A Guest Post by Islandboy
The EIA released the latest edition of their Electric Power Monthly on December 23rd, with data for October 2019. The table above shows the percentage contribution of the main fuel sources to two decimal places for the last two months and the year 2019 to date.
The Table immediately above shows the absolute amounts of electricity generated in gigawatt-hours by the main sources for the last two months and the year to date. In October, the absolute amount of electricity generated decreased as is usually the case between September and October. Coal and Natural Gas between them, fueled 62.29% of US electricity generation in October. The contribution of zero carbon and carbon neutral sources increased from 33.25% in September to 36.82% in October.
The 66,855 GWh generated by Coal in October 2019 is the second lowest amount ever generated by Coal in recent history, with April 2019 holding the record for the lowest amount at 60,099 GWh. The percentage contribution from Natural Gas in October remained above 40%, as it has since July of 2019.
The graph below shows the absolute monthly production from the various sources since January 2013, as well as the total amount generated (right axis).
The chart below shows the total monthly generation at utility scale facilities by year versus the contribution from solar. The left hand scale is for the total generation, while the right hand scale is for solar output and has been deliberately set to exaggerate the solar output as a means of assessing it’s potential to make a meaningful contribution to the midsummer peak. In October 2019 the estimated total output from solar at 9,948 GWh, was 2.9 times what it was four years before in October 2015..
The chart below shows the total monthly generation at utility scale facilities by year versus the combined contribution from wind and solar. The left hand scale is for the total generation, while the right hand scale is for combined wind and solar output and has been deliberately set to exaggerate the combined output of solar and wind as a means of assessing the potential of the combination to make a meaningful contribution to the year round total.
The chart below shows the percentage contributions of the various sources to the capacity additions in 2019 up to October. In October Wind contributed 51.54% of new capacity, and 47.98% of new capacity came from Solar for a combined contribution of 99.52%. Batteries contributed 0.34% with Landfill Gas contributing the remaining 0.14%. The combined contribution from Solar and Wind in October, is the highest it has been for any single month since this report started tracking capacity additions. Natural gas and renewables continue to make up more than 95% of capacity added each month, as they have since at least January 2017.
In October 2019 the total added capacity reported was 979 MW, compared to the 2664.6 MW added in October 2018.
The chart below shows the monthly capacity retirements in 2019 up to October.
The Navajo Generating Station Commences Retirement
In October, the largest share of retirements reported was a result of the closure of one 750 MW unit at the largest coal fired plant west of the Mississippi River, the Navajo Generating Station (NGS), operated by The Salt River Project. This plant has been mentioned in several comments at peakoilbarrel.com. The Navajo Nation derives significant revenue from the plant and the plant workforce included a large portion of tribe members. It was a major contributor to the economy of the nearby city of Page, Arizona and was the only customer for the Kayenta Coal Mine which has also had to cease operations as a result.
Out of the concern for the impact the closure of the plant and the coal mine will have on the Navajo Nation’s revenues and the economy of the neighboring communities, the Navajo Nation government made significant efforts to save the plant. Despite these efforts, competitive pressure from lower cost electricity from Natural Gas has made the plant uneconomic to operate. With the Levellized Cost of Electricty (LCOE) of electricity from wind and solar being the lowest cost source in many regions of the world and most certainly in the region around the plant, it is not likely that utilities will turn to coal if Natural Gas prices were to increase significantly. It is yet to be seen if the Navajo Nation will seek to attempt to replace the revenues lost from the closure of the NGS by encouraging the construction of solar farms to use the existing transmission capacity.
At the time of writing of this report the NGS has ceased operation and the closure of the remaining units will be reported in the next two months.
Other Retirements
The other retirements reported in October were the closure of the Texas Municipal Power Agency‘s 470 MW, coal fired Gibbons Creek plant, a 480 MW Natural Gas Steam Turbine at AES Redondo Beach LLC and six conventional hydroelectric units, amounting to 5.4 MW in Portland, Oregon.
The total amount of retirements reported was 1705.4 MW compared to the 933.6 MW reported in October 2018.
Below is a chart for monthly net additions/retirements showing the data up to October 2019, followed by a chart showing the net additions/retirements year to date.
Below is a table of the top ten states in order of coal consumption for electricity production for October 2019 and the year before for comparison followed by a similar table for Natural Gas.
A look at gradual and rapid energy transistion scenarios.
The Speed of the Energy Transition
Gradual or Rapid Change?
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_the_speed_of_the_energy_transition.pdf
Looks to me like the rapid scenario is more likely. Not because of deliberate choice, but because it appears to roughly match the global fossil fuel supply depletion projections.
But in this case, ‘rapid’ is just business as usual, and is about 4 decades too slow to be considered rapid.
Limits to Growth- 1972 Global Population 3.8 B (less than 1/2 what we have today)
Thanks for the update. Its obvious now that coal is plummeting to its death. 2019 is most probably going to be the first year in a long long time (atleast 40 yrs) when the total coal generation will tick below 1000 TWH. It’s going to be even worse next year (?850 TWH) with so much capacity being retired.
Yes, and note that the cause of death is lack of profitability, not lack of supply or demand.
“the cause of death is lack of profitability”
Good point.
Coal burning is rising in some countries and falling in others. Overall global growth is positive lately.
Explaining the increase in coal consumption worldwide
Coal remains the main energy source to produce electricity
Worldwide, coal consumption for electricity generation is almost growing at the same rate as the electricity consumption (2.8% per year versus 3% per year between 2000 and 2017). As a result, the share of coal in the power mix has almost remained steady for the past 20 years around 40%. Even if it has only decreased by two points since 2010 (see Figure below), coal is still the most widely used energy source for electricity generation in the world.
https://theconversation.com/explaining-the-increase-in-coal-consumption-worldwide-111045
Meanwhile we have:
RECORD NUMBER OF OIL AND GAS FIELDS PRODUCING OFF NORWAY
“The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) said a new high of 87 fields were in production in 2019, up from 83 the year before, most of which were still “major” developments. Around half were subsea tiebacks, the organisation said in a review of activity on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) for 2019. Last year notably saw the start up of the giant Johan Sverdrup development, the third-largest field on the NCS. It comes as the NPD projects the country is moving towards a further production boost, with 2024 expected to be “close to the record year” of 2004. That’s mainly due to the start-up of Johan Sverdrup, along with Johan Castberg in the Barents Sea – another huge project – scheduled to come on stream in 2022. Overall production declined in 2019 compared to the previous year, with some companies choosing to “hold back” gas output “due to the market situation”, but that is expected to “turn around” in 2020.”
https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/216833/record-number-of-oil-and-gas-fields-producing-off-norway/
DO IT NOW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7V1qLLsn7M
Good going Norwegians. We need all that oil and gas to build all those renewable energy things.
Nothing like “sustainable development”.
“We need all that oil and gas to build all those renewable energy things.
Nothing like “sustainable development”.
What is the alternative?, and by what mechanism to get to that path?
“What is the alternative?, and by what mechanism to get to that path?”
Do you mean what alternative energy should be used to build all those renewable energy things? Or do you mean what is the alternative to all those renewable energy things?
Both, I suppose. Inter-related.
Well, then that answer needs two books.
First we have to track back to where we went wrong.
The most obvious points are fossil fuel burning for heating, industrial power and transportation.
Next came electrical power, transformed from thermal power of fossil energy and water turbines. Chemical industry blossomed. Every new technology made the citizen completely dependent on them. All supported by mining and transport. Individual mechanized transport blossomed, more fossil fuel (using what had been waste product).
Then came the industrialization of agriculture, the chemicalization of agriculture, depending more on fossil fuel.
Side effects are high population, high consumption, global pollution, forest and ecosystem destruction and of course global warming.
Now if we just keep the high levels of industrialization, population, consumption and ecosystem destruction by switching over to renewable energy, global warming slows down but other factors cause limits and severe depopulation in the future, if not all out nuclear war. Meanwhile the soils and forests go away so again, bad ending.
So we have to drastically reduce industrialization, energy use, population, consumption and dangerous chemicals of all sorts.
PV and batteries should be the last thing added in our new design way of living , only for use if no other means or ways can be found.
Living more simply, biologically, in abundance would be far better than the dystopian nightmare into which we are headed.
PV is great to get rid of those fossil fuels, eventually. However, one must consider strongly and thoughtfully, what will that future look like if we don’t back off of military industrial life. Will it just be a new untenable dead end, just a few years or decades later?
Time to form a civilization and cultures that last many thousands of years instead of a few hundred at best. That means having a vibrant fecund natural world, not one designed for machines.
Right now the world is still hell bent on using fossil fuel energy and industrial farming, because it has forced itself into a dependency corner.
Anything that actually reduces the use of fossil fuels and eliminates or reduces industrial farming is helpful, but it has to be thoroughly examined for actual reduction, not just further industrialization and pseudo reductions.
With the short time we have been given to act. Today is the time to live in a conscious way that makes direct changes right now.
Oh yeah, we need to get rid of all those pesky nuclear weapons too.
What I hear you saying, in a nutshell, is without massive downsizing of our consumption needs, its a losing battle for longterm sustainable energy supply at any kind of level we have come to expect in the world.
If I’m hearing you correctly, sure I agree. I think its a certainty.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html
looks like 2019 annual mean growth rate of CO2 is 2.2’ish
Not to worry, according to the “latest science” CO2 emission levels will be back down to the 1950’s levels by the end of the century and most of that excess CO2 will be absorbed by the ocean in 20 to 200 years. Temperatures will be above current temps by 1 to 5C and the Norwegians will be swimming in the ocean all year round. Maybe even a few Canadians.
The “latest science” also says that the top soil will be gone by then, the forests will be gone and most of the vertebrate life, so it will at least be quieter (typing this to the continuous multiple hum of power company employees cutting down trees).
yeh, average over the last 5 years is 2.59 ppm/yr increase
[same data page]
✅
Or just on clean living, like the Amish. They seem to do fine without the energy industry.
That’s not entirely true. There’s a sizeable Amish community near where I live due to the proximity of a rural Midwestern Amtrak stop (more on that later). While they do have a much lower reliance on energy than the average person, they still depend on the local grocery stores for some of their needs, they rely on paved roads, they use the postal service, and they generally have electricity in their homes for limited uses.
To travel long distances, they go by (diesel) Amtrak trains and may have someone pick them up in a conventional vehicle to transport them to/from the train station. That latter part is almost always true where I live since the trains stop in the middle of the night and taking a black, unlit horse-drawn carriage down a country road at night isn’t wise or even practical. They usually contact their drivers by telephone, including cell phone these days since payphones and public telephones are virtually extinct.
I don’t know how often the typical Amish person travels long distance, but collectively they do so frequently enough that if you were to go down to the local train station near me on any given night close to a train’s arrival, the odds are fairly good that you’d see a small group of them either getting on or off. Anybody who’s traveled on a long-distance train within the Midwest would also know how much of a mainstay on board many of the trains they usually are. The same goes for inside Chicago Union Station, the train hub of the Midwest. Seeing all these people dressed in nineteenth century garb right in the heart of modern downtown Chicago is always kind of amusing.
Ultimately, the reason for all the Amish travel is due to the significant baby boom and resultant rapid population increase they’ve experienced these last few decades. They’ve been forced to spread out from their traditional communities in the US into new ones. Since the train is their mode of long-distance travel, and they maintain tight connections to family and friends in the areas where they come from, naturally where they’ve expanded into the most are rural areas near train stops. Furthermore, due to most rural areas of the Midwest having experienced depopulation for the past 60 years or more, there are frequently enough cheap farmhouses and small farmsteads available for them to move into without facing much resistance.
It would be really great if there was any inclination on the part of governments and/or the population at large to acknowledge that there is a existential crisis unfolding. In my neck of the woods, the global warming/environmental challenges (the health of the biosphere) appear to take second place behind the health of the economy, which is currently running largely on the strength of fossil fuels.
Around this city, the major road works in the capital are in their final stages, with painting of road markings, the erection of traffic signals and the paving of sidewalks. I see no effort to replant trees in the many locations that they were cut down to make way for expanded roadways. The multi-story apartment building that was being built near my apartment has taken nearly a year to have all the windows and other fixtures installed having topped off about a year ago but, the construction crane was moved to a fresh project about a mile away, a good sign that things at the old site are winding down. Over the festive season I noticed a fair amount of vacant lots being cleared, apparently in preparation for new construction starts. Things appear to be booming.
On the transportation front, the new/used car lots are brimming with new cars and used cars from the Japanese Domestic Market and the car dealers to not appear to be having problems selling them. The luxury brands (Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Porsche) appear to be doing well with lots of new looking luxury SUVs running about over the festive season. I even saw a white Maserati one day, the second vehicle from that marque that I have seen on the roads of my home city. In the meantime, the thirteen or so Nissan battery electric vehicles across the island have been joined by an undetermined number of Teslas (2 or maybe 3 or 4) that were imported by their owners, despite any decent incentives or the yet to be unveiled “electric vehicle policy” from the government. There is no reason to believe that the vast majority of vehicle owners believe that global warming warrants enough attention from them when it comes what they drive and how often and how far they drive it.
The focus in the two major newspapers is on growth and jobs for 2020 with no focus of the need to discourage the growth of the population. I still see lots of newborn babies all around, many in very low income communities. At events I have been to over the past few weeks, leaders have been patting themselves on the back, proud of how well the institutions they lead have been doing. I even heard the head of the local branch of the regional university (UWI) boasting that the university is (among?) the top university(ies) in this hemisphere for climate research. This is the same university that has built a co-generation (power, heat, cooling) fired by NG sourced from LNG outfit, New Fortress Energy and regularly uses diesel generators to power multiple mobile air conditioning units around a huge tent it uses as a temporary building on a regular basis. I guess they are just following the advice of the lecturer from their economics department that published a “research paper” back in 2015 declaring that solar energy was “not right for Jamaica at this time” and ignoring the advice of their leading professor on climate research who was awarded a Nobel Prize for his work.
On the positive side, a ban on the importation and sale of single use polystyrene food containers is now in force, to join the year old ban on single use plastic (shopping) bags.
I guess we just have to be thankful for small mercies.
The carbon emissions vary by two orders of magnitude across various countries.
However, even in some low fossil fuel emission countries, nature and man have found ways to provide increased CO2 emissions.
A vast swathe of Africa blighted by drought and changing land use is emitting as much carbon dioxide each year as 200 million cars, according to Scots researchers.
In a study that bolsters understanding of greenhouse gas sources, the team led by scientists from the University of Edinburgh identified emissions over northern tropical Africa totalling between one million and 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon a year.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/african-co2-emissions-equivalent-of-200-million-cars-scots-researchers-find-1-4983037
Those plastic bag bans are a complete farce. In California, I’ve been horrified to witness the actual increased waste that they bring, in contrast to the supposed environmentally friendly benefits the backers say is the rationale for them, not to mention the massive inconveniences to shoppers and retail workers alike.
My only conclusion is that these bans are promoted by fringe groups that simply don’t shop for large families. They also refuse to acknowledge that the super thick plastic bags now offered as the designated alternative to the thinner single use plastic release a net mass gain of plastic into the environment. Oh, sure they can brag about how many fewer bags the store is distributing. Well, if my customers walk out with 100 super thick plastic bags in a day instead of 1,000 of the older thin ones, yes I’ve handed out 900 fewer bags that day, but because the new super thick bags are ten times the thickness of the old thin ones at least, there’s just as much plastic out there as there used to be.
The people who push this stuff maybe get some jollies out of seeing people struggle to carry their groceries out of the store and into the parking lot for one twisted reason or another. Do they even shop in person at stores? Or do they do all their shopping online and have their stuff delivered to them directly in cardboard and plastic encrusted boxes, which, by the way, isn’t environmentally friendly.
fringe groups that simply don’t shop for large families.
Large families are the fringe group in America. Average household size has fallen more or less continuously since 1790. More than 96% of American households have five people or less — meaning two parents, three kids or less. For some reason many find this hard to accept, which is why there are so many empty seven seated vehicles on the road, but it is truth.
I am the twelfth of thirteen children, born in 1962, and if you chart the number of children of each sibling, you see a clear downward trend. The first three had eight children between them, but the last three only had two.
Americans buy more groceries at a time and have bigger fridges than Europeans or Asians. This has to do with the poor layout of American cities, which separates grocery stores from neighborhoods where people live, making it inconvenient and unfriendly to buy groceries. So people shop infrequently, and store the food longer at home.
California could profit greatly from legalizing the corner store, and stopping subsidies to big box retail.
OK, you are correct about smaller family sizes, but nobody pushing the bag bans talks about the reality of the replacement thick plastic bags using multiples more plastic than the thin bags while still winding up in the trash. Essentially a scenario is created where the plastic waste is just as great as before, but with inconvenienced shoppers and slower checkout speed.
Another thing people prefer to sweep under the rug, but is reality, is that there are certain sanitary troubles and wastes currently present on the sidewalks and streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego that were rare before the plastic bag bans. If I need to spell it out, most of the homeless were quite constructive in their use of thin plastic bags to clean up in the face of limited public toilets. When left with no easily available options, it is not difficult to envision the result. Clearly these people will not go buy designated single use waste bags like the idealistic plastic bag banners guide them to. Do they think the homeless crowd can afford these? They seemingly don’t even recognize these people may have a hard time even finding these products in the major cities that have issues allowing Walmart and other big box stores into city limits.
When the bans began, I made a point to stay away from the super thick plastic bags. Over time, I changed my stance, in part because I find that if I go to a store terminal with a cashier, it’s a crapshoot whether or not I am charged per bag as I should be. Whereas, if I pay at a self checkout terminal, I am always charged since the machines make you enter in how many bags you used. So after a couple days or so of shopping, I can end up with maybe about 3 super thick bags that I can reuse once for trash. The problem is, before the ban I could have had 10 or more thin bags which would have been good for a bigger variety of reuses.
So in the end I find the ban makes my household put more plastic waste into the environment since not only do the super thick bags use more plastic as I mentioned, but now I am forced to regularly buy thin plastic bags for uses such as trash and laundry. Also, previously, if I purchased something like a bunch of bananas or a single apple, I would just put it in a thin plastic bag at the checkout instead of using produce bags. Now, I grab a produce bag for many more things than produce because I need something to serve as shields in the thick plastic bag I will carry the groceries in to and from my car. Not to mention, the produce bag gets to serve as the replacement for something to stick things like yogurt covered foil lids in to until you can get to a proper trash receptacle. Is there any plastic reduction in this? I suppose maybe a little because the produce bags are smaller than the traditional store bags.
Lastly, my experience shows the thick bags will not take pet or food litter as well as the thin bags. In spite of the thickness, the new bags have a tendency to puncture, in addition to being nearly impossible to tie them tightly shut with a solid knot in order to prevent unpleasant odors and spillage.
A society has to be pretty far gone if it brags about being the world’s greatest nation and still doesn’t have plumbing. None of this has anything to do with plastic bags though.
Anyone ever consider why there are plastic bags at all and how they were supposed to be used?
Plastic bags were invented to save the planet, according to the son of Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin who created them in 1959.
The bags were developed as an alternative to paper bags, which were considered bad for the environment because they resulted in forests being chopped down.
They were significantly stronger than paper bags, which meant – in theory – they could be used over and over again.
However, single-use plastic took off and now our consumption of this polluting material is one of the biggest threats facing the world’s seas, with marine plastic set to outweigh fish by 2050.
Raoul Thulin, son of Sten, told the BBC: “To my dad, the idea that people would simply throw these away would be bizarre.
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/plastic-bags-pollution-paper-cotton-tote-bags-environment-a9159731.html
BTW I have used my own shopping bags for a couple of decades now and if I forget them I ask for a cardboard box to carry things in, returnable and reusable. It all works with some planning and forethought, unlike the unconscious life that people are now expected and trained to live.
Gonefishing and everyone posting on this topic,
I’ve not seen a single reference to cloth shopping bags. I have three and have been using them for twenty years. They work very well. They’re made of cotton which has its own drawbacks in production, especially water requirements, but hemp would work at least as well.
Why use plastic bags at all?
What do you and Gonefishing use to hold your trash? The plastic bags from the store are great for that an a money saver over having to buy trash bags.
What about the stores that require you carry all your items out in a bag provided at the checkout? They will do a receipt check on you at the door if you try to leave without an acceptable bag around here. Unless its a big item that cant be bagged. Then they will put on a sticker or lable to prove you purchased it.
What about the stores that require you carry all your items out in a bag provided at the checkout?
Now, where do they require that? I think you are allowed to bring your own bags just about everywhere. If not, I am sure it soon will be. Requiring you to use a plastic bag is about the dumbest thing I have ever heard of.
I’ve been at WalMart an Kroger where they make you leave the store with your items in their bag. Otherwise they do a receipt check at the door, especially at Walmart.
When Walmart started giving out insulated reusable plastic bags a few years ago, if you used them, the cashier would place your items in to a non reusable plastic WalMart bag and then into your reusable bag. They said it was for store policy, everything has to leave in a bag from the cashier stand even if you bring a reusable bag with you.
Assumed that was the policy at most any big chain store. In Texas all plastic bag bans were made illegal in 2018 because of liberal cities like Austin an Dallas passing bans on them.
Hi FatinTexas.
It takes me a couple of months to fill the wastebasket.
Once every few months at the grocery store I pay a nickel for a paper shopping bag instead of using my cloth one, and use it to line the wastebasket.
I don’t know of any stores like the ones you describe except for Walmart and I’ve never been in one of those.
Back in the early 80s the rallying cry in Germany was “Jute statt plastic! (“burlap instead of plastic”), and many Germans have been doing without plastic bags since then. They seem to be more resourceful and mature than Republicans, who are completely confounded by the slightest technical change, and react with emotional outbursts instead of simply getting on with their lives.
There has been a complete crackdown on plastic bags in Germany in the last couple of years, but nobody has been bent out of shape by it.
As you can see, banning plastic bags and straws has become yet another contentious political issue between left and right in today’s United States.
Plastic Bag Law Maps
https://www.plasticbaglaws.org/bagmaps
Since we have a Republican legislature and governor in my state, we are a “preemption” state for plastic bag bans. That means plastic bag bans aren’t allowed. Stores must provide free plastic bags to everyone.
The Republican Party has become a reality denying cult of the most extreme variety. Deprogramming techniques are necessary to fix the cult victims.
hey walmart- i’m not big on your opinion. i think you will proven just flat out wrong. reports of plastic bags in the waterways is decreased.
“For the most part, Californians took in stride the sudden absence of some 13 billion bags that in previous years were handed out at grocery checkout counters and by other retailers of all sorts. ”
Embrace change. it was good to take the lead out of gas. it was good to have women vote. it was good to enact hate crime laws. it was good to have an international ban on atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.
get with it, man!
The bag ban is another example of a big gubmint boondoggle, of which there are way to many in California. Sadly this ain’t the state I grew up in anymore. Small wonder why Arizona and Texas look better to California taxpayers and businesses with each passing day.
California now world’s 5th largest economy, surpassing UK
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/05/05/california-now-worlds-5th-largest-economy-beating-out-uk/583508002/
Texas is way in the rear view mirror, and Arizona is not even visible.
(I kinda like AZ)
If so many people aren’t moving out of California, then why is it looking like the state will lose a representative for the first time ever after the 2020 census?
I was born in CA in the 1940’s—
The more that leave, the better.
The Earths population has tripled from my origins.
Having the 5th largest economy on the planet is just the smartest people want to live in he best place.
I think we should have a rule– you need a primary relative born in CA before 1920 to be a resident– if you don’t qualify, a board will b set up to ok a your talents.
Would defiantly eliminate some of the riffraff.
(sarc)
Is your Id lifting it’s skirt?
“Morbius, something is approaching from the Southwest. It is quite close.”
Monsters from the Id
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2BYyeS-fIU
I remember being told that I was not welcome there, by a recent newcomer to an area that my ancestors inhabited back in the 1830s,
“The last one in closes the door” is the saying the locals coined about the newcomers that started building private gated communities and taking over lakes and waterways too.
Texas might be better for some, it’s mostly private property.
Daybeer, the economy is measured in dollars, GDP, not people.
California probably now has the world’s 5th largest homeless population also. We’re getting up there in numbers with them here in Washington although they aren’t as big a problem as California (yet).
I still see lots and lots of new people moving in from California but keeping the California tax & spend mentality.
Relevant Meme
BTW, the plastic bag ban like the plastic straw ban is a load of crap. No wonder more states are banning plastic bag bans. It’s become a hot button political issue for this year’s elections though. These bans get people of all kinds talking.
And you, Jayboy, are obviously a goddamn idiot. What makes California the way it is is too many people. The Democrats had nothing to do with it. In the USA, people have the right to live wherever they please. And plastic bags do cause sea turtle deaths. They think they are jellyfish and eat them. Then they die.
Goddamn stupid dumb-ass republicans like you and Trump are making a total disaster of the USA and our place in the world.
I apologize for the rant but I do not suffer idiots lightly.
No need to apologize Ron. You were being kind.
-California- #8 in GDP/capita in the USA
-3 of the top 10 universities in the world by noble prize award
-only 17 mosquitos in the whole state
and yes, plenty of bad things.
the great news is that we are not neighbors.
Hey Hickory, here is a table of EV sales and market by US state
https://evadoption.com/ev-market-share/ev-market-share-state/
Ridiculous. You need to travel more, and get some perspective on life. It’s not about California.
It’s funny how much Republicans, who pretend to love America, hate California. It’s a hot burning hate that fuels their thoughts and prayers.
If you watch Fox News or hate ratio you will realize that the Republican party is now all about hate. They hate Democrats, they hate liberals, they hate Jews, they hate anyone that is not white, they hate gays. And to top all that, they claim to be deeply religious. They praise God and Jesus at every opportunity. Does God support their hate?
What the hell is going on? Will someone please explain this obvious contradiction to me?
I think they are lemmings running toward a cliff (I know this is not a lemming trait, just going with the ideology).
With 7.7 billion homo sapiens in massive overshoot, it is a natural way of population reduction.
Being that stupid, removes you from the gene pool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6GHEOOAXRI
Jesus was a (palestinian apocalytpic) jew and was not white and spoke Aramaic.
It’s super crazy that rethuglicans would have hated Jesus if he were alive today!
Well, the reason that Fox news and conservative radio sell hate to their audience is clear: it’s to manipulate their audience into serving the interests of the .1%.
The question is why does the audience go along with it?
Part is wage stagnation for the last 50 years. Part of it is clearly old prejudice. Part of it IMO is the inevitable loss of their religious community.
But I think part of it is boredom. There’s a reason that retired people are a prime audience for this stuff: fear and loathing spice things up…
I agree with the boredom thing. Lack of challenges let the mind wander. If you have no real enemies, you tend to invent them.
This is certainly the case for the anti-vaccination crowd. Only people who have no reason to be afraid of infectious disease could be opposed to vaccinations.
I have heard Germans say Americans are not afraid of war because they have never really experienced it. Johannes Raue, then president, said that on TV when Cheney & Rumsfeld were celebrating the bombing of Baghdad. He told the story of the last time he saw his father, as a twelve year old helping him try to rescue people from burning houses during the bombing of Wuppertal-Barmen.
In A Journal of the Plague Year Daniel Defoe remarks that the London Plague made people much more compassionate towards each other. He says it also killed the religious debates that had split the country.
Main stream entertainment makes the world seem far more dangerous than it really is. We take for granted that police procedurals, medical shows, any drama really, will show weekly murders and disasters, when the life of police, lawyers and most doctors is really very, very boring.
We think it’s harmless, but it distorts people’s perception of the world. The world is far safer than it ever has been, but people think that there are dangers behind every corner.
On important example: Jaws frightened audiences about sharks, and caused enormous harm to shark populations.
Boredom is a real hazard…
Nick,
Interesting point about sharks. Here are two thoughts I have had along the same lines, both connected to the Iraq war:
Exposing small children to a constant stream of TV advertising teaches them that it is ok to lie, if you can get away with it. That is where phrases like “technically, he wasn’t lying” come from.That is what Condoleezza Rice said about Bush’s lie about yellowcake from Niger in his state of the union address.
Cops and robbers TV series run about a half hour. There are clearly defined “good guys” and “bad guys”. The “bad guys” often end up getting shot, solving the problem. There is no concept of compromise, realizing there is more than one side to the story, or any suggestion of non-violent conflict resolution.
This clearly influences American expectations about foreign war. The Pentagon even uses the childish term “bad guys” in its official pronouncements. Many Americans believed Rumsfeld’s claim that the war would end in six weeks, and Wolfowitz’s claim that Iraqis would greet their liberators with bouquets of flowers and shouts of joy.
That was nearly 20 years and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi victims ago. Last week we officially transitioned from liberator to occupier when the Pompeo refused to discuss withdrawal with the Iraqi government. Nobody batted an eye.
Yes, advertising lies are an extraordinary thing for everyone to accept. How can we institutionalize Caveat Emptor like this?
And, yes, TV, movies and games clearly devalue human life and trivialize violence.
How many scenes do we see of men getting shot? Men’s lives are so devalued that the action usually doesn’t even slow down to acknowledge the loss. Violence towards women (and children) is considered less acceptable, but that means that endless plots are about them being threatened.
The Republican Party is an actual cult, with Trump as cult leader and Fox News and hate radio as the primary propaganda operations. Study cults to understand them. They are run to make the leaders rich and powerful, and they operate by brainwashing the low-level cult members into handing everything over to the cult leaders. Making the cult followers repeat asinine idiocy is part of testing that they are brainwashed into obedience so that they will gladly suffer abuse by the cult leader.
It takes a big man to show that he cares about more than just himself.
To a women that comes more naturally.
Are you big, or just real little (like that orange guy behind the curtain).
One-third of recent global methane increase comes from tropical Africa
The results indicate that about a third of the global atmospheric methane increase observed between 2010-2016 originates in Africa’s tropics. Most of this came from East Africa, including a pronounced, short-term boost in emissions from the Sudd, one of the world’s largest wetlands, in South Sudan.
“Our research highlights the importance of Africa, and even individual wetlands, in terms of their contributions to the global methane budget,” says Lunt. But, he says, it’s also important to note that the study period only dates back to 2010, the year GOSAT came online. “Based on this work, we cannot say anything about what started the rise in 2007,” says Lunt. The team also cannot yet account for the source of additional increases in methane emissions they observed in East Africa. “Agriculture or other wetlands are likely suspects,” says Lunt, “but we need more evidence to prove this.”
https://www.egu.eu/news/560/one-third-of-recent-global-methane-increase-comes-from-tropical-africa/
Yep, most of the 83 million people we added to the planet last year (population of Germany), were from Africa and Asia.
Jan 10, 2020
On Sunday [Jan 5], Iraq’s parliament passed a resolution calling for the removal of American forces and other foreign troops from the country…
Just 5 days later, the US State Dept issued a formal response-
‘The State Department said in a statement Friday that the U.S. will not hold discussions with Iraq regarding American troop withdrawal from the country.’
Its pretty clear. We are there at our own pleasure, not in support of their attempt to provide ‘security’ while they rebuild their country.
The same can be said for the Iranian presence.
In the long run, Iran will win this confrontation, resoundingly.
Interesting linguistic note: Baghdad means “God given” in Middle Persian. “Bagh” like Russian bog, “god” and “dad” like Latin data, “things that have been given”. Confer the Russian name Bogdan, which has the same etymology, and the patronymic Bogdanovich.
Why would an Arab country have a Persian name for its capital? Food for thought.
On a related note, I have an old friend named Aghdami, an former McDonald-Douglas technician who was horribly tortured by the mad mullahs but escaped on foot via Turkey. I noticed his name was like the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, so I asked him if he thought the region was Armenian or Azeri, and he replied the the whole region belonged to Persia. xD
Is McDonald-Douglas the folks that make those military grade whoppers? /s
maybe no place actually belongs to anyone
Bagh means garden in Persian.
Nice to know, but not relevant.
To quote Wikipedia:
Arab authors, realizing the pre-Islamic origins of Baghdad’s name, generally looked for its roots in Persian.[8] They suggested various meanings, the most common of which was “bestowed by God”.[8] Modern scholars generally tend to favor this etymology,[8] which views the word as a compound of bagh “god” and dād “given”,[12][13] In Old Persian the first element can be traced to boghu and is related to Slavic bog “god”,[8].[14] A similar term in Middle Persian is the name Mithradāt (Mihrdād in New Persian), known in English by its Hellenistic form Mithridates, meaning “gift of Mithra” (dāt is the more archaic form of dād, related to Latin dat and English donor[8]). There are a number of other locations in the wider region whose names are compounds of the word bagh, including Baghlan and Bagram in Afghanistan, Baghshan in Iran,[15] and Baghdati in Georgia, which likely share the same etymological origins.[16][17]
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7863983/Australian-bushfires-killed-800-MILLION-animals-one-state-alone.html
“Only” 800 million animals killed in Aussie Bushfires…so far.
horrible way to die…
mapping the smoke-
https://graphics.reuters.com/AUSTRALIA-BUSHFIRES-SMOK/0100B4W52R7/index.html
Great link Hickory. Brilliant simulation.
Solar thermal (passive and active) low temp collection is at least three times more efficient than solar PV at collecting energy. Yet often houses use solar PV attached to a heat pump to produce thermal heating for the house and hot water. Or they use grid electricity (inefficient and polluting). The complexity of thermal heating is lower, more easily maintained and reliable.
Awnings and reflective siding (white or light colors) do a great job protecting buildings and windows from heat gain. Yet many buildings do not use them.
Steel frame buildings with lots of windows are about R2 in insulation value. High heat loss and high heat gain.
Just some things to think about.
Okay, some thoughts about it.
As someone who had a solar water heating system (installed it myself), I can tell you that it was nothing but trouble. It froze in winter, boiled over in summer, required expensive antifreeze that was lost when it boiled over, corroded, pump failed, … When the solar thermal collector panel failed, it was a struggle to get it off the roof and dispose of it. Solar just sits there and works.
Poor and faulty design. No reason for them to freeze or boil over unless it’s an amateur hack job on design and installation.
GF is absolutely right on this.
Foolproof waters heaters abound.
It really only takes common plumbing skill to be secure.
Have had a solar water heater since 2007. Had to have the coolant recharged once for about $50. Otherwise, free hot water (North Carolina).
So simple, so much better energy return than PV (four times is my understanding). Also works much better than PV where solar resource is more intermittent.
Electricity is transmissible and it makes sense to generate it in big solar farms. Hot water isn’t.
PV DIRECT hot water is the way to go for modest needs. Super simple. Works on cloudy days. No freezing. Panels can be far away. Only downside is you need 2 to 4 times the Area and limited code approved drop in systems till mid this year. Trivial for the DIY inclined.
Active solar thermal is unreliable, like anything with liquids. Never worth it.
Obviously designing a house to avoid unwanted heat gain and use desired heat gain is worthwhile, but rarely possible for retrofits.
30 year buildings? Are the designers and builders criminals? Are 1000 year buildings possible?
Keynote Speaker: Trends analyst – Construction, real estate, buildings design: energy saving
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EOnyM6icg8
That’s a wrap: A look back at 2019 and the past decade
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2020/01/thats-a-wrap-a-look-back-at-2019-and-the-past-decade/
With climate change, coupled with a human population that has pretty much filled up every lush valley, we shouldn’t be surprised to be seeing increasing episodes of environmental tragedy running right up to the doorstep, and seeping out of TV.
Episodes like Australia is going through right now.
Most people only are altered in their perspective by events that happen within about 50 miles from them, even with TV, it seems.
Most Australians do live within 50 miles of these massive fires.
I wonder if the hell will change their perspective on climate and coal.
https://www.france24.com/en/20200110-bushfire-crisis-forces-a-reckoning-on-australia-s-regressive-climate-politics
I.Mike?
Ultimately—no, because, in the long run, the rebuilding process will provide a stimulus to juice up the nation’s economy.
” the rebuilding process will provide a stimulus to juice up the nation’s economy.”
What economy? Global warming is likely to result in an increased frequency of severe weather events that inflict debilitating costs on economies. Couple that with a dwindling supply of net energy from petroleum and I don’t see how economies are going to be juiced.
Looking back at global oil production after WWII, it was pretty obvious that there was a lot of cheap, easy to get petroleum to rebuild after the war. In the event of the need to rebuild on a massive scale in the future, where is the energy to come from? Coal?
Georgios may be correct, sad to say.
People are proud to see themselves as clever,
but they really only learn what they want to.
Money earning ‘trumps’ doing things for the greater good.
On the other hand Georgios, do most individual voters benefit from the coal exporting business, or is just the big companies involved?
State of the Climate 2018 -Australia
http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate/australias-changing-climate.shtml
The forest fire danger index/points per decade is illuminating.
Rain pattern changes are also shown.
Hi Hickory,
Georgios is correct in my opinion.
BYD Delivers 100th All-Electric Truck In The U.S.
The 100th truck will go to work delivering beverages for Anheuser-Busch around the San Francisco Bay area to retail accounts such as grocery and convenience stores on a daily basis.
https://insideevs.com/news/392058/byd-100-electric-truck-us/
New rare earth processing facility opening in Colorado. Very informative article, at least to me.
https://www.denverpost.com/2020/01/12/wheat-ridge-rare-earth-ore-plant-electronics/
Reneweconomy.com.au is back from their Christmas (mid-summer in Australia) break:
The climate science deniers spreading misinformation about Australian bushfires
Australia rooftop solar installs total 2.13GW in 2019 after huge December rush
Denmark secured 50% of its power supply from wind and solar in 2019
Isn’t the long range plan in Denmark to use a lot of bio-energy to run the country? Converting forest and land growth to energize a high tech energy hungry civilization is not sustainable and is definitely eco-destructive.
Denmark producing record amounts of biomass energy
Danes importing significantly more wood from the US and Canada
Last year, a record amount of energy produced in Denmark came from biomass – the burning of wood, straw and other biological material – the country’s biggest source of green energy.
New statistics show that Denmark produced 182 petajoules (PJ) of energy from biomass in 2018, which is 33 percent more than five years ago and triple that produced in 1995.
Half of the imported wood pellets came from the Baltic states, while the US and Canada accounted for 19 percent – almost quintuple of what it was five years ago.
Biomass accounted for 75 percent of Denmark’s sustainable energy consumption in 2018, while the remainder came from sun, wind and water sources. Sustainable sources accounted for about 33 percent of Denmark’s energy consumption.
The news comes two months after several leading international scientists claimed that Denmark was committing ‘climate fraud’ by considering the burning of biomass as being sustainable
http://cphpost.dk/news/denmark-producing-record-amounts-of-biomass-energy.html
Found via Auke Hoekstra’s Twitter feed:
Germany’s energy consumption and power mix in charts
Skin In The Game: Tesla’s Elon Musk Redefines The Automotive CEO
Depleting the stupidity resource.
Avoided energy is the most abundant resource we have and definitely the cheapest. Amory Lovins shows that reduced energy intensity has had 30X the impact of renewable growth.
So why are we pursuing additional energy so enthusiastically? We should be pursing better integrated design and system design to quickly reduce expended energy, which can reduce upstream energy demand up to several times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTguV2ORmtE&t=539s
Every time we use less material, less energy, or eliminate the need for that energy/material/activity the destruction to the world is reduced. No need to wait 20 years to have some effect, it can start right now and continue forward.
For example, building insulation saves over 1500 times the energy of manufacture. Technical insulation has saved even more energy than building insulation.
Now we need to do the same in our relationship to the natural world. It’s stupid to destroy the natural world of the planet upon which you live and totally depend. Eliminate the stupidity.
“Avoided energy is the most abundant resource we have and definitely the cheapest.”
No, we need more-and-more-and-more power. Coal, gas, wood pellets, doesn’t matter. As the world gets hotter, buying an air conditioner is perhaps the most popular individual response to climate change, and air conditioners are almost uniquely power-hungry appliances: a small unit cooling a single room, on average, consumes more power than running four fridges, while a central unit cooling an average house uses more power than 15. Last year in Beijing, during a heatwave, 50% of the power capacity was going to air conditioning,” says John Dulac, an analyst at the International Energy Agency. “These are ‘oh shit’ moments.”
“The awful irony of this feedback loop: warmer temperatures lead to more air conditioning; more air conditioning leads to warmer temperatures. The problem posed by air conditioning resembles, in miniature, the problem we face in tackling the climate crisis. The solutions that we reach for most easily only bind us closer to the original problem.”
BTW: By 1938 only one out of every 400 American homes had an air conditioner; today it is closer to nine out of 10.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/29/the-air-conditioning-trap-how-cold-air-is-heating-the-world
we will need secondary air conditioners to cool the hot air expelled by our primary ones.
and maybe we can save our urban heat islands for use in the winter.
Yooo Hooo, Doug. The planetary air conditioner is going away. Loss of the Arctic Ice Cap in summer will be the equivalent of putting another trillion tons (1000 Gt) into the atmosphere. As the snow line moves further north due to warm temps, that will double. That was just albedo change. Next comes the increases in CO2 and methane from the vast stretches of permafrost and shallow Arctic seas.
Makes the air conditioner scenarios look like child’s play.
BTW, you might want to contact Amory Lovins about that air conditioner problem. He can probably reduce it by a factor of 10 or more. 🙂
Oh yeah, Boston appears to have hit 70F for the previous two days. It was only 64 here. Shades of the future are now.
I saw a ladybug flying around yesterday. Should be below freezing with snow cover here, but no snow and no ice on the lakes. Maybe next year or later in February for a few days or a week or two.
The hugely positive Arctic Oscillation has all of the cold locked up and building in the Arctic, which has been wonderful for developing the Arctic Sea Ice this winter. In fact, 2020 has the second highest sea ice extent since 2011. That much ice will help ensure it’s potency and should shut Greta up for a few months at least.
Sorry Alex (and everyone else).
The arctic sea ice extent as of this date (Jan 11 2020) has only been less in a total of 3 years, in the last 4 decades.
https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/
“So why are we pursuing additional energy so enthusiastically?”
What do you mean by this.
Almost all of the growth/capita in electrical consumption occurred in ‘developing’ countries since 1990.
Many other places, including N.America has been flat since then.
Of course that is just a part of the energy pie- electricity.
Seems to me most of the energy activity in the USA is about replacing replacing coal, and slowly electrifying transport.
I do agree with the gist of your point.
Huge government incentives should be made available for energy efficiency retrofit of buildings.
[maybe instead of wars]
Windows are very expensive- but they are weakest spot generally
Single pane: R-value 0.9
Double pane with .5-inch air space: R-value 2.0
Triple pane with .5-inch air space: R-value 3.2
Double-pane with argon and low-E coating: R-value 3.8
Triple-pane with argon and low-E coating: R-value 5.4
By comparison, a standard 2 x 4 stud wall with batt insulation and wallboard and wood siding has an R-value of R-12 to R-15
“Seems to me most of the energy activity in the USA is about replacing replacing coal, and slowly electrifying transport. ”
Seems like you did not get the gist of the video. Why replace coal when you can eliminate it. As Lovins stated just changing the piping and pumps on the planet can eliminate as much energy as half the coal plants produce. Elimination by design and by systems changes is permanent. Adding more power is the least efficient and most expensive way to do it. Up front elimination makes eventual transistion so much easier and reduces GHG as it goes.
Oh yeah, Lovins group developed better windows.
“The latest reglazing, in 2005–09, uses xenon fill and achieves center-of-glass R-values of 12.5 for all units except three that achieve R-20.0 via six selective surfaces.”
The whole gist of the talk was that taking individual component efficiencies was not the way to do it, the whole system must be evaluated and integrated from the end point upward.
That makes power generation one of the last and weakest things to be assessed and changed. Much better cheaper and faster to eliminate from the other end.
Take the server example (probably from another of his talks), where making changes in the programming, architecture and cooling gives up to a 100 to 1 change in the power needed at the generation station. That means that 2 to 4 percent of global power plants could be eliminated with efficient server systems.
That R-12 wall saves 66 million BTU of heat energy per 1000 square feet every year in my area compared to an uninsulated wall. Which if one goes upstream is probably closer to 100 million BTU per year per 1000 square feet.
R2 windows lose energy about equal to the wall surface for residence, so improving them or insulating them at night in the winter (day in the summer) makes a huge difference. Houses are usually about R8 to R12 overall in modern times.
Considering that those glass and steel office buildings are in total about R2, they need much better design.
Just think about this, a car that uses 0.1 kWh per mile can run in it’s own solar footprint.
Gone fishing,
We want to eliminate all the coal, so we can do the efficiency improvements and replace coal and natural gas still needed with wind and solar. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. 🙂
Agree efficiency should be the first approach, works well for buildings especially for heating and cooling. Pretty difficult to eliminate the need for energy, so some form of energy might be needed, no? Think winter in far north on cloudy weeks.
“We can walk and chew gum at the same time. ”
“Pretty difficult to eliminate the need for energy, so some form of energy might be needed, no? Think winter in far north on cloudy weeks.”
Mostly when you respond, I don’t think you comprehend what I or others (in this case Amory Lovins) are saying. Do you spend much time thinking about it or do you just fall back on your predetermined views? These are complex relationships and your all or nothing belittling grade school remarks about bubble gum and winter in the north do nothing to add to any discussion. They just make you look shallow and thoughtless.
“So some form of energy might be needed, no?” You are being patrionizing, do have anything to actually add to the discussion, pro and cons to integrated efficiency gains maybe. Something beside empty words?
Gone fishing,
I was agreeing with you. Sorry for trying to make a poor joke.
I am glad that you never are patronizing. 🙂
Do you believe that all energy use can be replaced by improving systems?
I agree it is a very good idea to maximize energy efficiency, but there are limits to how far this will take us.
My point is quite simple, for the rest of the energy needed we should find and alternative to fossil fuel, in my opinion.
You seem to disagree.
I do not think it is an either/or choice, we should do both.
Dennis, you are the only one saying that things like efficiency gains, substitution of materials, low temperature chemistries are exclusionary of renewables. That is your conclusion, not mine.
Personally, I think elimination is better than reduction. I also think reduction and system change has a lot of unexplored territory and is far cheaper (monetarily, environmentally and biologically).
Dennis, what is more important to you? A high tech civilization or a living planet?
Gone fishing,
I agree with you.
And you gave the impression that PV and wind are a bad idea, sorry for misinterpreting your message.
As I suggested both approaches should be used. Reduce energy consumption with a better systems approach, what cannot be eliminated by that method, utilize non-fossil fuel energy to replace fossil fuels in the least environmentally damaging way possible.
Of course you will have some problem with such an approach. 🙂
Yes, both low cost efficiency AND medium cost renewable generation are needed, and speed is important here. Which is why both should be pursued in parallel.
Systems thinking will tell you that efficiency is powerful.
It will also tell you that there is a powerful synergy between wind, solar and EVs, and they should all be pursued ASAP.
Just because someone tries to look realistically at a system does not mean they think it is good or bad. Helps to get all the ducks in the proper order and give realistic expectations.
If people were to actually examine the planet they live upon, they would trash mechanical-electrical technology completely and go biological. However, that will not happen so we are stuck with choosing the best electro-mechanical systems we can find and try to do the least damage. That means severe reductions in population and consumption so some can have all those “conveniences” for a while longer.
However, with at least 80 million new consumers added to the planet each and every year, the consumption/destruction will be phenomenal over the next decade as we get near the next billion people.
Just a couple of billion additional PV panels each year for the newcomers will have to be added if they use half the energy that Americans use. More likely most of it will be fossil fuel driven.
Plus an additional 32 million light vehicles on the roads and lots of motorcycles each year.
Just feeding and clothing 10 new NYC’s each year is a big job, let alone housing them and protecting them from each other.
Each NYC reaches far out into the countryside and into the world to consume and produce products.
If everybody new gets 4 kWh of battery storage that is 320 GWh of additional batteries each year, beyond the baseload. Luckily (I guess) the global lithium battery production capacity is approaching 500 GWh and growing.
All that and more on top of the already large and growing consumption baseline load.
Mind boggling.
Just look around at all the things you “need” to live and multiply that by 80 million or some factor of 80 million for the additional ones.
“fast as possible” should be “best as possible for all the species”
That would change the game dramatically.
Mostly we will get “as much as possible” and the night sky will be covered in satellites so we can have a Netflix world.
Stop dumbassing, GoneFishing. You are smarter than this. Solar PV is more efficient than biological photosynthesis. A heat pump is more efficient than biological heating. Obviously efficiency is the best, but that does not mean primitivism.
As for population, sex ed + contraception + women’s liberation is the proven solution.
Gonefishing
For once we are in total agreement!
We should be pursing better integrated design and system design to quickly reduce expended energy, which can reduce upstream energy demand up to several times.
Reducing consumption makes much better sense than adding more capacity. I think heavily taxing energy consumption is the most straightforward solution.
I don’t know why reducing consumption vs replacing FF generation is being framed as an either or choice. Obviously we need to do both, and do both ASAP.
If we’re going to electrify transportation, space heating, and industrial process heat it’s going to be hard to reduce the absolute level of overall generation, even with maximum efficiency: that residual needs to be decarbonized.
Retrofits require a lot of hidden management costs by many millions of property owners (especially DIY projects, which appear to be cheap but aren’t, and in any case are a relatively small portion of projects) – homeowners and small commmercial building owners simply don’t have that much “bandwidth”, and it’s going to take time. We’re talking a vast number of small projects, many of which will create relatively small savings (even if the % ROI is relatively high) and require planning and management by people who mostly have more than enough on their plate just living their lives. Finally, building renovation is far more expensive than properly done new construction, (even restricting the cost analysis to direct costs).
Generation is mostly centralized and susceptible to relatively simple decision making and management. It can be done relatively quickly and cheaply. Yes, cheaply – a major program of PV and wind installation would not be that expensive, relatively speaking.
So: why are we arguing? We need to do both efficiency & conservation and low-carbon generation, in parallel, and ASAP.
“So: why are we arguing? ”
The argument is fictitious, invented by commenters who reacted to things they don’t like to hear, then extrapolated that to another topic I brought up.
Similar reactions occur if I mention the temperature around 1750 or the actual forcing of methane.
Lots of emotional response instead of discussion.
“We need to do both efficiency & conservation and low-carbon generation, in parallel, and ASAP.”
As long as that We is expanded to cover the rest of life on this planet, not just us. No species is an island. It’s not all about us, in fact it is hardly about humans at all. With that view in mind, “we” would know what to do.
islandboy, don’t forget to add Adani mine production to your spreadsheet. 😉
SIEMENS RESISTS CLIMATE PROTESTS OVER AUSTRALIA COAL PROJECT
German engineering giant Siemens says that despite protests by climate activists it will fulfill a deal to help develop a huge coal mine in Australia. The controversial open-cast mine in Queensland, owned by India’s Adani group, is to go operational next year. With a planned annual output of up to 60m tonnes it is set to become one of the world’s biggest coal mines.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51089468
Just a reminder, my spreadsheets, not the ones I take from the EIA web site, are strictly for renewable energy with a focus on solar and wind. That focuses on things that have the possibility of reducing emissions. I’ll leave tracking the “bad stuff” up to somebody else. 😉
OK, here’s one for you. Doesn’t matter, we’ve got a whole decade to turn things around (according to the optimists).
NORWAY’S HYPOCRISY SHOWS OIL AGE NOT OVER YET
Norway’s climate change hypocrisy is breathtaking. The nation projects an image of being at the vanguard of combating climate change, with its $US1 trillion sovereign wealth fund declaring last year it would divest companies focused solely on oil and gas exploration. The attempt to dominate the moral highground of fighting climate change would be admirable if not for Prime Minister Erna Solberg last week officially opening the Johan Sverdrup oil field – Norway’s third largest oil field. Ever.
Operator Equinor says the project – which will ultimately ramp up to 660,000 barrels a day – says the new barrels will be produced with carbon dioxide emissions less than 4 per cent of the world average due to the use of hydroelectric energy to power the project. That’s green-washing at its finest. There is a big difference between the emissions intensity of oil production and the carbon dioxide eventually liberated by products like petrol which will be refined from the barrels delivered from Johan Sverdrup.
https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/norway-s-hypocrisy-shows-oil-age-not-over-yet-20200113-p53qz0
We’re all in this together. We’re all carbon sinners. Keep your stick on the ice as you melt through.
Brought to you by the Church of the Holy Renewable. Please donate as we need a new battery for the church EV bus.
You’ve made it clear that you don’t ride the on renewable bus, GF.
I think Fish misses Fred
That’s funny Hickory. Good to keep your humorous side going.
I was hoping for electric trolleys and passenger steam trains but we are still stuck with automobiles and aircraft. Maybe I will visit California one day and take that bus ride. Here all those “renewables” seem to just feed the grid.
“Here all those “renewables” seem to just feed the grid.”
Consider me among those who take the wild stance that having renewable energy sources, such as hydro, wind, solar,
“just feeding the grid” as you put it,
is exactly one of two things that they are good for.
The other is direct consumption of the energy produced at its source.
Until we have downsized close to zero population, zero GDP, zero energy consumption, this is the best deal we have on energy production, and distribution.
You seem to have the desire to see it all disappear before we downsize. Not me.
btw- do you wash your clothes by hand? I’d like to see a video of that. Well, maybe not. Or do you just like to preach?
So basically you want to spend a dollar to add a dollar’s worth of energy to the system versus spending nothing to a few dollars to remove the need for tens or even hundreds of dollars of energy in the system. I won’t even get into the temporal factor problems.
Have fun on the energy cliff.
For the more astute, here are Lovins lectures given at Stanford.
Buildings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5txQlEI7bc&t=461s
Industry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kUih_t9aCs
Transportation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjcWx7U1sjQ
Implementation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW6gWZD4394
Implications
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H8ZHgkY8L8
No GF. You do not define my positions on this with any accuracy.
Got to be way more accurate than your stories, personal affronts and estimates.
“You seem to have the desire to see it all disappear before we downsize. Not me.
btw- do you wash your clothes by hand? I’d like to see a video of that. Well, maybe not. Or do you just like to preach?”
HIGH TEMPERATURES DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING WILL BE DRAMATIC EVEN FOR TARDIGRADES
Global warming, a major aspect of climate change, is already causing a wide range of negative impacts on many habitats of our planet. It is thus of the utmost importance to understand how rising temperatures may affect animal health and welfare. A research group from the Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen has just shown that tardigrades are very vulnerable to long-term high temperature exposures. Animals, which in their desiccated state are best known for their extraordinary tolerance to extreme environments.
https://phys.org/news/2020-01-high-temperatures-due-global-tardigrades.html
Neighborhood walkabout scenery this morning.
Now in some places, majority of places by the end of the decade.
What to do with all those blades? Hope someone figures it out.
Here is an article on the problems of disposing of wind turbine blades, something that could become a major problem as wind energy is further developed to take over a significant portion of world energy.
It’s a bit over the top, but a subject that needs a lot more consideration.
The ending sends a clear message of degrowth versus continued growth.
THE RENEWABLE GREEN ENERGY MYTH: 50,000 Tons Of Non-Recyclable Wind Turbine Blades Dumped In The Landfill
Lastly, the world should have used the energy that has been investing in wind-solar and put it into transitioning our society to a smaller footprint or DEGROWTH. That was the smart and logical move. However, we are taking the last bit of good fossil fuel energy and putting into Non-Recyclable “supposedly renewable” Green Technology Boondoggles that will become serious liabilities in the future as we won’t have the available energy to properly disassemble and dispose of the tens of thousands of wind turbines dotting the landscape.
https://srsroccoreport.com/the-renewable-green-energy-myth-50000-tons-of-non-recyclable-wind-turbine-blades-dumped-in-the-landfill/
This is a false and dishonest story from an “oil is essential” lunatic. Nobody puts wind turbine blades in landfills. They get recycled for metal content.
As of 2017, in the USA about-
13.9 quadrillion BTU of coal is used. Of this, 91 % goes to generate electricity
36.2 quadrillion BTU of petrol is used. Of this, 92% goes to transport.
Together these two uses of coal and petrol (91 and 92% respectively), comprises 46% of Total USA energy use [and are huge contributors to global CO2 emission]
It is these two fossil fuel consumption sectors which we should prioritize replacement of, with less damaging sources such as solar and wind energy, as quickly as feasible.
Some have advocated no replacement, just retirement of the energy sources- In essence forced degrowth.
Even if we just replace 70% of the energy use, with the other 30% (for sake of discussion) coming via forced degrowth,
replacing that 70% is a huge task, and we are very far behind schedule on getting this transition underway.
It is a huge task, on par with industrial effort that supplied the combined allied forces in ww2.
How is degrowth in the energy sector achieved?
Some relatively easy steps, that can be voluntary, forced (by energy taxes or use penalties) or incentivized (tax credits, subsidies).
This includes residential, public and commercial building upgrades for energy efficiency. This is a very big job, that has been proceeding at only a turtles pace since the 1970’s.
It also includes ‘living local’, and smaller. Forgoing all optional travel by road or air. Purchasing as much food and other goods from local sources. This includes forgoing imported foods, or foods from more than a couple hundred miles away. Sharing vehicles. Living close to work. Giving up on fashionable goods and all types of holiday and frivolous consumption. And smaller families of course.
Energy degrowth can also be imposed by less ‘easy’ steps. Rationing, blackouts, pricing mechanisms beyond the affordability of the vast majority, shortages.
I think energy degrowth is going to happen to some degree regardless of whether it is by deliberate societal choice, or simply enforced by shortage. There are big choices to make, and work to get done. On a personal level, how you vote and how you spend your time and money, will affect how it pans out.
Forced energy degrowth = insulation in technical applications and buildings.
I’d call i cutting out the fat and getting a little leaner and meaner. Sounds better.
The whole story reminds m of that book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”. The author claims the difference between rich people and poor people is that rich people buy things that make them rich, and poor people buy things that make them FEEL rich.
A lot of the energy consumption you see these days belongs to the second category. Overheating a poorly insulated house makes you FEEL rich. Wearing a sweater and investing in insulation makes you rich. Driving an SUV makes you FEEL rich. Riding a bike makes you rich (and healthy).
It isn’t just energy either. Look at at what the states are asking congress for in road building:
https://twitter.com/KostelecPlan/status/1214215344698601472
It’s written in bureaucratese, but the translation is, “Give us more money, don’t make us do transit, and don’t judge the performance of our investments”. Feels good.
Yes sir!
So much room for improvement. Time is short and the anchors have not been lifted (or removed).
Sad part is we could have been making ICE’s that get over 100 mpg and carry 4 or 5 people. So much waste is going on even after we know how to change it.
We can build EV’s that get over 200 mpg equivalent, but we won’t. We will build bigger and better batteries instead.
A friend of mine talks of the entitled generation. I think one-third the people on this planet think they are entitled and another third wants to join them.
2019 Was a Record Year for Ocean Temperatures, Data Show-
‘Last year was the warmest year on record for the world’s oceans, part of a long-term warming trend, according to a study released Monday . “If you look at the ocean heat content, 2019 is by far the hottest, 2018 is second, 2017 is third, 2015 is fourth, and then 2016 is fifth,” said Kevin E. Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and an author on the study The study, published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, follows an announcement last week by European scientists that Earth’s surface temperatures in 2019 were the second-hottest on record . Since the middle of last century, the oceans have absorbed roughly 93 percent of the excess heat caused by greenhouse gases from human activities such as burning coal for electricity.’
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/climate/ocean-temperatures-climate-change.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage
Did the Vikings get good accurate measurements of the ocean temperatures 1000 years ago?
Troll alert.
“Did the Vikings get good accurate measurements of the ocean temperatures 1000 years ago?”
No, but they would have been able to count your working brain cells, even if most of then only managed 1-10. 🙂
When your job security depends on believing a lie, you have no choice but to believe it.
Oh good gravy, you know that is bullshit. No one’s job depends on what they believe. You may have to pretend that you believe the lie, but nothing prevents you from knowing that a lie is a lie.
Almost everyone who works for Donald Trump knows he is a habitual liar. But they all pretend that he is pure truthteller. And all their jobs depend on them pretending that Trump is something he obviously is not.
GREENHOUSE GASES FROM OIL AND GAS PROJECTED TO CONTINUE TO INCREASE
“The fracking boom across the country has resulted in greenhouse gas emissions steadily climbing each year since the US has become the largest producer of oil and gas in the world. As a result of the boom, there are plans over the next five years to build or extend 157 petroleum and natural gas drilling sites and chemical manufacturing and refinery plants across the country. That expansion will result in greenhouse gas emissions across the U.S. totaling 990.5 million tons per year by 2025.”
https://phys.org/news/2020-01-greenhouse-gases-oil-gas.html
The essential problem is that incompetent idiot investors keep financing these projects, even though all the companies involved are losing money on the projects and many have already defaulted on their debts and declared bankruptcy. If the stream of dumb money dries up, none of this unprofitable infrastructure will be built.
Oh Dear, not good for PR!
30 YEAR BOEING QUALITY MANAGER SAYS “FLY SOMETHING ELSE”, REFUSES TO FLY ON 787 DREAMLINER
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/30-year-boeing-quality-manager-says-fly-something-else-refuses-fly-787-dreamliner
Boeing 777-200
60 people are injured after a plane dumped jet fuel, hitting six schools around Los Angeles
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/14/us/jet-fuel-dump-elementary-school-trnd/index.html
That move from Seattle to Illinois has put the company out of the hands of the engineers and science people, and into the hands of finance.
We are seeing the results.
Just doing things a little differently can make a big difference.
Want to get rid of 20 percent of global electric power (or more)? Big pipes and small pumps.
Big Pipes, Small Pumps: Interface, Inc.
Factor Ten Engineering Case Study
https://d231jw5ce53gcq.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/OCS_BigPipes_SmallPumps_Interface_2011.pdf
CLIMATE CRISIS FILLS TOP FIVE PLACES OF WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM’S RISKS REPORT
After a month in which bushfires have raged out of control in Australia, Brende said there was a need for urgent action. “We have only a very small window and if we don’t use that window in the next 10 years we will be moving around the deckchairs on the Titanic.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/15/climate-crisis-environment-top-five-places-world-economic-forum-risks-report
Not content to fuck up the surface environment, we’re now working flat out on the sea floor. Shouldn’t complain, after all, we need those metals for our fancy “green” toys. Right?
STUDY WEIGHS DEEP-SEA MINING’S IMPACT ON MICROBES
The essential roles that microbes play in deep-sea ecosystems are at risk from the potential environmental impacts of mining, a new paper in Limnology and Oceanography reports. The study reviews what is known about microbes in these environments and assesses how mining could impact their important environmental roles. “The push for deep-sea mining has really accelerated in the last few years, and it is crucial that policy makers and the industry understand these microbes and the services they provide.”
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-01/blfo-sw011420.php
Batteries for EVs are one of the big justifications to rape and destroy the deep ocean areas. Fact is people would do that anyway, but the renewable energy movement has given a nice leverage to move it along faster now since the planet is in jeopardy. Ironic?
EARTH HAD ITS HOTTEST DECADE ON RECORD IN 2010s
The decade that just ended was by far the hottest ever measured on Earth, capped off by the second-warmest year on record, two U.S. agencies reported Wednesday. And scientists said they see no end to the way man-made climate change keeps shattering records.
“If you think you’ve heard this story before, you haven’t seen anything yet,” Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said at the close of a decade plagued by raging wildfires, melting ice and extreme weather that researchers have repeatedly tied to human activity. “This is real. This is happening.”
https://phys.org/news/2020-01-fever-earth-hottest-decade-2010s.html
I live in the Texas Hill Country, along the valley of the Blanco river, about an hour sw of Austin. Our coldest temp this winter has been 16. It was 77 today. My peach trees are budding and in the past two days started blooming. Last year this same tree lost its early blooming to a subsequent freeze and, for the first time, did not fruit. It’s looking like that will happen again.
Temperature variability is big concern as things heat up. The Jetstream has become slower and more wavy causing warm and cold regions to reverse for periods of time.
Of even more concern is variability added on top of warming to create disastrous heat waves.
The role of increasing temperature variability in European summer heatwaves
The simulated increase in variability also implies an increase in extremes relative to mean climatic conditions. For illustration, a 50% increase in the standard deviation of our long-term JJA temperature series (sigma =0.94 C) would raise the probability of a 2003-like event (T 3.85 C with respect to 1990–2002) by a factor of ,150. For an event with T 5 C, it would increase by a factor of ,5,100. This tremendous sensitivity of extremes to the width of the statistical distribution has led to the statement “variability is more important than averages”
http://www.sturmforum.ch/forum_uploads/incoming/20070221_153539.pdf
There is always a January Thaw just like Indian Summer, going back centuries, whether there is climate change or not. In the ’90s in Boston it was in the 60’s and 70’s for two weeks in the winter. It made all the lilacs start budding. These kinds of things happen naturally.
Not true. Weather patterns have been massively altered in recent decades.
The 90s is after global warming started effing up the weather.