I've been in that part of BC where the fires are happening. It's the dry region beyond the Rocky Mountains. Clouds coming in from the Pacific Ocean rain themselves out when the wind forces them rise above the mountains. So the other side of the mountains range gets very little rain. Grass is dried yellow in the summer. Easy for fires to start.
I suspect in the coming years that Canada will have more trouble with wildfires than the U.S.
For one, the population of all of B.C. is just a smidge over 5 million, or less than the SF Bay Area, which can strain emergency response and stability services if the active personnel is low to begin with.
Secondly, B.C. is much less developed inland than the other west coast states, so many fires will be difficult if not impossible to reach by anything but air travel.
Also, B.C. is HUGE, larger than the west coast states combined. Lot of ground to cover, lot of fuel for the fires.
Canada doesn’t have a lot of great options here. Building infrastructure to respond to events would be prohibitively expensive, given the land area to cover.
The least good option may likely be clear cuts on a massive scale to prevent fires from spreading too much. Current environmental legislation reflects the mood of places like California, where a knee jerk reaction to previous eras of logging has resulted in a “let it grow” mentality, which looks good on paper but only makes more fuel as far as the next fire is concerned. That being said, the costs may end up outweighing the benefits and Canada may end up finding ways to export an awful lot of lumber in the coming years.
As an insurance policy, where would be the best places to live or buy land now given forecasted trends? I’m primarily thinking of the US, but interested any idea (well, maybe not Siberia…)
I'd usually suggest someplace away from the equator to get cooler temperatures, and close to a large body of water to reduce temperature swings. Good supply of fresh water is a plus as well. Lower population density reduces the risk of social unrest.
Great lakes, Maine, Northern Europe, Japan, Southern Chile, New Zealand?
Of course, what BC is experiencing right now demonstrates that it may be more complicated or impossible to predict.
Ultimately, anywhere that is relatively wet and/or not located in a forest is probably decently safe from forest fires. In terms of safety from heat waves, there are a few good hedges: a very well insulated house, ideally with some sort of reflective roof. A backup battery system that allows you to run independently in the case of a grid failure. Solar panels that work when the grid is off, which have excess capacity. Redundant cooling systems? If you really wanna go crazy, build a small underground bunker like Colin Furze did.
With these things in place I think you'll be safe enough during any foreseeable heat waves. You still wouldn't be able to go outside on really hot days, but you wouldn't likely die due to overheating.
I think it's worth remembering that climate change isn't just heat waves. The same will also protect you well from cold spells, but you should build a home that fairs well with other extreme weather too.
It didn't get much publicity, but last weekend there was an F4 tornado that destroyed a number of villages in the Czech Republic:
Tornados are pretty scary but ultimately the likelihood of ever being struck by one directly is not very high. That said, a reinforced cellar could hardly to amiss if planning for extremities. And building on high ground should go without saying. Wouldn't do to have your fortress of solitude flooded out by a heavy rain storm. Not too high though: mud slides.
Germany. Seriously, I don't know of any other country with such a combination of industry, education, social security, and absence of natural disasters as well as poisonous animals.
Such a claim was never accurate. The regions with good soil are already used. Northern Ontario isn't farmed because of climate, but because it's either muskeg or the Clay Belt. While the latter is good soil, all previous attempts to lure settlers failed because both muskeg and the Clay Belt are completely infested with black flies and mosquitos.
And yet we'll continue to treat climate change as an inconvenience that can be addressed in 20 years, when - to quote Alex Steffen - we're not yet ready for what's already happened.
A big part of the problem are the green parties themselves. They were in many cases started as a youth movement against nuclear power in the 60s. The basis of these green parties consists of people who are ideologically opposed to nuclear energy and their youth rebellion against it is now part of their identity. This is why the leadership of green parties cannot support nuclear energy even though opposing it is completely nonsensical at this point.
European nuclear advocates really don’t have a satisfactory political response to Chernobyl and Fukushima. Truthfully, the best argument for nuclear power is an extremely unpleasant one: a bit of radioactive contamination (an immediate and visceral threat) is a small price to pay for the emissions offset (still a somewhat abstract and distant threat). The numbers check out but it is undeniably ghoulish.
But pretending people are motivated by sheer hippie-foolishness is just an ignorant ad hominem. It is not “completely nonsensical” to oppose nuclear power, even if the argument is badly flawed. Chernobyl was a traumatic event for many Europeans and they are correct to be suspicious of claims that a proposed nuclear technology is actually safe.
Being so condescending and dismissive doesn’t help anyone.
I think that's exactly what the above commenter was saying in: "European nuclear advocates really don’t have a satisfactory political response to Chernobyl and Fukushima."
If a country experiences a nuclear accident like Chernobyl or Fukushima, your "number of casualties is lower than if we moved to coal" argument won't work. Cold numbers won't beat emotion.
Edit: On downvotes, it's very demographically consistent of HN to not believe or want to hear that emotions rule over cold numbers for many people in the world. I'm not saying that coal is better than nuclear (it's not per the numbers), but you need a satisfactory answer when a disaster happens, and rationalizing the deaths of thousands of people as "a preferred alternative to more deaths over time" won't cut it.
It’s more like cold numbers won’t beat lobbying. It’s not “if we moved to coal”. It’s “coal definitely killed more people than Chernobyl every few months for the last 100 years and is now literally burning the planet down, but somehow that’s OK.”
Yes, and that being OK is the magic of how emotions work! That's the exact valid point being ignored.
If you don't have a better response to a catastrophic nuclear disaster than "well, it killed people but coal definitely killed more people over time," then as the commenter said, you really don't have a satisfactory political response [1] to a nuclear disaster.
You're acknowledging the difference in our emotional response between gradual deaths over time versus a nuclear accident, but then hand-waving it away as irrational and unworthy of response, and ignoring that those irrational people form the majority of voters in the country.
[1] A satisfactory political response is one that will keep public opinion positive towards nuclear energy after a disaster.
Calling my explanation condescending seems exaggerated. The opposition against nuclear energy makes sense if Chernobyl is your reference in terms of safety. But modern reactor designs are a lot safer than Chernobyl and Fukushima. That's why I'm calling it nonsensical - the skepticism was warranted at the time but it's outdated now.
I agree with you that your comment wasn't condescending like the above commenter suggested, but disagree about modern reactor designs. They'll always carry this risk.
Sure, reactor design has changed since Chernobyl in various ways that help mitigate it, but what about Fukushima?
Fukushima was devastating, and the result was the NRC asking US reactors to reconfirm their flooding and earthquake preparedness. I don't know of any measures taken in European countries.
As climate change progresses, there could be some disastrous consequences, and it's unfair to say that the skepticism is outdated.
This isn't to say that nuclear is worse than coal (it's not), but that it isn't just handwaving.
Modern reactors are also much more expensive and take literally decades to build. Right now the option is to choose between comparatively cheap solar and wind energy (and their immense land usage) and nuclear power plants that are decades old. If we could build modern fission reactors more cheaply and quickly and if we had the water to operate many more of them they would be an option. Right now, they are not.
The only nuclear power plant under construction in the USA will cost nearly thirty billion dollars. That's not cheap no matter how low the interest rate.
> But pretending people are motivated by sheer hippie-foolishness is just an ignorant ad hominem.
I couldn't see any obvious ad hominem in the comment. They are correct in that the anti-nuclear stance of many Greens is often dogmatic to a point where they wouldn't even discuss it if the alternative were a social and economical catastrophe. And I don't think it's too far-fetched to attribute the emergence of that dogmatism to the early green movements.
> The numbers check out but it is undeniably ghoulish.
The numbers are bad for any energy source. Or any industry, for that matter. Coal-fired power plants have emitted much, much more radionuclides than the nuclear industry over the last half century. And contributed to killing millions of people.
The problem is that we’ve come to think that our current way of operating is fine. After all, it clearly is working. Except that it isn’t, but a lot of people have some trouble realising that.
> It is not “completely nonsensical” to oppose nuclear power, even if the argument is badly flawed.
You’re right, and we should be able to have a nuanced discussion. However, arguments such as “nuclear is bad because nuclear weapons” really are completely nonsensical. So is the “we should get rid of nuclear waste, but we are never going to accept to put them anywhere” argument. Or “we need better technical solutions but we oppose any R&D funding”. Or “nuclear plants are important greenhouse gas emitters”. These points are things that actual politicians say, and the a lot of other people believe. They also are utter bollocks.
> Being so condescending and dismissive doesn’t help anyone.
Quite right. And the fact that nuclear has been so opaque because of its association with the military and closely-guarded industrial secrets is very unhelpful.
That said, there are a lot of parallels with trump-like nationalism and anti-vaccination movements. At some point we have to accept that on any given issue some people are going to be vocally ignorant.
We have a weird situation in the UK where the green party oppose nuclear power and public transport development in England but are all for an independent Scotland reliant on north sea oil to stay solvent.
I expect very little from our political class but these ones are especially bizarre.
that is comical - funny to see how climate change doesn't really drive direct action even with environmentalists - looking into this they appear to be against nuclear while claiming carbon emissions are biggest issue?
They grew out of movements opposing nuclear power in the 60s, for various reasons (some of the weapons proliferation concerns were valid enough then, though a detailed understanding of fuel cycles and what does/doesn't generate usable weapons material seldom factors into the objections).
As the concerns shifted, the environmental groups seem to have simply added on various new concerns without re-evaluating old points. So you end up with a lot of the groups now being in a weird state where they're against nuclear, opposed to carbon emissions, and don't actually seem to care much about the actual environment beyond "We have to find a way to keep industrial civilization powered without carbon, and without nuclear." Blowing off mountain tops to extract materials to do this doesn't seem to be a huge concern anymore, and that certainly seems it should fall somewhere under the banner of "environmentalism" - but you mostly hear crickets these days.
If you're looking for something resembling a self consistent environmental group, you can read some of the stuff by the Deep Green Resistance people - their latest, Bright Green Lies, is a decent enough read on their position. That position, simply, is that industrial civilization is incompatible with the planet, and they do a decent job of arguing their position, which is that it doesn't matter how you power an industrial civilization, it does massive and irreparable damage to the planet as a result of the focus on energy and exponential growth. They look at the resource requirements to implement some of the forecast green futures ("We need 3M windmills? Ok, what does that look like in terms of steel, copper, rare earths, and how does that compare with the global production during the timeframe required to build them?") and come to some depressing conclusions. But even if you disagree with them, they show their work decently enough throughout and it's an interesting set of problems to think through.
But in general, you'll find an awful lot of "Climate change is a huge problem; someone else really ought to do something about it!" style thinking in the environmental groups, and I'm pretty comfortable saying that if the last decade hasn't done much useful on this front, continuing the same thing for years to come will accomplish roughly the same "almost nothing."
I'm also not at all sold with the "You can buy your way to green!" solutions that are peddled constantly by those who are interested in ensuring that, no matter what happens, the core of the modern consumerist economy won't be bothered. I'll gesture in the direction of the standard "worried about the climate" somewhat senior tech worker who has a million dollar home, a six figure car, absurdly expensive solar that offsets at least a bit of their power use on their roof, and who feels that they've consumed their way to green, without having really considered any of the resources that actually go into the vehicle, or lower energy/material alternatives to meet their needs. You can directly reduce emissions by simply using less, but this isn't really discussed these days.
I don't see a good path out, sadly. It's very possible we've accelerated growth in a direction that is simply a dead end canyon with no valid paths out that maintain a lot of what we've developed.
This issue is a tad more complex than the silly tropes of "greens oppose nuclear" and "greens claim gas is green". That's not quite what this is about.
Nuclear is very slow to (up|down)cycle. It's very good at putting out a constant rate of power. Pretty cheap power, once it's operational and when conviently ignoring all externalities. However, having boatloads of cheap nuclear on the grid, means that there isn't much room for renewables at the same time. Which means they're often seen as a poor investment. Which means not much capacity gets added. You get the idea.
What the greens want, is as much renewables on the grid as possible, as quickly as possible. You can't use nuclear as backup for intermittent renewables (clouds, lack of wind, etc) because it's too slow. That's why the gas peaker plants are a thing.
Is this an ideal situation? No, of course not. Everything about the energy mix on the grid is a compromise. But it's slowly moving towards a situation where renewables become an attractive investment, which will hopefully lead to more green power.
Nuclear isn't truly green. It still involved mining, and industry that as of today does burn lots of hydrocarbons. Nuclear is certainly better, but it isn't 100% green. It could become green if we can manage to electrify mining and/or get uranium from alternative sources such as water. While I am a fan of nuclear power I don't think it is perfect nor totally carbon free. True renewables, when they are working, are still better than nuclear. Nuclear's niche is that 24/7 reliability that we need to gap-fill wind and solar.
I mean obviously it's not green but this particular classification is about financial investment. The bar for what is considered green could be lowered to encourage investment into those sectors.
covid-19 was a test run for communist shortages. If you like waiting in lines, because the shelves are going to be empty. Then I suppose its good prep. Nobody except ideologues want that. Regular people want prosperity and abundance. Shortages tend to make life harder and kill people. When you need to jerry rig solutions to simple problems due to lack/restrictions of availability of products. Ontario locked down the dollar store during covid, so you couldn't buy even things like a flashlight. I can't imagine how many poor people ended up hurting themselves as a result. Also the terrible erosion of civil liberties, and empowering of authoritarian mandates.
If anything, I saw shortages as a failure of the capitalist system by which shortages are caused by greed, particularly by those with more money. From my understanding with a more socialist system in place, people would be limited to purchase only what they need to make sure that there could be enough for everybody (which there definitely was)
A free market will take care of shortages, the higher price of a particular commodity will mean higher profits and incentives the production of that good. So it's actually opposite. Look for videos from the communist block countries, people were waiting in line to purchase things like bread and toilet paper daily. Its not the Utopia you have in your mind.
Take air travel, right now there are extra costs of tests, and quarantine hotels in Canada, can add thousands to a potential trip. Making it financially impossible for many people to afford it. The rich and connected are not nearly as affected, they can still afford it. Or the government will leave loop holes for them to get around the laws. Litteraly
There is an inconvenient truth we all avoid when we throw out climate change. There is nothing you can do to stop climate change. If you stopped all Canadians from producing any greenhouse gases the wildfires will continue and no one will have noticed.
When two countries are producing the vast majority you are at their mercy. If Canada wants to bully, bribe or shame a country into submission it has to get bigger and have a much bigger army.
On the other hand you can't produce all of your products in China and try to shame when they have higher co2 levels.
In the end anyone who has a cellphone supports climate change.
There is such a thing as leading by example. It is imperfect, to be sure, but it does have an effect. At the moment, Canada is one of the worst countries in per capita greenhouse gas emissions, so perhaps, we can try to do a bit better before blaming other countries. Someone has to go first.
Not OP, but I can address this. Leading by example does not compel anyone to act, it works the same way that nuclear treaties do not reduce nuclear arms. But we still have treaties and we have had no nuclear war in the last 70 years. Leading by example is necessary but not sufficient for carbon reduction. But it removes accusations of hypocrisy when talking about solutions, which makes discussions much more productive.
China does have climate policy and it’s and issue that they do not ignore. They plant trees at the interface of deserts to prevent their expansion, they produce 80% of the worlds solar panels. China is the world's leading country in electricity production from renewable energy sources, with over double the generation of the second-ranking country, the United States.
China has a lot to lose from climate change. They will see reduced agricultural production from prairie land, in a country of over a billion people. A starving population will not allow the current regime to continue and the Chinese government has every reason to come to the table.
> China does have climate policy and it’s and issue that they do not ignore. They plant trees at the interface of deserts to prevent their expansion, they produce 80% of the worlds solar panels. China is the world's leading country in electricity production from renewable energy sources, with over double the generation of the second-ranking country, the United States.
Sounds like you are avoiding the core question surrounding the real issue at hand - China and India are among one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas. There is no policy that can change that fact.
Why focus on China and India, when on a per capita basis they have a small fraction of the carbon footprint that we have in Canada and the US? When we can get our per capita carbon footprint down below theirs, then maybe we'll have a right to criticize their environmental policies. But in the meantime if we're being at all objective, trying to point a finger at them makes us look like absolute hypocrites.
I agree about the West's hypocrisy, but per-capita emissions is a red herring. Regardless of how many people live there, the Chinese government controls the most polluting economy in the history of civilization. The CCP is thus in the position to help more than any other entity in the world right now.
If you read the Great-grand parent comment, which I authored. I advocated for the US to lead by example to encourage other nations to drop their GHG emissions to zero.
Having China and India, being large producers of GHGs, reduce their emissions is necessary but not sufficient to stop further climate change.
Because removing Canada completely doesn't begin to solve the issue. You need to look at total pollution by country because decisions are made at the country level.
> China and India are among one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas. There is no policy that can change that fact.
Fine, I'll bite. Presume for a second that the partitioning of India didn't end with Pakistan and Bangladesh, but that the entire sub-continent split into 15 odd countries each with the population of Mexico.
Would you still be demanding that just these 15 countries carry the disproportionate burden of solving climate change?
You wouldn't, because is would be painfully, obviously dumb to ignore other similar sized groups of countries (Europe, SE asia, etc.)
India and China obviously emit more, because they are - uniquely - single countries with continent sized populations.
They don't suddenly earn some moral burden for that in an atmosphere that is without borders.
China produces much for the world. Offshoring production to them has put them in a unique position where they produce much of the world's greenhouse gases.
Population size doesn't matter.
China produces 5 times more than India. More than double the US at similiar economic levels.
China is the problem. China is the solution.
China produces more greenhouse gases than all developed nations combined.
Then I assume the west will ensure China has access to any and all technology that they decide they need, when they need it, how they need it, to reduce their carbon footprint.
What policy are you suggesting? Are you implying that the Chinese (and Indians) are somehow less deserving of living their lives out of poverty and in relative comfort? Because that's what this is ultimately about. These are both countries with huge populations. Populations who until recently were extremely poor. They are becoming less so, sometimes at speeds that are hard to fathom.
Do you want to be the person to tell 1 billion Chinese that, no, they can't buy a fridge?
China and India aren't vomiting greenhouse gases just to screw the rest of the world. They're doing it to feed their people and enable them to live their lives.
Naive is only considering the absolute amount of emissions within some arbitrarily drawn lines on a map.
The only metric that is fair, and countries like China will consider fair, is per-capita emissions. A Canadian can't justify causing three times as many CO2 emissions as a Chinese by virtue of being Canadian alone.
Per-capita emissions may be fair if it looked at where products are consumed, but in my experience the data only looks at emissions produced divided by population. Producer countries like China and especially Canada with their energy industry will look worse than they actually are because other countries have effectively outsourced their CO2 emissions to these countries.
You have the option of either attributing these emissions to the consuming country, or to not do so and hope that it creates a trade-equilibrium as a side-effect, where each country produces within their CO2 limits.
Either way, even though China is a producer country and far from being clean or sustainable, its emissions are still way behind certain large first world countries.
We (that is North America and the heart of Europe save France) really need to make more of an effort, only if to not look like massive hypocrites when we ask China to turn green.
There is a large push towards nuclear within China right now though - with a lot of research coming out of that country as well - they might beat us to the punch anyways.
> that is North America and the heart of Europe save France
Rest assured that France is really keen on carbonising its electricity supply and closing a significant number of its nuclear plants, thus going back into the fold of its European neighbours. Stupidity knows no border.
Staking the future of the climate on trusting countries to be fair is childish thinking.
The ONLY metric that matters is global gigatons of CO2 emitted per year. This needs to decrease. Playing hand waving games with per capita between countries is pure nonsense and provides cover for emitters.
Countries are sovereign units of control that we've divided ourselves into. To actually get some meaningful work done we have to hold some countries into account. Example: the US obviously needs to be held to account for pulling out of the Paris agreement, since it's the worst offender in both per-capita and total consumption-based emissions, despite having the capabilities to change that (being rich).
yes we can. We live in a more northern environment, necessitating high CO2 emissions. Maybe not three times, but factor in the fact that Canadians are so distantly spread out adds more weight to the necessity of Canadians having higher CO2 emissions per-capita than China. It's not apples to apples comparison.
Why is it China's problem that Canadians choose to live in a northern climate in a "distantly spread out" fashion? They could just as easily argue that their higher absolute CO2 emissions is "necessary" given their higher population.
Every country can come up with a list of excuses as to why they should be entitled to produce CO2. At the end of the day we need to start with taking responsibility for our own emissions before we start telling other countries what to do.
Canada could blow up or start producing 10 times per person it wouldn't matter. Look at the global numbers. China is the world's problem if you believe in climate change.
If Canada started producing 10x per person it would be the worlds second largest emitter. So yeah, it would matter.
Pretending this is exclusively China’s problem when the rest of the world produces 3/4 of global emissions and a significant percentage of China’s emissions are a result of demand from the West, is simply nonsensical.
We will not get out of this by focusing on spinning stats or trying to focus attention on per capita vs. absolute figures. This problem requires collective action.
CO2 emmissions should be allocated per great grand-parent and shared amongst all descendents equally. i.e. allocate on the population when the 3rd industrial revolution started.
Simple per-capita emissions unfairly favours those who like to procreate irresponsibly on a resource-constrained planet.
>> If you think China gives a crap about your example you’re horrendously naive.
Tell that to the legions of Chinese immigrants who have flocked to Canada in recent years. It happened during the Hong Kong handover too. The Chinese see Canada as the more tolerant alternative to the US. Canada's opinion on China matters because that opinion is shared by the many Chinese people living in Canada. What is naïve is to ignore the family and social connections between the countries.
There are different groups in China. The bulk of the people will never travel internationally. They don't have much money/influence in the country. The ones that visit Canada are the rich and powerful. They are the leaders. They are the ones that will go home and set CCP policy. They visit Canada and see clean water and reasonable living standards are possible. When they go home they will demand those things. They will demand change when their college-age kids studying in Canada don't want to come home, or don't stay long when they do. That sort of slow influence can be more effective than the threat of violence.
Carbon taxes and tariffs would work yes. But you're imposing serious costs on people that they haven't shown any desire to support. Further, tariffs would disproportionately impact the poor in the developing world.
I'm 100% against the embargo of Cuba ... but let me use that as an example of: "it's not as if the US hasn't/isn't doing exactly that in other arenas".
But I take your point, and I'm not sure of the solution.
The solution is economic, just not via tariff or tax. Clean energy must supplant dirty energy at scale. The only way for this to happen is to make it cheaper so the developing world will use it instead.
Especially when you consider the economic impacts of "going first" it puts the CCP in a position where they're likely to gain the economic output you've banned, and then use that to gain even more of an upper hand against you
What are you talking about. China has already “gone first” they drove solar costs down below fossil fuel energy production cost. The change to green energy and decarbonization is a huge Keynesian economic stimulus. Decarbonizing is not about impoverishing yourself it’s about modernizing everything with tools that are demonstrably better in almost every way using government backed debt. It’s going to be a huge driver of GDP growth for the next 25-50 years. The political blocker here is that a lot of members of the capital class are very invested in the current fossil fuel energy production paradigm and will have relatively less wealth on the other side of this transition.
The reality here is we can and should use a nearly infinite amount of debt to finance decarbonization. Debt is “borrowing money from the future” and do you think anyone 50 years from now will be saying “I think we should have spent less money on decarbonzing?”, absolutely not. There is no world in which we can muscle the political will to spend that much money today, so for all intents and purposes consider it an unlimited credit line.
Consumers in the west are (obviously) responsible for a lot of the emissions that take place in China too.
And regardless - for the sake of solidarity with the developing world I think it must be considered fair that us westerners take a bigger responsibility than developing countries.
There are two arguments here that are both equally valid: 1) This just won't work unless everyone is on the same page, including China 2) This just won't work unless the west accepts an unconditional
change of lifestyle regardless of which if any other countries are on board.
but you are arguing a talking point from a decade ago -- China is definitely taking actions to diversify its power generation with solar production, convert existing systems to electrical inputs, use higher-efficiency parts like LED lighting, and other important steps. They are competing directly in science with the West in publications and PR and business cases.
This re-hash amongst Western chatty people is well-intentioned perhaps, but the targets really are moving as this debate has not.
action on the ground using the above mentioned fact-based changes is called for now, right?
> but you are arguing a talking point from a decade ago -- China is definitely taking actions to diversify its power generation, convert to electrical inputs, use higher-efficiency parts like LED lighting, and other important steps.
Indeed. But the major argument against doing anything in the west is still based on the idea that it's futile so long as china doesn't do more.
> "On the other hand you can't produce all of your products in China and try to shame when they have higher co2 levels."
This is an important point that more people need to understand. That is, when a country outsources their manufacturing the associated pollution production goes with it.
China et al don't only have cheap labor, their environmental protections are also less stringent. So when, for example, the USA claims it has reduced X or Y it has often simply moved that off shore.
Put another way, that smog in Beijine - that so many in the West are fond of chastising - was Made For America, and others.
Truth is, what we need is G7 wide import tariffs on goods produced in countries that are not trying to curb their emissions, along with quotas on visas issued to these nationals for as long as they keep pushing for dirty energy. [0]
This would need a much needed break to our domestic manufacturing that has to compete with this extremely cheap dirty foreign energy.
If you keep posting political/ideological/nationalistic flamewar comments to HN, we will end up having to ban you. It's not what this site is for, and you've been doing it repeatedly. The rules apply regardless of how wrong other commenters are or you feel they are.
The comments I usually reply to are doing the exact same thing - jingoistic, borderline fascist comments but from the other side (which happens to be what this website's general population is aligned with).
At this point I don't really care that this forum remains an echo chamber - so you won't see me post these comments anymore.
> In the end anyone who has a cellphone supports climate change.
Correct. And to your point, China is building coal plants, not decomissioning them [0].
What people in the West fail to understand is that in order for society to improve (and currently, remain stable), you need cheap, reliable energy. Renewables—seemingly, the proposed alternatives (wind and solar)—are neither cheap nor reliable. They're also dependent on fossil fuels to be produced (and shipped, and cleaned, and de-iced, etc).
One of the best things you can get behind if you really want to see CO2 emissions drop—which, if you dig into the data, a lot of it is based on models, not observations (which are dramatically below the models) [1]—is to promote nuclear energy and domestic manufacturing.
The former is near carbon-free (in operation) and produces ample energy (and modern solutions are both safe and have limited/reusable waste). The latter promotes both national stability (people have jobs) and reduces unnecessary emissions in other countries and for transport of goods.
> (and modern solutions are both safe and have limited/reusable waste).
can you point me to something trustworthy that proves this point? I am not too much into the topic of nuclear energy but the last time I spent a night or two reading up on it the waste part still felt like a huge drawback.
China dropped from 80% coal in 2010 to 57.7% in 2019. China’s exponential increase in electricity production means they don’t have nearly as many old coal power plants, but looking at what their building today is very promising.
Re: China, there's clearly not an effort to move away from coal if they're constructing new plants. The percentages may be less, but if the overarching thesis is to limit things that produce CO2 altogether, this statistic is irrelevant when contrasted with their actions.
Coal power plants age. As their power demand has skyrocketed there are currently few 40+ year old coal power stations to be decommissioned. Looking at say 2050 the existing stock will mostly be replaced by whatever ratio they built between 2010 and 2050.
Replaced by other coal power stations, though, not alternative sources. So again, not an incorrect statistic, but irrelevant in the context of the goal of reducing emissions globally (and the associated moral arguments/intimidations). Or does China get a pass because they produce goods cheaply for Westerner's?
Your assuming they are suddenly going to massively ramp up construction of coal power plants in a few years based on what?
Flip it around, does the US get a pass because they had a lot of really old coal power plants? In the last decade the US built a lot of Natural Gas power plants which sure isn’t as bad as coal, but they are hardly green. We’re falling behind on solar adoption, and wind is only slightly ahead of the global average.
Massive infrastructure changes take decades and we have arguably stagnated.
Suddenly, no. But they're not signaling intent to stop building them, either. If they're actively building now and saying they're going to build more, the logical conclusion is that they're going to build more over time.
And you're misdirecting. The U.S. doesn't get a pass. We're arguably one of the biggest targets that everyone points their fingers at (and domestically, shames its own population for relying on those energy sources).
My entire point is that the very things being obsessed over (solar and wind) are simply not feasible at the scale and capacities required to sustain our current civilization. The alternative is either nuclear, or significant population reduction (read: death, or, the logical conclusion of large swaths of humans either being denied access to energy or being priced out).
Like I've said elsewhere in this thread, the problem is less of a moral one and more of a mathematical one. E.g., the best solar panels only have a 20-23% effectiveness rate (https://archive.ph/wip/Vh1Qj). That means they cannot pull in ~80% of the solar power available. Batteries to supplement this mean more not less fossil fuels for production and mining of rare earth metals (and let's not even get into the human rights issues at those mines). Wind mills can't be built with windmill energy (and only work when the wind blows which is too varied to call reliable). Plain and simple: these alternative energy sources are not capable of replacing our existing energy needs wholesale without introducing significant chaos and likely, death.
The efficiency of solar panels is practically irrelevant. For scale for ~20,000$ of land in Arizona (60 acres) is getting ~240,000 kw of energy in full sun. At 2c/kWh and 10% efficiency you pay for that land in ~42 hours of full sun. Land costs are rarely more than 0.1% of total costs.
Anyway, nobody is going to run a major grid on 100% solar power because hydro and wind are cheaper than batteries. But let’s think pessimistic worst case. You want 50% over supply of solar so you never have to worry about long term storage (as in 1/3 of all solar is wasted).
That’s 3c/kWh. Batteries aren’t 100% efficient and degrade with use so let’s say 55% of power is provided directly via solar (much higher demand in day) and 45% of power is provided from solar fed batteries. If 1 kWh from a battery adds 10c the equation it’s roughly 3c + 10c * 45% = 7.5c/kWh.
Which is very close to what base load coal costs except because we’re using batteries which also covers peaking power plants. Frankly coal is only surviving in China because of how long it’s talking to build cheaper alternatives.
That's wildly inefficient at scale (and that's if it can be done reliably). Check my numbers here—should be correct but I'd appreciate pushback—estimating 50% of annual U.S. usage in panels vs nuclear plants: https://imgur.com/a/zeHo21R.
Even if we want 50% of our power nationwide to come from solar power, based on your 60 acre model that's still 6,429 of these installations or 385,753 acres (and that's with a generous output estimate of 2.5kWh per panel, per day).
A single 582 megawatt nuclear plant can generate 13,968,000 kWh per day and each one takes up a mile (640 acres).
Not to mention, 60 acres of panels takes a ton of manpower to maintain and keep functional. People, trucks, maintenance equipment, etc.
Keep in mind, too, these numbers are before we introduce everyone driving electric cars (assuming that's an ideal).
First 385,753 acres is trivial in the US. The federal government for example manages 640,000,000 acres in the US, it’s a big freaking country. We where doing above ground nuclear testing because we just had that much unused space.
As to output per day real world capacity factors for grid solar vary by location but tend to ~30% here’s a 29.7%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Signal_Solar So if a 400W panel averages ~2.9kWh per day 2.5kWh is perfectly reasonable ballpark estimate. Panel density varies but over 2000 per acre isn’t unreasonable as they are tilted. Still let’s use 2,000 or account for access roads etc.
As to nuclear it’s capacity factor in the us ~90% because it doesn’t need to follow the grid. Unfortunately that drops if you want to increase the number of nuclear power plants. France leaned into nuclear, but even exporting a lot of subsidized nuclear still they had capacity factors of ~70%.
By comparison at 2.9kWh per day panel * 2000 * 640 = 3,712,000 kWh per day from solar. Sure it’s less dense but not enough to be particularly meaningful especially as you don’t need access to water. The real difference people care about is it’s vastly cheaper and can actually scale. Try and hit 100% with nuclear and your stuck with sub 50% capacity factors or your need a lot of grid storage both of which dramatically increases the price. To actually be competitive long term, nuclear needs about an 60-80% cost reduction which is frankly never going to happen.
As to EV’s you need more space to park them than to install solar panels to power them. You also need more batteries for EV themselves than you need to backup a solar powered electric grid.
> By comparison at 2.9kWh per day panel * 2000 * 640 = 3,712,000 kWh per day from solar.
How is being less efficient by ~10,000,000 kWh per day preferred? That's a significant difference in output. You seem fixated on price and are ignoring the reality that solar panels inconsistently generate that amount of energy whereas nuclear is more stable. If climate change is literally going to destroy the world, then cost should be of less concern than "can it give us the power we need while reducing emissions?"
> Try and hit 100% with nuclear and your stuck with sub 50% capacity factors or your need a lot of grid storage both of which dramatically increases the price.
Can you share what led you to this 50% capacity number?
First intermittency is just a cost of battery question, because cost of one type or another is the only meaningful metric. Hell if land use bothers you we can put panels on rooftops, parking lots, between highways etc. It’s wasteful but plenty of people are doing it.
Also, 13,968,000 kWh per day * 70% capacity factor = 9,777,600 kWh so solar only needs 3x to 4x the land. Except, nuclear reactors need land near large bodies of water making that land far more valuable. So because you can’t put a nuclear reactor on the ultra cheap land viable for solar panels Nuclear actually ends up with higher land costs.
It's not a matter of technical feasibility (i.e., you could do it, but is it the best. most stable way), it's what is the goal. All of those batteries require fossil fuels to be produced, as do the solar panels. Favoring the model where you have to produce more (meaning more fossil fuels) is the antithesis to the greater point.
The more efficient option—even if more expensive—should be preferred. You may end up getting similar results, but the overall impact of trying to make solar panels play catch-up is more destructive in the long run. And they don't even catch up. By your own math, even at 70% capacity a reactor is 3x as powerful.
And re: the water requirements, those would also be a factor in hydroelectric so it's a moot point (assuming you see hydroelectric as a supplemental form of power to solar).
I've yet to do research into inputs of manufacturing a plant vs solar/wind/etc. so can't give specifics but just in the abstract what you've described sounds more wasteful (and that's if it can be done—there is far less ambiguity with the nuclear option).
The only necessary CO2 release from batteries is based on the current state of our global economy. Reduction in the amount fossil fuels used in the grid and mining equipment directly reduces the use of fossil fuels manufacturing batteries and solar panels all the way down to zero.
As part of being massively more expensive, Nuclear actually involves significantly more indirect fossil fuel usage due to those costs. For example all a nuclear power plants requires onsite fossil fuel generators which need to be run regularly: http://aa-powersystems.com/wp-content/uploads/3061871_OE_Bro... Yet those generators are left off of assessments of CO2 releases associated with nuclear power plants. Similarly the centrifuges reacquired to manufacture nuclear fuel require vast amounts of electricity to manufacture and run. The nameplate generation from Nuclear further ignores those ongoing energy costs.
the _numbers_ say nuclear energy costs about $150/MWh and utility-scale solar costs $24/MWh. Moreover, nuclear costs are going up even in places where they can and will ignore planning commission things like the PRC and solar costs are going down.
Last winter we didnt see the sun for 6 weeks, and didnt have enough wind to overcome the cost of keeping wind turbine blades de-iced.
Batteries simply are not an appropriate solution to the problem.
We would need to make massive investments in high voltage DC lines across the country, dumping tons of CO2 into steel and concrete for rare usage patterns.
Go further. How many batteries would it take to supply stable energy for the entire/majority of U.S. grids (and how long will those panels/batteries last)? How much energy will be produced relative to the number of solar panels that need to be installed? Is land conservation taken out of the equation in favor of panel installation?
This line of questioning was my "mind blow." It turns out, there are technological solutions, but they don't scale to meet demand (and if/when they do, it's inconsistent). And to boot, they're an aesthetic nightmare.
Everything humans build is accused of being an "aesthetic nightmare". Houses, roads, farms, feed lots, cities, etc. This is not a good argument against building important infrastructure.
When you consider the number that are required to supply our entire grid reliably (if even possible), it is. The only way to do it and maintain capacity is to use renewables alongside things like nuclear (or stay with fossil fuels and adapt our living habits).
It's not a question of morality, but of mathematics. Can we sustainably and consistently produce enough energy using those methods long-term?
If the answer is "no," fooling ourselves into believing it's "yes" for the sake of ego/emotional pacification is setting us up for failure. I do believe the answer may be yes eventually, but on the current doomer timeline (always shifting but afaik the current doomsday is in ~12 years), the answer will remain "no."
Anec-data: I’m in my 40s and live in the Vancouver area. The first time in my life that I ever experienced a smoked in summer was about 5 years ago.
Actual data: the link you posted shows a decrease in fires overall, but the size and damage of them increasing. I guess when the fires are so big and start merging your overall count goes down.
The #1 contributing factor in this case is the western pine beetle, which exploded in range when winters stopped being cold enough to kill them off, and left stands of dead forests in its wake. Climate change is a direct culprit.
>Anec-data: I’m in my 40s and live in the Vancouver area. The first time in my life that I ever experienced a smoked in summer was about 5 years ago.
And up until last week, almost no one alive in BC had lived through record-setting temperatures, most of which were set in the 1930s.
It just seems so counter productive to point to every single weather event now and say "see? climate-change". That's why people ignore the issue. They're inundated with it.
Prior to the 1930's, we didnt even have reliable means of tracking temperature. If that is the sole argument for "this is climate change" an easy rebuttal would be "this is a natural pattern".
For singular events like this, there simply isnt evidence either way... only whatever intuition your predisposition tells you makes sense.
If you had to bet, or put money like you were investing in the stock market, what would you put as your best-guess odds on these records being broken again in less than 70 years (ie, a shorter time than it took to break them)? What about 50 years? 30? Keep in mind that as this record is higher than the previous one, it should be harder to surpass if the climate isn't changing.
Personally, I bet 50-50 we'll surpass these records in the next 20 years.
Are you just looking at the total number of fires in Figure 1? Figure 2 shows that annual wildfire-burned area has been increasing in the last 40 years. Figures 3, 6 and 7 also back that up.
But this is not climate, it's weather. Like you look like a fool on a cold winter mocking global warning, maybe wait a bit to call summer fires in Canada hottest summer in recent memory a direct climate change effect, or it'll just be invalidated next coldest summer in recent memory...
I remember forest fires in my country decades ago and they reduced a lot recently, so what, positive result of global warming and climate change, or good application of forest management ? Temperatures changing or ... anyway you get the point :D
It is difficult to care when we’ve been told since the 90s that the brink is only x years away and then nothing happens. Canada is huge 180 wildfires is nothing. The fact is that there is no peer reviewed scientific study that proves there are increased wildfires due to climate change. Assuming it is makes you the same as the folks who just assumed the pandemic was fake. It is anti-science.
One practical solution to climate change may be to shut everything down for one day each week, kind of like some places did in response to the pandemic. Close all non-essential business, restrict all non-essential travel, etc. In addition to giving our planet a much needed day off each week, it’d probably go a long way towards improving our mental health.
We didn't really stop industry. It did show how little effect flying and cruises have (which is good because I like flying) but it also shows that the emissions aren't just coming from luxuries that are easy to live without.
Actually shutting down everything one day a week (giving 1/5 to 1/7 theoretical savings) isn't really going to work. Practically a lot of industry can't shut down, or would pollute a lot more by starting and stopping.
Too many big carbon emitters don't shut-down easily, and the cost to start them backup is likely higher (steel processing, container ships, power plants, etc)
Carbon in the atmosphere is cumulative. Shutting down for one day a week just means accumulating at a slightly slower rate. We need to shut down carbon emission 7 days a week.
Or incentivize companies to implement remote work. Talking office commuter cars off the road would be a great step but everyone is rushing back to the office to go back to emitting huge amounts of CO2.
I think people would shift their emissions to different days of the week. During Covid, I could not work from home, so the office made each person take a different day off in the week to reduce concurrent people working by 20%. We would then work 10 hour days. I shifted all my chores and errands to my day off.
Restrictions are a political non-starter. We need carbon neutral ways for people to go about their daily lives, solar and wind electricity production, electric cars, jet fuel produced by taking carbon from the air and assembling it into long chains.
