no deeper than 60 metres, they could generate 36,000 terrawatt hours of renewable electricity a year. This clean energy boom would easily meeting the current global demand for electricity of 23,000 terrawatt hours.

“Offshore wind currently provides just 0.3% of global power generation, but its potential is vast,” said the IEA’s executive director, Fatih Birol.

The study predicts offshore wind will grow 15 fold to emerge as a $1tn (£780bn) industry in the next 20 years and will prove to be the next great energy revolution.

As an addendum, here are two old items on the subject.

1. The UK's potential:

The UK is the Saudi Arabia of wind energy

2. The (now old) land art demonstration of providing 100% of future energy (energy not just leccy) from off-shore wind (it's below the PV example):

TOTAL SURFACE AREA REQUIRED TO FUEL THE WORLD WITH SOLAR

Martyn1981

JKenH wrote: »

No denial here. It is well reported what Exxon got up to but whether that had any impact on CO2 levels is what has yet to be demonstrated. We didn’t have the technology in the 1980s and 90s to do what we can do today. Deploying 1980s technology would have just wasted huge amounts of money with little or no impact on greenhouse gasses. It is better we are spending the money now more cost effectively. Had we gone to 100% renewables by now how much would that have been costing us in CFDs?

Actually, you've previously posted on here denials that any such actions by Exxon (and/or others) happened, but I recall, you got many posts disagreeing with you!

As to the cost of earlier action, that's a very poor argument, and entirely misleading.

The costs of RE, such as wind and PV, fell massively as soon as their deployment, and therefore supply was increased significantly.

So your argument is completely false, we always had to work our way through the more expensive early deployments, whether that was done in the late naughties / early 10's of this century, or the 80's and 90's of the last.

So that cost is irrelevant, what is relevant is how much more CO2 has been added by this delay, and the simply staggering costs and harm, that that delayed response will cost us.

So, again, you seem obsessed with the cost of action, whilst ignoring/denying one of the most significant causes of that cost.

Martyn1981

More a reason for green energy, than green energy itself, but 'bad air' is such an important issue, and if RE and BEV's help with that, almost as a side effect, then win win.

Dirty air is the killer poisoning us all while the government just spouts hot air

Nine more people in Bristol and 13 in Derby are going to have a stroke because of air pollution. Dirty air will give 12 more people in Birmingham and 87 in London a heart attack. In Liverpool, seven extra children with asthma will be hospitalised, as will five more in Nottingham.

These stark figures from King’s College London on the impact of high pollution days on individual towns are a reminder that dirty air is a killer and that the climate emergency is a health emergency.

But it is also a clear warning that while the NHS and local government are gradually getting to grips with the air pollution crisis, piecemeal solutions will fail without massive government action.

Cutting air pollution by a fifth would result in 77 fewer children in Oxford and 150 in Southampton suffering low lung function each year. Twenty fewer people in Manchester and 17 in Liverpool would develop lung cancer.