Global Warming/Climate Change Discussion Thread

[Danoff]

China requires coal, lots and lots of it.

China uses coal. That doesn't mean they have to.

 

[Dotini]

China uses coal. That doesn't mean they have to.

Explain, Spock.

Please explain how China doesn't have to use coal.

 

[Rallywagon]

Well, I mean, nuclear, solar, wind, waves... tons of options that dont require coal.

 

[Danoff]

Explain, Spock.

Please explain how China doesn't have to use coal.

Nuclear power is china's fastest growing power source. They have 44 plants (according to wikipedia) with 13 additional under construction. They no doubt could produce plants even faster.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Well, I mean, nuclear, solar, wind, waves... tons of options that dont require coal.

Why don't they use those alternatives?

 

[Dotini]

Reportedly, About 70 percent of China's total energy consumption and nearly 80 percent of its electricity production come from coal, and its recent shift from being a historical net coal exporter to the world's largest net coal importer took only three years.

 

[Danoff]

Reportedly, About 70 percent of China's total energy consumption and nearly 80 percent of its electricity production come from coal, and its recent shift from being a historical net coal exporter to the world's largest net coal importer took only three years.

China uses coal. That doesn't mean they have to.

 

[Rallywagon]

My guess the reason is the same reason they manufacture so much crap. It's Cheaper and easier to build coal plants than nuclear.

 

[Johnnypenso]

My guess the reason is the same reason they manufacture so much crap. It's Cheaper and easier to build coal plants than nuclear.

So they aren't equivalent options they can just swap in and out. They are higher cost alternatives they must voluntarily choose to use for the benefit of their people/the world.

 

[Danoff]

So they aren't equivalent options they can just swap in and out. They are higher cost alternatives they must voluntarily choose to use for the benefit of their people/the world.

They're literally increasing the percentage of their power produced by nuclear faster than any other power source.

 

[Johnnypenso]

They're literally increasing the percentage of their power produced by nuclear faster than any other power source.

I don't know the actual numbers but when I see statements like that it usually means they are starting from a comparitively low base to measure from.

 

[Rallywagon]

So they aren't equivalent options they can just swap in and out. They are higher cost alternatives they must voluntarily choose to use for the benefit of their people/the world.

Yeah... so? As Danoff points out, it's a higher energy output than coal. Without the pollution they struggle with.
None of us are China, so we dont get to make the decisions there, but that doesnt mean that coal is a better choice just because they made it, nor does it mean there isnt an alternative to coal for them to use just because they didn't (which danoff is indicating they are.)

 

[Danoff]

I don't know the actual numbers but when I see statements like that it usually means they are starting from a comparitively low base to measure from.

What @Rallywagon said above. According to wikipedia it is in direct response to the coal pollution. I'm not even necessarily saying that their coal plants were a mistake, it may be exactly what they needed to get going. I'm not in their shoes. What I said was that they don't need coal. And they don't. They might want coal for a variety of reasons, but they don't need it. They're capable of using alternatives, and they know that, and they're moving in that direction (the direction of alternatives) intentionally.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Yeah... so? As Danoff points out, it's a higher energy output than coal. Without the pollution they struggle with.
None of us are China, so we dont get to make the decisions there, but that doesnt mean that coal is a better choice just because they made it, nor does it mean there isnt an alternative to coal for them to use just because they didn't (which danoff is indicating they are.)

In the absence of other factors I think it's pretty safe to assume they chose the cheapest and easiest alternative in coal. Voluntarily choosing a higher cost alternative is not necessarily something people do willingly or easily. Source: global warming

 

[Dotini]

My guess the reason is the same reason they manufacture so much crap. It's Cheaper and easier to build coal plants than nuclear.

No doubt. But what about global warming and Paris Agreement?? If China isn't participating in the effort, and actually burning coal like there's no tomorrow simply to keep its 1,415,045,928 people warm and their economy humming, then isn't it rather silly to talk of effectively fighting global warming in the here and now? And isn't the very chance of fighting global warming going to cost fabulous amounts of money? And how is fabulous amounts of money generated without a vigorous and expanding economy? As far as I know, currently the US is the only major economy in the world that is vigorous and growing. And we are 21 Trillion Dollars in Debt! IMO, if global warming is real, then its 100% unstoppable.

Correction: A pole reversal, caldera supervolcano or Ice Age could reverse any effects of global warming, and in fact make the continued existence of civilization as we know it on Earth untenable.

 

[Danoff]

In the absence of other factors I think it's pretty safe to assume they chose the cheapest and easiest alternative in coal. Voluntarily choosing a higher cost alternative is not necessarily something people do willingly or easily. Source: global warming

Forgetting global warming, their coal pollution is creating major health problems and ruining quality of life. They are of course aware of this and are moving into nuclear in a big way.

The US on the otherhand... pollutes quite a lot and still uses coal... for mostly indefensible reasons. We have 98 nuclear reactors with 2 under construction providing 20% of our electricity. That number could (and should) grow a lot. When China's 13 reactors under construction are complete, they will have over half of our nuclear power capacity. And we produce more than any other country (not by percentage, but by raw electrical output).

We need to get building.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Forgetting global warming, their coal pollution is creating major health problems and ruining quality of life. They are of course aware of this and are moving into nuclear in a big way.

The US on the otherhand... pollutes quite a lot and still uses coal... for mostly indefensible reasons. We have 98 nuclear reactors with 2 under construction providing 20% of our electricity. That number could (and should) grow a lot. When China's 13 reactors under construction are complete, they will have over half of our nuclear power capacity. And we produce more than any other country (not by percentage, but by raw electrical output).

We need to get building.

In real terms China produced 3% of their power from Nuclear in 2015 with plans to go to 6% by 2020. Using Wikipedia figures it looks like they plan to increase nuclear capacity by double to triple by 2030. Given their increasing demand for energy this might get them to 8-10% of capacity. That's a drop in the bucket. It's not really enough to have any significant impact on global CO2 emissions or pollution levels in China. Locally of course, anyone that gets a nuke plant built upwind from them will benefit but on the whole it will have little effect on total emissions or pollution levels. China doesn't plan on reducing carbon emissions until 2030 according to the Paris Agreement. Given this chart, I'd say that's a Herculean monkey wrench in the gears and dwarfs the efforts of the west to reduce carbon emissions by 20 or 20 or 40%.

 

[Danoff]

In real terms China produced 3% of their power from Nuclear in 2015 with plans to go to 6% by 2020.

Double in 5 years is progress. Progress they sorely need. I like that they're taking steps in the right direction. We should be making our own progress.

 

[Dotini]

We should be making our own progress.

Are we making progress in nuclear waste storage and disposal? Could you bring us up to date on this, and on public acceptance, please?

 

[PocketZeven]

I am perplexed that there are still so many people who believe global warming isnt a thing. I guess it shouldnt surprise since there are still people who believe the earth is flat. Just didnt expect that so many in this forum would think that.

 

[Danoff]

Are we making progress in nuclear waste storage and disposal? Could you bring us up to date on this, and on public acceptance, please?

I feel like we went over this before. All of the nuclear waste in the world amounts to not much.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Double in 5 years is progress. Progress they sorely need. I like that they're taking steps in the right direction. We should be making our own progress.

Progress in relative terms, not much progress in absolute terms and certainly not progress as measured against what climate scientists are telling us we need to do in the next 10-20 years. It's a move in the right direction, but more like a single step on a long journey you don't have enough time to complete.

 

[Imari]

Every report I've heard on that is that Air travel is a drop in the ocean compared to all the cars.

Probably, but I live in Australia. Personal transport in the form of a car or something like it is just necessary because of how the country is laid out, and electric has serious limitations over here. Without cars, Australia largely grinds to a halt.

On the other hand, I don't think society crashes and burns out aircraft. It requires some more forward planning for shipping and people can't flit from city to city on a moment's notice, but I'm not exactly sure why that would be necessary in an absolute sense.

Put all those passengers on high-speed coal powered ships and the net effect will probably be negative.

I'd suggest that maybe high speed transport in the form of planes and equivalents like high speed ships is not strictly necessary.

I was going to say we should wean ourselves away from shipping... but cost is often proportional to emissions. If it costs less to mass produce and ship something, then it probably requires less energy than building factories all over and having those run at lower efficiencies to produce the same products in scattered locales... products which will still have to be transported over land, anyway.

I'd think the same. Shipping still has it's place when used intelligently. Individual or small scale transport like cars/taxis will have it's place because even with public transport you need something to get from the station to your destination, and there's still access needed to remote locations.

But do we really need high speed transport across the country and around the world, or is it just nice to have? Is it worth sacrificing the planet to travel across it?

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People rag on China, but they're producing half the CO2 per capita from fuel compared to "western" countries. It's not their fault that they have a large population and therefore a large overall contribution.

Considering that China and India together account for about a third of the world's population and have the lowest proportional emissions of the top ten in that list, I'd be wary of knocking them too much. It would seem that they're doing a better job of limiting emissions than most, even if it's to some extent likely to be simply a byproduct of the current technological level of their population rather than intentional policy.

Are we making progress in nuclear waste storage and disposal? Could you bring us up to date on this, and on public acceptance, please?

Public acceptance of nuclear waste storage and disposal is unlikely to ever be anything other than profoundly negative, simply because a layperson doesn't have the background to understand what's going on and most don't have the inclination to learn.

As far as storing/disposing of it, that's been possible for some time. It's not exactly rocket science, it's just crippled by the fact that without a world war on nobody wants it in their back yard.

 

[ryzno]

I found a funny video on YT, can't post it here but search, george carlin he's just observer of a freak show.

 

[TenEightyOne]

People rag on China, but they're producing half the CO2 per capita from fuel compared to "western" countries. It's not their fault that they have a large population and therefore a large overall contribution.

It's difficult to generalise about a third of the entire planet's population - but that's often done with the figures. The CO2 emmision charts on wiki are quite interesting - the real bogeyman is the USA which has high industrialisation and an insane reliance on fossil fuels. China's output isn't as bad per GDP or per capita (a difficult figure to reconcile given the largely agrarian rural economies across much of China) as some other countries.

It's interesting to see Australia's output-per-capita given your comments about Aussies and their cars. Surely you're all ripe for solar conversions now?

 

[Johnnypenso]

It's difficult to generalise about a third of the entire planet's population - but that's often done with the figures. The CO2 emmision charts on wiki are quite interesting - the real bogeyman is the USA which has high industrialisation and an insane reliance on fossil fuels. China's output isn't as bad per GDP or per capita (a difficult figure to reconcile given the largely agrarian rural economies across much of China) as some other countries.

It's interesting to see Australia's output-per-capita given your comments about Aussies and their cars. Surely you're all ripe for solar conversions now?

According to this and this, CO2 emissions for China per unit of GDP are double that of the United States. According to the first source, China is the 11th worst CO2 emitter measured per GDP and the U.S. is only 40th worst.

 

[Imari]

It's interesting to see Australia's output-per-capita given your comments about Aussies and their cars.

Yep, we make heavy use of personal transport, we have quite a lot of unclean power generation, and we have a massive mining industry. These things do not add up to us doing particularly well at controlling our emissions.

I'm not sure if those numbers also take into account the fact that a lot of goods have to be shipped a long way to get to Australian consumers as well, but it's certainly something to be aware of. Local manufacturing isn't massive, and so I'd expect there to be a non-trivial amount of fuel expended just shipping stuff into (and out of) Australia.

Surely you're all ripe for solar conversions now?

I don't know how we compare to the rest of the world, but there's a lot of people with solar panels on their roofs. There was for some time granst for doing so that made it cost neutral over a very short period of time. I believe it's not as good now, but I think they're still subsidised.

The place I work actually did the math on putting solar panels up (because we go through quite a lot of power every month) but it's probably not quite going to be financially viable.

Large scale solar still has the same issues here that it has elsewhere though. While Australia is stereotypically sunny, it's not really that much of a thing in reality. Geothermal is one that we're ideally set up for, but it's never gained that much traction. I did see some interesting proposals for tidal facilities in South Australia though. I'm not sure if they've gone any further with that, but it looked awesome.

According to this and this, CO2 emissions for China per unit of GDP are double that of the United States. According to the first source, China is the 11th worst CO2 emitter measured per GDP and the U.S. is only 40th worst.

Measuring emissions by GDP seems like a fairly certain way to make sure that rich countries can do whatever they like and poor countries look bad for the emissions of a campfire. I'd be wary of using that particular measure.

 

[Dotini]

@Imari
Isn't Australia China's principal source of coal? Given the grave reality and lethality of global warming, wouldn't the right thing to do be to shut in your coal production and cheer on China to go more nuclear and renewable? We have already well-established that China has no need to use coal.

 

[Touring Mars]

It will be a very long time before China (or anywhere else, for that matter) does not require fossil fuels - while nuclear energy alone could ultimately replace all fossil fuel usage, that isn't going to happen overnight. As such, I would argue that China (and indeed the rest of the world) does require fossil fuels right now, and the developing world in particular will use what they can while the alternatives are either unavailable or uneconomical.

People rag on China, but they're producing half the CO2 per capita from fuel compared to "western" countries. It's not their fault that they have a large population and therefore a large overall contribution.

Considering that China and India together account for about a third of the world's population and have the lowest proportional emissions of the top ten in that list, I'd be wary of knocking them too much. It would seem that they're doing a better job of limiting emissions than most, even if it's to some extent likely to be simply a byproduct of the current technological level of their population rather than intentional policy.

I wouldn't say 'to some extent' - that's exactly the reason. China's CO2 emissions per capita have tripled in the last 20 years, while the US, Japan, UK etc. have all seen declines since peaks in the 60's or 70's - meanwhile, China's efforts to limit CO2 emissions have actually gone into reverse and their emissions are going back up.

The only metric that matters in terms of the climate is the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere - it matters not who put it there. But, politically (and morally), other metrics come into play - why should one country be allowed to emit twice as much CO2 per capita as others, even if their population is only a fraction of the other country? This is why limits on emissions are almost impossible to agree, let alone enforce.

The best we can hope for is that economical alternatives to fossil fuels come online - and fast.

 

[Dotini]

It will be a very long time before China (or anywhere else, for that matter) does not require fossil fuels - while nuclear energy alone could ultimately replace all fossil fuel usage, that isn't going to happen overnight. As such, I would argue that China (and indeed the rest of the world) does require fossil fuels right now, and the developing world in particular will use what they can while the alternatives are either unavailable or uneconomical.


I wouldn't say 'to some extent' - that's exactly the reason. China's CO2 emissions per capita have tripled in the last 20 years, while the US, Japan, UK etc. have all seen declines since peaks in the 60's or 70's - meanwhile, China's efforts to limit CO2 emissions have actually gone into reverse and their emissions are going back up.

The only metric that matters in terms of the climate is the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere - it matters not who put it there. But, politically (and morally), other metrics come into play - why should one country be allowed to emit twice as much CO2 per capita as others, even if their population is only a fraction of the other country? This is why limits on emissions are almost impossible to agree, let alone enforce.

The best we can hope for is that economical alternatives to fossil fuels come online - and fast.

A bold post, but is it strictly true that "The only metric that matters in terms of the climate is the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere"? Surely there must be some better practical metric such as net global agricultural production or average surface temperature at arable latitudes?

History of Atmospheric CO2 through geological time (past 550 million years: from Berner, Science, 1997). The parameter RCO2 is defined as the ratio of the mass of CO2 in the atmosphere at some time in the past to that at present (with a pre-industrial value of 300 parts per million). The heavier line joining small squares represents the best estimate of past atmospheric CO2levels based on geochemical modeling and updated to have the effect of land plants on weathering introduced 380 to 350 million years ago. The shaded area encloses the approximate range of error of the modeling based on sensitivity analysis. Vertical bars represent independent estimates of CO2 level based on the study of ancient soils.