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I didn't like Austin Vernon's take on nuclear power plants that he put out one year ago. I do agree with him on natural gas power plants. And I'd add that we d

I didn't like Austin Vernon's take on nuclear power plants that he put out one year ago. I do agree with him on natural gas power plants. And I'd add that we don't even need any carbon sequestration, or to come up with synthetic gas. It's just fine to use the current power plants that we have. It's actually surprisingly easy to get to net zero emissions by 2050 (at least for the US, which I'm more familiar with). The last few years have seen the vast majority of the new power plants be solar and wind. Each year more than the previous one. If we keep this trajectory, we'll produce all the energy we'll need (not just electricity generation, all energy, including transportation, iron and cement manufacturing, etc) by 2050 from solar, wind and the current nuclear and hydro. We don't need any breakthrough in batteries, or hydrogen generation, or anything else. The current batteries are good to store electricity from day to night. They will never be cheap enough to economically store energy from summer to winter. But we won't need them to. We will not even need to switch to a hydrogen (or ammonia) economy. We just need to maintain the current gas power plants. Let them generate electricity when there's not enough sun or wind. The trees will take care of the carbon sequestration. How is that possible, you ask? It's simple my dear Watson. Right now the electricity generation is responsible for about 26% of the greenhouse emissions in the US, and about 45% of those come from natural gas. About 55% come from coal; coal produces much less electricity than gas in the US, but it's much dirtier. So, all in all, gas power plants produce about 12% of the US's emissions. And the trees absorb each year about 13% of the (gross) US emission. More than gas power plants emit. So, if we keep all our plants as they are, and use them only when there's not enough electricity produced by renewables, we'll end up being ok, much more than ok.

dr_dshiv 4y ago
> So, all in all, gas power plants produce about 12% of the US's emissions. And the trees absorb each year about 13% of them. Great fact. Got a source?
- spoiler 4y ago
  FWIW, I'm curious to know more about this, too
- credit_guy 4y ago
  Sure, here we go [1] Land Use and Forestry (13% of 2020 greenhouse gas emissions) – Land areas can act as a sink (absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere) or a source of greenhouse gas emissions. In the United States, since 1990, managed forests and other lands are a net sink, i.e., they have absorbed more CO2 from the atmosphere than they emit. [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
georgyo 4y ago
> So, all in all, gas power plants produce about 12% of the US's emissions. And the trees absorb each year about 13% of the (gross) US emission. More than gas power plants emit. You should ask yourself, where do trees put this "absorbed" emissions? The answer is in themselves when they grow. A forest at equilibrium is carbon neutral, not carbon negative. Your comment suggests that US trees are growing significantly year over year. However all evidence would point to the contrary. We would need to plant (and keep alive) a significant amount of new trees every year in addition to not removing any existing ones. That just isn't doable long-term.
- algo_trader 4y ago
  > A forest at equilibrium is carbon neutral We have been cutting down forests and killing the soil for 200 years. So there is a lot of natural (re)sequestration available to us Europe is re-foresting simply due to demography and urbanization. The amazon. Etc.
  - georgyo 4y ago
    By that logic, we should have cut down a lot more. We'd have so much more land to regrow!
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
algo_trader 4y ago
> And the trees absorb each year about 13% of the (gross) US emission. More than gas power plants emit Unfortunately, these future trees are double booked. Airlines, shipping, cement, steel - they are all hoping to use tree / bio-fuels instead of more expensive solutions. So yes. Lots of PV/wind. Keep gas for backup. But it is a temporary crutch!
- credit_guy 4y ago
  Airlines and shipping contribute about 2% and 3% of the total emissions. There is no easy way to convert them from liquid hydrocarbon fuels to something else. But it's only 5% of the emissions. I don't think there's a climate scientist out there who will tell you that if we cut net emissions by 100% by 2050 we are fine, but if only cut by 95% we are doomed. In any case, if we use natural gas power plants only for smoothing out the peak demand, then their emissions will be much less than the current 12%. Maybe 4 or 5%. Enough room for airlines and shipping. As for steel and cement, we need to switch them to new technologies that makes them not emit CO2, such as [1], or emit much less, such as [2]. The thing is, once electricity is cheap (because solar and wind are cheap), hydrogen will be cheap, and switching steel production from using coke to hydrogen will be not only environmentally responsible, but also economically optimal. The same for fertilizers and plastics. Cement will be a bit trickier to get to fully carbon neutral, but we'll be able to easily cut emissions in half. All in all, there are no real blockers to get to net zero. We only need to keep the pace with solar and wind, and there are no signs that we won't be able to. [1] https://www.ssab.com/en/fossil-free-steel https://www.ssab.com/en/fossil-free-steel [2] https://www.cemexusa.com/vertua https://www.cemexusa.com/vertua

dr_dshiv 4y ago

> So, all in all, gas power plants produce about 12% of the US's emissions. And the trees absorb each year about 13% of them. Great fact. Got a source?

spoiler 4y ago
FWIW, I'm curious to know more about this, too
credit_guy 4y ago
Sure, here we go [1] Land Use and Forestry (13% of 2020 greenhouse gas emissions) – Land areas can act as a sink (absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere) or a source of greenhouse gas emissions. In the United States, since 1990, managed forests and other lands are a net sink, i.e., they have absorbed more CO2 from the atmosphere than they emit. [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

georgyo 4y ago

> So, all in all, gas power plants produce about 12% of the US's emissions. And the trees absorb each year about 13% of the (gross) US emission. More than gas power plants emit. You should ask yourself, where do trees put this "absorbed" emissions? The answer is in themselves when they grow. A forest at equilibrium is carbon neutral, not carbon negative. Your comment suggests that US trees are growing significantly year over year. However all evidence would point to the contrary. We would need to plant (and keep alive) a significant amount of new trees every year in addition to not removing any existing ones. That just isn't doable long-term.

algo_trader 4y ago
> A forest at equilibrium is carbon neutral We have been cutting down forests and killing the soil for 200 years. So there is a lot of natural (re)sequestration available to us Europe is re-foresting simply due to demography and urbanization. The amazon. Etc.
- georgyo 4y ago
  By that logic, we should have cut down a lot more. We'd have so much more land to regrow!

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

algo_trader 4y ago

> And the trees absorb each year about 13% of the (gross) US emission. More than gas power plants emit Unfortunately, these future trees are double booked. Airlines, shipping, cement, steel - they are all hoping to use tree / bio-fuels instead of more expensive solutions. So yes. Lots of PV/wind. Keep gas for backup. But it is a temporary crutch!

credit_guy 4y ago
Airlines and shipping contribute about 2% and 3% of the total emissions. There is no easy way to convert them from liquid hydrocarbon fuels to something else. But it's only 5% of the emissions. I don't think there's a climate scientist out there who will tell you that if we cut net emissions by 100% by 2050 we are fine, but if only cut by 95% we are doomed. In any case, if we use natural gas power plants only for smoothing out the peak demand, then their emissions will be much less than the current 12%. Maybe 4 or 5%. Enough room for airlines and shipping. As for steel and cement, we need to switch them to new technologies that makes them not emit CO2, such as [1], or emit much less, such as [2]. The thing is, once electricity is cheap (because solar and wind are cheap), hydrogen will be cheap, and switching steel production from using coke to hydrogen will be not only environmentally responsible, but also economically optimal. The same for fertilizers and plastics. Cement will be a bit trickier to get to fully carbon neutral, but we'll be able to easily cut emissions in half. All in all, there are no real blockers to get to net zero. We only need to keep the pace with solar and wind, and there are no signs that we won't be able to. [1] https://www.ssab.com/en/fossil-free-steel https://www.ssab.com/en/fossil-free-steel [2] https://www.cemexusa.com/vertua https://www.cemexusa.com/vertua