A majority of the Democrats running for president in 2020 are aiming to save the planet. High ideas. How? Well, they want to have America running on renewable energy in the near future. Maybe as late as 2050, but near enough. What is "renewable energy"?
Renewable energy is the energy derived from resources that can be naturally replenished. Interestingly, they are not defined as "clean." For instance, one renewable source is "biofuel," which could include ... wait for it ... products from wood, animal farming, human waste, etc. Not clean, but renewable. Burning wood is "renewable energy" but not "clean energy."
Renewable energy could include biofuel or it could be the better known solar, wind, geothermal, or hydroelectric kind of stuff. How do these stack up?
There is the question of cost. Turns out that the most expensive ($/kW-hr) method of producing energy is solar thermal. (That's where they use solar power to produce steam to drive a generator, essentially.) Nice idea, but it's much more expensive than coal with CCS (carbon capture and storage). Down at the bottom, onshore wind, geothermal, solar panels, hydroelectric, and natural gas all are within a $0.006 (6 tenths of a cent) of each other.
But, look, if we're planning to save a planet, cost wouldn't be our first concern. Setting aside financial impact (Replacing the current sources of energy production with renewable energy sources would cost something on the order of $100 trillion.), what about the other costs?
Solar power is all the rage. Just stick some photovoltaic cells on your roof and collect power from the sun. What could be cleaner? As it turns out, a lot of things. The photovoltaic structures are made with all kinds of toxic chemicals -- arsenic, cadmium telluride, hexafluoroethane, lead, and polyvinyl fluoride, and more. Making them is a toxic nightmare. Disposing of them is another. And they have a limited lifespan which means that you have to do this over and over again. And it takes a lot of surface area to produce a lot of energy (read "land consumption").
Wind energy seems really clean and easy. Let the wind blow and these things will spin around and create electricity. Wonderful? Of course, you'll need to ignore their noise. One of them can be heard hundreds of yards away. They regulate where wind farms can be located because of the noise. They also constitute a threat to birds. Studies suggest that more than 45,000 birds have been killed over the last 20 years, including endangered species like eagles. And, of course, there is the problem of the concept: "Let the wind blow." When it doesn't, you get no electricity. In order to continue to supply energy, then, you would need significant storage capability -- another problem. And, again, it takes a lot of these things to produce energy (read "land consumption").
Hydroelectric seems to be clean by definition. It is water, right? Let water flow through generators and the sheer gravity of it will make electricity. That's great! Except that the only way to actually accomplish this is to build dams to block water and build up pressure. And blocking water blocks the natural pathways that nature needs to use. For instance, even with the innovation of fish ladders in dams on the Columbia River, salmon have never recovered from having their natural course blocked off. Hydroelectric power causes disruption to all sorts of ecosystems that depend on the water as well as the areas in which they are constructed. Perhaps these aren't as "friendly" as we originally thought. (Imagine, for instance, the result of either a drought -- no electricity -- or a dam break -- flooding.)
Okay, how about geothermal energy? Typically they dig into an underground hot water source or some other underground heat source and use it to make electricity. All natural, right? It isn't happening much because of the difficulties included in the venture. Finding such geothermal reservoirs isn't easy. Tapping them can be expensive. They have a risk of ... get this ... releasing harmful greenhouse gases harnessed beneath the Earth's surface. Oops! Then, as it turns out, geothermal heat pumps require electricity ... which we were hoping to replace. And, like fracking, the procedure can cause surface instability. In the end this, too, has serious potential for negative outcome.
At the end of it all, there remains one more question. Setting aside the massive cost of replacing existing energy production with alternative methods and accepting the fact that none of them are what you would call "clean" -- all of them have hidden environmental impacts -- there remains the question of the purpose. They are planning to save the planet. Can we do that? Turns out we can't. The U.S. is a contributor to greenhouse gases, but we're not the only ones. If all greenhouse gas emissions stopped today, science tells us that the temperature would continue to rise for more than a decade. Stopping all emissions in the U.S. would decrease the situation (obviously), but not eliminate it. According to the EPA, China produces 30% of the CO2 emissions in the world and "Other" produces another 30%. The United States is only at 15%. So if we could somehow eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. (read "go back to pre-Industrial-Age conditions"), 85% of current emissions would still be there.
None of this is intended to say, "Don't do it!" None of this is "climate change denial." I'm just pointing out that there is more to it than, "Let's just go to renewable energy." Saving the world is not just a few years away and the cost in terms of money and land and other environmental problems and more is much, much bigger than we imagine. It's always wise to count the cost, and ignoring some is not the same as counting them. For instance, if your plan is to save the world, you might need to 1) first conquer it to 2) force everyone back to pre-Industrial-Age conditions. What are you willing to pay from all angles? Count the cost.
13 comments:
And all of this supposes that natural reasons aren't the main and most significant drivers of climate change in the first place. That is, have mankind stop in it's tracks right now, don't breathe, don't fart (especially don't fart), don't do anything, and the impact of that would be as if mankind carried on as usual. Conversely, were man not to exist, there would likely be no discernible difference one way or the other with regard to climate change. It is rather inconceivable that man's significance in affecting the climate could in anyway overcome natural factors, such as this big thing in the sky commonly referred to as "the Sun", and activities constantly occurring on and from it.
I just saw the results of a scientific study that suggests that the best way to deal with CO2 is to plant more trees. For about 3 billion dollars we could plant enough trees to solve the problem. But we won’t hear much about that.
As far as the rest of the technology solutions, as soon as they are competitive with existing tech, people will adopt them. Until then it’s a hard sell to drop 20-30,000 into solar or geothermal (let alone both), when the ROI sucks. Especially since most people won’t be in their homes long enough to realize the break even on the cost.
Yes, Marshal, but that all falls under "climate denial" and I was trying to address the question without necessarily denying the "problem" if it actually exists. "Assuming it exists, you have this problem with your solutions." Also note that a recent film from Michael Moore brings up the same point, and Moore is not a climate denier. That is, "If human-caused climate change is true or not, our solutions are not as efficacious as you might think."
Craig, I saw a Dilbert cartoon about a guy who figured out a device that could take in CO2 and exhaust O2. "It could solve the whole problem!" "Great," the other replied, "you've just invented a tree." The fact is 50% to 85% of our oxygen comes from ocean algae and bacteria. But we won't hear much of that, either.
It is heartening that Japan has stabilized its population--maybe even put it into gentle decline. More countries doing that would be the surest way of reducing pollution and resource depletion. I'm a lone voice in the wilderness calling for government sterilization of homeless and other demographics, I realize. But that, along with discontinuing income tax incentives to have children, is something I long for.
Yeah guys, fire when ready. :-)
I hope and I pray that that was tongue-in-cheek, satire, not serious. I can never really tell with a name like "Anonymous" and my facial expression recognition software on the blink.
Picture two versions of a population-vs-time curve. Both are at 7.7 billion in 2019.
One plateaus at 9 billion by 2100, and by 2200 is gently ramping down toward 1 billion by 2500.
The other climbs to 13 billion by 2100, and crashes steeply thereafter to half a billion.
Which scenario do you think would suggest more human misery?
Why stop at sterilization? Execute the homeless. Then compost them and spread their remains in the forests. Solves several problems at once. And as Stan said, roll back our technology to pre-industrial ages. That will certainly reduce our carbon footprint and the population at the same time, again with the multitasking. Oh, oh, I know, execute all sinners, then only the perfect people will have to worry about the environment. The Earth will be able to be there barren wasteland it was meant to be without human involvement.
I’d hope so as well. Population in many parts of the world is headed towards below replacement levels. In a country like the US which relies on taxing current wage earners to fund SS and Medicare, a low birth rate would be a disaster.
I guess I was being overly optimistic that it was intended as humor. I am pro-life, so killing people is really not a positive in my view.
Most developed nations have dropped below replacement rates. And there are plenty of voices out there calling for the eradication of the human race to save the planet. I'm not in favor of that, but, hey, I'm stuck with my Christian views.
Maybe, Soylent Green.
I know my views are in a tiny minority, and I expected this reaction here. The world by and large is going to go with the policies you say you prefer. I'm realistic about that. May historians judge you to be the wise ones, and me to be the one in error, since you're going to have it your way for at least another century.
It's not the historians' judgment I'm concerned about. It's the Maker's. By the way, whatever projections folks may work out -- in your case, the population curves and the disaster you envision -- do NOT take into account a Maker. I do.
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