Global warming

[Laniakea]

Zero. I am amazed at how those that hate progress do not understand how it works at all. Hydrogen as a fuel is a new technology and tis it currently limited to mostly California as a testing ground. That makes sense since California has high density areas of population and also lots of open space. You need a high population to test ideas when you are going to start out with a very low percentage of people using a product. Here is the current state of hydrogen plants in California. It does not look as if it has been abandoned at all.

It makes far more sense to do a limited testing of a product before releasing it to the general public and that is what they are doing:

Hydrogen Refueling Stations in California

www.energy.ca.gov

And only in California. Obviously not ready for primetime. Even biden doesn't promote hydrogen vehicles. Always EVs.

 

[Valjean]

So what would you like to see happen to the population?

Managed, passive decrease -- before resource depletion and competition; war, climate change and pollution decrease our numbers for us.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Nope! If the energy was used directly, it would power homes and businesses. In the scenario you lay out, the wind and solar power are used to move water around to then be used for hydroelectric power. That's called using it indirectly. It would be far better just to use the wind and solar power to power the homes and businesses rather than power another source to do what had already been done by the wind and solar setups.

One more time. In the future we will have many more green plants. They will make an excess of power. More than we need at times But there will also be times when it is cloudy. Or the wind will not be blowing enough. For those periods stored power would be used.

Do you not understand this? The ability to sort power is a must in the future too. All such storing methods today are still in the experimental stage. We need to get the bugs out before we have to rely on it. This is called "planning ahead". Once again, plants right now do not make excess power, but some day they will.

 

[Subduction Zone]

And only in California. Obviously not ready for primetime. Even biden doesn't promote hydrogen vehicles. Always EVs.

I never claimed that it was. By the way, hydrogen is another way that excess power may be stored in the future. It is always best to have several choices available. Hydrogen vehicle technology is still highly experimental. We may never go with hydrogen fueled cars, but we may still find another use for hydrogen.

 

[Valjean]

I don't think so. China is building coal fired utility plants faster than the spread of covid19 through a nursing home.

I don't follow. I'm missing the relevance, here.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I don't follow. I'm missing the relevance, here.

It was simply a Tu Quoque fallacy. There does not appear to be any rational argument against going green

There is some good news and bad news about the temperature of the Earth. The good news is that there is a bit of a solar cycle and we appear to be at the top of this one. The bad news is that it is eleven years long and the ten hottest years ever all occurred in the last ten years. That means that though this year may not be the coldest summer for the rest of your life, it is gong to be close to being the coldest summer for the rest of your life.

What’s the Big Deal about Solar Cycles?

The Sun is Earth’s nearest star—a giant orb of hydrogen and helium about 93 million miles away. To many people, it looks…

www.nesdis.noaa.gov

 

[Valjean]

Nope! If the energy was used directly, it would power homes and businesses. In the scenario you lay out, the wind and solar power are used to move water around to then be used for hydroelectric power. That's called using it indirectly. It would be far better just to use the wind and solar power to power the homes and businesses rather than power another source to do what had already been done by the wind and solar setups.

Ah, now I catch your meaning, but so what?
Storing a portion of energy during periods of high production for usage during low production periods seems perfectly practical. It's equivalent to storing it in a battery. It may be less efficient, but the energy source is essentially free.

Radware Bot Manager Captcha

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Whataboutism!
Fossil fuels (as Leftists like to call them) have a proven track record since the invention of the automobile. Everything in modern life is the result of it. It's even needed to create the "green energy" infrastructure, and is needed to fill in when the green energy fails.

I don't think it is a whataboutism. It seems like a reasonable rebuttal to your claims regarding which ideology is subjecting damage to our environment. It seems a recognition of the pot and the kettle that you seem to want to infantilize with mere finger pointing and absent political pronouncements.

Surely, on deeper examination, you can part the veil of political bias and see the sort of hypocrisy inherent in crying foul about Joshua trees and green energy production while ignoring the environmental damage attached to "traditional" oil production.

The term fossil fuel dates back to the 1700's to describe fuel dug from the ground. I believe it was coined by a German chemist and later popularized by John D. Rockefeller.

That it helped form a significant portion of the basis of modern life and even sustains in part the initiation of some greener technology does not wipe out the negative aspects of our current use of it.

 

[Pete in Panama]

If we had three years left, gasoline would be a little more expensive

It isn't and it's not.

Fuel prices are volatile, like food prices. In general, gasoline (adjusted for over all inflation) are lower then what they were 30 years ago

 

[Revoltingest]

This is hard to follow. There's also a "a limited amount beneath the Earth's surface" for gold, iron, sand for glass, etc. etc. My personal take is that we exploit all these resources and if the price changes for scarcity then we use something else. Sounds like you're seeing or you're worried about something else tho, I'm listening...

No worries.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I don't think that we are on the verge of depleting fossil fuels over the next 25 years, but they are not renewable in the same sense as hydro-electric, solar, wind or similar energy technologies. Will the adaptation of them help reduce carbon emissions and lower the impact of greenhouse gas accumulation? I hope so. I think so. Just improving existing energy source application and efficiency should also help with that. Perhaps less dramatically.

If one looks at the history of energy use from the perspective of the molecular level, though the course of history, we have been turning to new sources that eliminate the amount of carbon in the fuel. From wood and dung to coal, to oil and gas, to natural gas to hydrogen. Each of those has few carbons overall than the preceding source. The problem that coincides with this is that demand increases with population and our population is continually increasing.

Increasing knowledge, understanding, wider bye-in and application seem to me to be the major inroads to managing our waste in heat, light, sound, material and chemical. Not politicizing every effort to improve technology, open new markets and improve our environment seems like a key issue to resolve as much as the choice in energy source and use of it.

 

[Laniakea]

You question had a false accusation in it and that was an error.

If I asked someone "Have you quit beating your wife yet?" that would have been the same sort of question that you asked me.

What are you going on about now?
Oh my!

 

[Laniakea]

Managed, passive decrease -- before resource depletion and competition; war, climate change and pollution decrease our numbers for us.

Just like China did, right? How did that work out for them?
Certainly nothing to implement on a global scale.

 

[Laniakea]

One more time. In the future we will have many more green plants. They will make an excess of power. More than we need at times But there will also be times when it is cloudy. Or the wind will not be blowing enough. For those periods stored power would be used.

Do you not understand this? The ability to sort power is a must in the future too. All such storing methods today are still in the experimental stage. We need to get the bugs out before we have to rely on it. This is called "planning ahead". Once again, plants right now do not make excess power, but some day they will.

Here's an equally good idea: Create electricity using solar panels to charge batteries, then use the batteries at night to power bright spotlights aimed at the solar panels to generate power at night. For wind power, the batteries would be used with large fans to turn the turbines when the wind is calm.
Rube Goldberg! Hooray!!!

 

[Laniakea]

I never claimed that it was. By the way, hydrogen is another way that excess power may be stored in the future. It is always best to have several choices available. Hydrogen vehicle technology is still highly experimental. We may never go with hydrogen fueled cars, but we may still find another use for hydrogen.

Yes, several choices, and each in the setting that it works well in. The best setting for gasoline is in vehicles. Best setting for electricity is small portable devices.

 

[Laniakea]

They will and they do. But sometime in the future they will need to start to turn off fossil fuel plants and to do that they will need a source of power when the wind is not blowing. In other words, sometime in the future we need a working method of storing electricity and the time to develop the technology is before we need it and not after.

Keep "fossil fuels" as a mainstay instead of turning it off, and we're all set! No need for the gimmicks you described for when the wind ain't blowin'.

 

[Laniakea]

Ah, now I catch your meaning, but so what?
Storing a portion of energy during periods of high production for usage during low production periods seems perfectly practical. It's equivalent to storing it in a battery. It may be less efficient, but the energy source is essentially free.

Radware Bot Manager Captcha

No, it's not free. Wind turbines are expensive to produce and costly and labor-intensive to maintain.

 

[Koberstein]

I don't follow. I'm missing the relevance, here.

It's probably over your head.

 

[Koberstein]

Yes, China can appear to be short sighted too. But according to the most recent statistics that I can find their coal use has topped out. They are still building new plants but they may be replacing older technology with more efficient new technology:

China Coal Reserves and Consumption Statistics - Worldometer

Current and historical Reserves, Production, and Consumption of Natural Coal in China. Global rank and share of world's total. Data, Statistics and Charts.

www.worldometers.info

They are trying to catch up to the first world countries in production capability. But they also have a long view. Besides being the number one consumer of coal they are also the number one country in green power.

How China Became the World’s Leader on Renewable Energy

China has achieved stunning growth in its installed renewable capacity over the last two decades, far outpacing the rest of the world. But to end its continued dependence on fossil fuels, it must now move ahead with planned reforms to its national electricity system.

e360.yale.edu

Green power is more disperse than fossil fuel plants. So it takes longer to develop it. They have both a short term plan and a long term plan:

How China Became the World’s Leader on Renewable Energy

China has achieved stunning growth in its installed renewable capacity over the last two decades, far outpacing the rest of the world. But to end its continued dependence on fossil fuels, it must now move ahead with planned reforms to its national electricity system.

e360.yale.edu

Yea right and I am the next Pope.

 

[ChristineM]

Yea right and I am the next Pope.

Congratulations