Tagged “energy”

Electrical Engineer on power generation. Some runs counter to climate debates are out of date

What is my preferred path to a green energy future? I still see no fundamental reason to vary from Cornell professor Carl Sagan’s recommendations to Congress in 1985 :

• Solar power
• Safe fission nuclear power
• Fusion nuclear power on a longer time-scale

surprised by how much wind was in it

These emissions [for wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries] could amount to a cumulative 15-35 gigatonnes of CO₂ equivalent over the next 30 years: but that compares with around 40 Gt CO₂ equivalent produced every year by the fossil fuel based energy system.

Super-soaker and NERF gun inventor now working on some kind of solid-state power.

Links to this Forbes piece, that 40% of global shipping is for fuel

a giant concrete structure that was dragged through the sea then suctioned to the ocean floor to extract gas

Can we reduce resource use and emissions more rapidly than increases caused by growing affluence? History does not think so.

So many smallish bits it seems hard to make a dent in this. Also troublesome is the difficuly of measuring.

Still curious of how to estimate or measure the impact of things like switching to EVs - what is increase on existing residential power use, determining emissions from that. There are other benefits of it, like improving neighbourhood air quality, but there isn't a zero-cost switch. Land use for different energy types is another one.
Also interested in some macro estimates of energy requirements per day (i.e. 9MJ of food, production and travel costs of that alone).

Excellent Ezra episode with Jesse Jenkins touched on a lot of the questions I had about this.

Treating high prices as reasons not to do a thing.. Though it wasn't the only reason; I have no idea of the impact of desal plants on marine life/ecosystem.

clean electricity vs animal welfare tradeoffs

report found that breaching lower Snake River dams is “essential” to helping protect and recover threatened_ salmon populations."

lowering a building on jacks a floor at a time. 90% less dust!

On resource extraction in Canada. Apparently 75 percent of the world’s mining companies are based in Canada!

Also fun hover effect on links

The hydrogen is currently being made with coal but Energy Minister @AngusTaylorMP says the trade will be crucial in bringing down global emissions.

I'm sure it will, Angus

have seen some worrying stats on slowdown of solar/wind rollouts, and some general issues with larger scale wind turbines.

some more stuff on impact of Germany's big shift away from nuclear

Covers a lot! Approximate cost breakdowns, on people's desire for customisation, on transport costs of materials (you can't ship prefab concrete slabs across the country).

Includes a handy one-liner on why things aren't improving:

The combination of consumer tastes, low dollar value per volume building components, and the complexity of buildings inhibit efforts to scale.

Mind-boggling stats on solar and batteries. I did not know that we probably reached peak greenhouse emissions in 2019!