14 replies to this topic

[Dauth]

OK despite any evidence you care to mention. The amount of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere has increased since the Industrial Revolution. There are a lot of very noble ideas about how we can undo the damage done by humanity.

I will say this once and only once, we are not discussing if humanity is at fault, we are operating under the caveat that humanity is at fault in this thread.

I'd like to discuss the methods people are proposing, since I am very worried that we'll invest in a method that does a good job in the short term but kills us in the long term. So please make suggestions to me, I'll also try to think of ones that are carbon neutral or better.

[Ghostrider]

Dauth, on 28 Jun 2009, 18:01, said:

OK despite any evidence you care to mention. The amount of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere has increased since the Industrial Revolution. There are a lot of very noble ideas about how we can undo the damage done by humanity.

I will say this once and only once, we are not discussing if humanity is at fault, we are operating under the caveat that humanity is at fault in this thread.

I'd like to discuss the methods people are proposing, since I am very worried that we'll invest in a method that does a good job in the short term but kills us in the long term. So please make suggestions to me, I'll also try to think of ones that are carbon neutral or better.

Switch from coal/oil/gas power to windmills and nuclear power. Sure nuclear power makes waste that takes forever to get rid of, but it's VERY safe (when operated properly) and unparalleled in power output.

Windmills provide lots of power and are cost efficient, not to mention the cleanest energy source. And no, they don't ruin landscapes.

Edited by Ghostrider, 28 June 2009 - 22:15.

[BeefJeRKy]

We need to really increase the research and development of more efficient Solar panel technologies as well as batteries. Basically reduce the use of fossil fuels to purely manufacturing raw materials and not as an energy source. EDUCATE the rest of the world on proper use of fertilizers in agriculture. Reduce consumption of beef and other red meat that is energy inefficient in order to grow more sustainable crops. I am unsure of "carbon capture technologies" but perhaps they could help if properly researched.

[CommanderJB]

I'd stop short of saying that we should switch wholesale to nuclear energy, particularly given that even at the current rate we'll hit 'peak uranium' in about fifty to ninety years. Rather I would say that it should be taken as the default option when it comes to replacing any coal, oil or gas plants that are coming offline in the interim for those states with a viable nuclear industry, and considered on an at least equal basis cognisant of the CO₂ emissions produced by the manufacturing and mining processes that support all types when it comes to planning new plants (by which I mean specifically that uranium mining is a horrifyingly toxic process that uses up gargantuan amounts of energy). For states without a viable nuclear industry they aren't entirely unreasonable - Tekhsnabexport (the wonderfully-named Russian nuclear technology export authority) has some rather interesting production-ready floating reactor designs for example - but they are unlikely to be worth the very high start-up investment or operational costs, particularly transportation of all the fuel and waste (and subsquently reprocessing or storage, both of which can be quite astronomical in the outlay they require) and of course the enormous deactivation costs at the end of the plant's life cycle. This should help ensure that brown coal in particular doesn't keep on growing, as if it can be driven down as far as possible then hopefully mining companies will get the message, but until they do the coal lobby is far too powerful to let it suffer as an industry at the hands of the evil environmentalists. It won't put a severe damper on emissions but as I've already said 'switching' to an unsustainable industry is really little better; reactor design is extremely good these days but it's still not efficient enough for us to plan on it long-term.
I would however agree with you completely on the safety issues, as every time someone raises Chernobyl the hairs on the back of my neck prickle in annoyance at the astonishing irrelevance of the comparison in almost every regard.

As for active steps to 'counter global warming', decentralisation of energy production is the thing to start planning on I think. By this I mean spreading out the production of energy from centralised, monolithic power stations to home solar panels and regional wind turbines; while this is expensive and won't remove the need for offsite generation in high-density areas in particular, it is just so much more efficient and sustainable over time to try and catch every joule that comes our way where we can find it rather than digging it up and moving it hundreds of kilometres it's hard to know where to start. Geothermal would be wonderful also, but sadly there aren't a huge number of places where it's viable right now. Definitely an area that bears further development though. The more solar panels that get cranked out the cheaper the process should be and, after a little bit of time and luck, we can hopefully drastically increase their efficiency also.

I don't really think there's an awful lot we can do to decrease the amount of carbon already in the atmosphere, but a good step in the short term is to boost carbon trading initiatives, thereby valuing existing rainforest et cetera, and thus protect what we have until we can get a more effective method. I'm well aware of the shortcomings of carbon tradining but it's an awful lot better than nothing, which is the realistic alternative. It buys us time at very little cost to either the economy or environment, and while the improvements it makes are not dramatic either as I said it is valuable for its conservation of nothing else.

I would also have to say that I regard carbon capture and sequestration an incredibly expensive waste of time that does nothing but support one of the most damaging industries to public and environmental health in existence over the very short term.

I may expand in future but for now I have to go.

Edited by CommanderJB, 28 June 2009 - 23:24.

[Chyros]

I'll try and come up with something that no-one's mentioned anywhere: active nucleophilic attack on CO₂ in the atmosphere?

[deltaepsilon]

Nuclear winter.

_{courtesy of Futurama}

[Sgt. Rho]

What about Quantum crystals? You know, those microcrystals, that generate power from their specific light spectrum? Mix all sizes together and you get at least 100% more efficiency than today.

[Libains]

Chyros, on 29 Jun 2009, 5:37, said:

I'll try and come up with something that no-one's mentioned anywhere: active nucleophilic attack on CO₂ in the atmosphere?

Possible, but what are we going to do to the damn thing? Split it up and produce carbon monoxide and Oxygen? We'd do a good job of poisoning everyone, but I can't think of a way in which this would work (in my limited chemical knowledge).

One thing that Brazil was very good at was BioGas (or methane) for powering cars. The government subsidised it a lot and therefore was extremely cheap, and it was completely carbon neutral (maybe even positive due to the plants intaking CO2). If we could find a way to work this out without using so much land, and using a better production structure, it could certainly wean us off the dependency on Hyrdocarbons and thus also reduce the CO2 emissions massively.

[Chyros]

AJ, on 29 Jun 2009, 15:34, said:

Chyros, on 29 Jun 2009, 5:37, said:

I'll try and come up with something that no-one's mentioned anywhere: active nucleophilic attack on CO₂ in the atmosphere?

Possible, but what are we going to do to the damn thing? Split it up and produce carbon monoxide and Oxygen? We'd do a good job of poisoning everyone, but I can't think of a way in which this would work (in my limited chemical knowledge).

No, splitting it up is something very different. I'm talking about letting some nucleophilic compound react with CO₂, which happens to contain a quite electrophilic carbon centre. For example, water is able to attack CO₂, producing carbonic acid, the compound that makes carbonated water acidic and sour. That's just an example though.

[Dauth]

OK, gonna go through these in order.

Nuclear power produces less low grade nuclear waste than a coal plant. It does produce high grade waste though too, this can be fed into an Advanced CanDu reactor though.

Wind, I concur, though not sure about the carbon cost of making a turbine.

Reducing reliance on meat is a good suggestion, one I would loathe tbh but it is valid.

Peak Uranium can be as far away as 700 years yet JB, plus we do have all these renewables on the way over your time span, call it a stopgap if you need to.

Carbon trading, problem is it costs about 2% of GDP, and who wouldn't want to be 2% richer? That will burn the planet.

Artificial trees have been mentioned Chyros, apparently can capture thousands of tons a day. Gotta wonder about the catalyst used though.

[Chyros]

Dauth, on 30 Jun 2009, 10:36, said:

Artificial trees have been mentioned Chyros, apparently can capture thousands of tons a day. Gotta wonder about the catalyst used though.

Maybe it's a palladium tetrakis catalyst like the one used in CO-exchange crosscoupling for carboxylation. Just a guess though.

[Dauth]

Chyros have a look around for papers on artificial trees and you'll hopefully find something about the catalyst.

[Dauth]

On a related note, my supervisor is Alan Gadian and this is him featured on the BBC webby.

http://news.bbc.co.u...ech/8214045.stm

[Mr. Mylo]

I am unsure if too many nuclear Powerplant are clever in times of terrorism... well, I am neather an enemy nor a friend of Nuclear Energy but I guess we should consider that.

*Tidal Powerplants
*Making use of lightning energy

Mr. Mylo

[BeefJeRKy]

Lightning energy? Sounds wholly unreliable to me. On the other hand, tidal energy seems like a good thing to look out for. About nuclear plants, I seriously doubt it would be easy to weaponize the materials used to create energy.