Pushing renewable power immediately could save trillions in health costs:
The use of fossil fuels comes with a wide variety of externalized costs. The big focus tends to be on the carbon dioxide fossil fuel produces and its role in warming the climate. But fossil fuels also cause environmental damage when they're extracted, and burning them produces particulate pollution and ozone. Those substances have downstream effects on human health and agriculture. If all of these costs were included in the price of fossil fuels, then alternatives would be far more competitive.
There have been numerous attempts over the years to quantify these externalized costs. Some look at the issue from a purely economic perspective, and others look at efforts to inform policy. These efforts tend to be based on our best understanding at the time; however, as our knowledge improves, the figures can be worth revisiting. That's exactly what's been done by a team of researchers at Columbia and Duke Universities who use current climate scenarios and updated health data.
The researchers' results say that, even if you ignore the climate benefits, moving away from fossil fuels rapidly would lead to benefits that, in the US alone, can add up to trillions of dollars before the century is over.
The big changes in the work involve a shift over to model version six of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects (CMIP), which was accompanied by new emissions scenarios. These scenarios include everything from emissions growing at their prepandemic pace through to near the end of the century, down to a net-zero-by-2050 scenario. The ones that are considered most often are two high-end scenarios (growth to 2080 and a slower pace of growth to the end of the century), and two that are consistent with limiting warming to either 1.5º or 2.0º C.
These scenarios obviously produce impacts via climate change. But the researchers also converted them into emissions of other pollutants, such as particulates and nitrogen oxides, based on the current US energy mix. Those pollutants have a variety of effects on the US population, such as exacerbating asthma and raising the risk of heart problems. Ozone, which is produced by some of the combustion products, can also damage crops.
A second major change compared to past analyses was the consideration of medical impacts. The authors state that we now have an "improved understanding of the human health impacts of exposure to both heat and air pollution." This turns out to be critical, since health impacts are far and away the most costly of those considered.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @03:58PM (21 children)
Dismantling the for-profit health care from Ronnie that started this would be just as impossible.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @05:04PM (13 children)
Rightwing downmod brigade at it again!
Saint Ronald was secretly the devil. Seriously go research his presidency and all the awful shit he did. He was a decrepit degenerate pretending to be wholesome while slipping into senility. He fucked our country bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:07PM (11 children)
Personal anecdote. Toward the end of the Reagan years, a friend moved from Boston to SF. I co-drove with him and we detoured to stop at the Grand Canyon (south rim).
We arrived after dark in late fall and under moonlight the view down in was spectacular. Then we camped overnight and woke up in daylight. The whole park was a mess, trash everywhere, buildings poorly repaired, minimal staffing, etc--all because Reagan cut funding to the national parks. That funding was a drop in the bucket of the national budget and never should have been cut, imo--took away respect for some of our most loved national treasures.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:47PM (6 children)
I remember when W cancelled a several million dollar program to give poor children who arrive hungry at school a free meal. Only several million dollars. A pittance in the national budget.
If you are not hungry, you are more likely to succeed at being educated and therefore more employable later in life instead of a deadbeat with no future and no skills. Is that then a more expensive problem than it would have been to provide some poor kids a free meal?
I don't scream about "my rights! my rights!" etc because I'm already a white male privileged boomer. I advocate for other people's rights even though it does not benefit me personally.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:57PM
*slow handclap* ok booms.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RS3 on Wednesday November 03 2021, @08:08PM (4 children)
All that and proven medical fact that malnutrition results in impaired / reduced brain development, which often (usually?) results in a less productive adult, which often (usually) results in lower incomes, and the cycle of poverty perpetuates.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @06:07PM
Bug or feature?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday November 04 2021, @06:54PM (2 children)
Makes sense to Republicans. After all, Jesus said "the poor you will always have with you". (Matt 26:11)
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @07:50PM (1 child)
I think most translations of the Gospels are pretty cut and dry. Jesus said a few dozen variations on "Give everything you have to the poor", and anyone that joined the early Christian church had to do that. In one of the stories, a couple that hid some of their wealth was struck dead through a miracle of Peter. Anyone using the "Follower of Jesus" label without giving all of their possessions to the poor is lying to themselves.
I'm not Christian. I was raised Catholic, and as a teen I studied to be a priest for a bit and considered entering a monastery. But then the hypocrisy and logical flaws in it all - like completely ignoring commands to give all of your possessions to the poor - led me to realize it was a bunch of nonsense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @09:11PM
from a physical stand point, that is physics(tm), a expensive mansion (or whatever!) belongs to whoever built it.
the person giving fancy paper for it (so-called "buying") doesn't ownZ it.
the universe and its laws doesn't initialize on random human made laws but is totally invoked by the people pilling those stones and sawing that wood. the universe totally sees this.
these people are totally giving to the poor!
*shrug*
note: beware people telling you to destroy stuff of other people.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:51PM (3 children)
I grew up next to a major national park in the West. Our family regularly visited other parks like Yellowstone, too. I saw them through Democratic and Republican administrations, including the Reagan years. The general state of the parks didn't vary that much with political change.
The bigger cause of wear and tear on them has been the sheer weight of visitors. Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Glacier are a couple off the top of my head that struggle to keep up, but even they only really have that problem in their most heavily visited areas. That is, Yellowstone has trouble around Old Faithful, the Grand Prismatic Spring, and Mammoth Hot Springs. Glacier has it along Going-to-the-Sun highway. Yosemite has it in the valley. But go into the back country in Yellowstone and it's fine. St. Mary's in Glacier, with its hiking on the other side of the lake, is as good as it's ever been. Yosemite's Rte. 120 that crosses the spine of the Sierra Nevadas has the same awesome geology and landscape, but with a tiny fraction of the visitors.
More funding wouldn't fix the more heavily trafficked areas, because all it would do is turn them into theme parks. That's the opposite of what makes them awesome.
And when I think about it, I'd rather have extra wear and tear from a lot of visitors than do the execrable thing which Canada has done with Banff National Park, which has been changed to keep out the hoi poloi so the wealthy paying top dollar at the chateau on Lake Louise can enjoy the views without the riff-raff.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @10:05PM (2 children)
Actually more funding would help. Have dozens of rangers to keep the jerks in line, and funding to repair damage and add fences where needed, etc. Wouldn't prevent all the issues you mentioned, but would help.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 04 2021, @01:12PM (1 child)
No, extra funding would not help. What would help is the National Parks Service promoting its many other amazing parks and national monuments. Kings Canyon is as amazing as Yosemite, and is right next door; nobody goes there. Canyonlands National Park is adjacent to Arches National Park, and is much more amazing than the Grand Canyon, but nobody goes there. Capitol Reef National Park is really cool, as cool as Zion, but nobody goes there. Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument is breathtakingly beautiful, but nobody's ever heard of it.
And so on. The United States has such an abundance of stunning natural wonders, but people only ever talk about Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Glacier.
Spreading the load around them better is the way to save wear and tear on a few popular areas in a few parks.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @04:58PM
" What would help is the National Parks Service promoting its many other amazing parks and national monuments."
So more money for advertising. You really need to work on your anger issues mr guy. Or you're just a typical older conservative man, someone disagrees so you get combative. Do you think advertising grows on trees?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @02:47AM
After the US destabilized Guatemala in a coup in which they installed a far-right brutal dictator (deposing the popular democratic government). And, after the civil war that ensued by the population trying to recover their democracy and freedom that was stolen by the US. Along came Reagan.
Reagan financed a genocide of the indigenous Maya. Racist Reagan equated indigenous with communist (Even if it were true, having a different political/economic ideology does not justify mass murder, at least for decent human beings. But, it was enough to justify mass murder for Reagan the Butcher. And, also for his far-right evangelical christian base who were ardent supporters of the perpetrators of the genocide as well.
https://www.salon.com/2015/03/24/ronald_reagans_genocidal_secret_a_true_story_of_right_wing_impunity_in_guatemala/ [salon.com]
(additional source, me. I was a kid in Guatemala during the US sponsored civil war.)
Reagan's sponsoring of death squads who committed brutal torture and murder in Honduras and El Salvador is well known. As well as the illegal dealings with Iran which he used to finance his illegal (both US and international law) campaigns of terror.
If hell exists, there is a special place there for Reagan the Butcher and the Evangelical Christians with the blood of tens of thousands on their hands.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:34PM (2 children)
The for-profit health care "system" that exists in the US has a lot of causes that date back to at least the 1940's. Reagan certainly made things worse in a lot of ways, but so did Richard Nixon, so did Newt Gingrich, and so did Barack Obama.
And when you look at the reasons why this mess exists rather uniquely in the US, it comes down to two factors:
1. Greed: Health care is an industry where the seller can legally say what amounts to "Give me all your money, or you die". Most people value their life over their money, so they pay up, whatever it takes, go bankrupt, etc. There are several branches of this tree - hospital networks, pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies, etc - but they all offer basically the same deal. And that's true even if the patient has health insurance, because their insurance company has entire departments whose sole job is to find excuses to not pay for health care. These industries have enough lobbying cash, snatched from the pockets of cancer patients and the like, to block most meaningful attempts to put an end to this pattern.
2. Mudsill Theory: The United States, rather uniquely, has a lot of citizens that would like a lot of their fellow citizens dead, or at least consigned to a second-class status where their survival or well-being is not a factor in anybody's decision-making. There are also lots of citizens that figure that there is no way to organize society without a group of second-class citizens, and put most of their political effort into ensuring said second-class citizens are somebody other than themselves.
Those are the real reasons we don't have something like a British or Canadian NHS, or a much more regulated mix of public and private organizations such as Germany or Japan.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:55PM (1 child)
I believe the generic term is "antipathy", often exhibited right down the individual level inside their own family. Our system is a reflection of us, the impotence, corruption, all of it, as badly managed as a Surfside condo
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @02:18PM
There's also stupidity involved. Even if you're rich AND selfish, if you're not rich enough to not rely on ERs (e.g. have your own medical team), as long as according to the rules[1] the poor who are sick enough can get "free" treatment in ERs it is in your self interest that they get free treatment elsewhere and not in ER.
Because you still end up paying (taxes, higher medical bills) for their "free" treatment and you pay more since delivering healthcare via ER is inefficient. Some of the poor and sick commit crimes to get money for treatment or even to get healthcare in prison (and thus you pay even more).
And because more hospital close their ERs[2] to avoid having to give free treatment, you might end up paying with your life if one day you need ER treatment and are unable to get suitable treatment in time.
Recently there are more freestanding ERs but they often cost more and provide inferior treatment: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2016/09/01/how-the-spread-of-freestanding-emergency-rooms-hurts-patients/ [dallasnews.com]
tldr; even if you're selfish and moderately well-off, as long as the laws provide ways for poor to get free medical treatment, it's in your selfish interest that your taxes pay for the poor to get medical treatment in a far cheaper way than ERs and prisons.
[1] https://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Legislation/EMTALA/ [cms.gov]
https://www.history.com/news/americans-once-avoided-the-hospital-at-all-costs-until-ers-changed-that [history.com]
Different story if this law is repealed.
[2] https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9607.html [rand.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @01:42AM (3 children)
Liberals talk about Reagan the way conservatives talk about Hillary Clinton. Except even less honestly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @07:01AM
Trump talks about Bush the way Nancy talks about Matilda, or whatever the fuck his wife was called. Make sense?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 04 2021, @01:15PM (1 child)
Reagan won the Cold War and set the stage for the emancipation of hundreds of millions of Europeans who were trapped behind the Iron Curtain. That's huge.
The only ones who would view that as a defeat are Marxists.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @05:05PM
It is possible for evil people to do some good. Humans aren't only good or bad, even the most evil humans have committed acts of neutrality. Why bother defending such a shitbag like reagan? Just more p666 totally-not-a-conservative hot takes.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday November 03 2021, @04:07PM (6 children)
I thought that windmills gave me cancer, somehow!
Besides, as long as I don't need to see or meet coal miners dying of black lung, oil roughnecks getting their arms ripped off or heads bashed in, or the kids getting asthma that just happen to be downwind of a power plant, I can go about my life pretending that these problems don't exist.
This is especially important if I just happened to be a senator allegedly representing a state where black lung is particularly severe and kill roughly 1000 of my constituents every year, but I'd really rather throw a wrench in any government efforts to reduce dependence on coal mining because I just happen to have gotten millions of dollars running coal companies, which I've since passed along to my son, so any shift away from coal would make it harder for me to make improvements on my houseboat. Not that this definitely hypothetical example would have any effect on the policy of a major country or anything.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:17PM
otherwise you'll get voted out because "OUR GUD JUBS" -- if someone got black lungs, it's because they have pussy genes.
Hell, they (so called "greens" and coal/gas/oil lobby) just voted to stop hydroelectric power from coming through Maine because NIMBY -- https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/maine-vote-hydro-quebec-1.6233569 [www.cbc.ca] . So don't expect people to vote for better with uncertainty when there is certain shit instead.
(Score: 4, Touché) by DannyB on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:51PM (2 children)
According to Trump, the sounds of windmills give you cancer. (Don't shoot the messenger first unless you intend to ask questions later.)
Check out: Clean coal!
The children will arrive home with their clothes just as spotlessly bright white as when they left to work in the mines sixteen hours earlier.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday November 04 2021, @02:56AM (1 child)
Excellent Timing. I was just talking with someone about their hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. Section F runs through the Tehachapi Wind Farm, or more accurately, the Tehachapi Wind Farm was built around it.
By their description the noise is something else. It won't give you cancer, but it might make your brain explode. I'd like to hear it for myself someday.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @07:03AM
Nobody said build expensive houses under them. Plenty quiet enough for the people living alongside I-5 tho.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @02:35AM (1 child)
I uh.. wow. Are you living in the third world or something? Here in a first world, oil-producing country, that sort of thing is .. well, it has a very nineteen-seventies, the-way-we-used-to-do-things sort of sound to it. Update your stereotypes, please.
Today, every company's got a health and safety department, with teeth, backed by law. If there were an average of one arm-ripped-off or head-bashed-in-dead incident in this country per year, it would be noteworthy. CEO's go to jail for that shit. Seriously.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday November 04 2021, @06:25PM
I was talking about the United States, where approximately 100 roughnecks are killed and 1400 seriously injured every year [cdc.gov], at least as of when that report was written 8 years ago. Also, I was friends with a guy who worked as a geological engineer on rigs, and he had stories (he was *usually* far away from the really dangerous areas).
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @04:11PM (1 child)
We should not ignore THEIR benefits they get from robbing us.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @05:06PM
Little early in the day for this scum sucking level of stupidity.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday November 03 2021, @04:15PM (3 children)
This is not what the pharma industry has in mind for society, so you can bet it won't happen.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:18PM (2 children)
Was gonna say: Trillions in saved healthcare costs is hundreds of billions of healthcare profits lost. Not sure the people who make the decisions are gonna be excited about the possibilities in that future.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @11:13PM (1 child)
Can't remember the name but there was a movie about a presidential candidate getting murdered because he supported universal healthcare or something. The insurance companies had him killed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @07:07AM
That sounds like every single Michael Crichton plotline. Ever.
(Score: 1, Informative) by ChrisMaple on Wednesday November 03 2021, @04:41PM (17 children)
Wood is considered to be a renewable energy source. Burning wood is one of the most highly polluting energy sources.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday November 03 2021, @04:45PM
And?
Cyanide is made out of renewable peach pits. You probably don't want to breathe that either.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @05:04PM (1 child)
I got a splinter once. Wood sucks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:20PM
Toughen up your soft keyboard hands, white collar worker! Or, wear leather gloves the next time (splinters go through woven materials).
And please don't experiment with redwood splinters, for some reason these are a very likely to cause infections.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @05:10PM (4 children)
You think you have a point, but it is really just propaganda level thinking AKA idiocy. MaKiNg BaTTeRiEs AlsO pOlLutEs sO eVs R dUm!
You've gotta be real lazy or stupid to run with those excuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:17PM (3 children)
Just ride a bicycle everywhere. Pretty hard to argue with bicycles as egalitarian and resource-friendly transportation (although I'm sure some will try).
Ivan Illich wrote extensively on this and related topics, see his book (which I highly recommend) https://arl.human.cornell.edu/linked%20docs/Illich_Tools_for_Conviviality.pdf [cornell.edu]
Summary here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tools_for_Conviviality [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @07:02PM (2 children)
Nobody went to war on a bicycle. Put world peace on the list.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Wednesday November 03 2021, @07:54PM (1 child)
Put 'Soldiers on bicycles' into Google image search - it will probably surprise you.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @07:09AM
Put "Soldiers on bicycles getting mown down by the machines of war" in Google search.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:19PM (4 children)
Burning wood is carbon neutral. In that sense it's renewable energy. It does put particulates in the air for a time, but then it's no different than a forest fire and all of those pale in comparison to what burning fossil fuels does to the atmosphere.
On a mass scale, though, burning wood doesn't work because of the attendant deforestation and habitat destruction that occur when forests are chopped down.
We need to stop burning fossil fuels and use solar, wind, tidal, and hydro power instead. Nuclear can work quite well, too, if the waste disposal issue can be solved; NYC, for example, gets 1/3 of its power from the Indian Point nuclear facility upriver on the Hudson; France also, I believe, gets almost all of its power from nuclear and has for decades.
But we can't just stop fossil fuel use without first figuring out their replacement, because without energy our economies stop. Factories stop, agriculture (in the way we practice it now) stops, shipping stops.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:45PM (3 children)
> the waste disposal issue can be solved
It is not much waste, a warehouse full for each nuclear power plant. Just bury it in a really deep hole in the ground.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @07:04PM (2 children)
> Just bury it in a really deep hole in the ground and wait 4 million years before digging there
FTFY
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday November 03 2021, @10:24PM (1 child)
That's a common misconception about nuclear waste. People see a 700 million year half life and get all panicky. Here is a pretty good analogy that explains this.
Hold a candle in your hand. It has roughly the same amount of chemical energy as a stick of dynamite, but the dynamite is far more dangerous. Why? It releases the energy much faster. It's the same for nuclear waste. A gram of Uranium 235 buried back when animals first first evolved hard shells would have only decayed by half now. It's so slow that we lose it in the noise of background radiation. (It is background radiation, actually.) Contrast that with Sodium 24 that gives up the same amount of energy in less than a day; It's toxiconium poisonide and you don't want to share the same county with it. The faster decay speed makes it massively more dangerous than the Uranium isotope.
Looking at real common nuclear waste products, they are heavily weighted towards the dynamite end of the spectrum. Strontium-90 and Cesium-137 (very common in waste) have half lives of about 30 years. Assume you start with 1000-times the legal radiation limit of either of them. In 30 years cut it in half. In 30 years cut it in half again. In 150 years, two human lifetimes, you're down to 30 times the legal limit. Wait two more human lifetimes (a total of about 300 years) and you're back at the legal radiation limit. Even if you start with something blasting a million times more radiation than is allowed then that's only 6 human lifetimes to decay.
Sane nuclear waste storage plans need to account for a few hundred years, not millions.
Don't feel bad if you've been deceived on this point. Petro-energy companies made a huge scary deal out of Nuclear waste to keep from having to compete against Nuclear power. It worked, and we're the poorer for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @03:24PM
The safe limits are probably different depending on the material - can't just compare "radioactivity". For the same amount of radioactivity, eating two bananas (30 Bq) a day for 1 month is safer than eating a 30 Bq dose of radioactive iodine every day for 1 month.
There are different sorts of "radiation". Alpha radiation emitters are more harmful when swallowed but if they're outside they are safer than gamma emitters - alpha radiation doesn't penetrate the skin as much.
Similar it does matter on how the stuff is taken up. That's why people take stuff like iodine tablets in some radiation emergencies - to reduce the amount of radioactive iodine accumulating in their thyroids.
I think strontium can accumulate in bones (enjoy your leukemia and bone cancer), so the safe limit might be different. But you're right that it's still not millions of years.
Seems wrong to me assuming human lifetime is 80 years. 2^20 is about 1 million so you'd need about 600 years which is more than 6 human lifetimes for normal humans.
Year 0=1,000,000
Year 30= 500,000
Year 60= 250,000
Year 90= 125,000
Year 120= 62,500
Year 150= 31,250
Year 180= 15,625
Year 210= 7,812
Year 240= 3,906
Year 270= 1,953
Year 300= 976
Year 330= 488
Year 360= 244
Year 390= 122
Year 420= 61
Year 450= 30
Year 480= 15
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:26PM (3 children)
Pyrolysis or wood gasification boilers. Then you don't dump half your wood into the air and actually burn it.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday November 03 2021, @10:32PM (2 children)
We're not talking about it because it's not sexy green energy, but pyrolysis of biomass and burying the biochar as an agricultural supplement is one of the deepest carbon-negative things we can do. It locks away the carbon for a very long time, reduces agricultural runoff, improves the diversity of soil organisms, and improves water holding capacity. When that finally catches on it's going to be huge.
If you wanted to make a fat lot of money you'd make portable pyrolysis units that could manufacture and biochar from corn, soy, and cotton stalk and stubble. Truck it, cook it off, and spread it all from a unit right there at the edge of the field. The crop yield bump would pay for the machine and the carbon credits would pay for your yacht.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @11:34PM (1 child)
Biochar (i.e., charcoal) attracted a lot of attention years ago. It has been studied quite a bit. Result: it's hype. Mostly it does nothing to soil fertility or it actually DECREASES it. As for carbon storage: the carbon is not locked up forever in the charcoal. It usually gets out and back in the environment fairly quickly, plus imagine how much charcoal a field can actually contain. Relatively little.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 05 2021, @12:02AM
https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/biochar_black_gold_or_just_another_snake_oil_scheme [earthisland.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:15PM (14 children)
(I am very much in favor of renewable energy.)
I don't see anything in the analysis about possible deaths from adopting this technology. E.g. from from protracted power outages, grid instability, or energy shortages that are possible in a rapid shift away from fossil fuels for baseload generation.
I'm not saying that's an insurmountable problem or we shouldn't do it. I am saying that if you're going to count corpses you need to include them all.
(Score: 5, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:20PM (6 children)
I don't see anything about the protracted power outages, grid instability, or energy shortages that are possible in the free market system, e.g. Texas.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @07:39PM (5 children)
That was caused by an unusual weather event. California has regular rolling brownouts as a matter of policy.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 03 2021, @07:41PM
California also has (had since the 1980s) veggie burgers... normal logic and values don't apply West of the San Andreas fault line.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday November 03 2021, @09:54PM
It's a valid criticism, IMHO. We do have data today for extreme weather event related fatalities. We know and accept that power outages in heatwaves, cold snaps, flooding, etc. will kill people. My nit-picking is I don't see any allowances in the model for an increase (or decrease) of those deaths.
I wouldn't pick at this (again, I'm a strong supporter of renewable energy) if this research was taking a measured stance. It's not. It assumes that everything is going to go right (it won't), the technology will work right (it won't), and mother nature will cooperate (RIP). We need to be honest that reducing carbon in our energy infrastructure is going to be disruptive. We're going to break stuff.
That is the nature of unknown unknowns. Anything less than that honesty is going to be a big flashing red target when-not-if the tech hiccups.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @03:07AM (2 children)
We have blackouts because PG&E failed to maintain their power distribution infrastructure, and shutting off power when the wind blows strongly on a hot dry day is PG&Es attempt to not cause any more major fires. They were found responsible for the fire that wiped out the entire town of Paradise, killing a large number of inhabitants. It didn't help that we rate payers had to pay extra to fund infrastructure upgrades and PG&E took that money and gave it out as executive bonuses instead.
It was a broken power insulator that allowed a high voltage line move in the wind and short that sparked the fire. The broken insulator was over 100 years old.
We also have blackouts because the political right neo-liberals and their farther right allies managed to pass energy de-regulation in California. The power providers in the late 90s just after the passage, would divert power to other states to drive up the spot price for power in California. The prices got so high (like Texas during their cold spell), that the retail power companies used rolling blackouts to shed demand rather than paying the inflated prices.
It is corruption and capitalist greed all the way down.
Interesting to note that LA Water and Power (a government owned utility that serves Los Angeles did not subject their customers to rolling blackouts. And, their power bills were lower. LAW&P is rate payer supported, and not subsidized by taxes. The difference is they don't need to charge higher rates and provide shittier service to support the rich parasites who own / run the private utilities.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @11:39PM
California govt won't clear brush and trees to reduce the fire hazard because "environment." Enjoy the tinder in those hills!
And California has been closing fully functional power plants because they aren't "green." How dumb does California have to be to get rid of their nuclear power plants, for example. "Green" energy is a fart compared to nuclear power plants.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday November 05 2021, @02:01PM
There isn't an obvious reason why any of the things you listed would be different if generation was via renewables vs. fossil fuels. Am I missing something, or is it reasonable to assume that those factors remain constant?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:24PM (3 children)
That's reasonable.
I think we can still gain a lot through energy conservation, too. Too many burn electricity like it's going out of style. Vacant rooms are lit and air conditioners run when nobody's home. Without realizing it our civilization has trained us to maintain a thousand Tomagotchis, i.e., fake pets that cry for our attention and demand to be fed electricity. Does the microwave really need to draw current to tell us what time it is? No, it doesn't. But we leave it plugged in anyway.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @07:49PM (2 children)
"Does the microwave really need to draw current to tell us what time it is? No, it doesn't. But we leave it plugged in anyway."
Do you have any idea how little power the display uses? It's nothing. Get a grip and examine the real source of energy consumption: HVAC. Even household lighting is nothing compared to that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @03:36AM (1 child)
I'm with Phoenix on this one. It all adds up. I'm also with you, we need to address inefficient appliances when they are actively running too.
The newest appliances are better about standby power due to regulations in the EU and US. 20 years ago, 10% of your power bill could be appliances in standby power.
But, even 1W standby adds up.
123M households in US X 10 chargers/appliances plugged in but unused X 1 Watt = 1,230,000,000 Watts of wasted idle power. Over 1GW.
Most commercial nuclear reactors produce 1GW. So, the entire power generation of 1.25 nuclear reactors for useless, worthless, stand-by power.
No, not all appliances across the entire country are idle at the same instant, but most appliances spend the vast majority of their time in standby. But, even allowing for not all devices are in standby at the same instant, this is still a huge underestimate. E.g., idle power on computers is *much* higher. And, not everyone has appliances built in the last 5 years. And, I suspect a lot of US households have more than 10 devices with a standby mode sitting idle.
oven
microwave
refrigerator
computer
cell/computer/tablet charger
desktop/laptop computer
tablet
phone
washer
dryer
television
smart thermostat
smart doorbell
smart lighting
water heater
air conditioner/heatpump
security camera
personal assistant like Amazon Alexa
wifi router
roku/amazon fire/apple tv/etc.
car charger
tool charger
printer
scanner
external hd
nas
etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @07:27AM
To keep it in perspective, 10x that is used to watch Brittany Spears.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:28PM (2 children)
> baseload generation
Nuclear power is an ideal solution.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday November 03 2021, @09:58PM (1 child)
It is, and public opinion against it is slowly changing. The bureaucracy part of it is still a quagmire though. We're a very long way from being able to take a reactor from blueprints to fueling in five years, and if we're going to ramp it atomic power meaningfully (and replace our 50-year-old dinosaur reactors) we have to drive down that loop time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @12:05AM
Agreed, and there is no time to waste with experimental or non-conventional reactor technologies. We need to build modern, proven, conventional reactors NOW.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @09:39PM
methinks one big problem is that you can either:
get off your ass, research some solar pv, cross your fingers and take the plunge and hope the shit doesn't break until it paid itself off
-or-
sit on a computer, buy some conventional NFT energy stocks (nft, since it can be used only once) or bonds and show your support by using more of that one-way energy. the oroborous solution. beaches and sunset (most literally) mai-tais included.