human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
POSTED BY: 1kiki
UPDATED: Monday, September 14, 2026 13:16
VIEWED: 61448
PAGE 9 of 12
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, you confirmed for the one trillionth time that the kind of people who vote for Trump are assholes, which I knew long before you were born. Have you wondered why you have difficulty thriving in America, 6ix? Since you can't accept that you are a stupid asshole, you immediately were attracted to Trump's explanation that your struggles are not your fault. For example, Trump tells you that your CO2 emissions are not changing the climate because "Climate Change Is A Chinese Hoax". Trump absolves you of all responsibility. Nothing is your fault, 6ix.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
That's not what the WEF says.
Apparently you didn't read their article I linked, because you have the mind of a 5 year old.
But I don't believe shit the WEF says either, so who knows.
I just built this yesterday in my house that I paid cash for, and my monthly energy expenditures at home are constantly 10% to 40% less than my "efficient neighbors" according to my power company.
I'm doing just fine. I don't need Trump to tell me how awesome I am.
I suggest that you do something with your life. If you were able to accomplish something on your own that was a source of pride for you, you wouldn't need to parrot whatever MSNBC tells you to think online and remind strangers online everyday that you are perfect and have no vices because you vote Democrat in order to feel good about yourself.
Your lies are self-destructive. I think it really gets to you that I've actually turned my life around after I quit drinking and I don't fit into your little "Texas Republican" mold you've solidified in your mind.
I'm going to keep getting better, regardless of who wins elections, and you're just going to keep sliding further into insanity.
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:The "before" picture, with a metal grill in that opening, was perfectly adequate. All your efforts amount to little difference. You are wasting life, 6ix, on piddling around.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'm doing just fine. I don't need Trump to tell me how awesome I am.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:The "before" picture, with a metal grill in that opening, was perfectly adequate. All your efforts amount to little difference. You are wasting life, 6ix, on piddling around.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'm doing just fine. I don't need Trump to tell me how awesome I am.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
This was adequate for you, huh?
No thanks, buddy. I'll let the Socialists like you settle for adequate.
How many hours this week have you wasted away watching movies and TV shows that you pirated when you're desperately trying to find anything in the world to keep your mind from your chronic obsessing over Trump?
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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In all, solar and battery storage will be responsible for more than 80 percent of all new electricity capacity in the US this year.
The EIA says the US generates nine times more electricity today than it did in 1950. The demand is expected to double or triple again by 2050.
The 62.8 GW of new electricity capacity planned for this year will be 55 percent more than the 40.4 GW of electricity that was added in 2023.
The vast majority — 36.4 GW, or 58 percent — will come from new utility-scale solar installations. Last year, only 18.4 GW of solar capacity was added to the grid as supply chain and permitting issues continued to impact the solar industry.
In addition, another 14.3 GW, or 23 percent, will be provided by new battery storage facilities, 23 percent of the total.
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/02/17/us-eia-predicts-solar-will-accoun
t-for-58-of-new-electricity-generation-capacity-in-us-in-2024/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:.
How many hours this week have you wasted away watching movies and TV shows that you pirated when you're desperately trying to find anything in the world to keep your mind from your chronic obsessing over Trump?
SECOND doesn't waste his time trying "not" to obsess about Trump, he wastes his time obsessing about Trump. And Russia. And "Trumptards". And whoever hapoens to be on his shitlist that month. He's got those ideological turds polished to a high shine.
That's what happens when your mind is a closed, dark maze.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:For the record, 6ix has lived in his house for two decades but only now is 6ix fixing what is in those pictures. 6ix has been obsessively writing about the excruciatingly slow-moving carpentry in just that one opening in the wall for months. Slowness is a prime characteristic of a retard. Related, 6ix and Signym want Ukraine destroyed and Trump returned to power and climate change is a Chinese Hoax for them, which is why I refer to them as Trumptards. Signym is selling a climate change solution called the One Trillion Trees Initiative, a Trump plan, and 6ix mocks electric cars as coal-burners.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:.
How many hours this week have you wasted away watching movies and TV shows that you pirated when you're desperately trying to find anything in the world to keep your mind from your chronic obsessing over Trump?
SECOND doesn't waste his time trying "not" to obsess about Trump, he wastes his time obsessing about Trump. And Russia. And "Trumptards". And whoever hapoens to be on his shitlist that month. He's got those ideological turds polished to a high shine.
That's what happens when your mind is a closed, dark maze.
https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/trump-administration-furthers-commit
ment-one-trillion-trees-initiative
Neither 6ix nor Signym has a problem with Russia conquering the world because neither has acknowledged that Russia killed 62 million Russians (plus Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny this week) and that Russia would do the same to the world as it is now doing to Ukraine.
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/16/1232050539/alexei-navalny-death-russia-
putin-critics
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Ross Gelbspan, Who Exposed Roots of Climate Change Deniers, Dies at 84
A longtime investigative journalist, he wrote books and articles that documented a campaign of disinformation intended to sow doubt about global warming.
By Trip Gabriel | Feb. 16, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/business/media/ross-gelbspan-dead.h
tml
Ross Gelbspan, an investigative journalist whose reporting on climate change exposed a campaign of disinformation by oil and gas lobbyists to sow doubt about global warming — a denialism that was embraced by Republican officials and, in some cases, by a credulous news media — died on Jan. 27 at his home in Boston. He was 84.
The cause was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his wife, Anne Gelbspan, said.
Mr. Gelbspan’s career included reporting on dissidents in the Soviet Union and on F.B.I. harassment of domestic critics, and his interest in the climate crisis, like those other subjects, came from a sense of outrage that powerful interests were suppressing information needed for democracy.
“I didn’t get into the climate issue because I love the trees — I tolerate the trees,” he said on YouTube last year. “I got into the issue because I learned the coal industry was paying a handful of scientists under the table to say nothing was happening to the climate.”
In a 1995 cover story for Harper’s Magazine headlined “The Heat Is On,” which he expanded into a 1997 book with the same title, Mr. Gelbspan shined a light on a group of scientists that coal and oil groups had paid to tell lawmakers and journalists that global warming wasn’t a serious threat. He dug up a 1991 memo from the fossil fuel lobby calling for a strategy to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact.” At a news conference, President Bill Clinton held up the book and said he was reading it.
“In ‘The Heat Is On,’ Ross was the first to do a serious debunking of the campaign by the oil and coal companies to promote and finance a pseudoscientific narrative of denial,” Robert Kuttner, co-editor of the magazine The American Prospect, to which Mr. Gelbspan contributed, said in an email. “He combined a deep concern about our common future with the passion and skill of a dogged investigative reporter.”
Mr. Gelbspan wrote in Harper’s that one of the prominent climate skeptics, Richard S. Lindzen of M.I.T., speaking on behalf of a coal lobbying group, testified in 1994 at a government hearing that a doubling of carbon emissions over the next century would cause temperatures to rise no more than a negligible 0.3 degrees Celsius. Since that testimony, the planet has already warmed 0.86 degrees Celsius, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In a second book, “Boiling Point” (2004), Mr. Gelbspan was tough on his own profession, accusing reporters of laziness in falling for the “manufactured denial” of the fossil fuel industry.
Many journalists, he said, were undermined by their ethic of even-handedness, which added false balance to stories that reflexively included climate skeptics.
“For many years, the press accorded the same weight to the ‘skeptics’ as it did to mainstream scientists,” he wrote. “The issue of balance is not relevant when the focus of a story is factual. In this case, what is known about the climate comes from the largest and most rigorously peer-reviewed scientific collaboration in history.”
Reviewing “Boiling Point” in The New York Times, Al Gore, the 2000 Democratic presidential nominee, wrote, “Part of what makes this book important is its indictment of the American news media’s coverage of global warming for the past two decades.”
But Mr. Gelbspan’s chief targets remained companies like Exxon Mobil, which funded the denial of climate science, and industry-supporting officials, mainly Republicans, such as President George W. Bush, who ran for the White House promising to cap carbon emissions from power plants, then reneged under industry pressure months into his tenure. That same month, his administration withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, an a
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND doesn't waste his time trying "not" to obsess about Trump, he wastes his time obsessing about Trump. And Russia. And "Trumptards". And whoever hapoens to be on his shitlist that month. He's got those ideological turds polished to a high shine.
That's what happens when your mind is a closed, dark maze.
SECONDRATE: For the record, 6ix has lived in his house for two decades but only now is 6ix fixing what is in those pictures. 6ix has been obsessively writing about the excruciatingly slow-moving carpentry in just that one opening in the wall for months. Slowness is a prime characteristic of a retard.
Actually , the prime characteristic of a retard is NOT BEING ABLE TO LEARN.
I'm continually amazed by all of the skills that SIX has learned, from computer software and hardware to carpentry, major house-fixes like foundation repair, hydrology, plumbing, wiring, LADA diabetes management, and car repair.
What have YOU learned lately?
All you do is obsessively post lies and hate 24/7/365.
Get off your ass. Stop lying. Learn something new. Do something useful that you can take pride in. You'll feel better, I promise.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND doesn't waste his time trying "not" to obsess about Trump, he wastes his time obsessing about Trump. And Russia. And "Trumptards". And whoever hapoens to be on his shitlist that month. He's got those ideological turds polished to a high shine.
That's what happens when your mind is a closed, dark maze.
SECONDRATE: For the record, 6ix has lived in his house for two decades but only now is 6ix fixing what is in those pictures. 6ix has been obsessively writing about the excruciatingly slow-moving carpentry in just that one opening in the wall for months. Slowness is a prime characteristic of a retard.
Actually , the prime characteristic of a retard is NOT BEING ABLE TO LEARN.
I'm continually amazed by all of the skills that SIX has learned, from computer software and hardware to carpentry, major house-fixes like foundation repair, hydrology, plumbing, wiring, LADA diabetes management, and car repair.
What have YOU learned lately?
All you do is obsessively post lies and hate 24/7/365.
Get off your ass. Stop lying. Learn something new. Do something useful that you can take pride in. You'll feel better, I promise.
Thanks sigs.
Yeah. It's as if he's saying that I've spent every waking hour working on that opening for months to the exclusion of everything else I've done in that time.
I haven't lived here for decades. I've lived here 12.5 years. 5 of those years I wasted to drinking, which is a problem I brought with me to the house, with only the first two of them actually getting anything done. I'm not going to apologize to Second for that waste of time. I've already made apologies to anybody that I was going to apologize to for that behavior a long time ago.
I've also never once used the word carpentry. It's not carpentry. I'm not a carpenter.
The overlook isn't done yet either, but as I finish that, I'll also be working on repairing and refinishing those stairs. Just like I repaired and refinished that entire room after I began working on the overlook.
And I'm sure I'll be doing other things in the meantime, like helping my friend clear out his dad's garage and house, and helping my brother learn more about his computer while setting up his MacOS/Windows dual platform stuff over the phone, and helping my aunt get all of her stuff setup online... And seriously... do you know how much it takes to cook up this sweet blue meth in my bathtub? The shit literally sells itself but cooking just takes up so much of the day.
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Biden’s green fantasy of two-thirds electric cars sales in 2032 is just not happening
Heavy, short-ranged, slow to charge, hard to maintain. But at least they're expensive
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2024/02/06/biden-green-evs-elec
tric-cars-target-energy-madness/
Everybody who was going to buy a coal burning car now already has one. That's it. It's over.
2/3rds of dealerships don't even want them on their lots anymore.
You got got, son.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack
Thanks sigs.
Yeah. It's as if he's saying that I've spent every waking hour working on that opening for months to the exclusion of everything else I've done in that time.
I haven't lived here for decades. I've lived here 12.5 years. 5 of those years I wasted to drinking, which is a problem I brought with me to the house, with only the first two of them actually getting anything done. I'm not going to apologize to Second for that waste of time. I've already made apologies to anybody that I was going to apologize to for that behavior a long time ago.
I've also never once used the word carpentry. It's not carpentry. I'm not a carpenter.
The overlook isn't done yet either, but as I finish that, I'll also be working on repairing and refinishing those stairs. Just like I repaired and refinished that entire room after I began working on the overlook.
And I'm sure I'll be doing other things in the meantime, like helping my friend clear out his dad's garage and house, and helping my brother learn more about his computer while setting up his MacOS/Windows dual platform stuff over the phone, and helping my aunt get all of her stuff setup online... And seriously... do you know how much it takes to cook up this sweet blue meth in my bathtub? The shit literally sells itself but cooking just takes up so much of the day.
I laughed so loud dear daughter asked me what I was laughing about!
So, of course, I gave her some background ... showed her a few of your before and after pictures... read her the insult and then your reply. She missed the reference to Breaking Bad (LOL!) but thought it was funny too.
This has got to be one of the funniest answers I've ever read on this website.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack
Thanks sigs.
Yeah. It's as if he's saying that I've spent every waking hour working on that opening for months to the exclusion of everything else I've done in that time.
I haven't lived here for decades. I've lived here 12.5 years. 5 of those years I wasted to drinking, which is a problem I brought with me to the house, with only the first two of them actually getting anything done. I'm not going to apologize to Second for that waste of time. I've already made apologies to anybody that I was going to apologize to for that behavior a long time ago.
I've also never once used the word carpentry. It's not carpentry. I'm not a carpenter.
The overlook isn't done yet either, but as I finish that, I'll also be working on repairing and refinishing those stairs. Just like I repaired and refinished that entire room after I began working on the overlook.
And I'm sure I'll be doing other things in the meantime, like helping my friend clear out his dad's garage and house, and helping my brother learn more about his computer while setting up his MacOS/Windows dual platform stuff over the phone, and helping my aunt get all of her stuff setup online... And seriously... do you know how much it takes to cook up this sweet blue meth in my bathtub? The shit literally sells itself but cooking just takes up so much of the day.
I laughed so loud dear daughter asked me what I was laughing about!
So, of course, I gave her some background ... showed her a few of your before and after pictures... read her the insult and then your reply. She missed the reference to Breaking Bad (LOL!) but thought it was funny too.
This has got to be one of the funniest answers I've ever read on this website.
Well the secret is out now thanks to Second.
The REAL reason I don't smoke cigarettes in the house isn't because I don't want all my walls and trim to turn yellow and watch my family who doesn't smoke frown and wrinkle their noses up when they come over and have to smell the stale nicotine in the air.
I just really love the smell of that bathtub meth and I'd rather smoke outside in the snow than taint it with my cheap cigarette smoke.
That's also why I quit eating broccoli and I fart in jars now.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Exxon warns Baytown, other hydrogen projects unlikely
By James Osborne | Feb 22, 2024
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/exxon-baytown
-hydrogen-tax-credit-biden-18677668.php
WASHINGTON – A year after Exxon Mobil announced it would be part of a team planning to build the largest clean hydrogen facility in the world, executives are warning the project at its Baytown refining and petrochemical complex along the Houston Ship Channel might no longer happen.
At issue are draft rules issued by the Treasury Department late last year, which include no incentive to produce clean hydrogen fuel using natural gas with reduced methane emissions. That would limit Baytown and other proposed blue hydrogen projects, which use electricity from natural gas plants and store carbon emissions underground, to the lowest tier of hydrogen tax credit, making them less economic, said Mark Klewpatinond, global business manager for hydrogen at Exxon Mobil.
"If were not able to differentiate natural gas production, it's highly unlikely Baytown would proceed," he said. "It needs to compete for capital against other projects we have."
Exxon is part of the HyVelocity Hub, a coalition of energy companies and nonprofits seeking to develop a clean hydrogen hub in Houston through $1.2 billion in funding from the Department of Energy. Representatives of HyVelocity declined to comment.
The warning from Exxon and other hydrogen developers comes as cities such as Houston and Los Angeles move to develop large-scale clean hydrogen projects despite questions about whether the tax credit included in 2022's Inflation Reduction Act will be enough to get the nascent industry off the ground.
Following failed efforts by former President George W. Bush and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Biden administration is moving to shift the industrial sector, along with heavy duty transportation like trucks and cargo ships, to clean hydrogen fuel in line with their goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
But producing hydrogen fuel is hugely energy intensive, and the Biden administration is seeking to ensure it doesn't mistakenly incentivize the construction of a raft of hydrogen facilities with high greenhouse gas footprints.
As the tax credits are currently written, critics say, green hydrogen projects, which rely on electricity to convert water to hydrogen, will likely need to get all their power directly from wind and solar farms to be eligible for the highest $3 per kilogram tax credit. Projects using electricity from the power grid would need to be able to document their electricity came from renewable sources to claim any of the credit. So-called blue hydrogen projects would likely have to settle for tax credits worth up to 60 cents per kilogram – even if their overall emissions are lower than some green hydrogen projects.
"If you can't count upstream and midstream emissions, that is going to push a significant amount of production out of the most lucrative bands," said Brian Murphy, an analyst with S&P Global Commodity Insights. "That’s going to mean fewer projects in the near term."
A spokesperson for the Department of Treasury said the agency is looking for more information on certain, "key issues" and would "consider all comments in developing final regulations.”
New tax rules
Not all clean hydrogen developers are worried about the tax rules.
British industrial firm Linde announced early last year, months before the draft tax credit rules were released, that it was going to start construction on a $1.8 billion blue hydrogen facility in Beaumont. And Pennsylvania-based Air Products said in November it would go ahead on building a $4.5 billion blue hydrogen plant in Louisiana.
But the majority of clean hydrogen projects, of which there are dozens in the works around the country, are on hold waiting to see if the Treasury Department loosens up the rul
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Texas lawmakers target large 'climate-friendly' banks — and avoiding boycotts won't stop them
By Chris Tomlinson | Feb 23, 2024
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article
/texas-blackrock-climate-change-esg-taxpayers-18672606.php
Texas lawmakers have never hesitated to use the power of the state to punish those with whom they disagree.
Do you or your company refuse to do business with Israel? Then you cannot do business with the state of Texas. Do you boycott gunmakers? Don’t even think about applying for a state contract.
The newest boycott legislation, though, goes much further. If a financial services firm refuses to do business with coal, oil or natural gas businesses or offers products that allow investors to avoid the fossil fuel industry, then no government authority in Texas can contract its services. If a company invests in those corporations — but demands they tackle climate change — the punishment is the same.
Texas’ law could cost taxpayers $22.5 billion in higher interest rates and fees over the next 30 years, a study by an economist at the Wharton School calculated. This column is part two of a three-part series on the conservative war against considering environmental, social and governance factors, known as ESG, when investing.
For years, Big Oil executives have complained about a growing movement to boycott and divest from fossil fuel companies. Proponents of ESG investing have produced research showing how public companies contributing to climate change, income inequality and corruption pay less in total shareholder returns than socially responsible companies.
Doing good and doing well are connected, they argue.
Oil and gas corporations call ESG investing discrimination, and they’ve asked state lawmakers across the country to pass anti-boycott laws like Senate Bill 13, which became Texas law on Sept. 1, 2021.
Texas is arguably the first state to pass anti-ESG legislation, which first emerged from conservative think tanks after large companies began advertising themselves as “climate-friendly” in the early 2000s. Conservative groups, such as the Texas Public Policy Foundation, lobbied Republican lawmakers to pass the bill, which Democrats mostly opposed.
SB13 requires the comptroller, Texas’ elected chief financial officer, “to prepare and maintain a list of all financial companies that refuse to deal with, terminate business activities with, or otherwise take any action that is, solely or primarily, intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations” with the fossil fuel industry.
The law created a new entity within the comptroller’s office, the Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Co., to implement the law. Comptroller Glenn Hegar reviewed banks’ public statements on climate change and, on March 16, 2022, sent letters to 19 firms that appeared to violate the statute.
“The Comptroller has determined you may be a financial company that boycotts energy companies,” the form letter said. “You must complete and return answers to the questions enclosed with this letter.”
Comptroller attorneys disclose little about how they determined that UBS, BlackRock and other global financial institutions landed on their list. But membership in two associations — the Climate Action 100+ and the Net Zero Banking Alliance/Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative — appeared to have triggered a review.
Climate Action 100+ members pledge to pressure 170 of the world’s largest companies, many of them significant emitters of greenhouse gases, to change their business plans to comply with the Paris climate accord. If the world wants to limit global warming without permanently damaging life on Earth, these companies must change their ways.
The Net Zero Banking Alliance is a United Nations-backed group of global banks “committed to financing ambitious climate action to transition the real economy to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.”
BlackRock, UBS, JPMorgan Chase and
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Livestock feed isn’t the only reason the US grows so much corn. There was a big spike in corn acreage starting in the early 2000s, when Congress mandated that billions of gallons of gasoline for cars be mixed with biofuels, which is mostly ethanol made with corn.
It was a terrible policy because corn is an inefficient use of land to produce energy: “It takes about 100 acres worth of biofuels to generate as much energy as a single acre of solar panels,” wrote agriculture and environmental writer Michael Grunwald in the New York Times. But it’s been hard to roll back, given the political power of the farm lobby: Ethanol policy is “mainly a way to suck up to farmers and enrich agribusinesses,” Grunwald wrote.
Almost 40 percent of US corn goes into gas tanks and 40 percent is fed to livestock.
More at https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24079424/factory-farming-facts-meat
-usda-agriculture-census
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Drastic and Irreversible Climate Geoengineering Worries Scientists
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/drastic-and-irreversible-climate
-geoengineering-worries-experts-5592858
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Inside Big Oil’s Plot to Keep Their Emissions Confidential
The Securities and Exchange Commission voted Wednesday to require some companies to disclose emissions. The rule is far weaker than originally proposed—and the industry will probably sue anyway.
By Kate Aronoff | March 6, 2024
https://newrepublic.com/article/179578/sec-emissions-disclosure-rule-f
ossil-fuels
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday voted 3–2 to finalize a rule on what companies disclose about their greenhouse gas emissions and how climate change stands to impact their business. On its face, that wouldn’t seem to be much cause for alarm. Companies are already required to disclose information on their management structures, overall financial health, and the kinds of risks facing their business. Large segments of the oil and gas industry, though, as well as their beneficiaries in the Republican Party, are treating the possibility of having to disclose climate-related information as if it were an existential threat. And as a result, the SEC’s rule is much weaker than it could have been.
At an industry conference last month, Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, a trade association for oil and gas producers, laid out her group’s strategy for stopping new regulations and administrative actions in their tracks; the main goal, she emphasized, was to kill any version of the SEC’s climate disclosure requirements. At the North American Prospect Expo, or NAPE, Summit for the energy industry in Houston early last month, she described the potential SEC rule as one of several attempts to “decapitalize, defund, or de-bank our industry.” An audio recording of the speech, which was open to all attendees, was provided to The New Republic by an audience member who asked to remain anonymous so as not to jeopardize future attendance.
On some level, industry pressure has already worked: The SEC rule that came to a vote on Wednesday was considerably weaker than the version that was first proposed in March 2022. It lacked the strongest part of the original proposal: that companies be required to disclose what are known as Scope 3 emissions. Those are the emissions linked to products it purchases from third parties, activities like business travel, and the use of its products by consumers. Scope 3 emissions account for as much as 90 percent of a given company’s emissions. Fossil fuel executives and lobbyists’ heated opposition to being required to disclose these emissions is a big part of why that component was dropped. SEC Chair Gary Gensler has said that the rule received 24,000 comments during the required public comment period that ended this morning—the largest ever number of comments filed on a single proposal. By the time the rule was released, even disclosing Scope 1 and 2 emissions—roughly speaking, those generated by corporate operations—was in question. It will now only be required of larger, SEC-registered companies—about 40 percent of America’s 7,000 public companies registered with the SEC—that determine these disclosures are “material” to investors.
David Arkush, director of the watchdog group Public Citizen’s Climate Program, and an expert on climate-related financial regulation, described Scope 3 requirements as “the most concrete, quantitative, decision-useful information that was in the proposal. It’s a really big disappointment that it’s been dropped. It’s ultimately better to finish this rule than not,” he added, “but losing Scope 3 is a big step backward, even though it’s still a step forward from the existing state of affairs.” Many advocates also see the SEC’s watering down of disclosure rules as a response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia v. EPA last summer, which raised the prospect of a wide-reaching challenge to agency rulemaking.
Even before the results of the rule were announced, Sgamma said industry groups were eager to sue over the rule. “People are standing in line to litigate that,” she said, adding that the Al
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What’s slowing down America’s clean energy transition? It’s not the cost
New report finds renewable energy faces organised opposition and grid connectivity issues.
By Hilary Beaumont | 7 Mar 2024
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/3/7/whats-slowing-down-americas
-clean-energy-transition-its-not-the-cost
For the first time, clean energy in the United States is at the same price as energy from burning fossil fuels thanks to policy measures, including President Joe Biden’s signature climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). But a new report says non-cost barriers are now slowing the country’s transition to renewables.
The report, released in February by the Clean Investment Monitor, analysed different modelling scenarios and found that the IRA is expected to meet its goal of reducing GHG emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030.
https://assets-global.website-files.com/64e31ae6c5fd44b10ff405a7/65d56
8670df0b04daed42371_Clean%20Investment%20in%202023%20-%20Assessing%20Progress%20in%20Electricity%20and%20Transport.pdf
Passed in 2022, the IRA is the largest investment to address the climate crisis ever passed in the US. The investment is significant in a country that is one of the world’s largest contributors to GHG emissions. (China, the US and India are the world’s top three emitters.)
The report found that electric vehicle sales were at the top of the projected range in 2023, and investment in utility-scale clean electricity reached record levels last year. However, factors like local opposition to renewables and long delays in grid connection are slowing the pace of the clean energy transition.
Trevor Houser, one of the lead authors of the report, said two decades of policy work, including the passing of the IRA, have reduced the cost of clean energy to the point that it is competitive with coal and fossil gas (called “natural gas” by the fossil fuel industry), and can be deployed without increasing prices for households and businesses.
“It’s exciting to see those two decades of work paying off and these new, cleaner technologies having achieved a level of cost reduction and a point of scale where they can be widely deployed,” Houser said.
Now, the only issue is the speed of the transition. In the last two years, high inflation and supply chain issues led to temporary price increases. “That appears to be correcting now,” Houser said.
The bigger obstacles, he said, are ramping up manufacturing, connecting transmission lines, and addressing growing opposition to renewables.
“The thing that’s more concerning to me is the ability to get local acceptance and to get projects permitted and built fast enough,” he added.
Opposition to renewables
The area of land needed to deliver solar and wind power is much larger than coal or fossil gas plants, leading to tension when homeowners and other groups hear of renewable projects proposed nearby.
“People are supportive of wind and solar, generally, but just don’t want it right next to them,” Houser explained. “The way that a lot of homeowners are very supportive of homeless shelters just as long as it’s not on their block.”
But this NIMBYism, an acronym for “not in my backyard” that reflects the opposition of residents to developments in the vicinity of their homes, is not isolated to a few corners of the country. A 2023 report by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School found organised opposition in 35 states, resulting in at least 228 significant local restrictions against wind, solar and other renewable energy facilities.
The report found that nearly 300 projects had encountered serious opposition, ranging from letter-writing campaigns to lawsuits.
“Delays from litigation alone can kill a project,” noted Matthew Eisenson, the report’s author and senior fellow at the Renewable Energy Legal Defense Initiative at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
While some concerns are rooted in impacts to tribal lands, resources and sacred sites, known as “green colonialism”, Eisenson said opposition f
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US uranium miners resurrected by nuclear revival and Ukraine war
By Jamie Smyth, Harry Dempsey | Sunday, March 10, 2024
https://www.ft.com/content/d4af145b-5ab3-477b-bfed-5bf42dc1cfdb
Over a 40-year career, Scott Melbye watched the US uranium industry fall from its position as the world’s leading producer of the radioactive ore that powers nuclear reactors to an also-ran with negligible production.
Now, the president of the Uranium Producers of America is leading an industry charge to revive mothballed mines and invest in new production to capitalise on soaring prices and policies aimed at reducing the US’s dependence on Russian imports.
At least five US-listed producers are reopening uranium mines in Texas, Wyoming, Arizona and Utah that were idled following a market crash caused by the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan in 2011. A handful of exploration companies are searching for new deposits of uranium, which has tripled in price since the start of 2021 because of a resurgence in interest in nuclear energy.
“We’ve been on sleep mode for too long and now our membership is energised again,” said Melbye, who is also a senior executive at Uranium Energy Corp, a Texas-based company reopening mines in Wyoming and Texas.
“There is the broad bipartisan support for nuclear energy, the role it plays in the green transition and of course Ukraine-Russia has highlighted the need to secure our energy independence,” he said.
The restart of US production comes amid a global revival in the uranium industry with producers in Australia, Canada and other nations seeking to increase production.
They are responding to a blistering rally in uranium prices, which reached a 16-year high above $100 a pound in January and remains elevated at $92 a pound. This is being driven by governments’ renewed interest in nuclear energy, an emissions-free power source that advocates say will play a key role in the energy transition.
About 60 nuclear plants are under construction and a further 110 are planned, according to the World Nuclear Association, which forecasts demand for uranium will double to 130,000 tonnes by 2040. A more immediate boost to demand has come from extensions to the lifetime of reactors currently producing. Last year uranium demand was 65,650 tonnes. It is forecast to rise to 83,840 tonnes by 2030.
Prices have also been raised by tight supply, after a drought of investment in new projects in the 2010s.
Global uranium production dropped by a quarter to 47,731 tonnes from 2016 to 2020 following the market crash after Fukushima. Expansion plans by the world’s largest producer Kazatomprom — which accounts for 23 per cent of global output — have stalled because of shortages of sulphuric acid, which is used in their leach mining operations in Kazakhstan.
“They’ve run into some ramp up issues,” said Ur-Energy Inc chief executive John Cash, which is restarting production at two mines in Wyoming.
He said geopolitics is driving prices higher over concerns that the main export route for Kazakh and Uzbek uranium bound for the US runs across Russia and out of St Petersburg port. In 2022 Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Russia supplied just under half of all uranium purchased by US nuclear plants, according to US government data.
“No one really knows how Vladimir Putin will attempt to put his thumb on those countries going forward. So, diversification now is the name of the game,” said Cash, adding that US and European utilities are signing more contracts with Ur-Energy following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The US Congress is considering banning Russian uranium imports in a move that would further shake up the sector.
Most analysts forecast Kazakhstan’s output will flow increasingly to Russia and China in the future because of high logistics costs to ship uranium via alternative routes that avoid Russia, such as the Caspian Sea, and an increase in long-term deals to supply China.
Melbye said the growth in the nuclear sector and western nations’ increased focus on
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Solar Power Milestone
It accounted for 53% of new capacity
By Tik Root | March 11, 2024 5:01 AM
https://laist.com/brief/news/climate-environment/solar-renewable-energ
y-milestone
Solar accounted for most of the capacity the nation added to its electric grids last year. That feat marks the first time since World War II, when hydropower was booming, that a renewable power source has comprised more than half of the nation’s energy additions.
The 32.4 gigawatts that came online in the United States last year shattered the previous high of 23.6 gigawatts recorded in 2021 and accounted for 53 percent of new capacity. Natural gas was next in line at a distant 18 percent.
SEIA called 2023 the best year for renewables since the Second World War. Texas and California led a solar surge driven mostly by utility-scale installations, which jumped 77 percent year-over-year to 22.5 gigawatts.
Experts generally expect renewable energy to keep on its torrent trajectory.
“It’s very likely to continue because solar and wind are now very well established,” said Rob Stoner, director of the MIT Energy Initiative. “Solar costs continue to fall far below where we ever thought they would.”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly: 1982 to March 21, 2024
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1771201408978534415
https://jabberwocking.com/the-north-atlantic-meltdown-is-getting-even-
worse/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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The world’s biggest clean energy plant
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/19/business/india-adani-green-energy-p
lant-climate-intl-hnk/index.html
The success of the Khavda Renewable Energy Park is critical to India’s efforts to reduce pollution and hit its climate goals while meeting the burgeoning energy needs of the world’s most populous nation and fastest-growing major economy. Coal still accounts for 70% of the electricity India generates.
India is comfortably placed to grow at an annual rate of at least 6% in the coming few years, analysts say, and may become the world’s third largest economy before the end of this decade.
As it develops and modernizes, its urban population will shoot up, leading to a massive rise in the construction of homes, offices, shops and other buildings. According to analysts, India is set to add the equivalent of a London to its urban population every year for the next 30 years.
Electricity demand is expected to skyrocket in the coming years because of factors ranging from improved living standards to climate change. The latter has been fueling deadly heatwaves across India, and as a result, air conditioner ownership is set to see a sharp spike in the coming years.
By 2050, India’s total electricity demand from residential air conditioners is set to exceed the total energy consumption in the whole of Africa today, the IEA said.
India cannot rely on fossil fuels for its burgeoning needs without disastrous consequences for efforts to tackle the climate crisis.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Sounds to me like we should be talking about population control and not talking about fairy tales.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:Did you notice that he is bragging about how they have cranked up the costs of energy so much that reliable cheap energy is now more expensive than the outrageously expensive renewables?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Sounds to me like we should be talking about population control and not talking about fairy tales.
As soon as Trump takes office again, the bottom will drop out of the Fake Renewable Market.
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Climate Change Indicators: U.S. Green House Gas Emissions
Angry Bear | April 1, 2024 7:00 am
https://angrybearblog.com/2024/04/climate-change-indicators-u-s-green-
house-gas-emissions
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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The consensus is in: cooling the planet will be impossible without direct human intervention.
By Gwynne Dyer | 8:32, Apr. 1, 2024
https://thewalrus.ca/seven-truths-climate-crisis/
As the climate crisis deepens and the negative impacts multiply, public opinion and politics are finally responding, but there is no guarantee that our actions will be big and fast enough to avoid an outcome that is catastrophic for human beings and quite disruptive, at least, for the entire biosphere. We are not even sure yet how big and how fast those actions need to be, because the discipline of climate science is only about forty years old. But the answer is almost certainly: very big and very fast.
“How extreme it could get,” says Tim Lenton, professor of climate change and earth system science at the University of Exeter, “depends on two main things: how intent we are on burning all the fossil fuels we already know about and how sensitive the Earth’s climate is to that carbon injection. We could get to 8°C of warming fairly readily, but we probably wouldn’t, because it would be so catastrophic well before we reached that point that it would terminate our activities. We are still able to trigger warming of the order of 5°C globally, burning only a fraction of the fossil fuels, if we consider the feedbacks and tipping points. Very sobering for those of us who work on this day in, day out.”
Scientists can now predict with some confidence how much extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause how much warming: there is still a range of possibilities, but the range has narrowed, and all the possibilities past 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are bad.
We are coming up on 425 ppm and adding 2.4 ppm a year.
Almost nobody in the climate science community really believes anymore that we can stop the warming at a place that is relatively safe without direct human intervention of some sort in the climate system. Doing so merely by cutting emissions and planting lots of trees would have been possible (with a huge crash programme) in the year 2000, and it was still imaginable (just) in 2010, but it now hardly seems credible.
Just as an aide-mémoire, these are the inconvenient facts that we must always bear in mind.
We Are Running Out of Time
Actually, we probably have run out of time. Like soon-to-be bankrupts, we can go on fiddling the books for a while longer, but we cannot stay below the 1.5°C higher average global temperature that was our recommended maximum increase according to the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015. As Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told me in 2020: “We have been lulling ourselves into a comfort zone, believing we have a lot of time, but 2020 is the year when we need to bend the curve down on global emissions.?.?.?.?You cannot succeed if you bend later.?.?.?.?If you bend later, the speed by which we have to reduce emissions is no longer possible to achieve in any democratic way. You would simply have to bulldoze every coal-fired plant overnight.”
Much more at https://thewalrus.ca/seven-truths-climate-crisis/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Global surface temperatures in March were 0.1C higher than the previous record for the month, set in 2016, and 1.68C higher than the pre-industrial average, according to data released on Tuesday by the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
https://climate.copernicus.eu/climate-bulletins#55c9d9ab-fb45-4667-94b
0-084c3423879b
This is the 10th consecutive monthly record in a warming phase that has shattered all previous records. Over the past 12 months, average global temperatures have been 1.58C above pre-industrial levels. This exceeds the 1.5C benchmark set as a target in the Paris climate agreement.
“Stopping further warming requires rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” said Samantha Burgess, the deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Michael E Mann, the scientist whose 1999 “hockey-stick graph” showed the sharp rise in global temperatures since the industrial age, said the current trends were to be expected given the continuing rise in emissions. But he said that should not be a source of comfort. “The world is warming AS FAST as we predicted – and that’s bad enough,” he tweeted.
Opposition to this view comes not from science, but the fossil fuel industry – in particular the 57 companies linked to 80% of emissions – which stands to lose trillions of dollars. Last month, Saudi Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser was applauded at an oil industry conference in Houston for declaring: “We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas.” This was despite the fact that his country and others had agreed just four months earlier to move away from fossil fuels at the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai.
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2024/apr/09/tenth-consecutive-month
ly-heat-record-alarms-confounds-climate-scientists
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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You should see the sea surface temperature.
Yanno, probably the reason why people resist the thought of global climate change isn't so much thst they doubt the science, it's that all of the "solutions" put forward by TPTB always seem to threaten their standard of living, as low as it might be.
For people who have air conditioning, it's "don't use A/C". For people who can afford to eat meat, it's "eat bugs". For people who can't even afford to eat meat, it's "die, already".
I'll bet if you told people that you could make a good start on solving climate shift problem by killing off the richest million people, ending war, and employing a crap ton of people at reasonable wages for forest management, better- if more labor-intensive - farming practices, and remediating old houses to be energy efficient, they'd be a lot happier if you told them that commuter cars would be limited to 3000 lbs and trucks and vans would only be sold for legitimate business purposes.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:Signym, your angry poor white trash orientation is showing. Trump and Putin know how to manipulate your psychology.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You should see the sea surface temperature.
Yanno, probably the reason why people resist the thought of global climate change isn't so much thst they doubt the science, it's that all of the "solutions" put forward by TPTB always seem to threaten their standard of living, as low as it might be.
For people who have air conditioning, it's "don't use A/C". For people who can afford to eat meat, it's "eat bugs". For people who can't even afford to eat meat, it's "die, already".
I'll bet if you told people that you could make a good start on solving climate shift problem by killing off the richest million people, ending war, and employing a crap ton of people at reasonable wages for forest management, better- if more labor-intensive - farming practices, and remediating old houses to be energy efficient, they'd be a lot happier if you told them that commuter cars would be limited to 3000 lbs and trucks and vans would only be sold for legitimate business purposes.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You should see the sea surface temperature.
Yanno, probably the reason why people resist the thought of global climate change isn't so much thst they doubt the science, it's that all of the "solutions" put forward by TPTB always seem to threaten their standard of living, as low as it might be.
For people who have air conditioning, it's "don't use A/C". For people who can afford to eat meat, it's "eat bugs". For people who can't even afford to eat meat, it's "die, already".
I'll bet if you told people that you could make a good start on solving climate shift problem by killing off the richest million people, ending war, and employing a crap ton of people at reasonable wages for forest management, better- if more labor-intensive - farming practices, and remediating old houses to be energy efficient, they'd be a lot happier if you told them that commuter cars would be limited to 3000 lbs and trucks and vans would only be sold for legitimate business purposes.
SECOND: Signym, your angry poor white trash orientation is showing. Trump and Putin know how to manipulate your psychology.
You can't come up with a rational response, and you feel threatened, so you resort to name-calling?
Of course. It's what you do.
The wealthiest use more resources and create more global warming emissions than everyone else. Case in point: One space joyride emits more GHGS than the poorest BILLION people do in a year. And how 'bout those private jets and yachts, hmmm??? Their control of policy that got us in this mess in the first place?
War: The Pentagon is the single biggest institutional emitter of GHCs in the ENTIRE WORLD. Now take into account all the production of war materiel, not only by our MIC but all of the militaries around the world who are preparing to defend themselves. If we could reduce the Pentagon to its original function .. defened our borders -currently undefended ... we could reduce our own emissions by 90%.
Forestry: One bad forest fire year in CA undid 18 YEARS of CA decarbonization. 18:1. Hard to find a ROI better than that! Multiply that by however many states have vulnerable forests. And it's not CA state forests that burned, it was Federally "managed" forests.
I do recommend that ordinary people sacrifice, too. Those trucks and passenger vans and SUVs that haul a couple of tons (or more) pf vehicle around to get groceries from the supermarket? Totally unnecessary luxury. And if you should unexpectedly need to haul a load of furniture or take the extended family on a road trip ... there's always rental.
Let's tackle the biggest problems and hte biggest emitteres first in a rational, sincere, and effective effort to slow down climate change, not pick on "little people" in a naked power- and money-grab by the already obscenely powerful.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:
Hidden Behind Climate Policies, Data From Nonexistent Temperature Stations
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/hidden-behind-climate-policies-dat
a-nonexistent-temperature-stations
It's both important that this be brought up, and unfair that it's presented as it is.
Measuring temperature across the globe is fraught with difficulties. One problem is that temperature sensors are unevenly distributed. Most are around cities, which create their own heat domes. You won't find any in the middle of the Brazilian rainforest, and not many in the middle of the Australian outback or at the poles. Sea surface temperature is measured by buoys, some of which are set adrift and a number of which are located to detect El Nino. Because sensors are unevenly distributed it would be unfair to take a simple average, as that would "overweight" some regions and underweight others.
Historic stations are obsoleted, not just by aging equipment but also by development. If a highrise is built where a station used to be, you can't replace it.
And unfortunately there's no satellite detector that can read surface temperatures.
The best can be done is make a good- faith effort to estimate the actual average, AND to note regional anomalies. We know, for example, that the northern Arctic and subartic region is warming far faster than anywhere else. What that ultimately does to ocean and air currents is anyone's guess, but we can already see the jet streams shifting northward, slowing down, and "looping" far further north and south than previously.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:Signym, this is what rationality looks like, not another of your "eat the rich" solutions. Each one of these emission sources goes to zero:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Let's tackle the biggest problems and hte biggest emitteres first in a rational, sincere, and effective effort to slow down climate change, not pick on "little people" in a naked power- and money-grab by the already obscenely powerful.
Climate Change Indicators: U.S. Green House Gas Emissions
Angry Bear | April 1, 2024 7:00 am
https://angrybearblog.com/2024/04/climate-change-indicators-u-s-green-
house-gas-emissions
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Notice, however, that they didn't break out the sources of GHGs by institution or wealth, or mention that the USA has oursourced a lot of its manufacturing emissions to China. Forest fires didn't even get a mention. And altho "agriculture" (and ranching? Forestry?) may not be huge emitters, they have the capacity to be big sinks.
It's like "per capita GDP": if you chose your categories correctly, you can hide a multitude of sins.
One more comment: electricity generation emissions go up steadily. How do you think that'll look if EVs are mandated?
And finally ... didn't hear objections to the whole idea of depopulation when applied to the poor masses. Suddenly, it becomes an issue when it's applied to the biggest emitters, the wealthy?
That's not rationality, that's severe bias.
Just sayin'.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Quote:Signym, I am biased against stupid and lazy people like you. Meanwhile, there are Californians expending money and building a future despite the stupid and lazy people objecting to spending money fixing the problem because killing their enemies ("depopulation" is Signym's term for murder) seems to be a cost-free way around problems:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And finally ... didn't hear objections to the whole idea of depopulation when applied to the poor masses. Suddenly, it becomes an issue when it's applied to the biggest emitters, the wealthy?
That's not rationality, that's severe bias.
Just sayin'.
Apr 15, 2024
In a major clean energy benchmark, wind, solar, and hydro exceeded 100% of demand on California’s main grid for 30 of the past 38 days.
On April 2, the California Independent System Operator (ISO) recommended 26 new transmission projects worth $6.1 billion, with a big number being devoted to offshore wind.
California will entirely be on renewables and battery storage 24/7 by 2035.
California passed a law that commits to achieving 100% net zero electricity by 2045. Will it beat that goal by a decade?
https://electrek.co/2024/04/15/renewables-met-100-percent-california-e
nergy-demand-30-days/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Why Wind and Solar Won't Solve Climate Change
By Ted Nordhaus | April 21, 2024
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/21/christophers-price-is-wrong-book-
review-climate-change-policy-renewable-energy-wind-solar/?tpcc=recirc_latest062921
Book Review
The Price Is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet, Brett Christophers, Verso, 432 pp., $26.07 (that’s the price on the affiliate link), March 2024
Download for free from the mirrors at https://libgen.is//search.php?req=Brett+Christophers+Price
In 2015, the British economist Nicholas Stern argued that the reason for excessive carbon emissions was not just one market failure—the familiar fact that fossil fuel prices do not include the environmental and social costs of burning them—but rather six such failures. Laid out in Why Are We Waiting? The Logic, Urgency, and Promise of Tackling Climate Change, Stern’s fusillade of market failures cut against the prevailing case for pricing carbon, long considered a silver bullet: Get the price of carbon right, the argument went, and market actors would come up with the best and most efficient solutions without the need for policymakers to pick clean-technology winners, devise complex regulatory schemes, or otherwise micromanage the transition.
To his credit, Stern’s diagnosis of multiple market failures was an acknowledgment that climate change could not be solved in such a simple, elegant fashion. But his approach also smacked of dogmatism. In neoclassical economic theory, a properly functioning market will always produce an optimal amount of desired goods at an optimal cost—and when it fails to do so, it must be because prices have been distorted for some reason. The solution, then, is to discover the distortion, get the prices right, and allow the market to deliver the optimal amount of the desired good—in this case, clean energy.
But when one needs to invoke six market failures instead of one, it is fair to ask whether the lens of market failure is really the best or most parsimonious framework for looking at the problem. Like pre-Galilean astronomers, who produced ever more complex epicycles to describe the movement of celestial objects in order to sustain their belief that the Earth sat at the center of the universe, Stern’s proliferating cosmology of market failures was necessary to keep markets at the center of climate policy.
This, more or less, is where Brett Christophers’s new book, The Price Is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet, begins. Christophers, a geographer at Sweden’s Uppsala University, argues that getting prices right, whether by making fossil fuels expensive through pricing carbon or making clean energy cheap through subsidies and technological innovation, is entirely insufficient to drive the rapid deployment of renewable energy. Much heavier-handed intervention will be necessary, Christophers argues, including government price guarantees or even public ownership of electricity generation and distribution. The book is convincing at times in its case that neoliberal schemes to deregulate electricity markets can undermine efforts to mitigate climate change. But without intending to do so, Christophers also shows why wind and solar energy alone are unlikely to get us very far in decarbonizing the global economy.
The Price Is Wrong has been hotly anticipated. The New York Times’ David Wallace-Wells previewed it in a column in January. Robinson Meyer, an Atlantic and New York Times contributor and editor of a widely read climate newsletter, described the book as “one of the most insightful and clarifying books yet written on the relationship between climate change and capitalism.”
Readers expecting an anti-capitalist polemic, however, will be disappointed. Christophers is more wonk than firebrand, immersing his audience in an often technical description of how electricity systems have evolved, how electricity markets work, and how renewable energy projects are financed and make money. At the core of his argument is what he describes as a paradox: “If renewables are now cheapes
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I wasn't worried about climate change. Now I am. - Sabine Hossenfelder, Jan 27, 2024
In this video I explain what climate sensitivity is and why it is important. Climate sensitivity is a number that roughly speaking tells us how fast climate change will get worse. A few years ago, after various software improvements, a bunch of climate models began having a much higher climate sensitivity than previously. Climate scientists have come up with reasons for why to ignore this. I think it's a bad idea to ignore this.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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I thought Electric Cars Were the Future. I Changed My Mind to Hybrid Vehicles.
EVs will be delayed by decades because the electric grid is expanding too slowly and there will be too few public charging stations.
There are 2,128 Tesla Superchargers locations in the United States as of January 15, 2024.
https://www.scrapehero.com/location-reports/Tesla%20Superchargers-USA/
There are 196,643 retail gas station locations in United States as of Mar 13, 2024.
https://www.xmap.ai/blog/gas-stations-in-united-states-of-america-ever
ything-you-need-to-know
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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How EVs became so polarized
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/how-evs-became-so-polarized/ar
-BB1lTxdL
Between 2012 and 2022 about half of all EVs sold went to the top 10 percent most Democratic counties in the United States. Around a third of all EVs sold went to the top 5 percent most Democratic counties. That pattern persisted when researchers analyzed the most Democratic states. “There’s an incredible correlation with political ideology,” said Lucas Davis, a professor of business and technology at the University of California at Berkeley and the lead author on the analysis.
Democratic areas have much more than their fair share of electric cars. So why did electric cars become — and stay — so polarized?
One reason is that Republican leaders have injected electric vehicles into the culture wars. Donald Trump has railed against electric cars, calling support of them “electric car lunacy” and the push for an EV future “very, very stupid.”
Electric cars have taken off across the United States. Even amid news of slowing sales, the country sold almost 1.2 million fully electric vehicles in 2023, more than quadruple the number in 2019.
Personal cars account for 20 percent of U.S. planet-warming emissions, but more Americans still prefer gas-powered ones. If that doesn’t change, it will be almost impossible for the United States to meet its climate goals.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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We asked 380 Climate Scientists About the Future - Wed 8 May 2024 05.00 EDT
In Mérida on the Yucatán peninsula, where Cerezo-Mota lives, the heat is ramping up. “Last summer, we had around 47C maximum (116.6F). The worst part is that, even at night, it’s 38C (100.4F), which is higher than your body temperature. It doesn’t give a minute of the day for your body to try to recover.”
She says record-breaking heatwaves led to many deaths in Mexico. “It’s very frustrating because many of these things could have been avoided. And it’s just silly to think: ‘Well, I don’t care if Mexico gets destroyed.’ We have seen these extreme events happening everywhere. There is not a safe place for anyone.
More at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/may/08/hop
eless-and-broken-why-the-worlds-top-climate-scientists-are-in-despair
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
How EVs became so polarized
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/how-evs-became-so-polarized/ar
-BB1lTxdL
Between 2012 and 2022 about half of all EVs sold went to the top 10 percent most Democratic counties in the United States. Around a third of all EVs sold went to the top 5 percent most Democratic counties. That pattern persisted when researchers analyzed the most Democratic states. “There’s an incredible correlation with political ideology,” said Lucas Davis, a professor of business and technology at the University of California at Berkeley and the lead author on the analysis.
Democratic areas have much more than their fair share of electric cars. So why did electric cars become — and stay — so polarized?
One reason is that Republican leaders have injected electric vehicles into the culture wars. Donald Trump has railed against electric cars, calling support of them “electric car lunacy” and the push for an EV future “very, very stupid.”
Electric cars have taken off across the United States. Even amid news of slowing sales, the country sold almost 1.2 million fully electric vehicles in 2023, more than quadruple the number in 2019.
Personal cars account for 20 percent of U.S. planet-warming emissions, but more Americans still prefer gas-powered ones. If that doesn’t change, it will be almost impossible for the United States to meet its climate goals.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Because you guys are brainwashed idiots.
How's that piece of shit running? Can you even get 200 miles on a full charge anymore?
Good luck selling it on the used market, since there is zero used market for coal burning cars with $30,000 batteries.
You are a stupid, stupid person, and a fool and his money are easily parted.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
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Trump requests $1 billion donation from oil execs in exchange for rolling back environmental regulations
Former President Donald J. Trump told a group of oil executives and lobbyists gathered at a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort last month that they should donate $1 billion to his presidential campaign because, if elected, he would roll back environmental rules that he said hampered their industry, according to two people who were there.
About 20 people attended an April 11 event billed as an “energy round table” at Mr. Trump’s private club, according to those people, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss the private event. Attendees included executives from ExxonMobil, EQT Corporation and the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for the oil industry.
The event was organized by the oil billionaire Harold Hamm, who has for years helped to shape Republican energy policies. It was first reported by The Washington Post.
Mr. Trump has publicly railed for months against President Biden’s energy and environmental agenda, as Mr. Biden has raced to restore and strengthen dozens of climate and conservation rules that Mr. Trump had weakened or erased while in office. In particular, Mr. Trump has promised to eliminate Mr. Biden’s new climate rules intended to accelerate the nation’s transition to electric vehicles, and to push a “drill, baby, drill” agenda aimed at opening up more public lands to oil and gas exploration.
Mr. Biden has called climate change an existential threat and has moved to cut the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet and supercharging storms, heat waves and drought.
Over a dinner of chopped steak, Mr. Trump repeated his public promises to delete Mr. Biden’s pollution controls, telling the attendees that they should donate heavily to help him beat Mr. Biden because his policies would help their industries.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/09/climate/trump-oil-gas-mar-a-lago.ht
ml
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Oil industry writes executive orders for Trump to sign
The U.S. oil industry is drawing up ready-to-sign executive orders for Donald Trump aimed at pushing natural gas exports, cutting drilling costs and increasing offshore oil leases in case he wins a second term, according to energy executives with direct knowledge of the work.
The effort stems from the industry’s skepticism that the Trump campaign will be able to focus on energy issues as Election Day draws closer — and worries that the former president is too distracted to prepare a quick reversal of the Biden administration’s green policies. Oil executives also worry that a second Trump administration won’t attract staff skillful enough to roll back President Joe Biden’s regulations or craft new ones favoring the industry, these people added.
Six energy industry lawyers and lobbyists interviewed by POLITICO described the effort to craft executive orders and other policy paperwork that they see as more effective than anything a second Trump administration could devise on its own. Those include a quick reversal of Biden’s pause on new natural gas export permits and preparations for wider and cheaper access to federal lands and waters for drilling.
The initiative is just one example of the efforts underway from multiple advocacy groups with strong policy agendas — including abortion-rights opponents — to fill in the gaps for Trump’s potential return to the White House. The presumptive Republican nominee has been a vocal supporter of the oil and gas industry, but the companies often chafed at the effects of his policies as president, including his trade wars and the legal challenges that thwarted some of his pro-fossil-fuel actions.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/08/oil-industry-orders-trump-day
-one-00156705
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Oil industry writes executive orders for Trump to sign
The U.S. oil industry is drawing up ready-to-sign executive orders for Donald Trump aimed at pushing natural gas exports, cutting drilling costs and increasing offshore oil leases in case he wins a second term, according to energy executives with direct knowledge of the work.
The effort stems from the industry’s skepticism that the Trump campaign will be able to focus on energy issues as Election Day draws closer — and worries that the former president is too distracted to prepare a quick reversal of the Biden administration’s green policies. Oil executives also worry that a second Trump administration won’t attract staff skillful enough to roll back President Joe Biden’s regulations or craft new ones favoring the industry, these people added.
Six energy industry lawyers and lobbyists interviewed by POLITICO described the effort to craft executive orders and other policy paperwork that they see as more effective than anything a second Trump administration could devise on its own. Those include a quick reversal of Biden’s pause on new natural gas export permits and preparations for wider and cheaper access to federal lands and waters for drilling.
The initiative is just one example of the efforts underway from multiple advocacy groups with strong policy agendas — including abortion-rights opponents — to fill in the gaps for Trump’s potential return to the White House. The presumptive Republican nominee has been a vocal supporter of the oil and gas industry, but the companies often chafed at the effects of his policies as president, including his trade wars and the legal challenges that thwarted some of his pro-fossil-fuel actions.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/08/oil-industry-orders-trump-day
-one-00156705
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
This is a campaign advertisement that Trump didn't have to pay for.
I know 2016 was a long time ago now, but you really should have remembered the lessons.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
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Battery-powered aircraft could lead transition from fossil-fueled flight
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Mammoth, the largest industrial facility yet built to filter carbon dioxide out of the air, just powered up in Hellisheiði, Iceland. It’s run by Swiss climate tech company Climeworks, whose clients include JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, Stripe, and Shopify, among others.
It was the latest industrial plant built with the purpose of sucking carbon dioxide out of the air, a process called direct air capture (DAC) — with more facilities planned around the world. DAC is supposed to be a way to fight climate change by getting rid of greenhouse gas emissions that have built up in the atmosphere, but the process still has to prove that it can scale up enough to have a meaningful impact.
It’ll have to see if it can replicate that early success in a growing market in the US
Mammoth is the biggest DAC plant running yet. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s relatively small compared to other projects in the pipeline. Climeworks’ operations in Iceland were meant to show the world that this technology can work. Now, it’ll have to see if it can replicate that early success in a growing market in the US.
Back in 2017, Climeworks became the first company to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and sell it as a product used in fizzy drinks and in a greenhouse. It took a big step forward in Iceland in 2021, where it opened the DAC plant Orca to start capturing CO2 and permanently sequestering it underground for clients, including Microsoft.
Orca was the biggest DAC plant in operation until now. Mammoth will be able to capture nearly 10 times as much CO2 as Orca once it’s fully operational, around 36,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year. That’s still not a lot of carbon, considering Microsoft alone emitted close to 13 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2022.
More at https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/8/24151905/mammoth-carbon-removal-dire
ct-air-capture-climeworks
For comparison purposes – Annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions worldwide in 2023 (in billion metric tons) 37.55
https://www.statista.com/statistics/276629/global-co2-emissions/
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+much+co2+is+released+each+year
How much solid waste does the world produce per year? 2 billion metric tons. CO2 is 37.55 billion metric tons. That is why CO2 is a bigger problem.
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+much+solid+waste+does+the+world+pr
oduce+per+year
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
World’s Largest Floating Solar Farm Wrecked By A Storm Just Before Launch
Image from video: https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/inline-images/panels.JPG
Dr. Willie Soon; Who could have predicted acres of fragile floating structures would be vulnerable to bad weather?
"Madhya Pradesh: Summer Storm Damages World’s Largest Floating Solar Plant at Omkareshwar Dam (Watch Video)
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1787224785170190752/mediaVi
ewer?currentTweet=1787224785170190752¤tTweetUser=CitizenFreePres
Indore: A summer storm on Tuesday damaged a floating solar plant at Madhya Pradesh’s Omkareshwar dam. The floating solar plant, situated in the backwater of the dam, is the biggest of its kind in the world. A joint venture between Madhya Pradesh Govt and National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC), the project was nearly completed and ready for its launch. A part of the project became operational last week.
The project near the village of Kelwa Khurd, aimed at generating 100 MW of electricity, with additional capacities of 88MW at Indawadi and 90 MW at Ekhand village. However, on Tuesday, summer storms with the speed of 50kmph hit the project and threw the solar panels all around the place. No employee was fortunately injured."
Read more: https://www.lokmattimes.com/national/madhya-pradesh-summer-storm-damag
es-worlds-largest-floating-solar-plant-at-omkareshwar-dam-watch-video-a514/
Anyone who has ever owned a boat, particular a large boat which gets left in the water, knows what a harsh environment the sea can be. Some kind of failure was inevitable. If it hadn’t been a storm, there are plenty of other things which could have gone wrong.
Greens keep telling us we can expect more frequent and extreme superstorms – so what is the point of building vulnerable floating structures?
Plastics tend to disintegrate under tropical sunlight, especially when in contact with water or water spray. Ultraviolet from the sun drives exotic chemical reactions, which leads to chemical breakdown.
Metal sitting in water is difficult to manage, even stainless steel is not immune to corrosion. All metal structures in contact with water need to be protected with sacrificial anodes or comparable protective measures. Electricity and metal are an especially bad combination, any electrical fault which causes a current to run through metal in contact with water can cause corrosion to occur thousands of times faster than normal.
Let us hope developers and politicians take the hint, and stop throwing our money at inherently flawed ideas like floating solar arrays.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/05/09/worlds-largest-floating-solar-f
arm-wrecked-by-a-storm/
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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A pair of researchers has published a new paper claiming that global warming is astronomically more dangerous than we've thought until now. Their thesis is simple: historical evidence shows a very strong correlation between average global temps and extreme weather events, and those extreme weather events are very costly.
Interestingly, they do something I haven't seen before. Instead of just projecting what will happen in the future, they go backward and look at the past:
Quote:World GDP is currently around $100 trillion, so the authors are saying that it would be $37 trillion higher in the absence of climate change. This is the price we're paying every year.
Our results also indicate that world GDP per capita would be 37% higher today had no warming occurred between 1960 and 2019 instead of the 0.75°C observed increase in global mean temperature.
The Macroeconomic Impact of Climate Change: Global vs. Local Temperature
By Adrien Bilal, Harvard University
and Diego R. Kanzig, Northwestern University
May, 2024
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zyOAE8D2zxb85Z6L4izb2Eot2HLXt-t2/view
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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‘Unbearable’: Will 45C heatwaves affect who India chooses in election?
Candidates are fainting, voter turnout is lower, and research suggests extreme heat could influence who people choose.
By Bibhudatta Pradhan | 14 May 2024
New Delhi, India – Midway through his address to voters in the searing heat of central India late in April, Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari fainted and collapsed on stage. When he was revived a few minutes later, Gadkari returned to the podium, blaming the oppressive weather for the bout of unconsciousness.
Gadkari is only one among a series of politicians, election officials and campaign managers who have fainted or fallen sick in recent days, as the temperature in parts of India has reached 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit). One TV anchor collapsed on air due to heat stroke, while she was reading out updates on a heatwave.
More at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/14/india-election-will-a-forty-f
ive-degree-heat-wave-affect-who-voters-choose
The ruling political party has mentioned achieving net-zero emissions by 2070, transitioning to non-fossil fuel energy sources. But what is actually happening? India's coal-fired electricity generation scaled a new high in January 2024 as the world's second-largest coal user after China cranked coal's share of the country's electricity generation mix to a record 80%.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/indias-coal-fired-electric
ity-output-emissions-hit-record-highs-2024-03-12/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
World’s Largest Floating Solar Farm Wrecked By A Storm Just Before Launch
Image from video: https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/inline-images/panels.JPG
Dr. Willie Soon; Who could have predicted acres of fragile floating structures would be vulnerable to bad weather?
"Madhya Pradesh: Summer Storm Damages World’s Largest Floating Solar Plant at Omkareshwar Dam (Watch Video)
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1787224785170190752/mediaVi
ewer?currentTweet=1787224785170190752¤tTweetUser=CitizenFreePres
Indore: A summer storm on Tuesday damaged a floating solar plant at Madhya Pradesh’s Omkareshwar dam. The floating solar plant, situated in the backwater of the dam, is the biggest of its kind in the world. A joint venture between Madhya Pradesh Govt and National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC), the project was nearly completed and ready for its launch. A part of the project became operational last week.
The project near the village of Kelwa Khurd, aimed at generating 100 MW of electricity, with additional capacities of 88MW at Indawadi and 90 MW at Ekhand village. However, on Tuesday, summer storms with the speed of 50kmph hit the project and threw the solar panels all around the place. No employee was fortunately injured."
Read more: https://www.lokmattimes.com/national/madhya-pradesh-summer-storm-damag
es-worlds-largest-floating-solar-plant-at-omkareshwar-dam-watch-video-a514/
Anyone who has ever owned a boat, particular a large boat which gets left in the water, knows what a harsh environment the sea can be. Some kind of failure was inevitable. If it hadn’t been a storm, there are plenty of other things which could have gone wrong.
Greens keep telling us we can expect more frequent and extreme superstorms – so what is the point of building vulnerable floating structures?
Plastics tend to disintegrate under tropical sunlight, especially when in contact with water or water spray. Ultraviolet from the sun drives exotic chemical reactions, which leads to chemical breakdown.
Metal sitting in water is difficult to manage, even stainless steel is not immune to corrosion. All metal structures in contact with water need to be protected with sacrificial anodes or comparable protective measures. Electricity and metal are an especially bad combination, any electrical fault which causes a current to run through metal in contact with water can cause corrosion to occur thousands of times faster than normal.
Let us hope developers and politicians take the hint, and stop throwing our money at inherently flawed ideas like floating solar arrays.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/05/09/worlds-largest-floating-solar-f
arm-wrecked-by-a-storm/
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
Solar Freakin' Roadways would have been a much better investment.
Oh... wait.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
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Quote:Collapse is common when the engineers are incompetent. From today:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Solar Freakin' Roadways would have been a much better investment.
Oh... wait.
At least 14 killed as billboard collapses in Mumbai during thunderstorm
The billboard collapsed on some houses and a petrol station next to a busy road in the eastern suburb of Ghatkopar following gusty winds and rain. Mumbai’s municipal corporation said 74 people were taken to hospital with injuries following the accident, of which 31 were discharged.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/14/at-least-14-killed-as-billboa
rd-collapses-in-mumbai-during-thunderstorm
No conclusion can be drawn about solar power from the collapse of solar collectors in the wind or the collapse of a billboard, other than being a cheapskate causes failure.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Collapse is common when the engineers are incompetent. From today:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Solar Freakin' Roadways would have been a much better investment.
Oh... wait.
At least 14 killed as billboard collapses in Mumbai during thunderstorm
The billboard collapsed on some houses and a petrol station next to a busy road in the eastern suburb of Ghatkopar following gusty winds and rain. Mumbai’s municipal corporation said 74 people were taken to hospital with injuries following the accident, of which 31 were discharged.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/14/at-least-14-killed-as-billboa
rd-collapses-in-mumbai-during-thunderstorm
No conclusion can be drawn about solar power from the collapse of solar collectors in the wind or the collapse of a billboard, other than being a cheapskate causes failure.
Well yeah... that's bad. It's also probably not engineers but low skilled workers with a day or two of training putting these things together.
But the real probem with solar is that despite costs coming down it's still a very expensive technology and requires a large footprint for the relatively small output. And the fact that it needs the sun to work means it needs to be exposed to the elements 24/7. So even if it were installed with premium parts by actual skilled engineers, it's requires a lifetime of regular maintenance labor costs to keep operational until it ends up in a landfill.
This is yet another idea with great potential in the future that was forced into regular usage before it was ready to be.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
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Many plans that are eating up money are fueled by wishful thinking rather than by rational thought. Let’s have a look.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill approved Wednesday by the U.S. House of Representatives includes language allowing Boeing an extra five years to produce 767 freighters for FedEx and UPS beyond the date when international standards mandating cleaner engine types kick in.
The bill gives Boeing (NYSE: BA) a bridge, in case the express carriers need extra capacity, until it can develop a new freighter next decade. Multiple industry sources familiar with the process said FedEx (NYSE: FDX) and UPS (NYSE: UPS), via surrogates, joined Boeing in lobbying Congress for a reprieve from the Jan. 1, 2028, production deadline. The legislation previously passed the Senate and will be sent to President Joe Biden to sign into law.
At face value, a split from international consensus would limit operation of freighters produced between 2028 and 2033 to the domestic U.S. market, but it’s possible some countries could permit access, according to experts. Freighters delivered before the end of 2027 aren’t covered by the enhanced carbon emission rules and won’t face any restrictions.
Under International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) agreements, commercial aircraft manufacturers effectively can’t sell aircraft that don’t meet the 2028 carbon emissions standards. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency adopted the fuel efficiency standard in 2021 with the FAA following suit in February.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/congress-exempts-boeing-767-freighter-1
92439771.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Thorium reactors, designed by Copenhagen Atomics for mass manufacturing on assembly lines, could potentially offer the world's cheapest energy
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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UK breakthrough could slash emissions from cement – May 22, 2024
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cxee01m5yero
Scientists say they've found a way to recycle cement from demolished concrete buildings.
Cement is the modern world's most common construction material, but it is also a huge source of planet-warming gas emissions.
That is because of the chemical reactions when you heat limestone to high temperatures by burning fossil fuels.
Recycling cement would massively reduce its carbon footprint. Researchers say that if they switched to electric-powered furnaces, and used renewable energy like wind and solar rather than fossil fuels, that could mean no greenhouse gases would be released at all.
And that would be a big deal. Cement forms the foundation of the modern economy, both literally and metaphorically.
It is what binds the sand and aggregate in concrete together, and concrete is the most widely used material on the planet after water.
It is also a major driver of climate change. If cement was a country, it would be the third biggest source of emissions after China and the US, responsible for 7.5% of human-made CO2.
The problem is the material’s uniquely polluting chemistry.
It is made by heating limestone to up 1600 Celsius in giant kilns powered by fossil fuels.
Those emissions are just the start. The heat is used to drive carbon dioxide from the limestone, leaving a residue of cement.
Add both these sources of pollution together and it is estimated that about a tonne of carbon dioxide is produced for every tonne of cement.
The team of scientists, from Cambridge University, has found a neat way to sidestep those emissions.
It exploits the fact that you can reactivate used cement by exposing it to high temperatures again.
The chemistry is well-established, and it has been done at scale in cement kilns.
The breakthrough is to prove it can be done by piggybacking on the heat generated by another heavy industry – steel recycling.
When you recycle steel, you add chemicals that float on the surface of the molten metal to prevent it reacting with the air and creating impurities. This is known as slag.
The Cambridge team spotted the composition of used cement is almost exactly the same as the slag used in electric arc furnaces.
They have been trialling the process at a small-scale electric arc furnace at the Materials Processing Institute in Middlesbrough.
The BBC was present when the first high grade, or “Portland”, cement was produced.
They are calling it “electric cement” and described the event as a world first.
The lead scientist, Cyrille Dunant, told the BBC it could enable the production of zero-carbon cement.
“We have shown the high temperatures in the furnace reactivate the old cement and because electric arc furnaces use electricity they can be powered by renewable power, so the entire cement making process is decarbonised.,” he said.
He said it also makes steel recycling less polluting because making the chemicals currently used as slag has a high carbon cost too.
Mark Miodownik, Professor of Materials and Society at University College London, described the way the Cambridge team have combined cement and steel recycling as “genius” and believes, if it can be made to work profitably at scale, it could lead to huge reductions in emissions.
“Can it compete against the existing infrastructure that is very unsustainably going to keep pumping cement into our lives”, he asks.
“Cement is already a billion-dollar industry. It’s David and Goliath we are talking about here.”
The hope is electric cement will be cheaper to manufacture because it uses what is essentially waste heat from the steel recycling process.
Spanish company Celsa will attempt to replicate the process in its full-scale electric arc furnace in Cardiff this week.
The Cambridge team estimate, given current rates of steel recycling, their low carbon cement could produce as much as a quarter of UK demand.
But the use
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Two new studies reveal signs of fundamental climate shifts in Antarctica
A steep decline of Antarctic sea ice may mark a long-term transformation in the Southern Ocean, and seawater intrusions beneath the Thwaites Glacier could explain its melting outpacing projections.
By Bob Berwyn | May 20, 2024
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20052024/antarctica-fundamental-cli
mate-shifts-studies/
Antarctica’s vast ice fields and the floating sea ice surrounding the continent are Earth’s biggest heat shields, bouncing solar radiation away from the planet, but two studies released today show how global warming is encroaching even on the sunlight reflector in the coldest region on the planet.
Research by scientists with the British Antarctic Survey focused on last year’s dizzying sea ice decline. During the austral winter of 2023, Antarctic sea ice extent was about 770,000 square miles below average, an area bigger than Alaska.
Lead author Rachel Diamond said the modeling study showed that such an extreme decline would be a one-in-2,000-years event without climate change, “which tells us that the event was very extreme,” she said. “Anything less than one-in-100 is considered exceptionally unlikely.”
In a separate paper, another team of scientists documented how strong tides push seawater surprisingly far beneath the tongue of the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica, reinforcing concerns about the glacier’s melt speeding up and adding to sea level rise.
“Pressurized seawater intrusions will induce vigorous melt of grounded ice over kilometers, making the glacier more vulnerable to ocean warming, and increasing the projections of ice mass loss,” the authors wrote in the paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“The worry is that we are underestimating the speed that the glacier is changing, which would be devastating for coastal communities around the world,” said coauthor Christine Dow, professor in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.
More at https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20052024/antarctica-fundamental-cli
mate-shifts-studies/
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'Boiling not warming': Marine life suffers as Thai sea temperatures hit record
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/boiling-not-warming-marin
e-life-suffers-thai-sea-temperatures-hit-record-2024-05-23/
In a first, scientists precisely control thorium nuclei with lasers
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/laser-controlled-atomic-
nuclei-breakthrough
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Economic damage from climate change six times worse than thought
A 1C increase in global temperature leads to a 12% decline in world gross domestic product (GDP), the researchers found, a far higher estimate than that of previous analyses. The world has already warmed by more than 1C (1.8F) since pre-industrial times and many climate scientists predict a 3C (5.4F) rise will occur by the end of this century due to the ongoing burning of fossil fuels, a scenario that the new working paper, yet to be peer-reviewed, states will come with an enormous economic cost. https://www.nber.org/papers/w32450
A 3C temperature increase will cause “precipitous declines in output, capital and consumption that exceed 50% by 2100” the paper states.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/17/economic-d
amage-climate-change-report
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Electricity production from renewable sources increased by 11.4% y-o-y at 320.0 TWh in February 2024.
Electricity generation from fossil fuels amounted to 397.3 TWh in February 2024, exhibiting a decline of 5.2% (equivalent to 21.8 TWh) compared to February 2023. The reduction is largely driven by lower electricity output from coal. Use of coal experienced an 8.3% year-on-year decrease, followed by gas with a decrease of 3.3% year-on-year. The decrease in coal-fired electricity generation was evident across all OECD regions, with OECD Europe experiencing the most significant decline at 20.3% year-on-year, followed by OECD Asia Oceania at 4.0% year-on-year and the OECD Americas at 3.3% year-on-year. The drop in natural gas electricity production was observed in OECD Europe (-26.4% y-o-y) and OECD Asia Oceania (-3.5% y-o-y), whereas the OECD Americas witnessed a 5.9% y-o-y increase. Overall, fossil fuels accounted for 45.7% of the electricity mix.
https://angrybearblog.com/2024/05/iea-global-electricity-statistics-an
alysis-february-2024
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The White House on Tuesday will announce steps to modernize a major roadblock to the clean energy transformation: America’s aging electrical infrastructure.
The new initiative between the feds and 21 states aims to make faster fixes and improvements to the grid, committing to build a bigger and more modern grid as part of a larger effort to reduce power outages and increase electrical transmission capacity – a massive hurdle to getting more clean energy on the grid and reducing the planet-warming pollution causing the climate crisis.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/28/climate/energy-grid-modernization-biden
/index.html
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The White House on Tuesday will announce steps to modernize a major roadblock to the clean energy transformation: America’s aging electrical infrastructure.
The new initiative between the feds and 21 states aims to make faster fixes and improvements to the grid, committing to build a bigger and more modern grid as part of a larger effort to reduce power outages and increase electrical transmission capacity – a massive hurdle to getting more clean energy on the grid and reducing the planet-warming pollution causing the climate crisis.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/28/climate/energy-grid-modernization-biden
/index.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Wait.
Wasn't $7 billion just spent on improving EV charging?
Just in general, if we'll be facing hotter and more extreme weather, we SHOULD be upgrading our grid, making it easier to shuttle electricity from one region to another, more efficient (less line losses) and safer, more resilient to storms and able to isolate outages quickly.
Starting with EV charging stations ... and spending about a billion dollars on each location ... seems bass akwards. But I'll bet SOMEBODY made a metric crap ton of money!
So, when is DC gonna get off their various hobby- horses and pork- barrel "solutions" to global climate change, and get serious about this?
Or are they gonna keep spending hundreds of billions on wars of choice?
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Delhi records record high temperature of nearly 50C
A heatwave sweeping India with temps of over 120 degrees Fahrenheit has resulted in lower voter turnouts for its ongoing election
https://www.rt.com/india/598377-delhi-records-record-high-temperature/
And it's not even full summer yet.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Or, any verification or thought.
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Are electric cars better for the environment than fuel-powered cars? Here's the verdict from Australia
By Jo Lauder | Mon 27 May 2024 at 10:06pm
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-27/comparing-electric-cars-and-pet
rol-cars/103746132
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Quote:How much has the USA spent on nukes and delivery vehicles and preparation for all-out war, without any achievements since Aug 6, 1945 – Aug 9, 1945? About $34 trillion (adjusted for inflation and including the time cost of money) which is approximately the size of the National Debt. This year's "defense" budget plus the Veterans Administration budget ($369.3 billion) will be over $1 trillion.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Or are they gonna keep spending hundreds of billions on wars of choice?
https://www.google.com/search?q=How+much+has+the+USA+spent+on+nukes
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Bill Gates has recently been under fire following an interview in which he said that planting trees won’t save us from climate change. Is he right? Is this just another quote taken out of context? What does the science say? Let’s have a look.
The global tree restoration potential
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aax0848
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During a year of extremes, carbon dioxide levels surge faster than ever
The two-year increase in Keeling Curve peak is the largest on record
June 6, 2024
Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever — accelerating on a steep rise to levels far above any experienced during human existence, scientists from NOAA and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego announced today.
“Not only is CO2 now at the highest level in millions of years, it is also rising faster than ever,” said Keeling. “Each year achieves a higher maximum due to fossil-fuel burning, which releases pollution in the form of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Fossil fuel pollution just keeps building up, much like trash in a landfill.”
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/during-year-of-extremes-carbon-dioxi
de-levels-surge-faster-than-ever
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After 30 years, chlorofluorocarbon ban finally starts working
By Kevin Drum | June 11, 2024 – 2:32 pm
https://jabberwocking.com/after-30-years-chlorofluorocarbon-ban-finall
y-starts-working/
Here's a remarkable image:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-02038-7
In 1987 we signed the Montreal Protocol to ban CFCs, which were producing a hole in the ozone layer. In 1992 the ban was extended to HCFCs. Both of these are powerful greenhouse gases that trap sunlight and contribute to global warming. The amount of warming they cause is called "radiative forcing."
It took until 2021, a third of a century later, to start reducing the radiative forcing of HCFCs in the atmosphere. That's a combination of how long it took to actually get rid of HCFCs and how long it took for existing HCFCs to start breaking down.
A third of a century. And carbon dioxide, the primary cause of global warming, takes much longer to break down than HCFCs. This is why addressing climate change is so urgent. Even if we banned carbon emissions tomorrow, the earth would continue to warm for decades. And we're not anywhere close to banning carbon emissions.
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A Wild Plan to Avert Catastrophic Sea-Level Rise
The collapse of Antarctica’s ice sheets would be disastrous. A group of scientists has an idea to save them.
By Ross Andersen | June 12, 2024
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/07/nasa-nisar-missio
n-glaciers-sea-ice-thwaites/678522/
Many polar science projects are held together by duct tape and the grit of people like Truffer, who spend long months in the field away from their families. But ice preservation on Antarctica wouldn’t be an ordinary science project. If a consortium of governments became convinced that Thwaites glacier could be saved, and that trillions of dollars of flooding damage could be avoided, they might treat the project more like a military mobilization or mass vaccine deployment. By those standards, the many billions of dollars you might need—especially if the glacier had to be drilled and pumped continually, across many years—really isn’t that much money. Truffer remains skeptical of Tulaczyk’s project, but he said it would be much more imaginable if it were backed by those kinds of resources.
That’s really conceivable only in an asteroid-headed-for-Earth scenario where glaciologists are in total agreement that the loss of Thwaites is imminent. Funding, in that case, would be the easy part. Getting permission from Russia, China, and dozens of other parties to the Antarctic Treaty would likely be harder. Building an international consensus, manufacturing the equipment, and setting it up on Antarctica could take decades. Testing will certainly take decades.
In the meantime, the world’s ice will continue to dissolve. Even if we were to halt emissions immediately and entirely, we could still lose major glaciers at both poles within a century. We can see them fragmenting now, in real time. On my last night in Ilulissat, I went back to the fjord on a small icebreaker. As we moved through the pewter water, the thin sea ice beneath us fractured into every imaginable polygon. From the hills above, the icebergs had all seemed still and sculptural. Up close, it was easier to see that they were in flux. Meltwater glittered along their edges, and they were all drifting ever so subtly. One by one, they would soon head out to sea. If we want to keep our ice sheets and shores where they are, Tulaczyk’s idea may help. Maybe it will work all by itself, or in combination with other ice-control schemes. Or maybe all of these ideas are destined to fail. Either way, we should find out.
----------
Slawek Tulaczyk is a Professor of Earth Science at the University of California Santa Cruz. He focuses his research on ice sheets and glaciers as dynamic features interacting with geologic, hydrologic, and climatic processes on different timescales. To understand Thwaites Glacier's potential future contribution to sea level rise, he investigates the physical controls on ice flow velocity and constructs quantitative models of ice flow dynamics, including underlying geology. Tulaczyk explores geologic controls on glacier movement through sedimentological and geochemical analysis of subglacial sediment samples from West Antarctica. He uses multiple data sources—remote sensing, borehole experiments, subglacial sediment samples—to constrain the physics of the subglacial environment and its role in controlling ice flow velocities.
https://thwaitesglacier.org/people/slawek-tulaczyk
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Quote:
Considering that the biochar is made from biological materials, there's no contribution to the surface CO2 load. I wonder if one can use biological materials to heat up the waste to such a high temperature, or if one needs to use fossil fuels for that.
It appears, though, that overall the creation and use of biochar has a net negative effect on surface CO2. "Worldwide use of biochar could cut CO2 levels by 8 parts per million within 50 years, according to NASA scientist James Hansen."
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=37599
Which is why I find thinning mile-wide firebreaks thru high fuel-load forests, and turning the trash vegetation into biochar so attractive: you solve three problems at the same time
Reduce catastrophic mega-fires
Convert the carbon to long-term storage (unlike mulching and composting)
Improve soil fertility
*****
I wonder if you could apply this technique to sandy, carbon- poor soils in arid areas. These soils can't retain moisture and nutrients, leading to a vicious cycle of non- vegetated areas drying out, maintaining desert conditions.
Also, there have been studies of using biochar in reforestation projects.
Altho nations, institutions, and corporations earn carbon credits based on how many trees they plant, "tree planting" is more of a scam, and not worth the carbon credits they "earn", because
98% of seedlings, or more, die.
The energy spent growing and trucking seedlings is wasted
However, if you plant seedlings with black carbon, the black carbon immediately calculates as net carbon absorbed, and because the seedlings have a higher chance of survival after five years the reforestation project by itself starts absorbing carbon dioxide.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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SECOND, did you even READ the article???
Or did you just spam the board with headlines, again?
Please describe for us how to save the Thwaites Ice Field.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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Just to say, that article was a stellar example of "How to turn a 3 paragraph article into a 5000- word bloated internet article".
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Quote:You will have trouble understanding this article, too, but that is a fundamental fact with all Trumptards about everything. It is no surprise that you Trumptards have difficult and confusing lives:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, did you even READ the article???
Or did you just spam the board with headlines, again?
Please describe for us how to save the Thwaites Ice Field.
CO2 puts heavier stamp on temperature than previously thought, analysis suggests
By Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research | June 24, 2024
https://phys.org/news/2024-06-heavier-temperature-previously-thought-a
nalysis.html
A doubling of the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere could cause an increase in the average temperature on Earth from 7 to a maximum of 14 degrees. This is shown in the analysis of sediments from the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, by researchers at NIOZ and the Universities of Utrecht and Bristol. Their results were published in Nature Communications.
"The temperature rise we found is much larger than the 2.3 to 4.5 degrees that the UN climate panel, IPCC, has been estimating so far," said the first author, Caitlyn Witkowski.
The researchers used a 45-year-old drill core extracted from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. "I realized that this core is very attractive for researchers, because the ocean floor at that spot has had oxygen-free conditions for many millions of years," said Professor Jaap Sinninghe Damsté, senior scientist at NIOZ and professor of organic geochemistry at Utrecht University.
"As a result, organic matter is not broken down as quickly by microbes and more carbon is preserved," Damsté said. He was also the supervisor of Witkowski, whose doctorate thesis included this research.
"CO2 over the past 15 million years has never before been examined from a single location," Witkowski said. The upper thousand meters of the drill core correspond to the past 18 million years. From this record, the researchers were able to extract an indication of the past seawater temperature and an indication of ancient atmospheric CO2 levels, using a new approach.
Derived temperature
The researchers derived the temperature using a method developed 20 years ago at NIOZ, called the TEX86 method. "That method uses specific substances that are present in the membrane of archaea, a distinct class of microorganisms," Damsté explains.
"Those archaea optimize the chemical composition of their membrane depending on the temperature of the water in the upper 200 meters of the ocean. Substances from that membrane can be found as molecular fossils in the ocean sediments, and analyzed to this day."
CO2 from chlorophyll and cholesterol
The researchers developed a new approach to derive past atmospheric CO2 content by using the chemical composition of two specific substances commonly found in algae: chlorophyll and cholesterol. This is the first study to use cholesterol for quantitative CO2 and the first study to use chlorophyll for this time period. To create these substances, algae must absorb CO2 from the water and fix it via photosynthesis.
Damsté said, "A very small fraction of the carbon on Earth occurs in a 'heavy form,' 13C instead of the usual 12C. Algae have a clear preference for 12C. However, the lower the CO2 concentration in the water, the more algae will also use the rare 13C. Thus, the 13C content of these two substances is a measure of the CO2 content of the ocean water. And that in turn, according to solubility laws, correlates with the CO2 content of the atmosphere."
Using this new method, it appears that the CO2 concentration dropped from about 650 parts per million, 15 million years back, to 280 just before the industrial revolution.
Stronger relationship
When the researchers plot the derived temperature and atmospheric CO2 levels of the past 15 million years against each other, they find a strong relationship.
The average temperature 15 mi
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Published Jun 28, 2024
https://grist.org/science/climate-models-puzzle-antarctica-tipping-poi
nt/
Three million years ago, the atmosphere’s carbon-dioxide levels weren’t so different from those of today, but sea levels were dozens of meters higher. Looking that far back presents a foreboding peek into the future, as satellite records show that melting Antarctic ice sheets are on their way to bulking up this epoch’s oceans, too. The puzzle for scientists is that the climate models they create can’t seem to match what they see with their own eyes.
“Lots of people have been scratching their heads trying to figure out what is missing from our ice sheet models,” said Alex Bradley, an ice dynamics researcher at the British Antarctic Survey, part of the United Kingdom’s Natural Environment Research Council.
This week, two new papers in the journal Nature added to the growing pile of evidence that scientists’ models aren’t capturing a complete picture of Antarctica’s rapid deterioration. One study, published on Thursday, found that more than twice as much meltwater could be weighing on the surface of ice shelves, extensions of glaciers that float on the sea, than scientists previously thought. The study published on Tuesday identified a new potential tipping point: Where the land-anchored ice meets the sea, warming ice is creeping underneath, melting it from the belly up.
From above and below, Antarctica’s vault of ice, holding back almost 60 meters of potential sea level rise, seems more imperiled than ever. But neither of the dynamics detailed by these recent studies are used in climate models — potentially leading to an underestimation of how high seas might rise in coming decades.
Much more at https://grist.org/science/climate-models-puzzle-antarctica-tipping-poi
nt/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Daily Sea Surface Temperature
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
https://jabberwocking.com/ocean-temps-reach-almost-not-record-breaking
-level/
In related news:
The storm was the earliest Category 4 in the Atlantic Ocean when it made landfall in Grenada, beating a record previously held by 2005 storm Hurricane Dennis. The National Hurricane Center in Miami then said the storm's winds had increased to Category 5 strength on Monday.
https://www.newsweek.com/hurricane-beryl-aerial-photos-destruction-192
0685
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Using copper to convert CO2 to methane could be game changer in mitigating climate change
By Rowan Hollinger | July 4, 2024
https://phys.org/news/2024-07-copper-methane-game-changer-mitigating.h
tml
Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere can be transformed into methane and once the methane is used, any carbon dioxide released can be captured and "recycled" back into methane. This would create a closed "carbon loop" that does not emit new carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
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They would need a source of hydrogen to convert CO2 to CH4.
So, where does this H come from? Water?
Are we talking about electrolyzing water, again?
And what is the conversion efficiency?
I wish the article had more detail, bc everybody likes to publish whizbang papers, but nobody like to repeat experiments to make sure that it works and determine if it is scalable.
MORE DETAILS, PLEASE.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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15,000 Scientists Warn Society Could Collapse By 2100 Due to Climate Change
https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-warn-climate-collapse-2100
Kyoto Fusioneering looks toward a 'Made in Japan' approach for nuclear fusion
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/environment/2024/07/07/energy/kyoto-fusio
neering-nuclear-fusion-supply-chains/
other Nuclear spin offs
'A dream come true': Nuclear clock breakthrough could revolutionize study of the universe's fundamental forces
https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics/a-dream-come-true-nucl
ear-clock-breakthrough-could-revolutionize-study-of-the-universes-fundamental-forces
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Tesla detailed the average battery-capacity retention per distance traveled of the Model 3 and Model Y cars with Long Range battery packs. For both models, the average battery capacity loss after 200,000 miles is 15%. In other words, the average capacity retention after that distance is 85%.
Longer battery life means EV drivers will save money, as they won't have to purchase a new battery replacement. According to data estimates from Tesla, Americans stop driving a car once it reaches about 200,000 miles. With the battery capacities noted in the 2023 Impact Report, Tesla batteries should not need to be replaced during the life span of the car.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/tesla-s-recent-report-on-battery-
life-is-a-game-changer-for-ev-owners-we-have-a-reliable-data-set/ar-BB1pOi3R
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The world of electric vehicles (EVs) might be on the brink of a dramatic shift thanks to a recent discovery from Nyobolt, a promising British startup focused on batteries.
This innovation could make the inconvenience of extensive battery-charging durations a thing of the past, bringing electric vehicle convenience closer to that of traditional gas-powered cars.
Headquartered in Cambridge, Nyobolt has recently made headlines with their novel 35kWh lithium-ion battery. The first live demonstration indicated that it could charge from 10% to 80% in just over four and a half minutes.
This is a significant leap from the usual 20 odd minutes spent on fast chargers like Tesla's Supercharger, and it's well on the way to the average gasoline fill-up time of two minutes.
"Our extensive research here in the UK and US has unlocked a novel battery technology that is ready and scalable right now. We are enabling the electrification of new products and services currently considered inviable or impossible," said Nyobolt CEO Sai Shivareddy.
More at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/new-electric-car-battery-cha
rges-in-just-4-5-minutes/ar-BB1pD91N
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Natrium Reactor
Terrapower's Natrium Project and the ARDP Partnership
TerraPower is building its first plant through a public-private partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP).
This program authorizes a 50/50 cost share and authorizes up to $2 billion for the Natrium project. TerraPower and partners will match this investment dollar for dollar. The first-of-a-kind cost for the Natrium demonstration plant will include the reactor design and licensing, codes and methods development, fuel development and qualification, and the design, construction and operation of two supporting facilities: the Natrium Fuel Fabrication Facility and Sodium Test and Fill Facility. The sodium facility will be used to test and demonstrate the performance of first-of-a-kind equipment prior to operations in the reactor plant.
https://www.terrapower.com/natrium/
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is currently engaged in pre-application activities interactions for the Natrium reactor. The Natrium design combines features from the previous GEH PRISM and TerraPower Traveling Wave designs. The proposed Natrium reactor is a 345 MWe pool type sodium fast reactor using HALEU metal fuel.
https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/advanced/who-were-working-wi
th/licensing-activities/pre-application-activities/natrium.html
Why Bill Gates’ New Natrium Reactor is a Big Deal
@chapter4travels
2 weeks ago
You covered the thermal storage pretty well but left out some of the more interesting parts/advantages.
Natrium is a low-pressure/high-temperature reactor, this is the most important aspect of this technology. Low-pressure means no expensive forgings and containment structures that high-pressure water reactors need. This saves a lot of money and improves safety at the same time.
High-temperature allows for thermal storage but also separates the power conversion side of the plant from the nuclear side. All the equipment is off-the-shelf stuff that doesn't need to be nuclear certified. This saves a lot of money and allows you to start construction early, like you see in the thumbnail. You can't do this with a LWR.
High-temperature along with fast neutrons means much higher efficiency and later
waste burning. High-temperature also means cheap industrial process heat, something neither LWRs or renewables can provide. The demand for process heat is double that of electricity alone. This is a huge deal.
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Why do we need carbon capture?
Joel Eissenberg | July 20, 2024 8:27 am
Why do we need carbon capture at all? Can’t we just conserve our way out of global warming?
No.
Here are a couple of reasons why the *only* way to avert climate disaster is to start removing carbon from the atmosphere:
1. The half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere is ca. 120 years. What that means is that if all sources of CO2—man-made, forest fires, vulcanism, etc—ceased worldwide starting tomorrow, it would take 120 years for atmospheric CO2 to drop by half. So conservation isn’t enough to reverse the march to climate crisis. Suggesting that carbon capture is just a distraction from having Americans drive less is, to put it gently, hopelessly and tragically naïve.
2. The global anthropogenic sources of CO2 will only expand. 3rd world nations want the economies that the industrialized nation built with burning coal, oil and gas, and it is futile (and arrogant) to admonish them to forego improving their standard of living to that of the industrialized world.
Carbon capture isn’t the enemy of conservation. The world needs *both* carbon capture and conservation if it is to avert climate disaster and resource wars that threaten to destroy human civilization in the next thirty years. This isn’t the time for virtue signaling. Are there risks associated with geoengineering? Sure. But there is a risk bordering on certainty that catastrophe will follow if we rely solely on the hope that somehow the world will dial down energy consumption.
https://angrybearblog.com/2024/07/why-do-we-need-carbon-capture
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Monday was hottest day ever measured by humans, beating Sunday, European science service says; "Uncharted territory"
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hottest-day-monday-edging-out-sunday-clli
mate-change-european-science-agency/
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Model Behavior: Visualizing Global Carbon Dioxide
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14631
This global map of CO2 was created by NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio using a model called GEOS, short for the Goddard Earth Observing System. GEOS is a high-resolution weather reanalysis model, powered by supercomputers, that is used to represent what was happening in the atmosphere — including storm systems, cloud formations, and other natural events. GEOS pulls in billions of data points from ground observations and satellite instruments, such as the Terra satellite’s MODIS and the Suomi-NPP satellite’s VIIRS instruments. Its resolution is more than 100 times greater than your typical weather model.
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Quote:
Park Fire Burns '5,000 Acres An Hour' In California
https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/park-fire-burns-5000-acres-hour-cali
fornia
Better forest management needed!!!
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
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nature making noise
New study disputes Hunga Tonga volcano's role in 2023–24 global warm-up
https://phys.org/news/2024-07-disputes-hunga-tonga-volcano-role.html
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Quote:"Our paper pours cold water on the explanation that the eruption caused the extreme warmth of 2023 and 2024," Dessler explained. "Instead, we need to focus primarily on greenhouse gases from human activities as the main cause of the warming, with a big assist from the ongoing El Niño."
Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
nature making noise
New study disputes Hunga Tonga volcano's role in 2023–24 global warm-up
https://phys.org/news/2024-07-disputes-hunga-tonga-volcano-role.html
According to Dessler, this research has important implications for both scientists and the general public. By dismissing the volcanic eruption as a major factor in the recent warming, the team's study reinforces his point that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are the primary driver of climate change. This focus is particularly relevant, given the ongoing debate and misinformation about the causes of global warming.
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Quote:
Raging California Wildfire Swells to 5th Largest in State History
The Park fire has destroyed more than 300 structures, mostly single-family homes, and is bigger than the city of Los Angeles.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/massive-california-wildfire-only-18-p
ercent-contained-after-a-week-5697599
In addition to releasing tremendous amounts of greenhouses gases and reducing carbon capture for decades to come, the fire is damaging two of the last remaining viable salmon watersheds.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
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Climate denialists – 23 in Senate and 100 in House – are all Republicans
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/climate-deniers-of-the-118th-
congress/
This analysis explores rhetorical shifts from outright climate denial to subtler types of obstruction, which may further delay action on the climate crisis as well as prolong the influence of the fossil fuel industry on environmental and energy policy in the United States. While “climate denial” is arguably the most commonly understood and historically used term, it only describes one type of an ever-widening array of tactics.
Some members of Congress have shifted from outright climate denial to other rhetorical tactics. Examples include redirecting responsibility for addressing the climate crisis, such as deferring U.S. actions to reduce greenhouse emissions until other countries act first; portraying climate activism as alarmism; or spreading misinformation.
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The lost history of what Americans knew about climate change in the 1960s
It wasn't just scientists who were worried, but Congress, the White House, and even Sports Illustrated.
By Kate Yoder | Aug 05, 2024
https://grist.org/science/lost-history-climate-1960s-clean-air-act-sup
reme-court/
Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard University, has found more than 100 examples of congressional hearings that examined CO2 and the greenhouse effect prior to the adoption of the Clean Air Act.
The research adds weight to arguments that Congress intended to give the EPA a broad authority to regulate pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions — a matter that has become more important, the authors say, in the aftermath of the West Virginia v. EPA decision in 2022 that limited the agency’s ability to regulate power plant emissions. The court’s conservative majority invoked a new argument called the “major questions doctrine,” requiring a very clear statement from Congress to authorize regulations that have “vast economic and political significance.”
Oreskes’ paper demonstrates that members of Congress, when discussing the Clean Air Act in 1970, were aware that addressing climate change could have significant economic consequences, for energy production and the automotive industry, for example. Oreskes hopes the paper will “put the lie to the myth that has been propagated that the Clean Air Act had nothing to do with carbon dioxide” and spur conversation among lawyers, judges, and legal scholars.
By the mid-1960s, climate change was already becoming a matter of concern to the federal government, the new analysis shows. A 1965 report from the National Science Foundation found that the ways humans were inadvertently changing the world — through urban development, agriculture, and fossil fuels — were “becoming of sufficient consequence to affect the weather and climate of large areas and ultimately the entire planet.”
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Estimated 75% jump in electricity demand! (Because of Climate Change. Climate Change Deniers in the State Legislature deny that Texas needs more electricity.)
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas predicts that electricity demand will reach 150 gigawatt in less than six years.
By Sara DiNatale | August 12, 2024
https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/is-ercot-2030-texas-power
-demand-overblown-19626094.php
Energy experts are challenging the state grid operator’s jaw-dropping projection for how high electrical demand could rise by 2030, saying that even as Texas faces explosive growth, there is no way its thirst for electricity will reach 150 gigawatt in less than six years — a forecast that has put lawmakers in a tizzy. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas’s Long Term Load Forecast is at https://www.ercot.com/gridinfo/load/forecast
To date, the highest peak demand recorded by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas is about 85.5 gigawatts. And Juan Arteaga — a senior analyst with Enverus, which recently published its own study on demand projections — is skeptical of the motivation behind those who say it could rise 75% by the end of the decade.
“These guys are not stupid,” Arteaga said. “They’re just using that number to push for either more funds or more infrastructure investment. They run the system. They know it’s unrealistic.”
Enverus puts its demand projection for Texas in 2030 at 93.5 gigawatts — still a 10% jump accounting for population growth and electric vehicles, but far less jarring than ERCOT’s estimate that total demand could more than double from its level in 2020.
ERCOT’s latest end-of-decade projections sent shock waves through the Capitol that manifested during June hearings by the Texas House and Senate. The figure is still top of mind for lawmakers, as they consider increasing the Texas Energy Fund’s $5 billion of available taxpayer-backed funding to support low-interest loans for more natural gas plants.
ERCOT stood by the estimate as recently as last week during a second energy-focused hearings at the Texas House.
Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, asked ERCOT Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Woody Rickerson whether he concurred with the roughly 150 gigawatt estimate that CEO Pablo Vegas had shared with lawmakers.
Rickerson said he did, as Spiller shared his concerns about what that level of sudden demand growth would do to the grid’s reliability.
“We may be able to get there, should be able to get there. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get there in that time frame,” Spiller said about the challenge to increase generation capacity accordingly. “My concern is the interim. I mean, the next year, two, three, and four (years) are the biggest concerns that I’ve got.”
When Spiller asked Rickerson whether he shared such concern, the ERCOT executive said he did.
“If the load growth occurs more rapidly than the generation shows up, we’ll have some scarcity conditions for sure,” Rickerson said.
ERCOT’s estimate origins
After ERCOT’s estimate was made public, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov Dan Patrick said they would seek to increase the Texas Energy Fund “as soon as possible.”
“If the new estimate is correct, the updated numbers provided by Mr. Vegas call for an immediate review of all policies concerning the grid,” Abbott and Patrick said in a joint statement last month.
ERCOT recently updated the estimate to 151 gigawatts.
Texas law and the Public Utility Regulatory Act call for ERCOT to consider factors such as historical load and forecasted growth as part of its evaluation of needed transmission. Recent changes to the law also call for ERCOT to consider proposed development in the queue, even projects that are speculative and not backed by things such as signed contracts or interconnection agreements.
ERCOT said in a statement that its analysis includes about 62 gigawatts of large loads.
“The process consists of two parts,” ERCOT said. “The first part of the process is to establish a bounded load level which provides
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Climate Change Deniers in Texas Government want to INCREASE greenhouse gases with low-interest loans to build natural gas power plants
July 2, 2024 • Claire Hao, San Antonio Express-News, TNS
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov Dan Patrick will seek to expand a taxpayer-backed program that primarily funds low-interest loans to build natural gas power plants across the state to $10 billion from $5 billion "as soon as possible," they said Monday.
The move comes in response to new estimates from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state's power grid operator, that the state could need 152 gigawatts of power in six years, roughly doubling the current record of 85.5 gigawatts. Though the projection has been public since April, there has been fresh concern among state leaders — including a sharp turn by some against the cryptocurrency industry — after ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas spooked lawmakers in June with his testimony at legislative hearings regarding the grid.
https://www.governing.com/finance/texas-seeks-to-double-taxpayer-backe
d-fund-for-natural-gas
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Global warming, local benefits
The international dimension of climate change is what makes it so hard to solve
Matthew Yglesias | Aug 14, 2024
https://www.slowboring.com/p/global-warming-local-benefits
Since the 2008 presidential campaign and the 2009 UN climate summit in Copenhagen, I feel like there’s been significant unlearning of the fact that addressing climate change involves a complicated global coordination problem.
This problem is extremely difficult to solve, and as a result, it basically hasn’t been.
The response of much of the climate advocacy community, its associated lobbying apparatus, and much of what passes for climate journalism has been to ignore the global coordination aspect of the problem and bluster ahead. This leads to bad judgment about specific issues, to a tendency to set incorrect priorities, and also to a lot of confusion.
Last week, I was talking to someone who doesn’t follow policy closely, who voted for Biden in 2020 but isn’t sure about 2024. She told me her top issue is climate change, which she described in fairly apocalyptic terms. I told her that Biden had enacted historic climate legislation and that Democrats had made this their top priority. She said if they’d really solved climate change, she would surely have heard about it. At which point I tried (and failed) to convince her that climate worst-case scenarios were, in fact, now off the table, while also conceding that Biden’s climate actions had only a modest impact on global average temperature projections. But that’s not because the IRA energy provisions aren’t a big deal. It’s because the United States has a modest (and falling) share of global emissions.
What share of global CO2 emissions are emitted by the US?
https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states#what-share-of-glo
bal-co2-emissions-are-emitted-by-the-country
Summary of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provisions related to renewable energy
https://www.epa.gov/green-power-markets/summary-inflation-reduction-ac
t-provisions-related-renewable-energy
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The disagreement between two climate scientists that will decide our future
In his new paper, Hansen ( http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/ ) argues that if the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases remains close to its current level, the surface temperature will stabilise after several hundred years between 8°C and 10°C above the pre-industrial level.
Of this, at least 2°C will emerge by mid-century, and probably a further 3°C a century from now. A temperature increase of this magnitude would be catastrophic for life on Earth. Hansen adds that to avoid such an outcome, brightening Earth is now necessary to halt the warming in the pipeline from past emissions.
Time for reflection
The differences between Mann and Hansen are significant for the global response to climate change.
Mann says that allowing emissions to reach net zero by mid-century is sufficient, while Hansen maintains that on its own it would be disastrous and that steps must now be taken in addition to brighten the planet.
Brightening Earth could also reverse the reductions in reflectivity already caused by climate change. Data indicates that from 1998 to 2017, Earth dimmed by about 0.5 watts per square metre, largely due to the loss of ice.
Given what’s at stake, we hope Mann and Hansen resolve these differences quickly to help the public and policymakers understand what it will take to minimise the likelihood of imminent massive and widespread ecosystem destruction and its disastrous effects on humanity.
While 1.5°C may be dead, there may still be time to prevent cascading system failures. But not if we continue to squabble over the nature and extent of the risks.
More at https://theconversation.com/the-disagreement-between-two-climate-scien
tists-that-will-decide-our-future-217759
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Disney cruise ship sails past Amsterdam due to Extinction Rebellion blockade
https://nltimes.nl/2024/08/25/disney-cruise-ship-sails-past-amsterdam-
due-extinction-rebellion-blockade
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In 2021, the South Korean National Assembly passed a law requiring the government to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 35 percent by 2030 and to become carbon neutral by 2050. In response to the law, the government set a goal of reducing carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030, which the plaintiffs argued was insufficient to protect their fundamental right to life and a clean environment.
The court, which examines the constitutionality of laws, ruled that the intermediary 2030 goal was adequate — but it ordered the National Assembly to develop additional concrete plans to ensure that progress continues at a robust pace after 2030, in order to meet the 2050 goal of carbon neutrality. The decision is a partial victory for plaintiffs, and it requires the National Assembly to revise the existing climate law by the end of February 2026.
“The Korean constitutional court is very conservative,” Byung-Joo Lee, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told Grist. “But the court made it very clear that the climate crisis is a scientific and legal fact, and they acknowledged that the state has a duty to protect people from climate change. It’s a clear, constitutional right of the people.”
https://grist.org/international/south-korea-climate-lawsuit/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Donald Trump gets everything wrong about the climate crisis
By Bill McKibben | Fri 6 Sep 2024 08.36 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/sep/06/preside
ntial-election-climate-crisis-project-2025-trump
Here is the biggest thing happening on our planet as we head into the autumn of 2024: the Earth is continuing to heat dramatically. Scientists have said that there’s a better than 90% chance that this year will top 2023 as the warmest ever recorded. And paleoclimatologists were pretty sure last year was the hottest in the last 125,000 years. The result is an almost-cliched run of disasters: open Twitter/X anytime for pictures of floods pushing cars through streets somewhere. It is starting to make life on this planet very difficult, and in some places impossible. And it’s on target to get far, far worse.
Here’s the second-biggest thing happening on our planet right now: finally, finally, renewable energy, mostly from the sun and wind, seems to be reaching some sort of takeoff point. By some calculations, we’re now putting up a nuclear plant’s worth of solar panels every day. In California, there are now enough solar farms and wind turbines that day after day this spring and summer they supplied more than 100% of the state’s electric needs for long stretches; there are now enough batteries on the grid that they become the biggest source of power after dark. In China it looks as if carbon emissions may have peaked – they’re six years ahead of schedule on the effort to build out renewables.
And here’s the third biggest thing in the months ahead: the American presidential election, which looks as if it is going down to the wire – and which may have the power to determine how high the temperature goes and how fast we turn to clean power.
Donald Trump gave an interview last week, in which he laid out his understanding of climate change:
Quote:I’ve quoted this at length because this could again be the most important man on the planet, talking about the most important issue the planet has ever faced. And he’s gotten every word of it wrong. It’s gibberish.
You know, when I hear these poor fools talking about global warming. They don’t call it that any more, they call it climate change because you know, some parts of the planet are cooling and warming, and it didn’t work. So they finally got it right, they just call it climate change. They used to call it global warming. You know, years ago they used to call it global cooling. In the 1920s they thought the planet was going to freeze. Now they think the planet’s going to burn up. And we’re still waiting for the 12 years. You know we’re down almost to the end of the 12-year period, you understand that, where these lunatics that know nothing, they weren’t even good students at school, they didn’t even study it, they predict, they said we have 12 years to live. And people didn’t have babies because they said – it’s so crazy. But the problem isn’t the fact that the oceans in 500 years will raise a quarter of an inch, the problem is nuclear weapons. It’s nuclear warming … These poor fools talk about global warming all the time, you know the planet’s going to global warm to a point where the oceans will rise an eighth of an inch in 355 years, you know, they have no idea what’s going to happen. It’s weather.
But it’s gibberish in the service of something very important and very dangerous: doing all that he can to block the energy transition, in America and around the world. His friends at Project 2025 have laid out in considerable detail how you translate that gibberish into policy. It lays out in loving detail many of the steps his administration would use to bolster oil, gas and coal while sidetracking sun and wind.
More at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/sep/06/preside
ntial-election-climate-crisis-project-2025-trump
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The hype for hybrid cars will not last
Angry Bear | September 21, 2024 8:00 am
https://angrybearblog.com/2024/09/the-hype-for-hybrid-cars-will-not-la
st
The car industry’s effort to decarbonize revolves around replacing petrol with batteries. A growing number of customers want both. Buyers who cannot afford a fully electric car, or worry about the availability of charging points, are turning to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), sales of which are rocketing. But the hype for hybrids may prove to be short-lived.
Worldwide sales of cars running purely on batteries (BEVs) were more than double those of PHEVs last year. But the gap has been rapidly closing. Sales of PHEVs were up by almost 50%, year on year, in the first seven months of 2024, compared with just 8% for BEVs, according to estimates from Bernstein, a broker.
Carmakers have been cooling on BEVs and warming to hybrids. This month Volvo backtracked on its commitment to go all-electric by 2030. It now says BEVs and PHEVs will together account for 90% of its sales by the end of the decade. Last month Ford announced that it was abandoning plans to make a large fully electric suv, opting instead for hybrid power. Hyundai is doubling its range of hybrids from seven to 14 models. Volkswagen, too, has pledged to increase investments in hybrids as it rethinks its plans for bevs.
Consumers are turning to hybrids partly because they are cheap. The big batteries required to run fully electric vehicles make them far more expensive than petrol cars. That is a problem when it comes to selling to the mass market; most buyers “will not pay a premium”, says Jim Farley, the boss of Ford. Plug-in hybrids, by contrast, run on much smaller batteries: they typically have a 20-kilowatt-hour unit, around a third of the size of those in BEVs. As a consequence, PHEVs are only a little more expensive than petrol-powered cars, and cost less to run. Although hybrids can typically travel only around 40 miles on their batteries, the option of using petrol avoids the anxiety many drivers of bevs have about running out of charge.
For their part, carmakers are fond of hybrids because they are usually as profitable as petrol-powered cars, in contrast to BEVs, many of which are loss-making. Smaller batteries mean lower production costs. Hybrids also allow legacy carmakers to draw more on their existing expertise and supply chains.
The fashion for hybrids, however, may prove to be fleeting. Rules in California, adopted by 16 other American states, stipulate that by 2035 only 20% of the new vehicles sold by carmakers can be plug-in hybrids; the remainder must be fully electric. The EU plans to slam the brakes on even harder: the bloc will ban the sale of all cars that run on petrol engines, including hybrids, by 2035.
Hybrids may already be less competitive by then. Battery prices have been falling, and will fall further as production expands and new chemistries are developed. Carmakers such as Renault have plans to roll out BEV models that cost significantly less than their current offerings, spurred on by Chinese competition. Charging networks are continuing to expand.
Bernstein predicts that phevs will capture a growing share of the car market until around 2030, but that sales will then stabilise and eventually decline as those of BEVs speed up (see chart). Hybrids are “winning now, but bevs will win eventually”, reckons Patrick Hummel of UBS, a bank. Xavier Smith of AlphaSense, a consultancy, thinks the obsession carmakers currently have with hybrids will prove short-sighted. Those that lose focus on electrification could soon fall behind.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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An example of crappy alt reporting
Quote:
Context is particularly important when it comes to climate change - as their narrative collapses when looking at a long enough timeline.
They're attempting to use this to provide "context" about global warming?
Ok, here's the real context: Humans didn't even begin to evolve until 4 million years ago. That 100 million year timeline? Irrelevant.
See where the dinosaurs died out? That's 65 million years ago. 25 million years is conveniently ticked on the x axis. Cut that distance in half. Thats 12. Cut that in half again. That's 6.
No humans yet!
Cut that in half again. That's 3 million years ago. Ape like creatures on two legs in Africa.
Cut that in half again. 1.5 million years ago.
Still no modern humans!
Cut that in half again.
700,000 years ago.
Almost there!
By now, you're almost on top of the line marked "current geological stage" but haven't YET gotten to human civilization.
Humans, and human civilization, evolved during our CURRENT climate regime.
Has the earth been hotter? Yep.
BUT OUR CIVILIZATION WOULDN'T SURVIVE IT.
Note the uptick at the end.
Oxygen concentrations. We can make the same argument: big swings in O2. But we wouldn't survive some of those swings either.
The point of trying to stabilize our environment isn't to "save the planet", it's to save ourselves.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Americans support America
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Researchers say burying wood could be a viable method to prevent carbon from reaching the atmosphere
September 27, 2024
Wood vaulting is an emerging low-cost climate solution. Nonviable wood — like diseased trees and wood scraps — is buried to keep carbon trapped in the ground rather than allowing it to release into the air. The team estimates that wood vaulting could sequester up to ten metric gigatons (10,000,000,000 tonnes) of carbon dioxide a year and cost only about $30 to $100 per metric ton when the process is optimized.
Wood vaulting as a climate solution would work best in conjunction with other climate actions, like reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-3775-year-old-log-of-wood-
may-hold-the-secret-to-an-innovative-and-low-cost-climate-solution-180985161/
37,000,000,000 tonnes of CO2 are released each year.
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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And just look at that huge waste of CO2 in Ukraine!
Not only the fuel being burned, but the energy required to make weapons of war.
All because USA neocons want to play Global Domination!
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Americans support America
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME