Global Warming & Climate Change Discussion

[FordGT90Concept]

Wind and solar technologies are hundreds of years old. There is very little room for improvement.

Battery technology is constrained by cost and supply of materials. Batteries also have enormous environmental costs because of disposal: there's not enough material value in lithium-ion batteries to make recycling them economical. The only material in them of value is a trace of cobalt.

So no, your optimism has no grounds in reality. May as well be praying for a miracle.


Natrual gas has far higher energy density than lithium-ion batteries. It can be started and stopped just about as fast. Natrual gas is more harmful to the environment if it is leaked rather than burned. Have some perspective:

Uranium has among the highest energy densities known to man. Uranium is 80,620,000 MJ/kg (x-axis) and 1,539,842,000 MJ/L (y-axis), aka, off the chart.

Lithium-ion is pathetic.

 

[rruff]

We'll fix climate change by being aggressive and angry then hide when it comes time to pay for it. Yay! Hypocrisy!

If you poll the US people on absolutely anything and say that it will cost them money, they will be against it... anything.

It also ignores the plethora of new employment opportunities that will be created in construction and maintenance.

Hard economic fact: If a change "creates jobs" then it can only do so by being inefficient/ unproductive/ expensive. The real cost of everything is the aggregate man-hrs x wages that go into making it. We only get more prosperous by destroying jobs (through improved productivity), not creating them.

Solar and wind by some measures are economically viable now... if you were starting from scratch. But since we already have an extensive infrastructure built to handle fossil fuels (built over many decades) the massive investment required to change to alternatives makes them relatively expensive. If we hadn't run up our national debt for the last 40 years in support of offshoring much of our production, investing in alternative energy infrastructure would be more viable (ie put it "on the card").

It will happen eventually. When it makes *economic* sense.

 

[Eskimonster]

It is messing up all over...

 

[Grog6]

Huge waterspouts in Canada on the same day there 3 feet of hail in Mexico.

I also read this month that Lobsters are moving north, almost 200 miles from their traditional grounds on the east coast.

Interesting times.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

There's 50 US companies working on advanced reactor designs:

U.S. to extend nuclear reactor lifespans in bid to revive industry

The United States plans to extend the lifespans of existing nuclear reactors and support new technologies as it seeks to revive an industry seen as crucial to its energy security, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday.

www.reuters.com

A lot of interest in modular and micro nuclear reactors.

 

[Papahyooie]

If you poll the US people on absolutely anything and say that it will cost them money, they will be against it... anything.



Hard economic fact: If a change "creates jobs" then it can only do so by being inefficient/ unproductive/ expensive. The real cost of everything is the aggregate man-hrs x wages that go into making it. We only get more prosperous by destroying jobs (through improved productivity), not creating them.

Solar and wind by some measures are economically viable now... if you were starting from scratch. But since we already have an extensive infrastructure built to handle fossil fuels (built over many decades) the massive investment required to change to alternatives makes them relatively expensive. If we hadn't run up our national debt for the last 40 years in support of offshoring much of our production, investing in alternative energy infrastructure would be more viable (ie put it "on the card").

It will happen eventually. When it makes *economic* sense.

But... but.... Keynesian economics!

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

I have no doubt man is contributing to Global warming. What I do doubt, however, are the claims of hellfire. Earth's CO2 levels were also extremely high, far higher then today, during the dinosaur era, yet somehow life survived that massive change.

I also dont believe, even for a second, that environmentalists of any kind actually care about the issue. For all the pushing of electric cars and renewables, if you dare bring up how the 15 biggest cargo ships on the planet put out more CO2 then all cars in the US combined, or how even if the US produces 0 emissions china and india would happily eclipse whatever the US managed to put out at its peak, and how without fixing these issues their whole "live green" push is a complete waste of time and money, then you are shunned out of the community and your opinions are memory-holed.

Also, any environmentalist in a 1st world country that has children is causing all sorts of environmental damage, no matter how green they claim to be, and are big phat phoneys.

If you poll the US people any country on absolutely anything and say that it will cost them money, they will be against it... anything.

FTFY. Lest you think the US is just evil, a reminder that india and china are still building coal plants despite having the ability to invest in nuclear and renewable while building a grid around them. People will take whatever is cheapest and just works, regardless of geological location or genetic lineage.

 

[Assimilator]

I have no doubt man is contributing to Global warming. What I do doubt, however, are the claims of hellfire. Earth's CO2 levels were also extremely high, far higher then today, during the dinosaur era, yet somehow life survived that massive change.

There's a massive difference between the environment changing naturally due to environmental CO2 emissions, and it being changed by man's CO2 emissions.

I also dont believe, even for a second, that environmentalists of any kind actually care about the issue. For all the pushing of electric cars and renewables, if you dare bring up how the 15 biggest cargo ships on the planet put out more CO2 then all cars in the US combined, or how even if the US produces 0 emissions china and india would happily eclipse whatever the US managed to put out at its peak, and how without fixing these issues their whole "live green" push is a complete waste of time and money, then you are shunned out of the community and your opinions are memory-holed.

Also, any environmentalist in a 1st world country that has children is causing all sorts of environmental damage, no matter how green they claim to be, and are big phat phoneys.

Oh boy, where do I begin.

First, you won't find any people who care about the environment saying that cargo ships aren't a problem. I don't hear you proposing a solution, though.
Secondly, just because China and India don't give a f**k about the environment, doesn't mean the USA (the country that's supposed to be the world leader, har har) should do the same. Should the USA also ape China by putting their citizens in concentration camps, or mimic India by not having enough toilets so their citizens have to s**t on the beaches?
Thirdly, your "hur dur environmentalists are hypocrites if they do anything that creates CO2" "argument" is moronic at best. The problem is not the emission of CO2, it's about emitting it at a level that the environment can naturally handle. If you make an effort to minimise your own carbon footprint, there is no reason you should feel guilty about living a good life with all the modern conveniences of society. Besides which, of course, there's the fact that power stations are the biggest emitters of CO2 and most individuals can't really do anything about that directly...

FTFY. Lest you think the US is just evil, a reminder that india and china are still building coal plants despite having the ability to invest in nuclear and renewable while building a grid around them. People will take whatever is cheapest and just works, regardless of geological location or genetic lineage.

Hey remember above where I said the USA should take the lead? Also, the USA is a far wealthier country; China and India are still trying to pull their citizenry out of poverty, and cheap electricity is an ingredient for that.

 

[Vayra86]

U.S May Have to Spend Over $400 Billion on Seawalls by 2040 to Protect Itself From Rising Seas

Florida alone is likely to have to spend $76 billion on seawalls in the next two decades as sea levels continue to rise.

www.thedailybeast.com

Games & sci-fi = crystal balls

 

[rruff]

15 biggest cargo ships on the planet put out more CO2 then all cars in the US combined

You are conflating CO2 and pollution. They are not the same thing.

15 largest ships in the world emit as much nitrogen oxide and sulphur oxide as the world’s 760 million cars.
International shipping produces nearly one billion tons of CO2 emissions, which is approximately 2 to 3 per cent of total man-made emissions.

 

[Grog6]

I agree with the "We need to address CO2 emissions" people.

Cars are a drop in the bucket.

The real prob is the power plants.

TVA has installed Scrubbers at a lot of their plants, due to obama era regulations, and looking toward the future.
No no one wants their kids exposed to power plant effluent.

The overall power generation need dropped in the 80-90 era in the US, because we dumped the three uranium processing facilities that made enriched U 235 out of natural uranium.
Those three plants needed as much power as the rest of the eastern seaboard at the time.
We made Tons of U 235, and Pu239. It's in storage, or being used as reactor fuel, or Nuclear weapons cores.


We need nuke power, but the current designs are not efficient for anything other than Pu 239 production.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Breeders are the best way to produce nuclear power and reduce stockpiles safely but no one trusts anyone to run them because they're capable of producing weapons grade material. Bed reactors are probably the future because they're relatively safe. Micro reactors will probably be bed reactors. Modular reactors, I'm not sure what they're aiming for.

 

[R-T-B]

FTFY.

No, you really didn't. Many countries are much more open to expensive social projects than the average US civilian.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

US citizens are generally for a thing until they're told how much their taxes will go up to pay for it.

 

[Deleted member 67555]

US citizens are generally for a thing until they're told how much their taxes will go up to pay for it.

We're supposed to support our nation with the wealth the nation helped create...

Aka the rich didn't do it on their own and they should pay for the opportunities for the next generation... a little less about me and a lot more about us

 

[R-T-B]

a little less about me and a lot more about us

Sorry. Had to. Have a disorder, I do.

 

[Grog6]

Breeders are the best way to produce nuclear power and reduce stockpiles safely but no one trusts anyone to run them because they're capable of producing weapons grade material. Bed reactors are probably the future because they're relatively safe. Micro reactors will probably be bed reactors. Modular reactors, I'm not sure what they're aiming for.

That's absolutely not true, as far as weapons.

Breeder reactors make Plutonium from U-238, that part is correct.

But, to make a nuke, you need the percentage of Pu-240 to be below ~7%, or it will not hold together long enough to explode well.
You can barely make 1 stage bombs, but no thermonuclear bombs with it; it has completely the wrong neutron energy spectrum to work well.
<20kt bombs are the max, with the best explosive shells we make; and all the rest is completely wrong to do second or third stages.

Once there's a critical mass, the whole deal is done in 81 'shakes'.
A shake is ~10nS.
That's how long it takes to absorb a neutron , and then fission.
If there are 'early' neutrons from spontaneous fission, the shit melts, and liquid squirts rather than compresses.
YOu CAN make a bomd from Pu-240, but it won't be small, or work well.

It's been done, just to check. It can be looked up.

Pu for bombs needs to be removed from the core weekly, to cut the odds of Pu240 production, and a breeder isn't refueled that often, nor are commercial power plants.
You can't use Centrifuges to seperate it, it's 1 amu different, U235 and 238 are 3 amu, and that's not easy.

Look at Hanford's reloading schedules, or Windscale; they're in the net, last I looked.

The big problem is politics; after Carter blew off the CRBRP, and the Reprocessing plant that was needed, no one wanted to go out on a limb for something so easily cancelled by a whim of government.

After all, power plant operators paid for 30 years to build a repository to store waste; it got delayed, and finally cancelled on a whim.
After it was built, lol

 

[FordGT90Concept]

To be fair, Clinch River had bribery and fraud charges levied against it and the project was approach $8 billion in 1983 dollars ($21 billion in today's dollars). So maybe there is hope breeders could make a comeback.

Edit: 2013, a contract was signed to purchase the Clinch River facility from TVA to begin creating a prototype modular reactor:

Press Releases - News Room: B&W;, TVA Sign Contract for Clinch River mPower Construction Permit

...and it was terminated in 2017:

Bechtel And BWXT Quietly Terminate mPower Reactor Project

Generation mPower, one of the early leaders in the development of small modular reactors (SMR) has decided to fully terminate its partnership and put the design material that was developed onto a corporate shelf.

www.forbes.com

The reason why no one thinks outside of the box...

Rather than pursue a technology that was unfamiliar to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and accept the challenges of teaching the regulator how to ensure safety with a different paradigm, B&W chose to keep their design mostly within the known box with conventional fuels and materials that had already been qualified and understood. The expectation was that this choice would lead to more rapid completion of a marketable product with a design certification from the NRC.

There was simply too much work left to do, too much money left to invest and an insufficient level of interest in the product to allow continued expenditures to clear corporate decision hurdles.

So basically nuclear is dead in the USA until natural gas prices soar.

 

[Grog6]

Oak Ridge is Nuke friendly; I hope they will build something at the old CRBRP site.

The 'in joke' in OR is that the only Reactor that looks like a reactor, (and is on "Reactor Cove" on the Clinch river,) isn't actually a reactor; it was never fueled. ECGR was it's name, it was supposedly obsolete before it was completed.
It's supposedly a high security storage spot, lol.
14" of steel is secure, lol.

It's at about 35d56m12s x 84d16m31s on google maps; the dome is starting to rust, but what isn't these days, lol.

All the other reactors are in steel 'spec' buildings, with No containment, lol.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

They usually don't build expensive containment facilities for experimental reactors. CRBRP did because it was supposed to be a prototype for commercial reactors.

 

[Grog6]

They never built shit for the CRBRP other than a huge hole in the ground; they spent several years digging it, then they spent several more years in the 80's filling it up.

There was never any containment dome there.

Like I said, the only containment dome at OR never had a core installed in it ever.
It was for a helium gas cooled reactor, with a graphite moderator, lol.
All the problems of Chernobyl, and none of the good parts. ( Joking, there were no good parts of an RBMK reactor, lol.)

It WAS supposed to run at high temperature, which meant adding air instead of helium would set the graphite on fire.
I'm happy it was never operated; I'm downwind.

We had enough Iodine releases as it was.
At last count, there were 153 reactors built at ORNL. IDK how many are left, but they are cleaning it up a lot; the hotcells are gone, and all the waldos.

I actually know what the criticality alarm sounds like; I heard it this year.
Where is probably classified...

 

[FordGT90Concept]

They never built shit for the CRBRP other than a huge hole in the ground; they spent several years digging it, then they spent several more years in the 80's filling it up.

No wonder the site looks like...nothing. So fail.

 

[VagaNZ]

Global Warming come Climate Change, as the so called scientists who condone that thinking would have you believe is a total farce!

Man is not the cause of it but it suits the needs of a certain few who have propagated the lie.

The REAL reason for the worlds crazy weather patterns is two fold: First the earth's magnetic poles are moving towards what looks like either a total reversal or an excursion (which just happens to last around 5 to 10K years).
Neither is good news and one is definitely bad BUT the facts are that the weakening magnetic field surrounding earth is going to let in much more cosmic rays.

Secondly the Sun has entered into a Grand Solar Minimum. This means that its solar output has reduced which means less heat for us here on earth and less intensity in our heliosphere. Again, this allows more cosmic ray particles to penetrate earth's atmosphere.

When you combine these two events it's patently obvious our weather patterns are going to change. Did you know the large Ozone hole over Antarctica has been decreasing in size and this has stumped our scientists? That's because it contradicts the BS we have been fed about human derived Global Warming / Climate Change.

The reason for the Ozone hole contracting in size is because of Cosmic Rays splitting the Ozone (O3) molecules which then become ideal for Hydrogen to attach to (H2O). The end result is much more water vapour in our atmosphere which is then carried by the polar jetstreams northwards to eventually clash with warm subtropical jetstreams and we wonder WHY there is MORE rain and storms?

Our weather jetstreams have also changed as a result of the Magnetic Pole changes. Commercial airline pilots flying trans global routes have noticed this!

Check out https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5eyItTI4iIx0kVBcpyGpRw for Magnetic Pole shift news and
https://thegrandsolarminimum.com/ for information about the Grand Solar Minimum.

None of this is conspiracy theory nonsense if you study the facts. Governments have their own reasons for not sharing this information but don't have a sheep mentality and follow blindly.

 

[R-T-B]

Oak Ridge is Nuke friendly; I hope they will build something at the old CRBRP site.

The 'in joke' in OR is that the only Reactor that looks like a reactor, (and is on "Reactor Cove" on the Clinch river,) isn't actually a reactor; it was never fueled. ECGR was it's name, it was supposedly obsolete before it was completed.
It's supposedly a high security storage spot, lol.
14" of steel is secure, lol.

It's at about 35d56m12s x 84d16m31s on google maps; the dome is starting to rust, but what isn't these days, lol.

All the other reactors are in steel 'spec' buildings, with No containment, lol.

If Trojan hadn't been shutdown it would've looked pretty reactor like. Took a tour of it before the shutdown, many years ago. Unfortunately it was a meltdown waiting to happen due to numerous design and management issues, so the story goes (was so bad as to Inspire Homer Simpsons Reactor plant as a theme in the Simpsons). Makes me feel great having been there, lol.

Secondly the Sun has entered into a Grand Solar Minimum.

If true, that makes the latest temparture data doubly disturbing because temps are rising anyways.

Wrong arguement, dude. None of your other points re magnet pole movements (which are real) explain a mean average rise either.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

The REAL reason for the worlds crazy weather patterns is two fold: First the earth's magnetic poles are moving towards what looks like either a total reversal or an excursion (which just happens to last around 5 to 10K years).

There's no major climate shift pattern associate with that cycle in geological records.

Neither is good news and one is definitely bad BUT the facts are that the weakening magnetic field surrounding earth is going to let in much more cosmic rays.

More cosmic rays = more clouds = cooler surface temps.

Secondly the Sun has entered into a Grand Solar Minimum. This means that its solar output has reduced which means less heat for us here on earth and less intensity in our heliosphere. Again, this allows more cosmic ray particles to penetrate earth's atmosphere.

In other words, it should be relatively cool right now but it's not; hence, the problem of average temperatures rising.

When you combine these two events it's patently obvious our weather patterns are going to change. Did you know the large Ozone hole over Antarctica has been decreasing in size and this has stumped our scientists? That's because it contradicts the BS we have been fed about human derived Global Warming / Climate Change.

Antarctic sea ice is declining dramatically and we don’t know why

Satellite data shows that between 2014 and 2017 sea ice extent in the southern hemisphere suffered unprecedented annual decreases, outpacing Arctic losses

www.newscientist.com

The reason for the Ozone hole contracting in size is because of Cosmic Rays splitting the Ozone (O3) molecules which then become ideal for Hydrogen to attach to (H2O). The end result is much more water vapour in our atmosphere which is then carried by the polar jetstreams northwards to eventually clash with warm subtropical jetstreams and we wonder WHY there is MORE rain and storms?[/quote]
The hole is contracting because China shutdown HCFC production lines:

China Announces Major Reduction in Ozone Depleting Gases on International Ozone Day

China announced the closure of five hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) production lines, resulting in the phase-out of 58,864 tons of HCFC production, reduction of HCFC production capacity by 88,000 tons and elimination of over 93 million tons of CO2.

www.worldbank.org

It's not so simple as "more rain and storms." There's more energy in the atmosphere. In some places, that means more rain and storms but in others, it means hotter and drier.

Our weather jetstreams have also changed as a result of the Magnetic Pole changes. Commercial airline pilots flying trans global routes have noticed this!

Magnetic north just changed. Here's what that means.

The foundation of many navigation systems, the World Magnetic Model finally got a much-needed update with the end of the U.S. government shutdown.

www.nationalgeographic.com

No connection, really. What is known is that we've only been tracking the magnetic pole for about 200 years and it recently moved 3-4 times further than expected.