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No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Discussions of conventional and alternative energy production technologies.

Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Sat 04 Feb 2017, 14:23:27

Plantagenet wrote:
Its just stupid for 3rd world countries to build coal-fired power plants to re-create 19th century style coal-fired infrastructure instead of building 21st century carbon-free infrastructure.

cheers!

It's not "stupid" in their eyes, if they see coal as being cheaper. Why do you suppose India's current big modernization push includes adding LOTS of coal fired plants? Because coal is cheap.

"Rational" in the fullness of time, considering the whole planet is different than a short term view of "rational" for a single family or a single country who wants to maximize their economic consumption in the short term.

Now, I don't see, given real world politics and the constituents who drive those politics, how you transform the system to look at the long term whole-planet goal.

Those who scoff at this need only review the results of the (much raved about for some odd reason) Paris Climate Accords (where the world collectively agreed to declare there is a problem, that we will do nothing more than kick the can down the road, and high fives all around).
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Sat 04 Feb 2017, 14:27:04

Cog wrote:I've never liked being cold. Looks like that is one thing off my worry list.

Yeah. hating cold has its drawbacks. With my big nose, I could be a sex symbol among the Eskimos. That sounds great until I ponder spending one night in an igloo.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby diemos » Sat 04 Feb 2017, 15:07:51

Everything that can be dug up and burned, will be dug up and burned.

The best we can hope for is that enough alternatives are installed along the way to help get us through the bottle neck as the fossil fuels run out.
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Sat 04 Feb 2017, 15:17:35

Outcast_Searcher wrote:-snip-
Yeah. hating cold has its drawbacks. With my big nose, I could be a sex symbol among the Eskimos. That sounds great until I ponder spending one night in an igloo.


I had to laugh at that one. When I was in the USCG and stationed at Pt. Clarence, AK in 1972-73, we got survival training from a full-blooded Aleut, who taught us the finer points of igloo construction. While it is true that the air never gets much above 30 degrees or so inside, that feels about 75 degrees warmer than the wind chill temperatures outside. Then you get radiant heat from a nasty-smelling seal fat fire, and you can sleep comfortably inside a cold-rated sleeping bag on top of an insulated mat on top of the ice "sleeping shelf" inside.

It works and it's even comfortable, especially if you can substitute a Coleman heater for the blubber fire. But if you generate too much heat inside, the roof falls in and you die.
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sun 05 Feb 2017, 00:22:20

Cog wrote:I've never liked being cold.....


Nobody likes being cold. But you know the old Norwegian saying about the weather?

There is no such thing as bad weather----only bad clothes.

It takes a couple of years to gear up for living in cold places like Alaska, but once you get the right clothes and the right truck and the right cabin and the right job you're pretty much set. :)

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-50? No problem.
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sun 05 Feb 2017, 00:27:45

This is one simple way to make progress toward a carbon-free economy----institute a carbon tax.

If you want less of something----TAX IT.

We had a chance of getting a carbon tax in 2009---but O and the Ds chickened out. Hard to say when we'll get that chance again.

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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Sun 05 Feb 2017, 09:58:44

P - So true. Years ago I traveled to Wyoming to drill some horizontal holes for ExxonMobil...in the winter. I didn't bother to pack my south Louisiana workcloths. Stopped at a Sheridan outfitter store and "tooled up": Carhartt work coat and wool everything. Came in handy on the rig floor when it hit -34F and -51F windchill. Also when it came time to take a crap: cheapy XOM only provided the rig with an UNHEATED Port-o-potty. LOL
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby Cog » Sun 05 Feb 2017, 11:14:24

Spent a month in Fairbanks at their Arctic Warfare School. It was 70 when we left Fort Ord, Calif and -30 when we arrived. It never got warmer than -15 all the time we were there. Takes your breath away. But to the Army's credit, they have excellent cold weather gear. To the extent that you had to be careful to peel off layers when you started to sweat. As long as we were moving around it wasn't bad at all. Dry cold. Nose got frost nipped since it sticks out there a ways but nothing worse than a sunburn type peeling.

But it did make me take Alaska off my places to settle down in. :wink:
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby WildRose » Sun 05 Feb 2017, 13:34:33

Plantagenet wrote:This is one simple way to make progress toward a carbon-free economy----institute a carbon tax.

If you want less of something----TAX IT.

We had a chance of getting a carbon tax in 2009---but O and the Ds chickened out. Hard to say when we'll get that chance again.

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I agree, a carbon tax is a great idea. We have one here in Alberta now, you may have heard about it, with all the complaining going on. But I still think it's a great idea. :)
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby onlooker » Fri 26 May 2017, 13:12:38

http://www.wweek.com/news/2017/05/24/po ... than-cars/
Mass transit has been and is the way

Portland's Fantasy Transit Map: What If We Spent Billions To Fix the Morning Commute with Something Other than Cars?
"We are mortal beings doomed to die
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Fri 26 May 2017, 13:32:27

"Its just stupid for 3rd world countries to build coal-fired power plants...".

So given about 30% of US electricity production comes from coal are we just a little "stupid" (like being a little pregnant) compared to the 3rd world being very "stupid" (like being more pregnant)? LOL.

That statement seems to come from the school of "Do as I say...not as I do". After all who could better afford to give up coal: the US or some 3rd world country?
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Fri 26 May 2017, 13:39:08

KJ - Your survival story reminds of what I heard a Finnish Lap once say: "There no such thing as bad cold weather...just bad cloths."
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Fri 26 May 2017, 13:50:38

Cog - You might take Wyoming off your list also. LOL. I drilled up there one winter for ExxonMobil. In general it was a milder winter then average. But got hit with a serious cold snap: -34F with a wind chill of -51F. And cheap ass XOM supplied me and the rig hands an UNHEATED Porto-potty. And it was a 70 mile roundtrip to Gillette.

At night one of the rig hands would unplug the XOM company man's block heater and run it to a portable heater in the sh*t house. Worked OK until he got caught when he forgot to plug it back into his truck. LOL.
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Fri 26 May 2017, 14:10:32

To hearken back to the original topic, Califonia (otherwise known as 1/4 of the USA) has made progress:
Image
....although I consider two items to be questionable in the above graph.

Firstly, "Biomass" is a dirty, carbon spewing fuel, not at all green. We should be making durable housing from our forests, not burning wood chips. In this way we sequester carbon, hopefully for decades or even centuries, versus spewing it into the atmosphere.

Secondly, "Geo-Thermal" is a non-sensical term. There are very few places on Earth where the ground is hot enough to provide power, and only fools would live there, as such places are volcanic in nature. Ground-sourced heat pumps are NOT "Geo-Thermal", and I wish people would stop calling them that. In any case, it is cheating to use electricity in the more economical ground-sourced heat pump and claim it is "carbon-free" in any way.

I would add that some of the above power is imported, some is wind power from Texas, although mostly we buy hydropower from Washington State and Oregon.
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Fri 26 May 2017, 15:48:41

KJ - That pie chart is misleading. Maybe that's capacity. From the CA wind power regulators it isn't generating half that amount of electricity: "In 2015, turbines in wind farms generated 12,180 gigawatt-hours of electricity."

From the same folks: "As of December 31, 2016, California has 5,662 MW of wind powered electricity generating capacity". By comparison: there is a total installed nameplate capacity of in Texas of 20,321 MW.

And the future growth of CA solar? From:

http://www.breitbart.com/california/201 ... alifornia/

"Despite the U.S. Congress passing the Consolidated Appropriations Act in December 2015 to slather another $9.3 billion of taxpayer credits on new solar power added to the electrical grid, California solar installments peaked in 2015 and are now headed south. The extension of the federal Solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC) through 2021 was quietly tucked into 3 pages of the 887-page continuing resolution that allowed Congress to spend about $3.85 trillion this year. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that extending solar tax credits will cost taxpayers $9.3 billion.

With supposed experts claiming a huge amount of solar demand was being undermined due to the expiring of the federal investment tax credit, the renewal was expected to create another California boom. But the number of residential solar installations appears to have peaked in 2015 at 148,000 new installations, and the numbers fell for the first time in a decade, to 140,000 in 2016, according to the state.

A big selling point for renewing the solar investment tax credit was the promise that the cost of producing solar electric power would crash. But according to the California state website, the cost only fell by 2 percent from $.50 a kilowatt in 2015 to about $.49 a kilowatt in 2016. Compared to natural gas on a national basis, solar costs 50 percent more to produce electricity than natural gas.

That does not adjust for the fact that solar electric generation is availability for only an average of eight hours per day. During the other 16 hours a day the electrical grid must have 100 percent standby fossil fuel power generation capacity.

Another serious downside for solar power is that during sunny days in the spring and fall, when Californians are not using much air conditioning, the daily demand for electricity is low. As a result, the surge of midday solar power is more than the California electric grid can use.

Balancing solar power availability and consumer demand has become a major challenge for the Independent System Operator that manages California’s electric grid for about 30 million people. Nancy Traweek, who directs system operations, recently warned, “It’s constantly solving a constant problem, meaning you’re always trying to balance.”
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Fri 26 May 2017, 16:33:13

Your analysis seems to neglect the SmartGrid rollout. The grid operators in each microgrid cell can "throttle" up/down the inverter output from each suburban rooftop, each school and mall parking lot, and each miscellaneous urban solar array, such as this one installed nearby in a vacant field that supplies enough for 215 homes:
Image
This SmartGrid infrastructure has been under construction for over a decade, and is virtually complete in California's urban areas and towns.

Integrated into the SmartGrid are the distributed solar installations I referred to above, the newly automated hydropower facilities (which required new warning signs at dam sites), the gas turbine peaking plants (located here but mostly owned by the Texas firm CALPINE), and diesel co-generation/standby power located at large malls, offices, and factories.

Software development is proceeding rapidly, assisted by simulations on the HP computer system PEREGRINE at the NREL site:
Image

....in fact one of the problems experienced this last couple of years has been the reluctance of the Texas owners of the wind farms to relinquish operational control of those facilities to the California SmartGrid computers. Oregon and Washington state did so, but the nature of hydropower is that it is considered baseload and not peaking facilities.

Software development is proceeding rapidly. The other 3/4ths of the states are definately lagging California's SmartGrid implementation. I almost hesitated to say that, because Murphy is alive and well - and California has never had a widespread power failure, and now the possibility exists. The actual computers used by the SmartGrid are not the fault tolerant model line I worked on (that would have cost more) but they really should be.
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby Midnight Oil » Fri 26 May 2017, 17:34:48

Has there been ANY progress in curbing the growth of the Human Hoard?
Enough said.... Next....

Global human population growth amounts to around 75 million annually, or 1.1% per year. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 7 billion in 2012. It is expected to keep growing, and estimates have put the total population at 8.4 billion by mid-2030, and 9.6 billion by mid-2050.
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Fri 26 May 2017, 17:55:10

I suspect you meant "horde" and not "hoard", but I take your point.

There was one attempt to curb birth rates, which was China's "One Child" policy, a miserable failure. Nothing effective is being attempted, just weasel words. But the actual efforts of governments - even the US government with it's tax exemptions "per child" - seem to encourage increased birthrates. There is no widespread recognition of overpopulation as a current or future problem.

I know the grim statistics of population trends. But I also know the joys of being Grandpa to two bright kids, and the desire to see them marry and reproduce. They are members of my ape tribe, of course.
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby sparky » Fri 26 May 2017, 18:36:54

.
the one child policy had a good amount of success ,
it is somewhat depressing to have to resort to such means to get some results
the India sterilization program was a complete failure , not even a blip on the chart
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Re: No Progress toward C-Free Economy in 20 Years

Unread postby Midnight Oil » Fri 26 May 2017, 21:25:38

And the flip side to the issue....people want to breath as long as possible....even though that in itself is not living but torment. That will change too, along with all the so called modern civilization advancements ..... This is just a blimp in the tale of planet Earth...NEXT
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