The psychology of climate change

[Garpal Gumnut]

Those of us who don't have beach houses and live in the mountains couldn't give a stuff.

My good god, Rumpole.

You are alive, or should I say, live.

How is the view in to the smoky valleys?

Remind me, does fire run up mountains or down, or both or jump across.

Good to see you back on ASF.

gg

 

[basilio]

The thing about carbon capture and storage is that if they get it to work (a big if), it can keep right on reducing the CO2 even after the Co2 emissions are stabilised, and we can get back to pre industrial levels if people think that's a good idea.

CCS (Carbon Capture and storage) is complex and still unproven process on the scale that is required to have any impact on global warming. One scenario was capturing CO2 from fossil fuel power stations liquefying it and then storing it safely underground. By defination it cannot take more CO2 out of the atmosphere than was going to be produced by the power station in the first place.

This process was supposed to be the way to produce clean energy from polluting coal fired power. Trouble is it hasn't proven commercially viable insofar as the technology hasn't worked the way it was intended and the cost was just too high. In the last few years the steep reduction in renewable energy power has undermined the economic viability of coal fired power let alone adding CO2 scrubbers.

However there are some technologies which "promise" to just keep sucking CO2 out. Trouble is the cost and engineering is mammoth. If one thinks for a minute about the billions of tons CO2 that is emitted every year by cars, power stations, heavy industry, agriculture and then considers reversing the process !!! then it's easy to realise just how unrealistic the proposal is. You wouldn't want to bet your life on it.

Check out the analysis on VOX

Pulling CO2 out of the air and using it could be a trillion-dollar business

Meet “carbon capture and utilization,” which puts CO2 to work making valuable products.

www.vox.com

 

[basilio]

Wikileaks has very good indepth analysis of Carbon Capture and Carbon removal process.

Carbon dioxide removal - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Carbon capture and storage - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[SirRumpole]

My good god, Rumpole.

You are alive, or should I say, live.

How is the view in to the smoky valleys?

Remind me, does fire run up mountains or down, or both or jump across.

Good to see you back on ASF.

gg

You are right Garpal. The smoke was terrible a couple of years ago.

My apologies for my smirk.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

You are right Garpal. The smoke was terrible a couple of years ago.

My apologies for my smirk.

Indeed @SirRumpole ,

We will all be rooned.

Stay safe and well in woody places this summer.

gg

 

[mullokintyre]

Hanrahan agrees.
mick

 

[Smurf1976]

CCS (Carbon Capture and storage)

Bottom line is the technology does work if applied to a reasonably concentrated stream or if you only want to remove a portion of the CO2 but you won't find anyone in the power industry who sees it at a serious thing to be applied to coal plant.

Burn the coal in pure oxygen and sure it works. Cost a fortune to do that though so not really practical.

If you just want to get a bit of CO2, because you want the CO2 for some purpose in industry etc, then that also works. Doesn't matter that most of it's still going up the stack when you only need a relatively small amount of it to be captured. That's actually done at Torrens Island B power station for that exact reason - someone wanted to buy some CO2 for whatever purpose.

Doesn't really work as a means of capturing all or even most of the emissions from coal burned in air though. Not impossible but hardly practical and I've not come across anyone in recent times who sees it as an option.

 

[mullokintyre]

I don't understand why people think CCS has to be limited to place of "burning".
The CO2 molecules don't remember their origin,
So if you use CCS to take out a C02 molecule that was created from the breakdown of a methane rich fart from Saint Greta, it still counts equally as well as one that was taken directly from a coal fired power station smokestack.
You can have numerous small plants scattered all over the place quietly sucking out CO2, regardless of what happens with the activities of CO2 emitters.
Geez, if they got really creative they could use some of extra power developed with all the renewables during the day to add some oxygen and nitrogen (both in abundant supply in the atmosphere) and create ammonia.
I am not activating for CCS, I just don't understand the narrow thinking in regard to its application.
Mick

 

[basilio]

Re CO2 removal..

However there are some technologies which "promise" to just keep sucking CO2 out. Trouble is the cost and engineering is mammoth. If one thinks for a minute about the billions of tons CO2 that is emitted every year by cars, power stations, heavy industry, agriculture and then considers reversing the process !!! then it's easy to realise just how unrealistic the proposal is. You wouldn't want to bet your life on it.

Carbon dioxide removal - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The most cost effective practical ways to remove CO2 to date are the various environmental process. These can be beefed up with some human intervention ie developing kelp forests, not cutting down the Amazon, restoring wetlands and so on. The Wiki article offers a good overview of the options.

In practical terms we start with reducing emissions as much as possible as quickly as possible and protecting and enhancing the natural environment to draw down as much CO2 as can be achieved.

Or we don't.

 

[rederob]

I don't understand why people think CCS has to be limited to place of "burning".

CCS is limited to place of burning, as you call it.

So if you use CCS to take out a C02 molecule that was created from the breakdown of a methane rich fart from Saint Greta, it still counts equally as well as one that was taken directly from a coal fired power station smokestack.

Is that an example of your logic in this thread?

You can have numerous small plants scattered all over the place quietly sucking out CO2, regardless of what happens with the activities of CO2 emitters.

No you can't. There is, however, a very different technology - DAC - that extracts CO2 from the air, but it is prohibitively expensive and would have significantly less impact than a tree planting strategy.

I am not activating for CCS, I just don't understand the narrow thinking in regard to its application.

If you are going to suggest CCS for consideration then where are your costings and data showing effectiveness?

 

[basilio]

The Yale 360 reference from Redrobs last comment is worth a read.

The Dream of Carbon Air Capture Edges Toward Reality

Next month, an industrial facility in Iceland will join a growing number of projects to remove CO2 from the air and put it underground. But major hurdles, including high costs, remain before this technology can be widely deployed and play a key role in tackling climate change.

e360.yale.edu

 

[rederob]

Watching the antivaxxers and their tactics unfold over the past year is reminiscent of what has gone on in climate change arenas.

Various groups of medical professionals have bandied together to create websites, twitter accounts and other media that promotes pseudoscience, blatant misinformation, unproven medicines and conspiracies.

In some countries a strong political overtone also railed against vaccines - Brazil being a prime example.

What is common to both settings is the amount of evidence in support of positive action based on the underpinning science and credibility of the proponents, versus the opposite on the other.

Why antivaxxers fall for the BS is not necessarily a mystery. Some simply don't believe that covid is real, or that its a pandemic requiring action. Some have a reasonable belief that we don't have knowledge of the long term effects of covid vaccines, and it's undeniably true with barely a year's data available. Some don't trust their government's track record on truth - Russia being a prime example. Some believe their wealth or education trumps any downside from covid and makes them safer than a vaccine. And I am sure there a lots of other reasons antivaxxers can justify.

For each of the above reasons for antivaxxers we could equally substitute climate change deniers. No matter what they are told to counter their claims, their beliefs will hold sway. Incredibly, there are Youtube videos of people on their literal deathbeds from covid who refused to believe they actually had covid.

The conundrum faced by those who choose to believe in abundant evidence is that our goals are not different to those who do not. Antivaxxers don't want their kids (or themselves) to get harmed from vaccines, and climate science deniers want a world unaffected by climate change. You would think there had to be some common ground given this situation, but it's difficult to find.

About all we can hope for is that there are so few antivaxxers that their stance won't undo the proven good done by high vaccine penetration. Similarly, if enough governments commit with decisive actions to curtail CO2 emissions asap, then we might not reach levels of warming that trigger tipping points that exacerbate the trend.

 

[rederob]

China has made clear its CO2 emissions intentions and has definitive plans to peak before 2030 and thereafter be CO2 neutral by 2060.
While many in Australia slam China for being the world's biggest CO2 emitter, we are more than happy to keep digging out as much coal as they need and ship it, as Scomo showed to all in Parliament. Lucky he's not a hypocrite!

Less well know is how China is tackling polluters:

 

[SirRumpole]

China has made clear its CO2 emissions intentions and has definitive plans to peak before 2030 and thereafter be CO2 neutral by 2060.
While many in Australia slam China for being the world's biggest CO2 emitter, we are more than happy to keep digging out as much coal as they need and ship it, as Scomo showed to all in Parliament. Lucky he's not a hypocrite!

Less well know is how China is tackling polluters:

The burden of CO2 emissions from coal should rest with the people who burn it , not those who sell it.

 

[rederob]

The burden of CO2 emissions from coal should rest with the people who burn it , not those who sell it.

Really?
Why do we have gun laws then?
Why do we have nuclear disarmament protocols?
Why do we need prescriptions for certain medications?

I think you have faulty logic!

 

[SirRumpole]

Really?
Why do we have gun laws then?
Why do we have nuclear disarmament protocols?
Why do we need prescriptions for certain medications?

I think you have faulty logic!

OK then, blame the Arabs for all the petrol & diesel that we burn !

 

[rederob]

OK then, blame the Arabs for all the petrol & diesel that we burn !

We were burning fuels here before the Arabs were on the scene.

The logic is simple. If you cannot access a resource than you cannot use it! If everyone sanctioned coal sales to China they would need to quickly find an alternative.

But the real problem is we - the global "we" - have no regulated commitment to climate change and therefore rely on nations to do their best to honour unenforceable paper commitments.

 

[basilio]

China has made clear its CO2 emissions intentions and has definitive plans to peak before 2030 and thereafter be CO2 neutral by 2060.
While many in Australia slam China for being the world's biggest CO2 emitter, we are more than happy to keep digging out as much coal as they need and ship it, as Scomo showed to all in Parliament. Lucky he's not a hypocrite!

Less well know is how China is tackling polluters:

Very interesting. Certainly an eye opener. Well worth viewing IMO

 

[sptrawler]

While many in Australia slam China for being the world's biggest CO2 emitter, we are more than happy to keep digging out as much coal as they need and ship it, as Scomo showed to all in Parliament. Lucky he's not a hypocrite!

Well there is always the other option, if we don't sell coal to them and no one else sells coal to them and they need it. They could just come here and take it, seriously who would stop them?
We are forever telling the U.S and U.K to fluck off, we really are a bunch of wankers when you boil it down, full of our own importance and about as usefull as a bucket full of ar$holes, we haven't finished putting our SAS through the wringer yet. We are just a global embarrassment IMO.
Even if like Ukraine they said every man and boy will stay and fight, how long would we last 15 maybe twenty minutes if we were lucky enough to be where the Chinese landed, all the media people would head off as was shown with covid.
people need to wake up to themselves IMO
We have the best welfare systems in the World, we are leading the World in transitioning to renewables, yet we can't stop whining and winging, were just an embarrassment.

 

[rederob]

Well there is always the other option, if we don't sell coal to them and no one else sells coal to them and they need it. They could just come here and take it, seriously who would stop them?

China has Provinces that run out of coal every year as they operate on a quota system.
Last year when they ran out they still let Australian coal carriers sit in their harbours fully loaded with coal.
So it looks like China has a regenerative braking system for coal and waits until their new quota kicks in before kicking off again.
On a more serious note, China could cap its coal power plant construction program now and just use their annual additional renewable capacity if they wanted to. By way of comparison our NEM's total generation capacity is about 55 GW while in 2020 China added about 280 GW of renewable capacity alone and continues to increase its annual additions.