Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

JKenH

ABrass wrote: »

Coastal defences are expensive. Epically so compared to avoidance. According to studies referred here:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://ec.europa.eu/maritimeaffairs/sites/maritimeaffairs/files/docs/body/report_en.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiL1aXkjcTlAhWUoXEKHaJLAdEQFjANegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw0-w1Y2kyl5RU59Mg8mO4a1
The ratio is in the region of 7:1 (adaptation costs : avoidance costs) the analogy would be to spend £100 on preventing a leak in your plumbing or £700 repairing afterwards.

Given this is a money saving site should we really be advocating for such an inefficient use of money?

As we are only responsible for 1% of global emissions shouldn’t the ratio be 7:100 (adaptation costs : avoidance costs) in terms of impact in the UK?

ABrass

Iy

As we are only responsible for 1% of global emissions shouldn’t the ratio be 7:100 (adaptation costs : avoidance costs) in terms of impact in the UK?

Ah, the ,'!!!! the other guy' approach. I prefer the 'we're all in it together' option but that's more of an ethical viewpoint.

Edit: Game theory has found a solution to the tragedy of the commons. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Edit 2: you'd also best hope that the rest of the EU disagrees with you as we're the most exposed EU nation to rising sea levels in terms of cost to mitigate. There's a good chance we're one of the more susceptible nations over the globe as well.

So you're right, it's not 7:1 that's a global average, it's worse for us.

JKenH

ABrass wrote: »

Ah, the ,'!!!! the other guy' approach. I prefer the 'we're all in it together' option but that's more of an ethical viewpoint.

I look at it as insurance in case the other guy doesn’t step up to the plate.

ABrass

I look at it as insurance in case the other guy doesn’t step up to the plate.

Or refusing to pull our weight and paying a massive premium to avoid doing it. It's also not a discrete series. Every billion spent will reduce the sea level rise by a tiny fraction, that tiny fraction will also map to roughly seven billion less needing to be spent on coastal defenses. If we pull our weight then we save money.

It's going to be bad is not a good excuse for not trying to make it less bad.

JKenH

ABrass wrote: »

Or refusing to pull our weight and paying a massive premium to avoid doing it. It's also not a discrete series. Every billion spent will reduce the sea level rise by a tiny fraction, that tiny fraction will also map to roughly seven billion less needing to be spent on coastal defenses. If we pull our weight then we save money.

It's going to be bad is not a good excuse for not trying to make it less bad.

With that type of reasoning we should all ditch our ICEs and FF central heating now and not put our pockets ahead of the environment. Every day one of us stops emitting CO2 we are that little bit nearer to saving the world but everyone has their own personal reasons for not doing so. Just to be on the safe side lets have some raised coastal defences. The Dutch are doing it so why shouldn’t we?

1961Nick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Just a few problems with that.

1. We are all spending money on sea defences already, didn't you know that?

2. Mitigation will reduce the amount of sea defences needed, and therefore reduce the cost of said defences needed. Reducing spending on mitigation will (and apologies for repeating this to you for perhaps the 100th time) increase the total cost of dealing with AGW, and will also increase the environmental cost too ...... plus the cost of sea defences.

3. Nobody is 'putting all our eggs in the 'cutting carbon emissions' basket' - this is just something you have made up, just like your suggestion that we could spend all of our money now on mitigation and have nothing left in the future to cope with the impacts of AGW - a word salad of silliness that makes no sense, and seems (to me) to be almost impossible to achieve. Designed perhaps to spread FUD.

"A word salad of silliness" is a typical blase remark from someone who's house is several hundred feet above sea level. For those that live on the coast at sea level, CC is a clear & present danger and there is no guarantee that we'll be successful in preventing a rise in sea level.

Coastal defence & flood mitigation is actually something where we could make a significant difference if we started planning now ... whereas spending every penny of GDP for the next 20 years trying to stop AGW would guarantee nothing.

1961Nick

A majority of people in the UK say the climate crisis will influence how they vote in the looming general election, according to an opinion poll, with younger voters feeling particularly strongly about the issue.

Almost two-thirds of people agreed the climate emergency was the biggest issue facing humankind, with 7% disagreeing. The poll also asked if “fossil fuel companies, whose products contribute directly to climate change, should help pay for the tens of billions in damages from extreme weather events?” Two-thirds of people agreed, with 12% opposed.

In terms of action to tackle the climate emergency, 81% of people backed planting more trees, 63% supported a Green New Deal – a large-scale, long-term investment in green infrastructure and jobs – and more than half said it was important to ban fracking.

It's a pity they didn't ask those young people exactly how they're going to persuade a Chinese coal mining company or a Russian gas company to cough up billions in damages for these extreme weather events.

GreatApe

JKenH wrote: »

In today’s Telegraph. A couple of snippets from a long article



Why electric vehicle battery production could be the saviour of UK automotive

He also points to some of the more logistical challenges involved in having battery plants and car manufacturing facilities apart. Batteries are heavy, which means they are difficult to move around, and the flammability of lithium-ion batteries means they are potentially hazardous to transport.

But as the March report warns, for car manufacturers producing at volume in the UK such as Nissan, Jaguar Land Rover and Toyota, there is no reason to suppose they “will naturally gravitate towards establishing all, or even any serious proportion, of their European battery manufacturing capacity in the UK”.

With a string of gigafactories still years away, Britain will have to look at other areas of the supply chain to support its car industry. One area of rapidly growing interest is the securing of raw materials that go into lithium-ion batteries.

A start-up in Cornwall thinks it has hit on a way of generating a British supply of lithium. Cornish Lithium wants to extract lithium from hot underwater brines that welled up in the county’s historic mine workings.

If all goes to plan, it will drill below ground, pipe the water to the surface and treat it in a processing plant. Earlier this year it won a grant from the Government through the Faraday Challenge to assess the feasibility of developing a domestic lithium supply.



https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/10/30/electric-vehicle-battery-production-could-saviour-uk-automotive/

The UK has abandoned manufacturing and primary raw materials mining

The words biggest deposit of mineral fertilisers is under Yorkshire and the government wouldn't bung them a couple hundred million to complete the half finished mine.

No we would rather sub American BEVs and Chinese solar panels why sub Yorkshire miners

We will send Aid to Africa and India but not sub into existence minerals that make farming more productive to actually help reduce works hunger

ABrass

Building coastal and river defenses is clearly going to make sense in some cases. The replacement for the Thames barrier (ballpark estimate, 7 billion) will be needed and clearly good value for money.

But trying to do that everywhere is a losing bet as you can't justify the same level of expense for every city, let alone every town and every village. Let's face it when is that going to be spent by a London government on the Tyne or the Humber. But reducing the amount of greenhouse gases improves the odds everywhere at once and it is far more achievable.

ABrass

1961Nick wrote: »

It's a pity they didn't ask those young people exactly how they're going to persuade a Chinese coal mining company or a Russian gas company to cough up billions in damages for these extreme weather events.

Would it be unfair to say that's a typically blaz! approach to the problems that people younger than you will have to manage once you've shuffled off this mortal coil.

Based on your user name you're around 58 years old. That means you've got roughly 30 years left. Maybe more if you're in good health, maybe less if the robots kill us all first. When you see reports of sea rises for 2100 that's beyond your conceivable lifetime. For someone turning 18 today they might live to see that. Unless the robots get to them.