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First time I hear that claim as well. The only "peak" I'm aware of is coal burning for electricity. that is expected to go down going forward, but that's not p

by ffsm8 2y ago

First time I hear that claim as well. The only "peak" I'm aware of is coal burning for electricity. that is expected to go down going forward, but that's not peak CO2, as coal engines are just one source of CO2 and not even the biggest contributer. Misinformation is big with everything related to climate change as usual, so I kinda doubt we're anything close to peak CO2, but I'll keep checking the global CO2 averages. Maybe it'll go down from 450 again. It'd be great if itc went back to 290 (thats what it was before the industrial revolution, supposedly)... But I'm not expecting to see any reduction within my lifetime

fragmede 2y ago
With China having brought 47.4 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power online in 2023, why is is expected to go down going forwards?
- max-ibel 2y ago
  My understanding is that they may not exactly be baseload, but will run only some of the time. Not ideal, but better than the worst case.
silverquiet 2y ago
To be clear, "peak" refers to the maximum output of CO2; it does not mean that CO2 levels will begin falling in the atmosphere, merely that the rate at which we add it to the atmosphere will begin to trend downwards instead of increasing (as it always has since the dawn of the industrial age). "Net zero" is when no more CO2 is added to the atmosphere and as far as I can tell is essentially science fiction at this point. Decreasing ppms of CO2 is beyond that even. As I said, this is all rather hard to take when considered seriously which is probably one of the reasons for denial. Probably the only near-term effort that can buy time is increasing the reflectivity of the atmosphere to counteract the greenhouse effect; it does seem technically feasible and economical, but is pretty half-assed and has problems of its own - principally a termination shock if it is ever discontinued.

by ffsm8 2y ago

fragmede 2y ago

With China having brought 47.4 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power online in 2023, why is is expected to go down going forwards?

max-ibel 2y ago
My understanding is that they may not exactly be baseload, but will run only some of the time. Not ideal, but better than the worst case.

silverquiet 2y ago

To be clear, "peak" refers to the maximum output of CO2; it does not mean that CO2 levels will begin falling in the atmosphere, merely that the rate at which we add it to the atmosphere will begin to trend downwards instead of increasing (as it always has since the dawn of the industrial age). "Net zero" is when no more CO2 is added to the atmosphere and as far as I can tell is essentially science fiction at this point. Decreasing ppms of CO2 is beyond that even. As I said, this is all rather hard to take when considered seriously which is probably one of the reasons for denial. Probably the only near-term effort that can buy time is increasing the reflectivity of the atmosphere to counteract the greenhouse effect; it does seem technically feasible and economical, but is pretty half-assed and has problems of its own - principally a termination shock if it is ever discontinued.