ERCOT Urging For Energy Conservation

[Armybrat 41350]

On 7/26/2022 at 10:55 AM, GreenspointTexas said:

Average age of posters on this thread: 72

Yeah, buncha little kids.

[Johnny Sack 8397]

On 7/25/2022 at 3:15 PM, davidg said:

Sweet,  some new vertical reefs would be great now that they've removed most of the rigs that used to be offshore Texas.

Truly one of the dumbest fucking things the government has ever mandated.

[Parliament 14584]

You forget our diisastrous experiment with the metric system in the 1970's.

[Humble Beast 258]

44 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

Truly one of the dumbest fucking things the government has ever mandated.

Reading a book that pretty methodically breaks down how asinine our energy policy is. We are pursuing anti-human policies. Fossil Future by Alex Epstein. 
 

For anybody that’s starting to question what we’re doing they should check it out. 

[Biff Tannen 46103]

1 hour ago, Johnny Sack said:

Truly one of the dumbest fucking things the government has ever mandated.

[Post Oak 20552]

On 7/30/2022 at 10:44 AM, Apep said:

Is it based on South Austin's mom?

 

she doesnt deserve that.  

[Dahobbs 18232]

33 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

Reading a book that pretty methodically breaks down how asinine our energy policy is. We are pursuing anti-human policies. Fossil Future by Alex Epstein. 
 

For anybody that’s starting to question what we’re doing they should check it out. 

This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. 

[Captainant 28468]

35 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

Reading a book that pretty methodically breaks down how asinine our energy policy is. We are pursuing anti-human policies. Fossil Future by Alex Epstein. 
 

For anybody that’s starting to question what we’re doing they should check it out. 

lol he's a lobbyist for the coal and natural gas industries, a former scholar from the cato institute, and was a fellow at the ayn rand institute. He doesn't think climate change is happening, and argues that humans aren't changing our environment with pollution.

Fuck outta here with this continued anti-green energy propaganda shit. It should be both working in conjunction, with a focus on reducing our dependency on energy sources that have such severe negative externalities. Not cheerleading for a "fossil fuel future".

[Humble Beast 258]

36 minutes ago, Captainant said:

lol he's a lobbyist for the coal and natural gas industries, a former scholar from the cato institute, and was a fellow at the ayn rand institute. He doesn't think climate change is happening, and argues that humans aren't changing our environment with pollution.

Fuck outta here with this continued anti-green energy propaganda shit. It should be both working in conjunction, with a focus on reducing our dependency on energy sources that have such severe negative externalities. Not cheerleading for a "fossil fuel future".

Thank you for chiming in. You’re an excellent counter indicator. Hopefully posters take note. I don’t care about his previous jobs. I’m not anti-green energy. I think we should go big on nuclear specifically. 
 

Without going into a full scale debate on the AC thermostat thread, I’ll just say he takes a full context look at climate change and fossil fuel utilization. You only see negatives. With any fossil fuel usage you catastrophize (falsely) any negatives and don’t figure in the huge positives. You also take cues from climate leaders and organizations that have been horribly wrong repeatedly over time.

 

42 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. 

 

I have not yet begun to defile myself. 

Edited August 2, 2022 by Humble Beast

[Captainant 28468]

Just now, Humble Beast said:

Thank you for chiming in. You’re an excellent counter indicator. Hopefully posters take note. I don’t care about his previous jobs. I’m not anti-green energy. I think we should go big on nuclear specifically. 
 

Without going into a full scale debate on the AC thermostat thread, I’ll just say he takes a full context look at climate change and fossil fuel utilization. You only see negatives. With any fossil fuel usage you catastrophize (falsely) any negatives and don’t figure in the huge positives. You also take cues from climate leaders and organizations that have been horribly wrong repeatedly over time.

And I'm saying that you shouldn't take anything he says seriously.

He believes and argues that 1) climate change isn't real, and 2) humans are not changing the environment through burning fossil fuels.

 

No shit fossil fuels are a no-brainer if you ignore the negative externalities of climate change

[Dahobbs 18232]

12 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

Thank you for chiming in. You’re an excellent counter indicator. Hopefully posters take note. I don’t care about his previous jobs. I’m not anti-green energy. I think we should go big on nuclear specifically. 
 

Without going into a full scale debate on the AC thermostat thread, I’ll just say he takes a full context look at climate change and fossil fuel utilization. You only see negatives. With any fossil fuel usage you catastrophize (falsely) any negatives and don’t figure in the huge positives. You also take cues from climate leaders and organizations that have been horribly wrong repeatedly over time.

 

 

I have not yet begun to defile myself. 

Most of that book is pure misinformation. For instance, he has a whole section on global cooling concern and how it proves current science on global warming must be wrong. He ignores that global cooling was a minority position among client scientists and driven by factors that we worked to control.   He suggests that climate models have been inaccurate and therefore cannot be relied upon, which isn't true. In fact, climate models in fact did predicate the brief period of global cooling driven largely by aerosols (e.g., smog). He confuses net zero carbon emissions for zero carbon emissions (and thus zero fossil fuels). And his book is full of drivel like this: 

"there is a real, live, committed movement against fossil fuels that truly wants to deprive us of the energy of life."

"“I believe that we owe the fossil fuel industry an apology. While the industry has been producing the energy to make our climate more liveable, we have treated it as a villain. We owe it the kind of gratitude that we owe anyone who makes our lives much, much better.”

“Not only can our way of life last; it can keep getting better and better, as long as we don’t adopt ‘sustainability’ policies”

At any rate, this is all off-topic so I'll bow out. 

[Dahobbs 18232]

38 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Most of that book is pure misinformation. For instance, he has a whole section on global cooling concern and how it proves current science on global warming must be wrong. He ignores that global cooling was a minority position among client scientists and driven by factors that we worked to control.   He suggests that climate models have been inaccurate and therefore cannot be relied upon, which isn't true. In fact, climate models in fact did predicate the brief period of global cooling driven largely by aerosols (e.g., smog). He confuses net zero carbon emissions for zero carbon emissions (and thus zero fossil fuels). And his book is full of drivel like this: 

"there is a real, live, committed movement against fossil fuels that truly wants to deprive us of the energy of life."

"“I believe that we owe the fossil fuel industry an apology. While the industry has been producing the energy to make our climate more liveable, we have treated it as a villain. We owe it the kind of gratitude that we owe anyone who makes our lives much, much better.”

“Not only can our way of life last; it can keep getting better and better, as long as we don’t adopt ‘sustainability’ policies”

At any rate, this is all off-topic so I'll bow out. 

predict. Not predicate. I don't know if that is stupid autocorrect or auto-brain. Could be either. 

[Post Oak 20552]

Why the High Plains turns off its turbines to limit wind production while the Texas power grid is stressed

 

While wind farms in the region could help power and lower energy costs for at least 9 million homes, significant infrastructure upgrades would be needed to supply electricity from the region to other parts of the state.

 

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/02/texas-high-plains-wind-energy/amp/

[Brisketexan 106809]

27 minutes ago, Post Oak said:

Why the High Plains turns off its turbines to limit wind production while the Texas power grid is stressed

 

While wind farms in the region could help power and lower energy costs for at least 9 million homes, significant infrastructure upgrades would be needed to supply electricity from the region to other parts of the state.

 

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/02/texas-high-plains-wind-energy/amp/

 

 

Man, in another life, I knew Michael really well.  He knows his stuff.  This is a nice clean summary para on the issue.

Quote

“Because there’s not enough transmission to move it where it’s needed, ERCOT has to throttle back the [wind] generators,” energy lawyer Michael Jewell said. “They actually tell the wind generators to stop generating electricity. It gets to the point where [wind farm operators] literally have to disengage the generators entirely and stop them from doing anything.”

We have a lot of great generation that can give us a lot more available capacity in tight times.  But if we don't have adequate transmission, it don't make a shit.  Grow all the potatoes you want in Promisedland.  If you can't get them to me in Hungryville, I'm still hungry.  

[Humble Beast 258]

2 hours ago, Captainant said:

And I'm saying that you shouldn't take anything he says seriously.

He believes and argues that 1) climate change isn't real, and 2) humans are not changing the environment through burning fossil fuels.

 

No shit fossil fuels are a no-brainer if you ignore the negative externalities of climate change

He doesn’t go hard against climate change. He just believes that whatever changes happen we manage them. He cites decreased climate related deaths and air pollution as supporting examples. 
 

Again he’s aware of acknowledges there are downsides, but argues they pale in comparison to the positives for the global population. 
 

2 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

Most of that book is pure misinformation. For instance, he has a whole section on global cooling concern and how it proves current science on global warming must be wrong. He ignores that global cooling was a minority position among client scientists and driven by factors that we worked to control.   He suggests that climate models have been inaccurate and therefore cannot be relied upon, which isn't true. In fact, climate models in fact did predicate the brief period of global cooling driven largely by aerosols (e.g., smog). He confuses net zero carbon emissions for zero carbon emissions (and thus zero fossil fuels). And his book is full of drivel like this: 

"there is a real, live, committed movement against fossil fuels that truly wants to deprive us of the energy of life."

"“I believe that we owe the fossil fuel industry an apology. While the industry has been producing the energy to make our climate more liveable, we have treated it as a villain. We owe it the kind of gratitude that we owe anyone who makes our lives much, much better.”

“Not only can our way of life last; it can keep getting better and better, as long as we don’t adopt ‘sustainability’ policies”

At any rate, this is all off-topic so I'll bow out. 

I’m walking through school shopping so I don’t have to time to pull up the specific cooling sections or what you claim he said about models, but there are plenty of examples of wildly wrong predictions by heavily cited experts. Also policy prescriptions that, if undertaken at the time, would’ve seriously stunted modern civilization. 
 

The other stuff listed isn’t misinformation as much as it’s opinions you disagree with. Utilization of fossil fuels is by far the #1 factor that has driven the advancement of our civilization. It’s not even close.

[Dahobbs 18232]

21 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

He doesn’t go hard against climate change. He just believes that whatever changes happen we manage them. He cites decreased climate related deaths and air pollution as supporting examples. 
 

Again he’s aware of acknowledges there are downsides, but argues they pale in comparison to the positives for the global population. 
 

I’m walking through school shopping so I don’t have to time to pull up the specific cooling sections or what you claim he said about models, but there are plenty of examples of wildly wrong predictions by heavily cited experts. Also policy prescriptions that, if undertaken at the time, would’ve seriously stunted modern civilization. 
 

The other stuff listed isn’t misinformation as much as it’s opinions you disagree with. Utilization of fossil fuels is by far the #1 factor that has driven the advancement of our civilization. It’s not even close.

Happy to take this to cloak room and detail the facts and where he misrepresents them. It is an extensive listing. 

[Captainant 28468]

2 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

Happy to take this to cloak room and detail the facts and where he misrepresents them. It is an extensive listing. 

Lol GRUvibes doesn't want to post his propoganda where people will actually challenge it, he tires from making sock after sock after the community invites him to fuck off

[Brisketexan 106809]

2 hours ago, Humble Beast said:

but there are plenty of examples of wildly wrong predictions by heavily cited experts.

This is perhaps the method of argument I love the most.  There are many occasions where "heavily cited experts" have been wrong about their predictions.  That's true, by the way.  But what I love is the conclusion it points to -- therefore, we should disregard the vast weight of authority of experts in the field on this issue, because experts have been wrong before.

Let's do that exact same exercise with pilots.  There are many occasions where "heavily trained pilots" have crashed the fuck out of their planes.  That's absolutely true (in fact, almost all plane crashes involve trained pilots).  Therefore, we should disregard the vast weight of authority in the trained pilot community when they say "if you are experiencing a stall, resist the temptation to pull up -- do whatever it takes to gain speed and restore lift," because trained pilots have been wrong before.  GRU wants you to ignore that stall warning, and pull back on the stick -- who are you gonna listen to, some egghead trained pilot?  When most every plane crash has involved a trained pilot?  You dumb sheeple.

[Parliament 14584]

2 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

Happy to take this to cloak room and detail the facts and where he misrepresents them. It is an extensive listing. 

Please do.

[Humble Beast 258]

2 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

Happy to take this to cloak room and detail the facts and where he misrepresents them. It is an extensive listing. 

life is much better outside the CR. There’s been much more intensive debates between you and Porterhouse on this thread. That said, if you want to drop it here that’s fine. We’ll just have to agree to disagree. 
 

39 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

This is perhaps the method of argument I love the most.  There are many occasions where "heavily cited experts" have been wrong about their predictions.  That's true, by the way.  But what I love is the conclusion it points to -- therefore, we should disregard the vast weight of authority of experts in the field on this issue, because experts have been wrong before.

Let's do that exact same exercise with pilots.  There are many occasions where "heavily trained pilots" have crashed the fuck out of their planes.  That's absolutely true (in fact, almost all plane crashes involve trained pilots).  Therefore, we should disregard the vast weight of authority in the trained pilot community when they say "if you are experiencing a stall, resist the temptation to pull up -- do whatever it takes to gain speed and restore lift," because trained pilots have been wrong before.  GRU wants you to ignore that stall warning, and pull back on the stick -- who are you gonna listen to, some egghead trained pilot?  When most every plane crash has involved a trained pilot?  You dumb sheeple.

What a tortured, useless analogy. Great job. 
 

 

 

[Brisketexan 106809]

6 minutes ago, Humble Beast said:

What a tortured, useless analogy. Great job. 

Then do tell, what was the point of your statement below?

3 hours ago, Humble Beast said:

there are plenty of examples of wildly wrong predictions by heavily cited experts.

I mean, I know your answer will be a pathetically disingenuous lie (the truth is exactly what I posted, and every human being with double-digit or better IQ points knows it), but hell, I kinda wanna see it written down, just for shits and giggles.  Lay it out for us, man.

[Biff Tannen 46103]

4 hours ago, Humble Beast said:

Utilization of fossil fuels is by far the #1 factor that has driven the advancement of our civilization. It’s not even close.

Cool.  So let's just roll with it going forward instead of paying attention to the decades of data and consequences right in front of our very eyes.

[atomheartbevo 90598]

7 hours ago, Humble Beast said:

Utilization of fossil fuels is by far the #1 factor that has driven the advancement of our civilization. It’s not even close.

Pornography.

Pushed companies in the 1980s to produce better and better computers to store and watch EGA and VGA pornography.

Pushed companies to produce monitors with 256 colors and 1024 x 768 resolution to make pornography look better.

Pushed companies to produce lightweight LCD displays so that people were no longer lugging 30-pound CRT displays into the bathroom to masturbate in peace.

Pushed the adaption of wireless networking so that Ethernet or Token Ring cables didn't have to be strung under the bathroom door.

Pushed companies (IBM and Apple) to produce laptops that weighed under 15 pounds and had more than 5 minutes of battery life, that could be lugged into the bathroom for peaceful masturbation.

Pushed the adaption of the CD-ROM drive to distribute larger amounts of porn.

Pushed the adaption of high-speed modems, and later broadband, to help people download more and more pornography.

Pushed companies to produce larger and larger hard drives to store pornography.

Pushed companies to produce large solid-state based drives to not only store pornography in a much more safe and reliable manner (no moving parts!), but also to access said pornography almost instantly.

Pushed the adaption of DVDs to store and distribute even more pornography.

Pushed the adaption of Blu-ray to distribution high-resolution pornography.

Pushed companies to produce smaller and better digital cameras (complete with HD video) which simplified pornography production while still maintaining high fidelity in terms of image quality.

Pushed companies to produce smaller and better smartphones with better and better cameras to allow anybody to produce pornography on the spot with a very high quality.

Pushed companies to produce thinner, high-resolution tablets to make bathroom pornography viewing even better.

Pushed adaption of gigabit/fiber broadband to allow for the consumption of massive amounts of 4K pornography.

And the list goes on.

[Post Oak 20552]

20 hours ago, Humble Beast said:

 

 

 

I have not yet begun to defile myself. 

Ok. I think you're completely wrong on this subject, but this reply is outstanding and totally in the spirit of Surly.  well done..  

[Nivek 17391]

19 hours ago, Post Oak said:

Why the High Plains turns off its turbines to limit wind production while the Texas power grid is stressed

 

While wind farms in the region could help power and lower energy costs for at least 9 million homes, significant infrastructure upgrades would be needed to supply electricity from the region to other parts of the state.

 

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/02/texas-high-plains-wind-energy/amp/

 

why are we not building the infrastructure to...ohhhh....

[Nivek 17391]

21 hours ago, Humble Beast said:

 I think we should go big on nuclear specifically.

Nuclear is the fiscal responsibility (or socially liberal, fiscally conservative, if you will) of energy. 

[Humble Beast 258]

13 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Then do tell, what was the point of your statement below?

I mean, I know your answer will be a pathetically disingenuous lie (the truth is exactly what I posted, and every human being with double-digit or better IQ points knows it), but hell, I kinda wanna see it written down, just for shits and giggles.  Lay it out for us, man.

Ok. I’ll spoiler it to keep thread from going off rails. 
 

Spoiler

Some of the experts cited in the book and their quotes/predictions. This are all just copy pasted. Anything from me is bolded.

Paul Ehrlich, an ecologist long-based at Stanford University who has written and spoken for over fifty years on fossil fuels, authoring bestselling books and winning what has been called the Nobel Prize of environmentalism, the Crafoord Prize.
 

Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ehrlich predicted that resource depletion, including fossil fuel depletion, plus an increasing population would lead to a “population bomb” and mass starvation unless dramatic government measures were taken. In 1971, Ehrlich said, “By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people,”[14] and in 1974, he wrote, “America’s economic joyride is coming to an end: there will be no more cheap, abundant energy, no more cheap, abundant food.”

 

Ehrlich predicted in 1970 that worsening “air pollution . . . is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”

 

The story was the same in the realm of water quality. According to Ehrlich in 1970: “The oceans will be as dead as Lake Erie in less than a decade.” And “America will be subject to water rationing by 1974.”

 

For example, Paul Ehrlich wrote in 1971: “Power companies should be forbidden to encourage people to use more power. Power is much too cheap. It should certainly be made more expensive.”

 

John Holdren, an ecologist and frequent collaborator with Ehrlich, who has written and spoken about fossil fuels with enormous influence for nearly fifty years. During the Obama administration, Holdren was the chief science adviser to the president, illustrating his long-standing expert status.

 

John Holdren, President Barack Obama’s top science adviser, had a particularly dire prediction, according to close collaborator Paul Ehrlich in 1986: “As University of California physicist John Holdren has said, it is possible that carbon-dioxide climate-induced famines could kill as many as a billion people before the year 2020.”

 

A 1975 opinion piece by Holdren titled “Too Much Energy, Too Soon, a Hazard” explained: “The United States is threatened far more by the hazards of too much energy, too soon, than by the hazards of too little, too late.”
 

For example, the ever-influential Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren in the 1970s opposed plans for spreading industrial agriculture due to their use of fossil fuels. They noted: Most plans for modernizing agriculture in less-developed nations call for introducing energy-intensive practices similar to those used in North America and western Europe—greatly increased use of fertilizers and other farm chemicals, tractors and other machinery, irrigation, and supporting transportation networks—all of which require large inputs of fossil fuels.[6] Instead, they advocated “much greater use of human labor and relatively less dependence on heavy machinery and manufactured fertilizers and pesticides.” That is, an unempowered life. Such a life, they argued, “causes far less environmental damage than does energy-intensive Western agriculture.” 
 

James Hansen, arguably the most influential climate scientist ever. Hansen rose to international prominence in 1988 when he testified in front of Congress and declared himself “99 percent certain” about man-made global warming, now more commonly referred to as “climate change.”

 

Take James Hansen, arguably the most influential designated expert on climate science. Here’s a 1986 New York Times story about a prediction by him: Dr. James E. Hansen of the Goddard Space Flight Center’s Institute for Space Studies said research by his institute showed that because of the “greenhouse effect” that results when gases prevent heat from escaping the earth’s atmosphere, global temperatures would rise early in the next century. . . . Average global temperatures would rise by one-half a degree to one degree Fahrenheit [0.28–0.56°C] from 1990 to 2000 if current trends are unchanged, according to Dr. Hansen’s findings. Dr. Hansen said the global temperature would rise by another 2 to 4 degrees [1.11–2.22°C] in the following decade.

 

In 2012, James Hansen penned an op-ed for The Washington Post where he announced, “Climate change is here—and worse than we thought.”[29] After patting himself on the back for having warned us “of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet,” he declared, “I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic.” This is the same James Hansen who publicly overpredicted warming by more than a factor of three.
 

Bill McKibben, another influential popularizer of catastrophic climate change, whose 1989 book, The End of Nature, won acclaim as “the first book on global warming written for a general audience.”[26] Called “the nation’s leading environmentalist,”[27] McKibben has led much of the modern anti-fossil fuel movement, including the movement against fossil fuels in the corporate and financial worlds.

 

According to Bill McKibben in 2009, “Every time we thought we understood something about climate, the truth has turned out to be worse than we thought.”[30] And seven years later, “The numbers on global warming are even scarier than we thought.”[31] This is the same Bill McKibben who wrote in 1989 that “a few more decades of ungoverned fossil-fuel use and we burn up, to put it bluntly” and “the choice of doing nothing—of continuing to burn ever more oil and coal—is not a choice, in other words. It will lead us, if not straight to hell, then straight to a place with a similar temperature.”

 

In 1998 Bill McKibben endorsed a scenario of outlawing 60 percent of fossil fuel use to slow catastrophic climate change, even though that would mean, in his words, that each human being would get to produce 1.69 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually—which would allow you to drive an average American car nine miles a day. By the time the population increased to 8.5 billion, in about 2025, you’d be down to six miles a day. If you carpooled, you’d have about three pounds of CO2 left in your daily ration—enough to run a highly efficient refrigerator. Forget your computer, your TV, your stereo, your stove, your dishwasher, your water heater, your microwave, your water pump, your clock. Forget your light bulbs, compact fluorescent or not.

 

Amory Lovins, an energy and environmental theorist who has been designated as a go-to expert by leading news sources for over forty years and has advised major businesses and governments in more than sixty-five countries.[
 

In 1977 Amory Lovins explained that we already used too much energy. And in particular, the kind of energy we least needed was . . . electricity, which became the foundation of the digital revolution: “[W]e don’t need any more big electric generating stations. We already have about twice as much electricity as we can use to advantage.”

 

For example, Lovins, who today argues that solar and wind can easily replace fossil fuels, wrote in 1976: “Recent research suggests that a largely or wholly solar economy can be constructed in the United States with straightforward soft technologies that are now demonstrated and now economic or nearly economic.”
 

Re: talk of potential fusion in 80s-90s

Amory Lovins was already on record as saying, “It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.”

Al Gore, the most influential popularizer of catastrophic climate change. While not a scientist himself, Gore has been cited by leading news sources as an accurate vessel about the state of climate science and its implications for policy. He was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work warning the world about catastrophic climate change, including the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, likely the most influential commentary on fossil fuels in the modern era.

 

Al Gore, in an extremely popular 2008 address, claiming to be relying on the best expert knowledge, called to mandate 100 percent renewable electricity by 2018—meaning that fossil fuels for electricity would be outlawed.
 

Gore celebrated the allegedly amazing progress of renewables and said we could “end our dependence on oil and use the renewable sources that can give us the equivalent of $1 per gallon gasoline.”
 

If the IPCC is talking about a few feet per century, why do we hear about scary sea level rises, like the twenty feet described in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth? Gore’s claim was based on the hypothetical of if “Greenland broke up and melted, or if half of Greenland and half of West Antarctica broke up and melted.”[17] While this was portrayed as imminent, in reality even the extreme projections of melting only reach Gore-like levels after centuries or millennia.

 

Ok, back to me. 
 

To his credit Epstein acknowledges that these experts do not represent the consensus, but because of their bold, attention grabbing claims they are amplified and have an outsized influence on public opinion and policy.
 

This can even be seen in the UN IPCC report. The UN head called it a “Code Red for Humanity”.

What it actually said in sections. 

On drought: “There is low confidence that human influence has affected trends in meteorological droughts in most regions . . .”
On storms: “There is low confidence in most reported long-term (multidecadal to centennial) trends in [hurricane] frequency- or intensity-based metrics . . .”
On floods: “In summary there is low confidence in the human influence on the changes in high river flows on the global scale. Confidence is in general low in attributing changes in the probability or magnitude of flood events to human influence . . .”

 

In summary, negatives amplified, positives ignored. 

 

[dcar00 14912]

1 hour ago, Nivek said:

Nuclear is the fiscal responsibility (or socially liberal, fiscally conservative, if you will) of energy. 

Jane Fonda, always fucking up everything...

[Brisketexan 106809]

12 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

Jane Fonda, always fucking up everything...

Damn fine pithy way to put it.

[Foosters 18263]

Anti-vax and climate change denial. Nice combo fuckface 

[Dahobbs 18232]

Of course, we are going to the fallacy of if a problem was predicted to occur and didn't happen, then it must not have been real in the first place irrespective of actions taken to avoid the problem (also, air pollution most assuredly contributes to millions of deaths worldwide every year, so Ehrlich's prediction extremely underplayed the actual danger, e.g., https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution). 

Great article on this thinking: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/07/past-environmental-threats-didnt-just-disappear/
 

Quote

 

Past environmental threats didn’t just disappear

It's disturbingly common for people to say solved problems were never problems.

Conservative political commentator Matt Walsh took to Twitter last Wednesday to say that the widely held belief that humans are causing climate change is, in fact, a crock. The podcaster and Daily Wire columnist apparently knows this because previous environmental issues we were concerned about in the past—namely acid rain and holes in the ozone layer—disappeared, never to be heard about again.

“Remember when they spent years telling us to panic over the hole in the ozone layer and then suddenly just stopped talking about it and nobody ever mentioned the ozone layer again?” Walsh tweeted. “This was also back during the time when they scared school children into believing that "acid rain" was a real and urgent threat,” Walsh tweeted again.

It’s true that you don’t hear much about acid rain anymore, and discussions about humanity’s long-standing propensity to metaphorically kick the planet in the groin have largely moved away from the ozone layer to newer, flashier issues like sea level rise, rising global temperatures, and mass species die-offs served with a side of ecosystem collapse. (Although, if you know where to look, you can still find mention of the ozone hole.)

One could, as Walsh does, take this to mean that acid rain and holes in the ozone layer simply went away on their own and were thus never anything to worry about—and that, by extension, current fears about climate change are similarly misplaced.

This would be the wrong way to take things. Ozone layer holes and acid rain have actually been dealt with in many parts of the world. In these two cases, efforts to combat environmental issues have worked. Well, mostly, at least.

Acid rain is produced when various chemicals like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are emitted into the atmosphere, usually by the burning of fossil fuels, emissions from vehicles, and manufacturing and other industries. The airborne compounds mix with water and fall to the ground as low-pH rain, harming various species and corroding metals and other materials humans use for buildings.

In many areas around the world, especially those in which coal was used to generate electricity, acid rain caused serious problems. In the US and other areas, it's no longer an issue only because various governments around the world took action.

The US Congress updated and strengthened emission regulations in 1990 and, by 2003, the amount of sulfur dioxide raining down had decreased—by 40 percent in the northeastern US, for instance. Between 1990 and 2019, the US saw a 93 percent reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions. Similar regulations also popped up in Europe, and international agreements were negotiated in an effort to curb the issue. In 2002, The Economist called the fight against acid rain “the greatest green success story of the past decade.” Acid rain is still an issue, just not as much of one.

. . . 

More in the link. 

 

[FartingMonk 3613]

59 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Of course, we are going to the fallacy of if a problem was predicted to occur and didn't happen, then it must not have been real in the first place irrespective of actions taken to avoid the problem (also, air pollution most assuredly contributes to millions of deaths worldwide every year, so Ehrlich's prediction extremely underplayed the actual danger, e.g., https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution). 

Great article on this thinking: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/07/past-environmental-threats-didnt-just-disappear/
 

 

I've always laughed at that argument when people go see.  They predicted that and it didn't happen so they were wrong.  Rachel Carson's Silent Spring very well may have happened if we didn't start changing our ways.  Hell, go to a big city in India or China and that's what cities in the US would look like if we didn't start imposing changes.  But on the flip side we can't just say get rid of it all now unless we want to sit in the dark.

 

The transmission issue is actually really easy to solve.  Fuck the feasibility studies.  Just fucking build.  Now why we put so many wind mills in the middle of nowhere before we were able to utilize it is another question to be asked.  Why build so much before asking if you can make it profitable.  Idle wind farms have to make money somehow right?

[Brisketexan 106809]

10 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

Now why we put so many wind mills in the middle of nowhere before we were able to utilize it is another question to be asked.  Why build so much before asking if you can make it profitable.  Idle wind farms have to make money somehow right?

Various credits (tax, etc.).  We set up a system to incentivize green generation without that system making adequate provision for ensuring that the power can get to market (there are some transmission elements in those incentives, but clearly not enough).  Half-policies can lead to such results.  A comprehensive, unified approach to energy and our grid would be better.

But we won't do that.

[Dahobbs 18232]

11 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

I've always laughed at that argument when people go see.  They predicted that and it didn't happen so they were wrong.  Rachel Carson's Silent Spring very well may have happened if we didn't start changing our ways.  Hell, go to a big city in India or China and that's what cities in the US would look like if we didn't start imposing changes.  But on the flip side we can't just say get rid of it all now unless we want to sit in the dark.

 

The transmission issue is actually really easy to solve.  Fuck the feasibility studies.  Just fucking build.  Now why we put so many wind mills in the middle of nowhere before we were able to utilize it is another question to be asked.  Why build so much before asking if you can make it profitable.  Idle wind farms have to make money somehow right?

Yup. Agree with this. As much as we hate it in Texas, this is why public utilities do need a lot of regulation. Improvements in transmission have to be made or mandated by the state. Maybe this requiring new facilities to either help build out new transmission as part of project approval (something you see all the time with new neighborhood builds in cities for instance). But obviously that cost can't be entirely on the new facility, so we also need a way to either better incentivize construction or increase our use of public funds for transmission. 

[David Dennison 19446]

22 hours ago, Humble Beast said:

Utilization of fossil fuels is by far the #1 factor that has driven the advancement of our civilization. It’s not even close.

It's probably going to be the #1 factor that causes our civilization to collapse.

 

Edited August 3, 2022 by David Dennison

[Js1 87118]

1 hour ago, FartingMonk said:

I've always laughed at that argument when people go see.  They predicted that and it didn't happen so they were wrong.  Rachel Carson's Silent Spring very well may have happened if we didn't start changing our ways.  Hell, go to a big city in India or China and that's what cities in the US would look like if we didn't start imposing changes.  But on the flip side we can't just say get rid of it all now unless we want to sit in the dark.

I truly enjoyed being choked to death by pollution in Delhi and Mumbai after being outside for about 7 minutes. 

[Brisketexan 106809]

1 hour ago, FartingMonk said:

I've always laughed at that argument when people go see.  They predicted that and it didn't happen so they were wrong.  Rachel Carson's Silent Spring very well may have happened if we didn't start changing our ways.  Hell, go to a big city in India or China and that's what cities in the US would look like if we didn't start imposing changes.  But on the flip side we can't just say get rid of it all now unless we want to sit in the dark.

Hell, we could just sign this "someone who grew up on the Texas coast and never saw a sea turtle or brown pelican, or came in from the beach without having to clean tar off his feet, till he was an adult."  That someone being me.

Many of our environmental changes have had huge positive effects.  The ones above are just about the Clean Water Act and getting rid of DDT here in the US.  I could talk about the differences in air quality between American cities and foreign cities (in Buenos Aires, things like metal bed frames had to be cleaned weekly, as they got a black residue from all the diesel and car exhaust fumes in the area - in my folks' nice apartment in a nice part of town.  That was all going into our lungs, too.)

Yes, burning fossil fuels has been a shortcut to some of our prosperity.  That shortcut has some significant additional costs.  So maybe we should re-evaluate the ACTUAL cost of fossil fuels, and look to get our energy in other ways.  I mean, slavery was a helluva shortcut to prosperity.  Sure as hell made the economy in the CSA work and be profitable.  But, you know.....it had some other actual costs that maybe we shoulda considered earlier in the game?

[PTINS 3492]

27 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Various credits (tax, etc.).  We set up a system to incentivize green generation without that system making adequate provision for ensuring that the power can get to market (there are some transmission elements in those incentives, but clearly not enough).  Half-policies can lead to such results.  A comprehensive, unified approach to energy and our grid would be better.

But we won't do that.

This.

Build subsidized renewables in the middle of nowhere,

generate stranded energy production,

earn renewable tax credits,

use renewable profits to drill oil & gas wells, make money on fossil fuels,

use renewable tax credits to offset fossil fuel profits.

The end result is investment in part time renewable production results in full time and "Tax free" fossil fuel production.

43 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Yup. Agree with this. As much as we hate it in Texas, this is why public utilities do need a lot of regulation. Improvements in transmission have to be made or mandated by the state. Maybe this requiring new facilities to either help build out new transmission as part of project approval (something you see all the time with new neighborhood builds in cities for instance). But obviously that cost can't be entirely on the new facility, so we also need a way to either better incentivize construction or increase our use of public funds for transmission. 

The biggest issue in Texas is the land is ~ 98% privately owned with very little government land available. High voltage transmission lines can only be constructed using condemnation and emminent domain; nobody wants transmission lines across their property, or anywhere close.

As bad as cross country oil and gas pipelines can be, most of the "damages" are a result of construction and the surface area of the right-of-way still can be used for farming and ranching and hunting in a somewhat "normal" manner.  A 500 kv transmission line ROW is much wider, much less aesthetically pleasing, and damn near useless for anything other than its intended purpose.  I don't even want to walk under the lower voltage lines.

For those of you familiar with climate change studies:  Do they consider roadways, parking lots and concrete buildings and structures? 

That "city" heat was really driven home at the late season baseball games. Disch-Falk was hot as F**K; chairs under the overhang in the shade were still hotter than my body heat well after dark.  That mass of concrete we call DKR, midday in September after 80+ days in 100F sunshine, is going to be brutal.

Appreciate the varied opinions on a complex subject.  I though energy was the biggest issue facing us a graduating engineer in 1979 and it is worse now given the population growth and the multiple layers of politics that impact it. 

Thermostat settings? Be smart, and considerate, for someone besides yourself. 

[elfenix 34682]

the swiss built a big pumped storage facility re-using existing dam infrastructure that can hold a shit ton of energy.

Quote

With a storage capacity of 20 million kWh of electricity, it is hoped the water battery will play a significant role in stabilising Switzerland and Europe’s energy grids.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/06/30/enormous-water-battery-in-switzerland-will-help-prevent-power-shortages

 

uses a new GE variable speed turbine to be able to operate rapidly:

Quote

"With a fixed speed turbine, you have to wait until the power plant is running at exactly the right speed to be synchronized to the grid," says Radue, adding that this wastes time and energy. Variable speed turbines supply electricity to the grid immediately so there's less risk of blackouts

and there's a bunch of places where this type of storage could be built

Quote

Pumped storage hydropower could provide energy security outside of Europe, too: Blakers and his team have identified around 600,000 potential sites for closed loop systems -- although just 1% of these would be needed to meet total global energy storage needs, he adds.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/01/world/water-battery-switzerland-renewable-energy-climate-scn-hnk-spc-intl/index.html

[Brisketexan 106809]

1 minute ago, elfenix said:

and there's a bunch of places where this type of storage could be built

Very few of them are in Texas.

Pumped hydro requires relatively steep topography (think the highland lakes vs. flat and shallow E. Texas lakes).  They can hold a chunk of water covering a relatively small footprint, and have sufficient depth to push the water through with sufficient force to spin turbines (at least, that's my understanding).

In Texas, the places where we could do that don't have enough water.  And the places with enough water are too flat (E. Texas).

[utee94 16077]

I loved the idea of pumped storage hydropower from the first time I read about it.  Obviously it works better in certain locations than others, given the local topography and climate, but it's a really, really clever solution.

[utee94 16077]

4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Very few of them are in Texas.

Pumped hydro requires relatively steep topography (think the highland lakes vs. flat and shallow E. Texas lakes).  They can hold a chunk of water covering a relatively small footprint, and have sufficient depth to push the water through with sufficient force to spin turbines (at least, that's my understanding).

In Texas, the places where we could do that don't have enough water.  And the places with enough water are too flat (E. Texas).

Yeah I didn't read that as a suggestion specifically for Texas-- aside from topography and rain, temperature is another major adversary.  The lakes can lose a foot of water per week, or more, during high summer.

But it's a clever solution and the kind of thinking that will be necessary to address our future power needs in total.

Edited August 3, 2022 by utee94

[Nicole44 22207]

I just came here to say fuck China as being the world’s biggest polluter and contributor to climate issues and change and destructor of the world. More than the US, India, Russia (fuck them with a pogo stick) and Japan combined. Doesn’t mean US can’t and shouldn’t do what it can. But fuck China. China is the biggest culprit by far and wont do fuck all about it. 
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-china-climate-change-biggest-carbon-polluters/

if that link isn’t surly worthy (acceptable to all) I’ll find another one on my job break. But China can get fucked. I’m still in Atlanta so I hope like hell for all of you in Texas and my entire family that the grid holds. Damn. Fuck China.

Edited August 3, 2022 by Nicole44

[FartingMonk 3613]

17 minutes ago, utee94 said:

Yeah I didn't read that as a suggestion specifically for Texas-- aside from topography and rain, temperature is another major adversary.  The lakes can lose a foot of water per week, or more, during high summer.

But it's a clever solution and the kind of thinking that will be necessary to address our future power needs in total.

Nah.  Hydro is done solution.  Benefits are good.  But the bad aspects with wildlife are bad.  With our water not ever going back up.  Not really feasible 

[FartingMonk 3613]

10 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

I just came here to say fuck China as being the world’s biggest polluter and contributor to climate issues and change and destructor of the world. More than the US, India, Russia (fuck them with a pogo stick) and Japan combined. Doesn’t mean US can’t and shouldn’t do what it can. But fuck China. China is the biggest culprit by far and wont do fuck all about it. 
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-china-climate-change-biggest-carbon-polluters/

if that link isn’t surly worthy (acceptable to all) I’ll find another one on my job break. But China can get fucked. I’m still in Atlanta so I hope like hell for all of you in Texas and my entire family that the grid holds. Damn. Fuck China.

Is it really China though?  We have learned to shift the blame.  Chinese manufacturing is the cause of a lot of pollution but it's because we have shifted from our backyard.  The shit they produce isn't consumed by them.  It is by us.  Just like the drugs.  It isn't the Colombians who snort it.  It is by us.  We just shift the blame on them.  

[Nicole44 22207]

3 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

Is it really China though?  We have learned to shift the blame.  Chinese manufacturing is the cause of a lot of pollution but it's because we have shifted from our backyard.  The shit they produce isn't consumed by them.  It is by us.  Just like the drugs.  It isn't the Colombians who snort it.  It is by us.  We just shift the blame on them.  

It is a lot of their fault. 22-25 major cities of theirs are the largest polluters and I guarantee they don't take a responsibility nor a world view other than wanting to dominate it. I realize most blame America for everything and that is where it stops for them. Blame America for all of it. We do bear responsibility for quite a bit but not everything is our fault. Its like blame America and if all else fails blame America. China sucks. 

[Brisketexan 106809]

1 minute ago, Nicole44 said:

It is a lot of their fault. 22-25 major cities of theirs are the largest polluters and I guarantee they don't take a responsibility nor a world view other than wanting to dominate it. I realize most blame America for everything and that is where it stops for them. Blame America for all of it. We do bear responsibility for quite a bit but not everything is our fault. Its like blame America and if all else fails blame America. China sucks. 

Maybe it does.

But consider the fact that in terms of modernization, China is where the US was 25-50 years ago.  Step back in a time machine and look at what American manufacturing and power generation looked like in, say, the 60s:

 

In a lot of respects, China is doing exactly what we did at the same stage of development, albeit with the knowledge of today regarding the harmful effect on the environment.  But we used plentiful, cheap coal to rev up our economy, damn the consequences.  China is doing, in large part.....exactly what we did.  I ain't excusing a shitload of stuff that China pulls, but in terms of energy consumption at a particular stage of development, we maybe aren't in the best position to throw stones.

[Nicole44 22207]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

Maybe it does.

But consider the fact that in terms of modernization, China is where the US was 25-50 years ago.  Step back in a time machine and look at what American manufacturing and power generation looked like in, say, the 60s:

 

In a lot of respects, China is doing exactly what we did at the same stage of development, albeit with the knowledge of today regarding the harmful effect on the environment.  But we used plentiful, cheap coal to rev up our economy, damn the consequences.  China is doing, in large part.....exactly what we did.  I ain't excusing a shitload of stuff that China pulls, but in terms of energy consumption at a particular stage of development, we maybe aren't in the best position to throw stones.

I understand. But getting their cooperation is key in the future. Just obviously not with their current or even future leader(s). That is a big deal. Japan will work with us. Russia won't. Maybe getting some help from India. But my sympathy level for them being behind us and doing what we did is very slight. Ketchup or fuck off the planet. Lol. It is like countries around for thousands of years cannot be expected to pull their own weight or something. And yes, the excuses are there. We are doing things and can do more and they aren't and likely never will. Big difference. Just because we have problems and create problems doesn't mean we can't call out other countries. We should. This isn't some Biblical deal where if you are a sinner you can't call out the other sinners. There are people that genuinely have a hard time calling out anyone but the US and that's bullshit. Their shit sucks too and they deserve to hear about it as do other countries whether they are still in their infancy or not. Just my two cents. They are a massive contributor to climate change and they either join or they can answer for it.

[Biff Tannen 46103]

China does suck.  As does India.  As does the US.  That said, the US has a responsibility to lead, as the "leader of the free world", if we are truly that anymore.  A coalition of the US and most of Europe can throw some weight around when it comes to global policy.

[Brisketexan 106809]

Just now, Nicole44 said:

I understand. But getting their cooperation is key in the future. Just obviously not with their current or even future leader(s). That is a big deal. Japan will work with us. Russia won't. Maybe getting some help from India. But my sympathy level for them being behind us and doing what we did is very slight. Ketchup or fuck off the planet. Lol. It is like countries around for thousands of years cannot be expected to pull their own weight or something. And yes, the excuses are there. We are doing things and can do more and they aren't and likely never will. Big difference. Just because we have problems and create problems doesn't mean we can't call out other countries. We should. This isn't some Biblical deal where if you are a sinner you can't call out the other sinners. There are people that genuinely have a hard time calling out anyone but the US and that's bullshit. Their shit sucks too and they deserve to hear about it as do other countries whether they are still in their infancy or not. Just my two cents. They are a massive contributor to climate change and they either join or they can answer for it.

I agree that getting China's cooperation (almost certainly under a future regime) is important.  But if you aren't coercing it at the point of a gun, you have to be persuasive.  And an argument of "we leaned on dirty power generation for decades to help build a modern economy, but we're pulling the ladder up after us because we now take the position that doing so is bad" is a tough fucking sell.  "We got to do it, and it yielded big benefits for us.....but you can't".....if you can sell that, I will hire you to sell anything, on the spot.