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Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #841 –
Quote from: PaulP – on
The hole in the Ozone layer is healing, because (clutch those pearls), we took swift action to reduce ozone depleting substances.

https://news.mit.edu/2025/study-healing-ozone-hole-global-reduction-cfcs-0305

What impact did the Chernobyl meltdown have?

Like I get it, we need to act responsibly but its arguable that most of it is bulldogs revisionism and we dont have as much impact as we think.

Its only been 30 years and let's not continue nuclear testing and let's act responsibly and clean up, but id wager my household appliances from the 80's were worse for than environment than the ones I use today.
"everything you know is wrong"

Paul Hewson

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #842 –
Climate change and carbon emissions are real, we can't gamble on the impact.

My problem is only with the touted solutions, which in my opinion are often political or financial choices ahead of performance and efficiency.

Get rid of subsidies and see which low carbon solutions survive!
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #843 –
Quote from: LP – on
Climate change and carbon emissions are real, we can't gamble on the impact.

My problem is only with the touted solutions, which in my opinion are often political or financial choices ahead of performance and efficiency.

Get rid of subsidies and see which low carbon solutions survive!
im not convinced humans are that impactful.

Its arguable that the solar maxims and minums coincide with the industrial revolution but we are arrogant and believe we make massive differences to what may have occurred naturally.   The scribes say humans do it.  The research says we have an impact.  We can't be sure with our sample size of data.  We only have a subset of data, but like Paul has quoted above, we've reacted to the ozone conundrum and apparently fixed the issue in a very short time. 

There are things we do that are impactful.  The man made islands, planting of plants from around the world in different locations. Moving animals around, killing off a species.  Diverting waterways.  Terraforming arid land into something usable.  Pasteurisation.  Chopping forests.  These things are bigger than the way we make power. 
"everything you know is wrong"

Paul Hewson

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #844 –
Quote from: Thryleon – on
Its arguable that the solar maxims and minums coincide with the industrial revolution but we are arrogant and believe we make massive differences to what may have occurred naturally.
You could argue that, but I suggest you do so quietly to avoid future embarrassment.

The critical high resolution climate sample size consist of many tens of thousands of years of unequivocal data collected from ice cores, growth rings of trees, corals and shellfish, it's not a short data set and it's not a small data set. It's recorded almost free of human influence for the bulk of it, making a tree or an ice core as good as if not better than having the data logged by a human or human device, the trees, ice caps and glaciers are natures chart recorder.

Quote from: Thryleon – on
The scribes say humans do it.  The research says we have an impact.  We can't be sure with our sample size of data. We only have a subset of data, but like Paul has quoted above, we've reacted to the ozone conundrum and apparently fixed the issue in a very short time.
That's actually a perfect demonstration of how a very very small amount of human emission can have a huge impact on the globe, hardly anything by global standards yet indisputably human in origin. The greenhouse emission equivalent is methane, which is about 16X more potent than carbon dioxide.

Quote from: Thryleon – on
There are things we do that are impactful.  The man made islands, planting of plants from around the world in different locations. Moving animals around, killing off a species.  Diverting waterways.  Terraforming arid land into something usable.  Pasteurisation.  Chopping forests.  These things are bigger than the way we make power.
It is true but power is still a chunk of it, and to the point above a significant portion of methane emission comes from farming (including building dams for irrigation and hydroelectric generation).
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #845 –
A problem I have with the position posted by @PaulP is that it's a trained position, often built on obsolete assumptions that go back 30, 40 or 50 years about viable options. Much of the debate "fact" is selective reporting, choosing the best case for one preferred perspective against the worst case of the alternatives. You'll even find the renewables apparatchiks for SolarPV or Wind doing this to each other. it's not uncommon to find a complaint about Wind Power Infrasound surfacing on a Solar Energy boosting forum.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #846 –
Quote from: LP – on
A problem I have with the position posted by @PaulP is that it's a trained position, often built on obsolete assumptions that go back 30, 40 or 50 years about viable options. Much of the debate "fact" is selective reporting, choosing the best case for one preferred perspective against the worst case of the alternatives. You'll even find the renewables apparatchiks for SolarPV or Wind doing this to each other. it's not uncommon to find a complaint about Wind Power Infrasound surfacing on a Solar Energy boosting forum.

So, Mr Climate Science PhD, please cure me of my utopian delusions by pointing to articles, individuals, organizations that represent the "real world" energy solutions, which hopeless romantics like me are unable to see.

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #847 –
It is pretty hard to find reports/reviews/predictions that are not tainted by an agenda linked to current and ongoing profits.

If I hear any politician/think-tanker/lobbyist talking in this matter, the first question I ask is 'whose pocket are they in'?  Even parts of the scientific community are 'up for sale', provided they are prepared to deliver the right conclusions.  And yes, there are pockets on both sides of the climate change equation. 

The only thing that is certain about our world - the almighty dollar will always be the most powerful motive.

One thing I am certain of, the 'altruistic' Petroleum and Mining industries are never doing what they do for the good of the planet.  They have huge money to fund massive disinformation/denial/fear-mongering campaigns designed to make us believe we have no option but to continue buying their products, regardless of what it does to the environment.  It's reminiscent of the tobacco industry who spent millions trying to deny/deflect/disinform the world that their products were directly linked to health problems.

Put it this way, if we sit in circles talking about this for the next 20 years, it may be too late.  If we cook this joint because we were too obsessed with profits and not prepared to listen to scientific fact (not opinions!), we may have no way back.

We are at the age of another disruptive change in the way the world works (much like the Industrial Age changed things 250 years ago), and not surprisingly, not everyone is all that happy about it.

Personally, I read scientific papers and look at the affiliations of the authors - reputable articles will always print where any funding came from.  But you always need to consider anything you read with a jaundiced eye, because chances are someone, somewhere wants the conclusion to concur with their world view.

This is now the longest premiership drought in the history of the Carlton Football Club - more evidence of climate change?

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #848 –
Agree with Tonyo, most of the so called informed opinions have an underlying agenda and its hard to find any middle ground between ultra extreme Green environmentalists and on the other side the money hungry Energy/Oil companies that try and green wash their money making activities to appease public opinion.
What iks me especially are these opportunistic fake Greenies like Pat Cummins the Aus cricket captain who has a problem with a sponsor like Alinta Energy not being Green enough for his liking but is happy to drive a high petrol guzzling , heavy polluting Range Rover Sport and be very well paid to play in the IPL who are sponsored by Tata Automotive another high belching polluter with India being the third worst country in the world for emissions.

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #849 –
The likes of Dicaprio, Taylor Swift, Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Oprah, Al Gore etc etc do more harm then good with their stance on this.

They use their platform to promote climate concerns and like to tell us how to fix it...... all while flying in their private jets carrying a dozen or so people all around the world.

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #850 –
Quote from: PaulP – on
So, Mr Climate Science PhD, please cure me of my utopian delusions by pointing to articles, individuals, organizations that represent the "real world" energy solutions, which hopeless romantics like me are unable to see.
@PaulP I'll pose a couple of very simple questions.

If we accept carbon emissions to be the primary driver of climate change, and therefore the primary concern, why isn't every available low carbon avenue being utilised to it's maximum?

Why does the fear exist, what is the driver of the public opposition to some low carbon solutions, and why aren't they measured equally?

We were having a debate about energy and energy solutions, and by inference you want to introduce climate denialism or the ozone layer, that position you took is learned and rehearsed. A position formulated by a very privilege segment of academia to divert the debate towards a preferred political position.

Now an example of spin in the claims of progress towards renewables solutions. Frequently you'll read "we are already servicing 60% of demand" through renewables. But that 60% is selective reporting, the 60% figure is really "60% of base load at midday" shortened to 60%, the most highly efficient 3hr segment that can be cherrypicked to represent renewables primarily driven by SolarPV in particular. The real world 24x7 renewable energy figure as a percentage of Australia's base load demand sits at about 14%, a figure that is hard to establish because much of it is self-reported and over-stated. Not necessarily deliberately over-stated, but over-stated because it uses book figures for performance that are removed from real world performance. The real figure might be as low as 12% when age and true efficiency of renewable resources are accounted for.

So far it has taken about 15 years to achieve this 14%, and this was happening through a period when the resources required to accelerate production where at peak abundance. Resources that are already on the decline not through a lack of abundance but through a lack of availability, the pure deposits are going fast and we must resort to refining lower and lower yielding stock.

While this has been happening, the claims of capability have grown and grown more and more absurd, we will apparently increase renewable energy production over the next decade to achieve "80% of base load". Possible accurate if that is 80% of midday base load, but the public read and hear the claims as 80% of 24x7 base load. To get to 80% of 24x7 base load would require a 500% increase in production. No such possibility exists, we don't have the resources, material or workforce, we do not have the funds it won't happen for free, and we do not have the technology to make this happen as a 24x7 solution via renewables.

Now, let's look at some numbers using something relatable, a hospital as an example.

A typical medium to large suburban hospital runs 24x7. The average hospital requires 310kwh per annum per square meter of floor space. A typical SolarPV installation on a domestic roof can produce about 10kw at midday peak, with a 24x7 seasonally average close to 28kwh. Even if they donate 100% of the annual energy they make that's ten typical suburban houses with SolarPV for every 32 square meter of hospital floor space, that's about a single bed room(My local hospital has single bed rooms of 28sqm). In reality the homes would need a surplus, they need their own energy, so perhaps 20 average suburban houses donating 50% of the annual collected energy to power every 32 square meters of hospital floor space.

How much of your suburb has to be covered in SolarPV to run your local hospital 24x7, or is that too uncomfortable to answer?

500 Beds, 10000 Homes, but of course the beds are only about 75% of the hospital floor space.

Now add, factories, food production facilities, bakeries, transport, broadcasting, retail, just to name a few, where is all this energy coming from, don't forget your local library, pub or restaurant?
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #851 –
Quote from: shawny – on
They use their platform to promote climate concerns and like to tell us how to fix it...... all while flying in their private jets carrying a dozen or so people all around the world.
Surely it's a solar powered Gulfstream? :o

In the meantime you are lectured by them for apparently destroying the planet by cooking with gas! ;D

"I paid the poor people to plant a million trees so I could fly my business jet, it's not my fault they died of starvation doing so, no land left for methane emissions farming you see!"
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #852 –
Pat, I posed a pretty simple question, and I'll pose it one last time : can you point me to websites, articles, individuals, organizations etc. that in your opinion, provide unbiased, real world information on Australia's future energy needs ?

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #853 –
@PaulP‍ what am I supposed to do if you can't accept something as basic as the energy needed to run a single public hospital 24x7. This is something you can actually research yourself, you might even have SolarPV at your home reporting the domestic figures, and you quite possibly have a public hospital nearby that I'm sure reports it's efficiency close to industry averages or some other benchmark. This is a basic analysis of a widely available example exposes the fallacy of 24x7 renewables.

An interesting resource in Victoria is the Regional Health Solar Fund, it's installed nearly 9.0MW of SolarPV capacity to deliver 11GWh of energy. That equates to just a 2% reduction in demand of energy for the health sector.

I asked AI for a plain language deep analysis summary of Australia's current energy requirements and planning, keep in mind the data being mined lags by about 2 years simply because that is how long it takes to collate the sort of figures needed. Below probably summarises hundreds of reports over literally tens of thousands of pages much of it inaccessible and / or impenetrable.

FWIW, it actually reports renewables as 35% of total electricity generation, that's 2.5x better than I believe, but still less than half of what is claimed. Of course I accept the validity of the sources can be an issue, but usually the dataset is so large the wider trends are generally as accurate as can be expected.

The figures below expose the reality, please keep them in mind next time your hearing "How well renewables have done!", conveniently AI doesn't give a rats-ar5e about politics they are just mathematical engines reporting what they can mine.

Look for some key figures, electric generation 274TWh vs energy storage 43GW(Anticipated by 2040 ) (1GW = 0.001TW). That's needing 6700x more storage than is anticipated just to break even on 2 year old figures! OK, so the sun shines half a day, only 3350x more energy storage needed by 2040. They predict energy storage to increase from current figures of around 19GW capacity to 43Gw in 15 years, when we really need to grow at 1.5GW per day! btw., I'm being mischievous, I'm allowing the energy storage capacity to delivered in an equivalent time to demand but that won't be the case, to store electricity you have to make a surplus.

Note too, that electricity generation is only roughly 15% of the total energy requirement, think of what that means to the concept of electrification, are you getting that from your microgrid?

Quote
Australia's energy requirement is complex and diverse, driven by factors like population growth, economic expansion, and a reliance on fossil fuels, particularly oil and coal. While renewable energy sources are increasingly contributing to the energy mix, fossil fuels still dominate, with a growing demand for energy storage solutions to support a transition to a cleaner energy future.
 
Here's a more detailed look:
1. Current Energy Consumption:

Overall:
 Australia's energy consumption has been increasing, with a 2.0% rise in 2022-23, bringing it to 5,882 petajoules.

Fossil Fuels:
Fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) account for 91% of Australia's primary energy mix.

Oil:
Oil is the largest single component of Australia's primary energy mix, followed by coal and gas, according to the Australian Government.

Renewables:
Renewable energy sources (solar, wind, hydro, etc.) account for 9% of the primary energy mix.

Electricity Generation:
In 2022-23, total electricity generation increased by 1% to 274 terawatt hours (988 petajoules), with fossil fuels contributing 65% and renewables 35%.

2. Key Energy Sources and Their Usage:

Coal:
A significant portion of Australia's electricity is generated from coal, with abundant and low-cost resources.

Oil:
The transport sector relies heavily on oil, with some imports.

Natural Gas:
Natural gas is used for electricity generation, industrial processes, and heating in homes.

Renewables:
Renewable energy sources, including solar, wind, and hydro, are increasingly used, but their share in the energy mix is still growing.

3. Factors Influencing Energy Demand:

Population Growth:
A growing population and a more developed economy are increasing the demand for energy.

Economic Growth:
Economic activity drives energy consumption in various sectors like industry, transportation, and buildings.

Climate Change:
Changing climate patterns and increased demand for heating and cooling further contribute to energy requirements.

4. Energy Storage and the Transition to Renewables:

Battery Storage:
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) anticipates a significant increase in energy storage capacity, with a forecast of 19 GW by 2030 and 43 GW by 2040.

Renewable Energy Expansion:
There's a growing trend of renewable energy sources contributing to the electricity grid, with solar and wind becoming increasingly important.

5. Government Policies and Targets:

Renewable Energy Target (RET):
The RET aims to increase the share of renewable energy in the electricity sector through tradable renewable energy certificates, according to the Clean Energy Regulator.

Climate Change Targets:
Australia has set targets for reducing emissions and transitioning to a net-zero economy.

In summary, Australia's energy demand is influenced by a mix of factors, with fossil fuels currently dominating but renewable energy sources steadily increasing their contribution. The transition to a cleaner energy future will require increased energy storage capacity, continued investment in renewable energy technologies, and government policies to support these changes.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #854 –
Ah yes. It’s my fault that you can’t answer the most basic of questions.

Pat, you know I love you bro. The great majority of our interactions are cordial and sensible, but when your Goober mode gets triggered (thankfully not that often), you become a real pain the ar$e.