3708

Once again, gross incompetence saves the day.

3709

That’s my guv’nah.

Glad somebody in public service gives a shit about the only habitable planet within (at least) trillions of miles.

3710

It’s good news that we may be able to do this, but horrible that we have to

3711

I for one welcome our genetically-modified polyp overlords.

3712

Is there a petition to rename “Earth” to “Bloatware”?

3713
3714

They’re literally just being evil to troll the libs, or something.

Fuck these assholes. We have one planet.

3715

This cannot be overstated.

3716

States rights!

3717

Nazis don’t believe in federalism it turns out.

3718

We’ve had solar technology for that long, and it’s only just now becoming competitive with fossil fuels - but that required government incentives.

Law of thermodynamics, i.e. there is no free lunch. We’re going to pay for climate change one way or the other (and with a carbon tax, income taxes and/or rebates can be provided for incomes under a certain threshold.) I’m not saying don’t use carbon sequestration or nuclear (although for the latter costs for new plants would need to come way down; the only recent ones under construction in the US were cancelled., and not because of environmentalists.) At the same time, I don’t think we can summarily conclude human behavior can’t change.

Here’s a recent paper on the efficacy of a carbon tax (a few years back, Citibank economists also published a long, detailed paper demonstrating that mitigating climate change is more cost effective than not.)

Edit: Can’t post without some doom and gloom.

3719

Solar power is not competitive with fossil fuels for baseline power generation. Current projections have it getting close by 2022, but even then, it’s projected to be around 20% more expensive than Natural Gas. Further, those projections don’t include any kind of energy storage mechanism, which is necessary for use as a baseline generation source.

That being said, nuclear is also not competitive, but it’s also important to note that a large portion of nuclear’s currently associated costs are based upon most recent construction attempts, which absolutely have been hampered by a changing regulatory environment.

While nuclear reactors, of course, need to be regulated, given that we made a ton of them with older regulations, and we have had exactly one accident, ever… and it caused no measurable impact on the environment… with generator technology that is ancient by comparison to modern technology… I think it’s almost certainly the case that we are perhaps being overly cautious, to the point of hindering development unnecessarily.

The NRCB is the most meticulous regulatory body in the world. Again, I’m not saying all regulations are bad, but we, as a country, totally overreacted to TMI, and as a result our regulatory process has grown cumbersome. This directly results in increased costs for those reactors, as delays directly result in wasted money.

Other countries built tons of nuclear reactors after we got scared off, and they are perfectly safe. Fukishima had a major issue, but it was hit by the biggest earthquake ever, and then a Tsunami. AND it wasn’t a newest generation reactor.

The reality is, the perception of risk may mean that nuclear can’t be developed by private entities any more. We may need to have the government do it. The government makes and maintains a ton of nuclear reactors… hell, we put them on boats.

Dude, you’ve got literally billions of people in China and India who are still living like we did over a hundred years ago. I do not believe that humans are going to be able to change their behavior in such a way that we will reduce our need for energy enough to make a dent in that huge wave that’s coming.

The only way to address that is going to be to produce huge amounts of non fossil fuel based power, and you’re going to need to do carbon capture from the atmosphere.

The key for carbon sequestration to become viable, is for it to actually convert carbon into something useful.

We can’t just capture it and dump it in the dirt. Any plan like that is going to fail, because the costs will be too high.

But if you can use some of the new processes which actually turns that carbon into useful materials? Then you might have a shot.

3720

The Westinghouse nuclear plants in SC ran into massive cost over runs in no small part due to regulations enacted over fear of terrorism . But I largely agree that regulatory burden is too high for nuclear power (so long as they’re not build on earthquake faults anyway.) I may well be a radical environmentalist, but I’m not against nuclear (or GMOs.) I’d prefer nuclear to natural gas, or in many cases even hydro. (Maybe even wind energy, too, but I don’t know how large a problem wind energy is with regards to the mortality rate for birds and bats.)

You raise a good point about China and India (don’t forget Africa, too), but a large part of the problem with the industrialized world is over consumption and waste. I don’t know what the statistics are, but we produce an enormous amount of waste, and waste an enormous amount of energy. Human behavior doesn’t have to remain static - we can use energy more efficiently and reduce demand (the ultimate goal), curtail urban sprawl, have more efficient transportation networks, even modify the way we eat (e.g. not clearing rain forests for cattle ranches or palm oil plantations. Agricultural practices account for up to 30% of greenhouse gases.) All these things are possible.

There’s no law that states the developing world needs to make the same mistakes industrialized countries made (although of course, they are.) But, while it would be nice to see human behavior change based off ethical concerns (both for future generations, and life in general), the one sure way to change behavior is raising costs, which IMO a carbon tax would help facilitate. Right now we “privatize the profits, and socialize the costs,” and until some means is developed to price in the externalities for energy generation, then you’re probably right, human behavior won’t change. That takes political will (and political leaders), both of which the US is sorely lacking.

3721

In fact, it never does. When properly incentivized, humans are astonishingly adaptable. The problem is that unless immediate danger is knocking at the door, it’s tough to get people to prioritize real lifestyle change, much less at scale. We are extremely poorly equipped to acknowledge, much less solve, complex problems decades out for which the symptoms are not always obvious.

Our species will adapt to whatever world climate change leaves us with. Those of us who are still alive, that is.

3722

Well, it depends on whether they are in power at the state or federal level, duh.

3723

I think the laws of economics run into the laws of physics here. The cost of carbon capture/sequestration is primarily an energy cost; there is an absolute floor for the energy cost based on the reduction in entropy required; you have to get that energy from somewhere, and if it’s by burning carbon-based fuels you’re no better off than you started (if you capture at the smokestack, you can get a little net gain…). If you have a non-carbon energy source to drive your sequestration (plants do it with solar), it’s much easier just to leave the carbon in the ground and use the non-carbon energy directly.

Taxing carbon is the way to go. Eventually, carbon-based fuels should be reserved only for those circumstances where there is no good substitute (jet travel, maybe).

3724

Some of the carbon sequestration processes are essentially a chemical reaction that just takes place in sunlight. You can’t just “use that energy directly”, because it means you need to actually create a photovoltaic cell to actually get the energy.

3725
3726

What is the half-life of the materials used in a nuclear plant, if that plant goes into meltdown? Could the world bounce back from global warming in a shorter time period than that half-life? Even in a worst-case scenario, could full-scale global warming be a better outcome than a cascading series of nuclear plant failures (due initially to a natural event such as an earthquake, or to deliberate attack, war, etc.)?

3727

Exxon fighting back against Climate Change lawsuits:

Marin County and four other cities and counties seeking to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate change damages have responded to a threatened lawsuit by ExxonMobil Corp.

Last summer, Marin County, San Mateo County and the city of Imperial Beach sued 37 oil, gas and coal companies asserting the companies knew their fossil fuel products would cause sea level rise and coastal flooding but failed to reduce their greenhouse gas pollution. Since then the county of Santa Cruz and the cities of San Francisco, Oakland and Santa Cruz have joined the suit as plaintiffs.

In January, ExxonMobil struck back, petitioning the Tarrant County District Court in Texas to allow it to question 17 government officials who work for the plaintiffs and a Hagens Berman lawyer. The move has been interpreted as the first step toward ExxonMobil suing the government entities. ExxonMobil did not respond to a request for comment.

Among the officials that ExxonMobil wants to depose are County Administrator Matthew Hymel and Marin County Counsel Brian Washington.

“It’s not technically a lawsuit yet,” Washington said, “but they’ve filed in court to ask for permission to do investigative depositions to try to find evidence for a lawsuit.”

Washington said the city and counties involved in the litigation are fighting ExxonMobil’s right to take those depositions.

“We don’t think the Texas court has jurisdiction over this issue,” Washington said. “That is being litigated in Texas right now.”

Looks like it could become a Texas vs. CA issue. Regardless, it looks like the next steps will be in the Courts, for a long time.