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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday March 22 2017, @05:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the some-good-news dept.

2016 was the third year in a row that global carbon emissions remained stable, even as the overall economy grew. Although 32.1 Gigatonnes of emissions is certainly not good news for future climates, there is some cause for optimism within the numbers, as some major economies saw their emissions drop. And controlling emissions didn't come at the expense of the world's finances, as preliminary estimates show that the global economy grew by over three percent.

[...] China was one of those countries, starting up five new reactors to increase its nuclear capacity by 25 percent. Nuclear combined with renewables to handle two-thirds of the country's rising demand. China also shifted some of its fossil fuel use from coal to natural gas. The net result was a drop in emissions of about one percent, even as demand grew by over five percent (and the economy grew by nearly seven percent). Gas still represents a small fraction of China's energy economy, so there's the potential for further displacement of coal.

In the US, the process of shifting from coal to natural gas is already well advanced. Coal use was down by 11 percent last year, the IEA estimates, allowing natural gas to displace it as the US' largest single source of energy. This, along with booming renewables, allowed the US to drop its carbon emissions by three percent in 2016. That takes emissions to levels not seen since 1992, even though the economy is now 80 percent larger than it was then.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/global-carbon-emissions-continue-to-stabilize-us-has-3-drop/


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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 22 2017, @06:43PM (5 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 22 2017, @06:43PM (#482883)

    I think that's thinking way too small. Imagine the things we could do if we bumped up our energy production exponentially. The reason we don't do these things or consider these things is because we don't have that production.

    Something that makes the environmental folks very angry is pointing out that if, supposedly, solar drops in price by X every Y making it now cheaper than coal and soon to be a tenth the cost of anything, and if, supposedly, electricity as currently used is useless unless 24x7, then the logical result is an enormous explosion in resource utilization and capitalism and jobs (none of which their political group wants) because entire new industries will spring up around "energy is intermittent but when its there, its free".

    So cars with solar powered liq O2 plants that hybrid-like can lean burn pure cold O2 and five times as much gas to get five times the power for a very short amount of time, resulting in the replacement of my 100 HP engine with a 20 HP lawnmower engine that none the less has higher performance.

    I'm pretty much at the point of putting some panels in and wiring them to large power resistors buried in a ton of cement block in my basement, basically stealing a nordic stove design and using power resistors instead of burning wood. A large water tank would work just as well. I mean, I can pay for natgas, and sometimes at night I'll need it, but most of the time, why bother? I can have a nice insulated box with out windows called my basement, and a quarter acre of solar collectors if I want, and combined that will be a hot as hell basement.

    So... I can be a cheap bastard and only run my air conditioner off solar power. In my climate that is not a serious problem (down south you'd die from the humidity). Never again will I burn coal to cool my house. You can insist on it not being possible and not being acceptable to the market until you're blue in the face, but I can and will do it with a bit of electrician wiring.

    If hot tubs store a ridiculous amount of heat, and they require a ridiculous amount of power even with decent insulation, its not going to take too many panels and then every freaking house in my subdivision will probably have a hot tub. The enviros will go nuts, but I'll be relaxing in my zero carbon hot tub so F them.

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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:00PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:00PM (#482893)

    Better: you can get three times as much heat by replacing the resistors with a heat pump (as long as you operate both ends at reasonable temperatures).
    You probably didn't want to bury those resistors in the concrete anyway. Above a certain amount of power you will melt and/or crack things.

    Even better: I heard that you can get free passive heating for life if you go get some used stuff at a nice plant on the quiet coast of Japan. It will keep your house warm until the last of your descendants dies.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:06PM (2 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:06PM (#482894) Journal

    Something that makes the environmental folks very angry is pointing out that if, supposedly, solar drops in price by X every Y making it now cheaper than coal and soon to be a tenth the cost of anything, and if, supposedly, electricity as currently used is useless unless 24x7, then the logical result is an enormous explosion in resource utilization and capitalism and jobs (none of which their political group wants) because entire new industries will spring up around "energy is intermittent but when its there, its free".

    Why would environmentalists be angry about a burgeoning, green-energy-storage market? Oh wait, they wouldn't.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:30PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:30PM (#482905)

      Did you know if you printed out every page of Wikipedia, and stacked them one on top of the other, the environmentalists would go nuts?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @04:17AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @04:17AM (#483076)

      Why would environmentalists be angry about a burgeoning, green-energy-storage market?

      Because environmentalists are stupid. If you were as smart as VirginLoserMan you would know that already.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:06PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:06PM (#482915)

    > cars with solar powered liq O2 plants that hybrid-like can lean burn pure cold O2 and five times as much gas to get five times the power for a very short amount of time, resulting in the replacement of my 100 HP engine with a 20 HP lawnmower engine that none the less has higher performance.

    Conceptually a nice idea, but remember that pure O2 plus a fuel makes for a cutting torch -- intense heat. Common fuels used in cutting torches are acetylene and now gasoline. I watched a guy using one of these, cutting up an old 6-inch-thick (150mm) industrial pressure tank with gasoline and a dewar of liquid O2 on a trailer.

    Even the modest amount of O2 enrichment from nitrous oxide injection has been known to melt engine pistons.

    So that will not be an ordinary 20HP lawnmower engine, it might need ceramic parts for the piston crown and cylinder head.