Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[namlio]

Geothermal energy, the forgotten renewable, has finally arrived

Geothermal isn’t as easy as the article would make you believe.

First, they make it seem like you can do this almost anywhere, but you need a lot of things to come together geologically to make this work - especially high heat that isn’t too deep and good reservoir rock with some permeability. It will take a good number of wells to develop enough capacity, and these are not the easiest to drill and complete, and usually require special metallurgy. The wells may need to be fractured to maintain production and injection rates. The reservoir risk can be pretty high.

Second, the operation is complex. You have to handle a lot of very nasty, corrosive water with high mineral content, again requiring high dollar metallurgy. Then you have to be able to reinject this water to reheat it. If it can’t be reinjected, it becomes a big environmental problem. The wells and reservoirs will often plug up from mineral deposition and corrosion, requiring expensive work overs or redrilling. Consequently, operating costs can be high and hard to manage.

There is a reason that geothermal isn’t a lot bigger than it is; you need a lot of things to come together in the same place to even have a chance. If it does, great, but I see this as more of a niche player in the energy mix, not a major contributor. I am, by no means, an expert, but I was a petroleum engineer who had some minor involvement with geothermal project management and evaluation in Indonesia and elsewhere.

namlio

 

[cpa]

Geothermal isn’t as easy as the article would make you believe.

First, they make it seem like you can do this almost anywhere, but you need a lot of things to come together geologically to make this work - especially high heat that isn’t too deep and good reservoir rock with some permeability. It will take a good number of wells to develop enough capacity, and these are not the easiest to drill and complete, and usually require special metallurgy. The wells may need to be fractured to maintain production and injection rates. The reservoir risk can be pretty high.

Second, the operation is complex. You have to handle a lot of very nasty, corrosive water with high mineral content, again requiring high dollar metallurgy. Then you have to be able to reinject this water to reheat it. If it can’t be reinjected, it becomes a big environmental problem. The wells and reservoirs will often plug up from mineral deposition and corrosion, requiring expensive work overs or redrilling. Consequently, operating costs can be high and hard to manage.

There is a reason that geothermal isn’t a lot bigger than it is; you need a lot of things to come together in the same place to even have a chance. If it does, great, but I see this as more of a niche player in the energy mix, not a major contributor. I am, by no means, an expert, but I was a petroleum engineer who had some minor involvement with geothermal project management and evaluation in Indonesia and elsewhere.

namlio

In the late '70s I had a client who researched expanding their existing geothermal generation by trying to solve the problem of reinjecting the water after it had flashed into vapor to spin the turbines. They spent a lot of money to develop a working prototype. It was not economically feasible for them to pursue it any further, so they scrapped their plans after several years, even though their design worked.

 

[mspohr]

Massachusetts city to post climate change warning stickers at gas stations

Cambridge, Massachusetts, has become the first US city to mandate the placing of stickers on fuel pumps to warn drivers of the resulting dangers posed by the climate crisis. Stickers placed on fuel pumps in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Stickers placed on fuel pumps in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Photograph: City of Cambridge The final design of the bright yellow stickers, shared with the Guardian, includes text that warns drivers the burning of gasoline, diesel and ethanol has “major consequences on human health and the environment including contributing to climate change”.

Labels are designed to create a feeling like someone has broken a rule or violated a law,” Brooks said. “This feeling, along with increased social pressure, like smoking labels, can translate to a collapse in trust for the current system, thereby increasing the public appetite for alternatives.”

 

[mspohr]

Weather disasters cost $150bn in 2020, revealing impact of climate change – report

The world’s 10 costliest weather disasters of 2020 saw insured damages worth $150bn, topping the figure for 2019 and reflecting a long-term impact of global warming, according to a new report.

From Australia’s out-of-control wildfires to a record number of Atlantic hurricanes through November, the true cost of the year’s climate-enhanced calamities was in fact far higher because most losses were uninsured. Not surprisingly, the burden fell disproportionately on poor nations, according to the annual tally from the charity Christian Aid, entitled Count the cost of 2020: a year of climate breakdown. The climate crisis has already arrived. Just look to California’s abnormal wildfires | Alastair Gee, Dani Anguiano Only 4% of economic losses from climate-impacted extreme events in low-income countries were insured, compared with 60% in high-income economies, the report said, citing a study last month in The Lancet.

The same disasters claimed at least 3,500 lives and displaced more than 13.5 million people.

 

[mspohr]

Not Just Another Pipeline Opinion | Not Just Another Pipeline

This is not just another pipeline. It is a tar sands climate bomb; if completed, it will facilitate the production of crude oil for decades to come. Tar sands are among the most carbon-intensive fuels on the planet. The state’s environmental impact assessment of the project found the pipeline’s carbon output could be 193 million tons per year. That’s the equivalent of 50 coal-fired power plants or 38 million vehicles on our roads, according to Jim Doyle, a physicist at Macalester College who helped write a report from the climate action organization MN350 about the pipeline.

If the pipeline is built, Minnesotans could turn off everything in the state, stop traveling and still not come close to meeting the state’s emission reduction goals. The impact assessment also states that the potential social cost of this pipeline is $287 billion over 30 years.

 

[JRP3]

Could Carbon Dioxide Be Turned Into Jet Fuel?

Now a team at Oxford University in the United Kingdom has come up with an experimental process that might be able to turn carbon dioxide—a greenhouse gas emitted by all gas-burning engines—into jet fuel. If successful, the process, which uses an iron-based chemical reaction, could result in “net zero” emissions from airplanes.

The experiment, reported today in the journal Nature Communications, was conducted in a laboratory and still needs to be replicated at a larger scale. But the chemical engineers who designed and performed the process are hopeful that it could be a climate game-changer.

 

[mspohr]

Could Carbon Dioxide Be Turned Into Jet Fuel?

Yes, of course but the problem as always is the cost and energy source.
"Scale"

 

[JRP3]

Geothermal in Canada

 

[mspohr]

Iceland geothermal and more

Iceland's innovations to reach net-zero – in pictures

 

[mspohr]

Could we ever pull enough carbon out of the atmosphere to stop climate change? | Space

Ultimately, every country will have to put together its own unique portfolio of CO2 removal strategies because no single intervention will be successful on its own. "If we scaled up any of them exclusively, it would be a disaster," Fuss said. "It would use a lot of land or be prohibitively expensive." Her research has shown that afforestation and reforestation will be most productive in tropical regions, whereas solar radiation differences in the more northern latitudes with more albedo (reflection of light back into space) mean those countries will likely have better luck investing in the more technological interventions, such as carbon capture and biomass extraction.

 

[MC3OZ]

Report from Tony Seba replacing cattle..

https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...1363/RethinkX+Food+and+Agriculture+Report.pdf

U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from cattle will drop by 60% by 2030, on course to nearly 80% by 2035. Even when the modern food production that replaces animal agriculture is included, net emissions from the sector as a whole will decline by 45% by 2030, on course to 65% by 2035.

 

[JRP3]

According to the Washington Post, experts believe that a sudden stratospheric warming event could affect the polar vortex. If strong enough, it could weaken and force the vortex off of the North Pole, causing pieces of it to split in two and make its way south. The polar vortex is the circulation of air around low pressure that acts as a repository for some of the coldest air on the planet. If it were to travel south, it would create extremely cold winters for Northern Europe, Asia, and North America—including the United States.

Polar Vortex Could Split in Two Creating Harsh Winter in U.S.

 

[winfield100]

Report from Tony Seba replacing cattle..

https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...1363/RethinkX+Food+and+Agriculture+Report.pdf

the future is headed at us like a freight train, pretty unstoppable
this is a sobering clip, since I know dairy and turkey farmers
"...The whole of the cow milk industry, for example, will start to collapse once modern food technologies have replaced the proteins in a bottle of milk – just 3.3% of its content. The industry, which is already balancing on a knife edge, will thus be all but bankrupt by 2030...."

 

[SageBrush]

the future is headed at us like a freight train, pretty unstoppable
this is a sobering clip, since I know dairy and turkey farmers
"...The whole of the cow milk industry, for example, will start to collapse once modern food technologies have replaced the proteins in a bottle of milk – just 3.3% of its content. The industry, which is already balancing on a knife edge, will thus be all but bankrupt by 2030...."

I can only hope.

The animal 'agribusiness' is a daily testament of the wretchedness of mankind.

 

[mspohr]

U.S. Disaster Costs Doubled in 2020, Reflecting Costs of Climate Change U.S. Disaster Costs Doubled in 2020, Reflecting Costs of Climate Change

The $95 billion in damage came in a year marked by a record number of named Atlantic storms, as well as the largest wildfires recorded in California.

 

[mspohr]

Climate crisis: 2020 was joint hottest year ever recorded

Despite a 7% fall in fossil fuel burning due to coronavirus lockdowns, heat-trapping carbon dioxide continued to build up in the atmosphere, also setting a new record. The average surface temperature across the planet in 2020 was 1.25C higher than in the pre-industrial period of 1850-1900, dangerously close to the 1.5C target set by the world’s nations to avoid the worst impacts.

 

[mspohr]

Insect populations suffering death by 1,000 cuts, say scientists

Insect populations are suffering “death by a thousand cuts”, with many falling at “frightening” rates that are “tearing apart the tapestry of life”, according to scientists behind a new volume of studies. The insects face multiple, overlapping threats including the destruction of wild habitats for farming, urbanisation, pesticides and light pollution. Population collapses have been recorded in places where human activities dominate, such as in Germany, but there is little data from outside Europe and North America and in particular from wild, tropical regions where most insects live.

 

[mspohr]

EPA rule exempts many polluting industries from future air regulations

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday finalized a rule that would allow future greenhouse gas limits only on power plants, sidestepping oversight over the oil and gas industry, iron and steel manufacturers and other polluting industries.

The new rule from the EPA argues that only sectors whose pollution accounts for more than 3 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are “considered to contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution.”

 

[SmartElectric]

The new rule from the EPA argues that only sectors whose pollution accounts for more than 3 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are “considered to contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution.”

This from the country where "Corporations are people", I foresee many power plants claiming they are their own sector as "power plants are their own sectors" and since our one little sector isn't responsible for 3% of the total, we're off the hook!

 

[JRP3]

Maybe the new administration will fix some of this.