Climate in the 21st Century

Will Humankind see the 22nd Century?

  • Not a fucking chance

    Votes: 45 29.4%
  • Maybe. if we get our act together

    Votes: 38 24.8%
  • Yes, we will survive

    Votes: 70 45.8%

  • Total voters
    153

Sativied

Well-Known Member
First article is 6 months old news but significant:


I too heard of stories from uncles and grandparents about traveling across Europe and further, by night train even. Imagine that, the ability to sleep in a train and wake… miss everything along the way. Only thing I can compare based on experience is europe vs australia and the main difference then is the price of a ticket. Sure we got some high speed trains, very popular, but either book months in advanced or pay stupid high rates (very roughly a 1$ per mile). On a national level it differs a lot, but the combination of effective and affordable is rare. The investment in France is just an example and even if half the plans become reality it’s going to change Europe a lot.

I can fly to a spanish costa and back (~1000miles) for barely more than the cost of a train ticket that gets me to Amsterdam airport less than 80miles away… Train ticket Amsterdam - Vienna on a short notice costs about the same as flying from Amsterdam to the Big Apple… sumthin aint right.

Flying in Europe half as expensive as rail, report finds:
David Burroughs

The report produced by Greenpeace analysed 112 short-haul routes across Europe.
A report produced by Greenpeace has found that rail journeys in Europe are on average twice as expensive as flights, despite the overall climate impact of flying being up to 80 times worse than taking a train.

The report analysed 112 routes in Europe, including 94 cross-border and 17 domestic routes with a focus on the EU27 along with Switzerland, Norway and Britain, but excluding Malta, Cyprus and Ireland. All routes analysed were less than 1500km apart, and all destinations have an international airport and a railway station. The study compared air and rail fares on nine different days for each route.

The routes connected capitals and cities with more than 1 million inhabitants such as Barcelona, Milan or Hamburg. For capitals with reasonable rail connections to no more than four of these cities, all routes were analysed. For capitals well connected with more than four of these cities, a selection of at least four routes was made to achieve a balanced geographic mix.

Of the 112 routes analysed, only 23 were regularly cheaper by train than by plane, with only half of these regarded as “decent” rail journeys with acceptable journey times. A total of 16 of these 23 routes are not served by low-cost airlines, and six do not have any direct flights at all.

Greenpeace says that Barcelona - London showed the highest price difference, with a train fare costing up to 30 times the price of the flight for a trip on the same day: €384 by rail compared with €12.99 to fly. Some of the routes between major European cities, such as London - Bratislava (15.5 times), Budapest - Brussels (12.5 times), Madrid - Brussels (15 times), Valencia - Paris (12 times) or Rome - Vienna (10.2 times) show high price differences as well.

Countries with the most expensive train fares compared with the cost of a flight are Britain, Spain, Belgium, France and Italy, with trains often cheaper in relation to flights in central and eastern Europe compared with western Europe. However, service frequency, speed and onboard services are usually worse than in western countries.

Routes with effective rail connections such as Amsterdam - London, London - Edinburgh and Toulouse - Paris are still among the top 43 most popular short-haul flights in Europe, and flights on these routes remain much cheaper than rail.

Low-cost airlines operate 79% of all routes analysed, and transfer flights involving a change en route operated by these companies are the cheapest flight option for another 12% of the routes. Greenpeace says these transfer flights are also by far the most polluting options, causing up to 10 times more greenhouse gas emissions than direct flights.

Greenpeace says EasyJet, Ryanair, Wizz Air, Volotea and other low-cost airlines offer the lowest prices, and are in almost all cases were cheaper than rail. The cheapest airline ticket cost €9.99.

Rail trips are more expensive, with the cost increasing the more different operators are involved, and the more separate tickets have to be bought for different sections of journey. The price may also vary from one operator to another.

Some rail operators also do not sell tickets for more than two or three months in advance of the travel date, which creates another advantage for airlines that always sell tickets for the period analysed.

“Aviation is one of the world's most climate-damaging and inequitable industries,” the report says. “While only 1% of the world's population is responsible for more than half of global climate emissions from aviation, the consequences affect everyone around the world, from extreme weather events to pollution-related illnesses and disruption from noise.”

“Flying only looks like a bargain because the cost of pollution is so cheap,” says Greenpeace UK’s director of policy, Dr Doug Parr. “Low-cost airlines are paying negligible tax while imposing low wages and poor conditions on staff. Airlines keep their prices artificially low because they pay no kerosene tax or VAT, and have even received a recent reduction in Air Passenger Duty in Britain. By contrast, train operators have to pay energy taxes, VAT and high track access charges in most European countries.

“In order to make rail more affordable than air transport, Greenpeace is calling for all short-haul flights to be banned where there is a reasonable rail alternative, and for an end to subsidies for airlines and airports, starting with a phase-out of tax exemptions for kerosene and a frequent flier levy. It also calls for European governments to introduce climate tickets - simple long-term tickets that are valid on all means of public transport in a country or region.”
In regards to the last line:
”It also calls for European governments to introduce climate tickets - simple long-term tickets that are valid on all means of public transport in a country or region.”

Austria offers such a klimaticket, roughly 1200usd per year, unless you get a tattoo:

 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
If those solutions/dreams were implemented 40 years ago in every industrialized nation on the planet, we might have made it.
I doubt that even today, the with the development and incorporation of noncarbon based means of energy supply just in the US alone, would be in time to offset the effects of climate change.
These solutions would have to be implemented world wide, not just the US.
It will take 100 years for even China and India alone to accept those solutions and implement them efficiently, and asking/expecting the developing nations to comply is a pipe dream.
By the time the entire planet, not just in the US, where a current presidential candidate insists that the real villain is Green ideology/technology and not the burning of fossil fuels, enacts the aforementioned solutions there will be no hope of survival and that is a consensus among most scientists today.
So, I have to agree with the ones in the poll that checked the we're fucked box.
It really seems to be inevitable, at least to me.
China and India have been making changes and China has been leading the way. It is the extreme weather events that are changing public perception and then policy, provided no other factors are at play like rightwing lunatics in America financed by big oil. We are just beginning to covert our energy, transport and industrial systems and the next decade should see major strides to reducing fossil carbon output. There are many natural and manmade processes that can absorb excess carbon, but we will have to stop putting millions of years' worth of fossilized carbon in the atmosphere to see how well it works. We are seeing a global transition to EVs, the mass deployment of wind and solar with batteries for a reason and prices for solar and batteries will continue to drop, solar is now the cheapest form of electricity production and it will get even cheaper. Steel can be made without producing carbon and shouldn't cost any more than traditional methods, it might be cheaper with cheap hydrogen. Concrete can be produced carbon free too and can even be made to absorb CO2. There is much we can do to mitigate the problem and will over the next decade and longer.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
First article is 6 months old news but significant:


I too heard of stories from uncles and grandparents about traveling across Europe and further, by night train even. Imagine that, the ability to sleep in a train and wake… miss everything along the way. Only thing I can compare based on experience is europe vs australia and the main difference then is the price of a ticket. Sure we got some high speed trains, very popular, but either book months in advanced or pay stupid high rates (very roughly a 1$ per mile). On a national level it differs a lot, but the combination of effective and affordable is rare. The investment in France is just an example and even if half the plans become reality it’s going to change Europe a lot.

I can fly to a spanish costa and back (~1000miles) for barely more than the cost of a train ticket that gets me to Amsterdam airport less than 80miles away… Train ticket Amsterdam - Vienna on a short notice costs about the same as flying from Amsterdam to the Big Apple… sumthin aint right.

Flying in Europe half as expensive as rail, report finds:


In regards to the last line:
”It also calls for European governments to introduce climate tickets - simple long-term tickets that are valid on all means of public transport in a country or region.”

Austria offers such a klimaticket, roughly 1200usd per year, unless you get a tattoo:

They want to ban short haul flights in the EU, so they are going to have to do something about highspeed rail capacity and fares.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
First article is 6 months old news but significant:


I too heard of stories from uncles and grandparents about traveling across Europe and further, by night train even. Imagine that, the ability to sleep in a train and wake… miss everything along the way. Only thing I can compare based on experience is europe vs australia and the main difference then is the price of a ticket. Sure we got some high speed trains, very popular, but either book months in advanced or pay stupid high rates (very roughly a 1$ per mile). On a national level it differs a lot, but the combination of effective and affordable is rare. The investment in France is just an example and even if half the plans become reality it’s going to change Europe a lot.

I can fly to a spanish costa and back (~1000miles) for barely more than the cost of a train ticket that gets me to Amsterdam airport less than 80miles away… Train ticket Amsterdam - Vienna on a short notice costs about the same as flying from Amsterdam to the Big Apple… sumthin aint right.

Flying in Europe half as expensive as rail, report finds:


In regards to the last line:
”It also calls for European governments to introduce climate tickets - simple long-term tickets that are valid on all means of public transport in a country or region.”

Austria offers such a klimaticket, roughly 1200usd per year, unless you get a tattoo:

a tattoo — !

The region has some history with tattoos.

1693231552095.jpeg
 

Mephisto666

Well-Known Member
China and India have been making changes and China has been leading the way. It is the extreme weather events that are changing public perception and then policy, provided no other factors are at play like rightwing lunatics in America financed by big oil. We are just beginning to covert our energy, transport and industrial systems and the next decade should see major strides to reducing fossil carbon output. There are many natural and manmade processes that can absorb excess carbon, but we will have to stop putting millions of years' worth of fossilized carbon in the atmosphere to see how well it works. We are seeing a global transition to EVs, the mass deployment of wind and solar with batteries for a reason and prices for solar and batteries will continue to drop, solar is now the cheapest form of electricity production and it will get even cheaper. Steel can be made without producing carbon and shouldn't cost any more than traditional methods, it might be cheaper with cheap hydrogen. Concrete can be produced carbon free too and can even be made to absorb CO2. There is much we can do to mitigate the problem and will over the next decade and longer.
Yes, we have the means necessary for the reduction of carbon into the atmosphere, but not for all pollutants released such as methane.
Even if though these measures can work in time before we reach the tipping point where recovery is no longer possible, there is still one minor problem that must be considered and that is what do we do about todays catastrophic weather conditions.
We are now, at this moment, experiencing the effects of climate change throughout the world and that is not going to change soon, or ever actually.
We are in the process of eliminating the earth's major source for the removal of Co2, and that is the forests of the world, natures air purifier.
Are we going to replace all the trees being cut down now or have been cut down for wood and the clearcutting for agriculture and the mining industries?
Somehow I don't think so.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
First article is 6 months old news but significant:


I too heard of stories from uncles and grandparents about traveling across Europe and further, by night train even. Imagine that, the ability to sleep in a train and wake… miss everything along the way. Only thing I can compare based on experience is europe vs australia and the main difference then is the price of a ticket. Sure we got some high speed trains, very popular, but either book months in advanced or pay stupid high rates (very roughly a 1$ per mile). On a national level it differs a lot, but the combination of effective and affordable is rare. The investment in France is just an example and even if half the plans become reality it’s going to change Europe a lot.

I can fly to a spanish costa and back (~1000miles) for barely more than the cost of a train ticket that gets me to Amsterdam airport less than 80miles away… Train ticket Amsterdam - Vienna on a short notice costs about the same as flying from Amsterdam to the Big Apple… sumthin aint right.

Flying in Europe half as expensive as rail, report finds:


In regards to the last line:
”It also calls for European governments to introduce climate tickets - simple long-term tickets that are valid on all means of public transport in a country or region.”

Austria offers such a klimaticket, roughly 1200usd per year, unless you get a tattoo:

Damn.
45 years ago a train ticket from Frankfurt to Nice or Vienna was a fraction of the cost of the Dulles to Rhein-Main airfare.
A buck a mile is some Republican-style bullshit. The mother-strangling Concorde cost about that!
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Yes, we have the means necessary for the reduction of carbon into the atmosphere, but not for all pollutants released such as methane.
Even if though these measures can work in time before we reach the tipping point where recovery is no longer possible, there is still one minor problem that must be considered and that is what do we do about todays catastrophic weather conditions.
We are now, at this moment, experiencing the effects of climate change throughout the world and that is not going to change soon, or ever actually.
We are in the process of eliminating the earth's major source for the removal of Co2, and that is the forests of the world, natures air purifier.
Are we going to replace all the trees being cut down now or have been cut down for wood and the clearcutting for agriculture and the mining industries?
Somehow I don't think so.
We are like the Ukrainians we have little choice but to fight since it is an existential problem and as it becomes more apparent, more will be done, including geoengineering as a last resort. Generally speaking, the planet will be fine, probably humans as a species too, but our natural world will take a beating and our global civilization might collapse. Even if we extincted everything except the cockroaches and rats, in about 10 million years the planet would be repopulated with their decedents mutated into new species. It's happened before, several times.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
It’s also worth pointing out that there is no one sharp tipping point. It’s more a loose group of factors, each with its error bars around a critical value, separated in the phase space that has time, chemical input, insolation, Milankovich etc as its multiple dimensions.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
this one is expected to be a cat 3 when it hits land fall. With the Gulf water being upper 80's and to the lower 90's it will strengthen fast....
It will make climate change converts along the way, though they can try to pray it away I suppose. Some hearts and minds need to be broken before they will change, and this is the heart of red state climate change denialism. No sharpie required for this one.
 

BudmanTX

Well-Known Member
It will make climate change converts along the way, though they can try to pray it away I suppose. Some hearts and minds need to be broken before they will change, and this is the heart of red state climate change denialism. No sharpie required for this one.
it prolly will make some converts along the way. From the storms we have had, i've seen it jump from a cat 2 to straight to a cat 5 in mere minutes, the last one that hit us, was a cat 3 till almost landfall it went to cat 5, so don't be surprised if it jumps to a cat 3......
 

Dr.Amber Trichome

Well-Known Member
Very poorly. I am not a southern pride guy but getting called Yankee still pisses me off. I get it though I do speak with a lisp that make me sound like I'm from the north east
I am a Yankee and it still pisses me off . It’s really weird. I guess it should t but it’s like I am categorized as , this thing, and don’t care for the labeling. I mean I have lived all over this country and just because born in NJ I am a Yankee. Funny thing though, growing up in Jersey, the NY Yankees were my favorite baseball team. I never even thought about the stigma behind Yankee. It’s also like the Rebel flag, growing up in NJ we just associated it with like southern music and it didn’t have any negative connotations that we ever knew about.
 

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
Perhaps some good has come from the development of fracking tech:

.

There’s a Vast Source of Clean Energy Beneath Our Feet. And a Race to Tap It.
The United States has enough geothermal energy to power the entire country. Some are trying to unlock it by using techniques from the fracking boom.


In a sagebrush valley full of wind turbines and solar panels in western Utah, Tim Latimer gazed up at a very different device he believes could be just as powerful for fighting climate change — maybe even more.
It was a drilling rig, of all things, transplanted from the oil fields of North Dakota. But the softly whirring rig wasn’t searching for fossil fuels. It was drilling for heat.

Traditional geothermal plants, which have existed for decades, work by tapping natural hot water reservoirs underground to power turbines that can generate electricity 24 hours a day. Few sites have the right conditions for this, however, so geothermal only produces 0.4 percent of America’s electricity currently.

But hot, dry rocks lie below the surface everywhere on the planet. And by using advanced drilling techniques developed by the oil and gas industry, some experts think it’s possible to tap that larger store of heat and create geothermal energy almost anywhere. The potential is enormous: The Energy Department estimates there’s enough energy in those rocks to power the entire country five times over and has launched a major push to develop technologies to harvest that heat.


The earth's core is heated by a nuclear power plant that came with this planet, so let's use it. This requires study and thought but it doesn't require an invention. I'm not suggesting we just charge forward without understanding the risks but this could make a difference in our future if what they say in the article turns out to be true.

Developments like this are why so-called economists who naysay the possibility of zero carbon are not just wrong but play the role of Wormtounge in service of Saruman in Tolkien's trilogy. We haven't yet even tried to make the conversion away from fossil fuels yet they counsel sitting in the darkness while a gathering menace grows. We have the tech to make the conversion. We don't yet know how to deploy it but the tech is there. Wormtounges serving the fossil fuel industry are right in a way. If we do as they say and make stupid decisions, there will be an economic hit to humanity that will cost lives and opportunity. So, how about if we ignore them and not do stupid things?

1693243933445.png
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Perhaps some good has come from the development of fracking tech:

.

There’s a Vast Source of Clean Energy Beneath Our Feet. And a Race to Tap It.
The United States has enough geothermal energy to power the entire country. Some are trying to unlock it by using techniques from the fracking boom.


In a sagebrush valley full of wind turbines and solar panels in western Utah, Tim Latimer gazed up at a very different device he believes could be just as powerful for fighting climate change — maybe even more.
It was a drilling rig, of all things, transplanted from the oil fields of North Dakota. But the softly whirring rig wasn’t searching for fossil fuels. It was drilling for heat.

Traditional geothermal plants, which have existed for decades, work by tapping natural hot water reservoirs underground to power turbines that can generate electricity 24 hours a day. Few sites have the right conditions for this, however, so geothermal only produces 0.4 percent of America’s electricity currently.

But hot, dry rocks lie below the surface everywhere on the planet. And by using advanced drilling techniques developed by the oil and gas industry, some experts think it’s possible to tap that larger store of heat and create geothermal energy almost anywhere. The potential is enormous: The Energy Department estimates there’s enough energy in those rocks to power the entire country five times over and has launched a major push to develop technologies to harvest that heat.


The earth's core is heated by a nuclear power plant that came with this planet, so let's use it. This requires study and thought but it doesn't require an invention. I'm not suggesting we just charge forward without understanding the risks but this could make a difference in our future if what they say in the article turns out to be true.

Developments like this are why so-called economists who naysay the possibility of zero carbon are not just wrong but play the role of Wormtounge in service of Saruman in Tolkien's trilogy. We haven't yet even tried to make the conversion away from fossil fuels yet they counsel sitting in the darkness while a gathering menace grows. We have the tech to make the conversion. We don't yet know how to deploy it but the tech is there. Wormtounges serving the fossil fuel industry are right in a way. If we do as they say and make stupid decisions, there will be an economic hit to humanity that will cost lives and opportunity. So, how about if we ignore them and not do stupid things?

View attachment 5321873
Quase energy is making a good case for gyrotron drilling deep and have done their homework and math it appears and claim to be able to go very deep at economical costs and with relatively little power costs. I posted about them before, there are several approaches, and we will need to see if any pan out. Their plan is to drill right at the coal or gas fired power plant sites and replace the boilers with heat exchangers and have geothermal anywhere with super critical steam. Tests are underway and it's an MIT based startup with lots of capital backing, if it works out, interest from oil companies will be intense and they can leverage their expertise, since the plan is to conventional drill down to hard rock before employing the gyrotron millimeter wave guide to go deep. I posted a recent update video on it in this thread.
 

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
Quase energy is making a good case for gyrotron drilling deep and have done their homework and math it appears and claim to be able to go very deep at economical costs and with relatively little power costs. I posted about them before, there are several approaches, and we will need to see if any pan out. Their plan is to drill right at the coal or gas fired power plant sites and replace the boilers with heat exchangers and have geothermal anywhere with super critical steam. Tests are underway and it's an MIT based startup with lots of capital backing, if it works out, interest from oil companies will be intense and they can leverage their expertise, since the plan is to conventional drill down to hard rock before employing the gyrotron millimeter wave guide to go deep. I posted a recent update video on it in this thread.
Pardon me, I'm just not much into discussing the long term stuff. Too much of that is based on too little information. Thorium reactors, novel batteries, fusion reactors and so forth. I love me some research for many reasons but expecting that it comes to fruition before the planet reaches the tipping point to where Earth's climate changes past the tipping point that ends life as we know it on this planet is not one of them. Go ahead and continue to post breathy wet dream tech if you like. But you responded to my post so I'm kicking sand back at you.

No, I was not talking about Quaise Energy's gyrotron drilling. The state of the art of that tech looks like this;

aatempfornow.png

Gyrotron drilling tech is in the lab phase. If it were in the development phase, it would look like this:

1693250031629.png
A drilling rig used by Fervo Energy outside Milford, Utah. The geothermal start-up aims to extract heat from underground granite to produce electricity.Credit...Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times

At the development stage, engineers, scientists and project managers are working out the bugs in order to discern risks and costs of this new application of developed tech. Something like this could be ten years away from deployment. Maybe less, depending on what they find out. Regardless, the economic hurdle to cross from this stage and into deployment is enormous and the cost might kill the project.

Lab phase projects are necessarily cheap because only one out of hundreds ever make it into the development phase. As I said, I love me some research. We need to fund more of it. From research goes new tech that makes lives better. More importantly, research projects are used to train the next generation of engineers and scientists. We need them as much or more than new tech. More funding for research please. But I do wish that people didn't take every damn press release about every damn research project as the next big thing. They rarely are.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Pardon me, I'm just not much into discussing the long term stuff. Too much of that is based on too little information. Thorium reactors, novel batteries, fusion reactors and so forth. I love me some research for many reasons but expecting that it comes to fruition before the planet reaches the tipping point to where Earth's climate changes past the tipping point that ends life as we know it on this planet is not one of them. Go ahead and continue to post breathy wet dream tech if you like. But you responded to my post so I'm kicking sand back at you.

No, I was not talking about Quaise Energy's gyrotron drilling. The state of the art of that tech looks like this;

View attachment 5321905

Gyrotron drilling tech is in the lab phase. If it were in the development phase, it would look like this:

View attachment 5321906
A drilling rig used by Fervo Energy outside Milford, Utah. The geothermal start-up aims to extract heat from underground granite to produce electricity.Credit...Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times

At the development stage, engineers, scientists and project managers are working out the bugs in order to discern risks and costs of this new application of developed tech. Something like this could be ten years away from deployment. Maybe less, depending on what they find out. Regardless, the economic hurdle to cross from this stage and into deployment is enormous and the cost might kill the project.

Lab phase projects are necessarily cheap because only one out of hundreds ever make it into the development phase. As I said, I love me some research. We need to fund more of it. From research goes new tech that makes lives better. More importantly, research projects are used to train the next generation of engineers and scientists. We need them as much or more than new tech. More funding for research please. But I do wish that people didn't take every damn press release about every damn research project as the next big thing. They rarely are.
We will need a variety of solutions and quaise looks the most promising deep geothermal to me, they have a field demonstration set in 24 and a larger production test for 26, not exactly too far down the road. Millimeter waves are the most logical to use and can cut through the vapors and debris to the rock surface and a gyrotron generates them efficiently and at high power. We need to see things as they might be after a decade of commercial development, batteries and geothermal, because the change in energy technology is ongoing now. This type of geothermal may be impossible for a variety of reasons including minerals condensing out of the super-heated stream and clogging the heat exchangers with glass. They will know when they try, and they have the cash lined up to find out.
 

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
We will need a variety of solutions and quaise looks the most promising deep geothermal to me, they have a field demonstration set in 24 and a larger production test for 26, not exactly too far down the road. Millimeter waves are the most logical to use and can cut through the vapors and debris to the rock surface and a gyrotron generates them efficiently and at high power. We need to see things as they might be after a decade of commercial development, batteries and geothermal, because the change in energy technology is ongoing now. This type of geothermal may be impossible for a variety of reasons including minerals condensing out of the super-heated stream and clogging the heat exchangers with glass. They will know when they try, and they have the cash lined up to find out.
Please remember that I'm calling you out because you responded to a thread of mine that contained a practical solution that required A LOT of development but no invention required. I'm OK with your endless posts containing breathy reports about research projects as if they are "solutions" when in fact they are just research projects. Just saying, don't step on posts that actually contain solutions.
 
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