Classic Conversation Thread

[AndyK]

5 hours ago, PANDA said:

I’m annoyed that progressive politicians are willing to call themselves “Pro-Environment” but they’re not willing to endorse a revenue neutral carbon tax.

 

It’s the most efficient way to reduce emissions, and provides no cost to consumers.  It also should be easier to pass in progressive states if it was advertised as a bill that “Reduces the cost of public college tuition”, “Expands Medicare to more income groups” or “Reduces income taxes”, and is then funded by the Carbon Tax.

 

You can invest in Solar and clean energy, and that’s good.  But it isn’t going to get people off of carbon fast enough, given the effects of climate change are already starting to happen. 

 

I also dont think we can hold out hope for a single super genius to invent a carbon emission reversal process.  However, investing more money in climate scientists and environmental engineers couldn’t hurt.

Like it or not petrol is pretty much the ideal fuel and there is simply no alternative at this point in time. We are closer to unlocking the DNA secret of immortality than we are to creating a usable EV battery.

 

Still, somebody already found a way to manufacture that petrol in carbon neutral process, it just needs upscaling.

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/fuel/9619269/British-engineers-produce-amazing-petrol-from-air-technology.html

 

 

[Barnack]

29 minutes ago, Lordmandeep said:

I would be honest I would automatically vote against any politician that wants carbon taxes or fees that are not offset with a rebate or a reduction in taxes. 

 

I think I would go with a litteral check. tax carbon so the average family pay say $2,500 a year more if they change nothing in their comportment (and the entreprise making the energy, products, etc...) and the government give back to every Canadian family $2,500 a year cash (can be a monthly payment in your bank account).

 

So poor people that do not really pay tax at the end of the year does not get hit the most by it (usually because they consume the less and thus pollute the less they will even "win" without doing any change).

 

People fear government being bad and inefficient and that the beauty of the neutral plan, government take no decision, blindly do only what everyone agree is good at, taxing everyone and sending everyone money.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Barnack

[terrestrial]

2 hours ago, Telemachos said:

@PANDA @Jason I read an interesting article recently about a Norwegian architectural firm that's making buildings that are green-positive: they actually put a not-insignificant amount of energy back into the grid just from how they're designed (and of course what materials are being used). It's very cool and I hope catches on outside of Scandinavia.

In daily use, ignoring the materials needed to even build the building, in Sacndinavia, Austria, and Germany that is nothing new. There are houses that produce more than they need already, but that's very small numbers here in Germany (I do not know % in the other countries)

Houses with nearly 100% get and got build quite a few. Sadly still not all of the new ones, but the allowed limits get tightened by law over the time  more and more for new buildings

 

For old buildings we have to modernise e.g. the chimney, partly exchange the complete heating system, depending how bad the results of the tests are. The tests too have to be done per law on house owner's cost. I think also the insulation, windows,... in very bad cases (not sure about that, might depend on the year of building, what kind of building, I forgot if it is law or was discussed or comes in the future)

 

I have absolute no problem with that (neighbour is screaming as he didn't do anything for years and now has to modernise for at least $8000, probably more, he heating system and change the chimney)

[Barnack]

7 minutes ago, AndyK said:

Still, somebody already found a way to manufacture that petrol in carbon neutral process, it just needs upscaling.

 

It need more to consume a quantity of energy to create that gasoline that is not prohibitive on how much the energy the created gasoline will give you back.

 

There is no doubt that you can remove CO2 from the air if you really want too, but the energy source for your factory doing is likely to use more CO2 than what you are capturing back.

 

For example the system of the company in your link is using 60 KWH in energy to create one liter of gasoline, gasoline has about 9KHW of energy by liters and if your gasoline is not use to heat directly something but in say a engine it will have an efficacy between 15% and 60%, you will have about 1 to 6 KHW back of the 60 KWH you did put in the endeavor and had when you started.

 

It could be nice if you need small amount of your energy to be petrol for special use but has a mass source of energy seem to inefficient, would be like talking about hydrogen made from water electrolysis has a possible source of energy, when it is a massive energy pit not a source.

[Plain Old Tele]

7 minutes ago, terrestrial said:

In daily use, ignoring the materials needed to even build the building, in Sacndinavia, Austria, and Germany that is nothing new. There are houses that produce more than they need already, but that's very small numbers here in Germany (I do not know % in the other countries)

 

Yeah, what was new about this was that the buildings produced a substantial surplus. I found the article.

 

Brattørkaia is an eight-story office building that will produce 485,000 kWh annually. For reference, the average Norwegian home uses about 20,000 kWh of power a year. (In the U.S., the yearly household average is 10,399 kWh). Brattørkaia will, in effect, become a mini-power plant that can supply electricity to Norway’s publicly owned grid.

 

https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/12/norway-energy-positive-building-powerhouse-snohetta/577918/

[The Futurist]

It's crazy how people know so little about energy, even very well educated ones, with degrees and all, there are completely oblivious about the science, numbers and what energy really is.

You think people of the past enslaved others because they were evil, right ?

That s a comforting thought to have.

We won't have that luxury for long.

Edited December 17, 2018 by The Futurist

[Lordmandeep]

I read that if the world became vegetarians emissions would drop by a third or 25% 

[CoolioD1]

15 minutes ago, The Futurist said:

It's crazy how people know so little about energy, even very well educated ones, with degrees and all, there are completely oblivious about the science, numbers and what energy really is.

You think people of the past enslaved others because they were evil, right ?

That s a comforting thought to have.

We won't have that luxury for long.

i wonder if anyone's ever tallied up how many times you've declared that you know more than the world's leading experts on a given subject, and that they are actually dumb, but you are very smart (of course with no elaboration because a smart boy doesn't need to do that). i think it would be... a lot of times.

[The Panda]

59 minutes ago, AndyK said:

Like it or not petrol is pretty much the ideal fuel and there is simply no alternative at this point in time. We are closer to unlocking the DNA secret of immortality than we are to creating a usable EV battery.

 

Still, somebody already found a way to manufacture that petrol in carbon neutral process, it just needs upscaling.

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/fuel/9619269/British-engineers-produce-amazing-petrol-from-air-technology.html

 

 

Petroleum is not the ideal fuel if it results in the destruction of our world.  

 

Literally none of this matters if we just let climate change happen and change nothing about our lifestyles.  We’ll literally destroy the planet.

 

I’ll pay any tax I need to if that means we have a chance at stoping that.

[Barnack]

12 minutes ago, Lordmandeep said:

I read that if the world became vegetarians emissions would drop by a third or 25% 

Meat eating is and will be more and more the big sources, and deforestation would stop / reverse I would imagine.

 

Cars is a smaller source and a much bigger talk for some reason, it feel almost taboo how big of a pollution meat eating is.

[The Panda]

17 minutes ago, Lordmandeep said:

I read that if the world became vegetarians emissions would drop by a third or 25% 

A large portion of the emissions come from cattle industries.  Due to the methane produced by my mass producing cows, and the amount of land it takes up.

 

We don’t even need most of the word to stop eating meat.  We need them to stop eating so much beef.

 

In other words, Chik-fil-A may be part of a world saving solution (well that’s an overstatement, but chicken and fish production create a substantially smaller amount of fossil fuels compared to cows).

 

The solutions to fighting climate change is a large mix of things.  But it’s one reason a carbon tax is so effective, it blankety covers a massive amount of the industries creating a problem.

Edited December 17, 2018 by PANDA

[JB33]

I will never stop eating meat. We were meant to consume meat, just like other creatures on the food chain. That being said, I agree with eating much less red meat. I've tried to eat mostly chicken and fish and save beef for special occasions.

[WrathOfHan]

I haven't had beef in like a month, which is pretty surprising considering I used to eat it most days of the week. Chicken provides more protein and won't give me cancer, so hey (pork otoh... bacon has basically filled my beef void).

Edited December 17, 2018 by WrathOfHan

[terrestrial]

1 hour ago, Telemachos said:

Yeah, what was new about this was that the buildings produced a substantial surplus. I found the article.

https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/12/norway-energy-positive-building-powerhouse-snohetta/577918/

the amount / % is new, especially for their lack of sun.... that would be impressive if it works

I see it got an own name 'powerhouse' 😉

 

Here we have different systems,  a lot of houses that e.g. produce more electric power than they need, they give the overflow to the common (term?) electric system and get a guaranteed high price for it for 20 years. As storing power is a problem still, they take at times the photovoltaic system does not produce energy back out of the common system, but that is only a small part in comparison to what they produce

I think Öko-Strom (ecological electric power) grew from 2% to up to ~ 25% for private households over the last 10 years or so.

Some combine the passive house technology (no energy needed) with producing,.... that are the ones that are already on the plus side.

 

One of the reasons so many private people and,... did the Öko-Strom producing on their roofs, a lot of the buildings here in the countryside with the roof being big and.... are full with photovoltaic as an example. Funnily also in regions where the people do not tend to be open for new 'thinking'.

How much they get depends on in which year they build/bought the system, for a time the companies producing the systems had a huge back-log (term?)

Strangely there seem no English translations at Wikipedia for what I found, I try to remember more of the official names.

 

privately owned house example, one (small) part for warm water, the bigger part for producing electric power

 

 

city roof

 

 

Edited December 18, 2018 by terrestrial
my keyboard seem to not like the 't' anymore

[Napoleon]

9 minutes ago, WrathOfHan said:

I haven't had beef in like a month, which is pretty surprising considering I used to eat it most days of the week. Chicken provides more protein and won't give me cancer, so hey (pork otoh... bacon has basically filled my beef void).

I eat beef and never got a cancer

[CoolioD1]

i pretty much only eat beef in lasagna these days. i have every cancer.

[WrathOfHan]

2 minutes ago, Napoleon said:

I eat beef and never got a cancer

Eating more than a pound of beef per week is considered somewhat carcinogenic.

Edited December 17, 2018 by WrathOfHan

[terrestrial]

4 minutes ago, Napoleon said:

I eat beef and never got a cancer

yet 😉

not saying everyone who eats lots of beef will get it, but it seems to heighten the chances for it

[Napoleon]

1 minute ago, WrathOfHan said:

Eating more than a pound of beef per week is considered somewhat carcinogenic.

Everything gives us cancer these days. 

[terrestrial]

3 minutes ago, WrathOfHan said:

Eating more than a pound of beef per week is considered somewhat carcinogenic.

thanks a lot