|
The Groper posted:Well that's the end state either way, isn't it? Either climate change forces us to adapt continuously to a radically different way of life, or it miraculously stops warming/has no negative consequences, allowing us to use up our fossil-fuel reserves. I can't see any way in which it is possible to continue the industrialized lifestyle for more than a century or two. People will have to accept that our free energy boom was an anomaly and go back to having a much larger portion of the populace producing food, to be consumed locally rather than refrigerated and shipped. Are you really saying that a regression to the mean is comparable to outright extinction? I'd rather humans exist as hunter-gatherers again than have that be our fate. We still have a window of "nuclear reactors & reprocessing" option open to us.
|
#
¿
Nov 24, 2015 23:15
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 03:26 |
|
|
The Groper posted:Nuclear Reactors provide localized electrical power, not fertilizers, long-distance land shipping, and mechanized farming equipment. Yes, theoretically we could electrify the second two, or run on biofuels, but both will have us chasing our own tails in a world of diminishing returns. Diminished returns do not mean ever falling returns. Even then, when we go from a primary supply of electric energy of coal t radioisotopes, the EROEI doesn't change that much at all. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3877 A) the haber bosch process uses natural gas, but in a world were the limitation of electric energy is ignored, you can split water and use that as your hydrogen feedstock. B) long distance land shipping is "economically unfeasible" when compared to diesel, (ignoring environmental costs), but not technically unfeasible. https://www.fra.dot.gov/eLib/details/L16983 C) Farm equipment will probably need the volume efficiency of chemical fuels, but with a big enough hammer (nuclear power), we can even do the lovely stuff like Hydrogen (lol) as an energy carrier.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 26, 2015 19:01
|
|
|
CommieGIR posted:By Abbots logic we should've already run out, it ignores recycling of rare elements and newer reactor designs that use less of said materials. Don't forget, those reserve values are taken *at a given price point* which means nothing to nuclear reactors. The input materials are not where the cost comes from. whitey delenda est posted:There is no remaining product, a successful distillation probably results in as close to zero waste as possible. You make paraffins of all sorts, naphtha, lubricants, fuel oil, jet fuel, avgas, LPG... To add on a bit: We can also take that stuff that would have become gasoline and convert it into other petrochemical products. It does involve a fuckton of retooling, but it's totally doable. As long as we don't light the stuff on fire, oil and oil derived products is generally cool stuff. The Dipshit fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Apr 19, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Apr 19, 2016 21:38
|
|
|
Placid Marmot posted:I produce less CO2e than the average person in the world, let alone the average first-worlder, thanks to rejecting first-world comforts such as heating in my room, animal products, driving/motorbike/scooter, flying (obviously), and non-local produce. Ah, but did you sterilize yourself as well?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2016 02:33
|
|
|
Placid Marmot posted:How can you (and the others taking your position on this) be so ignorant and pig-headed? Have you, or have you not sterilized yourself? If not, why not?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2016 14:54
|
|
|
Potato Salad posted:Obligatory "reduce N: kill most humans" post here. I honestly expect a moderate to heavy blip from a regional nuclear conflict somewhere as well with the source of the conflict arising out of climate change.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2016 03:58
|
|
|
Pretty sure the term you are looking for is "World War 3". I'm moderately convinced it's going to happen at this point, and it's a question of where&when, not if.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 27, 2016 00:50
|
|
|
Man, these last couple pages of effortposts are really appreciated. Thanks guys.
|
|
#
¿
May 5, 2016 16:46
|
|
|
Eh, doomsdayers have been right 0/1,000,000,000 times about the end of humanity. I mean, if you are gonna go this way Rime, you should totally try to build a cult and bang some barely legal women(men?) before the end times as a doomsdayer.
|
|
#
¿
May 20, 2016 15:22
|
|
|
Yeah, there will probably be some misbegotten geoengineering project(s) that will stave off complete collapse with increasing understanding of how climate works. It'll suck even worse for humanity in general than the current lovely setup, but I still don't see it as the end of civilization. We are omnivorous scavengers, we are pretty drat tough when you get down to it. EDIT: Man, where did all the yoda rape avatars come from?
|
|
#
¿
May 20, 2016 19:10
|
|
|
"How many will grow successfully compared to the hand planting" is my first question.
|
|
#
¿
May 24, 2016 02:34
|
|
|
golden bubble posted:The US, South Africa, and Brazil used the be the main producers of rare earth metals, but China undercut everyone else. China does not have a majority of rare earth reserves, but almost zero other sites are profitable at Chinese prices. There was also some noises a few years back about the DoD subsidizing the mines out in California/Nevada for strategic purposes. Rare earths, ironically, aren't very rare, but the higher grade ores are. We could possibly extract them from mine tailings of other mining operations in some cases, but yeah, Chinese prices make that unprofitable.
|
|
#
¿
May 22, 2017 21:28
|
|
|
Discendo Vox posted:Sorry, but I'm still missing some steps. How is this a constraint on solar? Do the Chinese refuse to sell for solar development? It's not, as far as I know (maybe there is some in the inverters?). It'd be a drag on wind turbine development, with rare earth magnets and some electronics.
|
|
#
¿
May 23, 2017 02:58
|
|
|
Minus the staggering amounts of lead contamination, of course.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 5, 2018 20:55
|
|
|
ChairMaster posted:
Sure, up until the first nuclear exchange. We won't need more than one exchange to remind everybody the cost of war these days. I'm placing bets on the Himalayas being that flashpoint.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 9, 2018 16:41
|
|
|
Unormal posted:You can just use syngas to make liquid hydrocarbon (solar) fuels from H and O cracked from water and co2 from the air. Hydrocarbon fuels are a nearly perfect energy transport medium (very dense, nonvolatile, non toxic, etc). Better than batteries in most ways. As long as they are resilient to hurricanes
|
|
#
¿
Oct 18, 2018 14:59
|
|
|
If we don't solve the problem with the current political frame, then a new political framework will emerge. The most likely one if we don't start changing voluntarily is something that'll look like fascism. Many of us would rather not see that, because gently caress me, that should be obvious.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 18, 2018 22:56
|
|
|
Monaghan posted:It'd be nice if it actually managed to stay on budget. Some huge chunk of the cost overruns arise from financing issues. Like 70% IIRC, I'll look it up when I'm off a phone. Owlofcreamcheese posted:That is probably true. People in france/italy/spain where people have per capita emissions of 4-6 tons instead of american's 17-20 live their lifestyles differently, but like, generally comparable western lifestyles to the US/south korea/canada. There is no ecofascism or loss of freedoms or extreme deprivation. Just reasonable non-extreme variations on society. Ok, break down a plan to make it happen in approx. 10 years then. I'd be happy with just some vague bits here. The Dipshit fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Oct 18, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Oct 18, 2018 23:23
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:Since I'm using france as the example of climate techno utopia so much lets look at how france got there: the president said 'hey, lets switch to nuclear power", then they switched to nuclear power within a few years. that it. that was the whole thing. ( not every country is going to have it go that smooth, but it really is a perfect example of the denier's claim it is inherently a 250 year process that is sci-fi to even think about and couldn't be any other way) 1. France's per-capita emissions are still far, far too high to deal with global warming. 2. France's capacity factor of their nuclear reactors is also pretty garbage, IIRC it's mid 70s-80s, and they hit the 60s with theirs, due to poor planning. This is insufficient, and it's not doable in a 10 year period by your own admission. So again, give me a 10 year plan here that isn't an obvious failure.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 19, 2018 04:42
|
|
|
How are u posted:Yeah. This coming Thanksgiving I think I'm going to have a very frank conversation with one of my sisters who has not yet had kids but really wants a few of them. The last time I saw her I made some comment on [awful_climate_change_news_of_the_day] and about how bad it would be for children born now, and she was really shocked. It wasn't even on her radar. Your sister can both have a large(ish) family and not make things worse. Foster! Adopt! it's a hell of an uphill climb, and has unique issues compared to your biological children, but it's something my wife and I have decide on doing. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3785900 is an excellent resource. Mocking Bird is a wonderful poster.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 19, 2018 18:16
|
|
|
Rime posted:Fly all you want, peeps, because worthless lives in the tropics are emitting more carbon than the entire EU, purely through their rampant and unstoppable deforestation efforts.  big enough for this, or you.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 19, 2018 22:48
|
|
|
Gum posted:I thought it was because he called their lives worthless Pretty much why I called him out. Sure these folks are adding to global warming on a level comparable to the whole EU, but good god, don't call people in the tropics worthless. The news sucks, and is awful and underlines the issue with systemic problems over individual actions/guilt, and I agree with all that, but gently caress off with calling people worthless. How are u posted:Definitely not you, though. You're making a difference! Hey, I planned my and my partner's living situation around not using a car. It's doable, even in Dallas Tx. Lead by example, even if it's nothing more than shifting the narrative a tiny tiny bit.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2018 19:38
|
|
|
VideoGameVet posted:Nuclear Energy is just like Communism, it just hasn't been done right yet. Feel free to theorycraft a fossil fuel free world without nuclear power then. The alternative is "solar, wind, and a lead-acid battery the size of Oklahoma", which I don't think we've priced out just yet.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 23, 2018 08:04
|
|
|
VideoGameVet posted:Feel free to pay my excess utility bill to cover the San Onofre "Too Cheap To Meter" Nuke Reactor that SDG&E broke, and while you're at it, please move the waste off my beach and into your backyard. Lol, sure, IIRC the NREL estimations still leave us needing to store electricity production capacity of the US for 2-3 days even with all the smart grid work. So, 10 million megawatt hours, give ourselves a safety factor of 2 using a 3 day assumption, so 60 million megawatt hours, which means that if we use a 1kWh deep cycle battery with, oh say about 50% of the cycle depth to keep it living as long as possible, we'll need.... 60,000,000,000,000 Wh translates to 120 billion deep cycle batteries at roughly 20 kg of lead would be, oh ~ 2 million metric tons, which would be *checks notes* about 200 times the world production of lead, needing to be recycled/replaced every 5-7 years or so, just for the US's needs. Feel free to check my math it's late here and maybe I missed something, adjust the assumptions down, or whatever. And before you ask, I'm pretty sure any other battery technology is not cheaper, nor would I expect any of them to get cheaper anytime soon enough to matter. Wanna guess how much you'll pay in this scenario? Heck, replace this with a series of cranes and concrete blocks like has been floating around recently, it's still sobering. Of course, this does absolutely nothing for the entire transportation network, which is a whole 'nother kettle of worms, and about 1/3 our total energy consumption. And Yeah, I'm fine with the waste in my backyard, or ideally Yucca mountain, since I used to work at the US's strategic reserve of nuclear materials. I'm used to being around all the weapons grade stuff for my job, and I'm fine. I know the whole "radiation!!" thing is part and parcel of creating an aversion to using nuclear weapons, but I can hope that at least on D&D a person can do a simple, sober analysis of it all. Like, I get it, nuclear power is squicky or whatever, but this isn't a video game. It's either nuclear or your kids/grandkids living a pastoral life, presuming they survive the crunch coming and don't get killed or eaten as fattened food. Please listen to this DOE nerd. We don't make these statements flippantly. The Dipshit fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Oct 24, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2018 03:58
|
|
|
Oxxidation posted:pretty sure i read before that the carbon cost of building nuclear plants would make their implementation a too-little too-late scenario, even if the united states was capable of building anything new other than weapons and perpetually empty "luxury" condominiums The carbon cost of changing the US's infrastructure to be more friendly to not taking a car everywhere is going to be massive by concrete alone. Any transition to carbon free is going to mean a whole lot more short term emissions. Show me a better alternative. And don't give up because rich people only are interested in treating housing like trading cards. That'll change, or we'll change them.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2018 11:11
|
|
|
friendbot2000 posted:Thank you! It was a half-year-long lobbying campaign, I think the clincher was that I came at him with facts and figures. We already have the VPN infrastructure because we allow WFH when you are sick or need to wait for a repairman. I cited exactly what it would cost, studies that show that productivity increases with policies like this, I sprinkled in climate change stuff and also how it is good press for the company to have a policy like this, and a bunch of other things. I am not even an executive, just a software developer who wants some changes made lol. We are actually piloting two days work from home instead of one with further options like FT Remote! This owns, you are a cool dude/lady.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2018 13:45
|
|
|
The capital cost overruns are mostly interest on the loans (IIRC the Darlington complex had 70% of the cost overruns be "interest accrual"), so yeah, I largely agree with the observation that the ~*free market*~ can't accommodate nuclear power... but of course we don't accommodate the costs of CO2, nor do we do storage but instead run with natgas peaker plants. Also agreed that Exelon, SoCo, Duke et al are a bunch of bastards, but that's a feature of capitalism, not nuclear power. It still doesn't matter, it's going to be nuclear as 25-50% of the power mix (likely more, as we'll probably need to run CCS and all the ones I'm aware of eat up a gently caress load of thermal power), have a society that happily accepts intermittent power (lol), or global collapse as we keep on pumping CO2. I'm not debating that there are current hurdles that are big and ugly, I'm pointing out there really is no other option. First thing we do is drown the NRC and kick in the nuts anybody who ever said anything nice about them. Second is design and build small IFR whose core bits can fit on a few truck bed, mass produce them, and then encase them into concrete at the site. The Dipshit fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Oct 24, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2018 14:49
|
|
|
Nocturtle posted:Totally agree on the need for nuclear baseline power. Maybe 50 years from now renewables + grid-scale storage can effectively provide baseline power but that doesn't help us now. At the very least it's a stupidly risky gamble to go all-in on renewable generation and hope that in the near future storage costs massively decrease or long-distance transmission infrastructure appears. Guess we're gonna have a crash program after the public finds out what a permanent rolling brownout feels like. Luckily the costs of building reactors has most of their costs based in worker safety, which will likely be thrown out the window in such an event. Maybe we'll press gang the refugees and prison slaves on a promise of early freedom.  EDIT: Pierre Messmer did his thing against public opinion, as a counterargument. The Dipshit fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Oct 24, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2018 17:04
|
|
|
VideoGameVet posted:Lead Batteries. 1995 wants it's technology back. Feel free to choose your alternative technology on the market, check out the masses of elemental Li involved and price it out, or be called a stupid idiot who can't frame a basic, order of magnitude appraisal of the situation. Old storage tech is almost universally cheapest, and I'm doing back of envelope calculations. There is no storage method I can think of that is cheaper, which is where you'd want to be for storage of intermitted power, going by NRELs work, people who I know and have worked with from time to time. Also, a Physics major undergraduate degree is pretty lol-worthy. Post up your Phd. dissertation, coward. The Dipshit fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Oct 24, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2018 21:30
|
|
|
VideoGameVet posted:Sorry, only a masters ... got recruited by a software company out of graduate school. Ah, I see, this is the problem of an old man seeing things from the perspective he is comfortable from. The problem of global warming is fundamentally a physics/engineering problem, not a business problem. Businesses have the unspoken goal of externalize ALL COSTS, while nuclear (rightfully) is regulated away from doing that, and then some (see earlier comment about the NRC, they really DO suck). Until grid penetration of intermittent power reaches ~30%, renewable power won't be too big of a stablity problem (as long as the people running the grid are allowed to manage your washer/dryer/other big electricity hogs), but after that, storage becomes a massive, massive problem. Kroposki is a pretty cool dude, and while I'd disagree with some of his modeling, he's got a lot to talk about. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy17osti/68349.pdf should be generally readable. Like I said before, 25-50% has pretty much gotta be nuclear, maybe more for CCS since renewable power isn't really good for thermal power. also, check out this: http://calculators.energy.utexas.edu/lcoe_map/#/county/tech and change the nuclear cost from 8000/kW (lol) to the poster child of "Stupid nuclear power failures" Olkiluto-3, which is about 5500/kW. Solar and wind are good, but they don't work everywhere.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2018 22:06
|
|
|
VideoGameVet posted:Most of my skepticism is driven by what has happened with projects in the USA. Jimmy Carter killed the nuclear power industry after he split the AEC into the DOE (Where we mostly work on nuclear warheads omnicide and general energy R&D) and the NRC which took over civilian nuclear power, which was promptly turned into the "don't approve anything, drag permitting process out" game, and I presume that was from regulatory capture by competing industries such as the traditional fossil fuel power generation people who never were told to wipe their asses, much less take responsibility for their radioactive emissions. Like take a look at cost overruns from 1976 onward for nuclear power and you'll see a stark before/after line for it, it's pretty nuts.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2018 22:48
|
|
|
Good man, lovely president. I've assumed it was him believing people would all act in good faith in the aggregate and not have people jam up the NRC. But so it goes.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 25, 2018 01:57
|
|
|
Senor P. posted:Specifically how was the AEC "better" than the NRC? Frankly, most of the shady poo poo the AEC did was in service to the weapons program, and not the nuclear power for the general public aspect. And of course, that aspect got turned into a cabinet level agency.  Dupont straight up murdered a few hundred to a few thousand people with cancer with all the poo poo done to make 5 nuclear reactors in 3 years at SRS. Of note, they made those reactors for ~ 7 billion in today's dollars. Cutting corners like a motherfucker with that one, but of course it was "to defeat the communists" kind of bullshit. The Hanford site garbage was more forgivable in the lack of forethought IMO, since it was the screaming bleeding edge of science turned into an engineering project when it was built. The Dipshit fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Oct 25, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Oct 25, 2018 13:41
|
|
|
Plumps posted:Here's a little nugget from 2017: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/09/fukushima-nuclear-cleanup-falters-six-years-after-tsunami - Fukushima cleanup cost estimate has doubled again to $198 billion, to take '30-40 years'. Reading the article it seems that these estimates are likely to increase in the future. Yup, that's ugly. Still no other option. I have this sneaking suspicion that Tepco realized the kind of grift that the US DOD companies are pulling and realized this is their golden opportunity. Also, give it a few years, I think we'll have the last part of the (tritium) contaminated wastewater dealt with. Some neat new technologies are coming down the pipe to remove tritium from water that beat the poo poo out of the old methods. The Dipshit fucked around with this message at 14:14 on Oct 26, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2018 14:12
|
|
|
Rime posted:I didn't see this linked here during the summer. Earlier in the year, respected sustainability researcher Jem Bendall published his paper Deep Adaptation: Inevitable Near Term Societal Collapse this paper posted:The West’s response to environmental issues has been restricted by the dominance of Capitalism Delenda est. But yeah, catastrophe would probably imply a population crunch of 2/3rds to 3/4ths of us dying and the rest picking up the pieces very slowly. Mostly in the northern latitudes, since the southern continents are largely more in the tropics. Seems like a reasonably likely outcome, much to my regret.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2018 17:29
|
|
|
Conspiratiorist posted:Why the northern latitudes? https://mymodernmet.com/parag-khanna-global-warming-map/ Going off the possibility that we get our butts into gear after 2050 or so, guaranteeing at least 2C and maybe getting another 1C in the transition itself from the new infrastructure and all that concrete, that'd put us somewhat close to a thing like this. Bear in mind, this part isn't my specialty though, so throw in that caveat.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2018 17:52
|
|
|
Sundae posted:DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH > Climate Change: Post up your Phd. dissertation, coward. God loving damnit.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2018 18:44
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:Multiple NREL studies show that the US grid can handle 70-90% renewables (and not including big hydro) with only historic levels of grid investment. The idea that the grid can’t handle high renewable penetration is outdated. If that's possible without massive storage, then I'm behind the times. Link 'em. EDIT: If it's one that posits room temperature superconductors, I'm going to laugh at you. The Dipshit fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Oct 26, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2018 19:34
|
|
|
Lampsacus posted:The map is, like the bro startup page, saying that we'll have endless power/farm land through Northern Africa. Actually it goes even further than the bros and says we'll have a band of it right across America too! I mean. Praise Molai, plant trees, bike everywhere and try to live a life where you'd already be using a minimum of fossil fuels. It won't stop things, but you'll get more a feel of what life will be like (frankly probably not wonderful in material terms, but still OK). Do what you can, encourage the like minded, it's all anybody can ask. If you find yourself with terminal cancer, consider options of exiting this world that the mods would ban people over. We're going to have a low energy per capita future for the second half of our lives, even if we collective get our heads out of our butts and end capitalism. It'll be sucky, probably for a few centuries as we get out of the hole we're in with what we have available. It's going to probably be much, much worse for the developing world, however. I'm not going to blame Rime for checking out, as that's totally an understandable reaction, but that's not the path I'd take.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2018 23:30
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 03:26 |
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:350.org makes me laugh in a black comedy kinda way Yo, where are those NREL white papers you mentioned? The ones that assert 70-90% intermittent power without massive storage.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2018 19:29
|
|