suck my woke dick posted:in German, but tl;dr: You missed the part where due to projected costs and current interest rates the entire project is deemed essentially "science fiction" and by first planning 2 reactors, then reducing that to 1 due to issues with cooling, and now 4 with no realistic financing options, the entire thing is "essentially already failed".
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# ? Feb 10, 2024 20:50 |
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# ? May 27, 2024 02:40 |
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Son of Rodney posted:You missed the part where due to projected costs and current interest rates the entire project is deemed essentially "science fiction" and by first planning 2 reactors, then reducing that to 1 due to issues with cooling, and now 4 with no realistic financing options, the entire thing is "essentially already failed". I agree with you but it was the four reactors by the 2050's, it was not stupendously ambitious either.
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# ? Feb 10, 2024 22:46 |
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GABA ghoul posted:Yes, "windmill cancer" is a thing that certain interest groups have been pushing. What's supposedly causing the cancer is infrasound and electromagnetic radiation. Funnily enough the "windmill cancer" doesn't affect the landowners who are receiving an income from having wind turbines on their property. The effect only starts at the neighbouring property.
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# ? Feb 11, 2024 05:50 |
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the best electromagnetic radiation people are the ones barking about telecom devices that arent even built yet.
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# ? Feb 11, 2024 06:36 |
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golden bubble posted:https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2024/02/04/solar-power-in-kansas/71920670007/ GABA ghoul posted:Yes, "windmill cancer" is a thing that certain interest groups have been pushing. What's supposedly causing the cancer is infrasound and electromagnetic radiation. every once in awhile, I am reminded that Facebook is essentially a knife in our collective backs
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# ? Feb 11, 2024 07:16 |
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Matt Ferrell did an interesting video of the concept of two-sided solar panels installed vertically in east-west orientation, bifacial vertical solar panels. I hadn't thought that kind of installation could be viable. Apparently they produce more electricity than one might expect and their production peaks in the morning and evening, so they could help a bit to alleviate the duck curve. A company making the investment for a large installation might not be willing to settle for reduced total, but if the price increase during evening was big enough, maybe. Have we been doing Solar wrong all along? - Undecided with Matt Ferrell GABA ghoul posted:There are vast numbers of other insane claims like them eradicating bird populations, their shadows disturbing wildlife, etc. Admittedly, the wind turbine's effect on wildlife does seem to be one of the bigger cons with them, animals really do seem to avoid them and this reduces their habitat. Natural Resources Institute Finland released a systemic review on the issue few months ago, taking account 84 studies in 22 countries. How far are birds, bats, and terrestrial mammals displaced from onshore wind power development? A study by Groningen University found that even earth worms are reduced by 40% near turbines, possibly because they are sensitive to the increased vibratios. quote:Wind power is a rapidly growing source of energy worldwide. It is crucial for climate change mitigation, but it also accelerates the degradation of biodiversity through habitat loss and the displacement of wildlife. To understand the extent of displacement and reasons for observations where no displacement is reported, we conducted a systematic review of birds, bats, and terrestrial mammals. Eighty-four peer-reviewed studies of onshore wind power yielded 160 distinct displacement distances, termed cases. For birds, bats, and mammals, 63 %, 72 %, and 67 % of cases respectively reported displacement. Cranes (3/3 cases), owls (2/2), and semi-domestic reindeer (6/6) showed consistent displacement on average up to 5 km. Gallinaceus birds showed displacement on average up to 5 km, but in 7/18 cases reported to show “no displacement”. Bats were displaced on average up to 1 km in 21/29 cases. Waterfowl (6/7 cases), raptors (24/30), passerines (16/32) and waders (8/19) were displaced on average up to 500 m. Observations of no displacement were suggested to result from methodological deficiencies, species-specific characteristics, and habitat conditions favorable for certain species after wind power development. Displacement-induced population decline could be mitigated by situating wind power in low-quality habitats, minimizing the small-scale habitat loss and collisions, and creating high-quality habitats to compensate for habitat loss. This review provides information on distance thresholds that can be employed in the design of future wind energy projects. However, most studies assessed the effects of turbine towers of <100 m high, while considerably larger turbines are being built today.
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# ? Feb 11, 2024 13:33 |
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Potato Salad posted:every once in awhile, I am reminded that Facebook is essentially a knife in our collective backs
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# ? Feb 11, 2024 15:17 |
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Did you know power corrupts absolutely? This is why you should OPPOSE the new solar farm proposal!
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# ? Feb 11, 2024 18:51 |
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Saukkis posted:Matt Ferrell did an interesting video of the concept of two-sided solar panels installed vertically in east-west orientation, bifacial vertical solar panels. I hadn't thought that kind of installation could be viable. This varies by country, but in Germany the current consensus is luckily that the overall effect on animal populations is pretty insignificant compared to other habitat killers like high-intensity agriculture. Where it might actually cause significant damage to populations, i.e. in protected areas for endangered species, construction is already illegal. And for species that are exceptionally affected by wind power like bats, some wind park operators have started turning turbines off during certain weather conditions that trigger large scale bat movements. This seems to work extremely well and massively reduces the population effects. It will probably become mandatory for wind parks that are close to forests in the future. Overall Germany plans to zone out 2% of its land area for wind park to fully decarbonize electricity production. Most of this will be taken from the 50% that is currently farmland. German farmland is mostly a toxic sterile wasteland extremely hostile to any life that is not maize, sugar beets, wheat or canola and that is mostly used for producing animal feed. Building wind parks there is going to create habitats and massively increase biodiversity.
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# ? Feb 12, 2024 12:17 |
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GABA ghoul posted:This varies by country, but in Germany the current consensus is luckily that the overall effect on animal populations is pretty insignificant compared to other habitat killers like high-intensity agriculture. Where it might actually cause significant damage to populations, i.e. in protected areas for endangered species, construction is already illegal. As far as I know plonking down a wind tower in the middle of a field will only create a very minor reduction in farmable land. So wind farms are not going to displace agriculture to any meaningful degree thus I doubt wind parks will create new wild habitats free of agriculture.
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# ? Feb 12, 2024 13:20 |
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Zudgemud posted:As far as I know plonking down a wind tower in the middle of a field will only create a very minor reduction in farmable land. So wind farms are not going to displace agriculture to any meaningful degree thus I doubt wind parks will create new wild habitats free of agriculture. Even if every wind turbine only has a m² of grass around it it's still an infinite increase in biodiversity. Like, when you go from 0 worms in a wasteland corn field to 1 sickly worm with windfarm cancer, that's infinite growth
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# ? Feb 13, 2024 00:04 |
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GABA ghoul posted:This varies by country, but in Germany the current consensus is luckily that the overall effect on animal populations is pretty insignificant compared to other habitat killers like high-intensity agriculture. Where it might actually cause significant damage to populations, i.e. in protected areas for endangered species, construction is already illegal. Yes, German farmland is a green-tinted toxic wasteland that's about as ecologically valuable as a parking lot. It will not be missed, and major farmland zones can be paved over as far as I care. No, wind power planning does not take into account endangered or vulnerable species conservation outside of highly specific circumstances anymore. To deal with the recent slump in renewable construction, wind power planning has been simplified to the point where it's impossible to create a buffer zone around sensitive habitats where you don't build new turbines. The foundation is not literally in the boundaries of the nature reserve as marked on the map? Approved, gently caress you, birds are assumed not to fly unless the project is so horrifically sited it's going to cause a habitats directive violation proceeding on its own. As a bonus, certain bird conservation measures are now no longer permitted within iirc 2.5km of wind turbines to avoid making wind farms look bad when something rare gets smashed after trying to nest in the conservation area. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Feb 13, 2024 |
# ? Feb 13, 2024 20:36 |
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The thing with wind is that it really likes to be on top of ridgelines etc, basically where it was not so ideal to farm and hence was likely the most left alone native habitat. As long as Germany insists on energy security, it is going to have to pick something. It is hopefully getting out of coal, is using gas temporarily (a few decades at least, maybe best part of a century), doesn't want nuclear, has already tapped the best of hydro, is ramping up solar but is not ideal and doesn't solve overnight power anyway (and like fusion, the alternatives for overnight storage outside hydro are in the never never territory), biomass is coal/gas by a different name and geothermal maybe the savior (if that tech about cheapening the drilling substantially works out) but for the time being is a non-starter. That leaves wind and to keep costs going down the way they have been (and especially if EU moves ahead with putting tariffs on Chinese renewable equipment like is mooted), then number has to go up and that means things need to be cheaper to permit and hence the environment has to take one for the team.
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# ? Feb 14, 2024 12:53 |
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The hope lies in Germany's neighbors picking up the slack
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# ? Feb 14, 2024 13:10 |
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GABA ghoul posted:German farmland is mostly a toxic sterile wasteland extremely hostile to any life that is not maize, sugar beets, wheat or canola and that is mostly used for producing animal feed. Building wind parks there is going to create habitats and massively increase biodiversity. suck my woke dick posted:Yes, German farmland is a green-tinted toxic wasteland that's about as ecologically valuable as a parking lot. It will not be missed, and major farmland zones can be paved over as far as I care. Why is German farmland so toxic? How does it compare (in general) to other neighboring countries with a significant agricultural footprint? Can this be improved/resolved within a reasonable timescale, or are we talking about "Let it go fallow for a generation and see what happens." I've never heard this before and don't disbelieve these statements, it's just news to me.
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# ? Feb 14, 2024 14:04 |
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Shooting Blanks posted:Why is German farmland so toxic? How does it compare (in general) to other neighboring countries with a significant agricultural footprint? Can this be improved/resolved within a reasonable timescale, or are we talking about "Let it go fallow for a generation and see what happens." I've never heard this before and don't disbelieve these statements, it's just news to me. As far as I know it's not particularly worse then the farmland in say France. It's just really effectively used to it's full extend in raising those particular crops to the point where the soil is drained. The other posters are mostly saying that it's nonsense to claim that it is an important factor for biodiversity, because aside from some mice and birds of prey, animals don't really live there. Taking some of that away wont cause some rare species of salamander to go extinct.
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# ? Feb 14, 2024 20:39 |
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I’m all for putting wind farms in cropland, they actually work together pretty well and lots of fields have plenty of wind available (in fact that’s often a problem once all the trees get knocked down). That being said, 2% of German land is not even close to providing for 100% of current electrical needs, much less what they will be by the time this all gets built out. Currently Germany uses 0.8% of its land to create 61 GW. The 2% figure was intended to create 115 GW of onshore power by 2030, a goal which has now been pushed back to 2032. But today Germany has a baseplate capacity of 240 GW, which means it would take quite a bit more than 2% of German land to replace with wind power (which to be fair, the government is clear about). Also, that’s all without getting into the gnarly topic of effective production (ie while Germany has 61 GW of wind power, it only produced 139 TWh of wind power in 2023, rather than a full 534 TWh). Still, hopefully they will continue to pursue their goals despite their political troubles. The economics of it are pretty clear - that’s why the US already had 146 GW of wind power in 2022, and hopes to keep adding 5-10 GW each year for the foreseeable future. The irony of states like Texas (with 44 GW) competing with Germany’s 61 GW on wind power continues to amaze.
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# ? Feb 14, 2024 21:09 |
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Kaal posted:Also, that’s all without getting into the gnarly topic of effective production (ie while Germany has 61 GW of wind power, it only produced 139 TWh of wind power in 2023, rather than a full 534 TWh). Still, hopefully they will continue to pursue their goals despite their political troubles. The economics of it are pretty clear - that’s why the US already had 146 GW of wind power in 2022, and hopes to keep adding 5-10 GW each year for the foreseeable future. The irony of states like Texas (with 44 GW) competing with Germany’s 61 GW on wind power continues to amaze. That comparison feels a bit stupid. Texas has twice the landmass and only about a third of the population. It's basically an empty void.
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# ? Feb 14, 2024 22:10 |
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Someone once told me that building the access road to the wind turbines causes more ecological damage then the turbine operation itself. Never found actual data on that though. And saying that wind turbines cause damage higher then other non-urban land uses is questionable. It causes different damage then an Autobahn or Canola field though. And the animals that were disturbed, but got used to those things haven't done so with wind turbines yet. Even that worm study doesn't mention Germany's favourite worm. And its wikipedia page still lists tourism related traffic and agricultural runoff as the biggest dangers. VictualSquid fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Feb 14, 2024 |
# ? Feb 14, 2024 22:21 |
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suck my woke dick posted:No, wind power planning does not take into account endangered or vulnerable species conservation outside of highly specific circumstances anymore. To deal with the recent slump in renewable construction, wind power planning has been simplified to the point where it's impossible to create a buffer zone around sensitive habitats where you don't build new turbines. The foundation is not literally in the boundaries of the nature reserve as marked on the map? Approved, gently caress you, birds are assumed not to fly unless the project is so horrifically sited it's going to cause a habitats directive violation proceeding on its own. As a bonus, certain bird conservation measures are now no longer permitted within iirc 2.5km of wind turbines to avoid making wind farms look bad when something rare gets smashed after trying to nest in the conservation area. Thats interesting, do you have more information on this? From everything I've read about the changes the effects on endangered populations were not supposed to be that serious. But of course there are huge regional variations. So 'not concerning' can still mean that a windpark in some area will be the final nail in the coffin for some bird species there, even if the total population is not affected much. The big elephant in the room is of course that leaving these habitats in pristine condition now is not gonna do much good when all the various effects of >2.5 °C of warming start hitting us. Inaction means death to those species too and there is no alternative to wind power in sight to achieve current emissions goals. The plan is for 80% of the energy sector to be decarbonized by 2030. That's in less than 6 years. It's gonna be close as hell, if we really manage to pull that off and there is absolutely no way to do it without speeding up wind power expansion from the piss poor state that the Merkel governments left us. Shooting Blanks posted:Why is German farmland so toxic? How does it compare (in general) to other neighboring countries with a significant agricultural footprint? Can this be improved/resolved within a reasonable timescale, or are we talking about "Let it go fallow for a generation and see what happens." I've never heard this before and don't disbelieve these statements, it's just news to me. It's just the usual stuff. Overreliance on problematic monocultures like maize, excessive use of herbicides/insecticides/fungicides, excessive use of fertilizers, soil degradation, etc. IIRC the poison flowing from those fields is one of the primary reasons for habitat destruction. Insect biomass has been in free fall for years now. It's really, really bad. I don't know what the situation is like in other developed countries, but I hear the Netherlands also has constant farmer protests when the government tries to enforce environmental laws or water pollution limits. My guess is it's the same poo poo everywhere in western Europe. The situation can be easily improved of course. We don't need most of the agricultural production and could easily enact and enforce laws that limit the worst practices. Whether that will happen is a different question. German farmers have just started a war with the current "Green terror regime government". There have been massive protests across the whole country with them blocking cities and highways. They attacked a Green party event today and managed to get it cancelled. Apparently our Green party agriculture minister had to flee the scene after they started throwing stones. The car of his security escort had a window smashed in. Police was completely helpless.
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# ? Feb 14, 2024 22:55 |
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Watched this interesting video on vertical bifacial solar arrays, it's really interesting if you have any interest at all in solar panels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqizLQDi9BM For anyone not watching, vertical bifacial panels (PV panels that absorb photons from both sides and are mounted in an east-west orientation) may be a bit more efficient on sunny days than traditional panels mounted with a fixed southern-facing angle, they may be even more efficient on cloudy days, and they may have a longer operating lifetime. For flat roofs that are common on commercial buildings, it may be more effective to build vertical panels instead of adding a bunch of infrastructure for angled panels
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# ? Feb 14, 2024 23:17 |
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Shooting Blanks posted:Why is German farmland so toxic? How does it compare (in general) to other neighboring countries with a significant agricultural footprint? Can this be improved/resolved within a reasonable timescale, or are we talking about "Let it go fallow for a generation and see what happens." I've never heard this before and don't disbelieve these statements, it's just news to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy#Environmental_problems
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# ? Feb 14, 2024 23:17 |
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GABA ghoul posted:The big elephant in the room is of course that leaving these habitats in pristine condition now is not gonna do much good when all the various effects of >2.5 °C of warming start hitting us. Inaction means death to those species too and there is no alternative to wind power in sight to achieve current emissions goals. The plan is for 80% of the energy sector to be decarbonized by 2030. That's in less than 6 years. It's gonna be close as hell, if we really manage to pull that off and there is absolutely no way to do it without speeding up wind power expansion from the piss poor state that the Merkel governments left us. You could of course start by not shutting down the already built and existing nuclear power infrastructure.
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# ? Feb 15, 2024 07:28 |
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Sharing A couple of Nuclear pieces. First one, Albion! Why Britain Is Struggling With Nuclear Power The government wants more nuclear plants to help tackle climate change, but delays and soaring costs are complicating the effort. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/business/uk-nuclear-power.html?unlocked_article_code=1.XU0.n1yq.IFGDRSafKRwO&smid=url-share quote:A rust-colored dome looms over the muddy farmland of Hinkley Point, a headland overlooking the Bristol Channel in southwest England. And the next one, a good podcast discussion on US Nuclear prospects by David Roberts on Volts. Nuclear? Perhaps! A conversation with Jigar Shah, head of DOE's Loan Programs Office. https://www.volts.wtf/p/nuclear-perhaps quote:Nuclear power is a subject that elicits a lot of strong emotions. (Anyone who's ever written about it online will be laughing at the understatement.) Depending on who you listen to, it is either the key to solving climate change or an irrelevant distraction, either the best form of clean electricity available or the worst, either a savior on the verge of a renaissance or a dinosaur desperately scrabbling for a few last subsidies. yes, there is a transcript (thank you apple podcasts for that). C:
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# ? Feb 22, 2024 18:07 |
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I think Poland has ordered some South Korean APR-1400 nuclear reactors recently so they are doing something about that atrocious black bar at least TheFluff fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Feb 22, 2024 |
# ? Feb 22, 2024 22:50 |
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TheFluff posted:
It bugs the hell out of me that for the big countries the indicator is centered on the bar, for smaller countries it's at the bottom of the bar, and I can't tell WTF with Estonia and Luxembourg and Malta.
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# ? Feb 22, 2024 23:07 |
Excuse my 60 seconds with the scale tool. Accuracy guarenteed.
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# ? Feb 23, 2024 01:20 |
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Phanatic posted:It bugs the hell out of me that for the big countries the indicator is centered on the bar, for smaller countries it's at the bottom of the bar, and I can't tell WTF with Estonia and Luxembourg and Malta. The bar for Estonia is actually barely visible between Italy and Poland. I think Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta are just so thin they are not visible.
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# ? Feb 23, 2024 01:23 |
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Height is total power generated per country. I guess they’re sorted by CO2 output per watthour, so luxembourg’s tiny generation is high on the list but doesn’t register on the twh scale.
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# ? Feb 23, 2024 04:27 |
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Luxembourg's generation can be found under France.
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# ? Feb 23, 2024 06:45 |
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I am suspicious of the bio-energy generation accounting and also, it would be handy to see the import/export volumes as well.
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# ? Feb 23, 2024 07:55 |
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cant cook creole bream posted:As far as I know it's not particularly worse then the farmland in say France. It's just really effectively used to it's full extend in raising those particular crops to the point where the soil is drained. The other posters are mostly saying that it's nonsense to claim that it is an important factor for biodiversity, because aside from some mice and birds of prey, animals don't really live there. Taking some of that away wont cause some rare species of salamander to go extinct. Do they not practice crop rotation in Germany? Like at least alternating maize and soybeans so the beans can replenish the nitrogen in the soil? That’s like baby’s first farm lesson here and we aren’t exactly a Mecca of hippie dippy farming practices.
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# ? Feb 25, 2024 16:49 |
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An article following up on the Biden pause on LNG exports. quote:Coal Is Bad for the Environment. Is Liquified Natural Gas Any Better? The interesting part for me here is the notion of upstream emissions in the liquifaction process because it's that aspect that is why British Columbia is marketing its LNG as especially low emission, in that the power required to liquify is all from hydro electricity. So LNG from BC would already be a lower CO2 emission product that the same such product created elsewhere in the USA or Australia where the liquifaction process is driven by burning the gas itself. That the BC LNG is liquified using renewables another thing the left wing, environmentlist government has leaned into to suggest that they have an extra low emitting product here and to justify their support for exporting LNG. Seems fair to me, tho I remain a bit skeptical about the benefits of using LNG as this sort of "bridge product" to get countries off of coal. I'm curious what others here think about this. I think it's likely true the established belief here that Natural Gas, despite leaks, is lower emissions than Coal, but the thing I'd be concerned about is the last section I bolded, that exporters would be incentivizing a giant build out of Natural Gas infrastructure that is going to linger around for decades. Seems to me that baking in CO2 emitting power generation for another several decades with brand new NG plants is worse than continuing with coal for the short term, while ramping up on zero emitting renewables like nuclear/etc. Like how many more years can India continue on burning coal while planning to build nuclear power before it would have been better to pivot to building a natural gas plant and running it for a 50 year+ lifetime? Seems to me you're emitting a lot of CO2 over the lifetime of a NG plant. Femtosecond fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Feb 25, 2024 |
# ? Feb 25, 2024 19:45 |
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Oracle posted:Do they not practice crop rotation in Germany? Like at least alternating maize and soybeans so the beans can replenish the nitrogen in the soil? That’s like baby’s first farm lesson here and we aren’t exactly a Mecca of hippie dippy farming practices. I assume they practice it to some extend? I don't find any data about that when searching for it.
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# ? Feb 25, 2024 21:44 |
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pretty sure modern industrial chemstry means all that hippie stuff can be brute forced. cant have some slightly more holistic methods messing with minmaxing argo-fin
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# ? Feb 25, 2024 22:15 |
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Femtosecond posted:
LNG already is a bridge and has been being used so for over a decade. The only issue is now transitioning from LNG to renewables, how long is that going to take? Methane matters, but doesn’t eliminate gains from emissions reductions
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# ? Feb 26, 2024 09:28 |
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The magnitude of methane leaks are understated by pretty much everyone involved in the gas industry. There was a recent report on the use of LNG for marine propulsion, for example: https://theicct.org/pr-real-world-methane-emissions-from-lng-fueled-ships-are-higher-than-current-regulations-assume-new-study-finds-jan24/ posted:Real-world methane slip measured in the plumes of 18 ships using the most common type of LNG marine engine (LPDF 4-stroke) averaged 6.4%, whereas EU regulations currently assume 3.1% methane slip and the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) assumes 3.5%.
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# ? Feb 28, 2024 14:01 |
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Femtosecond posted:An article following up on the Biden pause on LNG exports. The notion that the only pollutant in coal worth worrying about is CO2 is asinine. We don't warn pregnant woman against consuming fish due to mercury emissions from LNG.
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# ? Feb 28, 2024 17:01 |
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Phanatic posted:The notion that the only pollutant in coal worth worrying about is CO2 is asinine. We don't warn pregnant woman against consuming fish due to mercury emissions from LNG. There is a lot more pollution that results from continued use of coal than just CO2, the coal dust, fly ash, groundwater pollution from the ash, everything else that goes up the stack with the CO2. I'm sure someone in this thread has detailed knowledge on the effects of mining the stuff. There are no good reasons to keep operating coal plants after the 1970s.
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# ? Feb 28, 2024 17:35 |
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# ? May 27, 2024 02:40 |
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SpeedFreek posted:There is a lot more pollution that results from continued use of coal than just CO2, the coal dust, fly ash, groundwater pollution from the ash, everything else that goes up the stack with the CO2. Right, that's my point. The question that's posed in the article is "Is LNG dirtier than coal?" but the only pollutant even being considered throughout the article is CO2. You can't even begin to answer the question if you don't consider all that other stuff as well. And I get that from a global warming perspective, CO2's the one to worry about, but even if LNG is responsible for more CO2 emissions, coal is *fantastically dirtier than LNG*.
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# ? Feb 28, 2024 17:40 |