3 ms·

The problem is that climate change and green energy are so complicated and political, it's hard to tell what is propaganda (and there's strong incentives in man

by dodo53 15y ago

The problem is that climate change and green energy are so complicated and political, it's hard to tell what is propaganda (and there's strong incentives in many different directions for the results to come out in a given direction). Ethanol used to sound like a good idea; now it sounds like it's mostly a corn/sugar-lobby way of getting money and not practical (although I'm sure it's not that straightforward). For 'wind looks cleaner' - the Register argues that mostly it'll end up making energy more expensive without being much cleaner (in this one case in the UK), due to perverse incentives: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/14/national_grid_2020/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/14/national_grid_2020/ I think 'gut feeling' is exactly what we don't need. Things are not always intuitively obvious.

david927 15y ago
climate change and green energy are so complicated and political There isn't much complicated about it climate change: the full consensus is that it's happening because we're burning too much oil. The politics? Less than 10 years ago, the world's largest industry was oil when the price was roughly stable at around $20 a barrel. Today a barrel costs $100. For something the world consumes at a thousand barrels a second, that's huge. At the price a couple weeks ago, it was a better investment to buy the world's biggest commodity than Google when it IPO'd. You might want to read that again. Climate change is a force of urgency in the switch away from oil to green energy. You can be sure it will be fought every step of the way with every tool available.
- dodo53 15y ago
  I think the greenhouse effect is totally uncontroversial. To what extent the climate will change due to that is slighlty more scientifically controversial, but as uninformed lay person I'd say is fairly broad consensus. Which green energy choices are economically feasible is much more controversial - there's counterintuitive things like - is it better to subsidize solar/wind while not really feasible to subsidize technology development or build natural gas plants (which are proven to be economically feasible and cleaner than oil I believe - but obviously still a fossil fuel). Edit: tried googling for gas-is-cleaner-than-oil citation, and found - http://www.propublica.org/article/more-reasons-to-question-whether-gas-is-cleaner-than-coal/single http://www.propublica.org/article/more-reasons-to-question-w... saying earlier studies may be wrong and it's actually dirtier than coal.
  - yters 15y ago
    For some reason the global warming crowd doesn't talk about the fact that the primary greenhouse gas is water vapor. CO2 only makes up something like 10%, and the human caused part only about 4% of that, which is 0.4% overall.
    - sethg 15y ago
      At least according to the Wikipedia “Greenhouse gas” article, it’s hard to measure exactly how much each gas contributes to the greenhouse effect, because different gases absorb and emit radiation at different frequencies. Regardless of how you work out the proportions, there used to be a homeostasis, where the biological and physical processes that put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere balanced the processes that took them out. The additional CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O from human activity is upsetting that homeostasis.
      - yters 15y ago
        Perhaps, but at least proportionally water vapor significantly outweighs carbon dioxide, even more so when you just look at man-made greenhouse gases: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html When you take water vapor into account, man-made greenhouse gases only account for 0.28% of all the greenhouse gas in our atmosphere.
    - david927 15y ago
      global warming crowd I don't know if that's the bes term, since I think you'll find it's the same as the evolution crowd and heliocentric crowd. Your argument is specious -- we're also only talking about it getting a few degrees warmer. If you investigate, you'll find why that's a problem.
      - vixen99 15y ago
        But is it? Where for instance does Doug Keenan go wrong? http://www.informath.org/media/a42.htm http://www.informath.org/media/a42.htm (an essay originally published in the WSJ 'What is arguably the most important reason to doubt global warming can be explained in plain English.'.
- ars 15y ago
  It's not oil, it's coal that is the main source of CO2. And green energy does not exist, so good luck switching to it. People tend to assume "it will be fought every step of the way" because they refuse to believe the truth: it does not exist.
  - bjelkeman-again 15y ago
    Green energy does exist. If by “green energy” you are referring to energy production that is renewable or doesn’t produce significant CO2 emissions, then it does exist. Here are some examples from Sweden: District heating systems in Sweden has switched from being nearly entirely fossil fuel based (oil mainly) in the early 70s (15 TWh) and following decade (35 TWh) to be nearly entirely renewable energy in 2009 (59 TWh total of which biofuel, waste, peat, heat pumps and waste heat make up more than 45 TWh). [1] District cooling has gone from zero in the early 90s to supply 800 GWh in 2009. This includes using sea or lake water in district cooling systems, where the system in Stockholm makes up for nearly half of that production. [2] Swedish total energy use in 2009 is about 568 TWh. [3] Sweden has increased its renewable energy use from about 34% in 1990 to 44% in 2009. [4] Electricity production in Sweden is about 49% large hydro, 1.9% wind, 37% nuclear (adds up to about 89%), most of the rest comes from combined heat and electricity production, which uses primarily biofuel, but also some coal, oil, gas and peat. Sweden has a policy to promote renewables and over the years this has paid off. You can do the same. --- [1] Department of Energy, Energy in Sweden 2010, Figure 30, page 87. http://webbshop.cm.se/System/TemplateView.aspx?p=Energimyndigheten&view=default&cat=/Broschyrer&id=b4cea7b00212456b9bdbdbe47a009474 http://webbshop.cm.se/System/TemplateView.aspx?p=Energimyndi... [2] Department of Energy, Energy in Sweden 2010, Figure 31, page 90. [3] Department of Energy, Energy in Sweden 2010, Figure 8, page 53. [4] Department of Energy, Energy in Sweden 2010, Figure 11, page 58. [5] EkonomiFakta, Electricity production in Sweden, http://www.ekonomifakta.se/sv/Fakta/Energi/Energibalans-i-Sverige/Elproduktion/ http://www.ekonomifakta.se/sv/Fakta/Energi/Energibalans-i-Sv... Edit: layout and one missing reference, grammar
    - istarex 15y ago
      A nit: aren't biofuels, waste and peat only "green" in the sense that they are renewable. In terms of climate change (which is the point of this discussion), these sources still release CO2, no?

by dodo53 15y ago

david927 15y ago

climate change and green energy are so complicated and political There isn't much complicated about it climate change: the full consensus is that it's happening because we're burning too much oil. The politics? Less than 10 years ago, the world's largest industry was oil when the price was roughly stable at around $20 a barrel. Today a barrel costs $100. For something the world consumes at a thousand barrels a second, that's huge. At the price a couple weeks ago, it was a better investment to buy the world's biggest commodity than Google when it IPO'd. You might want to read that again. Climate change is a force of urgency in the switch away from oil to green energy. You can be sure it will be fought every step of the way with every tool available.

dodo53 15y ago
I think the greenhouse effect is totally uncontroversial. To what extent the climate will change due to that is slighlty more scientifically controversial, but as uninformed lay person I'd say is fairly broad consensus. Which green energy choices are economically feasible is much more controversial - there's counterintuitive things like - is it better to subsidize solar/wind while not really feasible to subsidize technology development or build natural gas plants (which are proven to be economically feasible and cleaner than oil I believe - but obviously still a fossil fuel). Edit: tried googling for gas-is-cleaner-than-oil citation, and found - http://www.propublica.org/article/more-reasons-to-question-whether-gas-is-cleaner-than-coal/single http://www.propublica.org/article/more-reasons-to-question-w... saying earlier studies may be wrong and it's actually dirtier than coal.
- yters 15y ago
  For some reason the global warming crowd doesn't talk about the fact that the primary greenhouse gas is water vapor. CO2 only makes up something like 10%, and the human caused part only about 4% of that, which is 0.4% overall.
  - sethg 15y ago
    At least according to the Wikipedia “Greenhouse gas” article, it’s hard to measure exactly how much each gas contributes to the greenhouse effect, because different gases absorb and emit radiation at different frequencies. Regardless of how you work out the proportions, there used to be a homeostasis, where the biological and physical processes that put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere balanced the processes that took them out. The additional CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O from human activity is upsetting that homeostasis.
    - yters 15y ago
      Perhaps, but at least proportionally water vapor significantly outweighs carbon dioxide, even more so when you just look at man-made greenhouse gases: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html When you take water vapor into account, man-made greenhouse gases only account for 0.28% of all the greenhouse gas in our atmosphere.
  - david927 15y ago
    global warming crowd I don't know if that's the bes term, since I think you'll find it's the same as the evolution crowd and heliocentric crowd. Your argument is specious -- we're also only talking about it getting a few degrees warmer. If you investigate, you'll find why that's a problem.
    - vixen99 15y ago
      But is it? Where for instance does Doug Keenan go wrong? http://www.informath.org/media/a42.htm http://www.informath.org/media/a42.htm (an essay originally published in the WSJ 'What is arguably the most important reason to doubt global warming can be explained in plain English.'.
ars 15y ago
It's not oil, it's coal that is the main source of CO2. And green energy does not exist, so good luck switching to it. People tend to assume "it will be fought every step of the way" because they refuse to believe the truth: it does not exist.
- bjelkeman-again 15y ago
  Green energy does exist. If by “green energy” you are referring to energy production that is renewable or doesn’t produce significant CO2 emissions, then it does exist. Here are some examples from Sweden: District heating systems in Sweden has switched from being nearly entirely fossil fuel based (oil mainly) in the early 70s (15 TWh) and following decade (35 TWh) to be nearly entirely renewable energy in 2009 (59 TWh total of which biofuel, waste, peat, heat pumps and waste heat make up more than 45 TWh). [1] District cooling has gone from zero in the early 90s to supply 800 GWh in 2009. This includes using sea or lake water in district cooling systems, where the system in Stockholm makes up for nearly half of that production. [2] Swedish total energy use in 2009 is about 568 TWh. [3] Sweden has increased its renewable energy use from about 34% in 1990 to 44% in 2009. [4] Electricity production in Sweden is about 49% large hydro, 1.9% wind, 37% nuclear (adds up to about 89%), most of the rest comes from combined heat and electricity production, which uses primarily biofuel, but also some coal, oil, gas and peat. Sweden has a policy to promote renewables and over the years this has paid off. You can do the same. --- [1] Department of Energy, Energy in Sweden 2010, Figure 30, page 87. http://webbshop.cm.se/System/TemplateView.aspx?p=Energimyndigheten&view=default&cat=/Broschyrer&id=b4cea7b00212456b9bdbdbe47a009474 http://webbshop.cm.se/System/TemplateView.aspx?p=Energimyndi... [2] Department of Energy, Energy in Sweden 2010, Figure 31, page 90. [3] Department of Energy, Energy in Sweden 2010, Figure 8, page 53. [4] Department of Energy, Energy in Sweden 2010, Figure 11, page 58. [5] EkonomiFakta, Electricity production in Sweden, http://www.ekonomifakta.se/sv/Fakta/Energi/Energibalans-i-Sverige/Elproduktion/ http://www.ekonomifakta.se/sv/Fakta/Energi/Energibalans-i-Sv... Edit: layout and one missing reference, grammar
  - istarex 15y ago
    A nit: aren't biofuels, waste and peat only "green" in the sense that they are renewable. In terms of climate change (which is the point of this discussion), these sources still release CO2, no?