So Global warming is a good thing - Pompeo

[Hayabusa Rider]

A few examples if you are really interested. There are dozens more.

Hurricane
https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/
Tornado Trends USA contiguous
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-information/extreme-events/us-tornado-climatology/trends
Seasonal Snow Cover - NH
https://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=nhland&ui_season=1
Fire Frequency
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-wildfires
California Drought
https://cpo.noaa.gov/Meet-the-Divis...MAPP-Task-Forces/Drought/Drought-Task-Force-I

I think you have me confused with someone else.

 

[cytg111]

I can get on board with some robust thorium reactors to supplement solar and wind until we get those stubborn fusion reactors going ... from there its smooth sailing...

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I can get on board with some robust thorium reactors to supplement solar and wind until we get those stubborn fusion reactors going ... from there its smooth sailing...

One of the oldest jokes in physics. "Economical Fusion is just 20 years away... and always will be".

There will need to be energy dense solutions for heavy industry etc, however much can be done while improving storage and maybe getting fusion online, but one thing that might help is zoning new construction such that a local distribution topology can use some form of limited nuclear power, but the time to transition is now and not pretend there's no deadly threat.

 

[dphantom]

I think you have me confused with someone else.

My apologies. It was meant for someone else.

 

[dphantom]

I can get on board with some robust thorium reactors to supplement solar and wind until we get those stubborn fusion reactors going ... from there its smooth sailing...

Nuclear is the only current really practical means of providing 7x24 reliable, stable, grid scale power that is non CO2 emitting (except for actual construction).

 

[zinfamous]

Are you stupid enough to think 115 thousand years ago was uninhabitable?
Go ahead and defend your position. Else, what the fuck are you even presenting as an argument here?

You didn't even read my post, did you? You certainly did not understand that it is in regards to frozen methane and people's very common and very loud fears about it thawing. So I presented proof positive that it melted before, to quite a much larger extent than today. There was obviously no runaway ecological disaster then, and there clearly will not be one today until our sea level is at least 20-30 feet higher.

To which a simpleton would reply "hurr hurr, so you don't think CO2 is a problem?"

No, the point is I say we have time to address CO2. We have time to reduce our emissions and time to sink it from the atmosphere. Frozen methane is no imminent threat to life on this planet, contrary to popular fear. The proof is in the Eemian.

Um, dude. You seem to think that world-wide human population size and habitable zones from today are completely comparable to what they were 115k years ago?


lol. I'll just let that bounce around up there for a while. You might wonder what were many of the reasons that humans found themselves migrating from zone to zone, over generations, often encountering nothing to compete with, but when they did, murdering each other until one tribe survived.

I guess that's your plan for "no big deal, we've been here before?"

 

[Jaskalas]

What you fail to mention is that the far far slower process of the glacial cycles than today's changes allowed some time for evolution...
So push the temps up faster than phytoplankton can adapt and then you will understand but too late.

1: You suggest the frozen methane will be released too quickly this time? Much as I want to strike it down, that notion does have some merit.

2: As for phytoplankton, I distinctly remember Paratus schooling that idea.
We've got over 500 years of good O2 remaining even if all Ocean life died tomorrow. On the plus side, Methane doesn't even last that long.

 

[K1052]

Nuclear is the only current really practical means of providing 7x24 reliable, stable, grid scale power that is non CO2 emitting (except for actual construction).

I would not call it practical anymore since every attempt to build new nuclear power in the US has ended in failure or turned out to be an enormous financial disaster (sometimes both). The appetite for newer, unfamiliar nuclear power in the US utility market is non-existant. There is a good argument to keep the existing fleet safe and operating for at least another decade as other technologies continue developing. Also we've never resolved the existing light water waste problem for political reasons and I don't see that changing.

 

[dphantom]

I would not call it practical anymore since every attempt to build new nuclear power in the US has ended in failure or turned out to be an enormous financial disaster (sometimes both). The appetite for newer, unfamiliar nuclear power in the US utility market is non-existant. There is a good argument to keep the existing fleet safe and operating for at least another decade as other technologies continue developing. Also we've never resolved the existing light water waste problem for political reasons and I don't see that changing.

agreed though those are political rather than really technical. If we truly want a low CO2 emission civilization, some type of nuclear is really the only way to get there.

 

[Paratus]

My mitigation strategy is to buy a very nice 27' boat with a 300HP outboard engine for my family and friends to enjoy on my lake. Planned for 2021 when I trade in my existing smaller boat.

In all seriousness, any mitigation scenario that is practical involves nuclear power. Windmills and solar simply will not sustain an energy intensive economy. Nor will it allow those brown, yellow and black people living in abject poverty to transition to the modern world. The only way they can do that is grid scale 7x24 power plants - preferably CCGT but HEC if needed based on their resources at hand. Intermittent, unreliables may be fine for simple cooking or recharging a cell phone, but to drive an industrial economy and lift these people into a world where they have continuous, reliable access to clean water, health care, food supplies will require much more.

Thank you for a meaningful and intelligent response.

Back of the envelope calculations I did a while back show the entire worlds yearly energy needs could be supplied by the average amount of Uranium we mine and n a year, if we ran them through breeder reactors. This included the energy required to provide the third world a roughly Western European quality of living.

Of course a set of dual axis tracking solar arrays of around 40% efficiency 250KM x 250KM on a side could as well.

As for the third world, reducing poverty should be the goal of any climate mitigation strategy. The first world lower birth rates and reduction in populations means less environmental pressure.

Waiting until they have a grid / infrastructure so they can get fossil fuels is a waste. Small arrays, wind and batteries can and are providing meaningful quality of life improvements today.

I’m not against nuclear on safety grounds but as @K1052 stated they are unprofitable in the current market. One way to level the playing field would be too force fossil fuel plants to recover all their waste products as the nuclear industry currently does.

Your supposition that intermittent sources can’t sustain an energy intensive economy isn’t correct. The challenges are different but not insurmountable. There isn’t even any new technology that must be developed. Mostly it will be implementing large scale and small scale grid storage.

At work we’ve been running mission and safety critical operations off solar and batteries for 2 decades.

The challenges are merely political not technical.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I’m not against nuclear on safety grounds but as @K1052 stated they are unprofitable in the current market. One way to level the playing field would be too force fossil fuel plants to recover all their waste products as the nuclear industry currently does.

This is an important facet that doesn't get enough talk. If the oil/gas/coal burning power plants were forced to take full accountability of their emissions and decommission their plants with the same veracity as fission plants, they'd all go bankrupt in a matter of years. Fission plants are relatively close to the same cost/kwh despite that, due to how enormously efficient they are.

 

[K1052]

agreed though those are political rather than really technical. If we truly want a low CO2 emission civilization, some type of nuclear is really the only way to get there.

10 or maybe even 5 years ago I would have agreed with this. The drastic reductions in cost for renewables and storage have changed my mind about the long term outlook.

 

[K1052]

This is an important facet that doesn't get enough talk. If the oil/gas/coal burning power plants were forced to take full accountability of their emissions and decommission their plants with the same veracity as fission plants, they'd all go bankrupt in a matter of years. Fission plants are relatively close to the same cost/kwh despite that, due to how enormously efficient they are.

Coal which was long viewed as cheap energy is turning out not to be so cheap now that the industry is winding down and people are discovering what a huge problem coal ash is. Most utilities will succeed in getting ratepayers to pay for the costs of long term impoundment and remediation. Good for their shareholders and bad for everyone else.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

2: As for phytoplankton, I distinctly remember Paratus schooling that idea.
We've got over 500 years of good O2 remaining even if all Ocean life died tomorrow. On the plus side, Methane doesn't even last that long.

The problem isn't one of instant death and never was, but the climate doesn't just stop dead in its tracks. Your statement of methane doesn't last that long- compared to what? CO2? That's very true, but it is more than 80 times as potent and persists for a decade or more. When it degrades it turns into CO2 and water vapor and the amount of carbon available for release is about equal to that which exists in the atmosphere right now. No, it won't be dumped all at once but the greater the carbon atmospheric load the faster things warm and the faster things warm the greater the atmospheric carbon load and we're not talking about the human-induced load that got us to this point. This results in continued release over longer periods of time.

Phytoplankton undergoes seasonal shifts which account for marine migrations and the global area where it can exist shrinks as warming continues. Why be concerned? Because like oxygen it exists in vast quantities in the atmosphere and the effects take centuries or more before they go away. Increased CO2 production at an accelerated rate along with the human contribution alters the balances that exist for a very very long time on a human scale but is virtually unprecedented in the speed of change on any geologic time scale.

So we are pretty screwed every which way. Oxygen levels don't have to fall to the point of being unable to breathe as altitude sickness demonstrates to lead to fatal consequence. But adaptation? That takes time for the genetic pool to change (and there's perhaps an answer). Humans can accommodate limited changes as someone can move to Denver and their individual biology can deal with the relatively small changes and adapt as an individual, but an adaptation of a species isn't the same. It's possible that some in the Himalayas could survive at sea level, but we're betting the species on all of this.

 

[Jaskalas]

but we're betting the species on all of this.

On the contrary, I'm saying we have time to reduce emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere. You may be correct that methane throws a kink into the plan, but it seems like even that would eventually yield to our mitigation efforts.

Now, the vitality of the oceans is almost another matter entirely. As many forms of pollution and over fishing are threatening them. Not just Global Warming.