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So, what's the answer? First, we need to realize that energy is not free, energy usage WILL create pollution. Second, we need to tax and disincentivize energy use; we need to tax fossil fuels and electricity instead of subsidize 'renewables' and the terrible ethanol program. Finally, we need a multi pronged solution to our future energy generation, which must include natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar in 2050.
Taxing fossil fuels will only hurt the poor. Making fossil fuels more expensive imposes more of a burden on low income people. They pay a higher percentage of their income for necessities like gasoline, electricity, and food. The carbon tax in Australia failed and was repealed.
Scientific advancements will decide what we use for energy. Fracking has made natural gas cheaper and is putting coal out of business. When technology advances in ways to store energy from solar and wind that power will become reliable and it will replace fossil fuels.
Fast neutron reactors were invented decades ago. They could power the world for centuries and burn nuclear waste. We wouldn't even need to mine any nucealr fuel. There's planty of watse to burn. https://www.world-nuclear.org/inform...-reactors.aspx
I used to live near the city that made all of the boots for the Union Civil War soldiers.
Towns nearby had all of the tanneries. Chemicals were used for the tanning of leather.
All of the towns in this area used to dump their sewage into the local rivers.
At a point in history the folks found out that their drinking water was being contaminated. That the fish were dead or dying in the rivers. That wild animals that used the rivers for drinking water were getting sick and dying. And further down stream the ocean was becoming polluted and that the fish in the ocean were dying. Coal was used to heat many homes and businesses.
People and animals were getting sick or worse.
The rivers were later cleaned up as sewerage treatment plants were constructed. The tanneries were closed and those jobs were shipped to China, Indonesia, India, and now Vietnam. Those countries wanted the jobs so they now they pollute the rivers, ground, and air.
Those with a minimum of knowledge and education can figure out that all of this pollution is not good for the environment.
Most want cheap sneakers, cheap jeans, cheap furniture, and cheap electronics. So the pollution continues.
Renewable energy has been able to demonstrate that it can be cost effective, reduce fossil fuel usage in our energy consumption, and be resilient on the grid. However, increasingly plans to address climate change call for a 100% renewable electric grid by 2050. Assuming that it will be a linear progression from where we are now to a completely renewable grid is pure folly though and is nothing more than wishful thinking that would be incredibly environmentally destructive if actualized.
Have you finally seen the (LED, of course) light, Phil?
You bring up all good points, except the taxation thing-- always a bad idea causing more problems than it solves and impacting the poor more than the well to do.
We do need to address the use of fuels that have finite supplies. Energy usage is a proxy measure of economic & social well being, so we don't want to curtail energy usage, just conserve it-- big difference.
Market forces are the optimum driver of change. Cf- switch from incandescents to LEDs, or the decline of coal usage in the US....A free market works on the same principle as MotherNature, who utilizes frequent, random mutations, most of which fail, but also produces the best chances for finding that "Next New Thing" that will be a winner.
Several posts above suggest "AGW," pollution & over-population are problems. I submit that they are not the problems they are made out to be. They deserve some attention, but not to the extent some with agenda would have us believe....Loss of habitat to human development surpasses them all in environmental impact.
1. The renewables used to date were placed in the easiest and most productive places. Future renewable placements would not yield the same amount of energy per dollar invested. ...
But that's just as true with fossil fuels, and often more so. Sun and wind are everywhere, some places get more of the these and some places get less, but the sun shines and the wind blows everywhere.
Can't say that for coal or natural gas. It has to be transported long distances from where it is mined to where it is used. Railroads and barge companies haul the stuff and in 2019 the nation mined 705,000,000 tons of coal. I know of no power plants situated next to mines, thus it all needs to be moved by rail or barge and often a combination of the two. Building the locks and dams for barge traffic is hugely expensive and never pays its own way, often less than 5% on the dollar for what the Army Corps of Engineers spends to build, maintain and operate the inland waterway system.
Same for natural gas. It's extracted only from key prominent gas fields then is piped hundreds or thousands of miles to where power plants burn the stuff. Pipelines are very efficient transport but the gas still has to be moved. Sun and wind are everywhere and we can ship electricity long distances if we need to.
As a resident of COLO you've most likely seen the steady stream of mile-long coal trains that move from Wyoming down the I-25 corridor to AZ, NM, TX, etc, and then rattle back empty to WY. Some of that WY coal moves all the way to the east coast. Each train burns tons of diesel fuel outbound from the mines and back with the empty cars. The people and lands of Appalachia have been devastated by coal mining, the current craze of mountaintop removal makes southern WV and eastern KY look like moonscapes. Over 100,000 men have died in the coal mines, so far, and over 76,000 miners have died of black lung since 1968, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor. How many more died of black lung in the 100 years before 1968? It's a horrible business and way past time to move on.
Meanwhile, the USAF Academy in COLO SPGS gets 1/3 of its electricity from a large solar farm located at I-25 next to exit 150. Otherwise the Academy gets power from a plant in COLO SPGS that burns coal arriving by train from WY or western COLO. The cool thing about this particular installation is that this "plant" is right on the premises of the user, no transport is required.
Renewables win the battle for being local or near to where power is needed.
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Last edited by Mike from back east; 07-17-2020 at 11:52 AM..
Off the cuff, but with Covid shut-downs, the waters in the ocean, rivers and lakes are much cleaner.
The air pollution is lessened--especially in large cities.
Much less fuels--both "clean" and dirty are being used.
Being the Luddite that I am, I'd greatly reduce the use of cars, buses, planes and other forms of transit that are the dirtiest.
I'd have bike lanes EVERYWHERE so folks have the option to pedal to work and on errands. Other countries do this so well.
Employers have found, from what I've read, that home-based workers are MORE productive than office workers--this trend, if it continues, eliminates the long, polluting commutes and the waste of far-flung suburbs that require a car to get anywhere..
With our growing global populations, we need to live much more lightly on the land and reduce our carbon footprints. McMansions should be outlawed.
And we need to start, stat, on a massive global tree-planting mission. This alone, would help with damage to our environment...
Of course, we're being sold new, bigger and better and faster, so I don't feel hopeful about our future.
I picture our human race as billions of little voracious Pac men, gobbling up our planet and its disappearing resources, a mouthful at a time...
First, I've heard several places fossil fuel taxes are regressive. Maybe a carbon tax would be as people need X amount of electricity and heating. But would just a gasoline and diesel and jet fuel tax be regressive? From my observations, I'd guess that gas consumption and flights appear to increase in line with or increasing faster than income, which would mean it's not regressive. It seems like international travel and RV / boat / snowmobile people are the largest consumers of gas proportionally to their income and that's recreation, not necessity. And even for low income individuals, gas wouldn't be the majority of the cost of car ownership, it'd be insurance, repairs...
There is always pollution associated with production of materials and products. However looking at mining for instance, it's apparent that when it's done property, the fallout is much smaller than the free for all 1890s approach. Part of the problem, as mentioned earlier, is that with unregulated globalization, the ones who end up with the pollution are those who differ from the ones using the products. With this in mind, it seems like fossil fuel extraction internalizes the pollution to within the US better than renewables currently, which are mined elsewhere.
There's been a lot of pollution for sure, but looking at somewhere like Breckenridge CO, it's amazing how somewhere that was so trashed from mining has been able to clean itself back up in the last 60 years. There's hope that what we've messed up we're able to clean up as well, to the point you could even put a resort on top of it. Hopefully this will happen to West Virginia and Kentucky this century. While Wyoming may have a greater footprint, at least that's in a place where there wasn't as much flora and fauna being disturbed in a high desert than there was in the Appalachian ecosystems. Thankfully natural gas has been able to largely kill the coal industry by this point, so hopefully we shouldn't have too much more fallout from it.
Excellent point Mike FBE! That's true, point 1 is kind of moot since it is true with any energy source.
To guido's point, the market finds ways to implement things the most optimally, and that's what scares me about some 100% mandate is the requirement will be there before the ability to implement it optimally is there. Some say regulation will spawn innovation, but I'm not sure that's guaranteed. Energy use is needed to have a good quality of life, but 2020 has shown us that there's many ways to conserve it: remote work, virtual business meetings, ebikes, local travel... without taking a big cut into quality of life. I feel like at this point, conservation is the lower hanging fruit than innovation, though both must be part of the solution throughout this century. The problem is that conservation isn't part of the political narrative.
Renewable energy has been able to demonstrate that it can be cost effective, reduce fossil fuel usage in our energy consumption, and be resilient on the grid. However, increasingly plans to address climate change call for a 100% renewable electric grid by 2050. Assuming that it will be a linear progression from where we are now to a completely renewable grid is pure folly though and is nothing more than wishful thinking that would be incredibly environmentally destructive if actualized.
Here's the reasoning:
1. The renewables used to date were placed in the easiest and most productive places. Future renewable placements would not yield the same amount of energy per dollar invested.
2. Wind and solar are erratic in generation where each incremental percent of power generated yields less power available to be used, as it has to travel further on transmission lines or be stored in batteries, both of which yield only a fraction of the power as actually usable.
3. To date renewables have been able to offset coal power generation; as coal is almost dead future renewables would replace natural gas, which would yield much less reductions in CO2 emissions.
4. There is no good way to recycle wind turbines and solar panels completely, so a large portion of them ends up as landfill, toxic landfill material.
5. Renewables and the associated batteries needed to make renewable power functional are made from rare earth minerals or minerals not mined in the US. Mining can be incredibly environmentally destructive if not done properly and many of the countries where these minerals come from have child labor and other labor abuse problems https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/...ls-components/
Essentially, the push to 100% renewable energy and an electric transportation grid just shifts us from a fossil fuel economy to a 'rare earth' economy. What does this mean? It means that instead of dealing with pollution from fossil fuel extraction, we have to deal with pollution from mining and recycling of these minerals, which is not objectively better. Since they are mined and processed in other countries, it's out of sight out of mind for Americans, but the environmental controls will be worse overseas and it opens up a whole new global dependancy chain that will make the politics and wars over oil seem tame.
So, what's the answer? First, we need to realize that energy is not free, energy usage WILL create pollution. Second, we need to tax and disincentivize energy use; we need to tax fossil fuels and electricity instead of subsidize 'renewables' and the terrible ethanol program. Finally, we need a multi pronged solution to our future energy generation, which must include natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar in 2050.
Worth reading again.
I have owned a "solar" off-grid house for well over 20 years now.
Solar and wind work.......sort of. The solar set-up probably generates about 10% or less of the energy demands of my house.
The rest of the BTU's and electricity is supplied by PROPANE.
My former neighbor, who was a electrical engineer, said "...my house is a propane and diesel house with solar as a back-up energy source".
The primary problem with renewable energy...is that we need to repeal the laws of physics to get it to function.
The secondary problem is we have politicians, journalists, and others without any background in science dominating the discussion.
I appreciate the passion, unfortunately, "wishing don't make it so".
I love solar. I use it in my home, RV, and even my trolling motor. Does it work for an industrial society at this point in time.....NO.
Just so people understand how "inefficient" solar is for a energy source.
This is what I run on solar:
well pump
LED electric lights
stereo
microwave (1000 watts)
laptop computer
26 inch TV
clothes washer
vacuum cleaner
Works perfectly fine between March 21st and October 15th. 1500 watts of solar panels. Outside the time period, the propane generator runs two hours a day to recharge the batteries.
Propane:
Fridge
Clothes dryer
Hot water heater
Stove and oven
Propane electrical generator (when batteries are depleted).
Furnace
Wood:
Heat for house when there....otherwise see propane above.
But hey, I got five sets of solar panels on the meadow!!! 30 of those suckers!!!
So I can claim to be green and clean. It is ONLY A LITTLE WHITE LIE....and the best part is that nobody knows, but me.
The problem is that conservation isn't part of the political narrative.
Good post, Phil--particularly that last sentence.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleDolphin
...Being the Luddite that I am, I'd greatly reduce the use of cars, buses, planes and other forms of transit that are the dirtiest.
..
[moderator cut]
None of your suggested solutions can be justified by the science. Several of them don't actually represent problems.
A couple particular points: co2 levels continued to rise following "shut down," following their usual seasonal trends. A record hi of 418ppm was achieved late in May, three months after the decrease in travel began. The co2 record shows no impact of the shut-down.
If you look up the data for the calculations, you'll find that it takes more petroleum to produce the food you'll need to power travel by bicycle than the petroleum you're saving by using the bike. ...Sometimes the "obvious" solutions don't provide the desired remedy.
It's not our "carbon footprint"-- it's simply our "footprint." ...In the US we lose 1500 sq mi to the development bulldozer EVERY YEAR...Americans, however, will fill only 1000 sq mi of landfills over the next CENTURY-- and that land will eventually be reclaimed and turned back into natural habitat or recreational areas.
We need to get politics out of environmentalism.
Last edited by Rachel NewYork; 07-17-2020 at 07:57 PM..
Several posts above suggest "AGW," pollution & over-population are problems. I submit that they are not the problems they are made out to be. They deserve some attention, but not to the extent some with agenda would have us believe....Loss of habitat to human development surpasses them all in environmental impact.
I brought up over-population as a problem. But I do agree it's not all about environmental pollution when it comes to over population. Personally, things like over crowding and traffic congestion are the number one issue for me when it comes to over population. Second and third would be loss of habitat areas and pollution.
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