See - if the folks who are "committed green" cannot decide amongst themselves becasue the offered solutions is not the "perfect ideal solution that I want" then they become just as intransigent to the point it becomes pointless bickering. We can hardly be surprised then if govts aren't doing anything.
I've no idea about the answer. I'm not even sure of the question. My wife works in Data, AI and stuff like that at a government scale. They work out the carbon footprint of their work and it's terrifying. I know bitcoin has a decent footprint but never really thought about Google searches and particularly chatgpt and other AI things.
Then there is the arguement about planes and things above. What is the biggest problem to tackle and do the easy things even have an effect?
I "know" we need to do something. I make an effort. Never that sure if it is pissing in the wind or not.
I don't have kids but that wouldn't stop me thinking wide spread suffering and death is a bad thing for future generations. Not sure how I see it playing out. My guess would be that it isn't the climate that ends up being the problem but the knock-on effect. If there are global issues we aren't going to all work together to find a solution. There will be wars over resources. Power will shift as countries and people struggle to adapt.
I still find it mad as a chemist that so much of our physical tech is based on oil which is finite and we burn the stuff.
That or we'll be wiped out by a flu pandemic, antibiotic resistant disease, AI revolution, astroid...
Thats not the point I am making Nickc - the point is there is no solution. all efforts possible together are a tiny fraction of what is needed
Pure fantasy then as a potential solution. no one one worldwide is near having an excess of renewables, energy consumption is increasing and you want to use more energy? Renewable energy is not co2 free
Do you have some condition that only allows you to read half of what I write?
I SAID in an earlier post "We need to invest in MORE renewable power AND CO2 Capture" - and we do have excess renewables - even now. There are periods in the day where we have more power than we need from even current sources. That energy can be put to use. Both of these are viable RIGHT NOW.
I have also said repeatedly that this is available NOW and could be up and running in 5 years. Your plan for population reduction and energy scaling - what's your timeframe? Even IF you outlawed childbirth RIGHT NOW, you'd reduce the global population by ~1bn in 10 years. Not exactly quick, now, is it? It's also nice to suggest policies that don't affect you. This has always been your tack. You lack empathy and understanding and If you do that, you'll never get the societal change at the rate you want.
Anyway - I'm going to go back to trying to actually fix the problem rather than trying to convince folks with astounding myopia.
As per @legometeorology
Somewhere like the UK, people may be more fearful of climate migrants than actual warming, thus voting for the hard-border, climate-sceptical nationalists rather than politicians than may actually commit to proper mitigation
Agree with this. As we have seen in 2016, a significant proportion of UK voters are easily seduced by obviously fallace arguments, which do not require any compromise or change on the part of the voter.
It is not personally challenging, and is much easier to understand to many people, to just blame all the forriners.
I think we're ****ed, TBH.
the point is there is no solution.
There is a solution (or rather solutions), it's being implemented right now across the world. See that article about China's expansion of renewables. Yes there is much, much more to be done, but denial of the potential of the solutions is as bad (or worse) as denial of the problem. TJ you're wrong on this one I'm afraid.
The best thing people can do themselves is when something or someone comes along and does something that moves us in the direction of reducing carbon emissions, whether that's someone building a wind turbine on a hill, a LTN or traffic reducing schemes, or protesters disrupting events or our lives, instead of complaining and getting angry, just quietly accept it, and be thankful that someone is doing something.
Daffy - I am reading what you write. I have been reading similar fantasy for decades. What you suggest will help yes but its a tiny % of what is needed. If thats the best we can do as a species then we are doomed.
I'm not suggesting any solutions. I'm stating the magnitude of the issue and pointing out that these supposed technological solutions that will appear ( link me to viable carbon capture on a commercial scale?) are merely fiddling around the edges.
Whats the average energy consumption in the developing nations compared to us? Now how are they going to develop to a similar lifestyle to ours without a lot of extra energy?
We in the west need to reduce our total energy consumption massively because sure as anything even with massive investment in green tech development will increase energy usage and greenhouse gas production. We in the west have to give up our easy travel, our endless consumerism etc etc etc and no where in the world is there the political will to do so.
Edit - crossed posts
– the point is there is no solution.
I'm still going with the folks that are trying at least.
Dazh - the first step is to understand the magnitude of the issues. I applaud and support all those little things,. I live a green lifestyle for a european. I vote green.
I also understand the magnitude of the issue and that these things will make no real difference.
Now room temperature fusion or some other new clean energy source - that would be a game changer:-)
But even if we as a species stop pumping greenhouse gases now out major climate change is baked in. Continue as we are even with these measures in place to alleviate climate change catastrophic climate change is coming. Thats the reality
Nickc - I have done my best my entire life. Never owned a car, no kids, no pets
Now room temperature fusion or some other new clean energy source
We already have the clean energy technology we need to abandon fossil fuel burning. What is missing is the political will and action to double down on investment and most importantly start decommissioning the fossil fuel industry.
But even if we as a species stop pumping greenhouse gases now out major climate change is baked in.
The IPCC have been quite clear that limiting warming to 1.5c is necessary and achievable with current technology. That amount of warming may be baked in, but it's 4-6c we need to avoid. And that's without thinking about warming mitigation technologies in the future. But there's no point putting in place mitigations until we tackle the source. I think in future we'll see significant geo-engineering efforts to reduce warming, but only after the emission of carbon has been addressed.
We already have the clean energy technology we need to abandon fossil fuel burning. What is missing is the political will and action to double down on investment and most importantly start decommissioning the fossil fuel industry.
Even if the UK went all out for wind and nuclear today, it would be 20+ years till we had enough nuclear on tap to be able to unplug all the gas and coal plants and make it through a cold winter anticyclone on renewables alone...
Obvs, what will actually happen is we just prevaricate for another 20 years on whether or not we want the Chinese to fund / build our nuclear plants and make bugger all actual progress.
We're doomed the planet will adapt.
Friends a pilot based in Dubai fly's his employer to New York to go on shopping trips for 2 new shirts, employer flies home with a new crew who already flew to NY ahead of them. Last week flew family to Rome for lunch. His employer has huge influence and wealth and doesn't care. There's thousands of people like this whose carbon footprint is off the charts, humans are horrible and will wreck the planet.
I'm still quite happy though and do what I think I can though I do drive a 20 year old diesel van so I am probably horribly evil.
You might be an idustry specialist, Daffy but your numbers don't stack up
"Business class is 12-14% of the seats but almost 1/3>1/2 of the aircraft volume."
So you can't cut emmisions by half by eliminating business class as you claim Daffy.
Buisness class is typically 12% of seats (aviation industry site and you agree), and business class produces three time the CO2 according to the same source. 1/2 the plane volume you have to link for me, 1/3 I'll accept.
So in a jet of 100 places the emmisions are 67% from 88 of passengers and 33% are from 12 of passengers. Replace the business seats with normal seat and you can fly 24 or 32 extra passengers (depending on site consulted). Neither 24or 32/124 nor 24 or 32/100 are 50% All your claims can be dismissed by sililarly simple analysis, Daffy.
Just stop flying.
eventually there will be no human race - the end
We already have the clean energy technology we need to abandon fossil fuel burning.
What?
Even if the UK went all out for wind and nuclear today, it would be 20+ years till we had enough nuclear on tap to be able to unplug all the gas and coal plants and make it through a cold winter anticyclone on renewables alone…
This
The thing about population is that even if there was not a single baby born between now and 2050, the 2050 population would still be 5 billion (there is a demographic tool somewhere in which you can modify the global fertility rate to 0)
So if we are overpopuated, so to speak, we have to deal with it, because emissions need sorting out within the next decade(s)
We don't actually need that much energy to provide decent living conditions to everyone though, in theory (emphasis on the word theory). Inequality is one of the biggest problems however
Friends a pilot based in Dubai fly’s his employer to New York to go on shopping trips for 2 new shirts
Another example of simple individual action that people can take. Refuse to work for fossil fuel burning industries and companies/individuals which drive carbon emissions. Is your friend comfortable with his job? Have you said anything to him about what he does and why it might be morally questionable?
Where would all these people work if we stop flying? The tourist industry would be a fraction of what it is.
Just put everyone on a UBI and watch the world burn I guess.
Where would all these people work if we stop flying?
Somewhere else. It really is that simple.
it would be 20+ years till we had enough nuclear on tap
We can build amazing things in a really short time when we put our minds to it. But we do need a different mindset
footflaps
None of the G20 are making any meaningful changes.
We’ve all got our foot on the accelerator…
It’s basically a massive car crash in slow motion.
But don’t worry, just stop oil caused a 5 minute delay to a Tennis match, so we’re all going to be fine….
One of the frustrating things is that the UK has reduced CO2/pp by over 40% in the last 30 years. The USA? 6%. That number again: 6%.
They are chucking out nearly 3 times as much per person as we are. I appreciate we import food and goods, and yes, some of the difference is due to that. But there are so many easy wins they don't even bother with. For example, our top three selling cars are:
Ford Puma
Vauxhall Corsa
Nissan Qashqai
The top 3 selling cars in the USA:
Ford F-Series
Chevy Silverado
Ram Pickup
Go and look those up if you don't know what they are. It's ridiculous!
"One of the frustrating things is that the UK has reduced CO2/pp by over 40% in the last 30 years." I don't know what "pp" is but a sentence with the UK reducing CO2 over any period is false unless you ignore the CO2 associated with imports. The UK now emits more CO2 abroad than ever with its food and goods imports.
Where would all these people work if we stop flying?
Somewhere else. It really is that simple.
It really isn't. There are places where huge amounts of the current population are solely supported by others visiting them. In the long term there is undoubtedly a smaller sustainable population that could live from subsistence in those places, but what's your solution to get from now to then? If you simply shut the world down right now you would potentially be committing a humanitarian crime that is off the charts.
I skipped page 2 since these threads can get pretty cyclical, but another geologist here (environmental geologist at that).
Slow, then off a cliff. We're slowly burning at the moment but much if the carbon we emit is drawn down by microscopic calcium carbonate shelled creatures in the oceans called foraminifera.
Unfortunately, there's more carbon than they can handle and the leftover goes into our atmosphere or acidifies the ocean. Once the ocean acidity reaches a certain level, all those foraminifera die, so no more carbon is drawn down. This will increase atmospheric carbon enormously but on top of that the foraminifera that died will degrade in the acidic water and release all the carbon they stored. So, a double whammy.
There are solutions that will let us maintain our lifestyle (huge solar farms in the deserts being the main one) but it requires an international political effort and there's no bloody way that'll happen. I doubt Aaron Bastani fits the zeitgeist on here but his book Fully Automated Luxury Communism is a great summary of what we could easily achieve if we gave a toss and had politicians who were remotely interested.
Naturally, having studied the environment and understanding more than one iota about it, I live a very low carbon lifestyle. FunkyDunc's post justifying not using his 2 tonne SUV (why do you own that?) that he probably owns because he has two children (why not one? Or even none?) and a dog (why do you own a carnivorous pet when there's a climate crisis?) to go and get his Amazon purchases (why do you need that stuff?) from twenty miles away (why do you live there?) is the perfect example of how poor people who haven't educated themselves' lifestyle is so inconsiderate and inflexible that we're all probably doomed.
This is great thread. Depressing but necessary. Thank you to everyone who's posted very throughful comments.
You might be an idustry specialist, Daffy but your numbers don’t stack up
“Business class is 12-14% of the seats but almost 1/3>1/2 of the aircraft volume.”
[url] https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Airlines_Boeing_787-900.php [/url]
I am an industry specialist - I'm also a scientist.
So you can’t cut emmisions by half by eliminating business class as you claim Daffy.
A business class seat/bed/setup weighs almost 20 times what an economy seat does. It's not just about volume. every kg of weight is 22-29tonnes of CO2 over the life of the average aircraft. Below is an unrefined assessment, but it's valid enough.
[url] https://industryinsider.eu/aerospace-industry/reduction-of-the-weight-of-the-aircraft/ [/url]
Buisness class is typically 12% of seats (aviation industry site and you agree), and business class produces three time the CO2 according to the same source. 1/2 the plane volume you have to link for me, 1/3 I’ll accept.
See above. For some aircraft its MUCH higher. You need to focus on long range. Long range accounts for over 70% of emission despite only accounting for 24-30% of flights. Long range tends to have a higher business class percentage. Fist class is MUCH worse than business. I'm not talking about business jets here.
So in a jet of 100 places the emmisions are 67% from 88 of passengers and 33% are from 12 of passengers. Replace the business seats with normal seat and you can fly 24 or 32 extra passengers (depending on site consulted). Neither 24or 32/124 nor 24 or 32/100 are 50% All your claims can be dismissed by sililarly simple analysis, Daffy.
A typical 3 class layout is 40% business 60% premium and economy. A 2 class is closer to 50/50. An A350 can carry 480 passengers in economy class only. in 2 class, that's 300 of which 60+ are business.
The average airline economy seat is less than 10kg/per pax (that includes the OHB, climate, infotainment, safety, etc) so the total (480) economy seating is ~5tonnes. The typical business layout is in the order of 200-400kg/pax. As such, the cabin interior (2 class) can be 20-25t in a two class layout, so even though in full economy class you're carrying 180 more people, the total cabin and Pax weight is actually less, so the aircraft needs less fuel to move almost 200 more people to a destination.
Just stop flying.
Is the totally wrong message. Reduce flying. Consider not flying, but try to put your attention into things which have substantially higher impacts at lower costs. Aviation supports trade, innovation, (where do you think carbon capture, solar panels, fuel cells and high power batteries actually comes from?), massive economic power and your return for stopping all that? 2%, but in reality MUCH less.
your numbers don’t stack up
My numbers really do stack up. I have a mountain of internal, H2020 and Clean Skies data data which supports it.
Edukator
Free Member“One of the frustrating things is that the UK has reduced CO2/pp by over 40% in the last 30 years.” I don’t know what “pp” is but a sentence with the UK reducing CO2 over any period is false unless you ignore the CO2 associated with imports. The UK now emits more CO2 abroad than ever with its food and goods imports.
Come on, don't be silly. PP = per person as you could easily have inferred, and your point regarding imports was already mentioned in the post.
It's not just cars either, look at how much meat they consume per person (50% more), how many flights per person (50% more), how much energy used per household (over double).
Like I said they aren't even bothering with the easy wins. Very frustrating indeed.
Somewhere else. It really is that simple.
Because there are thousands of jobs out there just waiting for fleet of out of work pilots to come begging... 🙄
Fist class is MUCH worse than business.
I dunno, some folk might like it.
Daffy
Full Member
this isn’t technology. “technology is simply a word for something that doesn’t work yet” Douglas Adams.This is industrial machinery. It’s not the most efficient, it requires a lot of power, it is expansive, but it is viable and it IS GREEN if powered by excess renewable energy. Improvements can be made iteratively as more investment and research is made. The most important thing is that it’s available now – it can be started. SAF, Fission are all greenwashing, H2 and fusion just aren’t viable at current technology and infrastructure levels.
Scrubbing CO2 from the air industrially will never be a popular option. You state it yourself "if powered by excess renewable energy.". That if isn't an "if", it's a "we can't".
A few years ago in the middle of the middle class gravy train that was the feed in tariff people would happily spend tens of thousands on solar panels knowing they could game the system and get get a very good return on their investment. "Excess" is synonymous with "no market for it" though, no one is spending that money (domestically or commercially) if the price per kWh drops. To produce an full time excess (not just a short lived one on a sunny/windy day) would require monumental levels of government money.
The average UK persons carbon footprint is ~13t/year
It takes 140kWh to scrub 1t of CO2 from air.
=1820kWh
To generate that:
250W panel -> 265Wh per year (UK average)
So you need to add 7 extra panels per person, that's 21 per house, on every house, and they wont fit, so that's 21 panels worth of other land. On top of what you need to actually power your house/car (although yes some of that is offset).
Then all you need to do is build a lot of billion pound process plants to scrub the CO2, treat it, compress it.
And find somewhere to put it.
And hundreds of miles of pipelines to connect them.
And then it all needs either oversizing so it can do it all in the sunlight/windy hours, or you need huge energy storage systems.
Because there are thousands of jobs out there just waiting for fleet of out of work pilots to come begging… 🙄
Climate change doesn't care about jobs, money, the value of your investments, it's just physics in action, you need to rework economics (the completely made up by humans thing) to fit reality not the other way around.
Climate change doesn’t care about jobs, money, the value of your investments, it’s just physics in action, you need to rework economics (the completely made up by humans thing) to fit reality not the other way around.
I'm all for smashing capitalism.
But convincing people to fly less, drive less, go vegetarian and turn their thermostat down all at the same time will be easier.
Well said TINAS. Nicely illustrates the issues
Scrubbing CO2 from the air industrially will never be a popular option. You state it yourself “if powered by excess renewable energy.”. That if isn’t an “if”, it’s a “we can’t”.
A few years ago in the middle of the middle class gravy train that was the feed in tariff people would happily spend tens of thousands on solar panels knowing they could game the system and get get a very good return on their investment. “Excess” is synonymous with “no market for it” though, no one is spending that money (domestically or commercially) if the price per kWh drops. To produce an full time excess (not just a short lived one on a sunny/windy day) would require monumental levels of government money.
The average UK persons carbon footprint is ~13t/year
It takes 140kWh to scrub 1t of CO2 from air.
=1820kWh
To generate that:
250W panel -> 265Wh per year (UK average)
So you need to add 7 extra panels per person, that’s 21 per house, on every house, and they wont fit, so that’s 21 panels worth of other land. On top of what you need to actually power your house/car (although yes some of that is offset).
Then all you need to do is build a lot of billion pound process plants to scrub the CO2, treat it, compress it.
And find somewhere to put it.
And hundreds of miles of pipelines to connect them.
And then it all needs either oversizing so it can do it all in the sunlight/windy hours, or you need huge energy storage systems.
- Most panels are now 400W+, so you can (almost) half that.
- Wind is far more energy dense per unit land/sea area than solar (and we have a lot of it) and can be used whilst still maintaining agriculture.
- As for scaling - yes, but that's a problem we've been solving for a century. We have no problem scaling established technologies that don't have huge regulatory concerns.
- We also don't need to be capturing carbon 24/7. We run it only when there's excess capacity, so energy storage for CC isn't required.
Like I said all they way back at the start. My partial solution is purely dependent on funding and scaling. There's no hitherto unknown tech that needs developed, there's no need for mass adoption or immediate change. All it needs is borrowing on a scale like we've seen during the pandemic or financial crisis.
No one else has presented a viable solution that will be accepted by people all over the world and can be started almost immediately and be in action within half a decade. No one.
I've said from the start, it's not sexy, efficient or has the sweeping change that many seem to want/require, but it is viable and will have an impact in the short to medium term.
Because there are thousands of jobs out there just waiting for fleet of out of work pilots to come begging… 🙄
So we burn the planet to protect the jobs of private jet pilots? This is a ludicrous position. We can help out of work pilots find other work, or maybe we just pay them off to stop doing what they do, but carrying on with business as usual isn't an option for obvious reasons.
Yes dazh friends very happy being a pilot flying people round the world to buy shirts. He's ludicrously wealthy himself and doesn't care much or at all about green issues. It's a funny old world.
Seems a good few people can't/won't use a bin so bloody good luck "educating" or "convincing" people to significantly alter their lifestyle.
howilearnedtostopworryingandlovethehydrocarbons
I'm in the slowly then suddenly camp, with the sudden part being ww3.
It amazes me how as a species we are individually and collectively cleaver but also individually and collectively selfish. Also we keep looking at technology to save us, yet it's technology that's caused it.
I also believe that governments are duly aware of the catastrophic impacts over the next few decades but are politically tied or blind to it. Putin was/is trying to get In their first with Ukraine (the bread basket of Europe).....
nickc
See – if the folks who are “committed green” cannot decide amongst themselves becasue the offered solutions is not the “perfect ideal solution that I want” then they become just as intransigent to the point it becomes pointless bickering. We can hardly be surprised then if govts aren’t doing anything.
Governments are doing plenty... unfortunately it's mainly aimed at making people feel better for all but irrelevant gestures and/or ignoring the developing world and outbidding them on less CO2 intensive products.
Japan and France are years ahead with clean energy, Japan especially is moving into more fusion that will both be useable directly in industry (smelting) and also produce hydrogen whilst "green countries" like Germany are closing their clean fission plants in order to use more coal.
Yes dazh friends very happy being a pilot flying people round the world to buy shirts.
Think if I had a friend like that they wouldn't remain so for very long. Funny how we excuse or tolerate extreme examples like this on the basis of friendship. I would see your friend as a direct threat to my kids' future and safety and be sure they knew it but hey-ho maybe I'm an extremist. 🤷♂️
It's fascinating watching people here trying to argue with and contradict Daffy, whose day job is literally trying to fix climate change and implement carbon capture. This is, in my opinion, probably the biggest problem related to dealing with climate change: when people latch onto whatever conspiracy theory or random evidence supports their point of view instead of considering the whole picture.
Maybe the whole "I don't trust experts" thing is limited to the UK, but I doubt it.
Well this was a cheery lunch time read. Unless we all (the world) start working together we are bascially stuffed.
It needs change in every country, every politician, every economy, every individual.
We are screwed. I am worried about my kids. And I too think it will be war that wipes us out, or many of us, probably due to countries scrabbling for resource. I note with interest the renewed interest in heading to the moon - wonder if that is part of a bigger 'lifeboat' type plan by the nations that can afford it
For my part, we have cut back on flying drastically (soon to have our second overseas holiday in 8 years...), down to one car owned since 2017, always walk or cycle where possible. Drill into the kids about the environment. I've done as much home mods as I can afford, things like solar and further insulation just cost too much for me to able to do even though I would like to. And controversially I'm not sold on electric cars yet, personally I think its much more environmental to stop keep creating yet more vehicles and run the ones we have until no longer viable. focusing on car emissions misses the point about the cost to produce and decommission. Just one example - was talking to a student at soton uni and he was doing a study on the particles produced from brake dust - the extra weight of the EV meant much higher particulates than a similar sized combustion engine
Daffy, you've just added more evidence that you can't cut emission 50% as you claimed by stopping business class. Even if you replace 50% business class volume with normal seats you don't cut emissions 50% because the business seats used to be sat in by people who sit in the ecoomy seats that replace them.
Low cost carriers which don't even have a business class are 34% of European flights. The A320 is Airbus's best selling aircraft, those sold with business class only have 12 business class seats. Longer haul planes can have more with up to 5 business class for 13 economy. That still doesn't allow for a 50% saving if you eliminate them.
I no an idustry expert butI've been on a guided tour of the Toulouse factory, I didn't see any aircraft with the kind of business volumes you're claiming.
You're presenting a distorted view of aviation to suit your greenwashing agenda. The idustry says 12% business class flyers with those 12% business class emitting 3 times the CO2. I'l go with that.
Just stop flying.
Yup, slowly then WW3 for me.
Climate change has been talked about as an issue for what 40 years? It's been a major issue for 15 years.
Yet our global CO2 emissions are increasing year by year (apart from 2020) and global population is still increasing. We haven't even levelled it off.
Individual responses to heatwaves are to buy air-con units, we deal with floods by buying bigger cars with more ground clearance.
Greenwashing is everywhere. "I know we shouldn't fly to Florida for our summer holiday and have 3 skiing holidays, but it's OK because we have a Tesla and only eat free range chicken".
At the last COP summit there were more O&G reps than national leaders and what was the outcome? The middle east agreed to stop cutting down their rainforests, Brazil agreed to do pretty much nothing, Australia said they would dig up about 5 tonnes of coal less each year and the UK proudly announced they would build 3 more wind turbines. At some point in the future. Probably. Meantime the real headline was that developed nations would give some money to some third world countries to offset the damaging effects of climate change. And that was announced as a significant triumph.
TJ is right. Catastrophic climate change is baked in and we are arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. And no, I don't have any answers.
