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posted by chromas on Wednesday July 03 2019, @01:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the The-Heat-is-On!-?? dept.

We've Already Built too Many Power Plants and Cars to Prevent 1.5 °C of Warming:

In a [...] paper published in Nature today[*], researchers found we're now likely to sail well past 1.5 ˚C of warming, the aspirational limit set by the Paris climate accords, even if we don't build a single additional power plant, factory, vehicle, or home appliance. Moreover, if these components of the existing energy system operate for as long as they have historically, and we build all the new power facilities already planned, they'll emit about two thirds of the carbon dioxide necessary to crank up global temperatures by 2 ˚C.

If fractions of a degree don't sound that dramatic, consider that 1.5 ˚C of warming could already be enough to expose 14% of the global population to bouts of severe heat, melt nearly 2 million square miles (5 million square kilometers) of Arctic permafrost, and destroy more than 70% of the world's coral reefs. The hop from there to 2 ˚C may subject nearly three times as many people to heat waves, thaw nearly 40% more permafrost, and all but wipe out coral reefs, among other devastating effects, research finds.

The basic conclusion here is, in some ways, striking. We've already built a system that will propel the planet into the dangerous terrain that scientists have warned for decades we must avoid. This means that building lots of renewables and adding lots of green jobs, the focus of much of the policy debate over climate, isn't going to get the job done.

We now have to ask a much harder societal question: How do we begin forcing major and expensive portions of existing energy infrastructure to shut down years, if not decades, before the end of its useful economic life?

Power plants can cost billions of dollars and operate for half a century. Yet the study notes that the average age of coal plants in China and India—two of the major drivers of the increase in "committed emissions" since the earlier paper—­­­­­­­is about 11 and 12 years, respectively.

[*] Monday.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @02:40PM (16 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @02:40PM (#862729)

    The better question to ask is WTF is with the angle here. We need to build new power plants to replace older ones. New power plants should be built with the latest technology in solar, wind, and nuclear. Maybe that's too close to socialism for the pseudo-left, who seem more interested in returning us to the dark ages and the feudal era. If Trotsky was fascinated by a power plant built on a peat bog, wonder what he would have thought of nuclear and solar?

    Fossil fuels have to go, if for no other reason than they will run out on a time scale that is short enough (hundreds of years) that we damned well ought to be planning ahead. Somethingsomething responsibility.

    Eh but let me guess. Coal and nat gas are the only options because otherwise "there is no money!" or "it's not profitable!" Fuck the profit system. We need power. We need power plants, especially if we plant to support somewhere around 10 billion people on this planet. This is an equation we have to make work and can make work, because we want to advance, not regress. 10 billion people living in a clean, sustainable global civilization is ambitious, but I think we can do it. Just not in the capitalist era.

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  • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @03:12PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @03:12PM (#862739)

    If you think we live in a "capitalist" era you are pretty deluded. "Capitalists" aren't the ones promoting constant inflation to collect seignorage and keep their Ponzi scheme alive.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @05:14PM (6 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @05:14PM (#862800)

      This is hardly off-topic. If you want to successfully solve a problem you need to correctly identify the root cause. The root cause is quite simply that the current world economic system requires infinite growth to not collapse. This system is controlled by central banks and governments. Just read "financial news", it is all about central banks, trade wars, trump tweets, etc.

      Here is the current set of headlines on Reuters:

      https://i.ibb.co/NZR6B6L/finance.png [i.ibb.co]

      Topics:
      Federal Reserve rate cuts
      Chinese Tariffs
      Trump
      Us factory orders
      New head of the European Central Bank
      Hong Kong regulator
      Federal Housing Finance Agency

      So the only non-government focused story is "US factory orders".

      And just look at the circus around every FOMC statement where people all around the world are trying to interpret why they changed single words or phrases:
      https://www.forexlive.com/centralbank/!/fomc-statement-redline-20171213 [forexlive.com]

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremlinology [wikipedia.org]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @10:19PM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @10:19PM (#862929)

        The root cause is quite simply that the current world economic system requires infinite growth to not collapse. This system is controlled by central banks and governments. Just read "financial news", it is all about central banks, trade wars, trump tweets, etc.

        Keep digging, root doesn't end there, is just a little farther to go :-)

        This seems relevant to your interests: Wall Street rules [wsws.org].

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @10:44PM (4 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @10:44PM (#862937)

          What aspect of the actual information there do you think is in conflict with what I said? I see random mentions of "capitalist" that have nothing to do with reality. Central banks and governments and to a much lesser extent corporations are in charge.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @11:46PM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @11:46PM (#862970)

            Nothing in conflict. It seems like you and the wswswswsws both share a healthy contempt for the Fed and corporations, so I'm hoping they might prod you in the right direction. Your analysis seems to be going in the right direction, especially wrt needing infinite growth to make the system work. The Accumulation of Capital [marxists.org] (Luxemburg) may also be relevant to your interests.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @12:03AM (2 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @12:03AM (#862977)

              both share a healthy contempt for the Fed and corporations

              I see a missing type of organization there... but I will check out your link.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday July 03 2019, @05:32PM (4 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday July 03 2019, @05:32PM (#862807) Journal

    New power plants should be built with the latest technology in solar, wind, and nuclear. Maybe that's too close to socialism for the pseudo-left, who seem more interested in returning us to the dark ages and the feudal era.

    Uh...what? You are claiming that people on the left DON'T want renewable energy?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @06:25PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @06:25PM (#862835)

      Pseudo-left--people using leftist language in service of right-wing, regressive agendas that will increase wealth disparity without doing much about AGW. A pseudo-left plan would include finance capital, lots of pork, etc while placing the bill at the feet of those least capable of paying for it (the working class).

      A leftist plan would tackle it as an engineering problem and send the bill to the 1%ers.

    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday July 03 2019, @08:30PM (2 children)

      by edIII (791) on Wednesday July 03 2019, @08:30PM (#862894)

      I'm not sure about that, but I would say the typical "Left" person is against nuclear. Nuclear is the only real solution. Solar might supplement things, but at really large scales, solar also has an impact on the environment from manufacturing to handling of defunct panels. I'm not convinced wind power can solve our issues, and that's using the highly advanced and compact solid state wind generators. Those have the same environmental foot print issue related to manufacturing.

      Considering what is at stake, I think we should be building nuclear reactors underground as fast as we possibly can. Nuclear is a dirty word though, even when we talk about advanced designs using Thorium that are far safer than any traditional reactor.

      --
      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday July 03 2019, @08:46PM (1 child)

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday July 03 2019, @08:46PM (#862902) Journal

        Well THIS lefty is vociferously PRO nuclear.

        I'll take a localized pollution issue over a global one any day of the week!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @11:57PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @11:57PM (#862976)

          Vociferous here too.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @03:45PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @03:45PM (#863140)

    A few years ago I did an analysis of how many nuclear power plants, solar farms, wind farms, etc. we'd have to build to replace the existing power infrastructure.
    Using extremely aggressive (impossible to attain) construction schedules, it would still take orders of magnitude more years than we have.
    In other words, we're trapped in a box with no way out but to suffer through it.
    The only question is, how long will we suffer?

    The real crime is that we KNOW what parts of the world will be hardest hit, and how many will die.
    It's not widely discussed, but the US Govt. conducts and publishes pretty good research on this every couple of years. I have a copy that was published under G.W.Bush. (that's right. Bush, the climate denier in chief, also commissioned and published some damn good scholarly research on the threats we face from unchecked global warming.) The confusion in the public is, in fact, due to efforts by the wealthy (people, corporations, countries... take your pick) to obfuscate the issue. Why do they do this? Here's where it gets messy--

    There is only one way to really fix the problem. It's not just energy production. It's also deforestation, farming and pollution that creates massive dead zones in the oceans. The only way to really fix the problem is for there to be fewer people. We are way past the carrying capacity of the planet, but also of our own technology. Like another poster said, we have a $100K income, but we're spending $115K per year. (not 3%, it's really more like 15% or 20%.) This can go on for a while, but sooner or later we're going to have to cull the herd. (unless -- like happened with Malthus -- some kind of major technological breakthrough happens, like, tomorrow.)

    How do you achieve that culling without massive controversy??? Simply let it happen. Also move your own family and friends to more survivable areas.

    I know, I know, it sounds conspiratorial. That's because it is. If you do enough research and go beyond what's being publicly talked about, you can't help but find this same conclusion.

    What about that problem of an economy that depends on infinite growth? It's called a reset. Back when the plague killed 1/4 - 1/3 of all humans on the planet, it was bad at first, but within one generation the quality of life and standard of living shot up to never before seen levels of comfort and stability. Everyone felt rich, because the established infrastructure had been built for a much larger population.

    Why am I posting as AC?
    You figure it out.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @04:55PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @04:55PM (#863162)

      It's not widely discussed, but the US Govt. conducts and publishes pretty good research on this every couple of years. I have a copy that was published under G.W.Bush. (that's right. Bush, the climate denier in chief, also commissioned and published some damn good scholarly research on the threats we face from unchecked global warming.)

      link plz

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 04 2019, @10:41PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 04 2019, @10:41PM (#863266) Journal

      Using extremely aggressive (impossible to attain) construction schedules, it would still take orders of magnitude more years than we have.

      We'd just have to build faster than that. Impossible doesn't mean much when one can scale construction projects to far greater levels than you are speaking of.

      What about that problem of an economy that depends on infinite growth?

      How strong is this dependence? When is that dependence going to matter? Even if we have an economy that is strongly dependent on growth, it can "reset" after we've developed far longer longevity, brought the entire world to developed world status, and established an interplanetary civilization. There's plenty of room for growth and an economy that supposedly wants to do that. Let's use this convenient tool at hand to get what we want.

      As to the narrative about being beyond the carrying capacity of Earth, there'd be more problems, if that really were true. Humanity and its environment would be under more stress than it presently is. The narrative is poorly fitting reality as usual.

      Why am I posting as AC?

      Too lazy to log in.