Planet Rugby Forum

Brumbie_Steve wrote:Several Billion fewer people wouldn't hurt. I blame Bob Geldof.

Diego wrote:Slowing emissions is one thing, recapturing and storing the excess carbon in the atmosphere is a whole different kettle of fish. We'll be living with climate change for hundreds of years at least.

goeagles wrote:

Gwenno wrote:Either we reverse it and humans survive, or it kills/culls us and it reverses anyway. I want to know how all the beef farmers are going to be persuaded to change, and what they will produce instead?

There's a reasonable chance they get substantially reduced due to lab grown meat anyway.

Theflier wrote:And the sum total of all this CO2, the world is becoming more fertile

Theflier wrote:Less than inclined to believe the opinions of a few hippies hell bent on making us all live in vine skirts.
Some notable facts the BBC won't tell you
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/na ... han-losses
For about 600 years prior to the immediate start of the industrial revolution the Earth was in a "little ice age " so we're just reverting to the temperature the world was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
And the sum total of all this CO2, the world is becoming more fertile https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/20 ... ning-earth

That's not to say humans aren't contributing to global warming, but CO2 is a notoriously poor green house gas in comparison to methane or water, and as expected rising CO2 levels means forests are growing everywhere, nearly as fast as brazil chops them down, we're currently losing total forest at a rate of 0.05% to 0.08%.year

And the IPCC are prone to brainfarts, they've already claimed climate change is irreversible and will take 1000s of years to reach equilibrium.

Biggest worries, still net loss of forest, loss of Coral reefs(poorly reported due to temperature rises, is due to higher levels of dissolved CO2 causing acidification to a very picky ecosystem

Diego wrote:

Theflier wrote:And the sum total of all this CO2, the world is becoming more fertile

That would be amazing if CO2 rise happened in isolation. Unfortunately temperatures also rise which has a massive negative impact on photosynthesis and so biomass accumulation, yield etc. Climate change is not good, however you spin it.

backrow wrote:saw this internet thing, hope its not a hoax - but this processing unit has been made someplace in British Columbia as proof of concept, it takes CO2 from the air, doesn't something with magic moonbeams & hydrogen from water, and makes Petrol.

their argument was fudge making electric vehicles, lets change the fuel source instead


http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/carbon-d ... -june-2018

https://www.ecowatch.com/carbon-capture ... 34738.html

de_Selby wrote:The problem is that you have 2 sets of people shouting loudest and drowning out any chance of reasoned debate:

1) On one end of the spectrum you have people who think it's all a conspiracy theory. The less said about this group the better.This group is more trustworthy than the latter, they have no inner moral dilemma that they need to satisfy by looking for a cause to give their lives meaning

2) But on the other you have people who are hysterically afraid of nuclear power and think the best course of action is to sabotage any attempt to research GM crops, while spending their time eating avocados and other exotic fruits that have been imported from the other side of the world on ships that spew out unimaginable amounts of pollution. These people, in the face of overwhelming evidence will continue to fight against tech and advancements which will only serve to help the world, whilst providing a militant judgement on all who disagree

Then you have campaigns for people to take grassroots action that are little more than a distraction (eg: stop using disposable coffee cups, don't leave your electronic devices on standby)

Theflier wrote:

Diego wrote:

Theflier wrote:And the sum total of all this CO2, the world is becoming more fertile

That would be amazing if CO2 rise happened in isolation. Unfortunately temperatures also rise which has a massive negative impact on photosynthesis and so biomass accumulation, yield etc. Climate change is not good, however you spin it.

How does temperature increase have a massive effect on photosynthesis?
From my experience, a warm bright summer has always been fantastic for plants.

And CO2 rise =/=climate change

Theflier wrote:

de_Selby wrote:The problem is that you have 2 sets of people shouting loudest and drowning out any chance of reasoned debate:

1) On one end of the spectrum you have people who think it's all a conspiracy theory. The less said about this group the better.This group is more trustworthy than the latter, they have no inner moral dilemma that they need to satisfy by looking for a cause to give their lives meaning

2) But on the other you have people who are hysterically afraid of nuclear power and think the best course of action is to sabotage any attempt to research GM crops, while spending their time eating avocados and other exotic fruits that have been imported from the other side of the world on ships that spew out unimaginable amounts of pollution. These people, in the face of overwhelming evidence will continue to fight against tech and advancements which will only serve to help the world, whilst providing a militant judgement on all who disagree

Then you have campaigns for people to take grassroots action that are little more than a distraction (eg: stop using disposable coffee cups, don't leave your electronic devices on standby)

Correct, sadly, the mass tend to listen to the doomsayers as its more interesting(and as we see in all enduring news stories)
do your own research and your preexisting assumptions will be challenged

Theflier wrote:Less than inclined to believe the opinions of a few hippies hell bent on making us all live in vine skirts.
Some notable facts the BBC won't tell you
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/na ... han-losses
For about 600 years prior to the immediate start of the industrial revolution the Earth was in a "little ice age " so we're just reverting to the temperature the world was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
And the sum total of all this CO2, the world is becoming more fertile https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/20 ... ning-earth

That's not to say humans aren't contributing to global warming, but CO2 is a notoriously poor green house gas in comparison to methane or water, and as expected rising CO2 levels means forests are growing everywhere, nearly as fast as brazil chops them down, we're currently losing total forest at a rate of 0.05% to 0.08%.year

And the IPCC are prone to brainfarts, they've already claimed climate change is irreversible and will take 1000s of years to reach equilibrium.

Biggest worries, still net loss of forest, loss of Coral reefs(poorly reported due to temperature rises, is due to higher levels of dissolved CO2 causing acidification to a very picky ecosystem

deadduck wrote:

goeagles wrote:

Gwenno wrote:Either we reverse it and humans survive, or it kills/culls us and it reverses anyway. I want to know how all the beef farmers are going to be persuaded to change, and what they will produce instead?

There's a reasonable chance they get substantially reduced due to lab grown meat anyway.

Lab grown meat is all hype. There are so many manufacturing limitations it's unlikely the price will ever be competitive compared to plant protein or animal protein.

nuffsaid wrote:Q1. "are we going to solve this issue?"

A1. No.

Q2. "and if so how?"

A2. Loads of wailing and hand-ringing

Ali's Choice wrote:

Theflier wrote:Less than inclined to believe the opinions of a few hippies hell bent on making us all live in vine skirts.
Some notable facts the BBC won't tell you
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/na ... han-losses
For about 600 years prior to the immediate start of the industrial revolution the Earth was in a "little ice age " so we're just reverting to the temperature the world was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
And the sum total of all this CO2, the world is becoming more fertile https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/20 ... ning-earth

That's not to say humans aren't contributing to global warming, but CO2 is a notoriously poor green house gas in comparison to methane or water, and as expected rising CO2 levels means forests are growing everywhere, nearly as fast as brazil chops them down, we're currently losing total forest at a rate of 0.05% to 0.08%.year

And the IPCC are prone to brainfarts, they've already claimed climate change is irreversible and will take 1000s of years to reach equilibrium.

Biggest worries, still net loss of forest, loss of Coral reefs(poorly reported due to temperature rises, is due to higher levels of dissolved CO2 causing acidification to a very picky ecosystem

Hi Silver, long time no post you worthless piece of cyber-shit!

Theflier wrote:

backrow wrote:saw this internet thing, hope its not a hoax - but this processing unit has been made someplace in British Columbia as proof of concept, it takes CO2 from the air, doesn't something with magic moonbeams & hydrogen from water, and makes Petrol.

their argument was fudge making electric vehicles, lets change the fuel source instead


http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/carbon-d ... -june-2018

https://www.ecowatch.com/carbon-capture ... 34738.html

Same issues with making hydrogen burning engines which seem the obvious solution, more energy needs to be put in than comes out, or is economically viable.
If there;s only 50 years or so of oil left as we're constantly told, I'm happy t let it run dry and let tech do what its always done, provide a solution to a problem when it is needed

Sensible Stephen wrote:Promising...

It’s nothing much to look at, but the tangle of pipes, pumps, tanks, reactors, chimneys and ducts on a messy industrial estate outside the logging town of Squamish in western Canada could just provide the fix to stop the world tipping into runaway climate change and substitute dwindling supplies of conventional fuel.

It could also make Harvard superstar physicist David Keith, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and oil sands magnate Norman Murray Edwards more money than they could ever dream of.

The idea is grandiose yet simple: decarbonise the global economy by extracting global-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) straight from the air, using arrays of giant fans and patented chemical whizzery; and then use the gas to make clean, carbon-neutral synthetic diesel and petrol to drive the world’s ships, planes and trucks.

The hope is that the combination of direct air capture (DAC), water electrolysis and fuels synthesis used to produce liquid hydrocarbon fuels can be made to work at a global scale, for little more than it costs to extract and sell fossil fuel today. This would revolutionise the world’s transport industry, which emits nearly one-third of total climate-changing emissions. It would be the equivalent of mechanising photosynthesis.

The individual technologies may not be new, but their combination at an industrial scale would be groundbreaking. Carbon Engineering, the company set up in 2009 by leading geoengineer Keith, with money from Gates and Murray, has constructed a prototype plant, installed large fans, and has been extracting around one tonne of pure CO2 every day for a year. At present it is released back into the air.

But Carbon Engineering (CE) has just passed another milestone. Working with California energy company Greyrock, it has now begun directly synthesising a mixture of petrol and diesel, using only CO2 captured from the air and hydrogen split from water with clean electricity – a process they call Air to Fuels (A2F).

“A2F is a potentially game-changing technology, which if successfully scaled up will allow us to harness cheap, intermittent renewable electricity to drive synthesis of liquid fuels that are compatible with modern infrastructure and engines,” says Geoff Holmes of CE. “This offers an alternative to biofuels and a complement to electric vehicles in the effort to displace fossil fuels from transportation.”

Synthetic fuels have been made from CO2 and H2 before, on a small scale. “But,” Holmes adds, “we think our pilot plant is the first instance of Air to Fuels where all the equipment has large-scale industrial precedent, and thus gives real indication of commercial performance and viability, and leads directly to scale-up and deployment.”

The next step is to raise the money, scale up and then commercialise the process using low-carbon electricity like solar PV (photovoltaics). Company publicity envisages massive walls of extractor fans sited outside cities and on non-agricultural land, supplying CO2 for fuel synthesis, and eventually for direct sequestration.

“A2F is the future,” says Holmes, “because it needs 100 times less land and water than biofuels, and can be scaled up and sited anywhere. But for it to work, it will have to reduce costs to little more than it costs to extract oil today, and – even trickier – persuade countries to set a global carbon price.”

Meanwhile, 4,500 miles away, in a large blue shed on a small industrial estate in the South Yorkshire coalfield outside Sheffield, the UK Carbon Capture and Storage Research Centre (UKCCSRC) is experimenting with other ways to produce negative emissions.

Critics say these technologies are unfeasible. Not producing the emissions in the first place would be much cleverer
The UKCCSRC is what remains of Britain’s official foray into carbon capture and storage (CCS), which David Cameron had backed strongly until 2015. £1bn was ringfenced for a competition between large companies to extract CO2 from coal and gas plants and then store it, possibly in old North Sea gas wells. But the plan unravelled as austerity bit, and the UK’s only running CCS pilot plant, at Ferrybridge power station, was abandoned.

The Sheffield laboratory is funded by £2.7m of government money and run by Sheffield University. It is researching different fuels, temperatures, solvents and heating speeds to best capture the CO2 for the next generation of CCS plants, and is capturing 50 tonnes of CO2 a year. And because Britain is phasing out coal power stations, the focus is on achieving negative emissions by removing and storing CO2 emitted from biomass plants, which burn pulverised wood. As the wood has already absorbed carbon while it grows, it is more or less carbon-neutral when burned. If linked to a carbon capture plant, it theoretically removes carbon from the atmosphere.

Known as Beccs (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage), this negative emissions technology is seen as vital if the UK is to meet its long-term climate target of an 80% cut in emissions at 1990 levels by 2050, according to UKCCSRC director Professor Jon Gibbins. The plan, he says, is to capture emissions from clusters of major industries, such as refineries and steelworks in places like Teesside, to reduce the costs of transporting and storing it underground.

“Direct air capture is no substitute for using conventional CCS,” says Gibbins. “Cutting emissions from existing sources at the scale of millions of tonnes a year, to stop the CO2 getting into the air in the first place, is the first priority.

“The best use for all negative emission technologies is to offset emissions that are happening now – paid for by the emitters, or by the fossil fuel suppliers. We need to get to net zero emissions before the sustainable CO2 emissions are used up. This is estimated at around 1,000bn tonnes, or around 20-30 years of global emissions based on current trends,” he says. “Having to go to net negative emissions is obviously unfair and might well prove an unfeasible burden for a future global society already burdened by climate change.”

The challenge is daunting. Worldwide manmade emissions must be brought to “net zero” no later than 2090, says the UN’s climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That means balancing the amount of carbon released by humans with an equivalent amount sequestered or offset, or buying enough carbon credits to make up the difference.

But that will not be enough. To avoid runaway climate change, emissions must then become “net negative”, with more carbon being removed than emitted. Many countries, including the UK, assume that negative emissions will be deployed at a large scale. But only a handful of CCS and pilot negative-emission plants are running anywhere in the world, and debate still rages over which, if any, technologies should be employed. (A prize of $25m put up by Richard Branson in 2007 to challenge innovators to find a commercially viable way to remove at least 1bn tonnes of atmospheric CO2 a year for 10 years, and keep it out, has still not been claimed – possibly because the public is uncertain about geoengineering.)

The achilles heel of all negative emission technologies is cost. Government policy units assume that they will become economically viable, but the best hope of Carbon Engineering and other direct air extraction companies is to get the price down to $100 a tonne from the current $600. Even then, to remove just 1% of global emissions would cost around $400bn a year, and would need to be continued for ever. Storing the CO2 permanently would cost extra.

Critics say that these technologies are unfeasible. Not using the fossil fuel and not producing the emissions in the first place would be much cleverer than having to find end-of-pipe solutions, say Professor Kevin Anderson, deputy director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, and Glen Peters, research director at the Centre for International Climate Research (Cicero) in Norway.

In a recent article in the journal Science, the two climate scientists said they were not opposed to research on negative emission technologies, but thought the world should proceed on the premise that they will not work at scale. Not to do so, they said, would be a “moral hazard par excellence”.

Instead, governments are relying on these technologies to remove hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. “It is breathtaking,” says Anderson. “By the middle of the century, many of the models assume as much removal of CO2 from the atmosphere by negative emission technologies as is absorbed naturally today by all of the world’s oceans and plants combined. They are not an insurance policy; they are a high-risk gamble with tomorrow’s generations, particularly those living in poor and climatically vulnerable communities, set to pay the price if our high-stakes bet fails to deliver as promised.” According to Anderson, “The beguiling appeal of relying on future negative emission technologies is that they delay the need for stringent and politically challenging policies today – they pass the buck for reducing carbon on to future generations. But if these Dr Strangelove technologies fail to deliver at the planetary scale envisaged, our own children will be forced to endure the consequences of rapidly rising temperatures and a highly unstable climate.”

Kris Milkowski, business development manager at the UKCCSRC, says: “Negative emissions technology is unavoidable and here to stay. We are simply not moving [to cut emissions] fast enough. If we had an endless pile of money, we could potentially go totally renewable energy. But that transition cannot happen overnight. This, I fear, is the only large-scale solution.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... are_btn_fb

backrow wrote:

Theflier wrote:

backrow wrote:saw this internet thing, hope its not a hoax - but this processing unit has been made someplace in British Columbia as proof of concept, it takes CO2 from the air, doesn't something with magic moonbeams & hydrogen from water, and makes Petrol.

their argument was fudge making electric vehicles, lets change the fuel source instead


http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/carbon-d ... -june-2018

https://www.ecowatch.com/carbon-capture ... 34738.html

Same issues with making hydrogen burning engines which seem the obvious solution, more energy needs to be put in than comes out, or is economically viable.
If there;s only 50 years or so of oil left as we're constantly told, I'm happy t let it run dry and let tech do what its always done, provide a solution to a problem when it is needed

50 years ? I thought it was more than double that.
actual energy generation isn't really a problem as there is masses of untapped nuclear, solar, and wind capacity already, let alone Waves, individual solar at micro level etc.
its the storage that is the killer, and power to weight ratio for aircraft.


oil reserves actually increased due to (in order roughly of importance) fracking, more efficient engines, rate of vehicle ownership increase in developing world slowing down, remote working lessening commuting needs

sewa wrote:Very interesting, I do wonder why they don't try and make natural gas instead of longer chain molecules.

Nolanator wrote:

backrow wrote:

Theflier wrote:

backrow wrote:saw this internet thing, hope its not a hoax - but this processing unit has been made someplace in British Columbia as proof of concept, it takes CO2 from the air, doesn't something with magic moonbeams & hydrogen from water, and makes Petrol.

their argument was fudge making electric vehicles, lets change the fuel source instead


http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/carbon-d ... -june-2018

https://www.ecowatch.com/carbon-capture ... 34738.html

Same issues with making hydrogen burning engines which seem the obvious solution, more energy needs to be put in than comes out, or is economically viable.
If there;s only 50 years or so of oil left as we're constantly told, I'm happy t let it run dry and let tech do what its always done, provide a solution to a problem when it is needed

50 years ? I thought it was more than double that.
actual energy generation isn't really a problem as there is masses of untapped nuclear, solar, and wind capacity already, let alone Waves, individual solar at micro level etc.
its the storage that is the killer, and power to weight ratio for aircraft.


oil reserves actually increased due to (in order roughly of importance) fracking, more efficient engines, rate of vehicle ownership increase in developing world slowing down, remote working lessening commuting needs

Natural gas is considered to be the fossil fuel which will last longest. I can't remember the numbers, but oil is reckoned to go within decades.

Regarding your quoted post above. At a fundamental level all fossil fuels consist of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen arranged into various molecules. Burning these breaks the molecular bonds which releases energy (heat) which is used to drive turbines and generate electricity. The final products of (clean) fossil fuel combustion are CO2 and H2O, the two lowest energy molecules which the three above elements can form during combustion.
Reversing this and forcing H2O and CO2 to form more complex molecules is just a case of putting energy back in and ensuring the right conditions to make them react correctly. Making alcohols is relatively easily possible, but requires significant energy input.

A problem is that forming combustible fuels from CO2 and H2O requires lots of energy (and other hideously expensive materials to facilitate the reactions) so it horribly inefficient. Where do you get the energy required to drive these reactions? Solar, wind, hydro etc are the obvious candidates, but establishing an infrastructure which can generate economically significant quantities of synthetic fuels is a mammoth task.
I suppose the merits of such an approach is that once you've established the fuel synthesis industry, there's already a global infrastructure to distribute liquid based combustion fuels (oil) which can be repurposed quite easily.


I work in a different field which has a similar fundamental approach: use renewables to create a fuel from an abundant supply using energy intensive techniques, which can be transported where needed. Making hydrogen from water. Problem is that using hydrogen has a whole host of issues attached in terms of distribution, storage etc.

Edit

sewa wrote:Very interesting, I do wonder why they don't try and make natural gas instead of longer chain molecules.

Sewa's point is a good one. Synthesising methane is much less energy demanding than other more complex fuels. That would be one way to keep the cost down. I guess some specialist applications would still need more expensive fuels. Jet fuel etc.

The Man Without Fear wrote:When you have politicians of the calibre of well, all of them, the chances of taking the action required is the square root of fudge all.

zzzz wrote:"Solve" is the give away. There is no solution - which shows the danger of scientists thinking they can direct public policy.

Scientists provide the data. Public policy expeerts (mainly economists) apply it.

Of course, the real problem is they both then need to defer to politicians as to whether the policy can be sold. Which is kind of the sticking point.

The correct approach is to take the politically acceptable actions that can be taken today to prevent further climate change which will not be more expensive than living with any avoided climate change.

Sandstorm wrote:

The Man Without Fear wrote:When you have politicians of the calibre of well, all of them, the chances of taking the action required is the square root of fudge all.

Votes count today, tomorrow is a distant planet.

backrow wrote:

Nolanator wrote:

backrow wrote:

Theflier wrote:

backrow wrote:saw this internet thing, hope its not a hoax - but this processing unit has been made someplace in British Columbia as proof of concept, it takes CO2 from the air, doesn't something with magic moonbeams & hydrogen from water, and makes Petrol.

their argument was fudge making electric vehicles, lets change the fuel source instead


http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/carbon-d ... -june-2018

https://www.ecowatch.com/carbon-capture ... 34738.html

Same issues with making hydrogen burning engines which seem the obvious solution, more energy needs to be put in than comes out, or is economically viable.
If there;s only 50 years or so of oil left as we're constantly told, I'm happy t let it run dry and let tech do what its always done, provide a solution to a problem when it is needed

50 years ? I thought it was more than double that.
actual energy generation isn't really a problem as there is masses of untapped nuclear, solar, and wind capacity already, let alone Waves, individual solar at micro level etc.
its the storage that is the killer, and power to weight ratio for aircraft.


oil reserves actually increased due to (in order roughly of importance) fracking, more efficient engines, rate of vehicle ownership increase in developing world slowing down, remote working lessening commuting needs

Natural gas is considered to be the fossil fuel which will last longest. I can't remember the numbers, but oil is reckoned to go within decades.

Regarding your quoted post above. At a fundamental level all fossil fuels consist of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen arranged into various molecules. Burning these breaks the molecular bonds which releases energy (heat) which is used to drive turbines and generate electricity. The final products of (clean) fossil fuel combustion are CO2 and H2O, the two lowest energy molecules which the three above elements can form during combustion.
Reversing this and forcing H2O and CO2 to form more complex molecules is just a case of putting energy back in and ensuring the right conditions to make them react correctly. Making alcohols is relatively easily possible, but requires significant energy input.

A problem is that forming combustible fuels from CO2 and H2O requires lots of energy (and other hideously expensive materials to facilitate the reactions) so it horribly inefficient. Where do you get the energy required to drive these reactions? Solar, wind, hydro etc are the obvious candidates, but establishing an infrastructure which can generate economically significant quantities of synthetic fuels is a mammoth task.
I suppose the merits of such an approach is that once you've established the fuel synthesis industry, there's already a global infrastructure to distribute liquid based combustion fuels (oil) which can be repurposed quite easily.


I work in a different field which has a similar fundamental approach: use renewables to create a fuel from an abundant supply using energy intensive techniques, which can be transported where needed. Making hydrogen from water. Problem is that using hydrogen has a whole host of issues attached in terms of distribution, storage etc.

Edit

sewa wrote:Very interesting, I do wonder why they don't try and make natural gas instead of longer chain molecules.

Sewa's point is a good one. Synthesising methane is much less energy demanding than other more complex fuels. That would be one way to keep the cost down. I guess some specialist applications would still need more expensive fuels. Jet fuel etc.

its about 40-50 years left of proven reserves at current rates of consumption - which of course means anything as yet undiscovered will be added to this.
Coal and gas are around 200 years I think, and of course you can ultimately make oil from these too if needed.

Perhaps you'd have discovered something worthwhile if you'd have left the sailors, gym and Battlefield 1 alone

BillW wrote:Once we can thermostatically control the sun, I think we'll be well on the way.

comets wrote:Anyone ele just realized that THANOS was right all along?