5 ms·

> No need to violate the first law (which is irrelevant) That's preposterous. Of course it is relevant. Nothing on this planet can happen without answering t

> No need to violate the first law (which is irrelevant) That's preposterous. Of course it is relevant. Nothing on this planet can happen without answering to the accounting it demands. I've seen arguments posted such as "the earth has unlimited access to solar energy". This is usually followed by a hand-wavy "and then a miracle occurs" type statement that solves climate change in thirty years. Nobody --ever-- bothers to explain how, in no particular order: 1- We convert solar energy from from photons to something else without converting, say, 80% of it into heat (solar panels). That is brutally basic conservation of energy. That doesn't even account for the energy required to make, ship, install and maintain solar panels. 2- How it is that we REMOVE all of that energy we are going to use to save the planet from being utilized by system A to put it to work in system B and not kill all life on earth in the process. We don't get EXTRA solar energy. All life on earth has evolved and functions under this mostly constant beam of photons that hits us every day. You can't muck with that at a planetary scale without consequences. Simple example: Cover all ecuatorial land with solar panels. Fantastic. Everything under them dies. Not so great. That energy, hitting plants, land, water, etc, was actually doing something for the planet. It isn't some magical thing that has no purpose until we decide to save the planet. 3- How we are going to violate fundamental realities of efficiency (more like inefficiency) in everything we do. To do ANYTHING you need energy, time and resources (materials). Most of the processes being touted as solutions are horribly inefficient. This means most of the energy --no matter where it might come from-- will be wasted as heat. No material or resource is used with 100% efficiency either. Everyone conveniently ignores reality when suggesting magical PLANETARY SCALE "solutions". What does "planetary scale" mean? It means more energy materials than one could possibly imagine. It also means manufacturing, moving, installing and maintaining things at a never-before-seen rate and scale. It means producing things OVER AND ABOVE ANYTHING HUMANITY MAKES TODAY at a rate and at a volume that might equal or dwarf the entire industrial output of the planet today. Everyone ignores the --likely-- billions of gallons of bunker fuel, diesel and gasoline we will have to burn just to make, move, install, operate and maintain these magical solutions. It's easy to think-up magical solutions that sound great. It is impossible to build them if they don't pass basic physics. There's a simple reason for which none of these things are being done outside of politician's imaginations or laboratories living off grants to conduct research that feeds said politicians so grant money keeps rolling in: They don't survive the test of deployment at scale because none of them pass physics. Not one. They can't.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
> That's preposterous. Of course it is relevant. Nothing on this planet can happen without answering to the accounting it demands. It's irrelevant because noone is suggesting creating or destroying energy. The scond law is the only relevant one. > 2- How it is that we REMOVE all of that energy we are going to use to save the planet from being utilized by system A to put it to work in system B and not kill all life on earth in the process. We don't get EXTRA solar energy. All life on earth has evolved and functions under this mostly constant beam of photons that hits us every day. You can't muck with that at a planetary scale without consequences. 60TW of solar (double the worldwide primary energy) is a 1000km square. You can halve that with next gen panels. Just the rooftops of existing buildings and existing paved areas exceed this by a substantial margin. Silicon PV is about the same albedo as asphalt or concrete. Solar solves the energy input so long as we end growth. It's cheap, sufficiently land efficient, sufficiently low pollution and 100% modular. > Simple example: Cover all ecuatorial land with solar panels. Fantastic. Everything under them dies. Not so great. That energy, hitting plants, land, water, etc, was actually doing something for the planet. It isn't some magical thing that has no purpose until we decide to save the planet. In addition to not needing any uncovered land, partial shade improves yield of many crops. The lettuce farms alone could produce 5% of world energy whilst increasing yield. > To do ANYTHING you need energy, time and resources (materials). Most of the processes being touted as solutions are horribly inefficient. This means most of the energy --no matter where it might come from-- will be wasted as heat. No material or resource is used with 100% efficiency either. > Everyone conveniently ignores reality when suggesting magical PLANETARY SCALE "solutions". What does "planetary scale" mean? It means more energy materials than one could possibly imagine. It also means manufacturing, moving, installing and maintaining things at a never-before-seen rate and scale. It means producing things OVER AND ABOVE ANYTHING HUMANITY MAKES TODAY at a rate and at a volume that might equal or dwarf the entire industrial output of the planet today. Everyone ignores the --likely-- billions of gallons of bunker fuel, diesel and gasoline we will have to burn just to make, move, install, operate and maintain these magical solutions. So that's the thing about modular solutions. You only have to prove it works once in one place where you know the inputs are all abundant and you can do it a million times. Solar is on track to cover current world energy demands by 2035. There is, as yet, no universally cheap and applicable storage method. Water electrolysis is one such technology. It is at a tipping point in price where it will replace fossil fuel methane derived hydrogen in a few years. To get it adopted all you have to do is publicly show one ammonia factory in one place how you can sell them a solar panel (or daytime electricity) and an electrolyser made of steel, copper and a little bit of nickel for less than they can buy methane. Similarly carbon capture is a fairly well known technology. If we had the balls to say "you don't get to emit or export any CO2 after 2030" to coal and gas plants, some of them will switch to ammonia or hydrogen. Others may import mining tailings and make carbonates. Others might make methane (and possibly even run on that next cycle). All of these things are physically doable, we just let them get away with polluting our world at present. I'd much rather get rid of all the coal plants and run the gas ones on hydrogen (this is physically possible today, but replacing all the coal is that production problem you mention), but real carbon capture (not the scam of pretending you've buried CO2 or using it to mine more oil) is a step forward. > They don't survive the test of deployment at scale because none of them pass physics. Not one. They can't. Why not? Sunlight is free and abundant. Once you understand that sunlight -> hydrogen -> fire -> electricity is a viable pathway for having energy in winter, then un-burning concentrated CO2 is in the worst case no different entropy wise. It's just a matter of mass producing a machine that does one of many known reactions. > Everyone ignores the --likely-- billions of gallons of bunker fuel, diesel and gasoline we will have to burn just to make, move, install, operate and maintain these magical solutions. ERoEI is the term you are looking for. For solar it takes about 2-5 years depending where it's installed, maybe it will go back up a little as the duck cu4ve gets worse. An electrolyser utilising 30% of solar energy that would otherwise be wasted to make hydrogen burnt in existing plant would have an eroei on the order of a few years as they're much simpler and smaller than the panels feeding them. A CO2 splitter is cheaper still, and making carbonates from mining tailings is exothermic.

Schroedingersat 4y ago

> That's preposterous. Of course it is relevant. Nothing on this planet can happen without answering to the accounting it demands. It's irrelevant because noone is suggesting creating or destroying energy. The scond law is the only relevant one. > 2- How it is that we REMOVE all of that energy we are going to use to save the planet from being utilized by system A to put it to work in system B and not kill all life on earth in the process. We don't get EXTRA solar energy. All life on earth has evolved and functions under this mostly constant beam of photons that hits us every day. You can't muck with that at a planetary scale without consequences. 60TW of solar (double the worldwide primary energy) is a 1000km square. You can halve that with next gen panels. Just the rooftops of existing buildings and existing paved areas exceed this by a substantial margin. Silicon PV is about the same albedo as asphalt or concrete. Solar solves the energy input so long as we end growth. It's cheap, sufficiently land efficient, sufficiently low pollution and 100% modular. > Simple example: Cover all ecuatorial land with solar panels. Fantastic. Everything under them dies. Not so great. That energy, hitting plants, land, water, etc, was actually doing something for the planet. It isn't some magical thing that has no purpose until we decide to save the planet. In addition to not needing any uncovered land, partial shade improves yield of many crops. The lettuce farms alone could produce 5% of world energy whilst increasing yield. > To do ANYTHING you need energy, time and resources (materials). Most of the processes being touted as solutions are horribly inefficient. This means most of the energy --no matter where it might come from-- will be wasted as heat. No material or resource is used with 100% efficiency either. > Everyone conveniently ignores reality when suggesting magical PLANETARY SCALE "solutions". What does "planetary scale" mean? It means more energy materials than one could possibly imagine. It also means manufacturing, moving, installing and maintaining things at a never-before-seen rate and scale. It means producing things OVER AND ABOVE ANYTHING HUMANITY MAKES TODAY at a rate and at a volume that might equal or dwarf the entire industrial output of the planet today. Everyone ignores the --likely-- billions of gallons of bunker fuel, diesel and gasoline we will have to burn just to make, move, install, operate and maintain these magical solutions. So that's the thing about modular solutions. You only have to prove it works once in one place where you know the inputs are all abundant and you can do it a million times. Solar is on track to cover current world energy demands by 2035. There is, as yet, no universally cheap and applicable storage method. Water electrolysis is one such technology. It is at a tipping point in price where it will replace fossil fuel methane derived hydrogen in a few years. To get it adopted all you have to do is publicly show one ammonia factory in one place how you can sell them a solar panel (or daytime electricity) and an electrolyser made of steel, copper and a little bit of nickel for less than they can buy methane. Similarly carbon capture is a fairly well known technology. If we had the balls to say "you don't get to emit or export any CO2 after 2030" to coal and gas plants, some of them will switch to ammonia or hydrogen. Others may import mining tailings and make carbonates. Others might make methane (and possibly even run on that next cycle). All of these things are physically doable, we just let them get away with polluting our world at present. I'd much rather get rid of all the coal plants and run the gas ones on hydrogen (this is physically possible today, but replacing all the coal is that production problem you mention), but real carbon capture (not the scam of pretending you've buried CO2 or using it to mine more oil) is a step forward. > They don't survive the test of deployment at scale because none of them pass physics. Not one. They can't. Why not? Sunlight is free and abundant. Once you understand that sunlight -> hydrogen -> fire -> electricity is a viable pathway for having energy in winter, then un-burning concentrated CO2 is in the worst case no different entropy wise. It's just a matter of mass producing a machine that does one of many known reactions. > Everyone ignores the --likely-- billions of gallons of bunker fuel, diesel and gasoline we will have to burn just to make, move, install, operate and maintain these magical solutions. ERoEI is the term you are looking for. For solar it takes about 2-5 years depending where it's installed, maybe it will go back up a little as the duck cu4ve gets worse. An electrolyser utilising 30% of solar energy that would otherwise be wasted to make hydrogen burnt in existing plant would have an eroei on the order of a few years as they're much simpler and smaller than the panels feeding them. A CO2 splitter is cheaper still, and making carbonates from mining tailings is exothermic.