RW: So, are you saying that it is impossible to build a modern nuclear power plant? That nukes are stuck forever in the 1970s?
BPL: Nukes may not have the same design flaws as they had in the 1970s (when the nuclear industry and its shills were just as shrill about how wonderful nuclear is than they are now), but we still have the same problems of human laziness, inattention to detail, and potential for mistakes. A safe nuclear industry pretty much assumes nobody is ever going to make a mistake, and that all problems have been foreseen and dealt with.
Also, we have terrorists and terrorist regimes actively seeking nuclear material. The less nuclear fuel circulating around the country, the better. In addition to which, trucks crash and cargo ships crash and both sometimes catch on fire. When the smoke includes Iodine-131, it just pisses everybody off.
Killiansays
284 Kevin McKinney says:
23 Jul 2021 at 8:42 AM
Folks who invoke Jeavon’s Paradox often do so withit the unstated assumption of very high elasticity of demand–i.e., that consumption will simply increase proportionally to the inverse of price.
Do they? Silly me. In all my long conversations about such things with many people, the issue was always about growth, not price, per se. When you are always adding more people, always *wanting* growth, efficiency is simply never going to overcome demand except with rare things. Once rarity becomes a recognizable issue for the world at large due to depletions becoming more obvious across the Periodic Table, Jeavons less and less of an issue. Price plays a role with economies of scale, but the true cause of Jeavons’ being an easy prediction is… growth. Absent growth, Jeavons becomes a bit of a minor issue, or even a non-issue.
Killiansays
279 And of course there is a real need to make Border Adjustments of exporters and importers to establish the true level of CONSUMPTION of Products that have generated GHG emissions.
I think you mean assign responsibility to the end-user here, which is how these things should be counted. E.g., the issue of efficiency WRT energy between cities and rural areas is turned around when the energy use is accounted to the end-users. That is, rather than cities seeming to be more efficient users of energy, it turns out the two are equal when accounted this way. (And if you then add in embedded energy and amortize the energy over time to create the city, not just what it uses day-to-day, cities are less inefficient.)
Killiansays
280 Reality Check says:
23 Jul 2021 at 3:33 AM
Increasing RegenAg Crop Yields solved?
This is a solution in search of a problem. It comes from the belief food scarcity is something other than political and economic apartheid (rich/powerful vs poor/weak) and waste.
Nature gives us guilds of plants that grow together to achieve these things. Long-rooted plants, medium-rooted and shallow-rooted of various kinds such as dynamic accumulators like comfrey.
So, once again, if we just grow regenerative (i.e. along natural principles) gardens, we don’t need this genetic manipulation. Worse, what happens when we decide we don’t need the diversity of plant guilds because one plant does it all? This research is pretty much a guarantee of further disruption of the planetary ecology all while providing a “solution” where none is needed.
then, of course, you’ll end up with soils more quickly depleted and increase the rates of nutrient cycling needed, potentially to a rate that can only be met artificially, and then we’re back to chem ag, etc.
THEN there’s the issue, as we found with Monsanto, that what is made by Monsanto does stay only in stuff made by Monsanto. Do we end up with a “wilderness” of freak plants upsetting the balance of the entire global ecology?
Etc.
Interesting R&D, but should remain R&D unless or until it can’t be avoided.
Killiansays
280 (addendum)
Besides, I grew red and white potatoes – generally relatively small – the sizes of large Russets in my simple little garden with very healthy soil in the middle of Detroit with exactly zero chem inputs or gene splicing. I did, however, use sheet mulching, mulching, compost I made myself, and compost teas and co-planting (guilds).
Killiansays
Just a note on the incredibly dangerous problems of ignorance and bias.
The Rodale study has been dismissed by dangerously ignorant and biased people as not being real science, laughed at, even.
Hmmmm…
Rodale personnel:
* Past chair of the National Organic Standards Board; boardmemmber of Regenerative Organic Alliance, the Soil Health Institute and advisory board of The Real Organic Project; founding board member of Pennsylvania Certified Organic; past Founder and Board Chair of The Seed Farm, new farmer incubator project.
* PhD in Agronomy
* Ph.D. in environmental science
* Ph.D. degrees in Microbial Ecology and Soil Science
* Ph.D. in Soil Fertility
* Ph.D., concentration in agronomy and crop physiology
* Ph.D. in entomology
* B.A. Ecology
* B.A. Emvironmental Studies
* B.S. in Environmental Studies
* B.S. in Molecular Biology
* Master of Science degree in Plant Pathology
* B.S. in Biology/Ecology
* Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology
* Bachelor’s degree in Sustainability
How dare those people claim to be doing science!
Piotrsays
Richard the Weaver (288) Piotr, You say that the way they built nuclear power plants in the 70’s was unacceptable. I agree. [but] I think that harping about 70s era power plant deficiencies is moronic.”
Then …. don’t do the moronic harping?
My arguments are NOT about the 70’s – but about the CURRENT, based on the nuclear industry’s CURRENT choices and opinions, (as opposed to the enthusiasm of nuclear cheerleaders who never run? visited? a nuclear plant) and about FUTURE, e.g.:
Piotr(479,481,502,524): “A new generation of nuclear power facilities that China is developing could produce large amounts of plutonium that could be used to make nuclear weapons, Navy Admiral Charles Richard, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command warned lawmakers this week.”
David B Bensonsays
Nigelj @300 —- On the contrary. I keep track on attempts to acquiring right-of-way for transmission lines. A simple AC transmission line from Boardman OR to Hemingway ID, I.e., Boise, took 22 years to settle on a permitable route. In the meantime, Idaho Power built a CCGT as the power was required in the Boise basin. I leave the impossibilities of obtaining right-of-way from Quebec to Massachusetts for a HVDC transmission line up to you to discover. Then there are rights-of-ways through National Parks which cannot be widened…
Richard the Weaversays
BPL: A safe nuclear industry pretty much assumes nobody is ever going to make a mistake, and that all problems have been foreseen and dealt with.
RtW: I honestly don’t know. I’ve pondered putting nukes far away so they can churn out synfuel in peace. I hear the Antarctic peninsula is opening up (and the Delta t is both phenomenal and rock steady. You’re always pumping heat into near-freezing water).
And a nuclear battery made from waste (can the elements be selected so as to make it harder for right wing terrorists to make something nasty?) to keep a house or neighborhood warm and fed with electrons.
It sounds relatively safe to me.
Then there’s the wild card, the mini-nukes. Things work without them, but they add possibilities.
Either you, supposedly an Engineer, honestly thought that building and operating a 770MW nuclear plant could be done as easily, as quickly, and as cheaply as building and operating one Liberty ship, or you KNEW these are ORDERS of magnitudes DIFFERENT
Why? What makes them different? Be specific, and use REAL rather than contrived risk factors to distinguish.
I have read enough to know that you can’t tell the difference between topping up the baseload during “peak” demand vs. providing …the baseload itself. I know that you can’t – because you tried to discredit the former by comparing it against the latter, and not once, but three times. And each time you ignored my explanations WHY it is a fallacy.
You think it’s contrived? I sure don’t, so explain. In detail, not with dismissal.
And this is the pattern: you don’t, or can’t, accept facts or arguments outside of your orthodoxy. Which makes trying to learn something _from you_, or to look for truth _with you_ – pointless.
Ye gods, you idiot. I cite the success stories from industrial civilization, and you dismiss them with contempt. There is no “orthodoxy” that I follow aside from the verifiable facts. Why can you not get this inside your head?
Thank you, moderator, for reading and approving comments on Saturday night.
Whoever you are.
Michael sweetsays
Nigelj @300
The reason nuclear power is not being pursued is that it is too expensive.
13 additional reasons are in Abbott 2012, which you have been referred to in the past. There is also the problem that large areas of Japan and Russia have been rendered uninhabitable by nuclear accidents.
Nuclear supporters generally do not care how many people they kill so extreme cost is the primary reason. Unproven new designs are unlikely to address these issues. There is also the problem that there is not enough uranium to power the world (detailed by Abbott).
Reality Checksays
#304, all good points there.
#306, giggle. A worthy qualifications list to share.
#307, “could be used to make nuclear weapons”, frankly I don’t care. Who is Admiral Charles Richard anyway? Rumsfeld’s replacement – the latest in a conga line of WMD chicken little’s with ADHD yanking everyone’s chain with over-hyped hand waving bs. Please get back to me when the USA has as few active Nukes and WMD as China does, and America has finally learned the lessons of Vietnam. Until then can we please stick to climate issues. That’s hard enough by itself.
Reality Checksays
289 E-P
responsibility and accountability for historical contributions of dangerous harm via known actions; and a capacity to act to repair that damage (including implementing negative emissions); and being first to make the biggest difference possible now going forward; has nothing to do with blame and everything to with ethics and morality.
But I get some people, and entire nations, have difficulty parsing these matters in a healthy rational way. And Cheapest is not the only yardstick worth something. Money isn’t everything. Often it’s nothing.
Reality Checksays
#293 maybe consider the context and slow down a little. You’re reading too much into what’s said. I was using the word ‘panacea’ in the context of agriculture only. But sorry if I could have made that clearer above.
re “But the public do seem receptive to regenerative agriculture from what I read in our local media.”
Frankly I don’t see how the “public” have or should have anything to do with it. The evidence is already in regards industrial agriculture and GHG emissions and environmental impacts. iow follow the data? If there is insufficient data on RegenAg they get some more asap. Because right now Govts are not focused on supporting or expanding RA at scale or anything else in the sector capable of making a positive impact on climate change mitigation. AFAIK.
Is there anything more important than that today?
The same as the public should not be setting Public Health Rules for Covid19. They are not qualified to judge or make such decisions. And my main point re $$$ was that it’s Governments who set the landscape and the framework of what and how things get done. Governments get to choose what advice they will seek out or ignore. Governments set the moral and ethical standards of the day. The Public only get the choice (mostly) of who to vote into power. We should lift our game.
As far as excessive hype over RegenAg, I sure haven’t seen any. One commenter on one forum (killian?) is no big deal. RegenAg might be one of the most little known options for sustainable cost-effective, easy to implement Mitigation (potential?) options available.
Anyway, what will be will be. I think the world is full of foot draggers and deniers there is even a crisis in need of fixing. Many are found in governments. Watch ’em swoop down in Glascow later this year full of hubris.
nigeljsays
Remember I said you can counter Jeavons Paradox, as did Richard and KM. I thought I might look into this on wikipedia:
“Some environmental economists have proposed that efficiency gains be coupled with conservation policies that keep the cost of use the same (or higher) to avoid the Jevons paradox.[6] Conservation policies that increase cost of use (such as cap and trade or green taxes) can be used to control the rebound effect.[7]”
This confirms my suspicions and the German example I quoted. Some countries already have carbon taxes. You could also have wider consumption taxes. Not making technology more energy efficient is STUPID and won’t happen anyway. Therefore we HAVE to counter Jeavons Paradox. Its the only realistic option. This is obvious stuff.
Also a zero growth economy doesn’t make Jeavons Paradox obsolete. Increaed efficiency would fuel growth and start it up again. You have to “actively counter” Jeavons Paradox in some way, whether by taxation, or high consumption becomes out of fashion as KM mentioned.
nigeljsays
DBB, I found the link on energy costs. Thanks. Part of it says:
” $173 trillion in greener energy infrastructure and supply over the next 30 years….According to BNEF, the world needs to more than double yearly investments in order to achieve net-zero emissions. Those investments should jump from around $1.7 trillion annually at present to “somewhere between $3.1 trillion and $5.8 trillion per year on average over the next three decades.””
I have no idea how accurate or useful these Bloomberg estimates are. There’s a lot of scaremongering out there. But I was just curious, so assume worst case of 5.8 trillion per year. Global gdp per year in 2019 was approx. $87 trillion. So green energy infrastructure and supply would cost about 5% of gdp per year which puts it into perspective. And with gdp increasing each year that also helps.
You said very expensive. Its a big sum but is it really very expensive? I guess thats a perception thing. Its roughly comparible to about 5% of the average wage each year. Some will go ouch, others might not. The point is it looks doable. Instinctively 5% could be absorbed without massive disruption, while I would think 20% would not. Admittedly I’m in an optimistic in frame of mind, hopefully not hopelessly optimistic.
Killiansays
Lifelong farmer, Ph.D or know-nothings with zero farming experience, zero regenerative ag experience, who are constantly encouraging doing as little as possible to solve our problems because… they’re scared.
Which you listen to is up to you, but affects the entire planet.
Regenerative agriculture is unlikely to be a panacea because environmental problems include numerous problems unrelated to agriculture.
Nobody has claimed it’s a panacea, so both the question and the response are Straw Man bullshit.
It’s just the excessive hype that makes me grind my teeth. Excessive hype ends up being counter productive because it turns people off and is so easily exposed.
There is no hype, you ignorant, frightened, little rabbit. Everything you have been told is accurate. All of it. What have you exposed besides your inadequacy? Nothing. You are wrong on every point you have tried to raise, but like Trump, you keep repeating the election was stolen. Your brain is worm food.
Same with me. However we just also have to acknowledge reality of what things can be changed, how much and how quickly and focus on the things that will make a big difference
None of which do you have any experience, knowledge or insight in or about – yet you run your goddamned mouth like a corner preacher screeching his babbling to the sky.
But the public do seem receptive to regenerative agriculture from what I read in our local media.
Interesting link on modeled LCOE, if a bit inscrutable in some ways. (The results raise many questions for me, partly because the author seems to take too much context for granted; maybe if you had access to a full write up the figures would be less ambiguous.)
I note, though, that the panel on LCOE of seasonal storage foresees declines comparable to current costs for, say, gas peaking. Maybe even current nuclear LCOE (the scale makes ‘resolving’ the exact number for pumped storage a challenge.) No word on methodology, of course–and I would think the results would be pretty sensitive to (necessary) assumptions.
Richard the Weaversays
Killian: I grew red and white potatoes – generally relatively small – the sizes of large Russets in my simple little garden with very healthy soil in the middle of Detroit
RtW: growing purple potatoes in compost. We’ll see how they turn out. Do you suggest waiting until the end of the year to harvest any potatoes?
I’m running my dehydrator constantly. Dried tomatoes and peppers keep well, take up little space, and are scrumptious and nutritious.
Too bad about the electrical consumption. Maybe next year I’ll have a zero carbon system set up.
Killiansays
321: Do you suggest waiting until the end of the year to harvest any potatoes?
You harvest when they’re ready, i.e., when the tops die off. I am not sure how long you might let them stay in the ground, but keep them covered or they’ll go green.
316
Remember I said you can counter Jeavons Paradox, as did Richard and KM.
Where did this Straw Man come from? Who claimed Jeavons applies in all casesm all times? Nobody.
“Some environmental economists have proposed that efficiency gains be coupled with conservation policies that keep the cost of use the same (or higher) to avoid the Jevons paradox.[6] Conservation policies that increase cost of use (such as cap and trade or green taxes) can be used to control the rebound effect.[7]”
This confirms my suspicions and the German example I quoted. Some countries already have carbon taxes. You could also have wider consumption taxes. Not making technology more energy efficient is STUPID and won’t happen anyway. Therefore we HAVE to counter Jeavons Paradox. Its the only realistic option. This is obvious stuff.
Also a zero growth economy doesn’t make Jeavons Paradox obsolete.
Of course it does, bc to maintain zero growth you have to set policies in all areas of the economy to maintain consumption. How that is done will vary, but you *can’t* have Jeavons in play if you want a steady-state economy.
But all of this is moot in the long run. As has been discussed many times, with a controlled simplification and plenty of time, there would need to be a period of transition and during that time things like Jeavons, efficiency, taxes, etc., would be managed to get the desired effect. Exactly what mix would vary from place to place, country to country, so getting bogged down in the details isn’t of much use.
However, all of the things you said above apply in the long run *only* if we are stupid enough to keep the extremely stupid and maladaptive market capitalism, or any form of it (including supposed “socialism” in Europe, e.g.), and that would make all this discussion moot because if you keep Captialism, you end society as we know and risk extinction because it SHOULD be blindingly obvious from weather/climate changes since 2016 that we DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS STUPID SHIT.
It’s a rapid transition to simplicity or bust.
Killiansays
Nuclear not so reliable:
With extreme weather causing power failures in California and Texas, it’s increasingly clear that the existing power infrastructure isn’t designed for these new conditions. Past research has shown that nuclear power plants are no exception, with rising temperatures creating cooling problems for them. Now, a comprehensive analysis looking at a broader range of climate events shows that it’s not just hot weather that puts these plants at risk—it’s the full range of climate disturbances.
Heat has been one of the most direct threats, as higher temperatures mean that the natural cooling sources (rivers, oceans, lakes) are becoming less efficient heat sinks. However, this new analysis shows that hurricanes and typhoons have become the leading causes of nuclear outages, at least in North America and South and East Asia. Precautionary shutdowns for storms are routine, and so this finding is perhaps not so surprising. But other factors—like the clogging of cooling intake pipes by unusually abundant jellyfish populations—are a bit less obvious.
Overall, this latest analysis calculates that the frequency of climate-related nuclear plant outages is almost eight times higher than it was in the 1990s. The analysis also estimates that the global nuclear fleet will lose up to 1.4 percent—about 36 TWh—of its energy production in the next 40 years and up to 2.4 percent, or 61 TWh, by 2081-2100.
…So, at least in the short term, even nuclear power will likely contribute to the increasing frequency of climate-related power shortages.
Piotr(296): “Either you, supposedly an Engineer, honestly thought that building and operating a 770MW nuclear plant could be done as easily, as quickly, and as cheaply as building and operating one Liberty ship, or you KNEW these are ORDERS of magnitudes DIFFERENT.”
Engineer-Poet (310) “ Why? What makes them different? Be specific, and use REAL rather than contrived risk factors to distinguish.
Aaa, hutzpah, the last resort of every good Engineer worth his title. But if you insist:
UAMPS 700+MW Nucell powerplant vs. Liberty ship
1. complexity of building and operating :
– UAMPS: multiple nuclear reactors
– Liberty: “essentially a welded barge with an obsolescent triple expansion steam engine “
2. costs:
– UAMPS = $6,000 mln
– Liberty= $37 mln (2021 dollars)
3. time to complete:
– UAMPS: “ NuScale’s initial goal of having operational reactors by 2016 has been extended by more than a decade”
-Liberty: churned up “3 per day” (Engineer-Poet)
“What difference”, eh?
Piotr(296): “I have read enough to know that you can’t tell the difference between topping up the baseload during “peak” demand vs. providing …the baseload itself. I know that you can’t – because you tried to discredit the former by comparing it against the latter, and not once, but three times. And each time you ignored my explanations WHY it is a fallacy.”
Nuclear Poet(310): You think it’s contrived? I sure don’t, so explain. In detail, not with dismissal.”
You are saying this with a straight face? I have explained it to you in detail 3 times – you you responded 3 times with dismissal, – for Quebec hydro, for Newfoundland hydro and for hydro in the US in general (as summed up in as summed up in: in each case you dismissed the potential to provide BACKUP/STORAGE during the peak demand by saying how small % of the …. AVERAGE US energy consumption they would make, e.g.: “ Quebec’s hydro is adequate for its 8.4 million, but grossly inadequate for N. America’s 350+ million.”
I have responded 3 times explaining each time that you can’t dismiss the storage/backup by comparing it to ability to contribute to the AVERAGE US consumption – because its role is instead is to prevent the expensive energy shortages during the peak demand, to allow larger penetration of non-fossil energy generation (wind and solar) by providing backup for periods when they generate less than demand, and to reduce the need for expensive overbuild. And you can increase the backup capacity, from “passive” storage (you allow water to naturally accumulate during the high supply periods) to active (you actively pump the water up during high supply periods).
And all 3 times you, so proud of your Engineering “sheepskin”, understood nothing: I know this because you just repeated your original comparison of providing peak demand against the AVERAGE energy generation in the US, as if it has not been just challenged. And at the third reply you wrapped up your “answer” with a “GFY” (“Go Fuck Yourself” – for those not fluent in Engineer).
As for you claims on open-mindedness to the arguments critical to your beliefs – see the archives of RC – by their fruits you shall know them.
Piotrsays
David B Benson (306) “Nigelj @300 —- On the contrary. I keep track on attempts to acquiring right-of-way for transmission lines. A simple AC transmission line from Boardman OR to Hemingway ID, I.e., Boise, took 22 years to settle on a permitable route.”
And this was because of the intrinsic and massive TECHNOLOGICAL/COST difficulties, or because of the political/local special interests reasons? The Texas has an isolated grid because we don’t KNOW how to connect it to the majority of the US and Canada, and it would be PROHIBITIVELY expensive – or because of … the Texas ideological, political and industrial-lobby reasons?
Compared to the technological and economic challenges of getting away from the fossil fuel-dependency of our economy and life-styles – overcoming local political and local business lobbying is a low-hanging fruit.
Piotrsays
Reality Check(313):”Please get back to me when the USA has as few active Nukes and WMD as China does, and America has finally learned the lessons of Vietnam. Until then can we please stick to climate issues.”
Please get back to me when you understand the post you reply to. Hint – it is NOT about Rumsfeld, Vietnam, or even about “making nuclear weapons”, but about “a NEW generation of nuclear power facilities“, “new”, which responded to Richard lecturing others:
RtW: “I think that harping about 70s era power plant deficiencies is moronic.”
In this context – your opinion about the Admiral and the US policy on disarmament is irrelevant. But I must give to you – you know how to endear yourself your Mentor:
– your praise him (“304: all good points there”)
– laugh at his oh so funny jokes in:
Killian[with a cutting irony]: “How dare those people claim to be doing science!”
Reality Check:”giggle. A worthy qualifications list to share”
-and critique his enemies: “Please get back to me when [the US owns up for its wars]” “until then can we please stick to climate issues.
You even began sounding like him (“hand waving bs.“). Imitation as the sincerest form of flattery? ;-)
The reason nuclear power is not being pursued is that it is too expensive.
China and Russia don’t think so. Neither does the UAE, where the 4-unit Korean-built Barakah plant was built on time and on budget.
Nuclear power is only expensive where political forces make it expensive.
13 additional reasons are in Abbott 2012, which you have been referred to in the past.
Abbott is the incompetent who took 15 TW of primary energy consumption and assumed it required 15 TW of electricity to replace it, multiplying the scale of the system by a factor of 3… before he made other gross mistakes. This is literally a high-school-level error. Here is his 2012 paper and here’s his 2016 effort. Perhaps you can provide specific quotes to support your claims.
There is also the problem that large areas of Japan and Russia have been rendered uninhabitable by nuclear accidents.
Nuclear supporters generally do not care how many people they kill so extreme cost is the primary reason.
After a re-evaluation of the toll from Chernobyl dropped the estimate by something like a factor of 20, nuclear is quite literally the safest energy source humanity has at on the order of 0.005 fatalitles per TWh; if we nuclear advocates are trying to kill people, we are doing an absolutely lousy job of it.
Unproven new designs are unlikely to address these issues.
Radicallly simplified designs are proceeding to prototypes and then commercialization. Some, like Thorcon and Elysium, completely dispose of the rare-element issues claimed by Abbott by using different physical mechanisms (like direct thermal expansion and incremental fuel addition) to get rid of the need for things like burnable poisons.
There is also the problem that there is not enough uranium to power the world (detailed by Abbott).
The only way you could run out of uranium is if you only used land-based ores in thermal spectrum reactors. The Elysium reactor can be started on any combination of weapons-grade Pu, reactor-grade Pu reclaimed from used LWR fuel, and enriched uranium from any source (like retired nuclear submarine cores), but it eventually improves its neutron economy to the point where it can be refueled with only depleted U tailings or reclaimed LWR uranium. The reactor itself is just a big pot containing molten salt; it regulates itself by thermal expansion of the fuel salt, bringing itself sub-critical if it overheats and thus being controlled by the rate of heat removal. The Thorcon scheme operates along much the same principles.
There is a scaling problem with fast-spectrum reactors; they have high fissile inventories and low breeding rates, so their natural rate of expansion is a single-digit percentage per year. Thermal-spectrum reactors require much lower fissile inventories, but you cannot achieve net breeding with uranium with thermal neutrons. Thorium, however, can, as was proven in the final run of the Shippingport reactor. We can probably do better, both with breeding ratios and with specific power output and thermal efficiency, using molten salt reactors.
responsibility and accountability for historical contributions of dangerous harm via known actions; and a capacity to act to repair that damage (including implementing negative emissions); and being first to make the biggest difference possible now going forward; has nothing to do with blame and everything to with ethics and morality.
What’s the difference?
But I get some people, and entire nations, have difficulty parsing these matters in a healthy rational way.
You mean, like you’re trying to divert the discussion of how to save the threatened ecosystems of the planet down “ethical” and “moral” dead-ends of who should be allowed to ramp up their coal consumption in the name of “equity”?
To me, it’s simple: NO ONE should be allowed to ramp up GHG emissions, period.
And Cheapest is not the only yardstick worth something. Money isn’t everything.
Money is a measure of effort. We only have so much effort available. We need to spend it where it does the most good, period. There are other considerations than straight marginal effect (cheap efforts which send us in the direction of roadblocks are obviously NOT helpful, and I include the conversion of systems to natural gas as one of these roadblocked routes), but least-cost is generally a good consideration.
nigeljsays
Killian @319 says “Nobody has claimed it’s (regenerative agriculture) is a panacea, so both the question and the response are Straw Man bullshit.”
This is despite Reality check @276 said: “And what if it (regenerative agriculture) is a panacea for agriculture, the environment and drawing down emissions long term?” Sigh. Ignore Killian. At least half of what he posts is nonsensical, unproven BS.
nigeljsays
Richard the Weaver @309
“RtW: I honestly don’t know. I’ve pondered putting nukes far away (Antarctic) so they can churn out synfuel in peace.”
But wind or solar power are far more useful for making synthetic fuels. There are many times when they produce in excess of requirements, more so than nuclear power. The antarctic is also a pristine environment with at least some wild life so we don’t want things blowing up. In the middle of a desert is ideal except for no cooling water.
I don’t know for sure either on this one. It may be that nuclear power just doesn’t have much future in western democracies due to public resistance, and has more of a chance in autocratic countries.
Reality Checksays
#326, I’m no one’s enemy. So please, get a life.
Reality Checksays
@329 nigelj, please don’t do this. You were the one who raised the issue of a “panacea” .. and i used that word in a reply to you. see here
And what if it is a panacea for agriculture, the environment and drawing down emissions long term?
This is ridiculous having something misused completely out of context and meaning, to then turn it into a baseball bat to hit another over the head with it, just to maintain small minded personality conflicts.
Life’s too short, and difficult enough, to get bogged down in these silly pedantic word game commentaries, eg my last reply Piotr and why I’m passing on #328 as well.
Killiansays
332 Reality Check
It has been this way for six years now. All the nastiness started with the “Peanut Gallery.” I did a post in January or February finally proving this once and for all because the Gallery has seen fit to gaslight on this all along.
Nigel I treated with patience, kindness and a huge chunk of my time when he arrived on these boards. He seemed naive, but not dishonest. After about 6 months of that, I realized his comments were consistently full of Straw Men, consistently belittling of the concept of simplification, etc., and started calling him on it. It has only gotten worse and worse. The gaslighting is truly unbelievable. He, and the rest of them, seem to take it as a point of honor to act like schoolyard bullies who abuse their classmates then cry to the teacher they are the victim. Nigel made this bed, as did the rest of them, but that context of SIX YEARS of mental and emotional abuse is pretended to not exist, so when I slap them upside the head it’s me attacking, not returning serve.
Six fucking years. And these are the GOOD GUYS? Fuck me…
But, stick around. You, I and Strough can focus on conversing about the germane issues, ignore the assholery, lying and gaslighting, and maybe educate a few of the many silent Dear Readers… and maybe even a scientist or two.
So, let’s make a deal: You keep your cool, respond only to germane comments, and I will do the same while each keeps the other honest about it.
Deal?
Killiansays
Can’t be done! CAAAAAN’T be done! Right?
Wrong.
75 today. Doubling that every year would be over a million. And that’s just one tiny slice of the movement.
Careful whom you listen to. The uninformed willing to speak on any topic, knowledgeable or not, is not a reliable soure.
In this sense, the training processes developed in our movement are closely linked to our political liberation project based on food sovereignty, which is the cornerstone of agroecology. Each institute, school, course and exchange seeks to help form and build a social force and a political force: for us, social force is organised peoples. And political force is peoples that are more and more aware and organised.
…Around the world, La Via Campesina has more than 70 schools and training processes based on popular education, which is a method and an approach that puts forward the scaling up of agroecology at the territorial level and the strengthening of peoples’ food sovereignty. All these agroecological training processes are being constructed and organised by member organisations of La Via Campesina.
Reality Check(332): “You were the one who raised the issue of a “panacea” .. and i used that word in a reply to you.”
Which would get Killian(319) off the hook – ONLY if you used that word to say that … NOBODY in their right mind would consider it a “panacea”. BUT INSTEAD, you ASKED the reader to consider: “ And what if it is a panacea” after all. You DON’T do it unless you think that “what if” is at least POSSIBLE.
So since your question PROVES that you consider it at least possible, what would Killian think about you? A “nobody” whose posts are “Straw Man bullshit“???
[Killian(319): “Nobody has claimed it’s (regenerative agriculture) is a panacea, so both the question and the response are Straw Man bullshit”]
Reality C.(332): “Life’s too short, and difficult enough, to get bogged down in these silly pedantic word game commentaries”
Wise words …. if only they didn’t come at the end of the post devoted to … silly pedantic word games – your claiming that your asking “ what if it is a panacea” does not mean that you consider “ being a panacea” even a possibility.
And to make things better – your splitting words came in defence of Killian(319), a guy whose standard operating procedure upon encountering questions drawing logical conclusions from his pronouncements is NOT to prove their error, but to call them “Straw Man” bullshit, and on the base of that – proudly say how he is above engaging them.
“ Gooood. You have learned well, my young apprentice ” ;-)
Killiansays
Simplicity is not a choice.
We cannot exist outside of nature. Our whole evolution as a species has been, and still should be, attuned to the rhythms and limits of nature. We forget that at our peril. From the looks of the latest reports from ocean biologists, climate scientists, and ecologists, our peril has never been greater. That is why we need to stop discussing “the environment” and “nature” as if it was outside the world inhabited by humanity.
Models of human social and economic history have also tended to overlook the role of ecosystem feedbacks. Some models presuppose that technological and social changes represent progressive stages, an inevitable unfolding of our species’ destiny. Others seek causality in on-going cognitive and behavioral evolution. The reasons for the domestication of plants and animals, for the emergence of civilizations — like the models of their collapse, have been sought in genetic change — as each increase in complexity selects for higher intelligence, in shifts of consciousness, or, more frequently in cumulative cultural changes — the “ratchet effect” — caused by human ingenuity, technological innovation, increased harnessing of energy sources, higher levels of cooperation, conflicts within or between groups.
However, these are all insufficient to account for the initial lengthy period of very slow change, and relative economic and social stability, that characterized over ninety percent of our species existence. Models asserting that agriculture was a “discovery” imply that humans who remained foragers were too mentally deficient to figure out that seeds would grow if planted,
Aaa, hutzpah, the last resort of every good Engineer worth his title. But if you insist:
UAMPS 700+MW Nucell powerplant vs. Liberty ship
1. complexity of building and operating :
– UAMPS: multiple nuclear reactors
– Liberty: “essentially a welded barge with an obsolescent triple expansion steam engine “
Yet the NuScale is far smaller and less complex (just a few motors to drive control rods, literally EVERYTHING else is simpler). WHERE does the cost come from?
It comes from regulatory demands. It is not inherent, it is demanded. It is LEGISLATED. Tell me: WHY?
3. time to complete:
– UAMPS: “ NuScale’s initial goal of having operational reactors by 2016 has been extended by more than a decade”
-Liberty: churned up “3 per day” (Engineer-Poet)
“What difference”, eh?
So why can’t we make 3 NuScales per day? It’s not because of the bulk or complexity. It’s because of the regulatory demands. If our entire planet is at risk, why aren’t we DEMANDING that the GHG-spewing things which are PLACING it at risk be regulated to death, and the things that DO NOT are given relative grace? But we’re doing the opposite. WHY?
WHY, especially since our evidence is that even severe nuclear accidents have minimal impact on human and ecosystem health?
WHY is the evidence being ignored?
2. costs:
– UAMPS = $6,000 mln
– Liberty= $37 mln (2021 dollars)
Builders of Liberty ships didn’t have hordes of regulators breathing down their necks, delaying their schedules… and didn’t have to pay them for the privilege. Neither did the Manhattan project.
You are saying this with a straight face? I have explained it to you in detail 3 times
And you still do not get the refutation. Maybe the fourth time will do it, but given your incompetence I doubt it. Maybe it will help the audience.
you you responded 3 times with dismissal, – for Quebec hydro, for Newfoundland hydro and for hydro in the US in general
What part of “there is SIMPLY NOT ENOUGH OF IT” don’t you understand?
Hydro has SERIOUS limitations. Minimum river flows must be maintained. Reservoirs are only so big. There’s only so much water available. What suffices for Quebec’s 8.18 million and Newfoundland and Labrador’s population (estimated at under 520,000) is woefullly inadequate for New York’s almost 20 million, let alone the rest of the USA. Here’s a dollar, buy a clue.
I have responded 3 times explaining each time that you can’t dismiss the storage/backup by comparing it to ability to contribute to the AVERAGE US consumption
Except we HAVE TO, because the shortfalls of the “renewables” are a substantial fraction of that self-same average, and we have irreducible minimae which we MUST satisfy or disaster follows (see Texas last February).
you can increase the backup capacity, from “passive” storage (you allow water to naturally accumulate during the high supply periods) to active (you actively pump the water up during high supply periods).
In most cases, this requires water to be pumped from reservoirs well downstream… assuming those reservoirs even exist. Where’s the reservoir downstream of Lake Mead? AFAIK, there isn’t one. There are a couple of reservoirs on the river which bisects my hometown, but neither is big enough to satisfy its electric power demands and the upper one must be kept full enough to feed the water treatment plant.
And all 3 times you, so proud of your Engineering “sheepskin”, understood nothing
You’re one to speak; I’ve been talking past you since you started posting here.
We cannot exist outside of nature. Our whole evolution as a species has been, and still should be, attuned to the rhythms and limits of nature. We forget that at our peril.
Precisely why I advocate for nuclear energy. Nature is MORE than the ecosystem. Humanity can tap resources outside the ecosystem with minimal harm to it. We should not merely do so, we should emphasize it.
Killiansays
335
The knots you twist yourself into justifying everything you, nigel or anyone else in the Peanut Gallery does are interesting only as a source of entertainment.
Nigel did raise the issue. Period.
RC posed a “What if…?” which is never taken as a serious proposition.
I don’t need to be let off a hook. Nigel should know better than to be dishonest about the nature of Regen Ag and RC should know better than to reinforce the dishonesty by giving it a sense of legitimacy in responding to it.
Untie yourself. Have a beer. Learn to be a decent human being and stop trying to legitimize dishonesty and poor analyses out of pure spitefulness.
Killiansays
RC >> RtW
nigeljsays
Killian @333
“Nigel I treated with patience, kindness and a huge chunk of my time when he arrived on these boards. ”
What a piece of fiction. Killian made personally abusive remarks about me almost from day one. The first or second response I made to one of his posts was a model of diplomacy and I gave him a list of books I thought might be of interest to him (and other people) and he responded with an angry tirade as if I had somehow insulted him. Just like he abuses other people here. LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE ON THESE PAGES in recent months. By analogy, hes like the angry man in a bar if you say even the slightest thing wrong he will react by using his fists.
“After about 6 months …. consistently belittling of the concept of simplification, etc., and started calling him on it. ”
I criticise some of these simplification ideas. What a crying shame. How dare someone criticise ideas and pontifications on a science website? We cant have that! Science is supposed to just accept any new idea, or whatever, because its author or promoter says its right! (sarc)
“It has only gotten worse and worse. The gaslighting is truly unbelievab. He, and the rest of them, seem to take it as a point of honor to act like schoolyard bullies who abuse their classmates then cry to the teacher they are the victim. Nigel made this bed, as did the rest of them, but that context of SIX YEARS of mental and emotional abuse is pretended to not exist, so when I slap them upside the head it’s me attacking, not returning serve.”
LOL. since when is criticising the CONTENT of what someone posts “mental and emotional abuse?” Since when is complaining about Killians nasty abusive comments and frequent unsubstantiated accusations of lying “mental and emotional abuse?” Since when has pointing out FACTS about his huge arrogance and ego been “mental and emotional abuse”?
Blaming other people for his own bad behaviour is just excuse making.
People have misunderstandings. We all get a bit grumpy. I move on and try to be at least vaguely civil. Killian lives in the past and bears grudges.
nigeljsays
Piotr @335: “Which would get Killian(319) off the hook – ONLY if you used that word to say that … NOBODY in their right mind would consider it a “panacea”. BUT INSTEAD, you ASKED the reader to consider: “ And what if it is a panacea” after all. You DON’T do it unless you think that “what if” is at least POSSIBLE…..etc, etc.”
Exactly what I thought. Saves me having to respond. Thanks!
For many years, limiting global warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels was the de-facto target for global policymakers. This was formalised when countries signed the Cancun Agreements at the UN’s climate conference in Mexico in 2010.
However, at the climate talks in Bonn in May 2015, the UN published a new report that warned that the 2C limit was not adequate for avoiding some of the more severe impacts of climate change.
Comment: The question now is: Is the 1.5C limit adequate and fit for purpose?
The question arises because the Impacts of Climate Change are already increasingly greater than expected.
Almost a year ago Michael Mann was listing out the many examples of Impacts outstripping prior projections by the IPCC and climate scientists (and Impact Modelling.)
eg Sept 2020:
Mann: … so the warming of the surface
of the planet is proceeding more or
less as we expect, on the other
hand there are other aspects of climate
change which in fact are running
faster and where the magnitudes are
greater than we expected …
Are the Governments of the world in the UNFCCC and the COP system fit for purpose and proceeding based on the known scientific evidence?
Or is all manipulation, and fantasy, and spin for public consumption as if something is being done, when in reality nothing effective is being done?
I think a reality check is urgently needed.
In particular the Impacts outlined in Chapter 3 – Impacts of 1.5ºC global warming on natural and human systems – https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-3/ – might be compared to where we are at today, with only 1.1 – 1.2C of global warming – as per several examples provided by M Mann elsewhere and recent extreme weather events.
Ch 3 suggests remaining below 1.5C “Our world will suffer less negative impacts on intensity and frequency of extreme events, on resources, ecosystems, biodiversity, food security, cities, tourism, and carbon removal, and Adaptation will be less difficult.”
Began in 2015 and not presented until 2018 I suggest this report is extremely out of date and not accurate or reliable, given the accumulated recent now evidence to hand.
It seems rational to conclude that the 1.5C target is factually wrong, extremely inadequate and dangerous.
Reality Checksays
#335 is boring, wrong, and wasting their time.
#333 Deal. I can only try. I’m not well versed in regenag or farming. Am not qualified to teach, or judge, but I can read and learn new things. eg I laughed about the Rodale comment because i had seen several Papers by them while researching refs, and wondered why anyone would dismiss denigrate their many years of work as not ‘scientific’ enough.
One of things I learned by running down some science studies about regenag was that in the AR5 the IPCC excluded the CO2 flux from farming agricultural land. They only included CO2 inputs from N fertilizer use, manure, and equipment fuel use etc. Which therefore has totally excluded any data on potential benefits base lines and scale for long term CO2 sequestration in the Soil, (if I understand it correctly.)
Furthermore, they did count possible benefit of draw down by using BECCS, which seems odd to me because that surely is only a future not yet proven hypothetical possibility. (?)
My takeaway then is that the IPCC AR5 on Land Use and agriculture in particular was essential of little value and far from comprehensive. They mentioned no-till but didn’t address holistic regenag potential benefits, nor any published studies of that field – which certainly existed at that time.
Anyway, that pricked my curiosity, checking the background situation first, to then go see how extensive the literature today is on regenag and conservation ag etc. and there seemed be quite a lot available, with detailed studies about how to do it, why they do it, and the benefits including data on moisture increase, stability and CO2 sequestration and more.
I can’t see how some people believe there’s insufficient scientific evidence for such practices being at least having “potential” without first taking a lot of time to go look for it.
Of course not all in a group will even be interested in the topic, so each to their own.
Nothing I saw Scott say seems unreasonable. But given I am not expert in this field, there’s no way I could recommend which specific Papers, articles and studies are better, more accurate, more grounded in good data and therefore most reliable.
Anyway, that was my motivation for sharing some links to google scholar search results. If people want to find out that’s a good place to start. Because they won’t find anything on this topic in the IPCC reports, that’s for sure. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Given the IPCC generally place 25% of all GHGs (or is that CO2 only?) emissions are coming from Land Use, land clearing, Agriculture etc. it looks to me on the surface that very little work has been ‘published/included’ by the IPCC process on finding effective proven practical ways to Mitigate that.
Which is really surprising to me because I know about much work done regarding CO2 sequestration via particular strains of sugar cane which arose over a decade ago now. And it’s still not best practice afaik. And no-till, low-till and Regenerative Agriculture is not new! Foot dragging? There’s way too much foot dragging going on still, in my opinion.
As indicated elsewhere I think the UNFCCC and the COP system is utterly incompetent. It’s disconnected from all the good science and the known facts, and sound judgement. Most of the science they do use is out of date before they get it, or already so uncertain and unreliable it’s not fit for purpose.
The system has been undermined every step of the way by powerful nations and special interest groups. Plus: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
I’ll stop there.
nigeljsays
Killian @337 “The knots you (piotr) twist yourself into justifying everything you, nigel or anyone else in the Peanut Gallery does are interesting only as a source of entertainment.”
Piotr doesnt tie himself in knots. He is quite logical and he cuts peoples comments to pieces and exposes the nonsense that they truly are and every astute person here can see it. He does it the proper way, with a good sense of logic and precise detail, not your sophistry, empty accusations that people are ignorant and you know best because you are a farmer. Learn from what he says. I dont agree with every single comment he makes, but hes usually right. And if hes reading this I hope he doesn’t get big headed. Ha ha.
Its real simple. RC was tacitly agreeing that regenerative farming might be a panacea. He can deny this but we all know the truth. Thats is all I needed. I’m not criticissing him or yourself, I’m just saying I never made a strawman argument.
nigeljsays
Reality Check, sometimes brevity is better than lots of words. Don’t take that personally. I can be too wordy myself.
Mr. Know It Allsays
Mitigation: solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and all the other renewables. All pie in the sky, greenwashing as Killian has always said. We have to simplify. Michael Moore’s movie proved it all:
The other mitigation possibility is population reduction and Bill Gates has a plan for that and you will all be part of the experiment – see, you have something to look forward to. :) Dr. Madej explains it all at 16:40:
Of course Bill also has a plan to dim the sun as you already know.
BUT do we even need to mitigate? Most of the record high state temperatures were made nearly 100 years ago, many of them over 100 years ago. CO2 was very close to pre-industrial levels back then. But the facts can’t be denied; not even by believers:
EP: Radicallly simplified designs are proceeding to prototypes and then commercialization.
RtW: This is why I proposed an Antarctic Energy Colony. If the load is constant and the cold sink is at a constant temperature then those “liberty ship” systems you considered could be built, simple and safe systems with Fred Flintstone quality control systems.
And somebody just harped again about how we shouldn’t disturb all that ecosystem under all that ice. Uh, A: there is little ecosystem under a glacier. And B: given that that glacier WILL melt, any existing ecosystem WILL die regardless of whether we utilize the new virgin territory or not.
I see little use in attempting to preserve 100% of Antarctica since that is friggin impossible. Pick a tiny place. A dot. And use the chill and the inaccessibility to create all the synfuel our hearts desire.
Ray Ladburysays
Mr. KIA@347 piles on the conspiracy theories and then says “Hey, it won’t be so bad…” all less than a month after hundreds of people died across the Pacific Northwest in the worst heat wave they had ever experienced; after Europe and China and India are washing away. I think we can now definitively say that this man’s learning curve has a negative slope. The more information that flows his way, the stupider he gets.
Richard the Weaversays
Someone was also talking about using excess renewables to create synfuel. That means that the synfuel making stuff will be sitting around useless half(?) the time.
Given that nukes and synfuel don’t have the economics to survive sitting around unused, match them up and put them in the safest, least-damaging, and most efficient place on the planet. EP talks about nuclear’s small footprint. Antarctica is rather huge.
RW: So, are you saying that it is impossible to build a modern nuclear power plant? That nukes are stuck forever in the 1970s?
BPL: Nukes may not have the same design flaws as they had in the 1970s (when the nuclear industry and its shills were just as shrill about how wonderful nuclear is than they are now), but we still have the same problems of human laziness, inattention to detail, and potential for mistakes. A safe nuclear industry pretty much assumes nobody is ever going to make a mistake, and that all problems have been foreseen and dealt with.
Also, we have terrorists and terrorist regimes actively seeking nuclear material. The less nuclear fuel circulating around the country, the better. In addition to which, trucks crash and cargo ships crash and both sometimes catch on fire. When the smoke includes Iodine-131, it just pisses everybody off.
284 Kevin McKinney says:
23 Jul 2021 at 8:42 AM
Folks who invoke Jeavon’s Paradox often do so withit the unstated assumption of very high elasticity of demand–i.e., that consumption will simply increase proportionally to the inverse of price.
Do they? Silly me. In all my long conversations about such things with many people, the issue was always about growth, not price, per se. When you are always adding more people, always *wanting* growth, efficiency is simply never going to overcome demand except with rare things. Once rarity becomes a recognizable issue for the world at large due to depletions becoming more obvious across the Periodic Table, Jeavons less and less of an issue. Price plays a role with economies of scale, but the true cause of Jeavons’ being an easy prediction is… growth. Absent growth, Jeavons becomes a bit of a minor issue, or even a non-issue.
279
And of course there is a real need to make Border Adjustments of exporters and importers to establish the true level of CONSUMPTION of Products that have generated GHG emissions.
I think you mean assign responsibility to the end-user here, which is how these things should be counted. E.g., the issue of efficiency WRT energy between cities and rural areas is turned around when the energy use is accounted to the end-users. That is, rather than cities seeming to be more efficient users of energy, it turns out the two are equal when accounted this way. (And if you then add in embedded energy and amortize the energy over time to create the city, not just what it uses day-to-day, cities are less inefficient.)
280 Reality Check says:
23 Jul 2021 at 3:33 AM
Increasing RegenAg Crop Yields solved?
This is a solution in search of a problem. It comes from the belief food scarcity is something other than political and economic apartheid (rich/powerful vs poor/weak) and waste.
Nature gives us guilds of plants that grow together to achieve these things. Long-rooted plants, medium-rooted and shallow-rooted of various kinds such as dynamic accumulators like comfrey.
So, once again, if we just grow regenerative (i.e. along natural principles) gardens, we don’t need this genetic manipulation. Worse, what happens when we decide we don’t need the diversity of plant guilds because one plant does it all? This research is pretty much a guarantee of further disruption of the planetary ecology all while providing a “solution” where none is needed.
then, of course, you’ll end up with soils more quickly depleted and increase the rates of nutrient cycling needed, potentially to a rate that can only be met artificially, and then we’re back to chem ag, etc.
THEN there’s the issue, as we found with Monsanto, that what is made by Monsanto does stay only in stuff made by Monsanto. Do we end up with a “wilderness” of freak plants upsetting the balance of the entire global ecology?
Etc.
Interesting R&D, but should remain R&D unless or until it can’t be avoided.
280 (addendum)
Besides, I grew red and white potatoes – generally relatively small – the sizes of large Russets in my simple little garden with very healthy soil in the middle of Detroit with exactly zero chem inputs or gene splicing. I did, however, use sheet mulching, mulching, compost I made myself, and compost teas and co-planting (guilds).
Just a note on the incredibly dangerous problems of ignorance and bias.
The Rodale study has been dismissed by dangerously ignorant and biased people as not being real science, laughed at, even.
Hmmmm…
Rodale personnel:
* Past chair of the National Organic Standards Board; boardmemmber of Regenerative Organic Alliance, the Soil Health Institute and advisory board of The Real Organic Project; founding board member of Pennsylvania Certified Organic; past Founder and Board Chair of The Seed Farm, new farmer incubator project.
* PhD in Agronomy
* Ph.D. in environmental science
* Ph.D. degrees in Microbial Ecology and Soil Science
* Ph.D. in Soil Fertility
* Ph.D., concentration in agronomy and crop physiology
* Ph.D. in entomology
* B.A. Ecology
* B.A. Emvironmental Studies
* B.S. in Environmental Studies
* B.S. in Molecular Biology
* Master of Science degree in Plant Pathology
* B.S. in Biology/Ecology
* Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology
* Bachelor’s degree in Sustainability
How dare those people claim to be doing science!
Richard the Weaver (288) Piotr, You say that the way they built nuclear power plants in the 70’s was unacceptable. I agree. [but] I think that harping about 70s era power plant deficiencies is moronic.”
Then …. don’t do the moronic harping?
My arguments are NOT about the 70’s – but about the CURRENT, based on the nuclear industry’s CURRENT choices and opinions, (as opposed to the enthusiasm of nuclear cheerleaders who never run? visited? a nuclear plant) and about FUTURE, e.g.:
Piotr(479,481,502,524): “A new generation of nuclear power facilities that China is developing could produce large amounts of plutonium that could be used to make nuclear weapons, Navy Admiral Charles Richard, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command warned lawmakers this week.”
Nigelj @300 —- On the contrary. I keep track on attempts to acquiring right-of-way for transmission lines. A simple AC transmission line from Boardman OR to Hemingway ID, I.e., Boise, took 22 years to settle on a permitable route. In the meantime, Idaho Power built a CCGT as the power was required in the Boise basin. I leave the impossibilities of obtaining right-of-way from Quebec to Massachusetts for a HVDC transmission line up to you to discover. Then there are rights-of-ways through National Parks which cannot be widened…
BPL: A safe nuclear industry pretty much assumes nobody is ever going to make a mistake, and that all problems have been foreseen and dealt with.
RtW: I honestly don’t know. I’ve pondered putting nukes far away so they can churn out synfuel in peace. I hear the Antarctic peninsula is opening up (and the Delta t is both phenomenal and rock steady. You’re always pumping heat into near-freezing water).
And a nuclear battery made from waste (can the elements be selected so as to make it harder for right wing terrorists to make something nasty?) to keep a house or neighborhood warm and fed with electrons.
It sounds relatively safe to me.
Then there’s the wild card, the mini-nukes. Things work without them, but they add possibilities.
Knock it down
@296:
Why? What makes them different? Be specific, and use REAL rather than contrived risk factors to distinguish.
You think it’s contrived? I sure don’t, so explain. In detail, not with dismissal.
Ye gods, you idiot. I cite the success stories from industrial civilization, and you dismiss them with contempt. There is no “orthodoxy” that I follow aside from the verifiable facts. Why can you not get this inside your head?
And while I’m at it…
Thank you, moderator, for reading and approving comments on Saturday night.
Whoever you are.
Nigelj @300
The reason nuclear power is not being pursued is that it is too expensive.
13 additional reasons are in Abbott 2012, which you have been referred to in the past. There is also the problem that large areas of Japan and Russia have been rendered uninhabitable by nuclear accidents.
Nuclear supporters generally do not care how many people they kill so extreme cost is the primary reason. Unproven new designs are unlikely to address these issues. There is also the problem that there is not enough uranium to power the world (detailed by Abbott).
#304, all good points there.
#306, giggle. A worthy qualifications list to share.
#307, “could be used to make nuclear weapons”, frankly I don’t care. Who is Admiral Charles Richard anyway? Rumsfeld’s replacement – the latest in a conga line of WMD chicken little’s with ADHD yanking everyone’s chain with over-hyped hand waving bs. Please get back to me when the USA has as few active Nukes and WMD as China does, and America has finally learned the lessons of Vietnam. Until then can we please stick to climate issues. That’s hard enough by itself.
289 E-P
responsibility and accountability for historical contributions of dangerous harm via known actions; and a capacity to act to repair that damage (including implementing negative emissions); and being first to make the biggest difference possible now going forward; has nothing to do with blame and everything to with ethics and morality.
But I get some people, and entire nations, have difficulty parsing these matters in a healthy rational way. And Cheapest is not the only yardstick worth something. Money isn’t everything. Often it’s nothing.
#293 maybe consider the context and slow down a little. You’re reading too much into what’s said. I was using the word ‘panacea’ in the context of agriculture only. But sorry if I could have made that clearer above.
re “But the public do seem receptive to regenerative agriculture from what I read in our local media.”
Frankly I don’t see how the “public” have or should have anything to do with it. The evidence is already in regards industrial agriculture and GHG emissions and environmental impacts. iow follow the data? If there is insufficient data on RegenAg they get some more asap. Because right now Govts are not focused on supporting or expanding RA at scale or anything else in the sector capable of making a positive impact on climate change mitigation. AFAIK.
Is there anything more important than that today?
The same as the public should not be setting Public Health Rules for Covid19. They are not qualified to judge or make such decisions. And my main point re $$$ was that it’s Governments who set the landscape and the framework of what and how things get done. Governments get to choose what advice they will seek out or ignore. Governments set the moral and ethical standards of the day. The Public only get the choice (mostly) of who to vote into power. We should lift our game.
As far as excessive hype over RegenAg, I sure haven’t seen any. One commenter on one forum (killian?) is no big deal. RegenAg might be one of the most little known options for sustainable cost-effective, easy to implement Mitigation (potential?) options available.
Anyway, what will be will be. I think the world is full of foot draggers and deniers there is even a crisis in need of fixing. Many are found in governments. Watch ’em swoop down in Glascow later this year full of hubris.
Remember I said you can counter Jeavons Paradox, as did Richard and KM. I thought I might look into this on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
“Some environmental economists have proposed that efficiency gains be coupled with conservation policies that keep the cost of use the same (or higher) to avoid the Jevons paradox.[6] Conservation policies that increase cost of use (such as cap and trade or green taxes) can be used to control the rebound effect.[7]”
This confirms my suspicions and the German example I quoted. Some countries already have carbon taxes. You could also have wider consumption taxes. Not making technology more energy efficient is STUPID and won’t happen anyway. Therefore we HAVE to counter Jeavons Paradox. Its the only realistic option. This is obvious stuff.
Also a zero growth economy doesn’t make Jeavons Paradox obsolete. Increaed efficiency would fuel growth and start it up again. You have to “actively counter” Jeavons Paradox in some way, whether by taxation, or high consumption becomes out of fashion as KM mentioned.
DBB, I found the link on energy costs. Thanks. Part of it says:
” $173 trillion in greener energy infrastructure and supply over the next 30 years….According to BNEF, the world needs to more than double yearly investments in order to achieve net-zero emissions. Those investments should jump from around $1.7 trillion annually at present to “somewhere between $3.1 trillion and $5.8 trillion per year on average over the next three decades.””
I have no idea how accurate or useful these Bloomberg estimates are. There’s a lot of scaremongering out there. But I was just curious, so assume worst case of 5.8 trillion per year. Global gdp per year in 2019 was approx. $87 trillion. So green energy infrastructure and supply would cost about 5% of gdp per year which puts it into perspective. And with gdp increasing each year that also helps.
You said very expensive. Its a big sum but is it really very expensive? I guess thats a perception thing. Its roughly comparible to about 5% of the average wage each year. Some will go ouch, others might not. The point is it looks doable. Instinctively 5% could be absorbed without massive disruption, while I would think 20% would not. Admittedly I’m in an optimistic in frame of mind, hopefully not hopelessly optimistic.
Lifelong farmer, Ph.D or know-nothings with zero farming experience, zero regenerative ag experience, who are constantly encouraging doing as little as possible to solve our problems because… they’re scared.
Which you listen to is up to you, but affects the entire planet.
https://youtu.be/GwG7-Ojwg0c
293
Regenerative agriculture is unlikely to be a panacea because environmental problems include numerous problems unrelated to agriculture.
Nobody has claimed it’s a panacea, so both the question and the response are Straw Man bullshit.
It’s just the excessive hype that makes me grind my teeth. Excessive hype ends up being counter productive because it turns people off and is so easily exposed.
There is no hype, you ignorant, frightened, little rabbit. Everything you have been told is accurate. All of it. What have you exposed besides your inadequacy? Nothing. You are wrong on every point you have tried to raise, but like Trump, you keep repeating the election was stolen. Your brain is worm food.
Same with me. However we just also have to acknowledge reality of what things can be changed, how much and how quickly and focus on the things that will make a big difference
None of which do you have any experience, knowledge or insight in or about – yet you run your goddamned mouth like a corner preacher screeching his babbling to the sky.
But the public do seem receptive to regenerative agriculture from what I read in our local media.
No shit? Like we have been telling you?
#295, DBB–
Interesting link on modeled LCOE, if a bit inscrutable in some ways. (The results raise many questions for me, partly because the author seems to take too much context for granted; maybe if you had access to a full write up the figures would be less ambiguous.)
I note, though, that the panel on LCOE of seasonal storage foresees declines comparable to current costs for, say, gas peaking. Maybe even current nuclear LCOE (the scale makes ‘resolving’ the exact number for pumped storage a challenge.) No word on methodology, of course–and I would think the results would be pretty sensitive to (necessary) assumptions.
Killian: I grew red and white potatoes – generally relatively small – the sizes of large Russets in my simple little garden with very healthy soil in the middle of Detroit
RtW: growing purple potatoes in compost. We’ll see how they turn out. Do you suggest waiting until the end of the year to harvest any potatoes?
I’m running my dehydrator constantly. Dried tomatoes and peppers keep well, take up little space, and are scrumptious and nutritious.
Too bad about the electrical consumption. Maybe next year I’ll have a zero carbon system set up.
321: Do you suggest waiting until the end of the year to harvest any potatoes?
You harvest when they’re ready, i.e., when the tops die off. I am not sure how long you might let them stay in the ground, but keep them covered or they’ll go green.
316
Remember I said you can counter Jeavons Paradox, as did Richard and KM.
Where did this Straw Man come from? Who claimed Jeavons applies in all casesm all times? Nobody.
“Some environmental economists have proposed that efficiency gains be coupled with conservation policies that keep the cost of use the same (or higher) to avoid the Jevons paradox.[6] Conservation policies that increase cost of use (such as cap and trade or green taxes) can be used to control the rebound effect.[7]”
This confirms my suspicions and the German example I quoted. Some countries already have carbon taxes. You could also have wider consumption taxes. Not making technology more energy efficient is STUPID and won’t happen anyway. Therefore we HAVE to counter Jeavons Paradox. Its the only realistic option. This is obvious stuff.
Also a zero growth economy doesn’t make Jeavons Paradox obsolete.
Of course it does, bc to maintain zero growth you have to set policies in all areas of the economy to maintain consumption. How that is done will vary, but you *can’t* have Jeavons in play if you want a steady-state economy.
But all of this is moot in the long run. As has been discussed many times, with a controlled simplification and plenty of time, there would need to be a period of transition and during that time things like Jeavons, efficiency, taxes, etc., would be managed to get the desired effect. Exactly what mix would vary from place to place, country to country, so getting bogged down in the details isn’t of much use.
However, all of the things you said above apply in the long run *only* if we are stupid enough to keep the extremely stupid and maladaptive market capitalism, or any form of it (including supposed “socialism” in Europe, e.g.), and that would make all this discussion moot because if you keep Captialism, you end society as we know and risk extinction because it SHOULD be blindingly obvious from weather/climate changes since 2016 that we DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS STUPID SHIT.
It’s a rapid transition to simplicity or bust.
Nuclear not so reliable:
With extreme weather causing power failures in California and Texas, it’s increasingly clear that the existing power infrastructure isn’t designed for these new conditions. Past research has shown that nuclear power plants are no exception, with rising temperatures creating cooling problems for them. Now, a comprehensive analysis looking at a broader range of climate events shows that it’s not just hot weather that puts these plants at risk—it’s the full range of climate disturbances.
Heat has been one of the most direct threats, as higher temperatures mean that the natural cooling sources (rivers, oceans, lakes) are becoming less efficient heat sinks. However, this new analysis shows that hurricanes and typhoons have become the leading causes of nuclear outages, at least in North America and South and East Asia. Precautionary shutdowns for storms are routine, and so this finding is perhaps not so surprising. But other factors—like the clogging of cooling intake pipes by unusually abundant jellyfish populations—are a bit less obvious.
Overall, this latest analysis calculates that the frequency of climate-related nuclear plant outages is almost eight times higher than it was in the 1990s. The analysis also estimates that the global nuclear fleet will lose up to 1.4 percent—about 36 TWh—of its energy production in the next 40 years and up to 2.4 percent, or 61 TWh, by 2081-2100.
…So, at least in the short term, even nuclear power will likely contribute to the increasing frequency of climate-related power shortages.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/climate-events-are-the-leading-cause-of-nuclear-power-outages/
Re: Engineer-Poet (310)
Piotr(296): “Either you, supposedly an Engineer, honestly thought that building and operating a 770MW nuclear plant could be done as easily, as quickly, and as cheaply as building and operating one Liberty ship, or you KNEW these are ORDERS of magnitudes DIFFERENT.”
Engineer-Poet (310) “ Why? What makes them different? Be specific, and use REAL rather than contrived risk factors to distinguish.
Aaa, hutzpah, the last resort of every good Engineer worth his title. But if you insist:
UAMPS 700+MW Nucell powerplant vs. Liberty ship
1. complexity of building and operating :
– UAMPS: multiple nuclear reactors
– Liberty: “essentially a welded barge with an obsolescent triple expansion steam engine “
2. costs:
– UAMPS = $6,000 mln
– Liberty= $37 mln (2021 dollars)
3. time to complete:
– UAMPS: “ NuScale’s initial goal of having operational reactors by 2016 has been extended by more than a decade”
-Liberty: churned up “3 per day” (Engineer-Poet)
“What difference”, eh?
Piotr(296): “I have read enough to know that you can’t tell the difference between topping up the baseload during “peak” demand vs. providing …the baseload itself. I know that you can’t – because you tried to discredit the former by comparing it against the latter, and not once, but three times. And each time you ignored my explanations WHY it is a fallacy.”
Nuclear Poet(310): You think it’s contrived? I sure don’t, so explain. In detail, not with dismissal.”
You are saying this with a straight face? I have explained it to you in detail 3 times – you you responded 3 times with dismissal, – for Quebec hydro, for Newfoundland hydro and for hydro in the US in general (as summed up in
as summed up in: in each case you dismissed the potential to provide BACKUP/STORAGE during the peak demand by saying how small % of the …. AVERAGE US energy consumption they would make, e.g.: “ Quebec’s hydro is adequate for its 8.4 million, but grossly inadequate for N. America’s 350+ million.”
I have responded 3 times explaining each time that you can’t dismiss the storage/backup by comparing it to ability to contribute to the AVERAGE US consumption – because its role is instead is to prevent the expensive energy shortages during the peak demand, to allow larger penetration of non-fossil energy generation (wind and solar) by providing backup for periods when they generate less than demand, and to reduce the need for expensive overbuild. And you can increase the backup capacity, from “passive” storage (you allow water to naturally accumulate during the high supply periods) to active (you actively pump the water up during high supply periods).
And all 3 times you, so proud of your Engineering “sheepskin”, understood nothing: I know this because you just repeated your original comparison of providing peak demand against the AVERAGE energy generation in the US, as if it has not been just challenged. And at the third reply you wrapped up your “answer” with a “GFY” (“Go Fuck Yourself” – for those not fluent in Engineer).
As for you claims on open-mindedness to the arguments critical to your beliefs – see the archives of RC – by their fruits you shall know them.
David B Benson (306) “Nigelj @300 —- On the contrary. I keep track on attempts to acquiring right-of-way for transmission lines. A simple AC transmission line from Boardman OR to Hemingway ID, I.e., Boise, took 22 years to settle on a permitable route.”
And this was because of the intrinsic and massive TECHNOLOGICAL/COST difficulties, or because of the political/local special interests reasons? The Texas has an isolated grid because we don’t KNOW how to connect it to the majority of the US and Canada, and it would be PROHIBITIVELY expensive – or because of … the Texas ideological, political and industrial-lobby reasons?
Compared to the technological and economic challenges of getting away from the fossil fuel-dependency of our economy and life-styles – overcoming local political and local business lobbying is a low-hanging fruit.
Reality Check(313):”Please get back to me when the USA has as few active Nukes and WMD as China does, and America has finally learned the lessons of Vietnam. Until then can we please stick to climate issues.”
Please get back to me when you understand the post you reply to. Hint – it is NOT about Rumsfeld, Vietnam, or even about “making nuclear weapons”, but about “a NEW generation of nuclear power facilities“, “new”, which responded to Richard lecturing others:
RtW: “I think that harping about 70s era power plant deficiencies is moronic.”
In this context – your opinion about the Admiral and the US policy on disarmament is irrelevant. But I must give to you – you know how to endear yourself your Mentor:
– your praise him (“304: all good points there”)
– laugh at his oh so funny jokes in:
Killian[with a cutting irony]: “How dare those people claim to be doing science!”
Reality Check:”giggle. A worthy qualifications list to share”
-and critique his enemies: “Please get back to me when [the US owns up for its wars]” “until then can we please stick to climate issues.
You even began sounding like him (“hand waving bs.“). Imitation as the sincerest form of flattery? ;-)
Michael Sweet @312:
China and Russia don’t think so. Neither does the UAE, where the 4-unit Korean-built Barakah plant was built on time and on budget.
Nuclear power is only expensive where political forces make it expensive.
Abbott is the incompetent who took 15 TW of primary energy consumption and assumed it required 15 TW of electricity to replace it, multiplying the scale of the system by a factor of 3… before he made other gross mistakes. This is literally a high-school-level error. Here is his 2012 paper and here’s his 2016 effort. Perhaps you can provide specific quotes to support your claims.
As the wonderful news-aggregation site The Hiroshima Syndrome has tirelessly documented, almost all evacuation orders have been lifted in Japan and most of them never should have been issued.
I’ll give you the Skeptical Inquirer to debunk your claims. https://skepticalinquirer.org/2021/06/ten-years-of-fukushima-disinformation/ I’ll allow that you’re an authority on disinformation, since you spread so much of it.
After a re-evaluation of the toll from Chernobyl dropped the estimate by something like a factor of 20, nuclear is quite literally the safest energy source humanity has at on the order of 0.005 fatalitles per TWh; if we nuclear advocates are trying to kill people, we are doing an absolutely lousy job of it.
Radicallly simplified designs are proceeding to prototypes and then commercialization. Some, like Thorcon and Elysium, completely dispose of the rare-element issues claimed by Abbott by using different physical mechanisms (like direct thermal expansion and incremental fuel addition) to get rid of the need for things like burnable poisons.
The only way you could run out of uranium is if you only used land-based ores in thermal spectrum reactors. The Elysium reactor can be started on any combination of weapons-grade Pu, reactor-grade Pu reclaimed from used LWR fuel, and enriched uranium from any source (like retired nuclear submarine cores), but it eventually improves its neutron economy to the point where it can be refueled with only depleted U tailings or reclaimed LWR uranium. The reactor itself is just a big pot containing molten salt; it regulates itself by thermal expansion of the fuel salt, bringing itself sub-critical if it overheats and thus being controlled by the rate of heat removal. The Thorcon scheme operates along much the same principles.
11 years ago (how time flies!) I calculated that the 700,000 tons of depleted uranium “tails” in the United States inventory could easily power the entire USA for over 400 years; thats a consumption rate of less than 2000 tons per year. Guess what adds 32,000 tons of uranium to the oceans every year? Rivers do. And if the uranium isn’t enough, the world has 3-4x as much thorium… and it’s associated with things like rare earths.
There is a scaling problem with fast-spectrum reactors; they have high fissile inventories and low breeding rates, so their natural rate of expansion is a single-digit percentage per year. Thermal-spectrum reactors require much lower fissile inventories, but you cannot achieve net breeding with uranium with thermal neutrons. Thorium, however, can, as was proven in the final run of the Shippingport reactor. We can probably do better, both with breeding ratios and with specific power output and thermal efficiency, using molten salt reactors.
Reality Check @314:
What’s the difference?
You mean, like you’re trying to divert the discussion of how to save the threatened ecosystems of the planet down “ethical” and “moral” dead-ends of who should be allowed to ramp up their coal consumption in the name of “equity”?
To me, it’s simple: NO ONE should be allowed to ramp up GHG emissions, period.
Money is a measure of effort. We only have so much effort available. We need to spend it where it does the most good, period. There are other considerations than straight marginal effect (cheap efforts which send us in the direction of roadblocks are obviously NOT helpful, and I include the conversion of systems to natural gas as one of these roadblocked routes), but least-cost is generally a good consideration.
Killian @319 says “Nobody has claimed it’s (regenerative agriculture) is a panacea, so both the question and the response are Straw Man bullshit.”
This is despite Reality check @276 said: “And what if it (regenerative agriculture) is a panacea for agriculture, the environment and drawing down emissions long term?” Sigh. Ignore Killian. At least half of what he posts is nonsensical, unproven BS.
Richard the Weaver @309
“RtW: I honestly don’t know. I’ve pondered putting nukes far away (Antarctic) so they can churn out synfuel in peace.”
But wind or solar power are far more useful for making synthetic fuels. There are many times when they produce in excess of requirements, more so than nuclear power. The antarctic is also a pristine environment with at least some wild life so we don’t want things blowing up. In the middle of a desert is ideal except for no cooling water.
I don’t know for sure either on this one. It may be that nuclear power just doesn’t have much future in western democracies due to public resistance, and has more of a chance in autocratic countries.
#326, I’m no one’s enemy. So please, get a life.
@329 nigelj, please don’t do this. You were the one who raised the issue of a “panacea” .. and i used that word in a reply to you. see here
And what if it is a panacea for agriculture, the environment and drawing down emissions long term?
Whilst I don’t expect much progress uptake, for reasons given, I am definitely not saying that is a good thing, nor ethical or the right approach to be taking. Nor should it be seen as Acceptable. I can empathize with those RegenAg promoters who are frustrated by the all the entrenched barriers placed in the way.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/07/forced-responses-july-2021/comment-page-6/#comment-793230
Obviously (?), I was asking a rhetorical question to help make a point. I was not making a CLAIM !!!
Your misconstrued reply here https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/07/forced-responses-july-2021/comment-page-6/#comment-793257
And my correction of your interpretation of what I meant by that was wrong!!!
#315 I was using the word ‘panacea’ in the context of agriculture only. https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/07/forced-responses-july-2021/comment-page-7/#comment-793304
This is ridiculous having something misused completely out of context and meaning, to then turn it into a baseball bat to hit another over the head with it, just to maintain small minded personality conflicts.
Life’s too short, and difficult enough, to get bogged down in these silly pedantic word game commentaries, eg my last reply Piotr and why I’m passing on #328 as well.
332 Reality Check
It has been this way for six years now. All the nastiness started with the “Peanut Gallery.” I did a post in January or February finally proving this once and for all because the Gallery has seen fit to gaslight on this all along.
Nigel I treated with patience, kindness and a huge chunk of my time when he arrived on these boards. He seemed naive, but not dishonest. After about 6 months of that, I realized his comments were consistently full of Straw Men, consistently belittling of the concept of simplification, etc., and started calling him on it. It has only gotten worse and worse. The gaslighting is truly unbelievable. He, and the rest of them, seem to take it as a point of honor to act like schoolyard bullies who abuse their classmates then cry to the teacher they are the victim. Nigel made this bed, as did the rest of them, but that context of SIX YEARS of mental and emotional abuse is pretended to not exist, so when I slap them upside the head it’s me attacking, not returning serve.
Six fucking years. And these are the GOOD GUYS? Fuck me…
But, stick around. You, I and Strough can focus on conversing about the germane issues, ignore the assholery, lying and gaslighting, and maybe educate a few of the many silent Dear Readers… and maybe even a scientist or two.
So, let’s make a deal: You keep your cool, respond only to germane comments, and I will do the same while each keeps the other honest about it.
Deal?
Can’t be done! CAAAAAN’T be done! Right?
Wrong.
75 today. Doubling that every year would be over a million. And that’s just one tiny slice of the movement.
Careful whom you listen to. The uninformed willing to speak on any topic, knowledgeable or not, is not a reliable soure.
In this sense, the training processes developed in our movement are closely linked to our political liberation project based on food sovereignty, which is the cornerstone of agroecology. Each institute, school, course and exchange seeks to help form and build a social force and a political force: for us, social force is organised peoples. And political force is peoples that are more and more aware and organised.
…Around the world, La Via Campesina has more than 70 schools and training processes based on popular education, which is a method and an approach that puts forward the scaling up of agroecology at the territorial level and the strengthening of peoples’ food sovereignty. All these agroecological training processes are being constructed and organised by member organisations of La Via Campesina.
https://viacampesina.org/en/schools/
Reality Check(332): “You were the one who raised the issue of a “panacea” .. and i used that word in a reply to you.”
Which would get Killian(319) off the hook – ONLY if you used that word to say that … NOBODY in their right mind would consider it a “panacea”. BUT INSTEAD, you ASKED the reader to consider: “ And what if it is a panacea” after all. You DON’T do it unless you think that “what if” is at least POSSIBLE.
So since your question PROVES that you consider it at least possible, what would Killian think about you? A “nobody” whose posts are “Straw Man bullshit“???
[Killian(319): “Nobody has claimed it’s (regenerative agriculture) is a panacea, so both the question and the response are Straw Man bullshit”]
Reality C.(332): “Life’s too short, and difficult enough, to get bogged down in these silly pedantic word game commentaries”
Wise words …. if only they didn’t come at the end of the post devoted to … silly pedantic word games – your claiming that your asking “ what if it is a panacea” does not mean that you consider “ being a panacea” even a possibility.
And to make things better – your splitting words came in defence of Killian(319), a guy whose standard operating procedure upon encountering questions drawing logical conclusions from his pronouncements is NOT to prove their error, but to call them “Straw Man” bullshit, and on the base of that – proudly say how he is above engaging them.
“ Gooood. You have learned well, my young apprentice ” ;-)
Simplicity is not a choice.
https://helgavierich.medium.com/economies-as-trophic-flows-c8950439f6ca
Piotr @324:
Yet the NuScale is far smaller and less complex (just a few motors to drive control rods, literally EVERYTHING else is simpler). WHERE does the cost come from?
It comes from regulatory demands. It is not inherent, it is demanded. It is LEGISLATED. Tell me: WHY?
So why can’t we make 3 NuScales per day? It’s not because of the bulk or complexity. It’s because of the regulatory demands. If our entire planet is at risk, why aren’t we DEMANDING that the GHG-spewing things which are PLACING it at risk be regulated to death, and the things that DO NOT are given relative grace? But we’re doing the opposite. WHY?
WHY, especially since our evidence is that even severe nuclear accidents have minimal impact on human and ecosystem health?
WHY is the evidence being ignored?
Builders of Liberty ships didn’t have hordes of regulators breathing down their necks, delaying their schedules… and didn’t have to pay them for the privilege. Neither did the Manhattan project.
And you still do not get the refutation. Maybe the fourth time will do it, but given your incompetence I doubt it. Maybe it will help the audience.
What part of “there is SIMPLY NOT ENOUGH OF IT” don’t you understand?
Hydro has SERIOUS limitations. Minimum river flows must be maintained. Reservoirs are only so big. There’s only so much water available. What suffices for Quebec’s 8.18 million and Newfoundland and Labrador’s population (estimated at under 520,000) is woefullly inadequate for New York’s almost 20 million, let alone the rest of the USA. Here’s a dollar, buy a clue.
Except we HAVE TO, because the shortfalls of the “renewables” are a substantial fraction of that self-same average, and we have irreducible minimae which we MUST satisfy or disaster follows (see Texas last February).
In most cases, this requires water to be pumped from reservoirs well downstream… assuming those reservoirs even exist. Where’s the reservoir downstream of Lake Mead? AFAIK, there isn’t one. There are a couple of reservoirs on the river which bisects my hometown, but neither is big enough to satisfy its electric power demands and the upper one must be kept full enough to feed the water treatment plant.
You’re one to speak; I’ve been talking past you since you started posting here.
Killian @336:
Precisely why I advocate for nuclear energy. Nature is MORE than the ecosystem. Humanity can tap resources outside the ecosystem with minimal harm to it. We should not merely do so, we should emphasize it.
335
The knots you twist yourself into justifying everything you, nigel or anyone else in the Peanut Gallery does are interesting only as a source of entertainment.
Nigel did raise the issue. Period.
RC posed a “What if…?” which is never taken as a serious proposition.
I don’t need to be let off a hook. Nigel should know better than to be dishonest about the nature of Regen Ag and RC should know better than to reinforce the dishonesty by giving it a sense of legitimacy in responding to it.
Untie yourself. Have a beer. Learn to be a decent human being and stop trying to legitimize dishonesty and poor analyses out of pure spitefulness.
RC >> RtW
Killian @333
“Nigel I treated with patience, kindness and a huge chunk of my time when he arrived on these boards. ”
What a piece of fiction. Killian made personally abusive remarks about me almost from day one. The first or second response I made to one of his posts was a model of diplomacy and I gave him a list of books I thought might be of interest to him (and other people) and he responded with an angry tirade as if I had somehow insulted him. Just like he abuses other people here. LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE ON THESE PAGES in recent months. By analogy, hes like the angry man in a bar if you say even the slightest thing wrong he will react by using his fists.
“After about 6 months …. consistently belittling of the concept of simplification, etc., and started calling him on it. ”
I criticise some of these simplification ideas. What a crying shame. How dare someone criticise ideas and pontifications on a science website? We cant have that! Science is supposed to just accept any new idea, or whatever, because its author or promoter says its right! (sarc)
“It has only gotten worse and worse. The gaslighting is truly unbelievab. He, and the rest of them, seem to take it as a point of honor to act like schoolyard bullies who abuse their classmates then cry to the teacher they are the victim. Nigel made this bed, as did the rest of them, but that context of SIX YEARS of mental and emotional abuse is pretended to not exist, so when I slap them upside the head it’s me attacking, not returning serve.”
LOL. since when is criticising the CONTENT of what someone posts “mental and emotional abuse?” Since when is complaining about Killians nasty abusive comments and frequent unsubstantiated accusations of lying “mental and emotional abuse?” Since when has pointing out FACTS about his huge arrogance and ego been “mental and emotional abuse”?
Blaming other people for his own bad behaviour is just excuse making.
People have misunderstandings. We all get a bit grumpy. I move on and try to be at least vaguely civil. Killian lives in the past and bears grudges.
Piotr @335: “Which would get Killian(319) off the hook – ONLY if you used that word to say that … NOBODY in their right mind would consider it a “panacea”. BUT INSTEAD, you ASKED the reader to consider: “ And what if it is a panacea” after all. You DON’T do it unless you think that “what if” is at least POSSIBLE…..etc, etc.”
Exactly what I thought. Saves me having to respond. Thanks!
Here are some handy refs that relate to the Paris/COP goals of remaining below 1.5C, and several posts I made at https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/07/rapid-attribution-of-pnw-heatwave/comment-page-4 about Impacts vs Modelling out of the IPCC and how this might relate back to the ‘efficacy’ and approach discussed in the new article on Climate Adaption.
summary by wiki – Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C
SR15 also has modelling that shows that, for global warming to be limited to 1.5 °C, “Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Global_Warming_of_1.5_%C2%B0C
and in particular
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Global_Warming_of_1.5_%C2%B0C#Carbon_budget
SR15 – Special Report – Global Warming of 1.5 ºC
https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
Full Report High Res PDF
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/06/SR15_Full_Report_High_Res.pdf
SR15 Data
http://www.ipcc-data.org/sim/gcm_monthly/SR15/index.html
2018 Carbon Brief – In-depth Q&A:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-ipccs-special-report-on-climate-change-at-one-point-five-c
Why did the IPCC produce this special report?
For many years, limiting global warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels was the de-facto target for global policymakers. This was formalised when countries signed the Cancun Agreements at the UN’s climate conference in Mexico in 2010.
However, at the climate talks in Bonn in May 2015, the UN published a new report that warned that the 2C limit was not adequate for avoiding some of the more severe impacts of climate change.
Comment: The question now is: Is the 1.5C limit adequate and fit for purpose?
The question arises because the Impacts of Climate Change are already increasingly greater than expected.
Almost a year ago Michael Mann was listing out the many examples of Impacts outstripping prior projections by the IPCC and climate scientists (and Impact Modelling.)
eg Sept 2020:
Mann: … so the warming of the surface
of the planet is proceeding more or
less as we expect, on the other
hand there are other aspects of climate
change which in fact are running
faster and where the magnitudes are
greater than we expected …
Are the Governments of the world in the UNFCCC and the COP system fit for purpose and proceeding based on the known scientific evidence?
Or is all manipulation, and fantasy, and spin for public consumption as if something is being done, when in reality nothing effective is being done?
I think a reality check is urgently needed.
In particular the Impacts outlined in Chapter 3 – Impacts of 1.5ºC global warming on natural and human systems –
https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-3/ – might be compared to where we are at today, with only 1.1 – 1.2C of global warming – as per several examples provided by M Mann elsewhere and recent extreme weather events.
Ch 3 suggests remaining below 1.5C “Our world will suffer less negative impacts on intensity and frequency of extreme events, on resources, ecosystems, biodiversity, food security, cities, tourism, and carbon removal, and Adaptation will be less difficult.”
Began in 2015 and not presented until 2018 I suggest this report is extremely out of date and not accurate or reliable, given the accumulated recent now evidence to hand.
It seems rational to conclude that the 1.5C target is factually wrong, extremely inadequate and dangerous.
#335 is boring, wrong, and wasting their time.
#333 Deal. I can only try. I’m not well versed in regenag or farming. Am not qualified to teach, or judge, but I can read and learn new things. eg I laughed about the Rodale comment because i had seen several Papers by them while researching refs, and wondered why anyone would dismiss denigrate their many years of work as not ‘scientific’ enough.
One of things I learned by running down some science studies about regenag was that in the AR5 the IPCC excluded the CO2 flux from farming agricultural land. They only included CO2 inputs from N fertilizer use, manure, and equipment fuel use etc. Which therefore has totally excluded any data on potential benefits base lines and scale for long term CO2 sequestration in the Soil, (if I understand it correctly.)
Furthermore, they did count possible benefit of draw down by using BECCS, which seems odd to me because that surely is only a future not yet proven hypothetical possibility. (?)
My takeaway then is that the IPCC AR5 on Land Use and agriculture in particular was essential of little value and far from comprehensive. They mentioned no-till but didn’t address holistic regenag potential benefits, nor any published studies of that field – which certainly existed at that time.
Anyway, that pricked my curiosity, checking the background situation first, to then go see how extensive the literature today is on regenag and conservation ag etc. and there seemed be quite a lot available, with detailed studies about how to do it, why they do it, and the benefits including data on moisture increase, stability and CO2 sequestration and more.
I can’t see how some people believe there’s insufficient scientific evidence for such practices being at least having “potential” without first taking a lot of time to go look for it.
Of course not all in a group will even be interested in the topic, so each to their own.
Nothing I saw Scott say seems unreasonable. But given I am not expert in this field, there’s no way I could recommend which specific Papers, articles and studies are better, more accurate, more grounded in good data and therefore most reliable.
Anyway, that was my motivation for sharing some links to google scholar search results. If people want to find out that’s a good place to start. Because they won’t find anything on this topic in the IPCC reports, that’s for sure. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
The absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence
Given the IPCC generally place 25% of all GHGs (or is that CO2 only?) emissions are coming from Land Use, land clearing, Agriculture etc. it looks to me on the surface that very little work has been ‘published/included’ by the IPCC process on finding effective proven practical ways to Mitigate that.
Which is really surprising to me because I know about much work done regarding CO2 sequestration via particular strains of sugar cane which arose over a decade ago now. And it’s still not best practice afaik. And no-till, low-till and Regenerative Agriculture is not new! Foot dragging? There’s way too much foot dragging going on still, in my opinion.
As indicated elsewhere I think the UNFCCC and the COP system is utterly incompetent. It’s disconnected from all the good science and the known facts, and sound judgement. Most of the science they do use is out of date before they get it, or already so uncertain and unreliable it’s not fit for purpose.
The system has been undermined every step of the way by powerful nations and special interest groups. Plus: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
I’ll stop there.
Killian @337 “The knots you (piotr) twist yourself into justifying everything you, nigel or anyone else in the Peanut Gallery does are interesting only as a source of entertainment.”
Piotr doesnt tie himself in knots. He is quite logical and he cuts peoples comments to pieces and exposes the nonsense that they truly are and every astute person here can see it. He does it the proper way, with a good sense of logic and precise detail, not your sophistry, empty accusations that people are ignorant and you know best because you are a farmer. Learn from what he says. I dont agree with every single comment he makes, but hes usually right. And if hes reading this I hope he doesn’t get big headed. Ha ha.
Its real simple. RC was tacitly agreeing that regenerative farming might be a panacea. He can deny this but we all know the truth. Thats is all I needed. I’m not criticissing him or yourself, I’m just saying I never made a strawman argument.
Reality Check, sometimes brevity is better than lots of words. Don’t take that personally. I can be too wordy myself.
Mitigation: solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and all the other renewables. All pie in the sky, greenwashing as Killian has always said. We have to simplify. Michael Moore’s movie proved it all:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE
The other mitigation possibility is population reduction and Bill Gates has a plan for that and you will all be part of the experiment – see, you have something to look forward to. :) Dr. Madej explains it all at 16:40:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/SaI869SVyYaL/
Of course Bill also has a plan to dim the sun as you already know.
BUT do we even need to mitigate? Most of the record high state temperatures were made nearly 100 years ago, many of them over 100 years ago. CO2 was very close to pre-industrial levels back then. But the facts can’t be denied; not even by believers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_and_territory_temperature_extremes
Fact deniers not allowed.
:)
EP: Radicallly simplified designs are proceeding to prototypes and then commercialization.
RtW: This is why I proposed an Antarctic Energy Colony. If the load is constant and the cold sink is at a constant temperature then those “liberty ship” systems you considered could be built, simple and safe systems with Fred Flintstone quality control systems.
And somebody just harped again about how we shouldn’t disturb all that ecosystem under all that ice. Uh, A: there is little ecosystem under a glacier. And B: given that that glacier WILL melt, any existing ecosystem WILL die regardless of whether we utilize the new virgin territory or not.
I see little use in attempting to preserve 100% of Antarctica since that is friggin impossible. Pick a tiny place. A dot. And use the chill and the inaccessibility to create all the synfuel our hearts desire.
Mr. KIA@347 piles on the conspiracy theories and then says “Hey, it won’t be so bad…” all less than a month after hundreds of people died across the Pacific Northwest in the worst heat wave they had ever experienced; after Europe and China and India are washing away. I think we can now definitively say that this man’s learning curve has a negative slope. The more information that flows his way, the stupider he gets.
Someone was also talking about using excess renewables to create synfuel. That means that the synfuel making stuff will be sitting around useless half(?) the time.
Given that nukes and synfuel don’t have the economics to survive sitting around unused, match them up and put them in the safest, least-damaging, and most efficient place on the planet. EP talks about nuclear’s small footprint. Antarctica is rather huge.