The Most Ambitious Plan of the Human Race

[prokaryotes]

Made a new video.

Things are pretty dire right now. We know we need to rapidly make some drastic changes - and Stanford researchers have come up with a master plan

http://climatestate.com/2020/01/01/the-most-ambitious-plan-of-the-human-race/

[NeilT]

I am all for solutions.  But they have to be viable.

So I looked at the UK. Essentially it is all wind or solar divided almost totally down the middle.  Yet, today, around 12% of our energy is produced by Nuclear and that will not change in the short term.

There is NO mention of storage at all and we are very aware that thera is at least one period, of 1 week long, per year, where wind produces close to 0% power.  That is half your power mix and with no storage, what do you do at night.

If they had even made a nod to V2G they would have got some kudos from me.

Then there is Biomass. Granted, today, the question as to whether it is emitting or not is open, but the fact is that it is a significant part of the UK mix for a very good reason.

I like to collect information and solution sources and then use them with other communities.

Sorry, but for the UK, this one does not make the grade. It is limiterd theoretical based, relatively reality free, thinking.  The people I often use this media for would tear it to shreds in a second.

[kassy]

Or maybe you just have to be ambitious. Of course there has to be storage in the mix and cross connections.

And do you mean viable now vs viable long term because that is what is at play here.
There is a very good argument for investing big in the transition. It will save lives and decreases wealth transfer. We cannot go on the old way so we have to switch.

Vested interests are fighting this but don´t be complacent. Looking at generational transfer of climate burden you had your fair share of easy times. Invest in the future even though it does improve your current situation immediately.

If you have long enough to go you might even see the benefits.

You fail to see why you should be unhappy with the current system as many people do.

There is an alternative and it is non-optional.

[NeilT]

.

You fail to see why you should be unhappy with the current system as many people do.

I correct.  I am entirely unhappy with the current system as it does not give me options to consume less CO2 and, it would seem, those options get less every year and not more.

What I am also unhappy with are half baked solutions made from political evangelism which drive the majority away from real solutions to change our CO2 emissions.

For instance I am currently sitting in France.  The only country in the EU which has lower CO2 emissions for electricity production is Sweden and they are heavily invested in Biomass.

France is 70% Nuclear and 15% Hydro. Where is Nuclear in that document?  Nowhere.

Allow me a bit of skepticism, because you are going to face it when you present that document as a template for a CO2 future.

[TerryM]

A "Master Plan" that opens with a single private vehicle driving on an isolated 4 lane highway seems skewed. These vistas are what lead us to our present predicament.


At least one Chinese city is well on the way to eliminating private vehicles entirely. The holdup as I understand it has been the difficulty that providing sufficient electricity poses.


A hundred years ago very few could afford a horse and buggy. Why are personal vehicles deemed necessary in the future?


Terry

[prokaryotes]

So I looked at the UK. Essentially it is all wind or solar divided almost totally down the middle.  Yet, today, around 12% of our energy is produced by Nuclear and that will not change in the short term.

No fan of nuclear but 12% nuclear, if they keep it it won't affect our goal.

There is NO mention of storage at all..

Storage is a main discussion point of the study paper https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(19)30225-8 the Vimeo video embedded in the article includes about 20 minutes discussion on storage. The video discusses storage briefly. To me it appears as if you did not read the study, did not watched the video, and did not read the article

[prokaryotes]

A "Master Plan" that opens with a single private vehicle driving on an isolated 4 lane highway seems skewed. These vistas are what lead us to our present predicament.

This is a thumbnail highlighting a wind energy farm, the vehicle is symbolic for our transition towards it. This master plan is basically about our energy mix, not vehicles.

[Archimid]

First, thanks OP.

Second, I agree. A master plan is needed. Is there one written somewhere?

[dbarce]

This study debunks the "green growth" strategy. Mainly due to the lack of geophysical availability for the required materials.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X19300926

[TerryM]

A "Master Plan" that opens with a single private vehicle driving on an isolated 4 lane highway seems skewed. These vistas are what lead us to our present predicament.

This is a thumbnail highlighting a wind energy farm, the vehicle is symbolic for our transition towards it. This master plan is basically about our energy mix, not vehicles.

Wind farms/solar/mini-hydro/long storage & short storage were all needed yesterday. Our love affair with personal vehicles needed to end yesterday also.


Replacing the dirty energy we have with clean energy is necessary, but it's only half of the equation. Saving energy is the other necessary component, & one of the least painful ways to save energy is to invest in public transportation while discouraging, then banning automobiles.


The Master Plan is good, and I loved the video, but it's just not ambitious enough.
Terry

[NeilT]

read the study[/url], did not watched the video, and did not read the article

Apologies for that, I flicked through the PDF, which had the Model for each country. My time is always limited at home, wife comes first.

[NeilT]

No fan of nuclear but 12% nuclear, if they keep it it won't affect our goal.

It is about baseload power when renewables drop out.  Think a dark and still December week.

There is no benefit in promoting the best case scenario, it is always the worst you must plan for.  This is about a master plan, then planning they must do and planning is Always for the worst case in this scenario.

Power is a reality of our life today.  Any significant outage and people begin to die.

[KiwiGriff]

You are thinking in country silos Neil.
At no time would the entirety of Europe  be without  wind,  solar, hydro,geothermal .
The solution is trans Continental grid interconnections not individual country/state  grids.
Yes it is going to be both expensive and difficult.
The alternative. The cost of continuing to use FF's unabated is infinite. 

[NeilT]

That would be because the world works in silo's and the solution needs to be able to fit itself to it.

As for the EU and interconnections? Perhaps in 2-3 decades.  But you have to factor in the North European Plain.  Nothing over 300ft from central England to Moscow.  Whatever wind conditions are prevalent in one are are most likely to be similar in others given the right (or wrong), wind conditions.

You also assume that either wind or Solar will be there in plenty for all countries to use on this grid when, in reality, each member state is funding renewables to a shrinking energy utilisation in each country silo.  Where is the excess to come from?

If we are going to have a master plan, it needs to be feasible.  This is, after all, my current day job.  I see half baked plans cash and burn on a regular basis.

Planning wind power for max output in stormy conditions does not bode well for future power stability.

I recall sitting in the dark in the 70's when the UK miners decided they would restrict coal to our power stations. We were well able to live with it in those days, but society, today, does not live like that in the most emitting countries.

I'm all for a master plan.  But it needs to address stability, availability and real world usage.

In another life I used to design clustered mail servers.  When designing I was challenged as to why I built the servers with 175% of max normal load, when the eventual load balanced system was expected to run at 125%.

It took quite some time to explain that you do not design for the eventual run state, you design for the transfer load state in the event of a failure, or in this case, the continued supply in one country when another country goes into a still dark night in mid winter.

Back to planning.  Worst case scenario.

I may seem negative, but there will be nothing worse than spending trillions of $ on something which fails utterly and loses all faith with the public at large.  I mean that, nothing, including BAU with no change.

[crandles]

If we are going to have a master plan, it needs to be feasible.

Indeed.

WWS energy costs $73 trillion upfront

...

WWS-to-BAU ratio of aggregate social cost  0.09

I think this is saying the costs of BAU are 11 times higher than wind-water-solar (WWS)

2 identified issues here seem to be
Use of nuclear
Storage for week+ long periods without wind

If the plan doesn't rely on any nuclear and we keep some existing nuclear then that is going to reduce some of the upfront costs.

Week+ long periods without wind while 100% WWS are going to be tricky and probably require a variety of different sources: some long distance interconnections, some storage of various types, some increased biomas burning, maybe some nuclear and so on.

If the cost is only 0.09 of that of BAU and this 'only' gets us to 51 out of 52 week, then that is a lot of saved costs to deal with that last difficult week. We are a long way from getting that far and by the time we get there we will be in a better position to work out how to do the last bit. We will have experience and costing of different forms of storage.


Interestingly the document claims:

Private cost per unit BAU energy 9.99 c/Kwh
Private and social cost per unit WWS energy 8.96 c/Kwh

So even if we don't count the extra social costs of BAU, WWS is 10% cheaper.
If this is the case, why do we need a master plan as opposed to leaving it to markets?

[NeilT]

The issue I was talking about with BAU is the loss of confidence where we strive, fail, revert and refuse to mitigate any more.

Transition is under way slowly and will continue.  Forcing ourselves down a path which fails will cost us but the eventual toll will be lives and not money.

I don't like Nuclear, in the absence of a baseload power solution be it storage, hybrid or something else, is not an option.

Thus any document which ignores existing Nuclear and continues to push wind and solar as the only source, on the evidence of those sources being add on to baseload, based on % contributed during the year, doesn't go down so well with me.

[Tor Bejnar]

This map showing 200 meter mean annual wind speed (m/s) shows a wide swath of Europe (Germany - Poland - Belarus) with about 6 m/s average wind speed (blue-green boundary).  From Culture Change I learn that large wind turbines require a minimum 6 m/s average wind speed.  At least one () turbine will utilize winds at this altitude: "The turbine ‘hub’ is 178m (584ft) tall" (from electrek in 2017).

What I cannot find is what portion of the year these 'marginal' areas have insufficient wind (10%?  50%?), and how calm periods align in different areas. (Is there a Germany - Belarus correlation or anti-correlation?)

The map suggests the UK, Netherlands, Denmark and Lithuania have good wind power prospects. 

[Tom_Mazanec]

Promising.
But I’ve seen other promising plans fall short.
We will see.

[nanning]

Most ambitious plan for the human race is to completely erase civilisation cultures. Back into original hunter/gatherer tribes.
Outside of insane civilisation, original human tribes have no family and no fathers. A social animal's life and culture, together:

[Iain]

Free Storage (UK case)

Replacing cars with batteries and Lorries with hydrogen would require c. 3x present electricity production

25 Million (one per household) Nissan Leafs at 56 kWh, that’s 14 x10^12

Each does 1/10th max range per daily commute.

14 Terawatt Hours stored, Average daily UK production in 2018 was 0.91 TWh

So that’s 1/3 Gimmie it NOW demand as is the present case; 1/3 anytime this week is fine demand and 1/3 sometime between the two, as the trucks keep rolling 24/7

That makes managing intermittency so much easier, up renewables x6 (c. 50% electricity is renewable at present) the cars / hydrogen electrolysers absorb any additional over and above the GimmieitNOW demand, so the grid side storage only has to cover the rare periods of shortfall on the GimmieitNOW demand side.

NB this is not car to grid, just cars absorb the surplus for now.

The grid can’t take all this from big centralised stations, so a more dispersed arrangement would suit better. Local – Factory / Office roof solar to static cars in carpark over 8 hrs of daylight. Solar runs aircon and cars in the summer, just the cars in the winter. The Wind turbine in the carpark (industrial areas) produces more in winter than summer.


Encouragements:

Tax office / factory roofs (E, W, S) which have no solar, tax business electricity, tax office parking spaces which have no charging point, tax ICE cars and trucks
Give tax breaks on their opposite numbers.

Nuclear is limited to summer valley baseload, the high capital cost and low running cost means it must run 24/7/365, so it would be v. expensive to try to cover winter peak with stations which would be idle in Spring, Summer and Autumn. It also does not suit storage, if the stations were sufficient for Spring / Autumn, the summer surplus would have to be stored for 3 months of Winter. That’s one battery cycle per year – prohibitively high capital cost.

Tidal turbines anyone? – peak every 12h, peak occurs at different times N to S on the coast. Cables run up rivers and estuaries to the local substations.

No need to go back to the stone / iron / pre-industrial age

[gerontocrat]

Free Storage (UK case)

Replacing cars with batteries and Lorries with hydrogen would require c. 3x present electricity production

Replacing all fossil fuel UK cars and light vans with EVs would require an additional 25-30% electricity production. Including HGVs Buses etc - around 35%. That's doable in not that many years if the will is there to do it.

Hydrogen is dumb unless you've got loads and loads of excess electricity doing nothing to split H₂O

[Iain]

Agreed, Hydrogen is not ideal.

Alt. Change out battery packs by forklift at each pickup or delivery point.

[nanning]

Or stop with the private car altogether. Redesign a sustainable society for everyone. Inclusive. Shared transport is the way to go for all sorts of reasons but perhaps the most important is the social function for us, (naturally) a highly social animal.
Like Terry mentioned earlier, throughout pre-WW1 history only a very small percentage of people had a private horse and carriage.

Let there please be some sanity and inclusive thinking.

I will not able to buy an electric car, not even an electric bicycle, just like many many others on this planet. Please don't forget about us with chasing your dreams. We need sane solutions, not dreams for the happy few.

An electric bus is many times more energy and space efficient than a fleet of privately own enclosed electric cars.

I like buses. Like in trains, you have time to watch/appreciate the scenery which you cannot do when steering your own box.
and perhaps meet nice people outside of the groups of your kind of people. What are you afraid of?

[NeilT]

Let there please be some sanity and inclusive thinking.

You call that "inclusive" thinking?

Before WW1, in the UK 90% of the population had never been more than 10 miles from their home, food was brought to them by train, ship and horse and cart. Population was handily controlled by infant mortality at up to 60%

Excellent, couldn't think of a better utopia. At least my family would be local.

Where I live in France we get a bus, 3 week days a week, three times a day, to one of the local cities which are about 1 hour away. We have 4 Taxi's who are all tied to the ambulance service, only work on Pre booked calls and go home for the night at 6pm.

The nearest train station is 12km away and it is a branch line with severely limited service and even less on Sundays.

Our local shops are OKish but if I want anything other than cheap junk, I have to go to a city.

My family is spread from the south of England to the North of Scotland.  The best option, without a personal vehicle, is to fly as that is less than half the price of the train and a good bit faster.

Never mind the fact that I have a son in Argentina with a granddaughter and a daughter in Canada with a grandson and granddaughter.

Thank you so much for your City centric "inclusive" View, but I find I have to decline.

As for sanity? Who is to say who is insane or not.

Personally I am all for workable solutions which can be applied to drag us, finally, out of the steam age and into a bright modern future. This will give us clean homes, transport and world class medical health to enjoy it with.

[Iain]

I note Nanning's point re. the efficiency of buses, but it would take a lot to get people out of their cars. The main issue is a finite number of routes, but the car can go anywhere.

I Also note Neil's issue with lack of services in a sparsely populated area

Public transport suits densely populated areas with many connections per node better, also walking, cycling, as what you want is usually closer. When congested, it suits cars less.
(Nanning - We'll tax cars more and use the money to free issue anyone who wants one an electric bike, helmet, lights, wet weather gear, a big stick to ward off cars...: )

Let the car's big batteries be part of the solution, allowing a much greater penetration of intermittent renewables.

[nanning]

1. I don't live in a city. I walk or cycle to the busstop.
I agree that the bus is a bit less comfy and not as fast and convenient. I understand that it's hard and difficult to change for the pampered ones. They don't want to change themselves, but only the tech they're using it seems. No sacrifices eh?

2. All our youngsters are taking shared transport or they cycle. Why can't grown-up's?

3. With inclusive I mean including also the poor. Do you like to include poor people NeilT?

I keep read severe warnings from 10000's of scientists and the U.N. that radical change is needed. Note: this is not from me but from the most important scientific organisations and scientists.
What does radical mean?

Adjective

radical (comparative more radical, superlative most radical)

    Favoring fundamental change, or change at the root cause of a matter.

[Iain]

The Radical I’m thinking of is a rapid transition to renewable energy

I don’t see any tech issues with that, just more of the same already developed solar, wind, tidal. Car batteries help by absorbing the surplus.
I do see behavioral issues. E.g. despite informed concern, I don’t see a rapid transition to red meat or air travel abstinence.

People like their cars (the kids don’t have a choice, would like a car too I bet)
The transition will happen sooner if it is made easy - ICE to Battery/electric motor for a similar car.

Re. wealth – all purchases have a carbon cost in 2 parts – primary energy and …
“induced energy” – when you pay for all the work which went into making the item, you “induce” the workers in the supply chain to be consumers themselves.

Buying less stuff is good.

[NeilT]

Buying less stuff is good.

Yes, it puts people out of a job, on social welfare, reduces tax intake which reduces the ability to pay for renewable infrastructure.

It then causes people to vote for increasingly radical governments to get back in a job again.

Buying aware and smarter, on the other hand, does much less of this.

There are 10's of thousands of German car workers who can attest to this right now.

They are being put out of a job due to a reduction in global demand and a penalty forced transition to Electric Vehicles.

Solving this has no quick and easy fix.  The whole system is a house of cards and it is difficult to fix the system without bringing it down on our heads.

[NeilT]

Nanning, three busses a day, three days a week is not "a bit less comfy", it is a minimal service to tick a box for the retired.  In short, impossible.

[Iain]

Neil,

I don't see the same problems you do.

If the same amount of money is being spent, albeit on different things, then the same amount of wages are being earned, albeit for different work. The Germans are producing EVs too.

If all energy were renewable, we could consume (almost, the sources still have an energy cost, though it's paid back in months) as much as we liked without emissions. In the meantime, saving and not spending is good.

In my model, electricity production and storage is widely distributed, so infrastructure - grid and local network reinforcement is minimal.

I don't see the cards collapsing - can you give an example?

[oren]

I think any ambitious plan should include free electric bikes for anyone who wants them. This will address some of the issues of those who can't afford cars or even shared public transport. And the E-bikes are highly efficient, I wouldn't be surprised if much more so than E-buses, and I've even read somewhere that they are more efficient than pedal bikes (considering the energy it takes to grow the calories needed for the biking human).

[Florifulgurator]

I think any ambitious plan should include free electric bikes for anyone who wants them.

I want 4 e-bikes plus 8 spare batteries, plus, a Trabant 601 car-cass, so I can build me the first seriously engineered e-car.



It is not just airplanes that are nowadays "Designed by Clowns…Supervised by Monkeys". IMHO, the most ambitious plan would be to resurrect the professional honor of engineers.
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/304590-boeing-employee-737-max-is-designed-by-clowns-supervised-by-monkeys

-------------------
P.S.: As I only need 3 seats I might upgrade to a wood gas hybrid electric car fuelled with wood pellets. Alas micro gas turbines are still quite expensive.
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/jet-power-bladons-microjets-enable-jaguar-turbine-hybrid/

[TerryM]

Neil
If you and your neighbors used the bus on 2 of the 3 days that it was available, it would suddenly grow to a 7 day/wk service.


Everytime you take the bus you increase the odds that others will be able to join you, and that bus routes in your region will grow.


Is there any argument for not taking a bus whenever one is available?
Is there any doubt that increasing bus, EBus, Light-Rail, or HSR ridership isn't advantageous to all?


If you fear or hate your neighbors, you've a problem. Seek help!
Otherwise meet them on the bus.
Terry

[kassy]

That is the wrong way around. You still have rigid timeframes if you want to return home for those 2 days.

If you want people using the service you have to design a better service.

For thinly populated areas maybe the robocars could be good or EVs with human drivers doing ridesharing but run by something more benign the Uber.

Or maybe cheaper to run smaller electric busses could start a 7 day service with more time slots per day especially running at the times when commutes are needed. Targeted replacement.

[NeilT]

So, go where the bus wants to take you, not where you need to go.  Use a bus which is so limited in service that only the retired can use it.

Why don't we get with the programme and tell employers they need to change working hours to match the pitiful bus schedule.

This service will never get better because the town has <4,000 people living there and people need to trave the 4 Arms of the compass.  It won't need one bus service to get better, it needs at least half a dozen busses running on the hour on extended hours.  Who do you think is going to pay for it?

Busses work for developed urban areas.  They do not work for people of rural communities who need to get backwards and forwards to work.

People who argue for this method this just sound ludicrous and out of touch to people who live there and have such a crap service.

The best way forward is innovation in clean energy tech.  Not some fanciful retrograde step to the 30's.  The French tore up the rail line in the 30's and will never reinstate it.

[nanning]

I think if there's a lousy bus availability, it's only because ya all wanna drive your own car, not because the bus is bad.
It is very easy to make a good bus service: Just add busses, bus drivers and busstops. Buy electric ones, they are really great (they have them around Amsterdam, see below).
Terry is right of course: If more people take the bus, the service will expand.
That is not difficult to understand is it? Please stop with only looking for excuses.

Think of the increasing space on the road from not having 30 private cars in stead of 1 bus and not having parked cars everywhere, standing still most of the time.
You don't Have to talk to other people on the bus. Really, if car owners can't go back to a bit less convenience, I'd say they are pampered and standing in the way of the future, of a far more efficient use of energy and space. It's not even radical in my view.

This morning I went to the hospital by bus and a 2x20 min. walk (I could've taken a citybus). The rural bus was filled with school youth. On the way back it was beautiful weather and, sitting high and not having to steer, I could really appreciate the beautiful scenery (nature reserves). On a bus you are aware of the places along the route (if you're not staring at your smartphone), which you can't do while driving a car: You'll miss a lot.

If I can get by without a car all my life^*, why can't you? It just takes a bit of planning for a new destination.
You could even ride an electric bicycle to the busstop. People do that here.

(* in 1990 I had a 2nd hand Rover SD1 2600S for 5 months for fun)

https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/business/news-and-insights/news/2018/amsterdam-first-fleet-of-electric-buses

[NeilT]

I think if there's a lousy bus availability, it's only because ya all wanna drive your own car, not because the bus is bad.
It is very easy to make a good bus service: Just add busses, bus drivers and busstops.

Excellent.  All you need to do is tell the French Government, the local prefecture and the local council and it will all be solved...

Great.

[oren]

You are both talking past each other. Buses are a great solution for high and medium population density and/or for people less pressured for time. For areas with a very low population density and for people pressured for time buses are simply not a solution. To think that people avoid the bus because they hate/fear their neighbor is utter nonsense. When the bus goes every few hours and every few days, it is not usable by people pressured for time. And paying a bus driver to drive 3 people between villages and rural farms makes no economic sense, and there is a good reason why governments avoid it.
It is no wonder that the posters advocating the bus as a panacea live in urban/suburban areas and are not pressured for time, while those seeing the bus as useless live in a rural setting and are pressured for time.
I use buses all the time despite being constantly pressured for time, but I live in an urban environment and the bus typically arrives in 10 minutes. If I knew I had to wait an hour or even 30 minutes each direction, I would not be taking the bus despite my best intentions of avoiding unnecessary waste and pollution.

[NeilT]

You are both talking past each other. Buses are a great solution for high and medium population density and/or for people less pressured for time.

Nope, I already said that.  I was met with the assumption that using a service which is almost entirely impossible, more, would solve everything.

Reality is that this loss making bus service is mandated by French government and if it were not mandated it would die forthwith.

[nanning]

I live in a rural setting, as mentioned before.

Can you imagine that there are people who don't have the money to buy a car?
Or don't/can't have a license such as youth?

I guess it's normal for rich people to exclude the poorer people in their thinking. Even in rich countries.

[sidd]

Re:  normal for rich people to exclude the poorer people in their thinking

Well, it's worse than that. They want to exclude the poor from their sight. Hence they drive out the homeless. "Go be poor somewhere else." Which translates into : go die out of sight.

They drive on freeways that have homeless living underneath, they go jogging on greenways where they pass within yards of homeless hiding in the woods, they pray in churches whose food banks have discreet entrances at the back so the gaze of the affluent is not offended by the sight of poverty.

I frequently annoy my so called "democratic," affluent, well educated friends (yes, i have some, depraved tho they are) by first asking if they would donate to build a homeless shelter Most are OK with that.

Then I point out that it would be built in their neighbourhood. They really don't like that. Oh,no, their realestate values might fall. Can't have that.

I have frequently warned them that they don't have the resources of the billionaire class, they will be first up against the wall when enuf people are on the street. They really don't believe that will happen in their lifetimes they dont seem to care at what comes after.

These guys are among my friends. And they are terribly, terribly in the wrong.

sidd

[nanning]

Thank you very much for your views, experiences and efforts sidd!

This is not meant as critique but In general, I wish people would use the term "group" in stead of "class", to eliminate the (unaware, automatic, cultural) hierarchical thinking in better/lesser people. Language is important.

[kassy]

The very act of dividing people (all of us) into groups which are classed some way is a dividing game.

We share much more then we differ in a general way but tribalist thinking is still pretty natural in us and thus it gets exploited.

Remember we are one, and equally fucked.

[nanning]

I agree kassy.

In my view, in civilisation, each famlly-unit is a separate tribe without any elements of a natural tribe structure. And family-tribes operate/survive not in living nature but in an abstract society. Almost all our cultural systems/believes are abstract (and insane).

We in civilisation are only equal when we are born because then civilisation culture (what 'we' call normal) forcefully (resulting in crying babies) overwrites our natural tendencies and then different kinds of subcultures get programmed on top of that into the brain, and many subsubcultures from shared groups and believes.
Forcing a square peg into a round hole does not correctly assemble/buildup/create the brain organ.
But everyone is like that so nobody 'sees' it of course. This is an example of a 'bubble'.

A tribe in living nature is precisely 1 natural group and nothing more or less. Everyone knows all the others intimately.

[blumenkraft]

Remember we are one, and equally fucked.

I might steal that one in the future. Well said.

[kassy]

Feel free.

The horrible cost of transitioning:

California could meet its 2030 climate goals — but it would mean saving money

...

But California is not on track to meet its 2030 benchmark. To reduce state-wide emissions to 40 percent below the 1990 level, as enshrined in law, California needs to double the rate at which it is cutting carbon.

...

How much would all this cost? Nothing. Energy Innovation calculates that these changes would save Californians $7 billion over the next decade, mostly by reducing the gas, oil, and other fuels they have to buy. If you include savings from averted social costs — like pollution-triggered asthma and climate-related disasters — the windfall increases to $21 billion.

https://grist.org/climate/california-could-meet-its-2030-climate-goals-but-it-would-mean-saving-money/


Oh one more quote:

For instance, it’s now often cheaper to install a single electric heat pump (which does both heating and cooling) than a separate furnace and air conditioner. But many builders don’t know that yet: “People are creatures of habit, there’s a lot of inertia in the system,” Busch said. So, if California pushes contractors to install advanced heat pumps in every new building by 2030, it would both save money and reduce pollution, according to the report.

And that can be brought forward some years from 2030 for even more gains.

[Paddy]

So I looked at the UK. Essentially it is all wind or solar divided almost totally down the middle.  Yet, today, around 12% of our energy is produced by Nuclear and that will not change in the short term.

There is NO mention of storage at all and we are very aware that thera is at least one period, of 1 week long, per year, where wind produces close to 0% power.  That is half your power mix and with no storage, what do you do at night.

This situation is ameliorated significantly by the fact that we can import power from other European countries via interconnectors when ours is insufficient to meet demand.  Thus, we don't need to build quite so much more storage or baseload power as long as we can depend on the French, who have already built plenty of nuclear power stations, Irish, Dutch, and, in future, Norwegian, Belgian and Danish grids, all of which have their own energy mixes, and would likely also have different weather at any given time to us.  Equally, in times of surplus, we have energy to export.

(Admittedly, all of this is a bit at risk since Brexit means that tariffs may be applied, making interconnectors less viable... but it's working for now, anyway).

[nanning]

I think this discussion should be continued in the renewable energy thread. The discussion seems to be about a lack of ambition .

[TerryM]

I've voiced my concerns at both the Municipal and Provincial level.


The consistent negative position can be boiled down to, "Show me the ridership!"


>60 years, and with 100k fewer residents we had 2 national RR passenger lines, 2 regional electrified lines, 1 trolley service, 1 local bus service, and 1 regional bus service. The short line steem service only carried freight.


If a city of <30k could afford this investment in infrastructure in the 1950's, today's metropolitan region can support more transportation options than we now have.


Today we've NG buses, and hopes of a connection with a regional light rail service. Our Mayor promises an E-bus trial in the "near future". Oh, another thing we now have is traffic jams!


If those of us who are concerned about AGW won't provide a significant portion of the needed ridership, who do we expect to take the lead?
Terry

[nanning]

Welcome back Terry

There'll be no significant change if the richer people do not want to make ANY sacrifices.
Changing from FF to renewable energy and changing from ICE to electric luxury private vehicles are not sacrifices.
I observe that these people stand in the way of all meaningful (i.e. radical) change. Many times aggressively so.

The solutions are so obvious but the lice are firmly settled in the privileged fur. Parasitising on resources, space and energy. Leaving behind an enormous stinking carbon footprint and deprived and ill poor people far away (around the corner).

The most ambitious plan would therefore be to remove the lice from their privileged fur. With the brakes removed, 'we' finally can get to move on to the required radical change.

It'll never happen of course because these lice are <silly voice> important.