Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

I think this is incorrect. Yes the climate has always changed, however the current rate of change is two orders of magnitude faster than historic experience which makes it impossible for organisms to evolve fast enough to cope.

Why do you think natural selection is so slow?

The climate change induced by the instant meteroite impact was... instant and devastating

But was it a net negative?

If you were a t rex you'd say yes it was horrible
But mammals took over which then gave rise to humans
So for us it was a fantastic hugely net positive impact

So who is correct?
The t rex or the homosapiens view?

There is no positive or negative in the sorry if DNA there is just change
Every hugs change has been just a change not a positive or negative both positive and negative for different creatures at the same time overall nether a positive or a negative just a change

Martyn1981

pile-o-stone wrote: »

The article goes onto explain how to argue back against people who refuse to believe in facts. In my opinion I think its a waste of time arguing back, the climate change deniers, like flat earthers, are the same mixture of religious zealots, the poorly educated and also a large number of people who don't believe in their own theories they just espouse them for a laugh or for attention. I suspect the deniers on here are the latter - they have not received enough attention as children and they do not receive any attention as adults - internet forums are the only place they can receive the attention they desperately crave.

I think it was Buzz Aldrin (but might have been another 'Moonwalker') who explained it well. He suggested that the Moon landing deniers were people who were incapable of ever achieving anything significant through their own actions and abilities. So their only way to be part of something big, was do so by attracting attention in denying it.


In the case of anti-RE or RE pushback, we also have to consider one other reason, and note that the two main protagonists still arguing on this thread (or trying to promote/support arguments) are both 'super-nukers'. Not everyone is willing to accept change, and the economic failure of their true love ...... rationally and quietly.

Martyn1981

If you thought Exxonmobil Australia wishing Aussies a 'fun' new year on Twitter was in bad taste, then this will either make you laugh or cry, it's up to you.

Oil & Petrochemical Companies Want YOU To Pay To Protect Them From Climate Change!

Chutzpah, so they say, is murdering your parents, then throwing yourself on the mercy of the court because you are an orphan. If that be the case, America’s oil and petrochemical companies are guilty of chutzpah raised to the tenth power. Not content with destroying the Earth with billions of tons of carbon emissions and plastic waste, they now want the federal government to build enclaves to protect their refining facilities from rising sea levels and more powerful storms.

Martyn1981

The levels of storage needed for high to 100% RE penetration of the US leccy grid is looking good.

120 Gigawatts Of Energy Storage By 2050: We Got This!

The hits just keep coming for fossil fuel stakeholders in the United States, and the blows are coming from the direction of energy storage. Lithium-ion batteries are already helping renewables compete against fossil power in some markets, and that’s just for starters. The next generation of energy storage is set to go far and beyond the capabilities of today’s Li-ion technology, as federal energy experts eyeball a goal of 120 gigawatts in storage by 2050.

gefnew

Hi All
this is quite a good read.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-50974609

Martyn1981

Can't always be good news.

The five: missed UK environmental targets

Politicians may flaunt their green credentials but a number of key targets – on air quality, tree planting, waste – are being missed

EVandPV

gefnew wrote: »

Hi All
this is quite a good read.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-50974609

Salt would certainly appear to have some potential for storage, particularly large scale, although not something you hear about too often yet.
Here's another article about sodium batteries.

https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/a-battery-technology-worth-its-salt/3010966.article

Martyn1981

Some good news, some not so good.

Fukushima unveils plans to become renewable energy hub

Fukushima is planning to transform itself into a renewable energy hub, almost nine years after it became the scene of the world’s worst nuclear accident for a quarter of a century.

The prefecture in north-east Japan will forever be associated with the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on 11 March 2011, but in an ambitious project the local government has vowed to power the region with 100% renewable energy by 2040, compared with 40% today.

Renewables accounted for 17.4% of Japan’s energy mix in 2018, according to the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, well below countries in Europe. The government iaims to increase this to between 22% and 24% by 2030 a target the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has described as ambitious but which climate campaigners criticise as insufficient.

Japan faces mounting international criticism over its dependence on imported coal and natural gas. It received the “fossil of the day” award from the Climate Action Network at last month’s UN climate change conference in Madrid after its industry minister announced plans to continue using coal-fired power.

Japan is the third-biggest importer of coal after India and China, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Its megabanks have been urged to end their financing of coal-fired plants in Vietnam and other developing countries in Asia.

Martyn1981

Another one of those 'different types of storage' articles, but always worth a quick read.

Energy Storage 2020: It’s Not Just About Lithium-Ion Batteries Any More

Many of us have tunnel vision on the subject of energy storage. We think lithium-ion batteries are the beginning, middle, and end of the discussion. Largely that’s because of Elon Musk and Tesla, who have built their incredible history of success both in transportation and energy storage on lithium-ion batteries. Yet there are other types of storage solutions, many of which will begin to share the spotlight with lithium-ion batteries in 2020.

The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency — ARPA-E — is funding research by 10 organizations with one common goal — creating long term energy storage systems that cost $0.05 per kilowatt hour or less. Five of the projects are scheduled for completion in 2020 and the rest in 2o21. After they are complete. ARPA-E plans to fund small scale field trials to determine which are commercially viable. According to PV Magazine, the research falls into several general categories.

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Another one of those 'different types of storage' articles, but always worth a quick read.

Energy Storage 2020: It’s Not Just About Lithium-Ion Batteries Any More

A waste of time 5 cents is far too expensive for just storage and presumably there will be some environmental impact of these storage industries

Much better to build interconntors and then to simply dump the heat into homes and buildings

This is probably what we will do in the UK
The UK will end this decade with perhaps as much as 20GW of interconntors
This means the UK can probably build out as much as 50GW of offshore wind capacity with no significant need for curtialment

That's 60% of today's electricity demand met with wind power without the need for significant curtialment or storage. The other 40% will be a combination of PV hydro biomass net imports and of course NG to fill some of it in. The NG component will only be 10-20% so it's a successful grid without the need for mass costly storage


There is also a cheap very effective way to do virtual storage and it's extremely clean as of doesn't require storage industries. And that's smart heaters and heat pumps in dual fuel building. When there is excess wind they use this cheap rate electricity for heating rather than natural gas. This way you effectively dump 1 unit of electricity.into a home saving 1.1 units of N-Gas that's 110% efficient takes up no space and crates no pollution or industrial processes or waste. Of the one unit.of electricity is dumped into a heat pump it's 300% efficient. Much much much better than trying to do silly things like electricity to gas which will be well below 100% efficient and cause building and industrial waste.