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Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #166 –
Quote from: PaulP – on
https://theconversation.com/humans-are-driving-animals-and-plants-to-the-edge-but-are-we-really-heading-into-a-mass-extinction-168839
The author makes some interesting points.

I heard a podcast recently that covered the loss of primary species, critical species that possibility come out of the author's 1% or 2%  whatever it may really be, and the potential effects on secondary species that can trigger a cascade. That concept put more emphasis on the loss of diversity in specific habitats, rather than simply counting disappearing species which can be a natural event.

I worry greatly about the apparent loss of insects, many of the oldies among us just know without the need for further evidence that things have change dramatically around our cities just since we were kids. Our gardens and home use to be full of bugs of all types, many as common as muck which are now rarely seen. Where are the grasshoppers, caterpillars, plagues of moths around each and every light? I can turn a outside light on at home now and might not see a bug attracted to it in an hour.

FWIW, I try to contribute by logging sightings of marine life using https://www.redmap.org.au, which logs the change in the appearance or distribution of marine life driven from changing water temperatures. I believe there are equivalent websites for birds, native animals, plants and insects.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #169 –
While acknowledging climate change is real, I'm not going to discount the historical truth that humans on both sides of this debate contribute equally to the bushfire issues through ridiculous land management politics, and the situation is getting worse not better!

In one regional district, I recently came across a news article reporting efforts by a councillor to move a ban on the planting of gum trees, because they are dangerous in bush fires and storms!
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #170 –
Quote from: LP – on
While acknowledging climate change is real, I'm not going to discount the historical truth that humans on both sides of this debate contribute equally to the bushfire issues through ridiculous land management politics, and the situation is getting worse not better!

In one regional district I recently came across a news article reporting efforts by a councillor to move a ban the planting of gum trees, because they are dangerous in bush fires and storms!
Bit like wind farms, you need acres of land, trees/bush cleared, native animals gone and then you have to dig up the ground to make your turbines, transformers and substations. Your green power isnt so green when you break it all down to the basic requirements.

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #171 –
Quote from: LP – on
While acknowledging climate change is real, I'm not going to discount the historical truth that humans on both sides of this debate contribute equally to the bushfire issues through ridiculous land management politics, and the situation is getting worse not better!

In one regional district, I recently came across a news article reporting efforts by a councillor to move a ban on the planting of gum trees, because they are dangerous in bush fires and storms!

Why do fires burn intensely?

One simple answer (in terms of what man can control).

Fuel load.

Byrams's Fire Intensity Equation - simple, clear, precise.

The unequivocal standard for nearly 70 years.

I = Hwr

I = intensity (kW/m)

H = heat yield of fuel (J/g)
w= fuel consumed (kg/m2)
r = spread (m/sec)

Finals, then 4 in a row!
 

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #172 –
Quote from: flyboy77 – on
One simple answer (in terms of what man can control).

Fuel load.
Simple algorithmic solutions are bent and twisted by lawyers and politicians on both sides of the argument who change the definition of the terms.

The term "Fuel Load" is a typical example, what is defined as a "Fuel Load" really makes a huge difference in the legislation and even effects the results of scientific studies that have to comply to definitions to receive funding.

Such terms are distorted by both Green Energy and Fossil Fuel advocates, for every Bob Brown there is a Craig Kelly battling each other to define the rules of the game.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #173 –
I see reports of fusion energy being the silver bullet for future needs are starting to appear again,  with several countries making big investments. This has been discussed ever since I  can remember, a looong time.
Reality always wins in the end.

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #174 –
Quote from: cookie2 – on
I see reports of fusion energy being the silver bullet for future needs are starting to appear again,  with several countries making big investments. This has been discussed ever since I  can remember, a looong time.
ITER is the frontline effort and it is based in France.

I measure the quality of those fusion predictions against the knowledge that France is committed to building a fleet of next generation nuclear fission reactors. Surely if the fusion solution was genuinely close France wouldn't be doing that! :o

btw., Australia chose not to be involved in ITER, apparently all nuclear fission or fusion is bad for Australia, excluding so long as we can keep selling our uranium to France and China nuclear is NIMBY and therefore uranium sales are all good! ;) A pretty pissweak effort by our politicians and bureaucrats all around, and lacking foresight.

If fusion comes good solar, wind, tidal, geothermal are all dead in the water, none of them can provided 24x7 base load. Fission will also be dead in the water overnight. Hydrogen will also be massively impacted and it will signal the end for fossil fuels. So not being part of fusion research is pretty short-sighted.

I'm not surprised we are not involved in ITER or KSTAR. I remember driving past protestors to get into the Synchrotron in Clayton when it was being built, apparently when they switched it on a black hole would form over Monash Uni and we were all going to disappear up our own sphincters! Some of those protestors back then are probably politicians and bureaucrats now!
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #175 –
It looks like the USA has given the go ahead for Bill Gates energy group to build it's demonstrator Natrium reactor.

It's based on a long standing design using molten sodium that has been used in nuclear subs for decades, and is also a technology that is used in solar thermal. Sodium melts at relatively low temperatures, ~ 100°C.

It will also be the same fundamental technology the French use for small modular reactors Macron announced.

https://natriumpower.com

https://nuclear.gepower.com/build-a-plant/products/nuclear-power-plants-overview/prism1

Do you still think it's coincidence we've now bought into nuclear subs?

I see this as the fastest way to net zero, and far more sustainable than the renewables sector which seems to ignore the limited availability of rare resources in it's solution.

I suspect the step beyond this will be pebble bed reactors, bridging the gap that ultimately ends in fusion.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #176 –
I've become more and more disillusioned with Australia's lack of focus on global issues, in particular the complete absence of foresight by our politicians.

We are perfectly situated to build an economy that can be globally dominant in future energy generation methods, in particular nuclear, solar, batteries and hydrogen. But we are so beholding to lobbyists on both sides of the debate we have lost our way. Our politicians have become nothing more than gutless poll driven bureaucrats, often as an adjunct they are driven by minority religious or political ideologies over real world economics, facts and figures.

Australia talent is leaving it's shores faster and faster, some of the world's next generation of clean and green energy are developed and administered by Australian talent, but not here in Australia.

The public read nuclear as dirty fission, and the polls reflect the opposition to nuclear, and politicians fold. But nuclear by a modern standard isn't the 1960's plants that have failed to withstand the rigours of time. Modern nuclear is both Fusion and Fission, it's cleaner and safer, and in the case of Fusion not only delivers energy but also a swath of critical by-products most prominently helium that is needed for the operation of all sorts of medical devices, and fusion doesn't produce even a skerrick of nuclear waste!

We should be up to pussy's bow in the development of green hydrogen, ingredients required sunlight to drive solar farms and sea water. Hydrogen can be distributed using our existing pipeline infrastructure, mixed in with existing domestic natural gas supplies to also reduce carbon emissions from cooking and heating as well as to distribute the hydrogen. The hydrogen can be re-separated at the end point using very little energy probably from solar to provide pure clean hydrogen as required. (Imagine you go a fill up your car with hydrogen from the hydrogen station, a station that got it's hydrogen via a pipeline not a truck!) PS; You can fill up a hydrogen car, drive 700km and then stop to fill it up against in about 4 minutes to drive another 700km, not 1hr for 80% charge, total vehicle emissions water vapour, zero rare earths required! 4 minutes for 1400km of range, how much EV charging time does that equate too?

Batteries, Australia is a global R&D leader, in particular in the replacement of rare earth materials in mass produced batteries. At least two companies I know have pioneered massively abundant materials like silicon or sulfur as a replacements for rare-earth materials like lithium, nickel, cobalt and gallium. Both were forced off-shore into foreign ownership to secure funding for the commercial development of the technology.

Solar, the manufacturing of the solar cells we know of on the roof is neither clean or green, but Solar thermal can be uber green, and printable solar equally green. To produce solar thermal you need lots of sun and open space, know anywhere? For green printable solar cells you have to develop a way to recycle old plastics into printed solar cells, guess who, and guess where that technology went auctioned off to a foreign investor for short term gain!

What's the odds we end up buying all that technology back off China in a decade or two, either as a product or under a license for something we invented. In the meantime our politicians chuck chunks of coal at each other!

Rant over!
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #177 –
Looks like the Europeans and Britain have simply shifted from coal-fired power plants to wood-fired power plants: A ‘Green’ Energy Project Leaves A Mississippi Town Gasping For Air, Huffpost.

How the hell does burning wood qualify for a reduction in emissions?

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #178 –
Quote from: Mav – on
Looks like the Europeans and Britain have simply shifted from coal-fired power plants to wood-fired power plants: A ‘Green’ Energy Project Leaves A Mississippi Town Gasping For Air, Huffpost.

How the hell does burning wood qualify for a reduction in emissions?
It's an accounting spin, you grow the wood, you burn the wood, you grow it again for nett zero!

But nobody claims it's clean, actually it's emissions require more filtration and monitoring that some types of coal, cleaning and filtering technologies some say aren't acceptable for the continued burning of coal! :o

I read a summary once that discussed the asymmetry of carbon uptake and oxygen production during a trees life, variations that are rarely used when calculating the triple bottom line. You can imagine just how scary this is when rules and regulations only talk about sub-totals. If you infinitely extend the reporting cycle you can claim any energy method is eventually nett zero, because it's energy will ultimately result in more life, and life builds itself on carbon! As such many measures are bogus, used by bureaucrats, accountants and spin doctors.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #179 –
Quote from: LP – on
I've become more and more disillusioned with Australia's lack of focus on global issues, in particular the complete absence of foresight by our politicians.

We are perfectly situated to build an economy that can be globally dominant in future energy generation methods, in particular nuclear, solar, batteries and hydrogen. But we are so beholding to lobbyists on both sides of the debate we have lost our way. Our politicians have become nothing more than gutless poll driven bureaucrats, often as an adjunct they are driven by minority religious or political ideologies over real world economics, facts and figures.

Australia talent is leaving it's shores faster and faster, some of the world's next generation of clean and green energy are developed and administered by Australian talent, but not here in Australia.

The public read nuclear as dirty fission, and the polls reflect the opposition to nuclear, and politicians fold. But nuclear by a modern standard isn't the 1960's plants that have failed to withstand the rigours of time. Modern nuclear is both Fusion and Fission, it's cleaner and safer, and in the case of Fusion not only delivers energy but also a swath of critical by-products most prominently helium that is needed for the operation of all sorts of medical devices, and fusion doesn't produce even a skerrick of nuclear waste!

We should be up to pussy's bow in the development of green hydrogen, ingredients required sunlight to drive solar farms and sea water. Hydrogen can be distributed using our existing pipeline infrastructure, mixed in with existing domestic natural gas supplies to also reduce carbon emissions from cooking and heating as well as to distribute the hydrogen. The hydrogen can be re-separated at the end point using very little energy probably from solar to provide pure clean hydrogen as required. (Imagine you go a fill up your car with hydrogen from the hydrogen station, a station that got it's hydrogen via a pipeline not a truck!) PS; You can fill up a hydrogen car, drive 700km and then stop to fill it up against in about 4 minutes to drive another 700km, not 1hr for 80% charge, total vehicle emissions water vapour, zero rare earths required! 4 minutes for 1400km of range, how much EV charging time does that equate too?

Batteries, Australia is a global R&D leader, in particular in the replacement of rare earth materials in mass produced batteries. At least two companies I know have pioneered massively abundant materials like silicon or sulfur as a replacements for rare-earth materials like lithium, nickel, cobalt and gallium. Both were forced off-shore into foreign ownership to secure funding for the commercial development of the technology.

Solar, the manufacturing of the solar cells we know of on the roof is neither clean or green, but Solar thermal can be uber green, and printable solar equally green. To produce solar thermal you need lots of sun and open space, know anywhere? For green printable solar cells you have to develop a way to recycle old plastics into printed solar cells, guess who, and guess where that technology went auctioned off to a foreign investor for short term gain!

What's the odds we end up buying all that technology back off China in a decade or two, either as a product or under a license for something we invented. In the meantime our politicians chuck chunks of coal at each other!

Rant over!

This conversation will never be a real one, until a nuclear policy isnt automatically an election loser.

No one wants one on their door step, and no one will vote in a government that will go that policy.

Here is the reality.

We are going to go "clean" and "green" with renewables.

Then, when the coal plants are all retired, and we are suffering consistent and frequent loss of power endangering, lives, infrastructure, and the ability for humans to live properly, then and only then will a nuclear plant be palatable to the masses.

I have read recently about an initiative, where nuclear waste, can be combined with man made Diamonds, to create battery storage technology that is almost perpetual.

This will never make it to market, because being the cynic that I am, it equates to a loss of future revenue for too many companies.

Make of that what you will.

IF we actually reviewed things properly, we should see a graph which shows how many GJ of power, all the energy sources can contribute, for how long, with how much waste and CO2 emissions produced including the mining, and also what happens at the end of the life of each generation of power.

Blind Freddy would quickly understand that Nuclear is the biggest bang for buck in that equation in terms of more power, from the smallest waste.  Even a hydro dam needs to divert water from eco systems elsewhere threatening habitats for marine life.  Thats an entire ecosystem effected both up and down stream from it.  Meanwhile solar farms are still land hungry, and wind generation is inconsistent at best, AND land hungry.  There isnt a renewable that can compete with nuclear on a power vs waste equation and the discussion NEVER happens.
"everything you know is wrong"

Paul Hewson