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[...] Some experts estimate that climate change could force between 150 and 300 million people to find a new place to live by the middle of this century, though there is considerable uncertainty about the amount. Finding suitable locations to house them will be a significant impediment. As Michael Gerrard explained, "part of the problem is scale. If we're talking about millions of people having to be on the move, it just doesn't work."
In the U.S., there are very few habitable places that aren't already occupied by homes, businesses, or agriculture, or preserved as park lands or forests. Meanwhile, rural areas would provide few opportunities for migrants to find employment and rebuild their lives.
Instead, Gerrard suggested moving people from high-risk areas to cities whose populations are shrinking, such as Detroit, Michigan. He sees cities' potential for vertical development, energy-efficient buildings, and public transportation as a way to sustainably host climate migrants.
What if refugees from Caribbean islands don't want to live in Detroit?
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Sunday January 07 2018, @02:28AM (1 child)
The reason solar and wind are slow to expand is EROEI. Energy Return On Energy Invested.
Solar and Wind have something between 1 and 40 depending on location and longevity.
Originally oil had a EROEI of tens of thousands, to millions. Punch a hole in the ground and get huge amounts of energy.
Even with all the easy oil gone, oil, gas, and coal still have an EROEI of hundreds.
The reason EROEI is so important is that it dictates what proportion of your productivity is spent on energy collection, 1/EROEI
With fossil fuels it is less than 1%, sometimes much less.
To go fully renewable with an average EROEI of 20, fully 5% of your economy would be installing and servicing solar and wind power.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday January 07 2018, @03:26PM
I've been an energy market investor / researcher for decades, deimtee gets it. I would agree with and expand on those remarks that an interesting side effect of the logistics curve and Hubbert and EROEI and the rest is famously you can pump oil out of a dump and burn it on the other side of the planet for quite a long time, but if you're having a societal collapse then starting to build a syngas plant is too little too late.
South Africa under apartheid had white people building syngas plants and it worked "OK". That ain't happening in Africa in general or collapse areas in specific. So the plot line is everything gonna collapse which is a great time to build a fusion reactor; um, not so much. Even by Hollywood standards its a little far fetched.
In the rich and stable rural USA someone is gonna get the idea to build syngas plants in the powder river basin and start train shipment syncrude instead of coal hoppers. That's great if you're rich and living in the rich USA, but regardless if those plants get built or not, Africa is still gonna starve and the tropical islands will still be submerged.
There's a way to save some of the rich, is not a solution to the worlds poorest migrants wandering increasing because climate change or WTF. Its a Dunkirk type thing; some won't die, lots will, but regardless of survival, they gonna lose (at least in the short term anyway)