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Cynical me is always impressed in how much funding goes to find emitters outside the develop world: > "...emit methane at high rates span central Asia, the Mid
by neves 4y ago
Cynical me is always impressed in how much funding goes to find emitters outside the develop world:
> "...emit methane at high rates span central Asia, the Middle East and the southwestern United States. By finding these sites from space, the satellite is bringing an important perspective to climate accountability,"
USA could close all of its coal mines with the same money spent in emergency Covid vaccines
- chitowneats 4y ago> USA could close all of its coal mines with the same money spent in emergency Covid vaccines Have we not recently been reminded that the true cost of reducing domestic energy production is much higher than the mere bottom line estimate of shuttering the production facilities? Germany and France might like a word. With Ukraine slowly shaking their heads in the background.
- reillyse 4y agoAll the more so for switching to wind and solar (and reducing usage). Nobody is saying cancel energy. Just that switching away from coal is probably a good idea.
- chitowneats 4y agoCan the current energy demand of the United States be met cost-effectively with wind, solar, and batteries? I'm a huge proponent of these technologies but the answer to that question in 2022 is still no. "Ending" domestic coal production would cause a drop in GDP that would make 2020 look like child's play.
- derefr 4y agoSpeaking as a non-American who doesn't fully understand the factors at play: why can't you guys just get your military-industrial complex to build you some nationalized nuclear plants on federal land in the middle of nowhere, where there aren't any NIMBYs to get in the way? (You could even just reuse the 'federal land in the middle of nowhere' that all your since-decommissioned nuclear-weapons testing facilities are sitting on!)
- chitowneats 4y agoWe should. I would be a single issue voter for almost any candidate who proposed this. We should fill the state of Nevada with nuclear plants and export the energy as far as possible.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
- Bluecobra 4y agoWe can’t even agree on a place to store our waste in the middle of nowhere. Billions of dollars have been spent since the 1980’s on Yucca Mountain and that still hasn’t happened.
- marcosdumay 4y agoI'm not from the US, but the normal situation is that on places where nobody leaves there is also not enough water to cool down nuclear plants.
- NavinF 4y agoToo many NIMBYs (where "backyard" refers to the whole country)
- SXX 4y ago> build you some nationalized nuclear plants on federal land in the middle of nowhere, where there aren't any NIMBYs to get in the way? I'm not in the US, but I guess for the same reason why Sahara desert is not yet became world largest solar power plant. You can't just build power plants in the middle of nowhere since energy transportation infrastructure isn't free and there some laws of physics involved. Also I pretty certain that US government and especially military are well aware that centralization of power production is not good for resilience of the grid and national security. One huge centralised nuclear facility would be much easier target than hundreds and thousands of smaller power plants.
- 4y ago
- 8bitsrule 4y agoStanford's Mark Z. Jacobson started writing papers a decade ago [0] that answers that question yes. The GDP will be immaterial if we continue to ignore the obvious. [0] https://energy.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj9971/f/mark_jacobson_051611.pdf https://energy.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj9971/f/mark_... https://seec-tonko.house.gov/sites/sustainableenergyandenvironmentcoalitioncaucus.house.gov/files/Statement%20-%20Mark%20Jacobson%20-%20Stanford_0.pdf https://seec-tonko.house.gov/sites/sustainableenergyandenvir...
- m4jor 4y agoDont forget about nuclear. Still a great energy source.
- pasabagi 4y agoWait, why? Isn't solar or wind, depending on location, typically the cheapest form of power generation? Most of Europe is off coal. It's not really a necessary part of an energy mix.
- chitowneats 4y agoThey're off coal because they're on Russian natural gas. Until this winter, I suppose. Natural gas is a biproduct of oil and coal production.
- pasabagi 4y agoNot really? Germany is a mid-range, slow-moving sort of country, and they get about 40% of their energy from renewables. They still get 30% of their energy from coal, but it's being fairly steadily phased out. Energy sources are fungible. Solar power is cheaper than coal in a lot of places, as is wind, and the US has a ton of natural gas to make up for the intermittency problem. I think you're mistaking a political problem for a technical one.
- chitowneats 4y agoI think you're mistaking political problems for being implementation details that are easily fixed. Versus the reality in which they are the hardest problems that exist for humanity at the current moment. Russian gas is literally not replaceable by liquid natural gas, or any other energy source, as imports for most of Europe this winter. It's theoretically fungible on an infinite time frame. We do not live in a theoretical universe.
- pasabagi 4y agoSure, politcal problems are hard problems. However, your original post asserted that the current energy demand of the US cannot be met without coal. You did not say they will not, because of political pathology. It is, however, patently obvious that they can - many countries in Europe are doing that right now, and not all of them depend on Russian natural gas. Further, the only reason why EU states in the east depend on Russian natural gas is because Russia is close. The US is a gas exporter. They would need no such overseas supply.
- themitigating 4y agoSwitching over slowly and let the market adjust. Why must everyone make this argument as some sudden disruptive change?
- chitowneats 4y agoWe are switching over slowly. That's literally the status quo. The argument of "we could end coal for X dollars" is what introduces the idea of a discrete value into this discussion. How can you know what we will spend unless you specify a time interval? Clearly we won't be burning coal in 100 years. Maybe not even 50. Or 30.
- themitigating 4y agoI left out a variable that you hinted at so let me redefine what I meant. We need to move to green energy and not count sources of energy from unstable situations. Meaning Germany shouldn't have shut its coal plants relying on gas from Russia as replacement. The cold war ended in 1989 and first invaded Ukraine in 2014, with obvious hints at being authoritarian prior to that. Russia is not a friendly country and shouldn't have been considered one this quickly.
- chiefalchemist 4y agoThey said "could" not "should." It was, for me, context, a reference point. Such statements help push back against what is often misguided conventional wisdom. They shine light on our priorities, or the lack thereof.
- derefr 4y agoThe way that the USA would "close all of its coal mines" would involve replacing that production with different domestic energy production; not by becoming reliant on foreign energy markets.
- googlryas 4y agoI never realized the southwestern United States was outside the develop world.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- datavirtue 4y agoSeen Arizona lately? People are standing outside the polls with guns.