Consolidated Climate Change/CO2/Global Warming Thread

as the world favours oil (increasing consumption because real production still immensely reliant on the commodity) I saw this article on plastics recycling. not a new concept of course. this is from Kenya and jakarta:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-...ative-uses-for-plastic-waste-around-the-world



most pet plastics degrade in UV. though. plastics are cycled into fibres for clothing, and even bricks moite!:



"A conventional brick (left) and a brick containing recycled plastic waste (right), at the Rebricks brick-making factory in Jakarta."


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https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210510-how-to-recycle-any-plastic
Plastics recycling. anywho. it's a problem that needs attention.


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https://datatopics.worldbank.org/what-a-waste/trends_in_solid_waste_management.html


Global treatment and disposal of waste (percent)

the solid waste is of course another source of ghg's

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66% of OIL is used in transportation.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/use-of-oil.php


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High Voltage DC transmission lines from solar farms in west China. the specific type of transmission lines are unique to China and Brazil only.

 

Does anyone have any figures on how many kwh of storage medium is required in Australia?
Would you need three days of storage? More? Less?

 

An estimate made some years ago was 450GWh. This was for a grid that was 100% renewable and they estimated they needed 19 hours of NEM average usage. Their model was based on 10 years worth of weather data. So its probably in the ball park.

The study is here - http://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/resources/assets/100renewableelectricityinAustralia.pdf

Given that there are 3 area's around Australia trying to develop green hydrogen, I suspect we won't need much storage. We just generate as much power as possible, way above that we normally use on average. The green hydrogen gens adjusts with the ebbs and flows in the grid scaling their output accordingly. This assumes that that a heavy duty HVDC are running down the backbone of the East coast of Australia.

 

They have a huge tolerance on that figure +/- 30%.

How efficient is hydrogen? Some quick googling seems to indicate poor efficiency.

With all the recent discussion in the media there seems to be a complete lack of mathematics shown.

 

Think of it as hitting the side of the barn. Not necessarily the exact bullseye. Its a derived value that can serve to inspire potential political and economical solutions.

There is alot of research around this area atm...

https://reneweconomy.com.au/austral...ough-promises-worlds-cheapest-green-hydrogen/

... and remember 'hydrogen' can be shipped out as ammonia, it doesn't have to be shipped as a liquefied gas. Japan and South Korea is very interesting in green hydrogen. They will consume significant quantities as long as the price is reasonable.

You must be new to the Australian media...

Edit: just came across this today... https://reneweconomy.com.au/bp-take...orlds-biggest-green-hydrogen-hubs-in-pilbara/

Anyways, sorry for the offtopic

 

Looking at this site today https://anero.id/energy

Wind was absolutely pathetic all day over the five states and solar was down on previous days. A few days like today and I wonder how accurate that document is. I did look up hydrogen and it seems to be more of a fantasy solution at this stage. Efficiency is pretty woeful. it is hard to transport, yet you can convert it but then you lose more efficiency. Some people say that hydrogen will never be able to overcome all the negatives compared to other solutions.

It would be nice if there was just some emotionless logic and facts and figures of what right now (not what may be available or may happen) works.

I think that BHP thing looks more like sub prime mortgages in the USA. I have seen companies spend oodles on "look at me" projects because their main reason the the project is to curry favour elsewhere. They can afford to make a huge loss somewhere, if they think it will mean they can make it up elsewhere through getting special privilege on a different project. A bit like a politician "donating" their time with cameras flashing at a soup kitchen.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...n-current-could-mean-la-nina-becomes-the-norm

More la nina means more overcast days and less solar power.

 

There are some good things being worked on with hydrogen.
Nothing commercial yet, all R&D hype.
https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/cou...torage-be-a-serious-alternative-to-batteries/

It's comical how we manage to store water because it doesn't rain every day, store food, yet fail at renewable energy storage.

- Ernie.

 

Like I said, they used 10 years worth of weather data, so they would have a pretty decent idea of the average along with the peaks and troughs.

That is why alot of folk are interested in transporting Hydrogen in the form of Ammonia. Including the BP project. Lot less issues. In the end its not the efficiency that is key. Its the price per kg delivered. If they can get this in the ball park of normal prices everyone is happy and it seems the Australian tech beats the $2/kg goal.

Less solar. More wind and hydro. Maybe even more biogas from more plant matter.

We have had a few thousand years to work out how cisterns and granaries work

 

It didn't take use thousands of years as you allude to. Those technologies were very fast to develop.

Pumped hydro on all sorts of scales, has been around for man decades, perfect for wind and solar storage. How many people do you know with a pumped hydro setup?

I think our problem in Australia is we expect someone else to come up with the energy storage solution, so little gets done.
The clock is ticking, either we get storage sorted out, or will build new coal power plants in a hurry.
Australia's load shedding 2 weeks into winter, attracted media attention all around the world.

- Ernie.

 

Germany saving the planet again by stockpiling gas for winter and replacing that energy source with coal...

In order to reduce gas consumption, less gas is to be used to produce electricity. Instead, coal-fired power plants will have to be used more. The corresponding law on the availability of replacement power plants, which makes this possible, is currently in the parliamentary process and is to be dealt with in the Bundesrat on July 8th and then come into force quickly. At the same time, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection ( BMWK ) is now preparing the necessary ministerial regulation that will activate the gas replacement reserve.
- https://www.bmwk.de/Redaktion/DE/Pr...9-habeck-wir-starken-die-vorsorge-weiter.html​

 

Just stumbled across this idea being tested by a few and even a company trying to do its first hole, could be huge if they get it right.

https://newatlas.com/energy/quaise-deep-geothermal-drilling-questions/

We also need more pumped hydro projects in tassie and vic nsw mountains.

 

upsetting the earth's magnetosphere. yeh that's a good idea /s


'yeh, but we so small like ant on watermelon.'

seen what an army of ants does to a watermelon?

or a forest.

etc.

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i dreamt of a nuclear attack this morning.

thanks idiots.

i'm here to point out the mistakes. before it's too late.

this is false also.

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https://www.oneearth.org/are-we-rac...nd we also know that,call it “Hothouse Earth”.

 

Does this mean Melbourne is the new Brisbane and Brisbane is the new, Darwin?

 

I don't think so, climate is localized to a certain extent, but it does sound promising for the northern hemisphere.
Currently around 20% of the arable land in the northern hemisphere is locked up in near useless permafrost.
40,000 years ago, Wooly Mammoths were prancing around the rich tundra, not anymore, it got too cold. Greenland became white land.

- Ernie.

 

https://ocp.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/arch/examples.shtml
localised

versus

global:




there have been rapid fluctuations in recorded history. warm periods during the roman empire period and the "little ice age" a bit later on. ; subtexts (and also localised) to the greater glaciations and interglacial periods dominating the global climate pattern over the last 2.5 million years.

and localised phenemena to do with ocean thermals. dry periods and droughts in other areas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation

ghgs and land clearing have altered the scenario, both on a global scale (ghg's) and microclimate effects (land clearing, biomass reduction, particularly flora and soil biomes, desertification, etc.)

woolly mammoths existed between circa 800,000 years ago right up to a small remnant population around 3700 years ago, located on a small island away from human (and neanderthaal) predation. their habitat was an icy tundra. they were woolly because it was cold. and they survived through many ice ages.

some twits will try to propound that climate change killed them off. which is bollox.

 

It will be interesting to see if this gets off the ground - a new way of making c02 neutral cement using a microalgae, coccolithophores, to photosynthesize c02 into calcium carbonate. Recently given a funding boost to test upscaling to industrial quantities needed.



Article: University of Colorado

 

A piece from The University of Arizona.

"About 100,000 years ago, when mammoths roamed the Earth, the Northern Hemisphere climate plummeted into a deep freeze that allowed massive ice sheets to form. Over a period of about 10,000 years, local mountain glaciers grew and formed large ice sheets covering much of today's Canada, Siberia and northern Europe.

While it has been widely accepted that periodic "wobbling" in the Earth's orbit around the sun triggered cooling in the Northern Hemisphere summer that caused the onset of widespread glaciation, scientists have struggled to explain the extensive ice sheets covering much of Scandinavia and northern Europe, where temperatures are much more mild. " https://news.arizona.edu/story/study-solves-long-standing-mystery-what-may-have-triggered-ice-age

It goes into a study simulation of ocean currents and how they effect ocean gateways in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

Well worth a read.

- Ernie.

 

Latest AEMO Integrated System Plan is out, showing the various pathways to 100% renewable (in heartbreaking news for the nuclear fans here, no nuclear required).

Most likely is the Step Change pathway, which will see us 80% renewable by 2030 however not hitting 100% even by 2050. This is because the last few percent cost far more than it's worth, it's better off having gas turbines still to provide the peak in the network. Presumably this will change if batteries get a lot cheaper over the next few decades but the entire world will be trying to buy them if they do, so it's an understandable outcome. As it is, storage is expected to increase 30x. Coal will be totally gone by 2043.

Only way we hit 100% quickly is if we become what they call a Hydrogen Superpower. But that will depend on the market more than anything else. Would be nice though, simply overbuild the grid multiple times and use the excess to make hydrogen (and burn a little bit of it if needed at peak demand).

 

With Nuclear you don't 30X the storage and is a pathway to completely get rid of gas peakers, deep storage is a no go for batteries I can't see that ever changing the only hope is to have enough pumped hydro and a huge overbuild of solar/wind.

I bet in 2060 we'll still have gas peakers if we don't go Nuclear because the cost is atrocious which ever way you slice it.

 

Will they have cleaned up Fukushima and Chernobyl by 2060?

- Ernie.