# C02 of one beef dinner in comparison to a flight.



## joe sod (6 Apr 2019)

There has been a lot of publicity recently about reducing beef and meat consumption in order to reduce your carbon footprint, however it is meaningless in comparison to the co2 produced per passenger on a city break to Europe. Therefore if you cut out 200 beef dinners per year from your diet (albeit most people would eat much less than that anyhow), you would undo all the co2 saved by one city break to Europe (most people would fly away more than once per year).
So why is all the publicity focussed on beef and agriculture but little on air travel and Sun holidays which are the worst offenders of all in co2 emissions.


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## odyssey06 (6 Apr 2019)

Its because they dont like farmers or meat eaters to begin with.
They will fake the stats by talking about calories and not nutrients too.


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## Delboy (6 Apr 2019)

I find the whole anti-farmer thing going on here right now to be beyond GUBU. The Green Schools initiative with meat-free Mondays and it supported by the Dept of Education 
And it's only going to get louder and more frenzied in the years ahead


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## joe sod (7 Apr 2019)

it just exposes the hiprocrisy of the greenhouse gas movements, because they are selecting certain sectors that they think consumers will buy into but not others. Therefore they focus on the greenhouse gases produced from a beef dinner because they know that their target audience is already considering cutting down on beef for other reasons, however they ignore the enormous greenhouse gases produced from european city breaks.


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## elacsaplau (7 Apr 2019)

Hi Joe et al,

Can you answer the following questions please?

1. Do you believe climate change is happening?
2. If so, what do you think are the causes?
3. Do you think it is necessary to do something about it?
4. What are your solutions?


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## joe sod (7 Apr 2019)

Yes I do believe something is happening to climate, however I don't believe in the way carbon taxes are calculated, there are no carbon taxes or even normal taxes on aircraft fuel. Also Ireland is being unfairly levelled with carbon taxes for agriculture even though most of our produce is consumed elsewhere , Saudi Arabia or norway does not get levelled with carbon taxes for the oil they produce, the consumption countries get levelled with those carbon taxes. And of course Paris is completely silent on population control and people no matter how poor are the biggest factor of all not only with carbon but in destruction of natural environment.


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## elacsaplau (7 Apr 2019)

With respect, I believe that you have not answered questions 2, 3 and 4 in anywhere close to a convincing way. Giving out is not a solution or a policy.


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## Laughahalla (7 Apr 2019)

Eating less meat and dairy is one of many things people can do to reduce their carbon footprint. And besides, We could all do with cutting down on the meat and dairy so I don't see the problem with having a couple of days a week without meat and dairy. Certainly won't do you any harm and would probabaly have health benefits.


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## joe sod (7 Apr 2019)

Laughahalla said:


> Eating less meat and dairy is one of many things people can do to reduce their carbon footprint. And besides, We could all do with cutting down on the meat and dairy so I don't see the problem with having a couple of days a week without meat and dairy. Certainly won't do you any harm and would probabaly have health benefits.



surely cutting out one european flight would be far more effective in terms of CO2 than beef consumption, as I have illustrated above you would have to consume an enormous quantity of beef to get the same carbon equivalent of one flight.
It also illustrates the silliness of leo varadkers comments with regard to cutting down on beef for climate reasons when he generates huge quantities of CO2 from flying. Maybe if he pledged to cut out a few flights from his schedule it would be far more effective.


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## dub_nerd (8 Apr 2019)

joe sod said:


> So why is all the publicity focussed on beef and agriculture but little on air travel and Sun holidays which are the worst offenders of all in co2 emissions.



Three reasons:

Everybody likes to think they're against climate change, but they have much less idea about:
the economic impact of going back to 1990 CO₂ levels (since when the global population has gone up 40%)
practical approaches to implementing such a reversal

Most people are quite innumerate and/or ignorant of the energy economy, and so can't compare the impact of different efforts.
People are in favour of approaches that least affect _them_.



elacsaplau said:


> Hi Joe et al,
> 
> Can you answer the following questions please?
> 
> 1. Do you believe climate change is happening?



Yes.



elacsaplau said:


> 2. If so, what do you think are the causes?



Natural variability
Changes in solar output

CO₂ and aerosols from volcanoes and wildfires

Chemical weathering of rocks
Variations in Earth's orbital parameters (precession of the apsides etc.)

Changes to the configurations of the continents affecting:
ocean circulation and the thermohaline current (e.g. isthmus of Panama)

chemical weathering (e.g. the Tibetan plateau)

Loads of other things we know about
Loads of other things we don't know about

Anthropogenic inputs
Land clearance for the last ten thousand years
Agriculture

Industrial CO₂ and aerosols

Feedback effects that we're less sure about, affecting:
Earth's albedo (due to lower ice coverage)

accelerated CO₂ emissions from arctic tundra
accelerated methane emissions from ocean clathrates
ocean circulation overturning rate
Loads of other things we don't know about




elacsaplau said:


> 3. Do you think it is necessary to do something about it?



Yes, but not at all costs.



elacsaplau said:


> 4. What are your solutions?



First, we should accept a few things. In the future there will be extreme climate change that we can't do anything about. We already live in an extreme period: we are in the middle of a slight warming in one of the coldest periods in geological time. And it's already one of the longer interglacials of the Quaternary ice age, quite possibly due to the anthropogenic effects of land use changes since the Neolithic. If so, human induced climate change is an unqualified good thing, as otherwise we'd be living (or dying) in this part of the world under a mile of ice.

Second, we should not just dismiss the current situation by saying "the climate always changes". Just because we are overdue an ice age does not mean we shouldn't be concerned about warming. There are significant potential impacts from sea level rise, changing weather patterns, and extreme weather events. There are also guaranteed economic impacts from certain approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That is why I am very distrustful of climate change extremists. On the one hand you have ignorant people who, for dogmatic reasons, insist that anthropogenic climate change is a myth. On the other hand, you have people who insist that we must use all methods, no matter how costly _and_ ineffectual, to delay climate change. The latter are a bigger threat to society in my opinion, as squandering resources on useless approaches will cost us dearly when we most need them.

Therefore, I believe we should have regard for the risk/reward calculus. We should not let the science deniers off the hook, nor should we let the
policy response zealots talk about changes without enumerating their negative, as well as positive, impacts. Overall, the world has benefitted enormously from increased energy usage. Dramatically fewer people are in poverty in recent decades. Hundreds of millions have joined the global middle class just since the turn of the millennium. Unfortunately, some of that has involved increased debt levels, unproductive use of resources, and unfair concentration of wealth. But ultimately all the wealth comes from either stuff we grow, or stuff we dig out of the ground, primarily energy commodities.

Energy is the world's most basic currency. Everyone needs more of it -- so that there is electricity to make cities safer at night, so that seawater can be desalinated and deserts irrigated, and countless other life-enhancing activities. Without it, children can't study after dark to lift themselves out of desperate poverty, women die from inhaling smoke from the cow dung fires they have to cook on, and other such horrible degradations inflicted on energy-poor people. It's why China is building a coal-fired generating plant every week. And the biggest, most important thing we have to get through our heads is: _*we have neither the moral authority, nor any practical way, to stop them*_.

So we need to start with practicalities, not handwringing and pious platitudes. And the most practical starting point is to accept that the world is going to use more energy, not less, and there's nothing we can (or probably _should_) do about that. So then we can consider how our increased energy usage can have less environmental impact. Well, we're already doing lots of that through:

better home insulation
more energy efficient buildings
use of less carbon-intensive fuels
use of renewable energy sources
It is possible to do things better. The European Union, for example, uses a lot less oil per dollar of GDP than the USA. On the other hand, the USA leads the world in greenhouse gas emission reductions. How come? Because natural gas has become cheaper than coal for producing electricity. And burning natural gas creates 60% less CO₂ than even the most efficient modern coal plant. Germany, on the other hand, is burning increasing amount of dirty brown lignite, due to its misguided populist move away from nuclear after the Fukushima Daiichi accident. That's why we should be promoting global natural gas usage and Liquefied Natural Gas processing. China's south coast LNG plants already import the same amount of gas as total UK consumption (around 3 Tcf). And they intend to increase that by 600% over the next ten years. Think of the amount of CO₂ from coal that can be avoided. Yet you have doom-mongering Greenies claiming that our natural gas has to be left in the ground. It's insane!

The future has to involve a broad mixture of approaches. Wind, and especially solar power have a role to play. But they are not universally available and not problem free, and need technological breakthroughs in grid storage. Though crucially important, they are never going to be the whole answer. The British Isles doesn't receive enough sunlight to power its car fleet, let alone anything else. Other renewables can be safely ignored. Geothermal is very niche, and anybody telling you that wave and tidal power can solve anything has sipped too much of the Green Kool-Aid. Biofuels are downright immoral, with corn ethanol, palm oil and sugar cane relying on either environmental degradation or near slave labour.

The eventual answer -- which will make most hypocritical Greenies incandescent with anger (I wonder could we harness that ) -- has to involve a huge increase in nuclear power. It is not only zero-carbon, but also the safest form of power generation we have. And that's just today. In the near future we will have fission power plants capable of burning up existing nuclear waste stockpiles, and in the slightly longer term we will almost certainly have nuclear fusion producing very low and easily manageable levels of active waste. The future of inexhaustible green energy is most definitely nuclear.

So in summary, my answer is:

Quit the useless handwringing;
Stop proposing pathetic measures that hurt the existing economy with almost no impact on the problem;
Use economically practical renewable energy sources;
Increase the use of "bridge fuels" like natural gas;
Stop killing the nuclear industry through excessive and piecemeal regulation;
Start a "Manhattan project" approach to new nuclear technologies;
Remember that:
if we kill our economy, then we have _no_ options;
if we have enough cheap energy we can transform the carbon content of the atmosphere through direct air capture, which is already technologically (but not yet economically) feasible.


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## joe sod (8 Apr 2019)

dub_nerd said:


> Hundreds of millions have joined the global middle class just since the turn of the millennium. Unfortunately, some of that has involved increased debt levels, unproductive use of resources, and unfair concentration of wealth. But ultimately all the wealth comes from either stuff we grow, or stuff we dig out of the ground, primarily energy commodities.



great post dub_nerd you obviously went to alot of trouble to post it. What do you mean by above statement that many people have joined the middle classes but by unproductive use of resources? do you mean the squandering of natural resources and the consumer economy? Also if it was the case that natural resources were used more sparingly would all those people have joined the middle classes?


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## cremeegg (9 Apr 2019)

dub_nerd said:


> Other renewables can be safely ignored. Geothermal is very niche, and anybody telling you that wave and tidal power can solve anything has sipped too much of the Green Kool-Aid.



Whats the issue with tidal power.

A cubic meter of water that rises and falls 4m twice a day equates to 80 kJ of energy. Reliable, predictable clean. What am I missing ?


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## dub_nerd (10 Apr 2019)

joe sod said:


> great post dub_nerd you obviously went to alot of trouble to post it.



Well, I'm kinda interested in the topic so that was all just off the top of my head. Open to correction on any points.



joe sod said:


> What do you mean by above statement that many people have joined the middle classes but by unproductive use of resources? do you mean the squandering of natural resources and the consumer economy?



Yes, precisely that. I was thinking particularly about China. There's the famous stat that China used more concrete between 2011 and 2013 than the USA used in the entire 20th century. Perhaps this thread should have compared a beef dinner to concrete. Its production generates 8% of global CO₂ emissions, more than three times the entire aviation industry. And China uses 60% of the world's concrete -- double the CO₂ impact of global aviation through that one commodity alone. Of course, China had a lot of catching up to do. But anyone who has read about China's ghost cities knows there is a problem. Fifty million homes -- 22% of the urban housing stock -- is unoccupied, and much of it may _never_ be occupied due to overbuilding and building quality. Wealth in the economy creates a virtuous cycle, as money circulates over and over. But misallocated wealth wrecks the cycle in the long run when debt cannot be repaid. China issued 0.7 trillion dollars of new credit in the month of January last alone. There are caveats about January being the traditionally highest month, and the credit easing coming on the back of recent tightening, but it is an astonishing number by any measure -- enough to make even the Prime Minister criticise the central bank. Monetary stimulus cannot prop up an economy in the long run.



joe sod said:


> Also if it was the case that natural resources were used more sparingly would all those people have joined the middle classes?



That's a very good question, to which the answer is certainly _no_. But the wealth destruction that follows a splurge may be worse than if the splurge never happened. The very stability of society can be threatened. Sustainable growth is obviously preferable.


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## dub_nerd (10 Apr 2019)

cremeegg said:


> Whats the issue with tidal power.
> 
> A cubic meter of water that rises and falls 4m twice a day equates to 80 kJ of energy. Reliable, predictable clean. What am I missing ?



Sounds impressive ... until you divide it by the 86,400 seconds in a day and get 0.9 Watt. So a hundred tonnes of water runs a couple of light bulbs. (I _do_ realise there's an awful lot of seawater out there). But that's assuming 4 metres of tidal range, which is globally uncommon (even though the British Isles are better endowed than most places, with half the total European tidal resource, and 10% of the global resource).  Lots of places are near amphidromic points which have no tidal range at all. The total global potential resource is only a couple of percent of current electricity consumption. And the scale of works required for such a diffuse energy source means that many meaningful projects -- like the Severn Barrage -- are massively environmentally destructive to tens of thousands of hectares of intertidal mudflats. It will never get the go-ahead as it would be an ecological disaster. I don't mean to diss tidal power. It's just never going to be very significant in the grand scheme of things.


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## Purple (10 Apr 2019)

dub_nerd said:


> That's a very good question, to which the answer is certainly _no_. But the wealth destruction that follows a splurge may be worse than if the splurge never happened. The very stability of society can be threatened. Sustainable growth is obviously preferable.


A good example of the use and misuse of resources and how it contributes to wealth creation or dissipation is the area of Central Asia which, about a thousand years ago, was the most prosperous and developed region on earth. Even then water was a scarce resource so towns and cities grew up around oasis and so their societies were more urbanised and so specialisation occurred more commonly than in agrarian civilisations.  
They figured out how to develop vast systems of irrigation which not only watered their cities but their fields (Merv, a city of a half a million, has 10,000 people employed full time to look after its canals, dams, pipes and dykes). They were able to get more and more yield out of the same limited resource.

Nearly a thousand years later the Soviet Russians took over the same region, bereft of its vast cities and civilisations since the Arab conquests and the later Mongol conquests. The Soviets had no interest in efficiency, they were into scale; they built vast farms which they irrigated but they ended up increasing the salt levels within the soil until it was virtually unusable and the entire enterprise collapsed.


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## cremeegg (10 Apr 2019)

Oh, those Russians.


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## Purple (10 Apr 2019)

cremeegg said:


> Oh, those Russians.


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## joe sod (10 Apr 2019)

dub_nerd said:


> And the scale of works required for such a diffuse energy source means that many meaningful projects -- like the Severn Barrage -- are massively environmentally destructive to tens of thousands of hectares of intertidal mudflats.



Is that not the essential problem with most renewable energy resources, the total resource maybe huge but it is spread out over the surface of the earth, therefore the contraptions to collect it must also be spread out over large areas to collect any meaningful amount, thats also the case with wind and solar. You would end up putting huge contraptions into the sea, when it reaches the end of its productive life, the contraptions are left there as ugly junk. The fact is that most stuff put into the sea is never retrieved.


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## joe sod (10 Apr 2019)

dub_nerd said:


> Yes, precisely that. I was thinking particularly about China. There's the famous stat that China used more concrete between 2011 and 2013 than the USA used in the entire 20th century.



It reminds me of a communist tour I was on in Budapest, we were standing in a park and the tour guide pulled out a photograph of the park as it was in the 1970s, it was concreted over and with cars parked on it . To which the tour guide said that the communists loved concrete they used it everywhere.


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## dub_nerd (10 Apr 2019)

joe sod said:


> Is that not the essential problem with most renewable energy resources, the total resource maybe huge but it is spread out over the surface of the earth, therefore the contraptions to collect it must also be spread out over large areas to collect any meaningful amount, thats also the case with wind and solar. You would end up putting huge contraptions into the sea, when it reaches the end of its productive life, the contraptions are left there as ugly junk. The fact is that most stuff put into the sea is never retrieved.



Yeah, renewable energy tends to be fairly diffuse. 1.3 kWm⁻² is not bad for solar, but at 15-22% efficiency and the sun not overhead, you could be easily talking about 0.1 kWm⁻² of land use. Wind turbines can produce a lot of energy per unit area of the rotor disc. General Electric are creating the current largest -- 12 MW with 107 m blades. That's 3 kWm⁻² of rotor disc. But then you need spacing between turbines of 10 to15 times the rotor diameter ... which could be more than two kilometres in the case of the GE behemoths!


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## joe sod (11 Apr 2019)

dub_nerd said:


> That's 3 kWm⁻² of rotor disc. But then you need spacing between turbines of 10 to15 times the rotor diameter ... which could be more than two kilometres in the case of the GE behemoths!



Thats another thing people dont understand, they think advances in technology can solve everything, unfortunately no advance in technology can create energy out of nothing or harvest energy thats not there in the first place.


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## Purple (12 Apr 2019)

The solution is simply to suspend a doughnut of plasma at 100 million degrees Kelvin in a magnetic containment field (or electrostatically confine it...somehow) and generate nuclear fusion. Nuclear is the only viable form of green energy and fusion is the only version of nuclear which doesn't generate waste and is intrinsically safer than fission in that once the fuel source is removed the reaction stops.


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## joe sod (13 Apr 2019)

Purple said:


> The solution is simply to suspend a doughnut of plasma at 100 million degrees Kelvin in a magnetic containment field (or electrostatically confine it...somehow) and generate nuclear fusion. Nuclear is the only viable form of green energy and fusion is the only version of nuclear which doesn't generate waste and is intrinsically safer than fission in that once the fuel source is removed the reaction stops.



in reality fusion exist in theory (sun and stars excluded of course) and no real hard advances have been made in decades. In fact no advances have been made in conventional nuclear energy since the 1980s, the number of nuclear reactors has remained more or less unchanged since 1985. It now only provides 10% of global energy demand , it was alot higher in the 80s so we are going backwards in terms of nuclear energy. All of the brain power and research seems to be on the consumer end of energy and not on the production end. The big car companies and the googles et al are spending billions on research into electic cars, nobody is spending billions on nuclear energy. If everyone migrates to electric cars, where is the power going to come from? There seems to be a suspension of reality that this can be met by renewables and remember as dub_nerd has pointed out the world population has increased by 40% since 1990.


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## Purple (15 Apr 2019)

I agree Joe. It's over 40 years since the American government ordered a nuclear power plant and nearly 25 since one was commissioned. 
The technology around small fission reactors is exciting, as is producing hydrogen for fuel cells from nuclear energy.


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## joe sod (19 Apr 2019)

There was a program on BBC 1 last night about a family trying to get their c02 production down to 1 ton each per year. So they reared their own chickens and grew their own vegetables etc etc. It was sort of doable with a lot of effort and they had land in the country. However there came a big dilemma they were invited on a skiing trip to France by  friends, they really wanted to go and were all excited and everything. However that one flight to France would blow all their co2 savings for 2 years. So doing everything else does not count in comparison to flying.
Also the clearing of forests in developing countries to grow cash crops is a massive contributor and this is accelerating. We need to concentrate on the really big stuff first.


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## Purple (8 May 2019)

dub_nerd said:


> Yeah, renewable energy tends to be fairly diffuse. 1.3 kWm⁻² is not bad for solar, but at 15-22% efficiency and the sun not overhead, you could be easily talking about 0.1 kWm⁻² of land use. Wind turbines can produce a lot of energy per unit area of the rotor disc. General Electric are creating the current largest -- 12 MW with 107 m blades. That's 3 kWm⁻² of rotor disc. But then you need spacing between turbines of 10 to15 times the rotor diameter ... which could be more than two kilometres in the case of the GE behemoths!


Can you explain what the total electricity usage is globally? I see wildly differing figures. The figure of 18.0 terawatt-hours comes up. Is that the correct anual measure?


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## cremeegg (8 May 2019)

Purple said:


> Can you explain what the total electricity usage is globally?



Amount of energy used is not the meaningful measure. 

The grid has to maintain an energy output per hour which is high enough to meet the demand plus any losses, at all times. The maximum output of the Irish electricity generating capacity is just under 8  giga watts AFAIK.

As most power stations cannot be turned on and off at short notice, and wind power which comes and goes based on the wind, the system produces at this level continuously (aside from the pumper storage facility at Turlough Hill).


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## Purple (8 May 2019)

cremeegg said:


> Amount of energy used is not the meaningful measure.
> 
> The grid has to maintain an energy output per hour which is high enough to meet the demand plus any losses, at all times. The maximum output of the Irish electricity generating capacity is just under 8  giga watts AFAIK.
> 
> As most power stations cannot be turned on and off at short notice, and wind power which comes and goes based on the wind, the system produces at this level continuously (aside from the pumper storage facility at Turlough Hill).


My question relates to the proportion of total electrical generation capacity which existing renewables can realistically handle. That is before we account for the massive amount of energy generated in vehicles using internal combustion engines which will, hopefully, one day be replaced by electric cars. Those cars will be powered from the Grid.


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## dub_nerd (12 May 2019)

Purple said:


> Can you explain what the total electricity usage is globally? I see wildly differing figures. The figure of 18.0 terawatt-hours comes up. Is that the correct anual measure?



No, that figure is off by a factor of a thousand. World electricity consumption is over 20,000 TWh, projected to double in the next 20 years.  World total primary energy consumption is over 160,000 TWh, of which half goes to heating and a quarter to transport. Electricity sounds like a smaller fraction but because much electricity generation is from heat engines which are typically 35% efficient, it actually accounts for most of the remaining quarter.

86% of primary energy comes from fossil fuels. 12% comes from nuclear and hydro, neither of which is increasing their market share. Just 2% comes from all other sources. In electricity generation, two thirds comes from fossil fuels, but another quarter from nuclear and hydro, leaving only 6% for all other sources.


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## dub_nerd (12 May 2019)

And just to bring it back to the thread topic of beef dinners versus air travel:

Globally, the primary sources of greenhouse gas emissions are energy and transport (74%), agriculture (11%), land use change and forestry (6%), industrial processes (6%), waste (3%).

The three quarters of CO2 from energy and transport break down further as: electricity and heat (31%), manufacturing and construction (12%), transportation (15%), other fuel combustion (8%), fugitive emissions from energy production (5%), bunker fuels, i.e. shipping (2%).

The combustion of fossil fuels spans most of these categories, and accounts for over 90% of human CO2 emissions. Almost 40% is produced by just one particularly carbon-rich fuel -- coal. If you want to see why global CO2 emissions will be rising into the foreseeable future, just follow coal use.

The USA is still by far the biggest emitter of CO2 per capita, but its total output is less than half that of China. North America's coal consumption has dropped by 40% in 15 years (because of the cheapness of natural gas, not any altruism!), while China's has doubled. Consider that India now uses more coal than the US and the EU combined, and China uses five times more than India! And Chinese and Indian consumption are growing at 3% and 5% per annum respectively. Nothing the West does to curb CO2 emissions will be effective in the face of such growth, though there's an argument for making the problem worse as slowly as possible.


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## joe sod (12 May 2019)

dub_nerd said:


> The USA is still by far the biggest emitter of CO2 per capita, but its total output is less than half that of China. North America's coal consumption has dropped by 40% in 15 years (because of the cheapness of natural gas, not any altruism!), while China's has doubled. Consider that India now uses more coal than the US and the EU combined, and China uses five times more than India! And Chinese and Indian consumption are growing at 3% and 5% per annum respectively. Nothing the West does to curb CO2 emissions will be effective in the face of such growth, though there's an argument for making the problem worse as slowly as possible.



very sobering. I remember hearing about the "fermi paradox" in university back in the 90s, the famous question by acclaimed physicist enrico fermi, paraphrasing, 

if there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, then why have we not heard from them?

by the law of averages , because of the sheer size of the universe and its supposed existence of billions of years, there should be many more intelligent civilizations elsewhere and further advanced than humans, and therefore we should have heard from them.
One explanation is that civilization gets to a certain level of development, uses all of the resources on its planet but cannot get to the next level and consequently wipes itself out. it looks like thats where we are now?
another sort of ridiculous theory is that there is intelligent life out there but they are choosing to stay silent and leave us alone. That would be like columbus and the spanish knowing about the americas but choosing not to go there and to leave the natives alone, not really plausible.


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## RichInSpirit (13 May 2019)

Can CO2 be captured at point of creation, eg. From the chimney of a coal burning power station and recycled.
Convert it into methane and burn it again.
Maybe it is impossible to do ?


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## joe sod (13 May 2019)

RichInSpirit said:


> Can CO2 be captured at point of creation, eg. From the chimney of a coal burning power station and recycled.
> Convert it into methane and burn it again.
> Maybe it is impossible to do ?



well the reason we burn fossil fuels is to obtain the energy, but carbon dioxide is released. To reverse the process or to create methane requires you input energy back in. That is what plants do, they take carbon dioxide from the air and convert it into carbon compounds and O2, but they need energy to do this which they get from the sun. Unfortunately to create a gallon of petrol requires alot of sunshine and alot of plants , basically petroleum is condensed sunshine that shone for millions of years before mankind even existed.


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## Laughahalla (14 May 2019)

I see people knocking solar PV here. If everyone in this country had solar PV we could substantially reduce our requirements on imported gas and oil.

In my own case , I put in solar PV and my consumption of electricity from the grid will reduce by almost 2/3rds in a full year.

Multiply my example by every house in the country and you will see how small changes will add up. Even if they reduced their electricity use from the grid by 1/3rd or 50% that would be a substantial reduction.

So people can do a number of things including..
1: Reducing their meat and dairy consumption.
2. Take less flights
3. Walk or cycle where possible
4. Use renewables
5. Insulate their homes

Some of these will also have health benefits i.e. walking/cycling/reducing the amount of saturated fat we consume.

The options are not binary. For most people taking less flights is obvious and has been for years.  People may not have been aware that the emmisons from animal agriculture is massive so it's good that people are made aware that their choices have effects on climate.


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## Purple (14 May 2019)

Laughahalla said:


> I see people knocking solar PV here. If everyone in this country had solar PV we could substantially reduce our requirements on imported gas and oil.
> 
> In my own case , I put in solar PV and my consumption of electricity from the grid will reduce by almost 2/3rds in a full year.
> 
> ...


All true but in reality it all makes very little overall difference. The statistics for emissions from beef production are wrong in that they are calculated based on feedlot production rather than grass fed beef. Removing antibiotics from beef would greatly reduce their net CO2 emissions as their manure would then attract far more soil aerating insects which in turn increases plant growth and biodiversity.


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## dub_nerd (17 May 2019)

When I look at the proportion of my electricity bill that is standing charges and levies, knocking off a third of the basic electricity unit cost wouldn't be worth it. I reckon payback time for a solar PV installation would be thirty years, even without taking the cost of money into consideration. You also have to consider the effect if large numbers of people installed PV. Unless you go totally off grid the electricity network operator still has to provide all the same infrastructure, but spread over a smaller revenue base. We would get the same situation as in the southwestern USA, where some utilities have gone from paying feed-in tariffs to domestic solar PV producers to charging for low grid usage.


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## joe sod (18 May 2019)

meanwhile for all the talk of electric cars and reducing plastics etc etc, global oil demand continues to rise uninterrupted it is now at 100 million barrels per day, it barely dipped in 2009 at the height of the recession. Therefore the statistic of world oil demand makes a laughing stock of our so called efforts to "decarbonise". 
Maybe donald trump with his sabre rattling with iran could cut the oil coming out of the middle east drastically like what happened in the 1970s.


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## Betsy Og (19 May 2019)

One thing re electric cars, I think the theory is you'd be incentivised to charge at night, and even add to the grid on arrival home (peak demand).  The thing with generation  being you need to meet peak demand, but a lot of the rest of the time there's spare capacity, so cars could act like a national battery stock. I'm wondering will we run out of lithium, but the likes of Trinners may develop the tech to solve that.  China & India though..., while we should do the right things, one suspects are are urinating against the prevailing air movement.


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## Purple (20 May 2019)

Betsy Og said:


> One thing re electric cars, I think the theory is you'd be incentivised to charge at night, and even add to the grid on arrival home (peak demand).  The thing with generation  being you need to meet peak demand, but a lot of the rest of the time there's spare capacity, so cars could act like a national battery stock. I'm wondering will we run out of lithium, but the likes of Trinners may develop the tech to solve that.  China & India though..., while we should do the right things, one suspects are are urinating against the prevailing air movement.


Who are Trinners?


----------



## john luc (20 May 2019)

How do you know when a student goes to trinity college instead of another college, they tell you.


----------



## Betsy Og (20 May 2019)

I did not go to Trinity, if you heard my accent (dripping with peat and cow manure) you'd know I didn't go to Trinity. 

But I bear Trinity no ill will and recall they made some great advances with battery technology in the last 6 months - most of the talk we re smartphone application but I guess all that should seep into car tech in due course. On that note I wouldn't mind checking out Formula E...


----------



## Purple (20 May 2019)

I'd put good money on any major breakthroughs on battery technology not coming out of Irish Universities.


----------



## Firefly (20 May 2019)

Purple said:


> I'd put good money on any major breakthroughs on battery technology not coming out of Irish Universities.



How d'ya like these apples?









						Battery breakthrough as Irish researchers triple storage capacity
					

Trinity research centre explores power of ultra-thin nanomaterial MXenes




					www.irishtimes.com


----------



## Purple (20 May 2019)

Firefly said:


> How d'ya like these apples?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yea, that is Science Foundation Ireland funding research which originated in Drexel University on the proviso that an Irish University gets to join in. MXenes were discovered in Drexel in 2011. It's their baby.
So, they are helping to develop someone else's breakthrough.


----------



## RichInSpirit (2 Nov 2019)

I heard a discussion this morning on local radio about CO2 and methane emissions from bovines and other ruminants. They belch a lot of greenhouse gases.
But there are trials into feeding a small proportion of seaweed to ruminants in their diet to stop their emissions of methane and CO2. They mentioned researchers in Australia are working on it.


----------



## Purple (20 Nov 2019)

According to forecasts Data Centres will be using as much electricity as a million homes by 2027 (31% of our total current consumption).
Meat Production globally consumes over 80% of arable land but contributes less than 20% of global calories. The meat consumed by the average American requires over a million litres of water to produce. Meat Production causes more pollution than all forms of transport globally. 

Just two examples of how we are having the wrong conversations about climate change. Don't bother with the electric car and take all the holidays you want, just stop eating meat if you want to help the environment.


----------



## cremeegg (20 Nov 2019)

Purple said:


> Meat Production causes more pollution than all forms of transport globally.
> 
> and take all the holidays you want, just stop eating meat if you want to help the environment.



Is the carbon foot print of a years meat consumption comparable to the carbon foot print of (say a 3 hour) flight.

I understood that the flight was significantly higher


----------



## Purple (20 Nov 2019)

cremeegg said:


> Is the carbon foot print of a years meat consumption comparable to the carbon foot print of (say a 3 hour) flight.
> 
> I understood that the flight was significantly higher


Possibly but there's more to Climate change than Carbon; meat production produces vastly more effluent than humans. When 25% of the world's rivers don't reach the sea anymore we really need to look at what we are doing. The carbon footprint of beef has to include the large proportion of their diet that comes from feed (soy etc.) that is imported from the USA and further afield.
The average CO2 emission per passenger mile for aircrafts is actually about 50% lower than for cars. Source


----------



## Betsy Og (20 Nov 2019)

Grass fed beef in Ireland is v efficient, water use not significant (no irrigation of crops). What about the CO2 taken in grass & tress on farmland? - what's the full equation in an Irish agri context? 

So all beef is not the same. If you burn the rainforest and irrigate Maize then big problems. If cattle graze grass and eat silage, I'm not sure its that bad. Obv dietary additions to cut methane belched would be further help & we should invest in that research. Much of Irish land not suitable for commerical tillage (soil quality, drainage etc.)

Am all on board for electric cars etc (if I could afford), not sure the quantities of lithium required can be mined in an environmentally sensitive way...but I'm sure Richard Bruton has it all worked out.... A big win with EVs is air pollution and noise pollution cut significantly, esp in urban environments. I don't agree with the zero sum game "sure the pollution is just displaced" arguments - some electricity is renewable, anything creating C02 in a generating station can feasibly be monitored and minimised - and is not being emmitted at head height of smallies.

I'd have no issue (after a few years adoption notice) with a London style pollution levy (or even congestion charges for all cars) for all major urban centres PROVIDED they make available sufficient Park N Ride facilities.


----------



## Purple (20 Nov 2019)

Betsy Og said:


> Grass fed beef in Ireland is v efficient, water use not significant (no irrigation of crops). What about the CO2 taken in grass & tress on farmland? - what's the full equation in an Irish agri context?
> 
> So all beef is not the same. If you burn the rainforest and irrigate Maize then big problems. If cattle graze grass and eat silage, I'm not sure its that bad. Obv dietary additions to cut methane belched would be further help & we should invest in that research. Much of Irish land not suitable for commerical tillage (soil quality, drainage etc.)


The graph on this page shows that European beef production is far less environmentally damaging than most other parts of the world. The myth that Irish beef is grass fed does give a false impression that it is all clean and green. In reality a great deal of their winter feed is imported. 

In order to reduce environmental damage globally the EU should adopt lower environmental standards are increase agricultural production generally. What we are doing now is just outsourcing our pollution.


----------



## Peanuts20 (20 Nov 2019)

I read somewhere recently that 30 minutes watching Netflix is the equivalent of a 4 mile drive in a diesal car in terms of enviromental damage. Just a thought for those planning on binging on the Crown over the weekend


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## Betsy Og (20 Nov 2019)

Purple said:


> In reality a great deal of their winter feed is imported.



I wouldn't say a great deal, I know some grain is imported to make nuts/meal, but that would only be like a supplement - maybe 5% of what they are consuming, so the other 95% is silage. Imports of hay tend to happen after a very wet Summer, when you hear media reports of a "fodder crisis" - every 3 or 4 years given the stocking intensities seem to have gone up. A question for Mairead Lavery or the likes.


----------



## Purple (20 Nov 2019)

Betsy Og said:


> I wouldn't say a great deal, I know some grain is imported to make nuts/meal, but that would only be like a supplement - maybe 5% of what they are consuming, so the other 95% is silage. Imports of hay tend to happen after a very wet Summer, when you hear media reports of a "fodder crisis" - every 3 or 4 years given the stocking intensities seem to have gone up. A question for Mairead Lavery or the likes.


ABout 80% of their diet is grass. The rest is winter feed which is approved but is all imported.


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## Purple (20 Nov 2019)

Betsy Og said:


> Imports of hay tend to happen after a very wet Summer, when you hear media reports of a "fodder crisis" - every 3 or 4 years given the stocking intensities seem to have gone up. A question for Mairead Lavery or the likes.


 Farmers know that if they run out they can just stick their hand further into the pockets of their neighbours (the taxpayer) so they don't bother keeping sufficient stocks of fodder.


----------



## cremeegg (20 Nov 2019)

Peanuts20 said:


> I read somewhere recently that 30 minutes watching Netflix is the equivalent of a 4 mile drive in a diesal car in terms of enviromental damage. Just a thought for those planning on binging on the Crown over the weekend



seems unlikely


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## Purple (21 Nov 2019)

cremeegg said:


> seems unlikely


That was propaganda from Amazon Prime.


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## Peanuts20 (21 Nov 2019)

cremeegg said:


> seems unlikely



There's been a study done and when you think about all the energy data centres use......... for example, Amazon's proposed  new data centre in Mulhuddert is forecast to use 4%+ of Ireland energy demand when fully working 









						Is Netflix Bad for the Environment? How Streaming Video Contributes to Climate Change - EcoWatch
					

Sending dozens of emails a day, making a quick call on WhatsApp, uploading some photos to the cloud, watching a short viral clip on YouTube: It's all part of the digital daily life around the world. For the individual, it may be "just one photo" or "just a few minutes of video," but, taken...




					www.ecowatch.com


----------



## odyssey06 (21 Nov 2019)

Peanuts20 said:


> There's been a study done and when you think about all the energy data centres use......... for example, Amazon's proposed  new data centre in Mulhuddert is forecast to use 4%+ of Ireland energy demand when fully working



Relative to the number of jobs associated with that that is an astonishing amount of energy use.
How many farmers \ cows or workers driving to work would that equate to?

If we have to 'ration' our energy and emissions then 4% for an enterprise like this does not seem to make sense, given that it is I presume going to be powered by non-renewables? And even if powered by non-renewables, we could have allocated that energy to support wider economic purposes.


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## Betsy Og (21 Nov 2019)

odyssey06 said:


> Relative to the number of jobs associated with that that is an astonishing amount of energy use.
> How many farmers \ cows or workers driving to work would that equate to?
> 
> If we have to 'ration' our energy and emissions then 4% for an enterprise like this does not seem to make sense, given that it is I presume going to be powered by non-renewables? And even if powered by non-renewables, we could have allocated that energy to support wider economic purposes.



I wonder can battery technology be applied - i.e. the problem with electricity generation is that it must meet peak demand, but you cannot stop and start it with the flick of a switch (ironically enough). So as the generation continues through the night when low demand, could Amazon be charging its batteries?, and use them for the rest of the day or at least for peak 6-9pm? If so then while it'd consume a lot it might not necessarily require much more generation of electricity.


----------



## odyssey06 (21 Nov 2019)

Betsy Og said:


> I wonder can battery technology be applied - i.e. the problem with electricity generation is that it must meet peak demand, but you cannot stop and start it with the flick of a switch (ironically enough). So as the generation continues through the night when low demand, could Amazon be charging its batteries?, and use them for the rest of the day or at least for peak 6-9pm? If so then while it'd consume a lot it might not necessarily require much more generation of electricity.



That might help to manage demand, but 4% of electricity is still 4% of electricity. 
I imagine if such tech comes in together with smart meter peak charging, a lot of use will switch to what is now 'low' demand such as electric vehicle charging and would have the capacity therefore to exceed renewable capacity.
Also, there is no reason at present for Amazon to consider batteries - might be more one for the grid as a whole to resolve.


----------



## Leo (21 Nov 2019)

Betsy Og said:


> I wonder can battery technology be applied -



Battery storage is still very expensive, and large scale storage is likely better grid connected rather tan localised to the consumer. Centrica recently obtained permission for a 100MW facility in Kilkenny. A more novel approach I've seen recently is re-purposing disused mine shafts. Very low response time, low complexity and long life span are big pluses. Combine Solutions like those will be required at grid scale to store surplus renewable energy and then release it to meet demand peaks.


----------



## Peanuts20 (21 Nov 2019)

Betsy Og said:


> I wonder can battery technology be applied - i.e. the problem with electricity generation is that it must meet peak demand, but you cannot stop and start it with the flick of a switch (ironically enough). So as the generation continues through the night when low demand, could Amazon be charging its batteries?, and use them for the rest of the day or at least for peak 6-9pm? If so then while it'd consume a lot it might not necessarily require much more generation of electricity.



Trouble with these is that they are serving global customers, so peak demand on the data centre does not necessarily equate with peak demand on the National Grid. I always had an issue with the proposed Apple DC in Athenry, it was being sold to the public as some great technological revenue and job creator when in reality is was going to suck power whilst a security guard manned the gates and a dozen technicians made sure everything was working. 

I know I started this off with a jokey comment but there is a bigger point to this in that there is far more to reversing climate change then eating fewer big macs and driving a hybrid.


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## Betsy Og (21 Nov 2019)

Peanuts20 said:


> Trouble with these is that they are serving global customers, so peak demand on the data centre does not necessarily equate with peak demand on the National Grid.



But sure that's a good thing, means that less that the time proportionate part of the 4% isn't hitting peak demand hours. 

I would have thought the local nature of the issue would make it more feasible for battery type solutions - they have techies on the one site to manage it. Other storage solutions are the "pump water up the hill at night type", but they are definitely more grid than local.


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## joe sod (21 Nov 2019)

Purple said:


> The average CO2 emission per passenger mile for aircrafts is actually about 50% lower than for cars. Source



Thats the thing about statistics they are misleading, if you drive a big diesel car 30 miles alone then yes for those 30 miles you have used more carbon than a passenger in an aircraft. However by taking a flight you would be travelling many miles possibly 1000s in a few hours therefore a huge carbon output. It would be many weeks before you would have driven enough to emit that same amount of carbon as  that 2 hour flight. 
Therefore there is no getting away from it ,flying is the worst thing in terms of carbon output, it has to be by simple logic, to put an aircraft weighing a 100 tons a km into the air and sending it a couple of thousand kms  requires enormous amounts of energy. It needs brute force and only petroleum does that


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## odyssey06 (21 Nov 2019)

I will now drive to work in an aircraft if they are so fuel efficient. Sorted.


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## joe sod (22 Nov 2019)

Greta Thornburg left the US a week ago, she is in the middle of the Atlantic somewhere on a yacht, there is a lot of wind power in the Atlantic an awful lot still it will take a couple of weeks at best for her to get across, that more than anything shows you the extreme limitations of wind. Yet an aircraft will fly across it in 6 hours using petroleum and expending an awful lot of energy stored in that petroleum, that shows you more than anything the limitations of renewable energy and why we have yet to find a replacement for petroleum.


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## odyssey06 (22 Nov 2019)

joe sod said:


> Greta Thornburg left the US a week ago, she is in the middle of the Atlantic somewhere on a yacht, there is a lot of wind power in the Atlantic an awful lot still it will take a couple of weeks at best for her to get across, that more than anything shows you the extreme limitations of wind. Yet an aircraft will fly across it in 6 hours using petroleum and expending an awful lot of energy stored in that petroleum, that shows you more than anything the limitations of renewable energy and why we have yet to find a replacement for petroleum.



Crews for that yacht have actually been flown to get to where they need to be to rendezvous with the yacht. The whole thing is a stunt.


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## Purple (22 Nov 2019)

odyssey06 said:


> I will now drive to work in an aircraft if they are so fuel efficient. Sorted.


Stop showing off.


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## Purple (22 Nov 2019)

joe sod said:


> Thats the thing about statistics they are misleading, if you drive a big diesel car 30 miles alone then yes for those 30 miles you have used more carbon than a passenger in an aircraft. However by taking a flight you would be travelling many miles possibly 1000s in a few hours therefore a huge carbon output. It would be many weeks before you would have driven enough to emit that same amount of carbon as  that 2 hour flight.
> Therefore there is no getting away from it ,flying is the worst thing in terms of carbon output, it has to be by simple logic, to put an aircraft weighing a 100 tons a km into the air and sending it a couple of thousand kms  requires enormous amounts of energy. It needs brute force and only petroleum does that


Sure, but cycling or public transport can replace many commutes. Flying is the only real option when it comes to long distance travel. 
The biggest problem with aircraft pollution is where it pollutes; in the upper atmosphere. 

We aren't going to stop flying so the solution is electric passenger planes.


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## Firefly (22 Nov 2019)

Purple said:


> We aren't going to stop flying so the solution is electric passenger planes.



That could bring range anxiety to a whole new level!!!


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## Betsy Og (22 Nov 2019)

The right solution is enough battery to get you to space, sure once you're there one boost and away we go (no friction) - on re-entry tis flaps more than engines you need. 

All jokes aside, the future might be the likes of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvRTC5ISYgQ  Airships!!, yes yes they crash and burn, or is it burn and crash, but that was 80 years ago. They don't need lift, just propulsion. So they're a bit like a 'sky ferry', which means they probably could lift the battery weight needed to run them on electric. Yes it might be slower but something's gotta give. I'll check the link about to electric passenger planes but I have my doubts on whether the battery weight and getting all that grunt up in the air would make them viable.


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## Purple (22 Nov 2019)

Betsy Og said:


> I have my doubts on whether the battery weight and getting all that grunt up in the air would make them viable


I can't see the battery and engine/motor weight being heavier than the engine and fuel weight on a jet plane, even relative to power output. I'd say we are still 10-15 years away from the engineering capability and 20 years at least away from the regulatory approval and commercialisation of electric powered planes replacing jets but they are coming. In the meantime it is worth remembering that modern aircraft are 80% more fuel efficient than those from the 1960's and new innovations such as the Double Bubble D8 design should see a further reduction of over 60% from current levels in the next 20 years.


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## Betsy Og (22 Nov 2019)

That article about electric passenger planes is a bit light on detail, how long does it take to recharge? Ryanairs 20 min turnaround in doubt, maybe you click off the old battery and on the new??


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## Firefly (22 Nov 2019)

Another key factor in this debate (and a controversial one at that!) concerns the growth in population. There are twice as many people living today across the world compared to 1970. Not to get too Malthusian about it, but surely there's just too many of us?

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/#growthrate


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## Purple (22 Nov 2019)

Firefly said:


> Another key factor in this debate (and a controversial one at that!) concerns the growth in population. There are twice as many people living today across the world compared to 1970. Not to get too Malthusian about it, but surely there's just too many of us?
> 
> https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/#growthrate


Malthuse has been shown to be wrong (many rich countries have declining populations if you exclude immigration) and the world population is forecasted to peek at around 11 billion in the early 22nd century.


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## Firefly (22 Nov 2019)

Purple said:


> Malthuse has been shown to be wrong (many rich countries have declining populations if you exclude immigration) and the world population is forecasted to peek at around 11 billion in the early 22nd century.



That's 50% more people going their thang than today though!


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## joe sod (22 Nov 2019)

Purple said:


> Malthuse has been shown to be wrong (many rich countries have declining populations if you exclude immigration) and the world population is forecasted to peek at around 11 billion in the early 22nd century.


Yes but maybe he will be proven right in this era of globalisation and mass communication, the speed of population growth in the developing world is far higher than the decline in the western world. So far advancements in technology result in increased use of resources. If advancement in technology was resulting in reduced resource exploitation  then I would be in agreement. We in Ireland today use far more resources per capita than we did in the 1980s, nobody then was flying to Europe for stag and hen  parties, drinking bottled water and buying disposable coffee. the cars today, even if they are electric are far more resource intensive than the cars of the 1980s, they are bigger , heavier, with far more plastic, metals and rare earth metals.


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## Betsy Og (23 Nov 2019)

Wow, 11 Billion!, could yez all calm down on the ridin, there's a planet at stake here !!  Also, with those numbers we'll need lots of farming, lots of food production.


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## Protocol (24 Nov 2019)

elacsaplau said:


> 1. Do you believe climate change is happening?
> 2. If so, what do you think are the causes?
> 3. Do you think it is necessary to do something about it?
> 4. What are your solutions?



1. Yes
2. Excessive burning of fossil fuels
3. Yes

For China to stop burning vast amounts of coal.









						1 800 km Menghua coal railway opens
					

Photo: Xinhua/DW News The north-south Menghua coal corridor opened on September 28.  CHINA: The 1 813 km Menghua heavy haul coal railway opened to traffic on September 28 when an inaugural train left Haolebaoji at the northern end of the line. Now renamed in Chinese as the ...




					www.railwaygazette.com
				












						Climate clarity
					






					johnhcochrane.blogspot.com


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## Purple (25 Nov 2019)

Firefly said:


> That's 50% more people going their thang than today though!


There's already 7.7 billion of us so we are just passed that stage.


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## dub_nerd (1 Dec 2019)

There is no possibility of battery technology being useful for balancing demand over a day or longer. Batteries can smooth out near-instantaneous spikes in load, but the total amount of grid-scale battery storage that any country has managed is measured in single-digit minutes of demand, not hours or days. Data centres are vast consumers of electricity. There has been talk about putting them in Iceland, or underwater, to reduce cooling requirements.

On a more general point, I do feel we have to get more numerate in order to be able to grasp the scale of energy issues. Otherwise people tend to believe in solutions that are the equivalent of building a house out of a couple of match sticks. In the UK and Ireland, transportation energy is about twice the amount of electricity generation. Energy for space heating is about the same again. If you were to get rid of fossil fuels for transport and heating you'd need to increase electricity generation by 500%. Currently in Ireland we just manage to increase electricity generation by 10% per decade to keep up with demand. Replacing our energy infrastructure is a job which would take a century if we had suitable replacements ...  and we don't.


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## dub_nerd (1 Dec 2019)

Purple said:


> I can't see the battery and engine/motor weight being heavier than the engine and fuel weight on a jet plane, even relative to power output. I'd say we are still 10-15 years away from the engineering capability and 20 years at least away from the regulatory approval and commercialisation of electric powered planes replacing jets but they are coming.


The energy density of lithium ion batteries is less than a sixtieth of that of jet fuel. That's really all that needs to be said to know there's no possibility that long or medium haul flight can ever be done by battery-powered planes. Not to mention that Li-ion is not even allowed to be _carried_ on commercial flights due to fire hazard, let alone power them.


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## Betsy Og (1 Dec 2019)

dub_nerd said:


> Currently in Ireland we just manage to increase electricity generation by 10% per decade to keep up with demand. Replacing our energy infrastructure is a job which would take a century if we had suitable replacements ...  and we don't.


So, big picture/broad brush do you A) see any feasible solutions? B) think its either cut activity or go 'fried frog' on it? Why did bio diesel (PPO - pure plant oil) not take off more? There was a crowd Elsbett in Germany that could modify your Volks, and a distributor Great Gas but not sure even they are using it anymore.

Could we not use a data centre for district heating?, radiator fins taking the heat off...a house of matchsticks I guess!


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## joe sod (2 Dec 2019)

dub_nerd said:


> On a more general point, I do feel we have to get more numerate in order to be able to grasp the scale of energy issues. Otherwise people tend to believe in solutions that are the equivalent of building a house out of a couple of match sticks.


Is that not the big problem non experts and non numerate people like Greta Thornburg are getting the ear of the politicians and the media. I doubt Greta on board that yacht is getting her proper education in trigonometry or basic physics. She probably wont understand the science seen as she is not actually studying it, it's not concepts that can be picked up reading articles as many of the concepts in nature are non intuitive and are hard to understand. That's why it took so long for even geniuses like Isaac Newton to discover the basic laws of nature.


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## Purple (2 Dec 2019)

dub_nerd said:


> The energy density of lithium ion batteries is less than a sixtieth of that of jet fuel. That's really all that needs to be said to know there's no possibility that long or medium haul flight can ever be done by battery-powered planes. Not to mention that Li-ion is not even allowed to be _carried_ on commercial flights due to fire hazard, let alone power them.


The design of planes will change significantly over the next few decades and battery technology will improve. Both of these factors will increase the potential for the use of electric planes for short to medium haul flights. Li-ion batteries are not allowed on commercial flights but there are a number of companies (Siemens, GE, NASA)  working on improving battery safety for use in planes. Hybrid Planes will probably come first as most of the power is required at take off. This gives more information.


----------



## Purple (2 Dec 2019)

dub_nerd said:


> There is no possibility of battery technology being useful for balancing demand over a day or longer. Batteries can smooth out near-instantaneous spikes in load, but the total amount of grid-scale battery storage that any country has managed is measured in single-digit minutes of demand, not hours or days. Data centres are vast consumers of electricity. There has been talk about putting them in Iceland, or underwater, to reduce cooling requirements.
> 
> On a more general point, I do feel we have to get more numerate in order to be able to grasp the scale of energy issues. Otherwise people tend to believe in solutions that are the equivalent of building a house out of a couple of match sticks. In the UK and Ireland, transportation energy is about twice the amount of electricity generation. Energy for space heating is about the same again. If you were to get rid of fossil fuels for transport and heating you'd need to increase electricity generation by 500%. Currently in Ireland we just manage to increase electricity generation by 10% per decade to keep up with demand. Replacing our energy infrastructure is a job which would take a century if we had suitable replacements ...  and we don't.


That's why the only viable green energy solution I see is Nuclear.
What are your views on Bill Gates's Travelling Wave Reactor Nuclear Technology?


----------



## Betsy Og (2 Dec 2019)

Ok uranium does not have a by product of carbon, but isnt it also a scare resource, a "fossil fuel" in the sense that we are going to run out of it too. Nuclear fusion or converting water to hydrogen and oxygen are, I suppose, the ultimate alchemy??


----------



## Purple (2 Dec 2019)

Betsy Og said:


> Ok uranium does not have a by product of carbon, but isnt it also a scare resource, a "fossil fuel" in the sense that we are going to run out of it too. Nuclear fusion or converting water to hydrogen and oxygen are, I suppose, the ultimate alchemy??


The Travelling Wave Reactor can use existing nuclear waste, It is also much safer as when you stop powering it the reaction stops so it can't "melt down". The existing 700,000 tonnes of waste in the USA is enough to power 80% of the world as current American per capita consumption for a thousand years. Source.


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## Purple (2 Dec 2019)

In short, the solutions to climate change are;

1) Stop eating meat and dairy, or reduce it by 90%. That would free up are area of arable land the size of Africa. 
2) Use that land to plant trees.
3) Embrace modern, safe, Nuclear Power.
4) Tax "fast fashion" so that the Penny's of this world disappear.

That takes care of most of the problem.

Don't worry about transport; cars and planes are far more efficient and cleaner than a few decades ago and will continue to get cleaner over the next few decades.


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## Betsy Og (2 Dec 2019)

The 11bn cant eat trees though, so I guess we're need to be producing plant food in some way.


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## Purple (2 Dec 2019)

Betsy Og said:


> The 11bn cant eat trees though, so I guess we're need to be producing plant food in some way.


85% of the world's arable land is used to produce meat and dairy. Meat and Dairy contribute about 15% of the world's calories. There's more than enough land (after we plant the trees) to feed the world on a plant based diet.
The argument we need meat for protein is also nonsense. I eat meat and dairy because it tastes great. There's no dietary argument to eat it and there's a massive environmental reason not to eat it. There's also a massive health reason not to eat it but that's for a different thread.


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## joe sod (4 Dec 2019)

I see Greta arrived in Lisbon yesterday on the yacht, it was like Columbus arriving back from the new world, she will be greeted by the king and Isabella next in Seville.


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## Purple (6 Dec 2019)

joe sod said:


> I see Greta arrived in Lisbon yesterday on the yacht, it was like Columbus arriving back from the new world, she will be greeted by the king and Isabella next in Seville.


Did the crew fly home Thursday?


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## joe sod (6 Dec 2019)

I think the tide is starting to turn against greta now, sure even Columbus fell foul of the Spanish monarchy back in the day ended up being forgotten about and buried in an unmarked grave for a time.


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## Purple (6 Dec 2019)

joe sod said:


> I think the tide is starting to turn against greta now, sure even Columbus fell foul of the Spanish monarchy back in the day ended up being forgotten about and buried in an unmarked grave for a time.


Just because she's off the wall it doesn't mean that Climate Change is any less real and that it isn't man made. The science deniers are using her to try to invalidate reality.


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## cremeegg (6 Dec 2019)

Purple said:


> Just because she's off the wall it doesn't mean that Climate Change is any less real and that it isn't man made. The science deniers are using her to try to invalidate reality.



Why is she off the wall. She is a 16 or 17 year old, trying to draw attention to climate change. What more do you want from her. I would have thought you would be a big admirer.


----------



## Purple (9 Dec 2019)

cremeegg said:


> Why is she off the wall. She is a 16 or 17 year old, trying to draw attention to climate change. What more do you want from her. I would have thought you would be a big admirer.


I am a big admirer but I'm not sure she is really helping.


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## joe sod (10 Dec 2019)

Purple said:


> I am a big admirer but I'm not sure she is really helping.


No, she has now become a focus of ridicule because of the obvious hypocrisy in some of her arguments, obviously being a young teenager she will not understand the complications and difficulties in trying to provide energy for an ever growing global population.
Will she travel to China and India to evangelise those countries to her movement, after all global warming is a global issue not just a western one, if she is going to have any consistency or longevity she will need to , otherwise she will face increasing criticism and become a passing fad.


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## Betsy Og (10 Dec 2019)

I think fair play to Greta. It has certainly raised awareness. I'm sure if she had a magic wand she'd use it, how much do we need her to achieve as 1 person?

Back on home...err...turf. I see talk of "outright bans" of all solid fuels. As usual this government seems to want to take things to extremes with no appreciation of the merit (like the new 0.00000001 mg of blood alochol they want to bring in....I'm joking of course but that is how they seem to think). Where air quality is an issue (towns) then enforce the ban on any households not drawing the old age pension. Fuel poverty is a big issue for the elderly. If it was only the elders burning solid fuel then I think we wouldn't have an air quality issue. Or at least give it a go and see. Blank off chimneys if no permit to burn (padlocked capping mechanism). Maybe it would have the knock on incentive of people looking after their elderly relatives.......  I thought a recent Twitter post about the UK struck a chord - people want less tax, more services, free university fees, free elderly care because they dont want to look after them. Lets be realistic, keep high taxes, fight for better value for money services and stop this absolutist/universal approach to everything (e.g. no child benefit if high income household - it would cost me but would make sense overall).


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## Jazz01 (10 Dec 2019)

Betsy Og said:


> fight for better value for money services


This, from what I can see, is almost impossible in this country. No accountability with the general taxes that are collected. We read about so many overuns / costings increasing on projects etc., yet we never seem to learn from our past projects / work / mistakes.


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## Purple (10 Dec 2019)

Jazz01 said:


> This, from what I can see, is almost impossible in this country. No accountability with the general taxes that are collected. We read about so many overuns / costings increasing on projects etc., yet we never seem to learn from our past projects / work / mistakes.


The solution to every problem like that is a pay rise for those involved.


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## joe sod (15 Dec 2019)

Cop25 summit in Madrid ends with no agreement, the biggest co2 emitters China, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and usa refused to commit to bigger reductions in co2. Therefore it is pointless for Ireland and the eu to commit to drastic reductions when it won't make any difference and will make Europe even more uncompetitive against the emerging economies.


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## Purple (8 Jan 2020)

Purple said:


> In short, the solutions to climate change are;
> 
> 1) Stop eating meat and dairy, or reduce it by 90%. That would free up are area of arable land the size of Africa.
> 2) Use that land to plant trees.
> ...


And now it looks like those clever Australians might have the energy storage problem cracked with their Lithium-Sulphur Batteries. It would also answer the question "Name one useful thing that Australia ever given the world?"


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## dub_nerd (11 Jan 2020)

Been absent for a while. Excuse the splurge.



Betsy Og said:


> So, big picture/broad brush do you A) see any feasible solutions? B) think its either cut activity or go 'fried frog' on it?


I think the big problem with the way we look at climate change is that those making the loudest (and sometimes hysterical) noises are a) not proposing workable solutions, and b) not looking at both sides of the balance sheet: the downsides of climate change versus the very serious downsides of cutting energy use (or foregoing it in the case of developing nations). Without much of our modern energy use millions would die. Millions _do_ die for want of energy in the developing world but thankfully the situation is vastly improved over recent decades. Where is the evidence that things will be worse with climate change when you consider this balance?



Betsy Og said:


> Why did bio diesel (PPO - pure plant oil) not take off more? There was a crowd Elsbett in Germany that could modify your Volks, and a distributor Great Gas but not sure even they are using it anymore.


Fundamentally, the energy return on plant growth is small. Plants did not evolve to maximise sunlight-to-chemical efficiency. It's on the order of 0.1 to 2%, a small fraction of the efficiency of artificial solar power such as photovoltaics or concentrators. Both the US and Europe blend biofuels into what you buy at the pump, but two aspects of biofuels border on scandalous -- a) they use artificial fertilisers made with large quantities of natural gas, so some of the energy of biofuels is actually fossil fuel, and b) they use large areas of land that could be used for food production. They also contribute to plant monoculture and soil degradation and -- for crops like palm oil -- contribute to habitat degradation and destruction.



Purple said:


> That's why the only viable green energy solution I see is Nuclear.
> What are your views on Bill Gates's Travelling Wave Reactor Nuclear Technology?


I agree. Wind and solar power have their place, but the energy sources are diffuse and therefore they have large land requirements and high capex costs. Desert solar with HVDC transmission could power the world but these are absolutely massive infrastructure projects that would take a century to implement. When technology optimists think about solutions they are generally only thinking about technology and not all the other things that have to come together to make projects (especially international ones) feasible and successful -- funding, guarantee of supply, political stability. Would you be any happier about your electricity coming from Libya or Mali than you are about your gas coming from Russia?

But when it comes to nuclear we face many of the same problems. Even conventional nuclear of the type we know how to build is a political hot potato. Regulatory restrictions massively increase project costs and timelines. The same is true of novel nuclear technology. I read that Gates's TWR technology has been massively slowed down by red tape. I love the idea itself. It's in the class of high burn-up breeder reactors using fertile (versus fissile) materials. It's similar to the high hopes for the Thorium fuel cycle, except using U-238. A reactor that needs no fuel rod maintenance or reprocessing for decades could, in principle, be completely locked down against proliferation concerns. However, novel fuel cycles typically need many years of testing so I wouldn't be holding my breath for anything to happen quickly. Until public fears are allayed and governments actively promote the technologies, I think nuclear will move at a snail's pace. The Green movement is too sold on the idea of wind and solar as panaceas, which they are not.



Betsy Og said:


> Ok uranium does not have a by product of carbon, but isnt it also a scare resource, a "fossil fuel" in the sense that we are going to run out of it too. Nuclear fusion or converting water to hydrogen and oxygen are, I suppose, the ultimate alchemy??


There's plenty of uranium, even for conventional use. The high burn-up sort of reaction in the TWR that Purple was talking about could use depleted uranium that the USA already has stockpiled. (It's a much more productive use than making artillery shell tips for tank busters). And depleted uranium is nothing more than the most common uranium isotope (U-238) which is over 99% of naturally occurring uranium and could be extracted from seawater. Thorium is even more abundant than uranium and is a constituent of a type of black sand on beaches in many parts of the world. Fusion, as you say, uses an even more unlimited fuel but fission could do just fine.

Converting water to hydrogen and oxygen is not a fuel _per se_, but a way of storing energy. Proponents of the hydrogen economy sometimes forget this. It's like batteries -- just another way of storing chemical energy, but the energy has to come from somewhere first. Electrolysis is not a particularly efficient way of doing it either (around 80%), unless the energy would otherwise be wasted, e.g. with stranded wind.



Purple said:


> In short, the solutions to climate change are;
> 
> 1) Stop eating meat and dairy, or reduce it by 90%. That would free up are area of arable land the size of Africa.
> 2) Use that land to plant trees.
> ...


Unfortunately many "solutions" to global problems assume some sort of benign guiding hand. As I said, technological feasibility is not the only criterion for success. What about the economies that depend on carbon-intensive animal farming? Whose going to accept their territory being turned into a forest? Residents of Leitrim are already complaining about it. "Solutions" have to benefit local populations. Ethiopia has a massive tree planting program because it benefits local soil stability and water management. But you can't assume everyone is going to love the implications of global solutions. That's why I think carbon emissions will only be reduced when there are alternatives that are both cheaper and better than existing energy sources. And "better" is measured on multiple complex dimensions.



Purple said:


> Just because she's off the wall it doesn't mean that Climate Change is any less real and that it isn't man made. The science deniers are using her to try to invalidate reality.





joe sod said:


> No, she has now become a focus of ridicule because of the obvious hypocrisy in some of her arguments, obviously being a young teenager she will not understand the complications and difficulties in trying to provide energy for an ever growing global population.
> Will she travel to China and India to evangelise those countries to her movement, after all global warming is a global issue not just a western one, if she is going to have any consistency or longevity she will need to , otherwise she will face increasing criticism and become a passing fad.


This is the problem with only complaining, and not proposing solutions. A column in the Irish Times said the other day that groups like Extinction Rebellion need to stop pretending that climate change can be fixed by giving up burgers and cycling to work. The column went on to say, apparently unironically, that we would need a total change of lifestyle including rationing that had never been seen outside of wartime. Does anyone seriously think this is going to be acceptable to the general public? Think about it this way: the average household uses the energy equivalent a couple of dozen full time slaves. People in the part of the world without electricity do that slave labour themselves. It will take more than a couple of degrees of warming to make me give that up.



Purple said:


> And now it looks like those clever Australians might have the energy storage problem cracked with their Lithium-Sulphur Batteries. It would also answer the question "Name one useful thing that Australia ever given the world?"


Novel energy technologies appear in the press almost every day. Most disappear without a trace. I see that one says it's good for 200 cycles, i.e. practically useless for most applications.


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## joe sod (11 Jan 2020)

dub_nerd said:


> Think about it this way: the average household uses the energy equivalent a couple of dozen full time slaves. People in the part of the world without electricity do that slave labour themselves.


The wonders of petroleum you are referring to here, it's the equivalent of having a few slaves working for you. If you talk to older people about the back breaking work they used to do before petroleum powered machines took the heavy work away.
Yet Greta Thornburg lectures the older generation because they "destroyed her future", but Greta Thornburg never did an hour of real work her entire life, she doesn't understand how difficult life was beforehand.


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## dub_nerd (12 Jan 2020)

joe sod said:


> The wonders of petroleum you are referring to here, it's the equivalent of having a few slaves working for you. If you talk to older people about the back breaking work they used to do before petroleum powered machines took the heavy work away.
> Yet Greta Thornburg lectures the older generation because they "destroyed her future", but Greta Thornburg never did an hour of real work her entire life, she doesn't understand how difficult life was beforehand.


You're exactly right, though I was thinking of the electric slaves in our kitchens that wash the dishes and the clothes, and collect the virtual firewood to heat the water and the cook the food. Your mention of Greta reminded me of one of her compatriots, sadly no longer with us. Search for Hans Rosling on youtube, a master of data analysis for whom the washing machine was close to his heart.


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## Purple (13 Jan 2020)

dub_nerd said:


> This is the problem with only complaining, and not proposing solutions. A column in the Irish Times said the other day that groups like Extinction Rebellion need to stop pretending that climate change can be fixed by giving up burgers and cycling to work. The column went on to say, apparently unironically, that we would need a total change of lifestyle including rationing that had never been seen outside of wartime. Does anyone seriously think this is going to be acceptable to the general public? Think about it this way: the average household uses the energy equivalent a couple of dozen full time slaves. People in the part of the world without electricity do that slave labour themselves. It will take more than a couple of degrees of warming to make me give that up.


In my view the solutions to climate change will be technological with modest lifestyle changes. Those technological changes will be things like vertical farms, improvements  in energy efficiency in transport and manufacturing, increasing levels of recycling etc. but by far the biggest polluter and damager of the environment is agriculture. Until we deal with that sector everything else is meaningless. The above mentioned vertical farms use less than a fifth of the land and only 5% of the water of traditional farming. There are no pesticides and a shorter supply chain. The land freed up could be used to grow trees. Farmers are essentially on welfare anyway so why not pay them not to destroy the environment instead of paying them to destroy it like we do now?

My point in a previous post is that there are existing solutions which do not require us to move back to the pre-industrial age. We just need a mature discussion about them and we need lots of irons in the fire as we don't know what technologies will work. 
What we need to avoid is a resignation that there is no solution and we are heading towards the collapse of civilisation.


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## Leper (13 Jan 2020)

Purple said:


> In my view the solutions to climate change will be technological with modest lifestyle changes. Those technological changes will be things like vertical farms, improvements  in energy efficiency in transport and manufacturing, increasing levels of recycling etc. but by far the biggest polluter and damager of the environment is agriculture. Until we deal with that sector everything else is meaningless. The above mentioned vertical farms use less than a fifth of the land and only 5% of the water of traditional farming. There are no pesticides and a shorter supply chain. The land freed up could be used to grow trees. Farmers are essentially on welfare anyway so why not pay them not to destroy the environment instead of paying them to destroy it like we do now?
> 
> My point in a previous post is that there are existing solutions which do not require us to move back to the pre-industrial age. We just need a mature discussion about them and we need lots of irons in the fire as we don't know what technologies will work.
> What we need to avoid is a resignation that there is no solution and we are heading towards the collapse of civilisation.



The above is probably the most sensible approach in this thread. I've had it with Greta Thunberg and other Save-the-Planet morons. We recycle etc but the Eat Lettuce Only Brigade are getting far too vociferous with what others should to satisfy their dictating and unusable solutions. 

I'll give up eating meat when I see all of them reverting 100% to using cloth nappies and other hygienic products instead  of they are currently using.


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## Purple (13 Jan 2020)

Leper said:


> The above is probably the most sensible approach in this thread. I've had it with Greta Thunberg and other Save-the-Planet morons. We recycle etc but the Eat Lettuce Only Brigade are getting far too vociferous with what others should to satisfy their dictating and unusable solutions.
> 
> I'll give up eating meat when I see all of them reverting 100% to using cloth nappies and other hygienic products instead  of they are currently using.


There's no getting away from the fact that meat farming consumed 85% of the world's arable land but only provides 15% of the calories. Farm animal population growth is rising twice as fast a human population growth and they already produce over 90% of the world's sewage/effluent/poo.
We can't give out to Brazil for cutting down their Rain Forests to grow Soy when we then buy that Soy to feed our cows.


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## Leper (13 Jan 2020)

Purple said:


> There's no getting away from the fact that meat farming consumed 85% of the world's arable land but only provides 15% of the calories. Farm animal population growth is rising twice as fast a human population growth and they already produce over 90% of the world's sewage/effluent/poo.
> We can't give out to Brazil for cutting down their Rain Forests to grow Soy when we then buy that Soy to feed our cows.



I couldn't care less. Until I see clothes lines filled with washed cloth nappies and a ban on the sale of paper nappies and other paper hygiene products I am not going to listen to any of the Eat-Lettuce Brigade. I'm looking forward to meeting them on my doorstep shortly.


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## Purple (13 Jan 2020)

Leper said:


> I couldn't care less. Until I see clothes lines filled with washed cloth nappies and a ban on the sale of paper nappies and other paper hygiene products I am not going to listen to any of the Eat-Lettuce Brigade.


Why? Cloth nappies v disposable nappies is irrelevant when compared to meat farming either locally or globally.


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## joe sod (13 Jan 2020)

@dub_nerd  I watched that clip of Hans Rosling, a great speaker and a realist. Because we have grown up with the fruits of industrialization in the west we have forgotten how wonderful it really is and the effort it took by very far sighted and industrious people to bring it to reality.
When Greta Thornburg says " how dare you", she is pointing the finger at Alfred Krupp, Nicholas Tesla, James watt and Thomas Edison. If there is any chance of moving to low carbon industry then it will people like these that will do it not Greta Thornburg.


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## Leper (14 Jan 2020)

Purple said:


> Why? Cloth nappies v disposable nappies is irrelevant when compared to meat farming either locally or globally.



No it isn't - just nobody wants to clean cloth nappies again. It takes time, effort, endurance and a strong stomach - much of which is not around these days.


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## Leo (14 Jan 2020)

Leper said:


> No it isn't - just nobody wants to clean cloth nappies again. It takes time, effort, endurance and a strong stomach - much of which is not around these days.



Or maybe they know that in terms of overall environmental impact, there isn't a lot of difference between cloth and disposable nappies? Efficient laundry methods are required so that cloth nappies are less harmful overall than disposable.


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## Leper (14 Jan 2020)

Leo said:


> Or maybe they know that in terms of overall environmental impact, there isn't a lot of difference between cloth and disposable nappies? Efficient laundry methods are required so that cloth nappies are less harmful overall than disposable.



There's a huge difference in the use of cloth nappies as against disposable nappies, believe me! For anybody who used both, I bet no matter what they would never use cloth nappies again. And while I'm at it, I bet Greta Thunberg's parents used disposable nappies too. 

If anybody wants to know the difference in the actual use of cloth natties -v- disposable nappies, I can amplify, if you wish. but you'd have to sign a disclaimer.


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## Purple (14 Jan 2020)

Leper said:


> No it isn't - just nobody wants to clean cloth nappies again. It takes time, effort, endurance and a strong stomach - much of which is not around these days.


If cloth nappies are washed at 90 degrees and tumble dried they will have a greater environmental impact that disposable nappies over the 2.5 years that the average child wears them.


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## Leo (14 Jan 2020)

Leper said:


> There's a huge difference in the use of cloth nappies as against disposable nappies, believe me!



You didn't read the report or even the conclusions, did you? 

Why are you so keen to seek environmental advice from someone else who as misinformed as you?


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## Purple (14 Jan 2020)

Leper said:


> There's a huge difference in the use of cloth nappies as against disposable nappies, believe me! For anybody who used both, I bet no matter what they would never use cloth nappies again. And while I'm at it, I bet Greta Thunberg's parents used disposable nappies too.
> 
> If anybody wants to know the difference in the actual use of cloth natties -v- disposable nappies, I can amplify, if you wish. but you'd have to sign a disclaimer.


We can both get into war stories about changing nappies but I see your cloth nappies and I raise you cleaning elderly stroke victims. There is just as much endurance and as many strong stomachs as ever, despite the Pythonesque "back in my day" lamentations to the contrary. Indeed a strong stomach is a prerequisite to listen to said lamentations.


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## Leper (14 Jan 2020)

Wonderbar! Neither of you has convinced me. And until I see washing lines full of clean cloth nappies which were previously hacked of you-know-what, hand washed to get rid of the excess, sterilised in buckets,  washed at 90 degrees, and dried in the open air, I remain unconvinced.

And . . . . . . . . you can put me on record as declaring that disposable nappies did more for all the combined womens' movements than Greer's The Female Eunuch.

Women and Leper 10 - 0 Purple/Leo Alliance


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## Purple (14 Jan 2020)

Leper said:


> Wonderbar! Neither of you has convinced me. And until I see washing lines full of clean cloth nappies which were previously hacked of you-know-what, hand washed to get rid of the excess, sterilised in buckets,  washed at 90 degrees, and dried in the open air, I remain unconvinced.


 It's like discussing evolution with a creationist; no facts will convince you. You're a man of conviction, no matter how shakey the ground those convictions are built on. 



Leper said:


> And . . . . . . . . you can put me on record as declaring that disposable nappies did more for all the combined womens' movements than Greer's The Female Eunuch.


I've frequently said the same thing about the washing machine.
The Cast Iron bed frame was one of the greatest innovations in women's health as it greatly reduced the chances of postnatal infections.


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## Leper (14 Jan 2020)

I've just learnt that the date for the next general election has been set. We kept a few terylene nappies and over the years took one or two out just to remind us of the days and nights and I can tell you they were the best contraceptive known to man and woman. And unlike the Billings method they worked and even satisfied Catholic teaching. 

I reckon the Greens will be calling to canvass in their electric cars and eating sawdust sandwiches. I wonder how they'll react when they see my new flag, a used cloth nappy hoisted high on a wooden flag pole. It's where I'll shove it is the problem.


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## Leo (15 Jan 2020)

Purple said:


> It's like discussing evolution with a creationist; no facts will convince you. You're a man of conviction, no matter how shakey the ground those convictions are built on.



It's true, ignorance really is bliss!


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## Purple (28 Jan 2020)

Globally the biggest causes of greenhouse gas emissions are;

Electricity and Heat production 25%
Agriculture and Forestry 24%
Industry 21%
Transport 14%
Building 6%
Everything else 10%
Given that the opportunity cost of Agriculture is so high it really is the area that we should be concentrating on. 85% of arable land globally is used for meat farming (growing and feeding the meat) so a 50% reduction in meat consumption would result in a 40% increase in arable land which could be used to farm carbon (grow trees and just leave them there). This would also solve the problem of decreasing biodiversity. If we never made an electric vehicle but did that instead it would have a far greater impact on global climate change.


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## joe sod (28 Jan 2020)

@Purple in the west we spend less than 10% of our total income on food, in the 1960s it was a third of our income and it increased to nearly 100% a century ago. Obviously alot of the reason for the reduced cost of food is the increased quantities that are produced by increased technology, yes, but also by the vast amounts of land used to produce food. The global population is increasing alot and the appetites of that population are also increasing, the chinese want to eat alot more meat.
If we reduce the amount of land used to grow food, the price of that food will also rise, thats simple economics. What proportion of peoples income will they accept that they need to spend on food for climate purposes? People are selfish so they wont willingly pay more money for less food and less meat.


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## Purple (28 Jan 2020)

joe sod said:


> @Purple in the west we spend less than 10% of our total income on food, in the 1960s it was a third of our income and it increased to nearly 100% a century ago. Obviously alot of the reason for the reduced cost of food is the increased quantities that are produced by increased technology, yes, but also by the vast amounts of land used to produce food. The global population is increasing alot and the appetites of that population are also increasing, the chinese want to eat alot more meat.
> If we reduce the amount of land used to grow food, the price of that food will also rise, thats simple economics. What proportion of peoples income will they accept that they need to spend on food for climate purposes? People are selfish so they wont willingly pay more money for less food and less meat.


85% of arable land is used for meat farming. It contributes 15% of global calories.  We could produce the same amount of calories, protein etc on about 20% of the land we currently use if we stopped eating meat. Reduce meat consumption by 90% and we'd still manage on 30% of what we currently use.
If we want to encourage people to eat less meat then remove the 80% subsidy that the producers get to grow it.
The population of farm animals is growing at twice the rate the human population is growing. The farm land required to produce the food the UK consumes is twice the total area of the UK. I'd say we are not far behind them. That's just not sustainable.


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## joe sod (28 Jan 2020)

Purple said:


> The farm land required to produce the food the UK consumes is twice the total area of the UK. I'd say we are not far behind them.


but the UK is a densely populated urban population, one of the most densely populated islands on the planet actually, they have never had enough land to grow their own food, that is why they had rations during the second world war and for a long time afterwards. Their markets in Australia and South America got cut off by the war, they got alot of their supplies from ireland actually.


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## Purple (28 Jan 2020)

joe sod said:


> but the UK is a densely populated urban population, one of the most densely populated islands on the planet actually, they have never had enough land to grow their own food, that is why they had rations during the second world war and for a long time afterwards. Their markets in Australia and South America got cut off by the war, they got alot of their supplies from ireland actually.


I'm not talking about arable land, I'm talking about total landmass. It's also the case that with modern transport infrastructure food gets to the customer faster and better farming practices the yield per acre for crops, even without massive amounts of fertilizer, has greatly increased in the last 70 years.


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