[Discussion] Climate Change

This thread is just to post interesting news, thoughts, opinions about climate change.

Jonman wrote:

OK, ask yourself this. Do power companies make money hand over fist? Are they posting huge profits? No? Then why does $25/month sound like "too much" to you?

Taking a different tack - without wanting to be a dick about it, your assertion that "I don't see trucks fixing things on my street" is ludicrous. For one, are you at home all day, peering out the window in case an electrical truck passes for you to log?

Well, I made that comment about seeing trucks only somewhat offhand, because I do work from home a fair amount. It is a subjective observation, to be sure. I still feel like my ballpark figures of $200k a month just in my town seems high - especially since that is just the $25 base fee, not including any other services and fees. And that doesn't count new lines, since those are paid for by new homeowners, developers, or new businesses.

I saw this today: monster wind turbine.

I'm not understanding why bigger is better here. We see plenty of examples in nature where lots of smaller things are more efficient than one big thing. I'm thinking of a grid of smaller turbines - maybe 1ft each or so. Each could be on it's own swivel, in case the wind at the lower level is at a different angle than the higher level. That way even the smallest breeze could be generating power. If one turbine fails, a worker can be ready to swap it out from a stockpile of replacement modules. No one is doing this, so I'm sure there's some very good reasons - I just haven't heard why... Any thoughts?

Jonman wrote:

The important question you're not asking is what are they doing with that profit? If it's payouts to shareholders and bonuses for CEOs, then absolutely, you have a case to be pissed off.

On the other hand, what if it's all being spent on infrastructure investment, to make the entire system more robust so that your power stops going out in windstorms? What if it's being spent on grid modernization, to make distributed generation (e.g. rooftop solar) more feasible and integrated?

Typically profits mean the former. If the revenue coming in is being spent on business costs than it doesn't get put into the profit category. The only sorts of profit in your second category would be revenue over spending that the company keeps in reserve for those sorts of projects in later years, and depend on how they do their book-keeping even those reserve funds may count as spending that doesn't go down as "profit".

Other than that profit largely means shareholder dividends, I'm not sure if stock buybacks count as profits. Even CEO bonuses wouldn't count as profits, that would be an employment expense. Although for tax purposes there are limits to the amount that bonuses like that count as a tax-deductible expense, in shareholder reports and the like they would still count as expenses.

I think people really underestimate the cost of maintaining infrastructure. If they didn't, they'd be less likely to perpetually scream about their taxes. NYC in 2014 had a 5 year maintenance budget need of approx. $50B - $1250 per resident per year. And that's without considering new infrastructure at all. If you're paying $25/month for one of the major services in your town, that actually sounds about right to me. I mean, electricity, water and roads would be the big ones, right? Schools and hospitals and social services probably come in lower on the list.

dewalist wrote:
Jonman wrote:

OK, ask yourself this. Do power companies make money hand over fist? Are they posting huge profits? No? Then why does $25/month sound like "too much" to you?

Taking a different tack - without wanting to be a dick about it, your assertion that "I don't see trucks fixing things on my street" is ludicrous. For one, are you at home all day, peering out the window in case an electrical truck passes for you to log?

Well, I made that comment about seeing trucks only somewhat offhand, because I do work from home a fair amount. It is a subjective observation, to be sure. I still feel like my ballpark figures of $200k a month just in my town seems high - especially since that is just the $25 base fee, not including any other services and fees. And that doesn't count new lines, since those are paid for by new homeowners, developers, or new businesses.

you said 8k people live in your town. Are they each paying $25, or is each household paying $25?

dewalist wrote:

I saw this today: monster wind turbine.

I'm not understanding why bigger is better here. We see plenty of examples in nature where lots of smaller things are more efficient than one big thing. I'm thinking of a grid of smaller turbines - maybe 1ft each or so. Each could be on it's own swivel, in case the wind at the lower level is at a different angle than the higher level. That way even the smallest breeze could be generating power. If one turbine fails, a worker can be ready to swap it out from a stockpile of replacement modules. No one is doing this, so I'm sure there's some very good reasons - I just haven't heard why... Any thoughts?

Economy of scale is a thing.

Where to start?

1000 tiny turbines result in order(s)-of-magnitude more maintenance and management burden than one single turbine.

Wind turbines at ground level are pointless. May as well build a solar panel in a cave. You need to build a big stick to put them on top of where there is non-turbulent, fast, consistent flow. If you're paying for a big stick, putting a $3 turbine that generates handfuls of Watts on top makes zero economic sense.

1000 tiny turbines would have a enormously bigger footprint than one big turbine.

If "the tiniest breeze" would turn then, they'll be generating "the tiniest amount of power". There's no point. How hot do you get when a gentle breeze blows on you? Not at all? Yeah, that's because there isn't a whole lot of energy in a gentle breeze. Energy in a flow is proportional to the square of the flow speed. So low flows contain very little energy.

dewalist wrote:

I saw this today: monster wind turbine.

I'm not understanding why bigger is better here. We see plenty of examples in nature where lots of smaller things are more efficient than one big thing. I'm thinking of a grid of smaller turbines - maybe 1ft each or so. Each could be on it's own swivel, in case the wind at the lower level is at a different angle than the higher level. That way even the smallest breeze could be generating power. If one turbine fails, a worker can be ready to swap it out from a stockpile of replacement modules. No one is doing this, so I'm sure there's some very good reasons - I just haven't heard why... Any thoughts?

In the case of windmills bigger being better is the case for a variety of reasons.

1. Most importantly, when you are close to the Earth's surface higher altitude means higher windspeeds. Earth and water are huge surfaces that are dragging on the wind, getting hundreds, especially many hundreds, of feet above that is best.

2. The power that a windmill can get is based on the area covered by the sweep of the blades, rather than the length of the blades, which means that longer blades are more beneficial for the material (until you get to the forces for your material strength where you start needing to make them a lot thicker while you make them longer).

3. Wind is fickle, and changing windspeeds mean that the optimal torque that you need to get the optimal power output is always changing, which can be complicated to do. The larger the blades the larger the area that that variability is smoothed out for, meaning that the overall change isn't as extreme.

4. The biggest cost for an installed system is servicing. Even if servicing the bigger turbine is a bit more complicated/expensive, there is a really big benefit to having many, many fewer of them to service.

5. On a related note, because turbine quality is the crucial component for getting the most efficiency out of your windmill, having fewer of them makes it more economical to spend more on them.

Ooooh... Good point, Chairman. They could be getting quite a deal, if it's household based.

Yonder wrote:

2. The power that a windmill can get is based on the area covered by the sweep of the blades, rather than the length of the blades, which means that longer blades are more beneficial for the material (until you get to the forces for your material strength where you start needing to make them a lot thicker while you make them longer).

I'm confused by this one. The length of the blade determines the area swept by them, no?

Jonman wrote:
Yonder wrote:

2. The power that a windmill can get is based on the area covered by the sweep of the blades, rather than the length of the blades, which means that longer blades are more beneficial for the material (until you get to the forces for your material strength where you start needing to make them a lot thicker while you make them longer).

I'm confused by this one. The length of the blade determines the area swept by them, no?

Right, but it's a square law. You double the length of the blades, you quadruple the power that windmill can produce. If you aren't near material strength limits then doubling the length of the blade won't require double thickness. Say you double the length of the blades, and need to increase the thickness by 20%, to do so. Your blades took 2.4 times more material to create, but have access to 4x the wind power.

That's obviously a super basic and inaccurate overview, first of all the calculation for required thickness is actually really complicated. More importantly I'm not sure to what extent the production cost of windmill blades is governed by material costs. It may be decently true though, especially if you assume that whatever size blade you are creating (at this point requiring specialized factories because they are so freaking large) are going to be made in large enough bulk to ameliorate the machinery needed to create them.

Transportation is also a very non-negligible issue for these things. I saw one blade trying to get on to the freeway... it was amazing. Weird 100+ foot long bed with two independently swiveling axles at either end, being towed by a semi.

Duh. Facepalm. Square law, of course. Thanks for that.

Yonder wrote:

More importantly I'm not sure to what extent the production cost of windmill blades is governed by material costs.

Material cost is negligible compared to production cost. I say this as I look to the right out of my office window and see my view of the Cascades blocked by a brand-new sprawling wing fabrication facility for building CFRP wings for big-ass airplanes. Giant autoclaves are expensive to build, expensive to operate, and the quality you need for critical applications like wings (airplane or wind-turbine) is another multiplier on top of that production cost.

For interest, best I could determine from a quick google is that carbon fiber costs in the ballpark of $8/lb. For comparison, steel is $0.14 / lb, and aluminum is a something like $0.82/ lb So yes, CFRP is an expensive material, but that's going to be a drop in the bucket compared to the infrastructure required to process it into useful items.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

you said 8k people live in your town. Are they each paying $25, or is each household paying $25?

D'oh! Yeah, that would make a lot more sense. So, more like $50-75k for my town just in base fee revenue.

And, after further consideration, $1 per day to stay connected to the grid doesn't sound that bad compared to the risk and cost and complexity of going off-grid with batteries... Interesting!

‘Beyond the extreme': Scientists marvel at ‘increasingly non-natural’ Arctic warmth

2016 was the warmest year on record in the Arctic, and 2017 has picked up right where it left off. “Arctic extreme (relative) warmth continues,” Ryan Maue, a meteorologist with WeatherBell Analytics, tweeted on Wednesday, referring to January’s temperatures.

Veteran Arctic climate scientists are stunned.

“[A]fter studying the Arctic and its climate for three and a half decades, I have concluded that what has happened over the last year goes beyond even the extreme,” wrote Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, in an essay for Earth Magazine.

At the North Pole, the mercury has rocketed to near the melting point twice since November, and another huge flux of warmth is projected by models next week. Their simulations predict some places in the high Arctic will rise over 50 degrees above normal.

IMAGE(https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/files/2017/01/DMI_Degreedayfreezingseason_anom.png&w=1484)

Trying not to bring too much political discussion here, but this came across my feed today:

Bill to abolish the EPA

What would be the effects of this? How far-reaching would it go? Increased pollution, waste dumping, exhaust restrictions lifted, etc? It is at first mind-boggling how much damage this could cause, but maybe I'm overthinking how much they can actually abolish...

dewalist wrote:

Trying not to bring too much political discussion here, but this came across my feed today:

Bill to abolish the EPA

What would be the effects of this? How far-reaching would it go? Increased pollution, waste dumping, exhaust restrictions lifted, etc? It is at first mind-boggling how much damage this could cause, but maybe I'm overthinking how much they can actually abolish...

All federal regulations end up in the Code of Federal Regulations. I think most of the EPA regulations are in this section. I think removing them would probably require separate legislation, because a bunch of them were enacted in response to legislation, but who knows. Have we ever actually abolished an agency before?

Also you'd lose things like the grants for safe drinking water, cleaner school buses, or radon testing, to pick some random examples from this month.

Also, some of the stuff is bound up in international agreements, like with Lake Erie.

But I'm sure American lives will be just fine without the EPA. I mean, I'm sure no one cares about the creeping blob of toxic sediment that's creeping closer to Cleveland's drinking water. Repopulating Cleveland will create great opportunities for small businesses!

My opinion on all of this is that it's going to take around 5 natural disasters with thousands of casualties each before people acknowledge the problem. Even that might not be enough. All of those 5 would need to take place in the states. All the people that die from drought, etc. in other countries won't make a difference to the general American populace.

So, I'm bracing myself for the worst.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

My opinion on all of this is that it's going to take around 5 natural disasters with thousands of casualties each before people acknowledge the problem. Even that might not be enough. All of those 5 would need to take place in the states. All the people that die from drought, etc. in other countries won't make a difference to the general American populace.

So, I'm bracing myself for the worst.

What kind of natural disaster are you expecting to happen? We have had natural disasters due to climate change (flooding is up, bigger hurricanes, more tornadoes, etc...), but I don't think they will ever yield thousands of deaths. The only natural disasters that I could see causing those kinds of fatalities are volcanoes and earthquakes, but they happen even without climate change. What climate change will do is increase droughts, creating flooding in coastal regions, etc... These kinds of disasters won't directly cause death, but rather displace populations.

Heat waves could kill thousands of people, easily. They have before (recently).

kazar wrote:

These kinds of disasters won't directly cause death, but rather displace populations.

That's a really nice way to describe how the US will take over Canada for what little agricultural land they'll have left.

"Excuse us, please move over. Thanks."

kazar wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

My opinion on all of this is that it's going to take around 5 natural disasters with thousands of casualties each before people acknowledge the problem. Even that might not be enough. All of those 5 would need to take place in the states. All the people that die from drought, etc. in other countries won't make a difference to the general American populace.

So, I'm bracing myself for the worst.

What kind of natural disaster are you expecting to happen? We have had natural disasters due to climate change (flooding is up, bigger hurricanes, more tornadoes, etc...), but I don't think they will ever yield thousands of deaths.

Cat 5 hurricane incoming to NYC.

Yeah, I don't know if natural disasters at the kind of scale I was talking about will happen, but that would be the only thing that would actually wake people up.

Edit: I agree with that the population displacement scenario over the next 20 years is the most likely scenario vs natural disasters that cause death. A huge amount of California's population will probably move up into Oregon and Washington due to drought I think.

I don't know if natural disasters like hurricanes or wildfire that would cause the death of thousands will happen or are possible, but I think drought displacing populations won't be enough to wake people up sadly.

People won't wake up. Climate change happens too slowly to be something the average person will notice/has noticed. Chronic drought will (has) become the new creeping normal for millions as will coastal flooding, longer hotter drier summers, stronger hurricanes, etc. etc. Etc.

A large natural disaster is noticeable but by the time it is attributed (if it is) to climate change, most people will have moved on. Or they attribute it to climate change in a reflexive way before attribution, shrug, and move on.

I was just thinking the same thing tboon. We are like the proverbial frog in a pot of water that is slowly coming to a boil.

tboon wrote:

People won't wake up. Climate change happens too slowly to be something the average person will notice/has noticed. Chronic drought will (has) become the new creeping normal for millions as will coastal flooding, longer hotter drier summers, stronger hurricanes, etc. etc. Etc.

A large natural disaster is noticeable but by the time it is attributed (if it is) to climate change, most people will have moved on. Or they attribute it to climate change in a reflexive way before attribution, shrug, and move on.

Well, I'm glad I only have another 30-50 years on the planet best case scenario lifespan-wise.

It's weird how the GOP can justify all kinds of hate and fear mongering "for the children". But they can't give a sh*t about the planet the children have to live in.

Stele wrote:

It's weird how the GOP can justify all kinds of hate and fear mongering "for the children". But they can't give a sh*t about the planet the children have to live in.

A. We can't afford a fix, and it's probably not that bad anyway.
B. Probably, the kids won't have to live there long until Jesus comes to take us all Home.
C. If liberals think it's important, its Evil anyway.
D. If we do get stuck before we get Raptured, Science and Corporations will take care of the problem for us.
E. Living under the kind of system that would force the sacrifices necessary to fix this would be a Hell on Earth, anyway.

House-on-fire-dog-this-is-fine.jpg

Hey, the Australian scientific body that developed wireless technology has been devoting hundreds of millions in funding over decades to research and counter global warming but we still have our share of climate sceptics down under.

I think some people will only admit global warming is a problem when constant desertification forces mass human migration and there is a significant food shortage and rationing (something not seen in developed nations for centuries).

Bfgp wrote:

I think some people will only admit global warming is a problem when constant desertification forces mass human migration and there is a significant food shortage and rationing (something not seen in developed nations for centuries).

I will wager that the numbers of climate-change skeptics will not drop off significantly, even then.

At this point, to be skeptical of an anthropogenic component to climate change, you have to be more or less immune to evidence.