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That’s the problem with the numbers, they immediately expose greenwashing.
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i don;t have them to hand, but the 40billion litres covers a lot of applciations, and my point ive made is you need to target certain applications with what is availble.
thats the point What is available and what can be done without significant lifestyle changes is a mere drop in the ocean.
hen you have to accept that energy demand will continue to rise, so you then have to accept that multiple technologies are needed in order to meet the demand without putting further pressure on the environment.
It just doesn't work like that. Energy usage is proportional to greenhouse gas emmissions More energy usage = more greenhouse gases
You cannot increase energy usage without increasing pressure on the environment
For the love of God TJ stop saying 'it's very simple'. It's anything but, in any kind of useful practical sense.
You then went on to say
The only answer is deep and fundamental changes in how we live our lives.
On which plane of reality is that 'very simple' ?
Of course the game changer in this would be nuclear fusion generation. shame its been 25 years in the future for the last 50 years and still is.
If we can get fusion actually producing electricity on a mass scale it changes the whole equation but 25 years time is too late
On which plane of reality is that ‘very simple’ ?
The essence / concept of the solution is simple. It really is. Use less energy and consume less.
the plane of reality where you understand the issues. Everything else is obfuscation and lack of understanding.
Its about how you look at problems. Implementation can be difficult but the concept is simple. simple does not mean easy.
How does someone get pregnant - thats really simple. the mechanics of it tho are horrendously complicated
Ooh this is fun but i am off to walk to a local cafe where i will be consuming locally produced food prepared by people who live locally and that uses reusable cutlery and crockery and that composts / recycles all their waste
Also, if you really want to sound like a total nob, and get everyone arguing against you even if they are on your side, this kind of comment is ideal.
You worked for the state all your life, I assume? Paid out of taxes gathered by taxing industries that used lots of fossil fuels. You can't play the 'holier than thou' card nor should you - it's not a dick waving competition. And trying to make it into one is REALLY damaging for the cause you are trying to promote.
The topic of the thread has widened from the original point of the Transport Decarbonisation Plan (which isn't a bad thing) but it's broadly the same themes.
The TDP makes a load of broad brush, "kicking the can down the road" statements about technology, as though miraculously switching everything to EV will change anything (which a, it won't and b, it'll take decades to achieve that switch anyway) but it's basically the same as the Transport Plan (in as much as there's ever been a coherent plan) has been doing for the last few decades which is add another road, add another lane, ease congestion, boost the economy, add another out-of-town place.
it's the Jevons Paradox in full effect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
Same in all areas of life - it's more efficient to work from home so there's more demand for monitors and broadband and all the related trappings of home working so there's a corresponding increase in demand for all that stuff.
Seeking the answer in woolly terms of "efficiency" and "technology" will never give you the right answer, it simply shifts the consumption.
The essence / concepot of the solution is simple. It really is
Only in a totally meaningless sense, the same way that the solution to being poor is to be richer.
MOlgrips - you missed the joke there which was that that comment was posted up after squirrelking posted an attempt at a humorous takedown
Are you deliberately misunderstanding me? Or can you really not see the issues?
Oh - and nob = member of the nobility. I guess you mean knob - the end of a bell 🙂 🙂
The simple point is that to reduce greenhouse gas emissions the only way to do it is to reduce energy usage
Once you understand that simple fact then you can drive towards solutions. Untill you understand that it is that simple then you cannot even see solutions
You cannot reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly without reducing energy usage.
calling it complex is to excuse inaction
with that - I'm out
that is my point -you cant do everything sustainable if you go to the nth degree and look at other environmental imapcts.
I'm not talking about the "other environmental impacts", I'm talking about the energy required to manufacture things. It seems our education has missed the fact that modern electronics take an absolutely enormous amount of energy to manufacture - the example I gave above was that it takes 1.5MWh to manufacture one laptop, or the energy required to drive 5000 miles. Where is that energy going to come from?
Another example - it takes about 60MWh to manufacture an EV. In 2020, renewable power in the UK provided 120TWh, which is enough to make about 2 million EVs per year if we do nothing else at all "sustainably" (like make anything else, charge those EVs, watch TV, put the kettle on, etc etc).
That's why, for me, it always comes back to energy usage. We really don't comprehend just how much we use every day in the course of our Western lifestyles, and just how little energy is available outside of fossil fuels or nuclear.
This is why I mostly get annoyed with this topic - the only remotely "sustainable" solutions are 1. give up our Western lifestyle or 2. go 100% nuclear power, and don't bother with solar panels and all that guff.
In my opinion, anything else is greenwashing, and generally seems designed to enrich a select group of people.
that was more aimed at what your bike is made from!
My bike is made from approx. 20lb of steel, which takes about 55kwh to manufacture. Or the energy needed to drive a car about 200 miles.
Are you deliberately misunderstanding me? Or can you really not see the issues?
I can see the same issues as you and apparently a whole load more.
don’t bother with solar panels and all that guff.
Why not?
with that – I’m out
50p says you're posting on this thread in under an hour...
All i am getting from some posters here is that we need to reduce the population and stop using energy, neither of which are going to happen any time soon.
Beyond that we need to look at solutions that can be used to reduce and eliminate emissions, so to give a broad brush response of calling it greenwashing when these things can make a difference just makes you look like a dick.
We all need to make changes there is no doubt including reduction of energy use, but to boil it all down to say the answer is simple ignores outright the complexity of living in this world.
We will get there as fundamentally we have to, and all the small changes are important - to say otherwise is disrespectful of people who are trying and is frankly just depressing as it shows a sad mindset of those who don't think there is any hope
Energy usage is proportional to greenhouse gas emmissions
simply not true - you're suggesting that things like geothermals and hydro contribute to greenhouse gas? production of components will, but propotrtionally insignificnat.
2. go 100% nuclear power,
HUGE HUGE HUGE amounts of Co2 involved and compeletely ignores the waste from it as well - dont forget what you do with spent fuel rods (as well as batteries)
My bike is made from approx. 20lb of steel, which takes about 55kwh to manufacture. Or the energy needed to drive a car about 200 miles.
tyres, brake pads, saddle, etc etc...?? very doubtful on the 55kwh figure - is this from mining, through smelting, through to forming, through to welding etc...?
don’t bother with solar panels and all that guff.
Why not?
In the scenario I presented, we go 100% nuclear power. What is the point in using energy to manufacture more short-lived electronic items (that is, solar panels), that produce a relatively minuscule amount of energy and make a lot of landfill?
HUGE HUGE HUGE amounts of Co2 involved
Sure, there's some CO2 involved in the construction of the reactor building, but that's the same as any other comparable industrial building. The only additional CO2 cost is mining and refining the uranium, but the ultimate CO2 cost per unit of electricity is comparable to other sources.
and compeletely ignores the waste from it as well – dont forget what you do with spent fuel rods (as well as batteries)
The disposal is an issue, but absolutely not impossible. After all, EVs are sold to us on the premise that "we'll solve the lithium recycling problem soon!".
Also - what batteries? No batteries needed, unlike intermittent sources! The only way that the UK grid can handle all the intermittent sources now, without truly enormous batteries, is that we throttle our gas plants much more often than before, as well as building new gas peaking plants.
tyres, brake pads, saddle, etc etc…?? very doubtful on the 55kwh figure – is this from mining, through smelting, through to forming, through to welding etc…?
Yes. I used a relatively standard figure of 20MJ/kg (or 5.5kwh/kg) for steel. Bicycle brake pads, saddles, etc, not only weigh practically nothing, but are made of materials with a much lower energy requirement again.
You also can't tell me you're concerned about my bicycle, which I ride 1000's of mile per year to work and other essential trips, and ignore the 100's of kwh used to manufacture your smartphone and TV that I'm sure is used for all sorts of non-essential purposes, or the approx. 10MWh needed to manufacture an EV battery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_energy
Hope your bicycle isn't aluminum!
We should all have a decent understanding of embodied energy before having a discussion about sustainability. Semiconductor devices have about the highest amount of embodied energy, and if we are at all concerned about CO2 emissions, we should be trying to work out how to power the manufacture of the TVs, laptops, computers, data centers, phones, and touchscreens we all apparently need. Instead, we are crippling our own industries with environmental regulations, congratulating ourselves that we are saving the planet, and buying huge amounts of electronic goods from Asia. China has maybe 200 years of brown coal reserves, and will happily burn it to manufacture everything we won't.
All i am getting from some posters here is that we need to reduce the population and stop using energy, neither of which are going to happen any time soon.
Sorry, wasn't my intention. My point here is that most of what we are being fed as "environmentally sustainable" barely does any good at all, and that if someone really is concerned about this, there are much better things to do. Eg - I rarely buy anything new, I absolutely minimise the number of electronic items I own (due to the huge amount of energy required to make them, as well as the associated pollution issues), I cycle to work as often as I can, and keep my house pretty cold. None of that is too hard to do and will cause your existence to be dramatically more sustainable. It just won't make anyone rich.
and keep my house pretty cold
You do know that this kills people, right? about 5-8 thousand people die every year in the UK because their houses are too cold. I guess this is what some folk are saying when they say the "reduce consumption" is such a simplistic argument. So when you say "it will make your life dramatically more sustainable" for some folks, it won't be sustainable at all, in fact will have the opposite effect
Twrch - OK that's fair enough, individually i agree they won't make much difference but this is where we have to stay looking as a collective in addition to the increasingly needed rules that will come.
The coming changes are going to cost a lot and cause a huge amount of change which needs to ensure that the less well off are supported around the world.
I just hope that it can be done for everyone's sakes
Technology will not save us. There is nothing that will save us. However, that's as is should be as we're not worth saving.
I have a radical solution, move all the rich people that pay for heat from the northern hemisphere to the warm southern hemisphere, they can take all their money, businesses and so on, put infrastructure in and live in the sun with zero energy used for heat..they don't need cars because they put the infrastructure in suitable to cycle to work in the sun.
And at the same time all the poor from warm countries can move to Hampshire on the condition they agree to a limited energy consumption, they don't get cars as part of the deal but they get a huge garden and conservatory with a patio.
I'm calling this 'green sky thinking' go me, just a hypothetical change in expectations where the planet is central rather than what they want rather than need.
There's technology and technology. How about bioengineering bacteria to produce biofuels or useful compounds from waste or even atmospheric CO2? How about bioengineering plants to provide extra nutrients or drugs in normal food? And it's not always innovations, it's often refinements. Someone sometime soon will come up with a better method for recycling plastic into usable feedstock, and/or removing it from the oceans. Or cheap desalination of sea water using solar energy alone - that'd be handy.
Try following phys.org on facebook - there's loads of this kind of thing on there.
What is the point in using energy to manufacture more short-lived electronic items (that is, solar panels), that produce a relatively minuscule amount of energy and make a lot of landfill?
Because it's not a miniscule amount of energy, and because they last quite well. Honestly, if they weren't worth it in terms of energy they wouldn't be worth it in terms of money either. And they'll be recycled once they reach EOL in 20 years' time.
I think this thread has shattered my peak anxiety from the early days of the Covid thread.
When I was younger I genuinely used to get anxious about what the world would be like when I was older. Looks what we have done to the planets resources in 200 years. Even a simpleton like me can see that it just can't keep going without something seriously going wrong. I try to put my faith in science, and that it will provide us with the right keys to keep us going as a species. But it is so hard to feel positive given the state of the place now.
I'm off to bed, I've had enough of this day.
Honestly, if they weren’t worth it in terms of energy they wouldn’t be worth it in terms of money either.
They are manufactured in China (who, last time I checked, made 95% of the world's solar panels) using brown coal to power the process, and labour from dubious sources to say the least.
If they were made to Western labour standards, and using only renewable energy sources, the benefits of solar would look very different.
I'm not sure if you're also missing my point - I said that (in my opinion) our second option for any form of a sustainable lifestyle was to go 100% nuclear. In that case, why bother with solar?
Why don't you think we could have a mix of renewables and nuclear?
Renewables are pretty cheap, vastly more so than nuclear.
Why don’t you think we could have a mix of renewables and nuclear?
Renewables are not cheap, in energy terms. They are only cheap (as I said) because China makes them cheaply with terrible labour practices and burning of fossil fuels. The EROI (energy retuned on energy invested) of solar panels means that they spend years paying back the energy required to manufacture them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment#Photovoltaic
If we tried to manufacture them using only renewable energy, the energy economics would look vastly different than they do now.
Hence my point - if we go nuclear, energy would be cheap enough that there would just be no point messing around with solar. France is around 80% nuclear powered, and has electricity prices around 50% lower than coal-powered Germany.
Ooh this is fun but i am off to walk to a local cafe where i will be consuming locally produced food prepared by people who live locally and that uses reusable cutlery and crockery and that composts / recycles all their waste
Have fun eating their recycled waste smart arse 😜
Huh, how are we using more monitors working from home? Genuine question, at work that’s not happened (although the entire organisation can ‘get by’ on just laptops in reality), I’m guessing that’s replication of set ups for part time desks? And not just working from the laptop in the office?
And all the talk of “simple” really reminds me of pretty much every sales team I’ve ever experienced who go out, make bold (sometimes genuinely unfeasible) promises, but don’t actually have to deliver any of it it. Which I’m hazarding a guess is where Molgrips is coming from as an engineer?
France is around 80% nuclear powered, and has electricity prices around 50% lower than coal-powered Germany
misses the entire point around transport though. Also, don't think about Nuclear cargo either, as there are not many ports in the world that will accept them, that won’t change. Im sure next you will say - electric ships, getting the leccy from nuclear - if you think a car battery is big and expensive, a cargo ship one would be astronomical.
You can't get away from the fact that we will always need transport, and transport needs energy (i get im sounding repetitive). Physics and chemistry tells us very clearly that harnessing energy in a liquid state is the best thing to do. As we’ve said, yes you could use that Nuclear to run an “efuel” plant, so a defector conversion of nuclear to liquid, but you still have the major issue with radioactive waste. Lets not also forget, Japan is banning nuclear because of all of the issues, other countries have already done the same, so it’s not suitable for everyone.
I understand the major point around cutting energy, but it leads to a cut in transport – simple. If you cut transport you cut trade, if you cut trade you cut your access to resources and technology that we rely on. Even with a re-set, where do you think that will get us – literally back to the middle ages at best. No one single country in this world is living entirely off it’s own resources, they haven’t done for hundreds, if not thousands of years – even Jesus had people travelling to him from 3 parts of the world, they might have used horses and carts – but that was advancement from walking!
Sui - so you are saying you are not prepared to take the necessary steps? Thus mass extinction is inevitable. A very defeatist line
There is no other choice. Reduce energy and resource consumption dramatically in the west or face extinction
blimey TJ, that's not waht has been said at all, plus ther are two arguments here - one is yours which is stop all energy, the other is about incentives for technology netutrality to help us all advance.
I've said there is an inevitability that energy demand will rise as the human race will not be prepared to go backwards, if it was you wouldn't be sitting here arguing with me, you'd be in the woods eating seasonal food, not riding bikes for fun and many of the other things you do - oh yeah also all that hopsital equipemnt that saves lives where's that come from?
my point (gument 2), as well as others, is that with that inevitability, we all have to encourage technology to make a change. I haven't stood back, i've personally got a lot of money invested in the new tech, but my view along with a lot of other very clever people is that electrification isn't the answer.
I wonder what the next generation's scare will be?
I've lived through the coming Ice Age, Nuclear Obliteration in the next 5 minutes, Silent Spring, we're all going to die from AIDS, and a few others.
Not that there's anything wrong with the current campaign for the environment. It's a fundamental rule of life, don't shit in your own nest, and in this case our nest is the whole planet.
We could start by imposing environmental tariffs on products that come from countires that don't observe the same standards as we do. That might even rehome some of the industries that have been shifted overseas when we exported our jobs and pollution to them.
Sui
Point out where I said "stop all energy"
You said
"I understand the major point around cutting energy, but it leads to a cut in transport – simple. If you cut transport you cut trade, if you cut trade you cut your access to resources and technology that we rely on." "literally back to the middle ages at best."
Now reducing western energy consumption is the only way to reduce global warming. You state this is impossible. thus the only conclusion to be drawn from following your argument that energy consumption must increase is that you believe global extinction event that we are already in is inevitable
. You simply fail to understand the basics here and continue with this canard that nothing can be done. There is no technogogical solution to this. ( well unless we get fusion on line in thre next few years which ain't gonna happen)
Well I am off again. Its pointless.
TJ, reducing consumption needn't be the answer to reducing warming, that's a false equivalence. Were it true wind turbines would cause global warming and we know that's patently false.
Sui, nuclear is not an answer on its own but it is part of the solution. Anything that contributes to decarbobisation is. The nuance is that is has to be used in a sustainable way, cradle to grave, whether that's a nuclear reactor or a wind turbine. Synthetic fuels only do that if they capture carbon somewhere in the process, or don't contain carbon at all.
misses the entire point around transport though.
No, the point of that comment was evidence that nuclear power is cheap (unlike your assertion).
You can’t get away from the fact that we will always need transport, and transport needs energy (i get im sounding repetitive). Physics and chemistry tells us very clearly that harnessing energy in a liquid state is the best thing to do.
If you think that we need as much trade as we do (which I do not - the astronomical amount of consumption we currently perform is just not sustainable, in any way, nor is so much trade necessarily good for local business and industry), and that it needs decarburising (which, frankly, I am not too worried about), then just where is that energy going to come from?
I've already run through the top-level maths for powering just UK ground transportation using sustainable fuels grown in the UK, and it's very clear that it will just not add up without a reduction in demand by at least two orders of magnitude. I could run through the maths for maritime shipping fuel demands, but there's no point - it's even worse. How do you think it is possible to sustain our current habits?
TJ, reducing consumption needn’t be the answer to reducing warming, that’s a false equivalence. Were it true wind turbines would cause global warming and we know that’s patently false.
It's our consumption of the world's resources that is exactly the core of what is unsustainable. I find it amazing that people are arguing for our current lifestyle to continue - I assume you would agree that everyone on the planet should live like us, to make it fair?
Also - why is it "patently false" that wind turbines contribute to global warming? Their manufacture, which is quite energy-intensive (especially compared to their total energy output over their lifetime), certainly produces CO2 emissions, and it takes a while for the turbine to "pay off" it's CO2 debt once in operation.
Edit: My main issue with renewable power is that their manufacture is heavily subsidized (probably by 100%) by fossil fuels. If we had to make all of these things using only renewable power, the energy economics would be very different (and electricity would be much more expensive). To estimate this, a careful analysis of the EROI (energy returned on energy invested) is needed. The EROI on renewables is lower than current, non-renewable sources, which means it will be more expensive to produce electricity.
if we go nuclear, energy would be cheap enough that there would just be no point messing around with solar.
How many times have we heard that since the 60s?
@tjagain reduction is not the only solution - we need heavy reduction in consumption AND renewable energy. The more we do the former, the easier the latter will be.
How many times have we heard that since the 60s?
Move to France, and take a look at your power bill.
@tjagain reduction is not the only solution – we need heavy reduction in consumption AND renewable energy. The more we do the former, the easier the latter will be.
Now that is an excellent summary that I can't disagree with.
I find it amazing that people are arguing for our current lifestyle to continue
If you don't want the "average Joe" rioting in the streets, or even want people to just agree to vote for politicians who want to even start looking at this issue, then keeping "current lifestyles" as close to where they are now, is going to be your No1 priority. Folk are simple not going to accept anything less. Now you can rant and rave about how stupid folk are but once you done that, come back with some solutions. Cause this is THE stumbling block you've got to get over.
It’s our consumption of the world’s resources that is exactly the core of what is unsustainable. I find it amazing that people are arguing for our current lifestyle to continue – I assume you would agree that everyone on the planet should live like us, to make it fair?
Also – why is it “patently false” that wind turbines contribute to global warming? Their manufacture, which is quite energy-intensive (especially compared to their total energy output over their lifetime), certainly produces CO2 emissions, and it takes a while for the turbine to “pay off” it’s CO2 debt once in operation.
Okay a couple of points to answer.
1) Yes that's what makes it unsustainable, agreed.
2)Im not arguing to carry on as is, I was correcting the statement that consumption the cause of warming. Its not, directly at least, its the release of greenhouse gases that does this.
3) The turbine can be manufactured in a carbon neutral way. It isn't, of itself, a CO2 emitter therefore doesnt necessarily contribute to global warming. By saying it does you are essentially saying nothing is good enough or can be good enough because you choose to ignore the changes that could be made. That's the argument the anti-renewable lot make and its horseshit, to give it an academic name.
In fact I have no idea what your argument is. On one hand you are screaming about global warming and sustainability but close off saying renewables are too expensive and the economics don't stack up. Which side of the fence are you on because that's not a balanced or rational argument.
Move to France, and take a look at your power bill.
Subsidised, no? There are concerns even in France over economic viability:
https://www.reuters.com/article/france-nuclearpower-idUSL8N1YF5HC
My main issue with renewable power is that their manufacture is heavily subsidized (probably by 100%) by fossil fuels.
Not a particularly unreasonable concept though is it - use fossil fuels to ramp up renewable production, then use this generation of renewables to produce the next generation? We have to start somewhere. The same was and possibly is still true of nuclear.
then keeping “current lifestyles” as close to where they are now, is going to be your No1 priority. Folk are simple not going to accept anything less
Unless it's e.g. a four day work week. Same productivity, same wages, less energy used. Or WFH.
Don't forget though that excess consumption, or lifestyle, is only a problem for those with the resources to do it. A change in lifestyle might actually benefit those on the lower end of the scale.
WFH is the big win for any government with a proper long term view and a tiny bit of commitment to the environment.
WFH is the big win for any government with a proper long term view and a tiny bit of commitment to the environment.
I'd be very interested to see how much if the workforce actually can work from home. I'm guessing it's a relatively small percentage. Plus if permanent, do houses need some retrofit (insulation etc.) To really realise much energy savings.
Or WFH.
I'm willing to bet the same 50p I lost to TJ yesterday that more people can't work from WFH compared to those that can.