Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

I'm not going to play the circles game, you can win in your own mind if you want to, even if it means that the risk you're willing to accept is so dire ....

What's brought me to this conclusion is the above referenced excerpt, the result of which is that the difference between risk mitigation and 'people power' is effectively irrelevant, other than the potential for the avoidable death of a considerable number of people alongside levels of economic chaos that would eclipse the worst imaginable result of brexit, but as you say, 'we aren't arguing over much at all' really .... I'd rather employ decades of experience to identify & manage risk, but then again, I've come across those that have simply kept their fingers crossed & been lucky in the short term ... if the required mitigation measures aren't employed let's all just hope that we're blessed with plenty of luck and everyone else respects our strategy & treats us nicely f it runs out!

HTH
Z

Coastalwatch wrote: »

I wonder whether that now puts increased pressure on EDF to deliver Sizewell C in ten years time or is it an indication that Nuclear is now to expensive an option to consider however desperate we may eventually become!
Still it might just force our politicians to take matters seriously and incentivise efforts towards alternative energy forms. After all we've experienced an arms race for decades so perhaps some of those brains could now be deployed on more pressing matters in the shape of renewable energies and storage!


On your marks, get set....................!

France will save 39 billion euros ($44.5 billion) if it refrains from building 15 new nuclear plants by 2060, and bets instead on renewable energy sources to replace its all its aging atomic facilities, a government agency said.

France should spend 1.28 trillion euros over the next four decades, mostly on clean power production and storage capacities, networks, and imports, according to a report from the country’s environment ministry. If it does this, France would progressively shut down its 58 atomic plants and renewable energy would comprise 95 percent of its electricity output by 2060, up from 17 percent last year.

8, Direct air capture of CO2 (DAC). Two important events in the last few weeks. Carbon Engineering in Canada announced an investment from two oil majors, Chevron and Occidental (no figures provided). Climeworks in Zurich said it would be supplying captured CO2 from a new facility to a Coca-Cola bottling plant for use in fizzy water. Much scepticism remains about the future of extracting CO2 directly from air with many commentators stating that it theoretically ought to be much easier, and cheaper, to capture it from flue gas. Most of the evidence today, however, suggests that DAC will end up cheaper than CCS from exhaust gases. Carbon Engineering says that its CO2 will cost less than $100 a tonne at scale and this figure uses what I think are very high figures for the crucial input: the price of the heat to drive off the CO2 from the absorbent chemicals. The company claims that it then produces a gasoline substitute from electrolysed hydrogen and captured CO2 for ‘about 20%’ more than from fossil fuels today. Hydrogen is the dominant cost of making a synthetic fuel and as electrolysis from renewables continues to fall in price, H2 will become cheaper, eventually making fossil fuels uncompetitive. This is early days but Carbon Engineering and Climeworks are probably the two most important global companies in the fight to get to zero emissions as fast as possible.