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Topic: Weather, Climate, Environment, and Energy

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Big Beef Tacosupreme

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2632 on: May 14, 2020, 01:52:35 PM »
+/- 3'.

Hmm.
According to the IPCC, it depends on how much we warm the earth.  Technically a rise of 8 feet is possible, but that would assume a very high CO2 emission scenario.  Doomsday scenario would be a collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which would add an additional 16 ft of sea level increase.


Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2633 on: May 14, 2020, 02:21:54 PM »
If everyone agreed this is a HUGE looming problem, I'm not what we'd do differently that would make a measurable difference in the outcome.

Nuclear is off the table.

847badgerfan

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2634 on: May 14, 2020, 02:22:51 PM »
If everyone agreed this is a HUGE looming problem, I'm not what we'd do differently that would make a measurable difference in the outcome.

Nuclear is off the table.
For use against China, or for power generation?
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betarhoalphadelta

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2635 on: May 14, 2020, 02:22:56 PM »
For a person who claims to be a libertarian, you seem to like taxes and government control of things.

Image result for that word doesn't mean what you think meme

Posted with a smile on my face not a scowl.

I'm a libertarian not because I believe that there aren't policies that could improve things for everyone...

...but because I don't trust government to come up with those policies.

They'd probably end up with an easily-corruptible cap and trade scheme that would allow them to play political favorites in the economy by how they allocate the caps and increase their power... All while finding a way to make the caps high enough that they don't solve the problem. 

Also note that my initial thought was replacing the payroll tax with a carbon tax, targeting revenue neutrality. The beauty is that it replaces a regressive tax with a regressive tax, so it would be easier to sell politically than replacing, say, the capital gains tax with a carbon tax. But I don't like the idea of creating a carbon tax for ADDITIONAL government revenue. 

That idea didn't work out, because it would need to be too big. 

CWSooner

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2636 on: May 14, 2020, 10:53:38 PM »
Did you read these articles?

These addressed a valid concern at the time.  Global dimming due to pollution.  They would still be relevant today, but we have curbed air pollution dramatically.

Here's the crazy thing.  We still have a fair amount of global dimming, and our temperatures continue to rise.

People have actually postulated that we should dirty our air again in order to fight global warming.  Yikes.
No, but I read some of those articles at the time they were published.  I remember the issue of "dimming," but I don't remember it being called that.
It raises an issue--is anyone working on a way of putting non-polluting but solar energy-blocking materials into the upper atmosphere?  And if there were, could we guarantee that it would block incoming high-frequency radiation but allow outgoing low-frequency radiation to escape?
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MichiFan87

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2637 on: May 14, 2020, 10:55:58 PM »
No, but I read some of those articles at the time they were published.  I remember the issue of "dimming," but I don't remember it being called that.
It raises an issue--is anyone working on a way of putting non-polluting but solar energy-blocking materials into the upper atmosphere?  And if there were, could we guarantee that it would block incoming high-frequency radiation but allow outgoing low-frequency radiation to escape?
There is a lot of research into geo-engineering right now, and that's certainly one consideration. Hopefully it doesn't come to that, but it's definitely a possibility, but more research needs to be done....
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Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2638 on: May 15, 2020, 07:41:21 AM »
Some of the geoengineering proposals include injection of aerosols into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight, "salting" the oceans with iron to encourage growth of zooplankta, use of large very thin sheets in space to reflect sunlight, growing and burying lots and lots and lots of trees ...

One would think geothermal of the hot rocks type would work in Hawaii where electricity is very expensive and hot rocks are at the surface.  Indeed, there is a Federal geothermal research facility there and has been for decades.  It has a small array of PV cells outside.  I think it's more a demonstration thing than real, but whatever, they have major issues with hot rock geothermal in Hawaii.  That is the state where this and wind and solar make the most sense because the alternative electricity source is burning imported petroleum.  Winds are almost constant and reliable.

Wind and solar are growing in importance in the state.  They still burn oil.

MrNubbz

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2639 on: May 15, 2020, 08:08:09 AM »
For use against China, or for power generation?
Hey now,if you're gonna let the missiles fly strap some corrupt corporate,congressmen and lobbyists to them.Along with some mediots,that'd be a win-win
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Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2640 on: May 15, 2020, 08:52:46 AM »
The 2015 vision for wind calls for 10% generation by wind by 2020 (113 GW), 30% by 2030 (224 GW), and 35% by 2050 (404 GW). ... Larger wind turbines has expanded the commercial viability of wind to all 50 states. Analysts expect 25 GW more between 2016-18.

I copied the above from a 5 year old wiki page.  We're supposed to be at 10% NOW and 30% by 2030.  Maybe these predictions are "visions" and not likely to happen in the real world.

The basic shift to this point has been replacing coal with NG.  At what point will NG start to decline and be replaced by wind and solar?  Will that occur fast enough to have any consequential reduction in US CO2 generation?

Anyone have any numbers and projections?

Big Beef Tacosupreme

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2641 on: May 15, 2020, 09:36:53 AM »
No, but I read some of those articles at the time they were published.  I remember the issue of "dimming," but I don't remember it being called that.
It raises an issue--is anyone working on a way of putting non-polluting but solar energy-blocking materials into the upper atmosphere?  And if there were, could we guarantee that it would block incoming high-frequency radiation but allow outgoing low-frequency radiation to escape?
I don’t think blocking the sun is the right call.  

I do remember reading an article once on mandated white roofs. Apparently if everyone switched to a white roof it would reflect a not-insignificant potion of light that would otherwise be absorbed as heat.  

FearlessF

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2642 on: May 15, 2020, 09:38:50 AM »
mandated white roofs

there's a place for the government to get involved and waste large piles of $$$
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Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2643 on: May 15, 2020, 09:56:10 AM »
LA tried painting a street white.  It was an absurd idea of course and ended quickly.

A lot of the heat retention of course happens at night.

Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2644 on: May 15, 2020, 10:18:22 AM »
So, let's imagine that by 2030, electrical demand in the US stays flat.  That isn't a ridiculous assumption I think.

Wind and solar double by then, which would mean a 7.8% increase each year.  That seems also not to be ridiculous, stretching a bit perhaps.

So, W&S now add up to 18% of demand (roughly).  Nuclear stays at 20%.  Hydro etc. stay around 8%.  Coal, now around 20% goes to zero.

The 9% increase in W&S offsets almost half the coal losses.  What makes up for the missing power?

Is it realistic to expect W&S to TRIPLE by 2030?  Or are we going to be stuck with coal still for around 10%?


FearlessF

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2645 on: May 15, 2020, 11:02:04 AM »
natural gas?
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